Silnylon at a decent price, limited colour

"If I hated these pieces, I would say they were full of bathos, self-seriousness, and chaos. And I would be right. And I would be missing the point that these qualities are what make two quite different essays both brilliant to me, because even when I resist their points, they push me along axes that I did not know to look for. This would not happen if they told me what I already knew of.

What they say matters to me because they have become vulnerable by putting things in their own terms and risking overreach…

I participate in certain subcultures where a lot of weight is put on being smart and getting smarter. But it seems to me that for an awful lot of people trying to do good things, IQ is not a limiting factor. If you are smart but ignorant or smart but lack empathy, you are only better at coming up with justifications for the ways in which you are wrong."

USB IO board to control stuff from USB. About $22 here: http://electronics-diy.com/store.php?sel=kits&sub=USB_IO_Board

Control a power outlet with a relay.

USB sensing and control

Adding a relay to a power strip to control power-line stuff with Arduino.

DecisionMaker Plus, a new app that provides users with a fast way to make a quick decision, is helping people all over the world decide what to wear, where to go on vacation, and what to do next weekend, among other things. The app, which was created by Hacker Group a digital/direct marketing agency in honor of its 25th anniversary, is also helping raise money for Gilda's Club Seattle, a cancer support organization. Indecision has never looked so promising.

More than a gift, the mix tape I considered a document whose unprepossessing, mass-market exterior belied its contents: a high-fidelity analogue of a teen’s deep and complicated interiority.

...Born of its maker’s circumstances, scrimshaw documents for those far away the seagoing life and its particulars — the whaling ship, fish-scented and cold; the white immensity of ice; the dark, dull winter; the crushing isolation. Simple gifts carved from teeth and bone, they exemplify what sociologist Michel de Certeau calls acts of “everyday creativity,” which help to elevate us above adverse circumstances. The creative act, usually some type of unalienated material labor (sewing, drawing, writing, cooking, etc.), frees us from the constraints of a society dependent on incessant getting and spending. Within the context of the whaling ship, the act of scrimshaw allowed sailors to articulate inchoate experience through craft and, by doing so, transcend, at least imaginatively, their isolation. Out of this act came a gift in the truest sense, one which cannot be reciprocated; for in those combs and pipes the giver objectified the contents of his individual experience.

Though life today militates against devoting time to painstaking creative acts, the mix tape stands as a vestige of everyday artistry. Cobbled together from found cultural objects, it like scrimshaw embodies an individual’s experience of the world. As such, it achieves as much authenticity as any carved bit of tooth or bone.

"I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there's sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I'm slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you're a maker, think of your own case. Don't your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don't. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off."

rapid prototype machine that bends metal wire to produce 2D or 3D shapes

The Business of Making, May 11, 2012 at 11:30AM, from MAKE http://blog.makezine.com