This blog runs on the open-source Ghost platform, on my own Digital Ocean instance. There are no pop-up banners warning you about cookies. And no privacy policies or terms and conditions. Why? Because it doesn't track you.
Google provides a free tracking script you can add to your website that allows you to see an almost inconceivable amount of information about people who visit your website. Why does Google give it away for free? Because they get access to this information as well. And for one ad company to have so much information cannot be a good ting.
I've set up my own instance of open-source tracking software Matomo (formerly known as Piwik) in the past, but started to wonder why I'm doing it at all in the first place. It makes the page slower to load, and knowing how many people visit the website is not that useful.
Indeed, for my tiny blog, knowing the exact number of website visitors can be counter-productive. Now that I don't know how many people read this, I can focus on the writing instead of how to make people come to the blog. But even for much larger sites, there must be better ways to measure your impact.
I can't quite remember how I came across this comic series called Incredible Doom, but it's brilliant. It's about a group of '90s kids getting up to things on the early internet. I feel I can relate ;)
It's created by Matthew Bogart, and the best way to get them is by supporting him on Patreon. I only joined his Patreon recently, but was able to get the back issues in his web shop[1].
You can read all the issues online for free, but I would seriously suggest you join his Patreon as the print issues are so cool! The printed format reminds me a lot of Field Notes, and is similar in quality. Each issue has a “feely”, an artifact from the comic brought into the real world.
He also gives regular updates on his Patreon with work-in-progress videos, and you get access to a bunch of e-books with some of his older work. I was very surprised to even get a personalised video message when I joined. If you were a '90s kid on the early internet, do yourself a favour and read the first issue online.
If you want to build anything, you probably need to go down to the hardware store to pick up some materials, or order something from an online store. But what if you could create the materials you want to use from scratch?
An advantage of open-source design is that we can distribute the designs online so that the product can be made locally, reducing transport costs and environmental impact. Opendesk is a great example of this, where you can find a local maker with a CNC router to build furniture out of plywood based on an OpenDesk open-source design.
But we still have to ship the materials used to build the product, like the plywood in the Opendesk example. Current supply chains are optimised for centralised factories, not decentralised makers. What if we can use local materials instead? Imagine we can make it easy enough for a local woodland or forest owners to sell individual trees, and we can share mobile sawmills for on-demand wood production?
I've been wondering how this would work for other materials like plastics, and then this tweet popped up in my feed this morning:
— Ellen MacArthur Fdn. (@circulareconomy) June 20, 2018
Materiom is a brand new open materials database with recipes for biopolymers and composite materials you can make using locally abundant sources. For example, using mussel shells and sugar you can make a calcium carbonate composite that can be used in 3D-printing with a syringe pump extruder:
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I remember experimenting with creating artificial leather from kombucha as part of the first BioHack Academy back in 2015, so it was nice to see they've included a kombucha fabric recipe as well.
Image licensed under CC-BY 4.0 : Marita Sauerwein, cover image by Margarita Talep Follert ↩︎
Over the years I've built up a collection of random electronic parts, from Arduinos to loose resistors. I've been storing them in various boxes, containers and a locker at the Swansea Hackspace, but I really can't remember what's in there anymore.
A while ago I came across a blog post on how to organise electronic parts using Partsbox.io, and since they have a free account for home users I've decided to give it a try.
I got hold of 100 small (2.25” x 3”) clear resealable bags on eBay[1], to be able to sort and label the smaller components. I wish I could justify buying a label printer[2] as they look super fun to play with, but for now I think I will just use a sharpie and blank address labels.
This is going to take some time, so I hope to give an update on my progress with a future blog post, in terms of how long it took and whether it was actually worth it.
A shower thought I had this morning was to see if there's an Arduino shield that could act as a USB host, also known as USB OTG (On-The-Go), that I can plug that into the Espruino Pixl.js.
Why would I want to do that? Well, that would allow me to read data from USB devices, like the insulin pumps and blood glucose meters I develop drivers for in the Tidepool Uploader, display some of the data on the Pixl.js display, and then forward it onto a smart phone or computer via BLE.
Turns out there are at least two Arduino USB host shields, the official Arduino USB host shield and one made by Sparkfun. If I understand correctly, the official one connects through the Arduino's ICSP header, which is not available on the Pixl.js, leaving me with the Sparkfun option.
Both use the MAX3421E USB peripheral/host controller chip, so I'm wondering if I could eventually design a little dongle that consists of the MDBT42Q BLE module inside the Pixl.js and the USB controller chip. The BLE module is £6 in volume, and the USB controller chip between £4.50 and £6.50 depending on quantity. This makes it more expensive than a Raspberry Pi Zero W, even before you add the PCB and discrete component costs, but it should be much less power hungry.
