MakerBlock

Phone conferences… [01/10/2011]

[Global pandemics are unquestionably bad things. When it became clear that lots of businesses were about to go under unless they figured out remote work, they found a way to make remote work… work. I guess the hierarchy for me would be: In office work < hybrid work < remote + in person meeting < remote + video conference < remote + phone conference < remote + email < remote + leave me alone and don’t talk to me about work.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a misanthrope – and consider myself a generally friendly person. I guess it’s more that I’m not interested in using any work time for socializing (or visa versa). If there’s something I need, I’ll ask (by email). If there’s something you need, feel free to ask (by email). If neither of us need things, I guess there’s nothing to talk about.

This post was started just a few years before this meme:

*Trend line for “Could have been an email”*

You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ll spend the time and effort preparing a detailed analysis for a client – only to have them ask me to schedule a meeting. So we set the meeting or phone call. The worst start to one of these meetings was “Well, what do you think?” What do I think? WHAT DO I THINK? ¹ I just spilled five pages of ink² explaining exactly what I think. Like a good little soldier, I even put a big “Executive Summary” right at the top because I know full damn well you’re not going to read any of what I really think and you’re just looking for a “bottom line.” Then I include a conclusion area with helpful bullet point action items for what we have to do next.

If you can’t be bothered to read what you paid me to write, or the summaries I prepared for you, I don’t know how to help you. Mind you, I started this blog post 15 years ago, long before people were shoveling longform content into AI’s for summaries. ³

I should really charge double for having to do a phone call to discuss an email I just sent. If an email turns into a meeting, we have, all of us, failed.]

…are a waste of time. Seriously. I mean, you might as well have an in-person meeting in pitch black darkness. How do you have a meaningful conversation with disembodied voices? Under any other circumstances it would be considered madness.

If you need to convey or obtain a piece of information or take a poll quickly, use e-mail.

Now, sometimes the nuance of a phone call is warranted – but it’s not particularly often.

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WHAT DO I THINK? [↩]
Toner [↩]
Describing what I do for a client as “content”? BARF. [↩]

MK4 plastruder parts for sale [01/10/2011]

[I ended up donating all these parts years ago to someone affiliated with Noisebridge :) ]

Since upgrading to a MK5 Plastruder my MK4 gear has been just sitting there unused and unloved. While pulling out the motor from my MK4, I took apart the rest of my MK4 Plastruder except for the hot end assembly. I then realized that I had a fair amount of MK4 stuff that I’m just not using. I’ve got:

MakerBot MK4 hot end assembly. This includes the nozzle, barrel, nichrome wrapping, thermistor, nichrome and thermistor leads, insulator, insulator plates, nuts, and bolts all fully put together. I basically loosened the four bolts holding the MK4 in place and removed the entire assembly as-is.
Extra replacement parts including insulation, nichrome, nozzle, barrel, and Kapton tape.
A MakerBot MK4 spare parts kit
A MakerGear operator’s pack (I forget which one, but I can check if you’re interested)

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There’s just something profoundly meta and wrong with this. [01/05/2011]

[Another silly Doctor Who post. What was wild in 2011 is ho-hum these days.]

Dude, seriously, don’t crap in the space time continuum. I mean, we ALL live here.

Okay. So, here’s the clearest I can articulate these issues:

David Tennant and Georgia Moffett are getting married.
Their children will also be named Davidina Tennant and George Moffet. They will marry each other’s grandchildren on the same day they murder David Tennant and Peter Moffet and squish a butterfly in the past.

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Best use for the MakerBot Unicorn? [01/04/2011]

[The MakerBot Unicorn was an amazing project/product. A ready-made open source pen-plotter attachment kit for $85? Yes! The Cupcake CNC was always a wonderful project. Sure, it was noisy and imprecise for a 3D printer, but it was still a 3 axis CNC machine! It had a dedicated following of developers who were making cool stuff for it. It was capable of drawing on small things like post-its, band-aids, and other small items.]

I think the best use, outside of PCB resist drawings, is its ability to draw on objects that are not otherwise easy to print on.

Bandaids, post-it’s, and other small/irregular objects.

You could probably draw right on the surface of a CD or DVD!

