I hate technology

I don't, really, but some days I find myself frustrated by "labor saving" devices. Yesterday, our first warm day in a while, was a good day to mill a bowl out of a big chunk of white oak, or so I thought. I had designed the bowl, created a toolpath, and started the CNC running, when about 90% of the way through the roughing stage the z-axis went nuts and milled straight through the bottom of the bowl. Nice. Now I have more firewood and a puzzle to solve - why did the machine break?

Why? Because I used it. That is my corollary -- machines only break if you use them. Of course, if you depend upon machines for income, one can become stressed about that. So I try to focus on repair, and let the chips fall where they may, so to speak.

My debugging skills always get a workout in this kind of situation, and here's what I have done - swapped cables to isolate the suspect controller channel, swapped out the known bad controller board with another of unknown condition, discovered that the second board has a bad y-axis, swapped in yet another spare board, which, surprise surprise, has no working axes.

At this point I contacted the manufacturer -- guy says "Your machine is an antique, our repair guy refuses to work on those old cards, here, buy a new one for $1,600." Well, there you go. I might consider it, depending on how many changes I have to make to my upstream design software. Oy!

So, since I can't run the machine I might as well read a book on my Kindle. But before I download a new book I figure I should tidy up the memory - there are books on there I have read and won't read again, so I can delete those, right? Wrongo, bunkie - them sumbitches is on there permanently, as near as I can tell.

I mash the button that says delete, they are still there. I touch the book icon itself it says "Downloading". NOOOO - stop it - I want it gone, not reloaded!

So I go to the Amazon site, search for "Deleting books from Kindle" -- you'll never guess what they suggest. They want you to buy a book that tells you how to delete a book. Holy schnike! You cannot be serious!

So now I am working with a sales guy over at the CNC company to see what I can work out - like the Scottish regiment -- repair or replace, for those of you who know that joke. "Aye, we've decided to replace!", which is the opposite of the punchline -- turns out I don't have to buy new software, so there you have it.

Now if only I could delete a freakin' book from my Kindle - grrr...

As long as we are talking about roots...

"E-Skin That Changes Color Like a Chameleon"

"Electronic skin, or “e-skin,” is a paper-thin, strong, flexible material designed to mimic the functions of human skin, such as sensitivity to pressure and temperature. Professor Zhenan Bao and her team of researchers at Stanford University have been investigating and improving on e-skin since 2008."

Dr. Ho-Hsiu Chou is a postdoctoral scholar of Zhenan Bao’s research group, and first author of the study. He explains that this is the first time that the three features of touch-sensitivity, stretchability, and color changing have been combined. This color change capability is a particular step up from light-up e-skin because the material can maintain a color change without consuming power...

Chou envisions this technology used “in smartphones and watches and clothing, because the material we use is soft and stretchable. By integrating with this color-changeable e-skin, you can imagine that all the colors can be integrated into one device, and the user can change it interactively for decoration or to express emotion.”

Whites Only Soap

Link to video

"Google’s Driverless Cars Run Into Problem: Cars With Drivers"

"Last month, as one of Google’s self-driving cars approached a crosswalk, it did what it was supposed to do when it slowed to allow a pedestrian to cross, prompting its “safety driver” to apply the brakes. The pedestrian was fine, but not so much Google’s car, which was hit from behind by a human-driven sedan."

Google’s fleet of autonomous test cars is programmed to follow the letter of the law. But it can be tough to get around if you are a stickler for the rules. One Google car, in a test in 2009, couldn’t get through a four-way stop because its sensors kept waiting for other (human) drivers to stop completely and let it go. The human drivers kept inching forward, looking for the advantage — paralyzing Google’s robot.

It is not just a Google issue. Researchers in the fledgling field of autonomous vehicles say that one of the biggest challenges facing automated cars is blending them into a world in which humans don’t behave by the book. “The real problem is that the car is too safe,” said Donald Norman, director of the Design Lab at the University of California, San Diego, who studies autonomous vehicles.

“They have to learn to be aggressive in the right amount, and the right amount depends on the culture.”

Ethan gets new glasses for his birthday.

Hey, Ladies, feel like having a bit of a cry?

Okay.

For his birthday, a colorblind man receives a pair of glasses that corrects for color blindness. He walks around the office surprised at the old things he sees a new way. He discerns the difference between pink and green for the first time, he sees purple distinct from other colors. Bless. He goes outside and becomes overwhelmed with all he has missed the whole time finally accessing what everyone else already knew. It's too much.

At two of the most cynical sites, b3ta and YouTube, among the many comments nobody says, "fake!" 

Instead, and surprisingly the comments are all tender-hearted and compassionate and this is out of character for both places. Surely somebody doubts. But nobody there does. One person asks amusingly what happens when you put them on your dog.

Are there really glasses that correct for colorblindness? This is the twenty-first century, after all, and we take these advances for granted. Turns out, there are. And they're only $400.00

Encroma.

Advertisement More of the same except different people seeing color spectrum for the first time and giving their impressions. One man looking through his own child's crayon drawings is sweet. He'd see his son constantly going for crayons and not appreciating the purposefulness behind his boy's choices. Touching seeing him realize it.

