Archive for the ‘design’ Category

My Ninja, Please! 4.27.11 : Tablets from 1994?

Who would have thunked it…

Yogurt Cups Made of Plants?

Is this really happening?

ReWalk

After 20 years in a wheelchair…

You’re Not a User Experience Designer If…

Click here for the list…

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My Ninja, Please! 4.22.11 : Open Source Hardware

Starting off as a Wiki, Marcin Jakubowski is transforming maker culture….for the better! My NINJA, Please! Oh, and happy Earth Day 2011!

My Ninja, Please! 4.13.11 : Coffee Shrooms

A couple of students learn about social entrepreneurship and mushroom farming on coffee grounds and share at TEDxPresidio:

The Evolution (Death) of Software

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Programming is deeply disappointing. We continually fail to live up to our own expectations, more so than any other form of engineering or craft. And it’s not getting much better. The lack of any substantial progress is the most disappointing thing of all. Worst of all: it is our own fault.

Most of the software and standards we use are deeply flawed. We all know it, but we accept it as a fact of life. I guess that at least half of programming effort is wasted by having to live with the accumulation of past mistakes that have become entrenched into dysfunctional standards and platforms. The problem is that it’s no one’s job to fix things. We are powerless as individuals, and we have no institutions whose job it is to fix mistakes. We need to build such institutions. But in the meantime, there is one thing we can do as individuals.

The fundamental reason that it always makes sense to live with flawed designs is that software reproduces without cost and never wears out. This is unique in human history, and we have not yet come to terms with its downside. Every other work of man has a natural lifespan that forces us to replace it regularly. Replacement is when things improve. You can incorporate new technologies and new designs. Without the steady demand for replacement, innovation languishes. This law holds true for life as well: evolution requires death.

I have therefore decided that in the future all of my software will have an expiration date. I will release it under a Darwinian License that says the software and any derivatives of it can not be used after a fixed date, except for educational and research purposes. By forcing an eventual complete rewrite, progress gets a chance. It is our duty as programmers to not let the dead hand of our own works hold back progress by those who come after.

.:alarmingdevelopment.org->

Reinventing the Shipping Container Part 5

Having delved into the background of what shipping containers are in past entries, we haven’t really gotten into the formations in which you can safely stack your containers and how you start the building process. With the help of a great article by the teenage mutant ninja hero coders, I will review some of the issues that are presented when the time comes to buy some pallets.

You can only stack containers in configurations where all four bottom corner casings of the upper container are supported by four top corner casings of lower containers.

This makes it difficult in terms of being creative with your designs.

Walking on the roof is not encouraged as the flats are merely meant for weather protection and can carry a ton of weight per square meter.

The author then goes into how to fix the containers together, creating doors, optimizing structural integrity, placing the containers, and most importantly how to move the containers.

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On which containers to get:

The only ISO containers we where able to get at decent prices where 20″ 40″ and 40″ "high cube" containers. Keep in mind that the "modular space" container type is very different from shipping containers and usually much less sturdy.

With this said if you are looking for more inspiration, check out the rest of the series.

The Inventor’s Dillema

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Back to the philosophy of science, which we’ll artificially break down into two schools, the incrementalist and the revolutionary. The incrementalist believes that there are memes which are filtering through society which will eventually manifest themselves. If Newton didn’t stand on the shoulders of giants and write down the Calculus, Leibniz would have. Some people are better at collating ideas than others, but if any one genius were hit by a bus tomorrow, then the sciences would continue to advance. The revolutionary theory states that certain geniuses push forward the frontiers single-handedly. If Einstein hadn’t worked out the Lorentz equations, nobody else on Earth would have for a long time to come. (Source)