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We have been enjoying the Thing-o-Matic (a Makerbot), printing new things and experimenting with settings for good prints. While I was poking around the web I found a site makerblock.com that has a Profile Maker that helps you adjust your settings in Skeinforge. So, I am giving it a try but since I am at work and printing remotely I will not know how the new settings turn out until I get home. Never the less, it will be interesting to see how they improve (or not) the print quality.

This is all a prelude to moving to the Skeinforge44 code which is supposed to fix several bugs and have some good improvements. I will have to mess around with it before doing some ‘serious’ printing. I have found that printing a calibration cube is fine, but I like using a block that resembles those ones that click together (while not naming names). Not only does this model have the straight sides and corners, but also small bridges and round tubes (and nubs).

I have to admit that my son loves the printer, but is easily distracted (what 10 y.o. isn’t). So we are behind on having him print his own designs. We are working on it though.

The saga with Carrier IQ’s ability to procure information from your phone continues. AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile have all said that they use Carrier IQ to improve network and handset performance. Some security ‘experts’ have stepped forward to say that this whole thing is way ‘overblown’, that they are really only collecting metrics.

While I agree, that not enough information is known at this point, I would also like to point out that to collect metrics an application should not need to permissions that the Carrier IQ application has. Why would they need the ability to write a contact to your phone or intercept a call? Why would they need the ability to modify (write) the hardware settings on your OS? Why would the need to be able to create a bluetooth connection? They don’t need the permission for these things to collect metrics, they do need it if they want to control your phone from afar.

There are now lawsuits starting, we will see how far they get.

I will say it again, they got caught and are now trying to say ‘We only do <blank>.’ until someone can prove that they are doing more than they admit to. Wait for it…