Slightly OT: how fragile are 3D printed things? Do they break easily? Do they feel fragile? The rods in thi design, might a person break them by accident? How about intentionally?

> It actually does - in a free market

Meaningless sentence.

> It's not to cover one's ass but communicate limitations.

Ostensibly to communicate limitations; I respect this case. But often times it's to cover one's ass in the guise of communicating limitations.

Hard sciences do it way way less. The reason is that in the hard sciences, using a methodology that "has limitations", depending on what the limitations are, might mean the output is straight up meaningless. Imagine I tell you "I've managed to prove theorem X. Let's start by assuming that 1+1=3. I know it's not, but I'm communicating limitations and let's see where that gets us".

But ok I think we're on the same page, you're just more generous than me.

> It may be the wrong one, but I looked it up out of curiosity, so it doesn’t ultimately matter.

Now this has to be the most surprising thing I've read this week, until I thought about it for long.

It doesn't matter if it's correct because you googled it out of curiosity? I think you might be confused. When you're curious, you want the answer to be correct (there's related questions that are raised and consistency checks that a curious person does in their mind.) I think what you are is addicted to the internet. You searched something because that's you brain's kneejerk reaction to whatever the trigger was in this case. The act of searching is what your brain was looking for, not the actual information.

> The authors were aware of many of these shortcomings

Soft sciences are rife with "yeah I'm aware of the problems with the thing I'm doing, but I'll do it anyway. I've presented a disclaimer, that should be enough to cover my ass".