Here’s the NYTimes take on it.

For those of you not totally keyed in on the story, the same visa sponsoring agency (CETUSA) who enabled the abuses at Hershey Corp was the same visa sponsoring agency that was reckless and careless when my friends were being threatened by traffickers.

Paper Upgrade, my host, is a Portland non-profit dedicated to helping students digitize their study materials. They use DIY Book Scanners to do their work.

BrainSilo is Portland’s hackerspace. Can’t wait to meet ‘em… my goal is to get one of these scanners into every hackerspace worldwide.

Perhaps even more important, I finally get to meet Ahren and Peter of CNCRouterParts.com.

Ahren and Peter designed the router that enabled me to design this new scanner.

They’re donating precious time on their machines to cut the first four or five copies of the new hackerspace book scanner, one of which will be donated to the Disabled Resource Center to scan books for students. As far as DIY CNC goes, CNCRouterparts is the best thing out there. Can’t wait to go visit the mothership. See you soon!

“Since the light of the star which was daguerreotyped
took twenty years to traverse the space separating it
from the earth, the ray which was fixed on the plate
had consequently left the celestial sphere a long time
before Daguerre had discovered the process by
means of which we have just gained control of his light.”

Edit: Ha, I see James posted this ten years ago; I first read it in 2004 in Sontag’s “On Photography”.

this has been. The last of my twenties.

From the first

few

hacks

onward,

I knew it would be something special. I felt it in my bones. I was ready for it.

But I couldn’t know how well it would go.

Or what it would look like, when I tried it.

I wouldn’t have believed you, had you told me, there’d be midnight rides from Ocotal to Managua;

daylight runs in the Hilux, Nicaraguan electronics shops.

No one told me I’d be soldering on mountaintops,

or leaving such great people behind.

or how it would leave me. What it would teach me.

Or that I’d go down to the swamp right after

with a system we built

together

to record

the last

gasp

of a dream.

This was the year of shadows, dust and sun.

of darkness, pine, and starlight.

of music,

wire,

and welding

of argon, steel, and

sparks.

of acetone

ozone

and salt

This was a year of press

and pressure.

This was the year the flood came

and went

and took my

Droid with it.

This year, I left you. And so

This year, I missed you. Like I missed you every other year.

Thank gods I got to spend time with you, my personal heroes and your libraries

heroines

partners

comrades

friends

and inspirations.

Thanks for making things with me.

For soldering with me.

For keeping track.

For getting it.

For taking me underground – not pictured.

For taking things further

and further

Than I ever could, alone.

This year, I built

machines

to build

machines.

I moved across California twice.

I slept in my truck ten or twenty times.

I saw, for myself, disorder

canaries in coal mines,

sick systems. I did stupid things

Smart people were in on it, much of it was for the better.

I did crazy things –
like field stripping laser TVs in NYC

like making buildings

into cameras

like making new things

from old things

Always hacking something from nothing

Sometimes roasting pigs in the ground

I built crazy things –
laser folding mirrors

illumination systems

optical tricks and traps

massive arrays

faked communication protocols

hacked my own truck.

I felt

the value

of comraderie;

I learned the wisdom in getting out,

in ending early. Cutting losses.

and I left.

And in the strange days that followed, I found a home.

Gonna park my whirlwind there for a while.

One of the bad things about being the “DIY BOOK SCANNER guy” is that people always ask “DOES IT TURN PAGES?”.

Well, my friends, it turns pages.

jck57/Monson’s Servo Auto Scanner.

DIY Page Turner from Berlin Hackerspace C-Base:

dtic was among the page-turning pioneers of our forum:
Revision 1:

Revision 2:

jck57/Monson is actually building a full-auto scanner, check out his other impressive engineering:

Thanks, Cabinet. Have always loved your work. Also a huge thanks to Dima Solyanoy for introducing me to the book, and for borrowing me his so that I might scan it. Miss ya, Dima!

Few people know that Dell made high quality laptops with an all-metal chassis – the Precision line. This machine had an ultra-high resolution display, Quadro workstation graphics, and near-mil-spec construction. It has survived dozens of things that killed lesser machines. It has outlived every other computer I own. In the process, I’ve worn hand-and-arm-marks into the palmrests, scratches into the screen, polished the capacitive surface from the touchpad, and caused the paint to peel from the bottom. In a way, I think the super-crufty filesystem and ever-crowded desktop are also wear and tear. I feel at home on this machine.

This machine changed my life. I bought it in 2005 with money I earned working on Slator’s projects. On this machine, I came into my own as a 3D modeler[QT]. I authored You Are Not Dead, the album. I processed thousands of photographs and countless hours of video. This machine has been to Fargo, Moscow, Toronto, New York, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Kennedy Space Center, and Kandalaksha. These days, it runs my radio rig, decoding all kinds of interesting things. I think we still have a few solid years of work to do together.

More travel, less distance.

More action, less acting.

More gifts, fewer demands.

Quitting awful, early.

Moving on.

Away from ulterior motives.

Away from the lovesick, the neurotic, the conditional

From attachments, abusers, and contracts.

Toward risk

Of my own choosing.

Toward reward

Of my own making.

Sequence of events:
1. Key fob for my car alarm dies, I am about 1 mile from home, in Richmond, CA, in the Iron Triangle.
2. I walk to RadioShack (also 1-2 miles away) and buy battery replacement.
3. Replacement battery does not work. Can’t open door without setting off alarm.
4. I walk home and make 12V battery pack. Fob works, door opens, once. Stops working. Can’t start truck.
5. Determine key fob is borked. No spare, because my keys were stolen a week ago. RICHMOND!!!
6. Open door and set off car alarm.
7. Get angry. Convert anger to cool ruthlessness. Open hood and disconnect battery with Leatherman. Cut wires to obnoxious speaker.
8. Disassemble dash with Leatherman.
9. Cut wire ties supporting car alarm. Remove wires from car alarm.
10. Reconnect battery.
11. Pull off white and red/white striped wires (labeled “starter”&”starter motor”).
12. Connect wires with can opener.
13. Depress clutch (clutch has starter switch)
14. Truck starts.
15. Buy small “adapter” that connects two wires. Connect wires.
16. VICTORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks, little can opener:

These can openers have quite a history of being used in interesting ways. My Dad gave me one when I was just a little kid – explained its usage and let me put it on my keychain (which mostly contained useless old keys). Over the next 20 years or so I found it useful all over the place. I’ve used it to remove screws, open cans, cut tape, start fires, and now, to hotwire my truck. Thanks, Dad! Too bad the one you gave me was stolen with all my other keys AND my spare fob. But lucky that I’d purchased a dozen more for gifts.

A few lessons here.
1. Car alarms are useless. Now that I’ve done this, I could disable most aftermarket car alarms and start many cars in a matter of minutes.
2. Having only one key fob is the same as having no key fob.
3. Having a multitool in your pocket at all times is not paranoia, it is good policy.
4. The P38 can opener is a profoundly useful thing.

EDIT: While driving to buy some bolt cutters, I realized that the connection I made with the can opener is the correct place to put a kill switch in for the starter. I might also put in a fuel pump kill switch somewhere.