Josh On Design

Progress comes not from inventing new answers, but from discovering new questions. -- some guy

The call for proposals for OSCON 2013 just went out. OSCON is the one conference I try to speak at every year because the topics are so diverse and interesting. And being just up the road in Portland doesn't hurt either. However, I'm having trouble deciding what to submit. Too many things interest me. So I thought I'd consult the wisdom of the crowd. What do you want to see?

Much like a painter or musician, sometimes I an idea forms in my head and will not let me rest until it comes out. Usually such an idea is an algorithm or graphics demo, but this time it came in the form of a game; a game which will not quiet until born.

Most book publishers don't really have a 'brand'. You buy a book because of the title or the author. No one cares who Stephen King's publisher is. However, every now and then a publisher comes along who simply makes cool books. A publisher who's books I will buy regardless of the title or author. No Starch Press is one such publisher.

Last night I declared Internet Bankruptcy.

I'm happy to say the Retro Game Crunch Kickstarter project succeeded! It was close for a while, but in the last 24 hours you pushed it over the line to 111%.

Today I am talking with Matt Grimm, the final member of the Retro Game Crunch trio. You can also read the previous interviews Shaun Inman and Rusty Moyher. There's still a few days left to help push the Retro Game Crunch to the finish line. Pledge now!

Today we are talking with Rusty Moyher, another member for the Retro Game Crunch team. You can read the previous interview with Shaun Inman here. There's still a few days left to help push the Retro Game Crunch to the finish line. Pledge now!

The Last Rocket

I know it's been quite a while since I've posted. I have no defense other than to say I have an 18 month old baby. Toddler on the move 24/7 makes for a very tired daddy.

This entry is my first Innovator Interview, Terence Tam, creator of the amazing Open Beam aluminum system launched on KickStarter. I first discovered Open Beam while doing research for my CNC machine. After being so happy with the product I contacted Terence for an interview. He graciously took time out of his busy schedule to speak with me about OpenBeam, how an engineer cooks a turkey, and lessons learned from running a KickStarter project. I think you will enjoy reading is as much as I enjoyed talking with him.

Building my own CNC machine has been quite an educational experience. I've got a better idea of what I'm up against now, and have plans for moving forward.

How to Hide Wires in the Wall

As regular readers know I have recently jumped into Arduino and hardware hacking full-time. One of the things which fascinates me is the idea of monitoring our environment. I mean not only the global environment but also our own local spaces. Sensors and computation are incredibly cheap. Network access is almost ubiquitous. This means we can easily monitor our world and learn interesting things by analyzing simple data points over time.

This is part 2 of my N part series on building a DIY CNC machine. If you missed it, here is part 1.

I've been posting little teasers of the CNC machine I'm working on.  It's time to reveal a bit more.

I've been wanting to get into electronics and building physical things for a while. I have a lot to learn though. My only exposure to micro-controllers was when I played with an Arduino for a day about two years ago. The last time I picked up a soldering iron or drew a schematic was my lone electrical engineering class in college nearly twenty years ago. My degree is in computer science with a focus on graphic and AI giving me a decidedly software-only career. This makes picking up electronics both challenging and fun.

or, an epic post in which Josh declares his boredom of smartphones, creates a new world order, and redirects this site towards evil purposes.

I mentioned a few days ago that I updated my Canvas Deep Dive ebook and dropped the price to free. But wait, there's more! I've also completely open sourced the book. My goal with Deep Dive was always to disseminate information as widely as possible. There is no better way to do that than giving it to the world.

This week at OSCON gave an updated version of my 3 hour Canvas tutorial. I think the session was well received. It was one of only a few tutorials that was completely sold out, 200 seats taken. But if you couldn't be one of those two hundred I don't want you to miss out.