I regret to announce to the 0 readers of my little blog I am not going to continue with the 52 Things Project. Basically there are two reasons. First the economy and lack of supplies and the second is I recently came to the conclusion that I HATE MY JOB. I am putting a lot of effort into getting a new job including getting my Cisco certs updated.
I will still do some projects and post what I can.
Well another year is gone and it’s time for me to start looking the new year. My twitter profile says “Hacker Geek Dad Magician and Occasional Kick Boxer”. Simply put my resolution is to be more of the things I enjoy … Here’s how it breaks down
Hacker
This year I plan on building more things. The goal is 52 things this year. That works out to e a thing a week. To make things more interesting for each thing I build I’ll donate $10.00 to Nuts, Bolts & Thingamijigs At the end of the year if I fail to complete 52 projects I will have to donate $10.00 for every project I fail to complete to The Discovery Institute, an Intelligent Design “Think Tank”. Failure means supporting bad science. There’s nothing I hate more than bad science.
Geek Dad
OK this has two parts. Geek Dad the parent and Geek Dad the blogger. Here I’m talking about Geek Dad the parent. I’m going to do more science with the kids during 2010. I try to include them in my builds as often as possible and this year I plan on doing it more.
Magician
This year I need to perform more. I need to show at least one trick a week to someone … anyone. I should concentrate on performing over learning more tricks or sleights. I do intend to get down a Zarrow shuffle and if possible a second deal. Maybe a pass.
Occasional Kick Boxer
This one is easy … more frequent than occasional would be a good thing.
Geek Dad The Blogger
Well I was totally shocked when I was picked to be a contributor to Geek Dad. I did 23 posts this year starting in May. That makes an average of 3 posts a month. This year I need to at least double that. One of my goals this year is to become a better writer. I intend to write at least once a day and I will participate in National Novel Writers Month 2010. who lknow there could be a short story coming out of this year … maybe.
That’s plan for 2010. Happy New Year !
Well Christmas is finally behind me and I can start really looking toward the New Year. My goals for the New Year are always the same … More Hacking, More Magic and More Training. My Twitter Bio says it all Hacker,Magician,Geek Dad and Occasional Kick-boxer. Only this year I plan on getting more writing done. I am working out the details for two important resolutions for next year, I will post them by December 31st so I can get started right away.
It’s been some time since I last posted. In the meantime I’ve been writing for The Geek Dads, learning Python and rewiring Quilt Board 1 and 2. I also completed some Halloween items which I may post up. I’ve set up the Blog to be the front page of the makers quilt web sight and will be adding the quilt pages to the side bar. In the new year I will be working on this front page in an effort to improve the look and move towards making this blog something worth reading.
I’ve been working on the mini version of Eric Moore’s very cool cloud computing project. I brought one “node” over to MAKE-NYC a few weeks ago. I decided I was going to make a few of these standalone nodes and put them in jars around my yard. I’ll post up some video when I get it done.
Fear of failure has stopped more would be hackers from starting a project than lack of knowledge, lack of supplies and lack of skills combined. In all honesty knowledge, supplies and skills can be found, scrounged and developed. Fear of failure on the other hand needs to be conquered. The raod to conquering this fear is this simple question … “Whats the worst thing that can happen?” Will you spend four hours searching the net and reading articles about servo motors or perusing circuit diagrams? Will you end up with some badly cut out pieces of scrap wood that you have to toss? How about having to rebuild a circuit or once you realize you could have wired it better. Not exactly heart stopping failures are they? Now wrecking your brand new plasma TV may be something you can’t live with … so don’t hack it. If you can’t afford to lose it don’t hack it.
For those lucky hackers with kids you have an endless supply of out grown toys to hack with the kids. Don’t forget to include the kids ! Todays kids need hands on engineering and this has the added benefit of keeping old toys out of the landfill.
When I built a Vibrabot with my daughter I let her take the cell phone apart fot the pager motor. She felt like I was letting her do something she wasn’t allowed to do. Taking things apart has become a “naughty” thing to do. In part because parents bestow expensive toys on their kids. Who wants their kid taking apart a $400 PSP ? A few dollar store musical toys on the other hand is a circuit bending afternoon waiting to happen ! They will learn a hell of a lot more ripping apart some cheap old toys than from playing “Diego’s Animal Rescue” .
If writing is really the art of re-writing then Hardware Hacking is the art of rebuilding. After looking over the first two boards of the Makers Quilt I’ve decided they need a rehuild. For starters the 26 AWG I used on board is over kill and 30 AWG will work just fine. I also want to redo the LED matrix so the the 9’s and 6’s look better.
Board 1 needs to have the gears removed so I can do something cool with them and the ribbon cable needs to be rerouted through a slot on the board so the edges are clear for connecting other boards.
No design is ever right the first 100 times … that’s why we have solder pullers.
I’ve applied to write for the Geek Dad’s blog. I realized as soon as I applied that I don’t update my own blog nearly enough. I don’t expect to get the opening, due to my slovenly blogging habits, but it did make me realize one area for imporvement. I need to blog more, not just twitter, but to post twice a week. A minimum of 200 words a post subjects of interest to the hacker/geek community. If I intend to be a larger part of that community I need to contribute more.
This is a big step for me. I don’t write often enough, though I’m told when I do it’s usually pretty good. The problem with writing is you have to be willing to re-write … many times over. The only way to do that is to just do it. I have to ask myself the most important question .. “Whats the worst thing that could happen?”. I’ll have a post no one reads? I’ll have a post no one likes? I’ll have a post that upsets so many people they come after me with pitchforks and torches? Not likely ! I was told by Jamy Ian Swiss (Author, Magician and mentor) two things you need to do be a good writer is read and write. I read enough blogs so now is the time to start writing.
So where is the big problem … ideas ideas ideas. I need to be on the look out for good ideas to write about. Electronics, Science, Entertainment of the Geeky kind, Making and Hacking are all wonderful places to start. I’ll collect ideas and build from there.
As a start my post for next week will be … “Stop Worrying and Hack Something !”
I will be sampling new themes and trying out new backgrounds in an effort to make this place look better. If you actually show up here on occasion them please bear with me.
Went to Scout Camp with my son this week. We had a great time. I have some grat pictures of a snake eating a frog !
The next board will start soon and I’ll add pictures as it’s being built. I’ll also be updating the web site here at at the Scout Troops web site.