So far, there’s only been one. To graduate, you have to plasma cut it from steel.
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There can be only one…
That’s not fair… 
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Art imitates life …
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Diplomas are a relatively low bar, and are more or less equivalent.
A masters thesis is a much higher bar, and they are all different.
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Well, mostly in title. Nobody ever reads masters thesiseses… theeses… thesii…
Now, doctoral dissertations are a different matter. Those are heavily scrutinized. Usually by jealous academics trying to make sure that nobody is trying to ride their coattails without proper attribution…
I lucked out. At our conservatory MFA program, the faculty convinced the university that the theatrical shows we produced for the public was publishing, so I didn’t need to do the thesis thing.
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My master’s program has a non-thesis option, which I did. It was supposedly more work, because you had to take a lot more classes, but I was used to a high class load and I finished faster than my thesis writing classmates.
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I spent an extra year writing my masters thesis. I had too many extra curricular activities, led a national student asociation, had a job, many roles in different NGOs and all sorts of stuff. My head and calendar was all over the place. The second year, I had a sit down with a class mate who worked as a coach and councelor. She said I had too many issues to deal with, personally, so the only way I could finish this - was to borrow her cabin in the woods for a week, and write like a mad man. No internet and no TV. So I did. I walked around on the porch in a bathrobe, smoking sigarettes, drinking beer and walking in circles and totally seeming like a lunatic. The kids from the local neighborhood was sneaking in the bushes and pointing fingers at me an laughing.
In the end I actually made it. My supervisors didn’t believe me first, but I actually made it. Today I’m embarassed by the content, but I passed with a decent grade, so that’s that!
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I wrote my master’s thesis in Philosophy. 
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Cool! What subject? I wrote on philosophy of religion, a universialist tradition called “perennialism”. In the states best known by scholar of religion Huston Smith - and of course by Aldous Huxley!
I wrote about what defines the “I”. So basically “Who am I” in a philosophical sense, connected to determinism (or indeterminism). Conclusion: You are determined by limiting factors but are free to develop your “I” inside of those.
And now I have to look up perennialism. 
Okay, did look it up. It sounds like modal logic in so far that it defines some things to be necessary, like a stick having a length in every possible universe, but an elephant not being grey in all of them.
Ah - subjectivity and free will. I actually ponder a lot upon these questions. In my daily work I meet a lot of people who are ill and in crisis. How can they be challenged to find their “realm of free will and option to change” and how much emphasis should we put on the surroundings and all the terrible factors that influence them.
Yeah - perennialist thinking is in itself actually quite dogmatic and essentialistic. I honestly grew tired of it, since it was just another “new dogma”. Initially I fell in love with it because it presented a way to harmonize all the differences in religions and mysticals traditions. In the end I felt that it was simplifying and not actually respecting the individual characterstics of the specific traditions.
Today I don’t need to find the “final answer” at all. I don’t need a theory to explain the universe, mankind, love and God. I just try to make the best out of my life, and in the end we will see how it goes.
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I just bought a Lowrider: the selling points for me were the very low price, the custom fit to my workshop and the ability to tinker with it.
I could have bought an Ooznest 1.5m by 1.5m for standard 4ft wide sheets but it would have cost me £2,000. Money I can afford but really, 2k for a single hobby tool?
Anyway, I have been looking at steel pipes and, in the UK, we have lots of options. I am thinking about this one: https://www.metals4u.co.uk/materials/mild-steel/mild-steel-tube/tube/2330-p “25.4mm x 1.21mm (1" x 18 swg) Mild Steel Tube Tube”. The span will be about 1.5m or 4 1/2 feet. I am hoping that the deflection will not be too bad (it’s not crappy electrical conduit), it’s cheap and the company will cut it to length. Win, win, win!
I will spray “Fix & Fill Expanding Foam - Polyurethane foam for irregular gaps, fixes framework, insulates and sound deadens - 750ml - Beige” inside for stiffening and vibration dampening if required. I could test this but I am so tight fisted and I already “know” it will work, providing I can squirt it into the middle of the pipe.
FYI. My degree was in Materials Science but I worked in computers. Time to rediscover my roots in design and manufacture!
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Sounds like you’re set on it, so please let is know how it goes (before and after if you can). 1.21mm is just under 0.050in. I had some mild steel tube just a hair over that on the wall thickness (0.065, 1 inch OD I think it was) and it wasn’t great. I tested a 4ft length at about the same flex as my 3/4 conduit.
Good luck!
I am set on experimenting with it and finding out what the tubes are like from this supplier and how accurately they cut them.
Best case, it works as expected. Worst case, I have to use narrower tubes but I still have a CNC as my hand work bench is about 2 to 3 ft wide and can be used as a base. Either way I end up with a CNC machine and have learnt something.
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Let us know how it goes with metals4u. I’ve never used them as I brought my stuff from another supplier, (https://www.themetalstore.co.uk/). To be clear, they were fine, but always good to know if there are other good UK based suppliers. The only issue I had was over the non-delivery of some braked wheels as they went OOS, but they ended up giving me them for nothing, so I thought that very fair indeed and have carried on using them. Sometimes you need a problem to see how a supplier really responds.
The cold wall stuff has worked well for me, though there is the issue of surface rust which I suspect is endemic to mild steel in the UK. I decided not to go with stainless steel at the start due to cost whiuch I regret now.
Thanks
Rob
1 inch DOM, 1/8 wall, 60 inches long
Brake disk and hook, approximately 11.5 pounds
Initial deflection, 5 tests, 0.066 to 0.072.
1/2 inch emt bonded with epoxy resin
Result, 5 tests, 0.047 - 0.05.
Maybe the juice ain’t worth the squeeze, but that was a pretty heavy weight, I think, and the tube was already pretty thick. I didn’t expect any improvement at all, really. Might be more dramatic on a thinner tube.
With any luck I’ll get some things cut this weekend and report back on actual performance.
