The Ole Filter makes a pass, after a quiet weekend of coding...

(Lamu Island looks like a nice place for coding, too :)

I've been experimenting with updating the firmware on my MakerBot Replicator 2, to make it easier (and more accurate) to change filament mid-print (and thereby change color).  There isn't a lot of documentation so it isn't easy, but it's possible, and that's what makes this so cool. 

The print at left is tiny - about 20mm x 10mm - and has exact color changes on layer transitions.  Progress...

Open source pioneer Eric Raymond contemplates the myth of the fall.  "A lot of younger hackers have a simplified and somewhat mythologized view of how our culture evolved, one which tends to back-project today’s conditions onto the past... In particular, many of us never knew – or are in the process of forgetting – how dependent we used to be on proprietary software."  Indeed. 

So have you / are you planning to watch Cosmos?  I'm not a TV watcher - at all - but I was intrigued by this series after reading a glowing New Yorker article about Neil deGrasse Tyson, the new emcee.  I like that they're continuing in the spirit of the old series a la Carl Sagan, but at the same time doing things in an updated way.  Sounds like they're off to a good start:  I wish them well; there are so few channels to expose the man on the street to the majesty of science. 

BTW it sucks that President Obama had to get into this act.  Just because Tyson is black, I suppose.  Blech.

Here's something Obama could worry about: the Demise of the American Dream.  Check out that "welfare cliff"; a single Mom is better off earning $29,000 than $69,000.  And you and I pay the difference.  

Related: James Suroweiki examines the Mobility Myth.  People incentivized by their government not to work harder are not going to be upwardly mobile.  Another unintended consequence of bad policy. 

Where Apple design is headed in 2014.  "iOS 7 is a series of solvable problems. The things you could label as deficiencies are mostly a result of that swinging pendulum - an overcorrection of skeuomorphism."  I agree but I wish the pendulum would swing back as soon as possible. 

This is not a frame from a science fiction movie.  "It's an actual image from the successful Morpheus vehicle test completed today at the Kennedy Space Center's Shuttle Landing Facility."  Awesome!  Check out the video at the link, too...