It's a gantry type 3 axis CNC with what amounts to a stupendously high-pressure pressure washer attached to it. The cutting head has a hopper that feeds a dry cutting abrasive in fine granular form (sand like or finer) into the water jet. The extreme pressure accelerates the water and abrasive to high impact velocity which cleanly cuts many materials including ceramics, glasses and very hard metals. A nice bonus is there is little heat input so you wont get warping or worry about annealing hard metals. Just under the cutting bed is a bath of water the jet terminates into. They do generate a little water mist during punch through but surprisingly is pretty dry around the machine. They make really nice clean cuts but require a lot of upkeep and the abrasive is a consumable you have to keep buying.
Ive seen one operating next to a plasma cutter (same CNC setup) in a fab shop and it was a night and day comparison. The plasma cutter was shooting sparks and embers everywhere while belching noxious smoke and the machine was filthy and covered in soot. Its more akin to welding. The benefit is they have less upkeep and consumables. Though plasma can not handle the variety of materials a water jet can.
It doesn't look so. I'd approach it in a different way: what is the biggest bite size you could cut out while still having an usable phone? You'd need to play not just with the size but also with the position.
But even though I have a box full of old iphones with broken lightning sockets I would prefer to find another use for them.
Depends on whether the important components like the CPU and their connections are intact. I remember that video from "waterjet channel" where they cut a hole in the middle of a Nintendo Switch and it still worked because the hole ended up entirely through the battery.
Or, it's impossible to tell whether it still works without looking up the internal layout of this iPhone model, which I'm too lazy to do.
I appreciate the concept but the implementation grates on me because I can't get past the small edge sharp edge of material left at the terminus of the lower portion of the curve and the case.
I clicked the 5 because it is the only thing I found that looked like a link, and half expected to go to the end of something (this was after scrolling through amazon results, page after page without finding what I was looking for, so I guess my idea of "reaching the end" might have been biased.
I'm always amazed at the capability of water jets, this is a very clean cut and based on the video it looks like the "loose" section afterwards didn't move at all.
Is it just me or is the usability of websites of artists / art galleries significatively worse than other websites? I always feel like these were made by someone who only care about the art and totally forget the UX. For example, invisible controls (here you can use arrow keys on desktop but it’s not indicated anywhere), incomprehensible minimalism (there’s a "previous" link here that points to the previous work, not the previous image) or horizontal slideshows that forget that swipping left and right has already a function on Safari.
It seems appropriate that a website for an artist would prioritize artistic expression, even in the interaction design. Where else would you prefer experiments like these happen?
Just like a museum dedicated to one artist, most of these websites are here to present the art works. Experiments are fine but if I can’t navigate in your website it’s useless. The top 3 most upvoted comments on this thread are about the site’s bad UX. If it were correctly done they would be about the art itself.
ugh - steel like 40mm is routinely cut with water jets. If anything using a water jet to cut an iphone is similar to using a pneumatic hammer to kill a fly.
The UX for this page is a lesson. There's no affordance, no hints, that you should be moving sideways instead of the standard 'down' that websites typically use. The '1/5' made me think there might be more, but I guessed I was misunderstanding somehow.
It was only after I came to the comments and saw people talking about water jets that I realized there was definitely more content than a single picture. I had to go back and search the page for a clue as to where to find the additional content. The links I could see, 'previous' and 'work' took me elsewhere entirely.
Lesson: if you aren't following standard patterns, give the users strong hints as to what they are supposed to do.
Damn, you're right. I had to go back to the page after I looked at that image for a while thinking "so what?"
I still think the same, but at least I now know I can see more images of it
Edit: Don't forget the big empty space at the bottom, the 1/5 indicator (that I now realise are pages) disappearing when you scroll, and text that highlights in the same colour as the background
I've gotta disagree, the first thing I did (before reading the comments here) was click on the 1/5. The UI made perfect sense to me. Horses for courses, I guess.
Hehe it didn’t occur to me to click the 1/5. Only the “1” is linked, it’s a pretty small target on my iPad, and it moves backward instead of forward… a little surprising. The 1/5 was enough clue to make me try scrolling sideways, after trying vertical, so it took a sec.
Two transparent arrows (one left, one right) would've solved it. The numbers don't look aesthetically well, compared to the images and mechanic of the scrolling. Stick with your theme.
It says 1/5. Just out of curiosity, what did that mean to you? Anyone who has used Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, etc. (i.e. most people) should understand this UI.
I would at least have expected that I can swipe left and right to move between images, but on desktop Chrome (Mac), doing the standard "two finger swipe" just goes back and forth in the browser history.
You have to "push down" on the touchpad with a single finger to drag the images. It's utterly confusing. Hardwiring a webpage to "mobile phone expectations" is just as bad as expecting that there's a keyboard and mouse attached.
(I also tried the left/right arrow keys, but that didn't work either. What does work is clicking on the 1/5 numbers, but there's no indication that those are clickable links)
Two clickable arrows on the left and right edge would do wonder, or just go with vanilla HTML and don't create such a weird contraption :)
Well, for one; on mobile - they're incredibly small to try to press, furthermore, the scrolling to move between the images is completely broken on both my iPhones and my Mac.
As I said in another comment, this is one of the most poorly-designed sites I've ever seen on HN. I thought it was satire, as in like an example of what not to do in web design, I'm honestly shocked it's supposed to be taken seriously.
