Sunday, 8.19pm
Sheffield, U.K.
Everyone should have a blog. It’s the most democratic thing ever. – Jessica Cutler
I have been introduced to Ted Lasso recently and it is very funny.
It’s also been written by someone who likes smuggling in references to how writers do their thing – from offhand comments about Bird By Bird and Calvin and Hobbes to a scene where a character is walking on a treadmill and reading which is the thing all writers aspire to do – combine what we love with somehow losing weight.
One of the episodes talks about curiosity.
Curiosity is an interesting thing – it must be what innovators and inventors and creators of all kinds share as a character trait.
How things work, what are the edges of things, how far can you push something before it breaks.
And you can’t learn this sort of thing by reading about it or talking about it or listening to others talk about how they did it.
You have to experience it yourself.
I started a blog because I wanted to know how to use this kind of technology.
I use tools like WordPress because it’s free software but its default interface is too slow for someone that wants to write quickly and often.
So you might be interested in supercharging your process with org2blog to write and post entirely from the command line.
This kind of thing happens with software all the time – you find a tool and then figure out where it works, where it doesn’t, and get a process working where you can get what you want done without screwing up too much of the time.
Now, having a 3d printer is making it possible to explore building in real life again rather than just software.
We got a Voxelab Aquila C2 last year but it took an entire 12 months before I had the time to unbox and play with it.
It’s a basic entry level printer that requires some assembly and a high level of manual setup before you get the printing working reliably.
You need help from YouTube, this video is long but excellent to walk you through the process.
Now here’s the thing – you could get the printer working, print off a test model, and then download loads of stuff from the internet or Thingiverse and get on with making stuff.
But where’s the fun in that?
I liked OpenScad the first time I saw it – it’s a 3d modelling software where you write code to create the bits and put them together to make an object.
Then you can slice it with Slic3r to create the file that the printer uses.
One tip – load the configuration from one of the test files before you create the export with a model that you’ve created.
Most people think of click and drag and modify when they think design but there is an obvious advantage to coding your design.
If you want to create something new you can just reuse your libraries and build your knowledge.
For example, the first few things we printed were simple shapes and containers.
Now I’m playing with boxes with notches so you can create a lid that slides and fits.
The first lid I made didn’t work and I thought it was a manufacturing problem – but actually I had some dimensions wrong.
I was off by 0.2mm in a line of code and that meant things hadn’t stuck together properly.
No problem – fix and reprint. There’s no need to go to the shop.
I suppose it’s just kind of exciting that the technology that powered … well everything since the industrial revolution is now literally in our hands.
The power of information, amplified through printing – with a printing press (or blog) available to everyone.
And a factory in your office capable of making quite a lot of interesting stuff.
We should be seeing a revolution in invention and creation and just all around amazing advancements with solutions to solve all kinds of problems.
But, of course, there are distractions.
Like worrying about whether you should share or post here or there, if your message is clear or not, on brand or not.
But all that slick finished stuff is what someone does at the end to put a shine on what has already happened.
The work in the middle is messy and muddled and you just have to work through it.
And it helps if you enjoy doing it.
Cheers,
Karthik Suresh
p.s. I stopped posting to LinkedIn a while back because I wasn’t focused and just wanted to explore topics rather than seeming professional and polished and stopped with Twitter because, well… you know.
I realised recently that I could post to Mastodon and think that’s where people who might be interested in similar areas might be anyway, so I’m going to try sharing there for a while.
You can find me here on Fosstodon.
Handcrafted insight 