Paper Bits

Here is how to write assembly instructions for a neural...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:19:56 -0500

Here is how to write assembly instructions for a neural prosthesis (in the form of cat ears).

First, look through all the pictures you took while you made the first prototype. This will take forever. You figured taking lots of process photos would make things easier, so now you get to wade through several months worth of images.

Once you sort through all these images, realize that they are completely unsuitable for build instructions. That’s because when you built the damn prototype the first time, you ended up changing the design and going back to modify existing hardware, so that there’s no consistent story of building the thing from beginning to end.

Swear a lot. This will not make you feel better, but it’s expected.

Now you have to build an entirely new set of ears in order to write instructions. You will think this will be easy, especially since you have already started working on another headset. This is wrong, but enjoy your delusions while they last.

Write up an outline of the steps required to build the headset. This will be an amusing reminder of how poorly your memory works.

As an added incentive, promise your girlfriend that you will make this set of ears for her in time for an event a few weeks away.

Print out a new set of parts for the ears. For extra fun, have your Makerbot’s heated build platform malfunction, making it impossible to finish any prints. Waste a week trying to troubleshoot your Makerbot, while it laughs silently at you.

Give up.

Realize you can’t give up.

Scrounge existing parts from your semi-final pieces. Breathe a sigh of relief. Set up a tripod and makeshift photo booth, and begin assembly, photographing along with your build steps as you go.

Discover that your goddamn design can only be built by four-armed monkey people from the planet Maxi-Megalon. Consider changing the design. Remember that your Makerbot still isn’t working.

Swear a lot.

Change the build instructions to show how you can use vises and third-hand tools to hold things in place. Wonder why anyone in their right mind would even follow these instructions. Keep going anyhow. Finish the first stage of assembly to the point where the ears need to be programmed, and their movement adjusted.

This is when you will face the fact that your existing code makes it ridiculously hard to adjust the position and movement of the ears, and that you’re going to need to completely re-think the software portion of the design.

Assure your girlfriend that the ears will be done on time.

Re-write the tuning code. Get the ears moving properly. Get cocky and re-factor the movement code for the final set of ears. Feel smug.

Wake up in the middle of the night and realize that you still haven’t solved the problem of making the ears run on a rechargeable battery.

Write some code to stress-test the ear power circuit. Connect both sets of ears to different power supplies and run them for four hours. Breathe a sigh of relief when the LiPo battery works (for now). Stay up half the night. Get brain-fried.

Post a picture of the semi-complete second set of ears to your blog with an un-funny set of pseudo-instructions for writing the instructions.

Do not give up.

Cat Ear build instruction photos: in progress. (Taken with...

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:44:38 -0500

Cat Ear build instruction photos: in progress. (Taken with instagram)

Self-Portrait, between rabbit ears.

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 21:58:31 -0500

Self-Portrait, between rabbit ears.

Twitter just notified me that someone posted a Fetus with Text...

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:36:33 -0500

Twitter just notified me that someone posted a Fetus with Text Tag to Thingiverse.

Adds the ability to add text to your fetus. Personalize it with a name, or scale it to make it the real life size with the date underneath!

Just what I’ve always wanted.

When you cut into the present… (Taken with instagram)

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:23:21 -0500

When you cut into the present… (Taken with instagram)

lavacheestdanslepre: The Mundaneum, an institution created in...

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 10:00:05 -0500

lavacheestdanslepre:

The Mundaneum, an institution created in 1910 by Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, aimed to gather together all the world’s knowledge. An Archive with more than 12 million index cards, some consider it a forerunner of the internet. Otlet dreamt that one day all the information he collected could be accessed by people from the comfort of their own homes.’

The Mundaneum is utterly fascinating to me, for reasons that should be obvious…

Apparently, catgirls like Sandman. Prototype 1.5 test...

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:49:33 -0500

Apparently, catgirls like Sandman. Prototype 1.5 test successful. (Taken with Instagram at New England Comics)

Trapped in a fortune cookie company, I am. (Taken with...

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:33:28 -0500

Trapped in a fortune cookie company, I am. (Taken with instagram)

It’s going to take forever for the bunny spam to trail...

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:51:08 -0500

It’s going to take forever for the bunny spam to trail off. And I’m ok with that. (Taken with Instagram at Narnia)

She’s a girl bunny. Turns out. So, no naming her...

