website | MakerBlock

QR Codes and Avatars

I’m not really big on social media, especially Facebook. While I used Twitter for a long time, I pretty much abandoned it after their re-brand. For a variety of reasons, mostly privacy related, I actively avoid associating my online moniker with my real name or photographs of myself. Plus, I can be a lot more candid here where a comment won’t have to be associated with my work persona. 1 Anyhow, instead of using my real name and birthday, I fed Facebook the above photograph and use a totally different birthday and other information. Later on, I used a very small version of this photograph as my “avatar,” but that changed when Bre drew a super cool secret agent looking version of my avatar for use on the MakerBot blog.

Anyhow, I was thinking about the “evolution” of my online avatar recently and some other projects when I remembered I’d seen some cool instances of people distorting a QR code in such a way that it appeared to be an image of something – but the contrasting light and dark patterns would be interpreted as a QR code. I found a website (QRBTF) that will automate most of the process for you.

This isn’t the first time I’ve played with QR codes. One of the first was waaaay back in the day. Thingiverse has over 7 million “things” uploaded to the site as of right now. But, Thing #5000 was this gem by yours truly.

Where was I?

MakerBlock’s Avatar QR Code of MakerBlock’s Blog

The process is … fiddly, even with lots of nice dials and buttons to adjust the image. I don’t think I’ll keep this as the last version of this QR / avatar. There needs to be either way higher error correction, larger QR code, or lower resolution, or higher contrast or… something to make scanning the image more reliable.

Anyhow, the reason why I’m even messing with this at all is so that when our projects are (hopefully!!!) accepted to Maker Faire, I can put this on my “maker badge” as a way for people who know me by my pseudonym / avatar to recognize me and for everyone else to be able to scan it and check out my website with more information about our projects.

Here’s another variation with some modifications:

This latest version required some post-processing:

Trial and error to position the original image and then see how it looked when turned into a QR code. Obviously, this also involved tinkering with the brightness and contrast settings. I kept the error correction at maximum throughout.
I downloaded the image in SVG format which was kinda messy. Every black or white pixel was a separate element. I laid a rounded corner set of squares over the four alignment blocks, obscuring the sharp corners usually associated with QR codes. Then, I duplicated the central figure, and in the copy above I deleted the four alignment blocks and the figured, then made all the black speckled pixels slightly larger – to make it easier to read at small sizes.
Centered the QR code on the white background, then rotated it 45 degrees for a diamond shape.

This version scans much more reliably and faster than any prior version. I’m fairly happy with this result and will allow myself to fall down the rabbit hole of my next project… Or prior project. Projects.0

Thermal Sticker Printer

While my work-name and work-face are the same as my real name and real face, that’s just the professional responsible adult I pretend to be in order to pay the bills. [↩]

Citigroup – URL hacked? Seriously?

Apparently the hackers who stole all kinds of personal information to Citigroup’s website did so by URL hacking.

This is just unconscionable. Even before you get to cyber-security 101, SOMEONE should have figured out that putting the account number in plain text in the URL was a terrible idea.

I don’t care who you are, the first thing you need to know about dealing with a website is that your server cannot trust a user’s input. This can be for any number of, even very innocent, reasons – but primarily as a way to be ward against potential problems. It just sickens me that their website had what amounts to zero security. URL hacking isn’t even really hacking at all, it’s just a matter of tweaking URL address inputs. It’s essentially the equivalent of dialing a company’s phone number and changing the extension by one digit just to see if you can escape phone-tree-voice-mail-hell. 1 2

I mean, would you, as a bank, put deposit or balance information into the URL? NO. Otherwise in 5 seconds everyone would alter their links to include “&currentbalance=100000000000”. 3 Why, then, would you ever include plain text bank account numbers in the URL and not actually verify that information on the server side?! I mean, this is the kind of security you get with WordPress for free just by installing it.

The Citigroup website is very Web2.0, rounded corners, social-media and blogging links. It looks great. Did they just have their web designer handle security? How the hell did this happen?!

Okay, Sony, Facebook, Twitter – these things get hacked because of lame or re-used passwords. Those guys got hacked because their attackers were smart. Citigroup got hacked because they are too stupid to handle a basic website, let alone someone’s money.

