Here is a intelligent little interview with Mark Hosler of Negativland talking about the creation of the CC Sampling License. I forgot this license existed; it is not linked anywhere on the CC site as far as I can tell, and is not offered by the chooser tool. Mark also talks about his general disagreement with CC.

“Let’s be Positivland for a moment here…”

Also, this music video remake of Negativland’s Time Zones was linked from MeFi today. It’s amazing how well old Negativland stands the test of time.

Miguel Soares, who made this video, has done lots of other great video and blinky-light pieces.

Here is a simple and awesome piece called Do Robots Dream of Electric Art?

Filed under: beats, tronix, video | 0 Comments
Tagged: CreativeCommons , MiguelSoares , negativland

mang sends this video of blinky lights on the Olympic promenade:

Filed under: tronix | 0 Comments
Tagged: blinkylights

After a long hiatus, George made an appearance at Mike’s 35th bday bbq!

Saz made George back in 2003 to preside over the TikiCrawler. Max made the tronix for the fire, and foo did the welding for the frame.

The TikiCrawler was an awesome group project.. We need a new project this year! Also, I need a TikiCrawler to drive around the city. Even hammocks are faster than muni :)

Photo credits: mike and catweasel!

Filed under: inspiration, tiki lifestyle, tronix | 1 Comment
Tagged: mike , saz , tikicrawler

On Sunday, the government of Pakistan ordered ISPs to block access to YouTube in the country, for containing content that was offensive to Islam. (This occurred soon after videos exposing vote-rigging in the recent Pakistani election appeared on YouTube.)

In response to this order, Pakistan Telecom began advertising a hijacked route for YouTube, which caused all internet traffic to YouTube from around the world to be blocked for several hours. Here is a full writeup of how this happened.

I found this great Slashdot comment that explains how to use BGPlay to see an animation of Pakistan Telecom re-routed YouTube for the world.

Here is how the net looked during the hijack. The red dot on the left is YouTube, and the red dot on the right is Pakistan Telecom:

After YouTube announced new routes, traffic returned to normal for those outside Pakistan:

The animation is pretty neat! Also, Wikipedia has a good summary of the Border Gateway Protocol, which is the protocol that routers use to talk to each other.

Filed under: sucky companies, tronix | 0 Comments
Tagged: BGP , hijack , Pakistan , voterigging , youtube

Tymm has developed a low-cost, breadboard-based Arduino. His Diecimila-compatible design separates the programming adapter (which you only need one of) from the Arduino board to keep costs down.

So after an initial investment of under $25, you can put together cores for breadboard-based Arduino prototypes for $8-10… the Diecimila auto-reset works… and you actually get 2 I/O pins out of the deal

Cool project, Tymm!

Filed under: code code, tronix | 0 Comments
Tagged: Arduino , avr , breadboard , Diecimila , Tymm , uDuino

When you are building a digital library to provide Universal Access to Human Knowledge, how to you hold all the data?

You start with a few racks of machines to hold the data using redundant storage:

The red boxes are built by Capricorn. Each one is a 1U half-depth low-power server that can hold four 1TB hard drives:

Add a bunch of homemade routers:

And some BigIron: (this thing pushed 6Gb/s today!)

Now you need to power it up:

And cool it down:

And fill it with books:

For some reason, you need a 1980’s-era Connection Machine:

Finally, no Archive is complete without a world-class Linux kernel hacker:

Filed under: archive, photos, tronix | 0 Comments
Tagged: InternetArchive , shag

May, Peliom, Barbara, Sasha, Mang, Greta, Furry, Lisa, Mr. Foo, Dodger, Herve, Jess, and I went to opening party for The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama at YBCA. Paba Phree and Catweasel worked on this 32-channel sound/video installation:

The installation was wonderful, but it was too loud to fully hear the soundscape. We’ll have to go back when it’s less crowded. The other pieces were great as well!

Here are a few more pics I took before a security guard came and told me there was absolutely no photography allowed at YBCA.

