this morning I woke up before 5.. took a quikc shower and started my drive down to MIT. My freind neil had invited me atnd two other freinds to speak at Fab 26 .. the annual meeting of the wordwide fablab consortium.    with more than 2000 affiliates worldwide .. Fab labs are makerspaces.. usually .. but not always.. in universities.. that where folks like me learn to make things !

I had no idea what I was stepping in to . it was nearly 1000 makers from all over the world.. .. and to them .. neil was their hero !/. it was so great to see him recognized lik this !

its a week long conference.. but I m only here for the first day.> 
it started with some fun talks and panels.. lie this one with neil’s  two brothers and my freind Tome bodent. 

THey were talking about collaborating on an audio  book called ‘designing reality’   written by the 4 of them.. .. and read by tom.. who has the perfect  voice for it. 

greta tot se the brothers gershenfeld yucking it up together. 

they collaborated on a book called ‘how to make almost anythingf’ 

here was even an exercise break using a  ai/human generated exercise video.. .. it was so fun

durign the break I wodnered over to where my dorm once stood.. .. and checked to see that the samstone was still there..

it was 

here’s the wall to the chaepl.. the place the fbi one accused me of usign to hack the phoen company.. 

I hadent…
at least at this time

twas soemone else..

I did get caught as a 17 year old though 🙂 

there was a great panel of Neis former students.. ?> folsk ike Nadya. Joe jackpbsen..   and so any others that are now out teaching makign at uinversities all over the world 

then there was a segment about the intersection of the maker community and the film industry.. including a wildly inappropriate segment from family guide.. cant believe they got away with this.. but sooo funny !

then came our panel. .it was wes (VP of the NAE), Megan (former CTO of the US, Susan, former heado of Microsoft Reserch, neil and me). our panel was about bridging the gap between informal engineerign like Fab lab and formal engineerign groups like the NA. 

The panel was short, fun  and (I think) well received) 

then neil. megan , my freind David and and I walked across campus for our meetign of the IEWG .. (informal engineering worrk group ) of the national academy of engineering.. 

Good meeting.. .. we’re working to build better bridges  between  informal engineering lie makespaces, first, hackclub.. etc. and formal engineering like the NAE. 

great beign on campuss agian 

Neils openign a beuftfule neewq fablab on the 2nd floor of the google building in Kendel square.. its amazing.. all the best equipment.. beutiful light . its goign to be so wesoem 

I was walkign back to davids house. when I randomly ran into one of my ferind sleo.. who is ssociated.. (soemhow ) with neils lab.. Leo has been extermemly helpful in Hackclub,.. it was great catching up with him.. 

I sat down on campus with the thoguth of takign a nap.. but no luck.. I was too excited.. .. I did check out the stairs that are over the mIT nuclear vault I used it for my undergraduate research project. 

then back over to the new fablab to see soem laser cutter demos .

the place is full of cool stuff. like a human dress mold made of ramen 

then tried heading back to Davids again.. but heard that my freinds hendrick and johanes where nearby.. so I wlaked to see them for a few min.. 

then finally headed to davids .. so we could head to the FAB26 welcome receieption at the top of the Prudential buolidn (the ‘Pru’) 

Neils brother Alan tracked me down.. turns out he spent the previous week with my freoind Zach !

David and I had a great italian dinner. .then walked home.. over the mass ave bridge.. measured out in smoots !

David and his wife pam are hose parents of edgerton house.. its a graduate stundetn hosue. David told me that undergrad house mastwers have to make sure their chanrges dont party troo mcuh.. david told me that his probllem is to make sure that his residents party eneough ! 🙂 

david showed me his sweet lab.. a few dorrs down from their apartment.. perfect man cave !

I’m so glad I came down here today !.. 
heading home tomorrow early !

nite all. nite sam
-me

for the last several weeks our water has started tsting bad… 
really bad

tons of iron..

like sucking on a nail


I was determined to figure out what was wrong. .it recently installed a new carbon filter in the house to remove sulfer.. but this was worse.. 

oi checked all of the softneer settign and timeings.. nothing.. 

I checked the filter –  nope . it was fine

then I spotte4d this.. when I was installign the filter, I hasd to shut down all the water.. I forgot that i’d had to shut off the ion exchange tank in the softener.. 

i’ replaced the dilrer and never turned the woter path back on to the woftner tank

neche the mineral in the water..

thats truely ‘irony’ 

I opend those up and within the hour our water was delicious again.. jjust in time for a gorup of gabes feridns to come over foor dinner.. 

super nicer to see everyone !

nite all. nite sam
-me

beutiful morning.. when gabe woke up. we took thehim and the enighbor dog oaklee up catamount trail to swim 

Mid afternoon, I drove gabe  off to hustin and hannah’s wedding. in warren  .. and we walked over to jamie and icks wedding

jamie is one of the three duaghetrs of our freind barb.. who is the daugher of our dear late freind janet..   who is the daughter of grandma quinn.. who was also a great freind to us and our kids.. 

it was a beutiful gatehrign bwhind barbs hose, right on the huntington river.. all of jamies sisters, barbs sisters and brother and their families.. 

