[hackerspaces] Tool marking

[Matthew Forr]

>
> 6. Behavioral hack: Train your people find out who something belongs to
> before they change its status permanently as in throw it out, take it away,
> tear it up, be a maker unto it, etc. This has worked best for us, I think.
>  Since we all have phones, it isn't usually hard to get to someone that day
> (or minute) and get an answer.  Teaches us antisocial geeks some social
> skills - how to make a phone call, etc.  This isn't the wastelands, ask a
> brother before you hump on a piece of unattended gear. This fosters
> closeness between members.
>

We specifically have a 'junk self', 'tool shelf' and 'personal property
shelf' but there's always things that fall in between and I think this
philosophy deals with it the best. We've always talked about doing an
inventory system or labeling or something but that requires manhours that
could be better spent on hacking.

On Thu, Apr 22, 2010 at 10:36 AM, Danozano <danozano at gmail.com> wrote:

> >So I was thinking, there is some stuff in the space that we shouldn't
> hack. Like the wifi robot tank. What are peoples thoughts on a small sticker
> you can put on things you donate/lend/the space buys, that denotes that some
> thing is a hacking tool. I suggest this as something like a hammer is
> obviously a tool and should stay that way,
>
> 1. Electro-etching (not electro-engraving) is forever, and easy to do with
> homemade gear.  You would have to grind it off to get it off, and I like
> that.
>
> 2. Labels come off tools if they are being used properly -- getting dirty
> with oil and chems, getting banged around in a toolbox, cleaned off with gas
> or solvent at times, etc. Permanent marks or paint are lots harder to make
> fall off.
>
> 2a. Pro-tip: Polyester or aluminum labels with very aggressive adhesive are
> available from Seton Nameplate and many other companies.  For free samples,
> ask all the industrial marking companies for test labels or samples of
> whatever type you fancy.. I recommend the aluminum ones for permanence, see
> what they have and ask away.  Most label shops will gladly pull a few feet
> of labels of any kind off a roll of their overruns or scrap for your sample
> -- you can overstrike the aluminum ones with a typewriter (a what?) or any
> common nuclear scribing punch.
>
> 2b. Your local printing paper supplier may also have a liberal sample
> policy. Get some business cards made and get in there, slugger.  SoCal
> users, look for Kirk Paper -- they encourage you to take as many samples of
> authentically cool papers as you want. Sticker stock, safety paper,
> claycoat, krome-kote, all KINDS of great stuff to play with and keep in the
> fun scraps bins.
>
> 3. Maybe we use our tools really hard, i don't know what  your tool usage
> is like. Does your stuff get used hard physically, do you do car repairs and
> gunsmithing and toolmaking, forging titanium, what? If you only ever use
> tools to do white-shirted geek stuff and pull molex pins, cut resistor
> leads, labels might be perfect.
>
> 4. I would love to foster the mutative process by making fine new stickers
> with UNKNOWN  acronyms and symbols, slightly more urgent in appearance than
> the existing generation of labels, to confound people.  FUN! ....like
> filestorage on DNS, it may not be practical, but fun!
>
> >The QR-codes lets anyone with a camera-phone scan the labels and we have a
> couple of camera-phone that are lying around in the space
>
> 5. Are you seasoned QR-code users absolutely thrilled with the way those
> work, and your results? I have only really used QR codes a few times, but to
> me, this seems like a place to use visible  initials for personal tools, so
> they can be read directly by a human.  Do you really feel a sense of gain
> from the QR's? Is the phone handy enough and fast enough to get used?
>
> 6. Behavioral hack: Train your people find out who something belongs to
> before they change its status permanently as in throw it out, take it away,
> tear it up, be a maker unto it, etc. This has worked best for us, I think.
>  Since we all have phones, it isn't usually hard to get to someone that day
> (or minute) and get an answer.  Teaches us antisocial geeks some social
> skills - how to make a phone call, etc.  This isn't the wastelands, ask a
> brother before you hump on a piece of unattended gear. This fosters
> closeness between members.
>
> > them as a tool, meaning you wouldn't come in to find your line following
> robot was now a flame throwing attack droid!
>
> 7. AS IF i wouldn't buy multibeers for the person who upconverted the
> shop's line-following robot into a flame-spewing attack droid.  That's a
> worthy project.
>
>
> Danozano - shop.23b.org
>
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>



-- 
-Matthew
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