Also, OpenJSCAD reads both javascript and OpenSCAD files. I've found OpenSCAD to be super useful as well -- I just don't find the modeling language to be as intuitive.
I really like OpenJSCAD. It has the power of parametric modeling, with javascript syntax that I use most everywhere else in my technical/professional life.
I think the price has research, development, and the cost of clinical trials baked in. I believe these costs can be very expensive, as (at least in the US) there are lots of hoops to jump through in order to sell medical devices. And many experiments don't lead to successful products, so the costs need to make in the "failure rate" as well.
I think a lot of the high prices charged for medical gear isn't so much to recoup the variable cost of production of that item, it's to recoup the initial/fixed cost of bringing the gizmo to market. If people can "photocopy" someone else's device by just covering the variable cost, it might cripple companies' incentives for developing for the medical market.
And I believe it's true that if a patent holder doesn't go after every known infringement, it becomes much more difficult to go after any known infringement.
Not saying that 3d printing these valves doesn't feel like the right thing to do in this case. Just saying that feels like a more nuanced situation, rather than being cut/dry.
This news marks the end of my Netflix subscription. This news should have everyone at the company questioning why they are contributing to service that claimed the lives of nearly two hundred children.
I imagine there could be employers who insist on this sort of thing screen monitoring (which sounds crazy to me) -- but the good thing about this marketplace is that contractors aren't forced into any particular contracts. If they don't like the terms with one buyer, they could "vote with their dollars" and work for another.
My company uses Upwork (as a services buyers) for hundreds of contracted hours per week, and have been for many years. We’ve never required any contractor to use screen recording for hourly work — that is optional — and have never heard of anyone using a webcam. We’ve also never disputed a single hour of work that a contractor has billed, nor have we heard any of the dozens of contractors we’ve hired mention this as an issue.
I think you might be extrapolating from a single bad data point (never a good idea, especially for a data scientist) and reaching an incorrect conclusion about the Upwork ecosystem.