Far McKon

Creating Software, Hardware, and Community

Rantings on the state of politics

Jan 25

Posted by FarMcKon in Democracy, Personal, Political | No Comments

I’d like to understand how the middle class got so stupid. America survived a lot of the ‘capital vs working’ class issues since it has a solid middle class of reasonably intelligent, reasonably sane people. People who might not make $200K a year, but who could do math, figure out their interest payments, and see through the scams and frauds that the money-grubbing class throws their way.

When did we lose that? When did Americans become suckers for the simplistic ‘us vs them’ and ‘right vs left’ politics used to drive us apart. I don’t know one person, left, right or center, who thinks this country is on the right track. I don’t know one person that thinks our schooling system is fair, that our business culture is A-OK, and that the US, or the world, in on a good track to prosper. Given the trade off of ‘what’s more important, our failing education system, or illegal movie downloads’ I can’t think of a single sane person that would say ‘why, movie downloads of course. But SOPA/PIPA is all over the news, and the slow and continual decline of our school system is not.

Folks, there is no ‘left’, there is no ‘right’. The difference between Republican and Democrat in most places is less than the difference between the Boston and Philadelphia accent. I’m disgusted by how many times I start to discuss something, and I get to the unhappy realization the other person doesn’t know socialism from capitalism, or does not know what a republic is, or what a democracy is.

Think people. Take a second, and think. Ask some questions. Read some wikipedia. But don’t believe *any* of the claims mealy-mouth candidates (including Barack Obama) without checking the facts first. And honestly, don’t trust the news sources. Go read the data for yourself. Find the expense report they cite, and see if they lied, or if it came from some dodgy regional India news report. After the 3rd dodgy or blatently wrong report, turn it off, unsubscribe, and don’t go back to that outlet again.

I know it’s a pain to do that kind of thing. I know it seems like a timesink sometimes. But so is brushing your teeth. They are both annoying hygiene tasks, that show no immediate payoff. Just do it, be smart, and know you’ll be better off than the suckers that don’t.

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On SOPA/PIPA

Jan 22

Posted by FarMcKon in Political | No Comments

“Instead of sitting down satisfied with the efforts we have already made, which is the wish of our enemies, the necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that ‘if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.’ It is a very serious consideration, which should deeply impress our minds, that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.”

-Samuel Adams (on SOPA/PIPA).

Samuel Adams

Jan 15

Posted by FarMcKon in Political | No Comments

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!” -Samuel Adams

A Modest Proposal to working schedules

Jan 14

Posted by FarMcKon in Political | 2 Comments

I propose that for every 1% of structural unemployment, the ‘full time’ work day is reduced by 15 minutes. I think this would do several things. So at Today’s 8.5% unemployment, the working week would be 38 hours, and overtime pay would start at 38 hours a week.

First, employers would need to hire more people as a direct result of this, to cover the gaps in shifts, and to account for the slightly lower productivity. At such a low rate, it would be a very slight extra cost, since only places employing lots and lots of people would need to adjust the number of hourly employees to maintain flow.

Second, it would give a small cash boost to all hourly employees if they work overtime. In a down economic time, this money will either go back out into the US economy (by purchases) or go to debt those employees have, stablizing the system.

Third, with the economic down-turn, it would give people a little more time to bargain hunt, clip coupons, or do other cost-saving measures that are hard to do during a 40 hour week.

I think it would be a simple and useful feedback system into our current economic structure, to help self-regulate during downturns.

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How is MoneyBall like MakerBot?

Jan 10

Posted by FarMcKon in Professional | No Comments

They both start with MB? Good start, but there’s more to it. Bear with me for a moment.

At 3PM today all-everyone at MakerBot’s BotCave and BotLair got together for some champagne, to toast to the release of The Replicator. Then I wrapped up the awesome day by going home and watching MoneyBall while exercising. I got thinking about it, and oddly enough, the movie is an apt metaphor for what is going around MakerBot.

MoneyBall, TL;DR version: Fictionalized story of how Billy Beane and Paul DePodesta created an awesome Oakland A’s season (2002) by buying undervalued talented players instead of buying star players they couldn’t afford.

