RasterWeb!
Hoover Dam Power Plant
Hoover Dam Bypass
Hoover Dam
I was at Hoover Dam last week, and I got a few photos of the place. I’d never been to the Hoover Dam before. I’ve never even been to Nevada before, though I did once live on Nevada Street, and have a connection to the guy who used to run Nevada Power.
(Oh, we also shot a lot of other things, but these are just a few panoramic shots I did while we were at the dam.)
Dammit, we need to get NASA a penny! And by that I mean, we need to increase NASA’s budget to 1% (up from 0.5%) and if you’re wondering why, check out WTF NASA!? for some of the things NASA has done to improve our lives over the years.
(BTW, we’re currently spending way more on the military than on science in the US. I’m not a fan of that.)
Check out penny4nasa.org, for more info, and watch the sweet video below. If you are then so inclined, throw some cash at it.
I’ve got a confession to make; lately I’ve been busy doing work that’s keeping me stuck behind a computer (or a camera) and while you may be concerned that all those lovely tools in the basement are sitting idle, they aren’t… in fact, Dana’s been putting them to good use.
She’s started documenting some of her most recent projects at twocardinals.com. Yes, my wife is now making and blogging. Pretty sweet! Since I haven’t made anything cool lately, you might as well check out what she’s been up to. :)
In the past few weeks she’s refinished a sewing table, made a bird-tracking chalkboard, showed off some personalized switch plates, and protected her plants.
Though I’ve managed to miss a lot of the 3D Printing Meetups lately, I managed to make it this month, and since the speaker unexpectedly canceled, I got called into duty as a replacement.
Without a ton of time to prepare, I ended up recycling a presentation I’ve given before, about Milwaukee Makerspace and what we do there. (I did manage to update it a bit and add in some 3D printing specific content though.)
Anyway, here are my slides, which you can also find on Speaker Deck and SlideShare. And if you don’t like these, I’ve got plenty more presentations.
Recently Hackaday posted some tips about tips, which I assumed was to get more people to submit more items, and be better at submitting items. So I submitted an item, and they posted it: 3D Printed Camera Arm Saves $143.
I submitted an email with a few of the important points, and some of them got mentioned, and some of them didn’t, and then there were comments.
Disclaimer: I like Hackaday. There is often good content, and then there are the comments. Some comments are good, and some are not. They seem to have gotten better in recent times. (Hackaday even addressed the issue of negative comments in the past.) Still, comments on the Internet are comments on the Internet.
But hey, since I have my own web site and don’t just leave comments on other sites, I can post whatever I want here, including my responses to some comments.
For $7 of material — and a $1000 3D Printer — and 20 hours of design time — and several iterations and testing later — it’s a pretty slick system!
Thanks, Waterjet! I obviously ran out and spent $1000 on a 3D printer so I could make one thing. It’s not a tool I use all the time for many different things. I’m sure I’ve spent more than 20 hours in total learning how to do 3D modeling, but hey, I don’t watch sports, so I needed something to fill my time. Oh, and you don’t have to buy a 3D printer, you can probably join your local hackerspace and use one there. We have three at Milwaukee Makerspace. Yeah, I also spend my free time helping create a hackerspace. You’re welcome.
I don’t get it, is it a joke? come on, ten minutes with a piece of of wood a drill and a hacksaw could have made something less flimsy and looking nicer
Thanks, fonz! I’m still waiting for the blog post that describes the version you’ve made. Oh, what? You didn’t make anything? You just leave comments on things other people made? By designing a thing and making the files available, I’ve shared something that others can build upon. I think there’s value in that. But hey, I really do want to see the scrap wood version you’re working on. I’m especially interested in how you make hexagonal cuts with your hacksaw. Perhaps you can write up an Instructable on that.
I also learned that I’m cheap (I knew that) and I waste my time (duh) but hey, if you too need such a reminder about how you do things wrong, just post your project to Hackaday!
Here’s the thing, kids… I don’t really like watching sports, and I don’t sit around drinking beer. I spend my time learning new skills and trying new things. I make things, and if they don’t work, I try again, or I move on and hopefully I’ve learned something. I share the things I do in the hopes it will help or inspire others. If someone wants to spend 10,000 hours building a replica of the Millennium Falcon out of toothpicks, more power to them! I’m, not gonna knock them for it. In this case, I made something that is actually a useful thing, and to me there’s value in that.
And yeah, being on Hackaday definitely brings traffic to your site. This was not the goal of submitting something. I actually share this stuff because I think that’s what needs to be done with knowledge and experiences—they need to be shared. This is how we all collectively learn things and (hopefully) advance humankind. Or, you know, we could just leave comments on things.