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Showing posts from May, 2023

FSGroupWare - a shared NextStep whiteboard used by the 1993 SM1 Hubble Servicing Mission

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Seeing your app electronically distributed in the Electronic AppWrapper was a big deal back before the internet even though the ecosystem was so tiny at that time. Maybe because it was so tiny at that time. I had a tiny app, really a demo, and was super excited about it. The one tiny app was used in a tiny way on the Hubble repair mission which was awesome for Nerd Joe. I had forgotten about it until seeing Jesse Taylor's LinkedIn Post Astronauts changed out Hubble Telescope hardware during a space walk.  Someone at NASA wanted a digital shared whiteboard with drawing capability.  Astronauts could take and transmit pictures to Earth. Multiple sites would examine the same picture and share notes or markup.  They had a couple NeXTStep machines running FSGroupWare.  Displays were 1120x832 and either 2-bit or 12-bit.  I was on call but never heard from anyone. I want to believe that is because they used it and it worked flawlessly. It was a tiny piece of a cool miss...

Commercial Chef CCD100W6 Dehydrator plus Rubbermaid Commercial 6-Quart Storage container for 3D filament drying

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This is yet another example of how you can convert a home food dehydrator into a filament dryer.  CCDW100W6 + Rubbermaid Commercial Storage Container This storage bucket fits right on top of the lip of the trays or the base.  It does not fit over, outside, or inside the lip. I like this bucket because it makes for zero air gap and because it was a lot simpler than printing a bunch of extension pieces. The bucket does get narrower at the bottom so you can't stack spools all the way to the top I picked this lid because it should be relatively heat resistant having been created for food items including hot liquids. Two Inland 1Kg spools fit in the dehydrator with this tub as a lid. I only dry one at a time. The hot air actually blows up through the centers of the spools.   I'd recommend using at least one or two of the dehydrator trays. You want to make sure you have a passthrough to get enough flow to get the air back into the heater at the base. You don't want to over...

Companies can punish those that buy in to transformation

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Companies can accidentally teach people that being "all in" on transformative efforts is risky and potentially career-limiting (CLM).  They do this because joining a transformation or reshaping puts those same people on the "most likely to get laid off" list when the company's senior leadership changes direction. This behavior flips the risk-reward decision process by rewarding those that keep their heads down and those that "wait out" any changes.  Passive resistance or inaction is more profitable than commitment. Transformation initiatives spin up when companies recognize the need to change. They organize around the transformation as a top priority. This continues until the next prioritization cycle with its associated reorganization. The previous priorities including the transformation are de-prioritized. This de-prioritizes skills learned to support the transformation. Companies ramp up to transform and then ramp down those teams punishing those t...