So where is the Metaphor? A lot of people think the Yankeee’s just buy their way to wins (it’s true), and for a season or two the underdog A’s outsmarted the whole of the game, and could pick the best talent. Something not-totally dissimilar is going on in the 3D printing world. 3D-Systems just bought out Z-Corp and Vidar. They just announced the Cube which they are throw gobs of money into developing a Thingiverse replacement (tightly tied to their machine) and a desktop printer that just narrowly under-cuts the MakerBot series in price. They are trying to buy their way into the top position, with profits from years of milking over-broad patents.

MakerBot isn’t the most under-dog under-dog out there. $10M isn’t chump change, sure. But it’s a sliver of the loot 3D Systems has. they dropped $137M this fall for Z-Corp and Vidar. The 2002 A’s salaries ($40M) vs Yankees salaries ($120M) isn’t such a bad comparison. We really don’t have a ton for moeny for high-end salaries. Most of that investment is going to some amazing (and top secret) projects. As a Software Dept manager, I hate to admit I’m making 2/3 of what I did as Sr. Developer in past jobs. But then again, every single person at MakerBot is feeling that same financial squeeze. We’re all in the same boat on that one. Like the 2002 A’s we have to get creative and grab talent where we can, because we just don’t have thing kind of money to outright buy our competition.

And who knows. If we do it right, 3D printer cartridges won’t be the rip-offs printer cartridges are. 3D printers will be repairable in a way no scanner or paper printer is. And 3D printing innovation space will look more like Linux, and less like Oracle. If you want to be a part of that, “>you should drop us a CV.

My personal views only. Not the views of my employer. No warranty or insult implied. Do not pass Go. Do not collect 200 dollars. Do not taunt happy fun ball. Of course, I work there so my opinion is probably a wee bit biased.

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Obligatory New Year Post

Jan 7

Posted by FarMcKon in Personal | No Comments

Hello 2012! Here is the obligatory end of 2011, start of 2012 post. I’m going to do this in two Posts one on 2011, one on 2012. First, here is some of 2011, as I remember it sitting on this couch right now….

In 2011:

  • Left MEI for a great job at Bug Labs in NYC, working out of Bug Offices for 2 days a week, and in Philly otherwise.
  • Stepped down/away from working Hive76, due to feeling overworked, over-tasked, and under-appreciated.
  • Helped Bug Labs get onboard with Agile processes, get a scrum setup, and worked on Linux drivers for video (and other tools)
  • Worked on the house a few of us share, did painting, home repair, sanding, polishing, and more.
  • Spent 2 weeks in Germany for Cahos Communication Camp, and see friends, hang out, and watch my partner give some great talks.
  • Transitioned out of Bug Labs. It became clear they are pivoting away from Hardware, towards Software as a Service. My skills weren’t needed (or much leveraged) in that space. Good luck Bug Labs!
  • Got to some great events, like Sleep No More, MakerFaire NYC, Open Hardware Summit, Tune Yards show, and more…
  • Took a position as Nerd Herder (Head of Software Dev, basically) at MakerBot Industries.
  • Made some great friends in Philly and in NYC, both professionally, and personally.

It was a great year. When the year started, I wanted to focus a on stability, community, and focus in 2011. I think the community aspect worked well. Moving away from Hive a bit and focusing on regularly hanging out with friends did a lot for me. For stability, I got a lot of home and social stability, but job stability was a bit wanting. While the Bug Labs gig was perfect when it started, it became pretty clear later in the year the pivot they were doing was away from my skillset. As for focus, I did decent on that. I did drop a lot of problematic projects, and I picked up fewer tasks that I didn’t have the time or energy to complete. Overall, I give me an A- on getting some goals done in 2011.

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Is this the future?

Dec 23

Posted by FarMcKon in Uncategorized | No Comments

There are amazing moments any sci-fi geek has when they realize they are living in the future. As I tab through some Friday night browsing, I have a How to protect your data from the government article in one tab, an article about anarchists contribution to the Occupy movement in another.

