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February 9, 2010

Projects: Failure and mounting a "scratch monkey"

When the concept of doing a Projects: Failure something came up years ago, originally as the idea for a Make: Books (in case you hadn't realized, "Projects: Failure" is a silly twist on our "Make: Projects" book series brand), we were talking about how it could be story-driven, people sharing spectacular failures and what they learned from them. I blurted out: "Oh, like mounting a scratch monkey!" Everyone looked at me like I'd forgotten to take my meds (again). But I've never stopped associating this idea with the scratch monkey. I've brought it up several times since we've launched this series online, and each time, people tilt their heads sideways like a dog hearing a high-pitched noise. So, here's the scratch monkey story.

The term "scratch monkey," or the adage "always mount a scratch monkey," comes from a tragic, allegedly actual, incident that took place 1979/1980, at the University of Toronto. It became a cautionary tale that floated through early netspace, especially USENET newsgroups, and a number of different versions emerged. It became part of the hacker lexicon, part of the venerable Jargon File, and then part of the resulting Hacker's Dictionary. Here's an excerpt of the entry from The New Hacker's Dictionary (3rd Edition):

As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a scratch monkey," a proverb used to advise caution when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get trashed.

This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of Toronto. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim, breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an untimely demise one day when a DEC field circus engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired to Mabel.

There's definitely a key lesson in there about projects that fail and what one can learn from them: never commit resources to a project you can't afford to lose if something goes wrong and to test your project first in ways that won't destroy it (or key components) if something goes awry. How many times have you (have I) committed that last crucial part or piece of material, or whatever, to a build and then had it get ruined? So, when in doubt, if you can: always mount a scratch monkey!

BTW: The version told in the Jargon File/New Hacker's Dictionary claims it came directly from the sysadmin involved in the incident. But the AFU and Urban Legends site questions this. Here's part of their entry:

Current University of Toronto sysadmins have expressed skepticism. For one thing, in almost all versions of the story, including the ostensibly documented one in the Jargon File, the computer is a VAX; at the time a VAX would have been a very unusual platform for this kind of data acquisition (they used PDP-11s). The Toronto zoology department has never been licensed to work with primates; the only section of the university that could have done experiments of this nature was the School of Medicine. Investigation continues

Let's hope it isn't true, no monkeys were harmed in the making of this cautionary tale, and you can still benefit from the moral of the story either way.

Here's the rest of the Jargon File entry.

Here's the Wikipedia page with some links to some of the variations on the story.

More:

February 8, 2010

Maker Business: Venturing out...

Kicking off our Maker Business series is this piece by Jeffrey McGrew, who along with his wife Jillian Northrup, and their trusty CNC machine named Frank, are a two-person (and a bot) design and fabrication juggernaut. From their design-build studio in Oakland, CA, they do custom interior design, furniture, and such artist wonders as the "Art Golf" course they've set up at Maker Faire. Here, Jeffrey shares some words of advice to those who may be thinking of going "Maker Pro." -- Gareth

Venturing out...

By Jeffrey McGrew of Because We Can

We get a lot of friends and folks asking us about how we got started. And we know a lot of folks through the Maker Faire that would love to turn "pro." So, I thought I'd jot down the six big things that I see as being key elements to getting started in such a business. I hope they help, and I'd love to hear more from other folks! [Chime in via comments. -Ed.]

1. Get as debt-free as possible, and try your best to stay that way.
We would have never been able to buy the robot (or CNC machine) and make the jump to working for ourselves had we not had our financial lives in order first. Having six months in savings to fall back on, no debt, other than a half-paid off car loan, and not taking on huge debts to get started, made it possible for us to make a lot of mistakes and learn things instead of going out with a quick bang. I've met a fair number of people who want to start their own business, but simply can't, due to this single issue alone. No amount of great business ideas, hard work, or luck can overcome the burden of an unstable foundation on which to the start. Also, honestly, once you get your business going, you'll find that your priorities, and what you think is important, will change greatly. If you're really happy (which running our own business certainly make us), then you'll need less stuff anyways. So, save your pennies, don't worry about getting the latest and greatest, and pay off all those loans and credit cards before you take that leap.