Or purgatory? [↩]
Definitely purgatory [↩]
Or, better yet, “&currentbalance=pony” [↩]

A RepRap business model

So, here’s an idea – much like the distributed manufacturing system for printed pulleys, why doesn’t someone set up a website business for RepRap parts? Here’s the outline of the business plan:

A price could be set for a particular RepRap plastic part, depending upon size, complexity, scarcity, how many more are needed to make a full set, etc.
People with RepRaps/Straps can register for an account and send in RepRap parts, and get their account credited for those parts.
- Ideally, the website would also have an area where you can print out a table of contents – with bar codes. That way the receiver could just scan the parts into their inventory – and verify the contents/quality later.
People who send in parts are paid on a regular basis electronically.
The site also contains a store where you can purchase an entire set of printed/molded RepRap parts – or perhaps just those ones you need.
It would be quite handy if such a site also sold the various other parts needed for a RepRap – bearings, metal rods, electronics, fasteners, etc.
I suppose the sets could be sold on a bid-style basis – and the parts paid for pro-rata. 1

This idea isn’t without it’s problems:

How do you ensure a minimum quality in crowdsourced parts?
1. Perhaps you could use a seller/rating system like BrickLink does for lego vendors?
Why would someone buy/sell from a website like this rather than eBay?
1. Well, eBay and Etsy each take about 3.5% with PayPal snagging another 3% or so. Assuming sales are handled through PayPal2 , you’re talking about basically 6.5% out of the seller’s end.
2. Assuming you go with PayPal (3%) and you charge less than the 3.5% for eBay, you can probably attract buyers and sellers. The problem is once you’ve gotten this far, you’ve basically re-created eBay buy-it-now or an Etsy store. To succeed you’ll need to serve the market better or cheaper.
As soon as RepRaps in the wild increase or demand for parts is met, won’t the bottom drop out?
1. Quite possibly. A week ago Mendel plastic parts were selling for $450. 3 Today it looks like parts are going for about $300 or so. Then again, a set didn’t sell with a $200 reserve just a few days ago.
2. How many sets have been sold on eBay anyhow? A dozen? Let’s say it was 20 sets at $450 each. 20 * $450 * 3.5% is $315.00. If 100 sets are sold at $300 with a 3.5% cut, that’s $1050. Neither of these amounts would not have been enough to entice me to code a RepRap sales site – but I’m a slow coder.

That would be a fancy bit of coding… [↩]
it’s the easiest to write plugins for – heck I’ve written a few [↩]
Adrian Bowyer’s set sold for $620. But, I suspect that was an anomoly. [↩]

Toasted WordPress

I’ve been tinkering with this website trying to move it to a different domain – MakerBlock.com rather than MakerBlocks.com. (I like both names, but have a slight preference for MakerBlock). In any case, since I’m rather used to working with WordPress I figured I’d just dive into the MySQL tables and start changing stuff.

This doesn’t work quite as well as you would think it would. :) For anyone who is looking to move a WordPress website from one domain (or subdomain) to another, I highly recommend using Domain Name Changer.

Lesson learned. I’m just a little bit smarter today! Woo hoo!

Looking forward

This website for documenting my attempt to build a MakerBot Industries CupCake CNC 3D printer. I’ve got just about no experience working with electronics and no experience building robots. So, its going to be a wild ride.

It is named “Bender.”

Here’s what I’d like to see happen:

Documenting everything inside the CupCake Deluxe CNC kit
- Right now I’ve only documented the unboxing
- I’d like to document all the bits inside the various boxes/kits as well
Documenting each step (and misstep!) of taking a box of parts to a fully functional 3D printer
- As I’m a total and complete novice, this should be educational for everyone involved
- Since the guys at MakerBot suggest two people could assemble a CupCake CNC in leisurely weekend, I suspect it would probably take me about a week or two
Printing crazy plastic things for myself and others

Why did I name the website MakerBlock? Well, if when I get this robot operational, I’d really like to design and print custom blocks that are compatible with various toy construction sets.

Frivolous? Undoubtedly. But, a man’s got to dream.