I watch a video of House Speaker Baner censor news broadcasting of on the floor debate in our House of Representitives, and on the other hand a homophobic mayor is outed as gay due through expenses transparency.

So i turn off my browser, and get back to printing christmas gifts on my MakerBot. Man, the 21st century is weird.

Prey Modeling

Dec 4

Posted by FarMcKon in Meta, Random | No Comments

I’m reading just now this article on Predator Prey modeling. It’s a pretty cool system, and I’m surprised that I’ve not run across it before now.

I’d love to look into how this model could be used to predict companines moving into (and out of) product or service spaces. It seems that a lot of companies change their sales and features pretty responsively to the market conditions of the time. It seems this model could be used to follow and predict some of those behaviors.

This is (of course) especially interesting to me because Open Source companies (hardware and software) are probably more susceptible to those kind of changes, because they don’t have as much lock in.

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Heros you never heard of

Nov 20

Posted by FarMcKon in Personal, Political | No Comments

“Ask a kid ‘Who are your hero’s’ chances are they’ll give you the names of made-up people. Huh? He-Man, Barbie. Whatever happened to the time when hero’s were flesh and blood people?”- Utah Phillips

I struggle with how much politics to throw into this website. I good example is that
I have a post about Norman Borlaug that’s been languishing in my drafts list. Ever hear of him? Probably not. Saint* Borlaug was a plant scientist, and pretty directly can be attributed for saving 300 million to 1 billion human lives (give or take) by boosting crop yields. Just some nerd with a vision, who happened to save 10- 15% of humanity, depending on how you run the math.

How about Gene Sharp, or George Washington Carver? I’m always amazed at who make the history books, and who does not. Here’s to all of the unsung hero’s, people who’ve made great contributions to the US (and the world) and never gotten credit.

Also, I know those people are very male, and geeky. Since I’m both of those things, my role models tend to, skew in that direction too. If you have other suggestions for great, unsung hero’s of the 21st century, please throw ‘em in the comments.

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What it takes to make a village…

Nov 6

Posted by FarMcKon in Personal | No Comments

I checked out the Global Village Construction Set today, and did some looking around. It looks like a great project in general, and they have some fantastic plans. The long story made short, in their own words, is to create:

The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) is a modular, DIY, low-cost, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts.

It’s an awesome idea of a project and if you have some extra money, you should throw some at their Kickstarter.

As cool as I think the project is in spirit, I was kind of astounded at what tools they put in the construction set and in what order. Tractor, Brick Press, Power Lifter? Sure I see the use in all of that. But I’m astounded to see that the GVCS has a ‘3D Scanner‘ in it, but no Sewing Machines. And on what planet does ‘Aluminum Extractor’ beat out a ‘Washing Machine‘ on the list of tools to create in 2012? Have you ever washed clothes by hand? Don’t! It’s a waste of time, it destroys your hands, and is entirely soul-crushing. To me ‘Modern Comforts’ include clean (and whole) clothes, blankets to sleep under, plates and bowels to eat from, and windows. And to make those you need Looms, sewing and washing machines, and tools for home crafts like pottery making. I really dig the concept of the project, and I want to support them. However I think the priorities on chart hint that the organizers have not entirely grasped what it takes to keep a household or village running.

It’s also sad how stereotypical American that list of overlooked technologies is. I like to imagine the Open Source and Open Engineering community full of imagination, creativity, and driven to understand the true details as things work. Missing entire categories of village necessary equipment in such an geek-stereotypical way shows a less-than-thoughtful approach to truly understanding the system of civilization as a whole. As well as a lack of imagination in requirements creation and problem-space exploration.

Emma Goldman said “If i can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution” and I’ll have to add “If I can’t make clothes, I don’t want to be part of your DIY Village.” That said, it’s still an awesome project! You should still go and fund their kickstarter and check out their excellent wiki despite my grousing. And while you are there, feel free to add to my private page of Things_This_Village_Is_Missing_That_Make_Me_Cry.

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