The project is a collaboration with a paint company, valspar color for all is another site providing a place for  people to describe their experiences and provide their testimonials in comment and video form.

Radar

"If Google has its way you won't need to touch a screen at all anymore."

"Office puts chips under staff's skin"

"Want to gain entry to your office, get on a bus, or perhaps buy a sandwich? We're all getting used to swiping a card to do all these things. But at Epicenter, a new hi-tech office block in Sweden, they are trying a different approach - a chip under the skin."

"We already interact with technology all the time," he told me. "Today it's a bit messy - we need pin codes and passwords. Wouldn't it be easy to just touch with your hand? That's really intuitive."

Relax... this isn't ISIS

 

I'm just here so I wont get chipped...

paper USB drives

IntelliPaper reveals disposable paper-based USB drives.

Gizmag

"Winners of high-profile smart gun design challenge are afraid to come out publicly"

"The Foundation received more than 200 applications, and by June it had selected 15 winners. But so far, only one winner has been announced: 17-year-old Kai Kloepfer, who designed a fingerprint scanner that fits on the handle of a gun and requires user authentication in order to fire. Kloepfer was awarded $50,000, which was announced yesterday."

More winners will be announced, the Foundation says, but some have asked that their names be withheld because of the controversy surrounding the issue.

"All the grantees have been selected, but as you can imagine they are at varying degrees of comfort with public exposure," a representative for the Smart Tech Foundation told The Verge. "Some have asked to remain almost anonymous because of the negative backlash they may face. So we will be announcing grantees on a rolling basis in an effort to protect some innovators and highlight others." (read more)

The technological innovative approach faces objections from both sides of the gun control argument. I'd imagine it partially threatens the relative safety of the status quo.

"Bye-bye Car Wash, Farewell Wipers: Future Cars Won't Get Dirty"

"Of course, one challenge is to prevent messes in the first place, says General Motors, which has been conducting research on ways to keep passengers, especially children stuck in back seats known to industry engineers as “the puke zone,” from getting car sick."

“We know through other scientific research that even if our eyes are focused on a fixed point – if we can see the outside passing by in the window – our brain is telling us that we are moving,” explained Don Shreves, GM’s Human Factors engineering group manager said. “But if our eyes are at a downward angle and do not see the view outside the vehicle, our bodies become sensitive to motion and increase the chance of sickness.”

Among other things, the research has shown GM engineers that passengers are less likely to get sick when DVD screens are mounted overhead.

"A One-Size-Fits-All Government Cannot Survive in the iPad Era"

This quick-read Real Clear Politics article posits that over the first two hundred years of our nation's history there was a movement  toward centralized government that was pushed forward by technology and population expectations. And that beginning in the Seventies there has been a shift away from centralization, beginning with the diversity of choice offered by cable TV.

"Now we’ve reached a level of personalization powered by more than 100 million smartphones. The culture of individual choice and customization is so strong that no two of these smartphones are alike. We have different apps, music and more.

Over the past 30 years, as society has moved away from centralization, the political class has resisted. Government has grown ever more centralized. In fact, the federal government today directly controls a far larger chunk of the nation’s economy than it did just a generation or two ago.

That disconnect exists partly because politics and government always lag behind. It’s also partly because politicians are not thrilled with riding the new wave that disperses power away from the political class.

The disconnect cannot continue. Sooner or later, the politicians will concede and the government will catch up."

Thoughts?

"I wanted to build a system that is capable of carrying out social behaviours for humans"

"Can't be bothered to show anyone what you're thinking? Then a Japanese scientist has the answer -- a pair of digital eyes that can express delight and anger, or even feign boredom."

"As the service sector grows and becomes more sophisticated, it becomes increasingly important that we behave by showing understanding to others," he said. "That requires us to behave differently from our true feelings." Such "emotional labour" has caused some people to become deeply conflicted and develop emotional illnesses, Osawa said, adding that his technology could eventually help them.

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Barcelona: The tourist are coming, the tourist are coming, and coming and coming...

Video: A woman hears for the first time

 

"A video captured the moment 39-year-old Joanne Milne’s cochlear implants were switched on, allowing sounds to flood unchecked into her brain for the very first time."

 

"Hearing things for the first time is so, so emotional, from the ping of a light switch to running water. I can't stop crying," Milne told The Independent.  read more

Nanny gadgets

"[N]anny devices seem to have proliferated in the past year. The forthcoming Oral-B smart toothbrush may be “disappointed in your brushing,” as Yahoo Tech reported from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week: The gizmo hooks up to an app and provides “real-time feedback” on your oral hygiene skills, joining a similar smart toothbrush from Kolibree. Last year, the smart HAPIfork attracted a wave of attention with its promise to vibrate if it catches you eating at an unhealthy pace. A company called Lumo offers a belt-like contraption that zings you into straightening your spine and has been pre-selling a clip-on device that similarly prods you to “bring your shoulders back and lift your head.” Sensoria Fitness Socks strive to straighten out your running gait."
Yahoo
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Like the author,  I have wished for a device to remind me about my posture. I even used to think about jury rigging a contraption that would resist my slumping. Are there any habits you'd consider buying a device for?