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david-venegas

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Robotics startup (STEALTH + YC S26) | Principal Mechanical + Firmware + SWE | SF Bay Area | ONSITE | $200–250k + 1–2% equity + benefits

We are a new robotics company based in Palo Alto, California, building wearable robotic devices that improve the endurance of humans on foot.

Our first product is a lightweight, bilateral hip product that reduces the physical cost of carrying heavy loads over distance, allowing personnel to move farther, carry more, and arrive at the objective less fatigued and more effective. The company is early but already operating in the field, with a direct feedback loop in the most demanding conditions imaginable.

We are backed by Y Combinator and a group of leading deep-technology investors.

We've recently moved to the Bay area to grow the team, and are hiring three lead engineers who will own product/ their domains, and have full authority with no inherited design decisions and no one between them and the problem. What you build will be worn in weeks by real users:

- Mechanical: structures, joints, actuator integration, ruggedness

- Firmware: real-time motor control, sensor fusion, embedded systems

- Software: device-to-cloud telemetry, test infrastructure, user apps

Shoot me (founder) a text (+1 857-327-3414) and I'll tell you exactly what we're building :)

New Mining Startup 2 years ago

Hey, I'm the head of ops at Durin, and I wanted to share what we're up to. Mining is prbly not the first thing that comes to mind when you think "cutting-edge," but it's the backbone of modern life—from the phone in your pocket to the building you're sitting in.

Although mining is the most basic industry in human development, the tech hasn't really evolved in the last 66 years. We're still using drilling methods from the 1950s, which is kinda wild when you think about it.

Opening a new mine is a massive investment, anywhere from $100 million to $3 billion. But before that, you've got to explore, and that's where things get interesting (and expensive). Drilling holes 500 meters to 1.5 kilometers deep isn't cheap—around $200–$300 per meter. Do the math, and a single hole can cost a quarter million dollars, and you need hundreds of them. Plus, there's a huge skilled labor shortage.

At Durin, we're building automated drilling equipment to speed up and improve mineral exploration. Think of it as bringing Silicon Valley tech to an industry that's been kind of stuck. We have to make mining sexy.

We're retrofitting and operating our own drilling rigs in the field and will soon build our own from scratch. By automating much of the grunt work, we're aiming to boost drilling efficiency by 90%. We're just getting started but moving fast, thought some of you might find this intersection of tech and traditional industries interesting.

Some links:

www.durin.com jobs.durin.com

TL;DR: Created a Chrome extension called ChatGPT Microphone for voice-to-text with ChatGPT, featuring hotkeys, shortcut snippets, and a seamless design. It's free, ad-free, and open-source. Looking for feedback, suggestions, and potential use cases.

Hey everyone! Just a quick disclaimer for the mods: ChatGPT Microphone is a free, open-source tool, and I'm sharing it here so others can benefit from it too.

As a software engineer who chats with ChatGPT more than I talk to most actual humans (don't judge ), I wanted a more efficient way to communicate with it than having to hammer away at my keyboard all the time. I explored existing options like Voice Control and others, but their interactions felt a bit clunky and slow, with extra steps involved. They seemed more focused on hobbyists and accessibility users, rather than professionals who appreciate speed and simplicity. So, I decided to build my own Chrome extension: ChatGPT Microphone.

The extension adds a mic button to ChatGPT that looks and feels native, with CMD/CTR + M hotkeys to toggle it on/off. The most useful part IMO is “Shortcut Snippets” - when you say certain keywords, it will quick-inserts custom phrases into the conversation, like text replacement with your voice. For example, "only changes" becomes a detailed prompt asking ChatGPT for specific code changes, and "new segment" creates a paragraph break with a "---" separator.

Also, it’s free, ad-free, and open-source. Fellow devs can contribute to improving it.

I'd love to hear your feedback, suggestions, or questions. If you find it useful, let me know your use cases and what features you'd like added to the ChatGPT interface.

LINK: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chatgpt-microphone...

GITHUB: https://github.com/davidmvenegas/chatgpt-microphone