and all the sillkion freinds and neig bors thta have been our close freinds for the last 44 years !

be the DD and pick him up aroudn 11ish in warren.. we had tiem on our hands.. so we decided to go back up to jefferson villl e (1 hour) to check on dluffy and our friends

the scene wa much more hopping and fun tonight.. the music was great .. and the crowd was much bigger

fluffy was looking great !!!!. . 

aroud 10 diane and I started the hour drive from jeffeersonville  to warren..

we picked up gabe..  he’d had a gret time at the wedding.. 

then we  started the last hour (ish) drive back to jonesville

3 hours of driving has rarely felt so fun and satisfying.  !

nite all, nite sam
-me

The day started  out really nice. quit and slow …. Our brother and sister in loaw, Joe an Pat showed up. Tey usually live in Endicott NY.. but this week they are staying in Longmeadow Ma. takign care of our nephew vince and families cats .. .. so .. its only a 3 hour drive to see us.. THey showed up 9 ish.. and we got to hang out and catch up

Gabe’s in town (!!!). he’s here from Germany for his freind Justin’s weddibng.. when he woke up , diane laid out a feast of breakfast.. yum !!!!

gqbe has masterd the self timer

about that time, the day switched gears. we got a call from our buddy Duane.. Fluffy has a gig this weekend  at a festival called ‘Forest Frequency’  up in jeffersonvile . 
 
early this morning duane and aaron began the long slow trek from charlotte to jeffersoncille.. it’s a slow tri as fliuffy really cant go faster than 20mph with her clouds mounted.. 

duane was driving.. while aaron followed bbehind in duanes truck

then…..

about 45.75 mile into the 46 mile trek, fluffy clipped a power line that was hanging too low actoss stebens rad in cambridge.. 

fluffy weighs 36000 lbs.. so she kept moving .. and that pulled down a 1 0,000V ower line. the pole it was on. the transformer on the pole.  lknocking out power to 20 houses..

. all without hurting anyone..

sure.. three of fluffy’s 52 clouds were badly damaged. and part of the pole managed to embed itself in fluffys dancefloor

and.. now one was shocked..

and nine of the 200 lbs of propane onboard fluffy even noticed..

lets say theat even in a f***ed up circumstance people were exceedingly . extremely .. magically .. and wonderfully .. 

“fine”    !!

 

Duane and aaron described what had happened.. . and we were  so (!!!) relieved to hear everyone was ok !

Diane and I quickly pcked up the tools, documents and software we needed and headed up to jeffersone vilee.. Here’s what we found. 

the utility crew was there and workign to restore services.. fastbook and reddit were lighting up with the details.. 

we drove around.. n showed up at the csiite and got to work 

our job was to restore fluffy to its operational beauty ..

oen of the clouds.. D2 on driver side had taken a direct hit.. but miraculously  its led strips were intacke.. Itw fron brother ( or sister ?) D7 was not so lucky. it was shereded and floderd in half.. it’s led strips were visibly shredded.. .. 

 

and he front cloud F!.. had been pulverized.. we didnt even have all of its peices.. 
diane and I got to work on D7.. first I tried to repair the split led strip.. but at this poitn folks were sncing on fluffy and I couldn’t get everything still enough to attempt a solder repair.. 

probably just as well.. as there were probably several other things that could be broken..  

we needed a plan B !

the issue is that a missing cloud is a problem.. but it  also disables all the other down stream clouds in its channel ..  (there are 16 channels that manage fluffy’s  almost `15,000 leds )
Here’s the map of D7’s channel (Channel 2 on the driver side) 

it would have been ‘easy-ish to take the wires from the previous cloud (D6) and patch them directly to the next cloud (D)  ..   .. but then its downstream cloud D8 would not match the LED map used to map the patterns..   that might not sound like a big deal.. but it would stad out and really ruin the beauty of fluffy

Diane and I thought  for a bit.. and came up with a  work around. we put in a ‘dummy’ strip between D6 and D8 and hid it in the map pocket inside the bus.. .. the shredded D7 was dark.. but the rest of the channel looked great. 

Similar story with the destroyed front cloud F1.. it was absoeltutly gone.. F1 .. shares a channel with the pasenger side dance floor.. while important.. is never viewed with other leds at the same tim e .. its inside the bus.. while all other strips are outside and visible. so there, we just patched beteen the channel 15 octo line directly to the pssdenger dancefloor.. . we also had to add an extera power sullply and power tap that would have been supplied by the front cloud F1. 

at that poitn.. Fluffy looked just abotu normal.. and the freaky party got under way..

It was a bunch of beautiful  people .. all dressed in white.  there was a shabbot service going to happen.. and I think it was why the white.. 

anyway.. now that fluffy was ok.. diane and I could relax.. and mingle.. .lots of nice peopke.. great food, .. and an brathtakign setting 

our freinds skunk. clair and alwencia were there .. and kim and company were there spinnign fire.. 

it was a really nice party.. a little strange not knowing the guests.. but sweet 

We headed home around midnight.. 

disaster avoided !
nite all, nite sam
-me