Life Out the Window

Makerbot!

Yes, it’s true. I am now the proud owner of a MakerBot Replicator™ 2 Desktop 3D Printer It arrived last week and I excitedly rushed home after work to get it out of the box and play around. An hour later I was holding my very first 3D print: a nut and bolt. Since then I’ve been busy and here are the results: Why now? I’m not going to tell you this wasn’t a bit of an impulse. I mean, it’s not like I can claim it as a tax deduction or anything. No part of my job ...

Sketchup in Rural Tanzania

3D modeling in some of the most rural environments on earth. Recently I was able to join a friend on a scouting mission to eastern Tanzania to survey a couple of schools that were being considered for medium-sized solar power projects. These schools were hundreds of miles from any kind of grid and the solar powered would provide light for students to study at night, power for teacher houses, educational opportunities in renewable energy and a self-sustaining income for the schools. So why do we ...

Audio Technica 2050…and friends

I’ve been generally disappointed with the recording quality I’ve been able to get at gigs and jam sessions lately. I’m not a good enough musician to need pro gear but I was curious what I would need to get a decent sound without spending a fortune or building a sound studio. Another important consideration is the ability to back everything up into a bag or man-purse for quick relocation to kitchens or jam halls. The following is what I came up with. Luckily I had most of the s...

Warp Drives and the Human Spirit

in which I try to explain why faster-than-light travel might save your soul.

Vancouver Bike Map

Continuing on my new obsession with mapping and open data here’s a map I made showing all the bike routes of Vancouver in an interesting way. The first few maps I’m making are going to be just tilesets. The whole idea here is that I want to start with some interesting base maps that are devoid of labels and metadata so that I can reuse them with overlays to make them more informational. The green glowing lines are the bike routs. The blue ones are rapid transit. All of this is free ...

“The Band” Vs. Fishman v100 Violin/Fiddle pickup

For a number of years now I’ve been using the fishman v100 pickup for all my gigging. I say ALL my gigging but until recently I was only using it at the odd Plastic Acid concert or once perhaps occasionally for a fiddle jam. Now that I’m playing at least a few times a month I’ve been anxious to learn how amplified fiddle works and how it could work better for me. There’s nothing wrong with the fishman v100. It’s pretty much the cheapest pickup you can buy and it del...

An open break-up letter to Netflix

Dear Netflix, Writing this would be hard except I doubt you’ll even notice I’m gone. Still, this is mainly for closure. We had some good times. Remember re-watching the Mad Men to get caught up for this latest season? Remember guilty pleasures like trashy cop dramas, Japanese shock horror movies and teen vampire shows? And then there’s the mind-blowing documentaries you and I sat through, learning, laughing and tearing up. I’ll never forget the first time I noticed that y...

Youtube. It’s not just kittens….

So recently, and more than once I’ve had people look down their noses at me when I say that I spend a lot of time on Youtube. It’s as if I’m openly admitting to having some peculiar kitten fetish or that I derive secret pleasure from watching skateboarders neuter themselves on stairwell rails. I think there is a common misconception that YouTube is refuse bin of video vomit; a dumping ground for every crappy phone camera of every single taser victim in the world. In other words...

Paper houses

In which our hero defends himself from a zombie horde.... or horny neighbours.

My Real Minecraft House

In my ongoing education about 3D printing I decided to explore the workflow from digital to IRL and what better way to do that than minecraft? For those who don’t know what minecraft is: Welcome to 2013. Sorry you’ve been under a rock for the last few years Imagine a Lego set with unlimited blocks that you can share with friends. The model I chose to build is an actual house that I actually made on an actual minecraft server for Nerdfighters appropriately named “Nerdcrafteria...