Manufacturing guy-at-large.
something that i'm happy the internet does
people who take a bunch of photos of some book with their Samsung Galaxy S3 and post a huge batch to flickr.
i'm not totally sure why i like this kind of thing, but i do. call me crazy, but i think it's *actually* a service to humanity.
flow chart
i know it's famous and all, but the 1989 Integrated Space Plan is nuts. good nuts, bad nuts, all the nuts.
navigation lights
because i'm sure that it's not just me who's researching sailboat retrofits (in this case, swapping out conventional lighting to LED) on this friday evening.
my xbee day
finally recovered my once-thought-to-be-bricked Pro S2 XBees last night, and spent a little while today getting them to talk. X-CTU is a PITA in OSX - i really need to get Parallels running on my laptop - but in the end i had a coordinator sending data to a router just fine. i even got the router to trigger an Arduino Uno to turn a pin on and off, though i was hoping for a little more out of the day.
in related news, i really wish that the usb ports on the side of my MacBook were spaced like 5/32" wider than they are. also, my iMac could either 1) have a usb port on the front of its body, or 2) have a little more elevation on the backside of its keyboard so that a normal usb plug would fit without screwing everything up. just sayin'.
still, progress is progress. next up, gotta get this solid state relay to switch 120VAC by the same means. and i'm super pumped about the temperature sensor i've got coming to me on friday - that's gonna be *cool.*
with special thanks to Jordan Husney.
an app...
that takes as input a set of people who want to have dinner together at a central location. it accesses their foursquare/yelp/facebook/twitter/google (specifically, recent searches in Maps) profiles, extracts home & work locations and eating preferences. accesses MTA (or other public transit) schedules and looks for available restaurants in locations that are convenient for all parties.
middleground is similar, but seems to take just the location inputs - no social media integration, no public transit.
summer
my desk, recently
lotta clutter, but i kinda like it :)
the two types of people who offer help when you get a flat tire in Bushwick at 2am on a Saturday night
TL;DR: interested guys and their tolerant girlfriends, and cute girls walking home with some dude.
to set the scene, briefly: it's summer, and it's hot out. i'm halfway geared up - clipless shoes, baggy shorts, t shirt, helmet/gloves. my bike is as it usually is at 2am (lights, etc.), except that i've also got a pitching wedge strapped to my toptube (why isn't relevant), and i'm riding home through Bushwick and then BLAM and i've got a flat tire. the street itself isn't that busy but people are walking by on their way to or from a thing, and i'm flipping my bike over, changing my tube, and trying to make sure i don't get another flat on my way home. which is when i realize that not only is there a fairly large hole in my tire, but there's something rattling around inside my rim, and what is it but a chunk of my rim about the size of a peppercorn. i look around and realize that i must have run over a nail, and hit it dead on, and hit it just right so that not only did it go clear through my tire and tube, but it put a decent sized hole in my rim too.
so here i am, holding my wheel, and i walk into the road and gaze at the asphalt for some sign of what i hit, when:
"what are you- did something fall off? are you okay?"
it's Interested Guy.
he's rolling a cigarette, walking towards me on the other side of the street. his Tolerant Girlfriend is with him, and his body language indicates that not only is he asking if i need help, but he's engaging with me, so i jump right in.
"yeah- i think that i hit a nail just right, because it went through my rim!" i hold the wheel out, indicating the hole there. Interested Guy is interested, and he walks into the street, and his Tolerant Girlfriend follows. she's texting, or something. i tell him i just pulled a piece of my rim out of my rim, and he wants to know if it's possible it was there for a while-
"it wasn't ratt-tatt-tattling around in there before?"
but i know these things. i built these wheels, and i don't tolerate rattles on my bike. he indicates to his Girlfriend that she should check out my rim, and she glances over and then asks if i'm okay.
