Previously I specified a structure like:

Product Name/	bin/	bom/	src/	tmp/	usr/		assembly/		make/		use/

After a sleepless night I realised that it should be:

Product Name/	bin/		software/		fabrication/	bom/	src/		software/		design_files/	tmp/	usr/		assembly/		make/		use/

Product Name/bin/software
An optional compilation of embedded device code.

Product Name/bin/fabrication
An optional translation of the design files into CNC code such as G-Code or SBP code. Some CNC type code is more efficient than others - so there is value in being able to distribute ‘binary’ versions of the cutting or disposition instructions.

Product Name/src/software
Source code for embedded devices.

Product Name/src/design_files
The design files for the product.

This is to account for products that have a software component. Imagine you were specifying an Arduino powered device such as this ‘game boy‘.

… the best and brightest. They are the greediest, they might have the potential of being the best and brightest - but they are greediest first and foremost.

What’s my point? When the forest fire is burning thru, you’ve got the wrong people manning the fire hoses.

Over the past month or so every morning, as I eat breakfast, I have watched the Dow Jones thrash out it’s dying hours for the day. Every night I have watched the bobble-heads prognosticate - announcing this plan and that. The problem just gets worse and worse and the impotence of the experts becomes more and more apparent. To me that signifies that we’re seeing something new with this current economic crisis, I think it’s a problem more complex than anything we’ve experienced to date - by many orders of magnitude. We have created a system so complex that we can no longer control it and turning off the switch is no longer an option.

The most interesting thing, for me, is what it tells us about our future. We’re going to see more of these Category 5 storms - we’re going to have to learn how to manage them. It’s crushingly apparent that the so called batch of “best and brightest” are not up to the job. This is not is not a free-market vs. government thing, it’s an “understanding complexity” thing.

Every six months or so I listen to this speech by Bruce Sterling… it keeps things in perspective. But one of his key arguments about the singularity as a non-event is that we haven’t seen existing networks (electricity and water) become self-aware. What we’re seeing now, though, is a hint of a system (human and technological) getting reaching a point where we can no longer dictate its behavior.

Update: Turns out that I’m not the only one thinking these thoughts.

I can now say ‘i haz kitteh’. Pip and Pi are now home. Pip took a little while to settle down, but Pi pretty much ruled the roost from the word go. Thank you to MandaBurms for a lovely pair of cats.

Pi

Pip

Well bugger me… if it doesn’t rain it pours. After singing the praises of my little MacBook I got home and the thing was as dead as a door nail. It’s a $1600+ type problem to get fixed (a new machine is about $1700). So after some cursing and swearing yesterday I am back running my Mac world from an external hard-drive. Not a long-term thing, but surprisingly effective.

We’ve started to see something really exciting with Ponoko… regular traffic blips driven by products that capture people’s imaginations. Over the past 3 weeks the following products have gained a delightful level of traction:

• The iPhone document scanner by kyleakoch
• Type coasters by Alan Chao
• Stilletto laptop stand by our very own John Lewis
• One swallow doesn’t make a summer by Hammer

It’s super exciting to see the larger ‘machine’ working the way we predicted.

… just gets worse and worse. Douche-baggery of a high order.

Went to buy kitteh supplies today… yeesh, what a creepy feeling.

I found reference to this article in Tim O’Reilly’s tweets. I’m a fan of George Soros… he’s rather successful and wonderfully thoughtful. His thinking about markets and how they behave is always insightful. He stepped it up when commenting on the current situation (my emphasis):

We are currently experiencing the bursting of a credit bubble that has involved the entire financial system and, at the same time, a rise and eventual fall in the price of oil and other commodities that have had some of the characteristics of a bubble. I believe the two phenomena are connected in what I call a super-bubble that has evolved over the last quarter of a century. The fundamental trend in the super-bubble has been the ever-increasing use of leverage—borrowing money to finance consumption and investment—and the misconception about that trend was what I call market fundamentalism, the belief that markets assure the best allocation of resources.

WOW! Read it slowly - that’s George Soros implying that the market is not always the best mechanism for allocating resources.

UPDATE: And it seems the implication is close to reality.