Maker's Bill of Rights

So if anyone knows husband they know he and most of the crew are a bunch of fun and lovable geeks :)

That said, no surprise that we all subscribe to Make Magazine (Much to everyone's lament, Maker's Fair in SF is the weekend we setup the scaffolding) . And recently they came out with a special edition and in that edition, there was something called:

Maker's Bill of Rights (which I am going to reprint here without permission....so we will see how long this stays up.)  (my comments....cause you knew those were coming.)

Great rules for prop building.  Cracked us all up...so very, very true.....now if we could only follow these rules....even some of them.....for even just a day...... :D

 THE MAKER'S BILL OF RIGHTS

• Meaningful and specific parts lists shall be included. (I am not sure what those look like (sound mysterious and cool though!).  We cannot seem to agree "who" or "what" is in most of our stuff. And I think we have yet to build a prop the same way twice....ever.)
• Cases shall be easy to open. (really? Carrying a screwdriver in your pocket so you can pry something open is really not a solution?  Who knew!  :D)
• Batteries should be replaceable. (can we add "easily" to that sentence, please.)
• Special tools are allowed only for darn good reasons. (Example, the brilliant sharpie set up Dan created for doing the walls at the Nightmare Factory! That was a perfect example of "a darn good reason" and bloody brilliant! Not like the rest of our ideas.......)
• Profiting by selling expensive special tools is wrong and not making special tools available is even worse. (You can make money off those things!? - Dan, we better file for a patten :D)
• Torx is OK; tamperproof is rarely OK. (okay...I admit, I had to look this one up.)
• Components, not entire sub-assemblies, shall be replaceable. (Wow, I did not know this was even possible....really? I have been lied to...again!!! )
• Consumables, like fuses and filters, shall be easy to access. (and you should have extras, I am tired of running to Home Depot 5 times in one day!)
• Circuit boards shall be commented. (I believe that goes for coding too. Husband, I believe their are programmers out there everyday that manage to comment there code and not go insane....just saying?  Again, thanks Dan and your wonderful label maker!)
• Power from USB is good; power from proprietary power adapters is bad. (Hum, that explains the tub of power adaptors we have to keep in the shop.)
• Standard connectors shall have pinouts defined. (I am not even going to kid myself about this ever happening.  All I have to say is that all the crew has to "live forever" ...or if you start to "feel ill", please be kind enough to define the pinouts - before you die.  Thank you.)
• If it snaps shut, it shall snap open. (See, I knew I was not crazy, not everything is pryed open with a screwdriver! Or a hammer, or explosives :D ......And, "oh give that to me, I can open it" is not a valid answer......what if you die....seriously? ......we will have to build a new one because if this one breaks we cannot open it.....tell me, how in the world is that helpful? :D)
• Screws better than glues. (And we love silicone caulking....we use that to keep the water out and it is easy to remove and replace.  We know that there is no point in actually screwing on the top of the drivers skull.....we will have to take him apart tomorrow (again) to fix him anyway.....)
• Docs and drivers shall have permalinks and shall reside for all perpetuity at archive.org. (Husband? Why does he ALWAYS disappear when these questions come up?!?!?)
• Ease of repair shall be a design ideal, not an afterthought. (OMG!  I don't think that is possible on the first version....we seem to get the hang of this on version 3....or 4 or never.)
• Metric or standard, not both. (We all learned this very expensive lesson from NASA.)
• Schematics shall be included. (Does a model made out of foam core and a few sketches, thrown in a tub in the back of the shop count?  I mean I "know" where it is....but "why"?.......not like we are going to build another failure, I mean prop, did I say failure?  Silly me!!  LOL! I meant prop like that....yes, prop....give me back my martini will you...give it to me!!!........ I am not done!!!: :D)

And of course someone in the group had to add a few....because, did I not also mention that we are a creative lot? :D

• Proper electrical grounding is good. (Yeah, especially in the rain!!! And Wellies are not just a good idea.....they are part of the uniform.  And when the ground breaks out of the plug for the fog machine.....we DO NOT plug it back in the next night....no matter what husband says.)
• Slavery is bad. (Okay, good try crew, still not paying you.  The best I can do is quit threatening your lives......no promises, but I will try. I believe there is a current discussion going on about the term "indentured servitude"  :D)
• Running of Microsoft products will be avoided at all costs or we shall parish. (Duh!)

I will have this printed and framed for the shop. It will go right next to the sonic screwdriver :)

BTW - if you do not have a subscription to Make check it out because it is fantasitc....check out his great fog chiller.

Me, I am still threatening the make that cat Twitter thing....just be annoying....wait, I mean more annoying.

Oh, I gotta go....husband just brought me drink just out of reach of the computer, why does he want me to stop blogging.....I cannot imagine a reason......... :)