"oh, yeah, i'm fine. i mean, it's a beautiful night out, and at least i've got light here." i gesture at the streetlight above. there's no traffic anywhere, and a club up the street is playing Gangnam Style pretty loud. the Couple obviously agrees with me on some level, but they think i'm being a little generous. i don't want to keep them, and move towards my toolkit.
but they're still there, asking if i have everything. of course i do, and as they walk away - Interested Guy lighting up his cigarette - he maintains his display of interest, and his Tolerant Girlfriend maintains her mild amusement, and i maintain my display of incredulity and enthusiasm.
time passes. i put in a new tube, inflate my tire and am putting my wheel back on. the bike is upside down. groups pass by, talking. couples pass by, and they hush up as i, a lone guy in clipless shoes on the side of the street in Bushwick at 2am, (apparently) try to eavesdrop in their private moments.
Cute Girl approaches.
she's walking with Some Dude, but they're not, like, touching or anything. i think she's talking, and i'm leaning over my bike. i got these fancy locking axle bolts recently and they're kind of a pain to tighten - which of course is a feature, not a bug. and anyway, i don't want to disturb a couple in their private moments, so i keep my head down.
Cute Girl is a step and a half ahead of me, talking, when she breaks off, pauses and turns to me. Some Dude is about a step and a half in front of her. she smiles gently, genuinely.
"do you need help?"
i look up and try to seem unthreatening - which, given the flat tire and the clipless shoes, isn't too hard.
"nah, i'm okay. thanks though."
Cute Girl is looking at me. she's just a little done up, and her eyes are big, and she's pretty. she turns back, all naturally, and they keep walking. Some Dude does not look particularly pleased with the interaction.
i finish up. i've got grease on my hands, and it's later now, but people still walk by. i flip my bike back over and ride off, looking for signs of either of my would-be good samaritans. they are nowhere to be found.
struggling with FTDI + XBee/Fio
for some reason i ended up with a bunch of bare FTDI pcbs - most people buy them as preassembled cables - and every time i need to talk to an AVR or similar device, i end up needing to build myself a new cable assembly.
at my last job, i systematized this pretty well (over the period of nine months or so), but the pinout (among other things) on an Arduino Fio, which is what i'm using for a current project, is different than the custom PCBs we had Todd Bailey make for that project.
so i've got this fucked-up workflow where i need to find the datasheet for these FTDI chips, then find the page where the pads are labeled, then figure out which pads need to be connected to which locations on the device, then solder the whole thing up - which is tricky, cause they're pads instead of thru-holes - and then test the assembly. about two thirds of the time i get it wrong, and need to troubleshoot the whole thing once or twice before it works right. but my documentation is getting better, if only slightly.
anyway, as a public service: the diagram below works. if you're working with a Fio, you can only program it (non-wirelessly) with an FTDI chip, and if you're sitting on a bunch of unassembled chips... well, then, this might be useful to you.
now, i've just got to get it programming wirelessly :/
public radio pcb v0.1
kudos to Zach: a week or so ago, our first Public Radio pcbs arrived.
we've both been swamped with other things since then, but i'm hoping that we can get one built up in the next week or so. more updates soon.
Atul Gawande on being in the middle of the bell curve
in his 2004 piece, "The Bell Curve," the always brilliant Atul Gawande explores the distribution of outcomes in CF treatment centers across the country. as is his wont, his story ends up being not so much about medicine, but about job performance, and Gawande identifies a deep concern that any driven person must have:
Once we acknowledge that, no matter how much we improve our average, the bell curve isn’t going away, we’re left with all sorts of questions. Will being in the bottom half be used against doctors in lawsuits? Will we be expected to tell our patients how we score? Will our patients leave us? Will those at the bottom be paid less than those at the top? The answer to all these questions is likely yes.
...
The hardest question for anyone who takes responsibility for what he or she does is, What if I turn out to be average? If we took all the surgeons at my level of experience, compared our results, and found that I am one of the worst, the answer would be easy: I’d turn in my scalpel. But what if I were a C? Working as I do in a city that’s mobbed with surgeons, how could I justify putting patients under the knife? I could tell myself, Someone’s got to be average. If the bell curve is a fact, then so is the reality that most doctors are going to be average. There is no shame in being one of them, right?
Except, of course, there is. Somehow, what troubles people isn’t so much being average as settling for it. Everyone knows that averageness is, for most of us, our fate. And in certain matters—looks, money, tennis—we would do well to accept this. But in your surgeon, your child’s pediatrician, your police department, your local high school? When the stakes are our lives and the lives of our children, we expect averageness to be resisted. And so I push to make myself the best. If I’m not the best already, I believe wholeheartedly that I will be. And you expect that of me, too. Whatever the next round of numbers may say.