Filed under: photos, san francisco, tronix | 1 Comment
Tagged: Catweasel , DalaiLama , PabaPhree , soundart , TheMissingPeace , videoart , YBCA

Check out this awesome project:

Using an IR led array and some reflective tape, you can track fingers in thin air using the Wii Remote by Johnny Lee, Carnegie Mellon University

Filed under: tronix, video | 1 Comment
Tagged: multitouch , wii

Here is a short video of a test run of the Open Content Alliance’s Espresso Book Machine, an automatic print-on-demand robot that makes perfect-bound paperback books. The Espresso Book Machine was created by On Demand Books.

This video was shot during configuration of the machine, so you can see the printing/binding process, but the book gets stuck and comes out mangled.. I’ll upload another video after the machine is set up..

(press play to start video) (link to other sizes)

Filed under: archive, books, tronix, video | 0 Comments
Tagged: EBM , library , PrintOnDemand

Check out this impossibly-cute fake laptop keyboard. Someone call TikiRobot HR.. We need to hire this kid, stat!

Apparently the pet keys are shortcuts for webkinz. Via Shifted Librarian

Filed under: cuuuuute, design, doodles, tronix | 1 Comment
Tagged: multitouch

Made From Scrap is moving into the rANch! They seem like a pretty neat organization and a good ranch addition..

This means that the ranch will now be open to the public, instead of being a semi-underground art warehouse.

We found our nesting ground by partnering with the sexiest underground behemoth of San Francisco imagination: The Cataclysmic Megashear Ranch on 1433 Van Dyke, in the Bayview neighborhood.

Filed under: san francisco, tronix | 0 Comments
Tagged: rAnCH

Energizer A23 12V [[batteries]] sell for under $2 for a pack of two. Inside each A23 are eight 1.5V button cell batteries. Perfect for tiny LED projects :)

Filed under: tronix, video | 0 Comments
Tagged: neat

After I moved out of the rAnCH, I had no place to work on projects, so I built this workbench in the garage. It is huge. Now I don’t have an excuse for not making anything for the upcoming Bernal Heights art show!

I made it using Simpson StrongTie metal connectors and cheap 2×4s. I used a modified version of the workbench plans from the StrongTie website. It doesn’t have a bottom shelf yet, but it does have a whiteboard!

I used the free version of the SketchUp modeling program to draw it out first so I knew how long to cut each of the 2×4s. You can download the SketchUp model from 3D Warehouse.

Filed under: tronix | 0 Comments

I spent *ALL DAY* installing this garbage disposer. It was supposed to take an hour, but like all my projects, it took forever, and I had to run to the store half way through. To top it off, I just found out that most dishwashers these days come with food disposers built in!!! ARG! The whole point of getting a disposer was so that we could later get a dishwasher! It seems that dishwashing technology has advanced since the eighties… The last time I installed a food disposer, Regan was still president.

On the bright side, it seems that no Bosch or Miele dishwashers have built-in food disposers, and we’ve been considering getting one of those. Plus, we already had a circuit and switch wired for a disposer. Here are some pics!

Before:

After:

Filed under: tronix | 7 Comments

Chicken John and friends are working on a coffee-ground powered pickup truck!

Right now the truck runs off hydrogen gas (Wood Gas) produced by gassifying wood pellets, but when Chicken John gets $5000 for a pelletizer, it will run off coffee grounds. Check out the pics!

We also shot a couple videos of us driving from Dolores Park to Ritual. After we get started on gas, Chicken shuts off the fuel pump and we start running on wood. The second video has a few details of how the engine works..

Filed under: san francisco, transportation, tronix, video | 1 Comment
Tagged: coffee

This is a great idea.. an adjustable crescent wrench with a slider instead of that stupid thumb screw thing! Here is Dodger, professional Spokeswrenchwench, showing it off:

Filed under: tronix | 0 Comments

I wish I had known about this sooner! We should tell mang and jim and spot and our other NYC friends!