> It says 1/5. Just out of curiosity, what did that mean to you?
A rating by nouve-riche hipsters? tbh I didn't even clock it, as left corner is usually general menu / logo..
Location is context; Usually a progress counter like that for a gallery is presented either top centre or bottom centre, with additional widgets to indicate manual scrolability.
usually, pagination like 1/5 are accompanied with arrows, text like next/previous/first/last and clicking on the '5' usually takes you to the page 5, not the next one
> The '1/5' made me think there might be more, but I guessed I was misunderstanding somehow.
Same here, I eventually realised I could click on the "5" to advance pages. I didn't even discover the scrolling/dragging behaviour until reading the comments.
I was using a mobile phone and it was still difficult to swipe between pictures as well. Though maybe my iphone simply didn’t want to see the needless carnage.
Disagree, I figured out immediately that I have to click on the 5 to switch the page, and I'm viewing this on desktop. I interpreted the design as minimalist - all action are clearly in blue and are placed in each corner. I guess that tells much about user adaptability - people who are conservative and people who think outside the box
This may be the most poorly-designed website I’ve seen hit the front page of HN. It’s the first I’ve actually tested on a other device to assure me it was truly broken and it wasn’t just my iPhone.
Is this supposed to be an example of poor UX/ineffective web design? If so, that should be included in the description.
Either the standard for front page HN material went way, way down or this is just missing a tag to indicate it’s an example of what not to do/satire?
Yeah, that's not a bite of an Apple logo because the proportions and location are wrong (bite on right side, slightly upper indeed, but large enough to contain a lot of the device).
Regarding the UI comments: I first visited the sited on my phone, and for Android or iPhone users the interface is intuitive, the obvious thing works. But on the desktop it is weird. So this is a reversal of what we used to see, where sites had reduced functionality or were broken for mobile users. I wonder if we will start seeing a lot more of this?
The 1/5 is intuitive, but the horizontal scroll is completely broken. I tried to swipe a couple of times and it didn’t do anything. I tried again after reading the comments and it finally moved, but very inconsistently. It kept coming back to the current picture
90 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 153 ms ] threadCurious to understand: what kind of machinery is this and why does the cutting happen in water?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_jet_cutter
Source: I own and operate a waterjet.
Ive seen one operating next to a plasma cutter (same CNC setup) in a fab shop and it was a night and day comparison. The plasma cutter was shooting sparks and embers everywhere while belching noxious smoke and the machine was filthy and covered in soot. Its more akin to welding. The benefit is they have less upkeep and consumables. Though plasma can not handle the variety of materials a water jet can.
But even though I have a box full of old iphones with broken lightning sockets I would prefer to find another use for them.
Or, it's impossible to tell whether it still works without looking up the internal layout of this iPhone model, which I'm too lazy to do.
I also took a few seconds to figure out how to get to the extra images.
On desktop I clicked on the "1" in "1 / 5" for lack of any other indication where to click. I accidentally viewed the slideshow backwards.
There were so few options, that trying something other than "previous" seemed worth a chance.
Upd: many people have difficulties understanding humour. Sad.
It was only after I came to the comments and saw people talking about water jets that I realized there was definitely more content than a single picture. I had to go back and search the page for a clue as to where to find the additional content. The links I could see, 'previous' and 'work' took me elsewhere entirely.
Lesson: if you aren't following standard patterns, give the users strong hints as to what they are supposed to do.
I still think the same, but at least I now know I can see more images of it
Edit: Don't forget the big empty space at the bottom, the 1/5 indicator (that I now realise are pages) disappearing when you scroll, and text that highlights in the same colour as the background
Swiping left and right is supposed to work on this page but barely does. I find I had to swipe multiple times to get it to change images.
I agree with the criticisms. This page design is pretty terrible.
And it's a shame because it's an otherwise really nice website.
You have to "push down" on the touchpad with a single finger to drag the images. It's utterly confusing. Hardwiring a webpage to "mobile phone expectations" is just as bad as expecting that there's a keyboard and mouse attached.
(I also tried the left/right arrow keys, but that didn't work either. What does work is clicking on the 1/5 numbers, but there's no indication that those are clickable links)
Two clickable arrows on the left and right edge would do wonder, or just go with vanilla HTML and don't create such a weird contraption :)
Swiping didn't even work on mobile for me, I had to tap on the numbers and it moved me either forwards or backwards for some reason. It's broken.
As I said in another comment, this is one of the most poorly-designed sites I've ever seen on HN. I thought it was satire, as in like an example of what not to do in web design, I'm honestly shocked it's supposed to be taken seriously.
A rating by nouve-riche hipsters? tbh I didn't even clock it, as left corner is usually general menu / logo..
Location is context; Usually a progress counter like that for a gallery is presented either top centre or bottom centre, with additional widgets to indicate manual scrolability.
Same here, I eventually realised I could click on the "5" to advance pages. I didn't even discover the scrolling/dragging behaviour until reading the comments.
BTW what is the meaning of this activity? Just some fun I guess?
Is this supposed to be an example of poor UX/ineffective web design? If so, that should be included in the description.
Either the standard for front page HN material went way, way down or this is just missing a tag to indicate it’s an example of what not to do/satire?
And do not eat iPod Shuffle[0]!
https://lawhaha.com/warning-do-not-eat-your-ipod-shuffle/