Category: MakerBlock

All things MakerBlock: RepRap, MakerBot, Cupcake CNC, open source, and plastic building toys!

Driving Lessons from Google

Google’s self-driving car
Google’s self-driving car

Last Monday I noticed a funny looking Google vehicle while driving back home from Palo Alto. 1  It was a white SUV with a big Google logo on the back passenger side door.  Traffic was heavy and I didn’t get to look at the vehicle very long.  I’ve seen the Google streetview car before – and this was not it.  The streetview car has a tall device mounted on the roof with what appears to be four cameras pointing forward, right, left, and back.  The vehicle I saw last Monday had a device the size of a small toaster mounted to the roof with four white pipes – and it was spinning very fast.

My guess was this was the Google self-driving car.  When I saw this article the following day, picturing the exact vehicle I saw, I was certain.

I have to admit, when I saw this vehicle I was tempted, for just a moment, to drive slightly recklessly and unpredictably to see what Google’s vehicle would do. 2

My superego won out over my id, and I just observed the progress of the Google self-driving vehicle.  I wish I had seen the vehicle earlier so that I could have observed more of the vehicle’s behavior from behind it.  Here’s what I saw:

  • I was in the #3 lane on I-680 North and the Google self-driving vehicle34  was in the #2 lane.  Traffic was heavy during the late-afternoon early-evening commute and even though they were in a faster lane, we were probably both going no more than about 35 MPH. 5 6
  • They must have left at least at least 5 car lengths worth of traveling distance in front of them.
  • I didn’t see them switch lanes – except to take an exit.
  • Interestingly, with the ebb and flow of traffic, the Google vehicle was at times far behind me and even a little ahead of me.
  • Even though Google as a corporation is a person, and Google was likely present in that vehicle, it did not drive in the HOV/carpool lane.

If Google can drive for 300,000 miles without an accident, including travel in heavy traffic, I suppose there’s a few lessons we can learn:

  • The ebb and flow of heavy traffic is enough to basically normalize any efforts to “get ahead,” so you might as well drive as slowly, conservatively, and with as much following distance as Google
  • When traffic is congested, it might help to be in a lane farthest from the on/off ramps7
  • Always carry two backup passenger/drivers in your vehicle
  1. Photo courtesy of Saad Faruque [↩]
  2. My guess – reduce my website’s PageRank and delete my Google+ page.  That’s worse than a ding on your driving record, right? [↩]
  3. Along with it’s two passengers. [↩]
  4. Prisoners?  How do you tell a self-driving vehicle you need to get out and pee? [↩]
  5. The traffic was so bad that my Android phone, with the Google Maps directions showing me the way back home, displayed the dreaded deep-red path that indicates congested traffic. [↩]
  6. I mention the Google Maps traffic congestion metric because I assume their vehicle was using the same information I was to make informed driving assessments. [↩]
  7. Google didn’t have three physical people present, so they couldn’t be in the fastest HOV/carpool lane [↩]

Wacky Realization #8565748

Shadows
Shadows

I had a lot of driving to do this last week. 1  For work I drove about 11 hours total on two separate days combined.  Then, on Friday, I drove another 4 hours or so to visit some friends.   Thankfully, driving back Saturday was only 3 hours.

Driving back at around dusk on Saturday meant lots of glare, lots of long shadows.  And then it struck me…  There must come a point when the Earth rotates relative to the Sun such that an object on the surface of the earth could cast an infinitely long shadow.  And, really, this should happen twice a day.

Now I think I have a new mission.  I need to find someplace on our planet to stand such that either at sunset or sunrise I would cast an infinitely long shadow.

  1. Garry via Compfight [↩]

Has it really been that long?

2012. calendarI just fired up OpenSCAD, my 3D design program of choice, and then it occurred to me that it’s been quite a while since I’ve used it.  A quick search for *.SCAD files on my hard drive revealed I haven’t updated any OpenSCAD documents since 5/13/2012. 1

That’s more than two months!  How can this be?!  I’ve got a pile of ideas stacking up.

How do you organize your ideas?  I created an e-mail address for myself “ideas@DOMAIN.com,” jot down the ideas, and send them to myself constantly.  If I have paper, I’ll sketch the idea out, take a picture, and e-mail the picture to this same address.  I think I probably send myself about two or three e-mails a day.

I can’t wait to jump back into OpenSCAD and work on some of these ideas!!!

  1. Photo courtesy of Asja Borošvia Compfight [↩]

DrawBot Practice Tip: A Watched Pot

Winter Is Coming
Winter Is Coming

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my DrawBot.  In large part that’s because it’s been a while since I’ve even used my DrawBot.

After a little dry spell of making, I’ve been rocking the DrawBot.  Previously I had been drawing things about the size of a sheet of paper.  While this meant the drawings were relatively quick, it also meant I could just print whatever I wanted directly onto a 8.5″x11″ sheet of paper using my traditional black and white laser printer.  This weekend I’ve cranked out a few drawings – but on a much grander scale.  Several months ago I picked up a large roll of white paper at the local office supply store – and I’ve since created about three 3-foot tall drawings.  One is a House Stark direwolf from Game of Thrones, one is an R2D2 commissioned by my daughter, and a third is an R2D2 and C3PO also at the request for my daughter.1

The last one is particularly cool.  I’ll take a picture for you later.  There’s a lot of room for improvement with the gondola.  The current setup is… let’s say… non-optimal.  I’m working on an improved version.