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I’d rather be making [01/04/2011]

[This was one of those zero-context drafts. I don’t know what was going on at the time – but presumably I much preferred making/blogging to doing the work I got paid to do by my day job. I get this itch to make/write/blog fairly regularly – and it certainly seems to be directly proportional to the urgency of day-job-work I need to perform.]

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10 Printing Predictions for 2011 [01/03/2011]

[Apparently I only had one prediction in me that day. It was a goofy nonsense prediction anyhow. I can’t imagine I actually did the math to predict the number of cycles to produce 7 billion RepRaps.]

Nophead has proven how quickly a RepRap can replication at the hands of a very dedicated human. In the year 2011 a single RepRap will get uppity and decide to bring about… the Repocalypse. If a single RepRap can replicate in about 48 hours (given sufficient materials, etc) it would only take 33 cycles over the course of 132 days to produce more RepRaps that every human on the planet. April 18th will forever be known as R-day.¹

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And I, for one, welcome our new replicator overlords [↩]

Crashing out ain’t always so bad

I just had OpenSCAD die on me. It’s probably my fault for running a version from 2024 – but it’s been super stable and … why mess with a thing that works? Fortunately, OpenSCAD replied to my toot saying “@makerblock Check the “Backup Path” folder, e.g. on Linux that is at $HOME/.local/share/OpenSCAD/backups/”

However, having a program crash isn’t always that bad. Yes, it’s a hassle. But, I often find that the new version ends up being built / recreated in a fraction of the time and and more streamlined. In this case, I was working on a revision of my stamp eraser carving grips. The code for new version ended up cleaner and the final model was better looking as well.

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Brother SA129 Free Motion Quilting Foot

Brother Free Motion Presser / Quilting Foot SA129Apparently I already have one! This is technically the third Brother sewing machine I’ve owned. My first was my Mom’s hand-me-down, which worked for years, then stopped working and was too expensive to fix. :( The second one was also a Brother, that one was fairly inexpensive, but strangely enough some of the rubber wheels inside literally melted into goo. I 3D printed a new one of these wheels, but ended up making everything worse and… once again it was too expensive to repair. I donated both to Goodwill a long time ago in the hopes someone more capable will find and fix them.

In any case, one or more of these sewing machines came with the above free motion foot! On the Brother website it’s listed as the SA129 for $60 and doesn’t indicate it’s compatible with my Brother XM3700. The Brother part elsewhere for only $40 and does indicate it’s compatible with my machine. ¹ You can find this exact part available for sale on ebay for under $15, which seems like a pretty great deal. Edit: Ugh, it looks like Amazon has Temu knockoffs for as little as $6, shipped overnight?!²

This little device reminds me of Paul Nosa‘s work with a drawings using a solar powered sewing machine. We’ve seen him at Maker Faire several times – and it’s always a treat to watch him in action. I’m not positive he’s using a free motion / quilting foot for his machine – but it makes sense that’s what he was doing.

The good news is that I don’t have to find this part or wait for it to be shipped. The “bad” news is that I no longer have any excuse for not making something with it!

And, I mean, why wouldn’t it be, really? I can’t imagine Brother would make this one sewing machine not compatible for some reason. That’d be just mean. [↩]
It’s such a simple part, that one of these would work. I’m just torn by my severe dislike for Bezos/Amazon [↩]

I watched Primer the other night [12/30/2010]

[In complete draft post… for some incomplete thoughts. The movie Primer was a real trip. Even so, it’s not nearly as wild as Timecrimes. If you haven’t seen it, don’t read anything, just watch it.]

Often I’m able to figure out what’s going on in a film before the end.

I think I’ll be sticking to Doctor Who for my time travel sci-fi needs.

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You can keep your filthy money [12/28/2010]

[Dang. I sure was salty that day.]

I have a totally different website that operates as a webservice to a very¹ niche market of generally non-technically savvy people. Non-technically savvy as in IE6 is prevalent. Nay, rampant. Please, please, please don’t run IE6 and expect anything on the interwebs to work. I’d rather lose income than build a site that works with IE6.

Moral of the story: Get a real browser or I don’t want your filthy money.

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Very very very [↩]