Author: Maker Block

It’s a valid question…

My mother in law was over recently and saw part of a “Dora the Explorer” as my daughter was watching it.  There was significantly less Spanish spoken in the show than I realized.  In any case, there was a part where a talking treasure map was speaking to the audience.  It repeated the three-step directions no less than four times.  Then there was a little song where it was all repeated again.

My mother in law then asks if this is a show for English learners.  No, it’s to teach kids some basic skills as well as a little Spanish.  Her second question was, “Well, then why are they repeating the English phrases so many times?”

What kind of CNC cutter would you recommend?

I’m only vaguely aware of craft/robo/CNC cutters that aren’t laser cutters.  I don’t want one of those has to use cartridges to give it different preprogrammed cutting patterns – I want to be able to design my own shapes for cutting.  So, I ask you now for your help…

  • Is there a difference between robocutters, craft cutters, hobby cutters, and CNC cutters?
  • What brands are there?
  • How reliable are the various brands?
  • Besides just paper and cardstock, what kinds of materials should they be able to cut?
  • How easy are they to use, program, etc?
  • What kinds of reuseable supplies do they require?  (Blades?)
  • What should I watch out for?
  • What questions should I be asking?
  • What do you use your cutter for?

The one who smelt it, dealt it

This morning I came in late to work, mostly because I had stayed up late working on work.  One of the staff made a joke that I was sneaking into the office like one of my co-workers. 1  I responded thusly:

I don’t sneak in or out.  I arrive just like I leave, with a clap of thunder and the smell of sulfur.

It’s only mildly true.  When I walk in late or leave early, I do so without apology.  We all have things we have to do, so why pretend otherwise?  Not being able to leave work at the office is a gift and a curse.  If you start working before you put on pants and eat breakfast, but then walk in a little later, who’s stay this way is any worse or better than another? 234567

Oh, and the sulfur?  It’s a glandular thing.

  1. He tends to sneak in, and then sneak out [↩]
  2. Well, I suppose an efficiency expert. [↩]
  3. Then again, I’m pretty sure you’d find my peak efficiency somewhere after a good night’s sleep, a quick jog, a long shower, a short nap, two cups of coffee, and one slice of cold pizza. [↩]
  4. What do you mean it’s noon? [↩]
  5. When studying for exams in grad school I essentially became nocturnal.  It’s too bad everything’s closed at night. [↩]
  6. One late evening/early morning my girlfriend and I decided to sew a parafoil kite, but the nearest place to get fabric at 3am was a Wal-Mart 45 minutes away.  Amusingly, at that time of day/night/day I was a lot more cheerful than the greeter. [↩]
  7. See, it’s not that I’m surly in the morning.  It’s that I’m surly at night and I’m just more advanced than most people. [↩]

Vacations are funny things

By the time you set up a vacation, you really really need one.  But, before you can leave for your vacation you’ve got to take care of a bunch of work so that nothing explodes while you’re gone.

But, by the time you come back everything has been sitting around for probably a week.  Which means that you have to dig yourself out of a big pile of work as soon as you get back.

Right now I’m in the working-my-rump-off-so-I-can-enjoy-my-vacation mode.  :)

Creating PDF’s on the fly using PHP and TCPDF

I’ve got a separate website that used to offer a service where you could get a custom report in the form of a PDF sent to you.  For that I used a free open source PHP script/library called FPDF.  It’s reasonably well documented, but there are a lot of nuances that not really intuitive.  Used in combination with a script called FDPI for importing an existing PDF’s, mixing in a little data from users, databases, and the internet, and it was a pretty amazing thing.

An acquaintance of mine suggested I take a look at a similar library for creating PDF’s with PHP called TCPDF.  The documentation borders on the compulsive – which I sincerely appreciate.  While the immediate downside is that it does not have a built-in PDF importer, it is apparently compatible with the aforementioned1 FDPI.  The part that I really like about TCPDF from scanning through these examples is the robust HTML rendering engine.  It would be a really amazing to be able to dump a chunk of HTML directly into a PDF without having to design a script to read through it all, parse it, and then format it specifically for the PDF.

  1. Who the hell uses THIS freaking word?! [↩]