2. Plans are worthless, planning is essential.
That quote from Winston Churchill sums up nicely a lot of what you'll need to do when you start a business. You don't need a perfect plan, with every step already outlined, in giant Gantt charts. But you do need a plan. And you need to be smart enough to change that plan as circumstances change. Running a business is more like sailing a ship than launching a rocket. What I mean is that you need a plan, and to be prepared, but honestly, at some point you'll just point yourself at the horizon and go. And then everything will change, you'll need to change direction, plans, and ideas. You'll re-aim for that spot you wanted to get to constantly as the world around you changes in response to what you're doing. And heck, sometimes you'll find when you're halfway there, you actually want to go somewhere else. So don't fret too much and over-plan everything (and therefore never get started), or freak out when things don't go according to your plans. But at the same time, don't aim for that horizon without one!

Exploring the business of making

For the next few months, in concert with our "Your Desktop Factory" themed issue of MAKE (Volume 21), we're going to be exploring the world of "maker business," turning your passion for making things into a means of making money. We'll look at everything from casual commerce, selling small numbers of goods online, at places like Etsy and the upcoming Makers Market, to the running of a more serious and sustainable small business. We'll be talking to, and have guest articles by, maker businessfolk across this spectrum, from those just starting out, to those who are making a comfortable living as self-employed makers. We'll also be touching on everything from the most philosophical questions of why to the more pragmatic nuts and bolts of how.

Do you run a small "maker business?" If so, we'd love to hear from you. If creating such a business is something you've thought about, what questions/concerns do you have? What would you like to see us cover in this series? Let us know in the comments, or email me (gareth at makezine). We'd love for this series to be a useful service to you, especially if going into such a business is a fantasy, but you have nagging questions or reservations that hold you back, or just need a little encouragement from those who've made this sort of career change work for them.

From MAKE magazine:
make volume 21 little cover.jpg
MAKE Volume 21 is the Desktop Manufacturing issue, with how-to articles on making three-dimensional parts using inexpensive computer-controlled manufacturing equipment. Both additive (RepRap, CandyFab) and subtractive (Lumenlab Micro CNC) systems are covered. Also in this issue: instructions for making a cigar box guitar, building your own CNC for under $800, running a mini electric bike with a cordless drill, making a magic photo cube, and tons more. If you're a subscriber, you may have your issue in hand already, and can access the Digital Edition. Otherwise, you can pick up MAKE 21 in the Maker Shed or look for it on newsstands near you!

Glenn Seaborg's old mailing address

The occasion of Dmitri Mendeleev's birthday seemed like a good opportunity to recognize another great hero of the periodic table and to relate one of my favorite anecdotes about him: Glenn T. Seaborg (Wikipedia), who, among his various stellar achievements, won the 1951 Nobel Prize for "discoveries in the chemistry of the transuranium elements." By the time of his death in 1999, Seaborg had participated in the discovery and isolation of ten superheavy elements. Shortly after the official 1997 recognition of the name seaborgium for element 106, Jeffrey Winters, writing in the January 1998 issue of Discover Magazine, made the following observation:

Not only is Seaborg the first living scientist to have an element named after him, he's also the only person who could receive mail addressed only in elements: Seaborgium, Lawrencium (for the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory where he still works), Berkelium, Californium, Americium. But don't forget the zip code.

Naming an element after a living scientist generated significant controversy among the international chemistry community of the time. At a talk in 1995, Seaborg himself famously quipped: "There has been some reluctance on the part of the Commission for Nomenclature of Inorganic Chemistry of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry to accept the name because I'm still alive and they can prove it, they say."

Maker Birthdays: Dmitri Mendeleev

Born on this date in 1834 in the small village of Aremzyani, in what was then considered Siberia, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev (Wikipedia) would go on, in 1869, to publish the first periodic table of the chemical elements. Mendeleev used the periodicity he'd observed in the properties of then-known elements to accurately predict many of the properties of germanium, gallium, and scandium, which had not yet been discovered. Mendeleev died in St. Petersburg in 1907, at the age of 72. Element number 101 is named mendelevium in his honor.

Bending with Casper Electronics

Pete Edwards does a bit of toy-megaphone turbo bending in this music video montage shot at the Casper Electronics lab. Dang - this makes me think I should start soldering to music myself!

February 6, 2010

Beautiful cube sculpture from copper pipe fittings

This 2007 piece by Vancouver artist Steven Shearer (Wikipedia) is called "Geometric Healing Cell for Youth - Model III." It reminds me of some of my favorite work by Tom Friedman. I love art that challenges our expectations of everyday materials. [via Neatorama]

February 5, 2010

Projects: Failure and the cover of MAKE, Volume 06

When I think of horrifically frustrating project experiences that end in an outcome far exceeding expectations, two instances spring to mind. I tell these stories frequently (stop me if you've heard this one before) because I think they represent the power of perseverance in the face of projected failure.