Bluetooth Low Energy (LE), also known as Bluetooth 4 and formerly known as Bluetooth Smart, is supported by most mobile and desktop operating system and can be found in many wireless devices. It was developed by Nokia in the early 2000s and first marketed as Wibree, a competitor to the Zigbee low-power wireless standard.
While Zigbee is used in many smart home devices, like smart meters and light bulbs, the rebranding of Wibree as Bluetooth LE helped it to take over the smart phone market, with around 90% of new mobile devices now supporting Bluetooth LE.
Bluetooth LE has open specifications (called profiles) for various types of devices, including blood glucose meters (BGMs) and continuous glucose monitors (CGMs). At Tidepool we've had to work very hard to get communication specifications from device manufacturers in order to communicate with their devices over USB. These are all proprietary protocols which have to be developed for and supported separately, and apart from Ascensia (previously Bayer), not a single company have published their protocols in the open. Now with Bluetooth LE, having a common standard specifying how these devices should communicate that is supported by device manufacturers is great!
I downloaded an app from the App Store called nRF Toolbox by one of the Bluetooth LE chip manufacturers, Nordic Semiconductor. It has support for various BLE profiles, including the BGM and CGM profiles. I was able to successfully connect to and read data from a Bluetooth LE-enabled BGM called the True Metrix Air, after entering the device serial number to pair:
This morning I got a Pixl.js Espruino board for Father's Day. My son is not even two years old – how did he know that is exactly what I wanted?
The Pixl.js is a SoC (System-on-Chip) with a 64Mhz microcontroller and Bluetooth Low Energy module. It's an Espruino board, so you program it in JavaScript. It has a little LCD screen just like the ones in those old Nokia phones. Pixl.js's form factor is Arduino compatible, so you can plug in Arduino shields like WiFi or GSM. It can run on a coin cell battery or is powered via USB (power-only).
It works over Web Bluetooth, so you connect to it from the Espruino Web IDE. The only thing I had to do to get it working on Ubuntu 18.04 was to enable the “Experimental Web Platform Features” under chrome:flags on Chrome and then go to espruino.com/ide.
I then tried to get it working on my iPad. Unfortunately Web Bluetooth is not yet supported on Safari, but there is a WebBLE browser you can download from the app store (for £2) that does. It's a very basic browser, but all you really need it for is to run the Espruino Web IDE. That I can program a little microcontroller over Bluetooth from my iPad blows my mind!
This morning I was watching Estefannie Explains it All on YouTube making a Daft Punk helmet using her new 3D printer.
She was 3D printing a mold and using that to vacuum form a visor out of a PETG plastic sheet. What I love about her videos is that she shows everything, including her failures, like completely melting the plastic sheet or gluing the box to her workbench by accident.
I've watched other makers on YouTube and usually feel inadequate when I look at their amazing skill set, even though I have a Masters degree in computer engineering and a PhD in industrial design. With Estefannie, it's refreshing to see how she's learning as she's making and sharing the whole process.
As she was making the vacuum forming box I noticed many things that could be improved, for example how she was clamping things to her workbench. Instead of pointing that out in the comment section (which I'm sure many people will do) it reminded me that I don't have to know how to do everything perfectly before starting, and that even if you make mistakes you can still make something awesome.
I used to think that looking at great maker projects will inspire me to make things. That's not true – looking at the process, including all the failures and mistakes, is what provides true inspiration.
I first came across solarpunk on the decentralized social network Scuttlebutt[1]. Like steampunk, and later dieselpunk, solarpunk is a certain narrative and aesthetic about the future. The article “What is Solarpunk?” does a pretty good job at explaining what it is.
On Scuttlebutt I discovered a whole community interested in solarpunk, and someone mentioned that there was a Kickstarter project to translate a Brazilian anthology of solarpunk stories into English. I backed the project, and ended up with two collections of solarpunk short stories in e-book format:
I'm actually reading both of them at the same time. I've found “Glass and Gardens” a bit easier to read as it was originally written in English, with “Solarpunk” being quite awkward in places due to the translation from Portuguese. Hey, maybe I'll put a review up here once I finished reading them!
I enjoy listening to podcasts when I'm out on a run or walking to town. Overcast is my podcast player of choice, at least until Apple releases the next version of their Podcasts app that will let me store podcasts on my watch.
In no specific order, here are my favourite three podcasts at the moment:
Do by Friday: Merlin Mann, Alex Cox and Max Temkin (the last two from Cards Against Humanity) have a weekly show where they discuss tech, politics and pop culture. And there's a weekly challenge.
The Prepared: Spencer Wright and Zach Dunham created The Public Radio, a single-channel station FM radio in a jar. In this podcast they talk to designers and engineers about manufacturing.
Thorougly Considered: Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt are Studio Neat, creators of the Glif tripod mount for smartphones (amongst other things). They talk about product design, crowdfunding and indie manufacturing, with host Myke Hurley of Relay FM.
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