Steve Mann on privacy
Steve Mann sure does seem a weirdo. his recent piece on the IEEE Spectrum site is part backstory (Mann has been "designing, building, and wearing some form of [enhanced vision hardware] for more than 35 years"), part takedown of Google Glass, and partly a discussion of the implication of the approaching onslaught of what Mann calls "augmented reality" hardware.
i'll spare the technical details - and shortcomings - of Google Glass to Mann, but he does touch on privacy concerns in a way that resonated with me strongly:
But there’s a darker side: Instead of acting as a counterweight to Big Brother, could this technology just turn us into so many Little Brothers, as some commentators have suggested?...
I believe that like it or not, video cameras will soon be everywhere: You already find them in many television sets, automatic faucets, smoke alarms, and energy-saving lightbulbs. No doubt, authorities will have access to the recordings they make, expanding an already large surveillance capability. To my mind, surveillance videos stand to be abused less if ordinary people routinely wear their own video-gathering equipment, so they can watch the watchers with a form of inverse surveillance.
Of course, I could be wrong. I can see a lot of subtle things with my computerized eyewear, but the future remains too murky for me to make out.
i like this attitude. and weirdo or not, i'm glad that people like Steve Mann are out there, keepin' shit real.
currently listening to
Beach Fossils (thanks, wilis):
Jon Hopkins:
Yeezus:
and Mount Kimbie, and James Blake, and JT, and Daft Punk... but i'm not trying to be remedial, here.
early storyboard: alarm/scheduling app
in the interest of releasing early/often:
i've been thinking about how i manage my schedule and alarms a bit recently. it was originally inspired by Partly Cloudy, a beautiful weather app that i've been using for a while now. i think of time in a circular format, and want a way to organize my schedule the same way. in this way i find Google Calendar (which is my go-to scheduling application) a bit lacking: it organizes time in two linear axes, whereas my mind organizes time in a series of nested, circular axes.
the sketches below show some of the functionality of the app i've been imagining. i won't go into it in detail here, but hope to make some proper wireframes and storyboards in the coming week.
more thoughts on Quirky and supplier identity
this evening i was lucky enough to run into Jordan Husney at the NY Hardware Startups Meetup. before the panel discussion started, i picked his brain about a few of the ideas i've been mulling, and Quirky came up. i touched briefly on their business model, which i have been thinking about, and Jordan quickly corrected me: Quirky outsources idea generation, not design.
it wasn't until i got home that the relevant question about that distinction struck me: is idea generation something that needed to be revolutionized?
this is an interesting question. as i understand Shapeways' model, they mean to crowdsource both idea generation and design, and focus on being a marketplace between designers, manufacturers and consumers. Quirky employs their own designers, and leverages their expertise to rapidly develop ideas that they cull from a community of "inventors." from their FAQ page:
Q: What's the benefit of posting my idea [on Quirky]? Why not go do it on my own?
A: By all means, go build what you want to build! Our main jam is that it can be hard to do it on your own… or at least in our experience it was. And it can cost a lot, which sometimes means tricking your parents into remortgaging their house (cough, cough, Ben). But we’ve got an expert design staff, established manufacturing relationships, and a rock star sales and marketing team, plus all the tools and resources to get that idea out of your head and onto shelves. So if you’re willing to risk $10 for your killer idea, it’s totally worth it.
