Lee.org

• Mark Rubin: head of the project and owner of Guerilla Science
• Isabelle Engler: Concert and flame piano player
• Michael Kearny: Rubens’ Tube designer and builder
• Lee Sonko: Rubens’ Tube designer and builder

Over the last few weeks I’ve been building a Rubens’ Tube with Michael Kearney. Mark Rosin of Guerilla Science asked us to build a prototype of a piece that would travel to rock concerts and the like, blinding people with science. It’s an excellent plan.

Just a few minutes after the birth of the tube.

Practicing before the performance.

The view from Isabelle Engler, the pianist’s chair.

Last week we presented the Rubens’ Tube at MSRI, the  Mathematical Sciences Research Institute in Berkeley. It went really well.

I’ll try to show you some good video soon.

Ben Cowden, who is an excellent kinetic artist and teacher friend of mine is looking for an apartment with his wife within biking distance of Mission Bay. Possible bonus points for sharing a private machine shop. Any leads, send to me or Ben.

BART is getting new trains. The prototype is travelling around the Bay Area. It isn’t perfect. If you’d like to help make it better, visit it in the next few weeks!

https://www.bart.gov/about/projects/cars

You can submit the online survey here.

I spoke with the guy running the event, (Adam? Aaron?) and his response to my first comment was, “That’s why I go to these things, sometimes I hear about important changes.”

Here are my comments:

The LED “destination” sign on the side of the train is currently behind tinted glass. If it was behind clear glass it would be much more visible. Glass makers can certainly make a glass window that is tinted up to a certain place.

————————————————–

Inside the train, one of the vertical handrails near the middle of the train has a collar with a sharp edge that should be curved smoothed over. Maybe this was just a problem with the demo car.

To find the sharp collar, find a single chair, look for the handrail that goes from the chair to the ceiling, look for the connector that goes between the chair and tube, look just above the connector for the collar.

————————————————–

On current trains, the audio “panic” warning (a recorded voice saying “Please stand clear of the doors. The doors are closing”) regularly comes on at the wrong time. The message often sounds while a large number of people are boarding a train. It is very unnerving to hear that message while a crowd is in the middle of boarding at a normal pace. I become worried that the conductor doesn’t see the boarding passengers and will close the door on us. Of course, that doesn’t happen but the purpose of the message isn’t being fulfilled and EVERYONE ignores the message.

Michael Moran at BART Customer Service explained to me that the message is triggered when the normal door dwell period has lapsed. Instead of this, the message should happen when the train operator commands it to.

————————————————–
I’m sure you’ve gotten this complaint thousands of times before I’m sure. From inside the train, 16th and 24th street station look the same. Passengers need to look very closely to be sure they are getting off at the right stop Here are some easy ways to fix it:

– The signs at track level that read “16th Street” and “24th Street” are literally hidden in shadow. If the sign was moved 3 feet closer to the center of the platform, they would be illuminated by the existing station lighting
– The track level signs could be replaced with illuminated signs like at Powell Station.
– The tunnels could be retiled with unique colors like at 12th and 19th Street stations (that’s expensive though)
– A long, narrow strip of unique art could be installed on the tunnel walls

Thanks!

I’ve been teaching weekend-long Arduino intensive classes with some friends for the last year or so. It’s gone amazingly well. We’ve got another class coming up April 26-27 at Tech Liminal in Oakland.

If you want a huge jump start, join us. Tell your nearly-dorky friend about the class too. As a teacher, I’ve got a $50 discount code to give you: arduteach888

Check it out at WorkshopWeekend.net

I’ve been using Aio Wireless for a few months now and I like it very much. Cell service is every bit as good as AT&T for 1/2 the cost.

Send me an email and I’ll refer you to Aio Wireless. We will both get $25 from AioWireless. Write to me at Lee at Lee dat org.

That bit of musical cheese poetry comes from facebook and Charlotte!

In 2012 I took an Abnormal Psychology class at CCSF. My honors project was a response paper to the book  Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche  by Ethan Watters. I loved the book and highly recommend it. Here’s what I wrote about it.

Introduction

Ethan Watters uses four stories to paint a picture about how American culture has a powerful influence on how the rest of the world understands mental illness. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes not, American culture is shaping how these mental illnesses are perceived and treated.

Americans think about mental illness in a very particular way. This thinking depends heavily on biological, genetic, and environmental factors. But largely missing in this view are the cultural factors that shape the course of mental illness greatly. This isn’t how the ill person sees themselves but how their local culture sees them. For example, the stories told about the origins of mental illness, be it spirit possession or chemical imbalance, have a huge impact on mentally ill persons and can alter the outcome of their disease.

Continue reading ‘Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche’ »

When I got a resin filling for a cavity a few years ago, it hurt for 2 weeks after. I had the sensation that the filling was “too tight”. The dentist said he hadn’t ever heard of a filling hurting afterward and that I should schedule another visit. But before I could visit the pain faded.

Last week Megan experienced the same thing, but it hurt quite a lot. The dentist told her to take a lot of ibuprofen and call in a week. The pain has been slowly subsiding.

I’m here to tell you that resin fillings sometimes ache something awful when you first get them. Take some ibuprofen and don’t worry too much about it unless the pain is steady for a week.

If the pain becomes very specific and sharp, as though you know exactly what tooth is causing the pain, you might need a root canal instead of just having filling pain.

Virgin Mobile has great cell phone service in San Francisco but terrible service in the East Bay. So this week I got a new Moto X phone and Aio Wireless. If you consider switching to AioWireless, send me your name and email address (mine is Lee at Lee dat org) so I can officially refer you, we’ll both get $25.

After playing with it for 2 days, the Moto X phone is super-cool:

• Lightning fast
• a battery that mostly lasts all day (2 days it ran down to 30%, 1 day I made it a wifi hotspot for an hour and it was dead at 10pm)
• Google Now is awesome-creepy-cool. I can speak things to it. Last night I said, “Ok Google Now, set an alarm for 5 minutes” and it did! “I just said, “Ok Google Now, give me directions to El Cerrito Plaza BART Station by bus” and it did!

And with Aiowireless (instead of Virgin Mobile) I actually have cell phone service! So far I haven’t found any dead spots. Ask me again in a week. Aiowireless costs just $35/month for unlimited talk, text, and 500mb of wireless data. I’m excited to think it’s all going to work out well on the cost-coverage front!