Etiam pulvinar consectetur dolor sed malesuada. Ut convallis
euismod dolor nec pretium. Nunc ut tristique massa.
Nam sodales mi vitae dolor ullamcorper et vulputate enim accumsan.
Morbi orci magna, tincidunt vitae molestie nec, molestie at mi. Nulla nulla lorem,
suscipit in posuere in, interdum non magna.
This DeWalt DW911 jobsite radio was out by the trash bins on bulk pick-up day in my folks’ wealthy Austin suburb a couple months back. It’s got a nice AM/FM stereo receiver with an AUX input, decent speakers, and a port in the back to charge a DeWalt or DeWalt-compatible tool battery pack. If it’s not plugged into the wall, it can run off the battery pack instead of charging it. All that, plus DeWalt yellow. For which I am a complete sucker.
Anyway. Somebody threw it out, and I grabbed it. These cost like $100, new, and I’ve been eyeing them in the big orange store for years but could never really justify the expense. Unsurprisingly, this one didn’t work at all when I plugged it in. Getting the case open was a bit of a trick; it turned out to be glued shut along the seam. I took all the obvious screws out and would’ve wasted a lot more time and done a lot more damage looking for the “hidden” screws if some thoughtful soul hadn’t figured out the glue thing and taken the time to share their discovery on FixYa. Thanks, man! A few strategic whacks with a rubber mallet opened it right up.
Anyway, once I got it open, it turned out to be a fuse. I love it when that happens. And I even had the right spare on hand in my parts box. Happy.
Last September, I wrote over at MAKE about the Thingiverse “Cube Gears” phenomenon, briefly tracing the origin of user emmett’s Screwless Cube Gears through its evolution from Haruki Nakamura’s papercraft geared heart sculpture via user GregFrost’s printable Broken Heart thing. At the time, I really wanted to exhaust the graph of the cube gears / heart gears phenomenon, but didn’t have the available free time. I’ve had some good publishing experiences using Graphviz to generate directed graphs, before, and kept dreaming about using it to show the family tree of Thingiverse physibles descended from Broken Heart. Well, I finally got around to doing it. These data were mostly gathered manually, but Thingiverse is already tracking derivation information for things, and it would not be a great coding challenge to automate the generation of these types of graphs using Graphviz, which is free software. The SVG version, above, should be fully clickable so you can navigate to the various things as you please. If you can’t see it, for whatever reasons, there is a standalone SVG version here, and a large (non clickable) image here.
Here’s the Graphviz source:
digraph tverse_heart_gears {
graph [fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=12, fontcolor=lightgray, bgcolor=white, tooltip="REMOVE THIS PHRASE"];
/* SVG tooltips are a PITA and require post-processing the SVG output to eliminate tooltips where you don't want them, e.g. over the whole background of the graph. "REMOVE THIS PHRASE" just makes it easier to find manually. */
edge [penwidth=0.7, color="#1989FF", arrowsize=0.5];
node [shape=box, margin="0,0", penwidth=1, color="gray", label="", fontname="Helvetica", fontsize=8, fontcolor="#1989FF"];
915 [tooltip="Companion Cube by Gianteye", image="915.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:915"];
1614 [tooltip="Weighted Storage Cube (from Portal) by cyrozap", image="1614.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1614"];
3219 [tooltip="Stellated octahedron by Wootfish", image="3219.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3219"];
3575 [tooltip="Parametric Involute Bevel and Spur Gears by GregFrost", image="3575.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3575"];
4683 [tooltip="Broken Heart by GregFrost", image="4683.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4683"];
6073 [tooltip="Cube Gears by emmett", image="6073.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6073"];
6190 [tooltip="Exploitable Heart by emmett", image="6190.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6190"];
6291 [tooltip="Heart Gears by emmett", image="6291.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6291"];
6336 [tooltip="Heart Gears on a Plate by JadeKnight", image="6336.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6336"];
6375 [tooltip="Weighted Storage Cube Gears by whosawhatsis", image="6375.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6375"];
6499 [tooltip="Eccentric Sphere Gears by whosawhatsis", image="6499.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6499"];
6533 [tooltip="Gear gears by whosawhatsis", image="6533.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6533"];
8581 [tooltip="Portal Companion Cube by grimm", image="8581.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:8581"];
9104 [tooltip="The head of Stephen Colbert by Colbert", image="9104.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:9104"];
9148 [tooltip="Colbert Head Gears by emmett", image="9148.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:9148"];
9194 [tooltip="Sun Gears by 67restomodder", image="9194.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:9194"];