The first tale I've told countless times, probably even here on MAKE, about a friend of mine, a fabric artist, who, back in the 80s, entered a weaving contest in a fabric arts magazine. She'd never done any weaving. She got some how-to books, borrowed a loom, and decided to weave the fabric to make a seersucker shirt. It quickly turned into a nightmare. The seersucker threads kept breaking as she wove them. It became a huge exercise in frustration, but she kept at it. She thought her difficulty was due to the fact that she was a newbie. Finally, after much struggle and heartache, she finished the weave, made the shirt, and submitted it to the contest. The magazine called a month or so later and said they were stunned by the piece, especially because you "can't" hand-weave seersucker! She'd won the contest, and a ginormous, gorgeous Swedish loom that consumed most of a small room in her house. This is a perfect example of how you can do things when you're ignorant of (or ignore) the common belief that you can't. Sometimes ignorance is a huge advantage.

The second story concerns my BEAM robot pieces in MAKE, Volume 06. I agreed to write an introduction to BEAM and two simple BEAM robot projects for the issue. I've done plenty of BEAM projects over the years (since the mid-90s) and had made several Symets (think: solar-powered top), but I'd never made a Solarroller, except for a kit version. Still, I figured I'd choose those as my projects. How hard could a roller be? It used the same solar-engine circuit as the Symet, and frequently used a cassette motor and part of the body of the cassette player for the structure, and a couple of wheels. No biggie. So, of course, I made sure to wait until the absolute last minute to start working on the piece.

"Why I believe in maker culture"

My friend, Willow Bay, has a brief piece on The Steampunk Workshop called "Why I believe in maker culture." Snip:

All the things I do in life (which, admittedly, is a lot) are about Doing. I'm up to my eyeballs in Stuff to Do and up to my elbows in What I'm Doing because I love it, and because I so adamantly believe that Maker Culture is a healthy response to an unhealthy pop culture. Here's a glimpse at why I feel this way.
When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Which is to say, you use the tools you have to solve the problems at hand. Tools and technology do, of course, range everywhere from a wrench to language to roads to electricity. And when your tool is the mindset of a maker, any system at hand looks like something to be tinkered with and improved upon.

Willow is also the director of a relatively new makerspace in Seattle called Jigsaw Renaissance. I love the first paragraph of their About Us page:

So, here's the idea: Ideas. Unfiltered, unencumbered, and unapologetically enthusiastic ideas. Ideas that lead to grease-smeared hands, lavender sorbet, things that go bang, clouds of steam, those goggle-marks you see on crazy chemistry geeks, and some guy (or girl) in the background juggling and swinging from a trapeze.

What is your feeling about the concept of "maker culture?" Is there such a thing in your mind? It it a fad or something more significant and enduring? Has becoming a maker and participating in things like Maker Faires, hackerspaces, Dorkbots, or other DIY festivals and activities, changed the way you look at the world?

Why I believe in Maker Culture

Teeny tiny evil fairy sculptures

British sculptor Tessa Farmer makes these amazing little vignettes featuring 1-cm-tall skeletal fairies made from "bits of organic material, such as roots, leaves, and dead insects" pitted against actual insects and other, larger taxidermied critters. Both creepy and awesome. Crawsome? [via Dude Craft]

How vinyl records are made

For the last couple of years there has been a resurgence in popularity of vinyl records. Largely due to digital downloads rending the portability of compact discs obsolete, people are starting to gravitate to vinyl as the physical format of choice. In this short documentary from Nick Cavalier we get a behind-the-scenes look at the production of vinyl records at Gotta Groove Records, a new vinyl pressing plant in Cleveland, Ohio.

February 4, 2010

New Make: Online commenting policy and community guidelines

Over the years, here on Make: Online, we've had a rather open, anybody can play commenting policy. As long as you didn't use profanity, post patently offensive remarks, or spam, your comments were likely to stand. We also allowed for anonymous commenting.

