Cool build, but a little reading in how mills and lathes are made would result in a much better machine. The Gingery machine shop series is cheap and good to read even if you don't want to pour aluminum - his machines also make some bad compromises, but the books also inform you of things that would make you do machines like this different if you knew them.
The other way too. Nobody has made a SAE bearing since like the 1950s. You will see bearings that are a somewhat odd size in metric, but they picked nearest measure to the SAE value asked for and then rounded to metric to not be as odd.
Toyota has always been metric only in the US. Once in a while a "shade tree" mechanic will fit a SAE bolt/nut to hold something in, but the cars didn't come from Japan with anything SAE, and when they built factories in the US they didn't design anything for SAE.
No auto manufacture in the world designs a new part with SAE parts, and they haven't since 1980 or before. There are still a lot of things like alternators that haven't got the case changed since they were designed in the 1960s that have SAE parts, but anything newer is all metric. Once in a while they put a oil plug in with a SAE bolt head, but the threads likely metric.
Every mechanic who doesn't specialize in antiques uses their metric tools more than the SAE. Those who work on US cars still have the SAE tools, but they don't get much use.
Easy to say if your code doesn't matter. If you work for regulated industries (FAA, FDA) you can't ship it out the door.
I have been working on automating our tests for years. Manual testing still finds a lot of things despite passing all the automated tests. I'm now convinced anyone who says "automate that" doesn't care about quality, humans are too good at finding things.
When the stock market is having fire sale is not the time to ask questions, it is time to buy. Trump is near 80 - he won't be alive in a few years. He stastically has a 25% chance of not even finishing his term. Power will shift and shift again ever few years. those who stick to a good plan do fine.
Even in the worst case you are unlikely to find the better answer ahead of time. Just enjoy the sale and forget about daily movement.
I've worked for both over the years. Small companies have their own downsides. There is no clear winner. People complain all the time, so if you have never worked at a large company you have no clue what it is really like. Sure there are things not to like, but there are also things to like.
Works for a small company. If everyone in a large company is allowed the same leeway nothing could ever ship - while no one person (except a few incompetent that get fired eventually) makes too many mistakes, the combination of all of them mean the system is always horribly broken.
Of course 50% of my job is just getting simple changes though which is annoying - but more than once that process has meant I didn't break everything.
A part of it is when you get old you realize the "kids" are doing the exact same thing you did 20 years ago, but they gave it a different name and changed some tiny details so they can pretend it is different. The real question is how do you get kids to see this - most don't (including me when I was a kid - and I was aware of the issue and tried to guard against it)
The more important part at my age is to remember that kids today are just like me. Sure the exact style and what is in/out has changed, but kids are the same as we were. I didn't even have the option of a smart phone, but I had my own addictions, and the older generation complained about them.... Sometimes the old people have a point, but often kids these days are just like kids in the past.
There is a reason a lot of web apps run on the JVM - while it does have high overhead, once your app is running it is fast and you get some nice advantages. Plus Java has a large system of helpers and libraries. Even though you can do everything in Rust, you will end up writing a lot more code just because in Java you can just download a library to do something while Rust forces you to write it.
Hating the code is normal. After a while you start to realize all the hard to change decisions you made long ago. What you don't know is if those decisions you wish you had made would be better. There have been a lot of fads over the decades, some of them are complete junk, but the majority have some good points. However all of them have some negatives as well, and there is no obvious answer to which negative is right to accept for your projects.
The ideal answer is spend 20 years learning lots of different options, then find a time machine and go back in time to and restart the project based on what you have learned. Of course at the end of that 20 years you will hear about some new thing you didn't try, but you have to draw the line somewhere. (finding a time machine is left as an exercise for the reader)
Rust is an interesting language with some nice memory safety guarantees. As a C++ developer it speaks to some of the problems I have - but most of my problems with C++ are with 15 year old code from before I was able to use C++11. ( had to put a lot of effort into getting this good with c++ though, Rust is likely a lot easier to learn to my level). The Ada/Spark advocates have long been saying things that really speak to me as well - formally proven code sounds great, though there are others who tell me it isn't as good as the advocates claim. Go has some advocates saying interesting things as well, though they don't speak to the issues I personally have as much it might be better for you.
If you are writing all new code then I would put Rust high on the list. However most programs are adding to something that exists and the friction of writing Rust to existing code is often high enough that I'd stick with what the other code is written in.
Tell your local legislators to make text messages via the regulated phone system work better and cheaper. Back in 2012 I met someone who worked for them (before Meta) and when I said I'd never heard of them he responded "because US phone companies don't rape their customers for text messages". Even today most American's don't use whatsapp because unless you have a message to send international your phone comes with something that works for free.
Whatsapp existing at all is a sign that your phone system doesn't work like it should. This can be fixed.
The only good part is there would be a long line out the door and we could get a table for 6 with no waiting. Even though only 25% of tables were non-smoking, that section was empty which made it great for kids as nobody cared how out of line we got.
Cool build, but a little reading in how mills and lathes are made would result in a much better machine. The Gingery machine shop series is cheap and good to read even if you don't want to pour aluminum - his machines also make some bad compromises, but the books also inform you of things that would make you do machines like this different if you knew them.