Quirky is definitely onto something here. they've identified a difficulty that has spawned a number of product development consulting firms (Dragon Innovation, MakeSimply, and PCH come to mind). interestingly, though, their services include two fields that are much touted to be going through a massive democratization: 3d design and prototyping. if these processes indeed are becoming increasingly accessible to normal people, and if Dragon et al handle everything from final prototyping to vendor management to supply chain logistics, then what exactly differentiates Quirky?
for one, they're a one-stop shop. for two, they have their own distribution platform. it's different from Kickstarter, where the designer can build real relationships with end users; the relationship is instead with Quirky, whose shopping experience feels highly curated.
but the process is streamlined, too. compare Quirky's "Pluck" with "Yolkr" on Kickstarter. the two products themselves are hardly differentiated at all. Pluck spent 3 months in development and has been in Quirky's store since december of 2012. it has sold over 10k units, grossing $134k for Quirky and netting its inventor just under $13k (including his $10 fee for posting to Quirky). Yolkr was launched in january of 2013; its 60 day campaign ended in march. it raised about $63k, and despite its estimated March ship date, has not yet done so.
comparing the two, i'm not sure which i like better; but ultimately that's irrelevant. the real question is which will be better suited to adapting to a dynamic marketplace - which is exactly what both companies will certainly be required to do.
supplier identity
recently i've been interviewing at, and thinking a lot about, a handful of companies that are involved in new and interesting ways of delivering product (both physical and digital) to customers. in previous phases of my career, i've been intimately involved in both product development, customer relations, and physical manufacturing. but this is a largely outdated model. there's been a lot of innovation in the product development & delivery process recently (take Quirky, Kickstarter and Shapeways as easy examples), and it's certain that we haven't seen the end of this trend.
this excerpt from McKinsey's recent post about the Internet of Things and manufacturing sums much of it up:
Markus Löffler: With these radical changes looming, who has the best chance of controlling the profit pool—those with the production technology or those who own the assets?
Siegfried Dais: I would take a step back and ask, in the mind of the consumer, who represents the final product? The designer? The manufacturer? Or the person who created the contract with the customer for the final product?
Andreas Tschiesner: Right. This takes us into the field of contract manufacturing.
Siegfried Dais: Design companies have already separated design and production. They create products or solutions for customers but do not produce them; they simply provide the specifications to contract manufacturers, who then handle production. This trend of separating design and production will continue to spread across other industries and sectors.
this back and forth brings up a few really interesting questions. i tend to think that it's beneficial (to stakeholders, team members, and consumers/users alike) for the product development process to be undertaken by a cross-functional team. but there are undeniable positive effects from task specialization.
Quirky, Kickstarter and Shapeways have all taken different approaches to defining their role in the development process. as a consumer, i find Kickstarter to be the most appealing: i accept that they're just a platform, and put responsibility for the project's completion squarely on the creator. Quirky is a bit more confused to me. i have less experience with their products, but the ones i've used (their SOLO coat hanger) left much to be desired. and i blame Quirky - not the crowd from whom they sourced the design - for the failure. Shapeways' business model is confusing to me as well. i have used their services for prototyping (to great success), but have little interest in their product shopping experience.
with all of the talk about how 3d printing will revolutionize manufacturing, it's great to hear an intelligent conversation about how it's really advances in distributed, efficient product development & delivery (brought about by IoT, crowdsourcing technologies, and new manufacturing processes - including 3d printing) that will be most impactful.
McKinsey: the Internet of Things and manufacturing
full text here.
Markus Löffler: Most companies think of physical flows—meaning the flow of material components through the supply chain—as separate from information flows and then consider how and where to coordinate and synchronize them. After the fourth industrial revolution, there will no longer be a difference between information and materials, because products will be inextricably linked to “their” information.
Siegfried Dais: Right. For example, a piece of metal or raw material will say, “I am the block that will be made into product X for customer Y.” In an extreme vision, this unfinished material already knows for which customer it is intended and carries with it all the information about where and when it will be processed. Once the material is in the machine, the material itself records any deviations from the standard process, determines when it’s “done,” and knows how to get to its customer. It might not happen right away, but things will definitely move in this direction.
taleb on losers, etc.
from Antifragile, p. 74 (or about 2:40 into part 1 of the audio version):
Further, my characterization of a loser is someone who, after making a mistake, doesn't introspect, doesn't exploit it, feels embarrassed and defensive rather than enriched with a new piece of information, and tries to explain why he made the mistake rather than moving on. These types often consider themselves the "victims" of some larger plot, a bad boss, or bad weather.
Finally, a thought. He who has never sinned is less reliable than he who has only sinned once. And someone who has made plenty of errors - thought never the same error more than once - is more reliable than someone who has never made any.