While this approach allows for the greatest number of voices, we've come to feel that it doesn't necessarily foster the best sense of community. People, especially those new to DIY, to electronics, to the maker's movement in general; people who are exploring a project idea but unsure of the design or its mechanics, frequently don't feel "safe" in speaking up here. We've heard this from makers personally and in surveys we've done. We want to try fostering an online environment where our readers feel that they can more freely share their ideas, ask questions, and basically, think and learn out loud.

We also believe that allowing anonymous commenting, while providing a convenience, and the ability to post without one's name being associated, can also encourage rude behavior and personal attacks. And while we don't think the atmosphere on MAKE is at all caustic (compared to other popular tech sites), we've decided to change our policy a bit in an effort to hopefully create a greater sense of community among makers, a place where people of varying ages, interests, and skill levels, feel comfortable and free to ask questions, seek advice, socialize, and learn.

So, for starters, we're turning off anonymous commenting and implementing a "be nice" commenting policy. Before you post, right above the Submit button, it will now read:

Make: Online has a "be nice" commenting policy. Don't say anything here you wouldn't say to a person's face. We will use our discretion in removing comments we find offensive, spammy, self-promotional, or mean-spirited. See more on our Maker Community Guidelines page.

The Maker Community Guidelines spell out in more detail what we're hoping our readers will take to heart in helping us build a more amiable environment here.

This is not the only thing we're going to be doing to expand our community-building efforts. We're also going to be "datamining" comment threads more, to find new ideas for topic-areas to explore, to elevate comments into stand-alone posts for deeper exploration, and we're even going to be deputizing commenters and turning them into guest authors from time to time. Encouraging more maker participation is also a big priority in our upcoming site redesign, so this is only the first step in that direction. There are also plans in the works for the site that we're super excited about and think will inspire you to become even more involved in what we're doing here. If you've been to a Maker Faire, or felt the energy of a Faire through our site and video coverage -- that's what we'd like to instill here -- a similar feeling of excitement, engagement, skills-sharing, and friendliness. We'd love to hear your ideas of how you think we can best accomplish this.

February 3, 2010

HR Giger wedding cake

Now that's true love, true, chest-bursty love.

H.R. Giger Cake

Toolbox: Business cards

In the Make: Online Toolbox, we focus mainly on tools that fly under the radar of more conventional tool coverage: in-depth tool-making projects, strange or specialty tools unique to a trade or craft that can be useful elsewhere, tools and techniques you may not know about, but once you do, and incorporate them into your workflow, you'll wonder how you ever lived without them. And, in the spirit of the times, we pay close attention to tools that you can get on the cheap, make yourself, or refurbish.

In the next few months, we're going to be taking a more in-depth look at "Maker Business," the how-tos of turning your DIY hobby into an actual business. One of the first "brand identity" pieces that anybody going into business needs is a calling card. I know so much of our business interface is electronic these days, but everybody still needs a card for convenient exchange when pressing the flesh. I personally love business cards. I've saved nearly every one I've ever been given. I have a massive collection, going back decades. It's fun to go back through them and be reminded of the interactions that produced them, see the changing designs and typestyles, what people put on them (CompuServe and Prodigy accounts, USENET newsgroups!), etc.

Of course, the cards that get more attention, that stand out, are the ones that are truly unique and clever. In fact, I have a little display in my office with a number of the special cards covered below (Adafruit, EMS Labs, Tom Ward's dot matrix card -- and one of his flashlight cards from my demo of the same at Maker Faire Austin). As a maker, as someone who's working in a domain that's associated with innovative thinking, clever design, creative and new use of materials, embedded technologies, etc., a really stand-out card is almost expected. Today, there are so many options for cool cards you can make, materials you can use, cards of varying sizes and shapes; there's really no reason to not have a card that creates a special first impression (and hopefully a card that the receiver will want to keep, display, show off to others, etc.) Here are some interesting card ideas, mainly ones we've featured here on MAKE before.

Do you have an innovative, unusual business card? Put it in the MAKE Flickr pool and tell us about it in the comments.

Here's a card I bumped into yesterday, laser-etched onto large popsicle sticks. Lots of great possibilities here.

Business Cards - Laser Engraved Big Pop Sticks

"Photo grandpa" builds mother of all homebrew laser triggers

A reader who saw Marc's recent post about an Arduino-controlled laser photo trigger wrote in to tell us about the amazing work of Belgian photographer and Flickr user fotoopa (which, we hear, as "foto opa," means something like "photo grandpa" in Dutch). That's him in the picture above, with the awesome homebrew laser-triggered camera rig that he uses to capture amazing pictures of insects in flight and splashing drops of colored water. I'm generally skeptical of film purists, but fotoopa makes the compelling claim that no digital camera has the shutter speed necessary to do this kind of imagery. He claims the Compur #1 shutter used in his 2008 setup has a speed of less than 5 milliseconds. Technical details about his 2009 setup are available here. [Thanks, Wilco Schillemans!]