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:17:00 -0500

She’s a girl bunny. Turns out. So, no naming her “Sherlock” then. (Taken with instagram)

[edit]

Except for the part where we totally named her Sherlock anyway.

Mrs Tsk *: Just south of Osaka Zoo is Tobita Shinchi, Japan’s largest...

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 14:00:06 -0500

Mrs Tsk *: Just south of Osaka Zoo is Tobita Shinchi, Japan’s largest...:

When Google Streetview passed along the streets of [Osaka’s red-light district] Tobita Shinchi, it just happened — conveniently enough for the Japanese authorities — to be the early hours of New Year’s day 2010. Very few of the prostitutes were on show.

You can see the standard Tobita Shinchi presentation format: an older lady sitting in the door, beckoning customers, and the prostitute herself, sitting on a raised platform, lit from below in pink and white, surrounded often by lucky charms (maneki neko, flowers, toys, slippers, gifts).

—Mrs Tsk*: Just south of Osaka Zoo

Indexed: The ultimate book promotion

Fri, 30 Dec 2011 10:00:06 -0500

Indexed: The ultimate book promotion

‘water calligraphy device’ by canada-born,...

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 11:57:33 -0500

‘water calligraphy device’ by canada-born, beijing-based media artist nicholas hanna reinterprets the chinese tradition of using a water brush to write poetry in public spaces by transforming a flat-bead tricycle into a poetry-writing device.

Warranty voiding for fun and profit. Minus the profit. (Taken...

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:34:25 -0500

Warranty voiding for fun and profit. Minus the profit. (Taken with instagram)

skandolous: Ink Calendar designed by Oscar Diaz. The ink will...

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 10:00:05 -0500

skandolous:

Ink Calendar designed by Oscar Diaz. The ink will slowly color each day of the month as time passes by.

I like how the bottle of ink is labeled with the month.

Arduino-compatible Skymega board for powering and controlling...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 14:00:05 -0500

Arduino-compatible Skymega board for powering and controlling servo-based printbots.

Far more compact than an arduino if you’re controlling 4 servos, because of the need for multiple power supplies and a breakout board for the servos. I could use this, but sadly you have to have the PCB custom-printed and source the parts, which is a bit of a pain…

Found On The Elevator 205 W. 57- (excerpt) 1969 PRIVATE...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 10:00:06 -0500

Found On The Elevator 205 W. 57- (excerpt) 1969 PRIVATE PRESS 10”

Warren Ellis finds the most amazing things.

This inexplicable 10-inch record from 1969 is one of the strangest and most obscure private pressings you could ever hope to find. It contains a 24-minute psychedelic message from the distant future, presented with intermittent bursts of electronic music, feedback and ambient noise.

This recording is an “unauthorized experiment” that was made in the year 2058 C.D.S. (Carbon Dating System), a “blue verbal data feed” sent backwards in time to “retro A.D.” by Decker, T. L., index J-3, CMR 00965 of T-Group Roaring Vectors 252, a human cyborg who suffers from a malfunctioning number nine electrode in his head which causes him to have an emotional breakdown as he records this message. It’s a secret message to a past world he has trouble imagining, a retro world of foreign substances like metal, plastic, animals, soldiers… a world all “physical and slow,” “all mechanical and disunified, before major coordinations.”

"Interaction design is about people: how people relate to people, how people relate to products, and..."

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 10:18:44 -0500

“Interaction design is about people: how people relate to people, how people relate to products, and how people relate to each other through the mediating influence of products. It is a synthesis of many traditional and new elements of design thinking, organized into intelligent and emotionally satisfying experiences that meet a wide variety of human needs. Products are no longer treated simply as physical artifacts or visual symbols. Instead, they are expressions and enablers of human action and experience, situated in a social and cultural environment. For many of us, interaction design is more than a new branch of design practice. It is a new approach to design thinking in general, and a foundational critique of the entire field of design and the place of design in culture.”

- Dick Buchanan (via brianlucid)

Improved ear form sketching continues. It helps to look at...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 14:54:47 -0500

Improved ear form sketching continues. It helps to look at actual cat ear anatomy, turns out… (Taken with instagram)

Little Printer gathers everything it needs to prepare a neat...

Tue, 29 Nov 2011 09:06:28 -0500

Little Printer gathers everything it needs to prepare a neat little personalised package, printed as soon as you press the button. You can get deliveries multiple times a day, but we find once or twice works best–like your very own morning or evening newspaper.