10288 [tooltip="Pin Connectors by tbuser", image="10288.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:10288"];
10483 [tooltip="Screwless Cube Gears by emmett", image="10483.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:10483"];
10493 [tooltip="Portal Companion Cube w/hearts by CarryTheWhat", image="10493.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:10493"];
10541 [tooltip="Pin Connectors V2 by tbuser", image="10541.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:10541"];
11253 [tooltip="Motorized Cube Gears by dougc314", image="11253.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11253"];
11660 [tooltip="Two Color World by m6mafia", image="11660.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:11660"];
12208 [tooltip="Screwless Heart Gears by emmett", image="12208.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:12208"];
14070 [tooltip="Earth Shot by WilliamAAdams", image="14070.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:14070"];
16442 [tooltip="MOTORIZED screwless heart gears! by Zh4x0r", image="16442.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:16442"];
16893 [tooltip="Keychain Screwless Heart Gears by Zh4x0r", image="16893.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:16893"];
16909 [tooltip="Big Love <3 - Heart Gears by faberdasher", image="16909.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:16909"];
17336 [tooltip="Textured Earth by bld", image="17336.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:17336"];
17713 [tooltip="Earth Gears by bld", image="17713.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:17713"];
18061 [tooltip="Stellated Octahedron Gears by Lemon_Major", image="18061.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:18061"];
18134 [tooltip="Screwless Heart Gear Replicator Plates by IWorkInPixels", image="18134.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:18134"];
18144 [tooltip="Screwless Heart Gears - Plated by toybuilder", image="18144.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:18144"];
22069 [tooltip="Gear Heart with Handle by catzpaw164", image="22069.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:22069"];
23237 [tooltip="Screwless Companion Cube Gears by LocheMage", image="23237.png", URL="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:23237"];
subgraph cluster_gregfrost {
style="rounded,filled";
color=lightgray;
3575 -> 4683;
}
subgraph cluster_bld {
style="rounded,filled";
color=lightgray;
17336 -> 17713;
}
subgraph cluster_tbuser {
style="rounded,filled";
color=lightgray;
10288 -> 10541;
}
subgraph cluster_Zh4x0r {
style="rounded,filled";
color=lightgray;
16442;
16893;
}
subgraph cluster_emmett {
style="rounded,filled";
color=lightgray;
6073 -> 10483;
6073 -> 6291 ;
6190 -> 6291;
6291 -> 12208;
6291 -> 9148;
}
subgraph cluster_whosawhatsis {
style="rounded,filled";
color=lightgray;
6375 -> 6499 -> 6533;
}
8581 -> 10493;
10493 -> 23237;
915 -> 1614;
4683 -> 6073;
4683 -> 6190;
/* 3575 -> 6073; redundant derivations pruned */
6073 -> 6375;
/* 6073 -> 6499; redundant derivations pruned */
1614 -> 6375;
/* 10288 -> 10483; redundant derivations pruned */
10541 -> 10483;
10483 -> 11253;
10483 -> 12208;
6291 -> 9194;
6533 -> 9194;
9104 -> 9148;
6291 -> 6336;
12208 -> 22069;
12208 -> 18144;
12208 -> 18134;
12208 -> 18061;
12208 -> 17713;
14070 -> 17336;
11660 -> 17336;
12208 -> 16909;
12208 -> 16893;
12208 -> 16442;
12208 -> 23237;
3219 -> 18061;
}
These data were gathered on 2012-06-06 and are already obsolete, I should note. The graph has new nodes since then.
Eric Darton’s Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York’s World Trade Center was published in January of 2001, just eight months before 9/11 would deeply brand the image of the twin towers with exactly the opposite sentiment. To right, a sparkly Dufex foil print I bought in early 2002 that recalls the mood. The reverse is marked “Dufex Prints / Printed in England / Pictures Colour Library / Reference Number 409359.”
I bought this hardshell case at Austin’s Guitar Resurrection in 1999, shortly after I moved from Dallas for school, to house the nice red sunburst slimline acoustic there on the left. When the clerk handed it to me, it looked very like the new case shown to right.
I pointed at the gold motif and said, “Whassat?”
“That,” he replied, “is the logo of the great guitarist Epiphone. I recommend black spray paint.”
He got the backstory pretty much right. (Turns out the man’s name was Epaminondas Stathopoulos, and “Epi” was just a nickname. But whatevs.) I considered his spray paint suggestion for awhile before opting for gold instead of black. A bit of masking tape here and there, a quick spray, and the logo was much improved.
This is an old trick of mine which I published a few months back on Make: Projects. I’ve always wanted to experiment with using factory-anodized color pull tabs in the “weave,” but cans with color tabs are fairly rare and it was impractical for me to gather so many. Then I discovered there was a small but steady supply to be had through eBay, from folks who collect them off recycled cans and sell them in small lots to crafters. This shade is rainbow-colored to show off the technique and the array of colors that are available.
