2013年3月31日日曜日

Sanders Bill

Source: CommonDreams New Sanders Bill Would Break Up Big Banks

We have a situation now where Wall Street banks are not only too big to fail, they are too big to jail. That is unacceptable and that has got to change because America is based on a system of law and justice.” says U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.  If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.”




What is the background of this quote?
The 10 largest banks in the United States are bigger now than before a taxpayer bailout following the 2008 financial crisis. At the time Congress, over Sanders’ objection, approved a $700 billion bank rescue because of concerns by some that the financial institutions were too big to fail. Another $16 trillion from the Federal Reserve propped up financial institutions.  
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. now says the Justice Department may not pursue criminal cases against big banks because filing charges could “have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.” 
“In other words,” Sanders said, “we have a situation now where Wall Street banks are not only too big to fail, they are too big to jail. That is unacceptable and that has got to change because America is based on a system of law and justice.” 
6 largest financial institutions in US have assets equal to about 2/3 of US GDP
U.S. banks have become so big that the six largest financial institutions in this country (J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanley) today have assets of nearly $9.6 trillion, a figure equal to about two-thirds of the nation’s gross domestic product. These six financial institutions issue more than two-thirds of all credit cards, over half of all mortgages, control 95 percent of all derivatives held in financial institutions and hold more than 40 percent of all bank deposits in the United States. 
So what is he proposing to this problem?

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said today he will introduce legislation to break up banks that have grown so big that the Justice Department has not pursued prosecutions for fear an indictment would harm the financial system.  
Sanders’ legislation would give Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew 90 days to compile a list of commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds and insurance companies that he deems too big to fail. The affected financial institutions would include “any entity that has grown so large that its failure would have a catastrophic effect on the stability of either the financial system or the United States economy without substantial government assistance.”  
Within one year after the legislation became law, the Treasury Department would be required to break up those banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions identified by the secretary.  
“If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist,” Sanders said. “No single financial institution should be so large that its failure would cause catastrophic risk to millions of American jobs or to our nation’s economic wellbeing. No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis,” Sanders said. “We need to break up these institutions because they have done of the tremendous damage they have done to our economy.”


Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer. -Fumi Yamazaki

2013年3月24日日曜日

Makerbot!

I've tried 3D printing using Makerbot for the first time! Since I think many people will be doing similar things in the future, I will document what I did here and add links to some of the tools I used.

Accomplishment of the day!

  MakerBot

This is the Makerbot I used.

  MakerBot

 The easiest place to start is to print a sample model from SD card. Makerbot has a SD card slot, just put some data in a SD card, boot Makerbot, select "print from SD card", and you're all set. Easy! Since it's a test, just use something small, thin, so that you don't waste your resource!

MakerBot

MakerBot

 Cool. Next, I tried to get some softwares on my Mac and print via USB. I also wanted to make something more 3D.

The other thing I did was to change the color of the filaments. They have it written in the link below but is not very apparent- you need to push the grey ring covering the tube when you change the filaments.

http://www.makerbot.com/support/replicator/troubleshooting/

So I went to download Makerware. It's extremely easy to use, it's free, and has some sample 3D models.

 So I started printing a pot ;P

MakerBot

MakerBot

Done! (The quality is not very good, since I wanted to make it fast. You can actually control between speedy/high quality to slow/low quality)

MakerBot

Next, I wanted to start making things I wanted to make. I went to a website called Thingiverse where many people creates and shares their 3D models for 3D printing. Searched on "Android" at Thingiverse, and found a 3D model there.

Android Figure Customizable by frankkienl, and it's CC-BY-SA licensed. Awesome!



I'm fumi on Thingiverse by the way :)

http://www.thingiverse.com/fumi/

Imported it to MakerWare and started printing.



MakerBot



MakerBot

Houston, we have a problem! The arms of Android was too light and it came off and made everything wishywashy!

MakerBot

I was then advised that I should probably change the temperature. Also, I was told that I should be using a software called ReplicatorG since it has much more control over what you do.

http://replicat.org/

Downloaded ReplicatorG, changed the temperature to 230, also changed the scale to 50% since it was already 9PM or so... and the printing estimate said it will take 3 hours in the original size. Scaling it down to 50% made the printing time to 30 minutes. Yay!

MakerBot

Cool- this time it stuck!

MakerBot

MakerBot

MakerBot

MakerBot

MakerBot

Done!

MakerBot

MakerBot

Honestly... the hardest part for me was pulling off this head part. It stuck on the platform so hard that I thought it was impossible to pull it off!

  MakerBot

So this time I was just printing from a model that other people created, but if you'd like to tweak the model itself, Tinkercad allows you to do it on a browser (and it's free) so definitely check it out.

https://tinkercad.com/

3/26 Update: It looks like Tinkercad is going to be discontinued and the team is going to be starting "Airstone". Announcement here:



BTW- I did get Itokawa (asteroid) printed in the past, but the data was there, all I did was push a button, so that doesn't count.

  NASA Hackathon


I've been making stuff with 3D mills in the past, but 3D mills and 3D printers are 2 different things. This is 2D data used to mill on acrylic boards.

3D mill

 Milling.... waiting...

  3D mill

 Result!

 3D mill

 Acrylics are pretty cool because if you put LEDs behind it, it will reflect the colors.

  3D mill

 This one, I tried using a 2D HTML5 logo, put it on 3D modeling software and make a 3D data so that it looks cooler.

  3Dmill


3/25 Note:
I heard that using Slic3r will make the slicing on ReplicatorG faster, so installed it.
http://slic3r.org/download
The problem is, I haven't figured out how to change the temperature setting with this ;)

3/29 Note:
Mashable: How 3D Printing Actually Works

4/5 Update:

I wanted to do something more complicated, so I went on and created a 3D Yoda.

3D Voronoi Yoda - by @Dizingof

The original takes 8 hours to print, so decided to shrink it. 33% model takes around 40 minutes to print. Not bad!

Garage band

Err, I take it back. It is bad- it was too small so Yoda's ears could not hold... :(

Tried with 50% size, and this time it took 1 hour and 40 minutes.

IMG_20130402_205742

IMG_20130402_212751

IMG_20130402_215202

IMG_20130402_215259

But it worked! From the front...

IMG_20130402_221710

Right...

IMG_20130402_221716

Left...

IMG_20130402_221725

Back...

IMG_20130402_221738

Perfect!

So my next step was to create something more complicated with multiple parts.

This R2D2 had 8 parts, and looks interesting.

R2D2 (derived from InnovationByLayer, fixed, turned)

So I started building it...

head

Makerbot

Makerbot

Makerbot

Feet and legs

Makerbot

Makerbot

Makerbot

Makerbot

Makerbot

Makerbot

Makerbot

Makerbot

Body

Makerbot

Makerbot


OK, this worked.

TODO:

The next step is using dual filaments.

I tried downloading this model, but the "glowing parts"is getting errors on ReplicatorG, so this might not work...

Ingress Xmp Burster

The other thing I want to try is using PLA filament instead of ABS (all of the printing I did so far is with ABS).

This is what they did at NoiseBridge with Makerbot using PLA filaments- transparent objects, and put LEDs that change their colors. Extremely cool.

Plastic and transparent filaments

IMG_20130330_184548

 This is how the lamps look.

IMG_20130330_184054IMG_20130330_184338

And this is how the lamps look when you put the LEDs inside

IMG_20130330_184353

IMG_20130330_184023
IMG_20130330_184028

IMG_20130330_184031

IMG_20130330_184025

LEDs inside that changes colors

IMG_20130330_184454

IMG_20130330_184445


Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employer. -Fumi Yamazaki