The Strongest

MNT Reform DIY Laptop

Modern laptops have secret schematics, glued-in batteries, and mystery components all over. But Reform is the opposite – it invites both curious makers and privacy aware users to take a look under the hood, customize the documented electronics, and 3D-print their own parts.

A free and open source modular laptop that respects your rights

Customize and repair it yourself with 3D printed and standard parts

Reclaim your privacy and security: No microphone, camera or management engine

Interchangeable and customizable motherboard, slim mechanical keyboard and trackball, each with open firmware

We are currently finishing the limited beta shipment of Reforms to collect feedback from early adopters that will feed into the final design for the campaign model.

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If you're ever asking an autistic person to do something, be sure to explain why you want them to do it.

When I was a kid, I always kept the windows open when it rained. I saw no reason to close them even though my mom kept asking me to. She never gave a reason, so I never listened. She'd say it let the rain in and I'd think "no shit" and continue to keep them open. Eventually, she explained that it could cause mold. That made sense to me, so I started closing the windows. Simple as that.

When we first got cats, they kept jumping onto the counters. Once again, I saw no issue with this. My mom kept chasing them down and I couldn't figure out why. She'd get annoyed whenever I let them stay up there. Once she told me that it was unsanitary, I thought that made sense so I stopped letting them stay on the counter.

To an outsider (and probably to my mom at the time) it may have seemed like I didn't understand the instructions or was being intentionally difficult. But I can't just follow an order without a reason. I must decide for myself if the order makes sense before I follow it, and I need the logic behind it to do that.

So if you're asking an autistic person to do something, explain why it needs to be done. It's very hard for a lot of us to override that part of our brains.

The best pull request (PR) in 2017???

At the lab this week I made some printed circuit boards with my new collaborator Jonathan Bobrow. I also learned to solder some super small components to a board.

The Open Book Project

As a society, we need an open source device for reading. Books are among the most important documents of our culture, yet the most popular and widespread devices we have for reading — the Kobo, the Nook, the Kindle and even the iPad — are closed devices, operating as small moving parts in a set of giant closed platforms whose owners’ interests are not always aligned with readers’.

The Open Book aims to be a simple device that anyone with a soldering iron can build for themselves. The Open Book should be comprehensible: the reader should be able to look at it and understand, at least in broad strokes, how it works. It should be extensible, so that a reader with different needs can write code and add accessories that make the book work for them. It should be global, supporting readers of books in all the languages of the world. Most of all, it should be open, so that anyone can take this design as a starting point and use it to build a better book.

The most important thing I can reiterate in this README is that This Is A Work In Progress! The Open Book board is probably 90% of the way there, but the software required to actually be an eBook is in its infancy; I can put a few Arduino sketches up here, but the long-term goal involves building open source eBook software, and that’s still a ways out.

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Adafruit / Beagle Bone Black / Proto Plate / 2013

Interesting :)

Decentralized Manufacturing: The New Frontier

I've already discussed the importance of forming networks of resilience against corporate encroachment in local communities before. One of those networks consists of manufacturing, specifically decentralized manufacturing. One hallmark of this venture will be 3D printing.

Given how corporations weaponize convenience to extract everything from communities (the Walmart effect), communities must be able to provide for themselves. Obviously, learning a trade and teaching it to your kids is half the battle. The other half will inevitably come down to adopting new technology (such as 3D printing) without subjecting yourself to the tech companies that will attempt to control this. 3D printing has the capability to cover building parts for everything from construction, to automotive, to even pharmaceutical products, and most controversially, guns.

That said, this has to happen in an open source environment. Playing into the IP law game will simply result in your ideas getting acquired by a corp and sued into bankruptcy. You're not gonna beat these guys at your own game, and IP laws are flagrantly anti-free market anyway (a topic I won't get into here.) If you want to protect your liberties, you're going to have to learn when to band together against bigger threats.

Here's some resources to get started: 

What is 3D printing?

Free download able 3D printing files

Best affordable open source 3D printers

Have at it folks.

Summary:

online trainings on how to use NASA Earth science data, regarding:

air quality,

climate,

disaster,

health,

land,

water resources and

wildfire management.

Everyone (Even You!) Can Use Satellite Data

At NASA we’re pretty great at putting satellites and science instruments into orbit around Earth. But it turns out we’re also pretty great at showing people how to get and use all that data.

One of the top ways you can learn how to use NASA data is our ARSET program. ARSET is our Applied Remote Sensing Training program and it helps people build skills that integrate all these Earth science data into their decision making.

ARSET will train you on how to use data from a variety of Earth-observing satellites and instruments aboard the International Space Station.

Once you take a training, you’ll be in GREAT company because thousands of people have taken an ARSET training.

We hold in person and online trainings to people around the world, showing them how to use NASA Earth science data. Trainings are offered in air quality, climate, disaster, health, land, water resources and wildfire management.

For example, if you’re trying to track how much fresh drinking water there is in your watershed, you can take an ARSET training and learn how to find satellite data on how much precipitation has fallen over a certain time period or even things like the ‘moistness’ of soil and the quality of the water.

Best yet, all NASA Earth observing data is open and freely available to the whole world! That’s likely one of the reasons we’ve had participants from 172 of the approximately 190 countries on Earth.

Since its beginning 10 years ago, ARSET has trained more than 30 thousand people all over the world. They’ve also worked with people from more than 7,500 different organizations and that includes government agencies, non-profit groups, advocacy organizations, private industry.

And even though 2019 is ARSET’s 10th birthday – we’ve only just begun. Every year about 60% of the organizations and agencies we train are new to the program. We’re training just about anyone who is anyone doing Earth science on Earth! 

Join us, learn more about how we train people to use Earth observing data here, and heck, you can even take a training yourself: https://arset.gsfc.nasa.gov/.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

True!

Monday motivation