Where was I?  Oh yes!  The watched pot!

I’m using Sandy Noble’s seriously awesome Polargraph software to power my DrawBot.  I’m rocking version 0.182 and noticed that when I’ve got the program on the “Input” tab it draws about 42 points a minute and when it’s on the “Queue” tab it draws about 96 points a minute when working on SVG / vector graphic.  The cool part about drawing with the “Input” tab open is that you can see the drawing in progress.  So, when I’m watching the drawing, it runs slower.

Default Series Title
  1. She likes R2D2. [↩]
  2. He’s continually working on the software and is already out with v.0.19! [↩]

Dear Google, this IS my name

Dear Google,

Your user policies apparently require anyone using Google Plus to provide proof of an established online identity or have my Google Plus account deleted.  I have been using the name “MakerBlock” for two and a half years now.  I probably have as many friends and acquaintances who know me by this, my chosen name, as I have friends and acquaintances who know me by the arbitrary name chosen for me.  In fact, when it comes to an online identity, I’d say 99% of the people who know me don’t even know other names for me.

Here’s part of the problem with your online identify policies.  I’m not trying to be mysterious.  I’ve had online cyber stalkers before and, it is very likely I will again.  It’s actually becoming a more frequent problem for people with professions similar to mine. If this website, my Twitter account, or my Google Plus profile became associated with my given name, I’d probably need to soon abandon one or more of them.

Aside from safety issues, there are other totally legitimate reasons I’d want to use a non-given name for any of these accounts.  I do enjoy a little slice of anonymity and freedom that comes with not having the people I work with or for know about this website or online social networks.  It’s nice to have a place to vent about work, employer, and/or client frustrations.

In any case, why do you even care about my given name?  You know my IP address, which websites I own, you know where I live, probably all of my e-mail addresses.  You are in my phone, have my credit card number, and know where I work.  Why, for heaven’s sake, do you want to take this little piece away from me?

I have friends I would like to connect with through Google Plus, but associating Google Plus with my given name would essentially mean I wouldn’t be able to use Google Plus.  Your policy notice indicated that if I don’t appeal by 7/11/2012 you’ll delete my account.

MakerBlock IS my name and if I can’t use it online for Google Plus then I guess you need to delete my Google Plus data.

Default Series Title

The bad kind of downtime

Twitter Fail WhaleFailin’

Personal downtime?  Good.

Server downtime?  Bad.

My other website (perpetually unlinked to) is sitting on a server which is apparently in Las Vegas, Nevada. 1 They also, apparently, had a power failure and then an air conditioning unit failure and shut it all down.  And, it’s going to be down for at least 4-5 hours.  I only have one website on that server, and it’s the only site I have where uptime really truly matters.

Oh, and about 50% of my e-mail comes through that site.

Ugh.

  1. Photo Credit: Ben Ho via Compfight [↩]

I don’t know why it bothers me, but it just does

Catcopter?!! Where's the back button?!Catcopter?!!  Where’s the back button?!

Make Magazine posted that they would not be linking to the dead cat quadcopter. 1 That’s something I can get behind. 2  The problem is – I struggle to be able to articulate or even rationalize why I feel this way.

I think Make might have the same problem.  However, as one Make commenter points out, they’ve blogged and posted about animal taxidermy, even bizarre taxidermy before.  For some reason, the catcopter is just different – and I’m not sure why.  Is it less dignified for a cat to be spread-eagle/crucified on a quadcopter or for someone to make a snake/turtle or duck/mouse hybrid?  Is it more horrifying to see a hovering cat in an unnatural position or a parakeet wearing an impossibly small suit with feet/claws where the wings should be?

Whatever the reason, I just had a much stronger visceral reaction to the catcopter than to any of the above.  Quite separately from the tweets and blog posts yesterday a coworker forwarded me the link to the original blog post.  (He saw it posted to some website called… Facebook?)  His reaction was to laugh uncontrollably to see a hovering dead cat and he found the look on the cat’s face to be comical, whereas I found it horrifying.  He sent it to me because it involved a quadcopter and he thinks of me as a gadget kinda guy.34

Even if I was a gadget guy, I’m pretty sure I would never be a mount-a-dead-animal-on-a-robot kind of gadget guy.

  1. Photo Credit: Dino Abatzidis via Compfight [↩]
  2. Full disclosure:  I’m a cat person. [↩]
  3. Actually, I don’t think I’m a gadget kinda guy at all.  I don’t own a Blu-Ray player, an HD or flat screen TV, any kind of gaming system, a fancy stereo, watch, or iAnything.  I only got a new phone a few days ago when my last one of 2 years, a Motorola Droid aka Motorola Trusty Brick TM, gave up the ghost.   I might own four or five robots – but I’ve built every one of them. [↩]
  4. Tinkerer, Maker, Hacker – yes.  Gadget guy?  No. [↩]