February 2, 2010

Gorgeous little needle-felted skull

From Japanese crafter うろね, who is also Flickr user urone317. [via CRAFT]

February 1, 2010

February Make: Newsletter ships tomorrow!

A snip from the January newsletter

We're about to send out the February Make: Newsletter (tomorrow morning). This monthly email letter has all new material you won't find on the site or in the magazine. We try to give you the inside scoop on some of what's going on behind the scenes at Maker Media, original columns, tool reviews, even quick n' dirty projects! We also have sweet subscription and Shed offers, often exclusive to the newsletter.

If you want to sign up, here's the form. You can also peruse previous issues here.

Dorkbot DC meeting, this Thursday, Feb 4 at HacDC

If you're in DC this Thursday, Feb 4th, please stop by HacDC and catch this month's Dorkbot DC gathering. We have two amazing presenters this month, Andy Holtin and Atau Tanka. Those involved with Maker Faire Austin may remember Andy's involvement there (and my recent piece about his work here on the site). Atau is a well-known, pioneering artist in the fields of high-tech interactive art and music. Hope to see you there!

About this month's presenters:

Glance from Andy Holtin on Vimeo.

ANDY HOLTIN : "How to Fit as Many Steps as Possible Into Ideas that Started Out Really Simple"

Working on his new project "Glance" allowed Andy to explore and employ a surprisingly wide variety of processes, both artistical and technical. He'll be sharing his obstacles and the solutions they generated.

Andy Holtin is a master builder, professor of art, and a sculptor working with computer and microcontroller-based sculpture. His work was recently featured on Make: Online. He received his MFA from Virginia Commonwealth University's Sculpture and Extended Media program. His work uses technology to create perfomative objects and interactive installations, incorporating a range of materials and processes. Holtin currently works as half of the collaborative duo CausalityLabs.

ATAU TANAKA: "Current research"

Atau will talk about his current research in Mobile and Locative Media Art, Interactive Performance, and Creative practice on Public Displays.

Atau Tanaka bridges the fields of media art, experimental music, and research. He worked at IRCAM, was Artistic Ambassador for Apple France, and was researcher at Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris, and was an Artistic Co-Director of STEIM in Amsterdam. Atau creates sensor-based musical instruments for performance, and is known for his work with biosignal interfaces. He seeks to harness collective musical creativity in mobile environments, seeking out the continued place of the artist in democratized digital forms. His work has been presented at Ars Electronica, SFMOMA, Eyebeam, V2, ICC, and ZKM and has been mentor at NESTA.

Note: Atau's colleague from Sensorband, Zbigniew Karkovski, will be performing on February 27th for DC's premier new music presenter, Sonic Circuits.

As usual, we'll also have Interdork, an opportunity for announcements and ad hoc show and tell, and Afterdork, where the coversation continues over food and drink at a nearby eatery.

February 2010 Dorkbot DC meeting
Thursday, February 4th, 7:00PM (ET)
HacDC (St. Stephen's Church, in the church's sanctuary)
1525 Newton St NW
Washington DC 20010
Google map
ALWAYS FREE!
A co-presentation with HacDC

Dancing automaton powered by falling sand

Although the "look" of this dancing-girl automaton by English toymaker Ron Fuller is not personally to my taste, I could not resist the fact that it is powered by a stream of falling sand, which is a trick I've never seen before. Thanks to YouTuber greninmotion for the video. [via The Automata / Automaton Blog]

January 30, 2010

Maker birthday: Douglas Engelbart

Chances are you have Douglas C. Engelbart to thank for what you're holding in your hand right now.

I'm talking about your computer mouse, of course.

Dr. Engelbart was born on this date in 1925. In 1967, while working at the prestigious Stanford Research Institute, he applied for a patent on an "X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System," which issued in 1970, although, per his Wikipedia article, he never actually received any royalties on it. He has been widely honored for his contributions to human-computer interface development.

Dr. Engelbart has four children and nine grandchildren, and today he's 85. Congratulations and happy birthday, sir!