Who can imagine New York City without the Mission burrito? Like the Yankees, the Brooklyn Bridge or the bagel, the oversize burritos have become a New York institution. And yet it wasn’t long ago that it was impossible to find a good burrito of any kind in the city. As the 30th anniversary of the Alameda-Weehawken burrito tunnel approaches, it’s worth taking a look at the remarkable sequence of events that takes place between the time we click “deliver” on the burrito.nyc.us.gov website and the moment that our hot El Farolito burrito arrives in the lunchroom with its satisfying pneumatic hiss.

Link!

Filed under: san francisco, tronix | 1 Comment

The Tech Shop looks an awful lot like a dreaded office park building from the photo on their website and it’s in Menlo Park…BUT it has a full range of equipment for building just about anything (including a 3d printer that can make ABS plastic thingies from your CAD file) and classes on things like How to Use a Plasmer Cutter, Single-Beam Holography, and Choosing A Microcontroller. Ever since my friend Doria gave me this bracelet that she made with a laser cutter, I’ve been wanting a necklace / choker to go with it, so I think I’m going to check out this class after work!

Filed under: bay area, tronix | 2 Comments
Tagged: crafty

Today my AVR USBKey dev board finally came and I’m on my way to making an open source clone of my beloved TouchStream keyboard. I’m using the Cypress CapSense parts for the multitouch sensing and AVR parts for doing the processing and communication. The first prototypes will have most the processing done in software, actually, and then I’ll decide between AVR and ARM7 later.

Here is the roadmap:

1. Write OSX userspace app to communicate with AVR over USB and emulate mouse/scroll wheel
2. Prototype (onetouch) CapSense slider using Cypress PSoC chip
3. Have PSoC chip communicate with AVR using SPI or CAN bus
4. Implement slider that emulates scroll wheel that I can attach to the side of a Cinema Display (using userspace app for processing).
5. Prototype small 2D multitouch touchpad using one PSoC chip communicating with AVR
6. Make larger 2D multitouch surface with multiple PSoC drivers, all talking to the AVR
7. Work on gesture recognition code in the userspace app
8. Port gesture code to the AVR or ARM7
9. Get keyboard to work as a HID device without drivers or the userspace control app.
10. Done with version one!

Filed under: all talk, no code, tronix | 5 Comments
Tagged: multitouch

Dodger came over yesterday with a Vex Robotics kit and we prototyped a Shaker Robot! It’s the first step in making a a fully-robotic tiki bar. We got the robot shaker to kind of shake up a drink, so we declared it sucessful and went to celebrate at Jasmine Tea House with mang and about 20 other people. Yay! Here are some notes for going forward:

• The current design calls for dressing up the shaker in a hula skirt and a coconut bra. For this to work well, we need to move the pivot point to the center.
• I was thinking about carving a wooden cam for some janky rotation-to-linear translation, but I think using a solenoid might make more sense, because then we can sync the shaker to music!
• We need to write some tiki music that our robot can play while shaking up a drink.
• We could also make a hula dancer robot that holds the shaker in her hands, but I think for now we should continue with the current plan: dressing up the shaker in a coconut bra.
• We got a lot done with our pair-hacking setup. Dodger does all the work, and I take all the credit :)

Filed under: tikibar, tronix | 3 Comments

I got my FlyTech Dragonfly today. I had forgotten I ordered it … opening the box was a brief flash of genuine excitement … A dragonfly!!!!!!

Co-workers were as shocked at the $50 purchase as I was shocked that they couldn’t understand how cool this was … an RC dragonfly that flies by flapping its wings? … dude …. it has blue LEDs for eyes!!!

I found the FlyTech Dragonfly is tough to navigate in the two indoor spaces I tried: my open floor plan office and my apartment. They recommend 16×16 feet minimum for indoor flight, but I found even that to be too little. The ‘fly has large swings of pitch and yaw that I find difficult to control in small spaces. On the other hand, the ‘fly crashes into walls just like a real bug crashes into windows ;-) SMACK!!

But I had a great time just now taking the dragonfly out to the local park. His wings got wet from the dew on the grass. The ‘fly has about 10x more charm than an RC airplane or helicopter. Zipping by, close in, it felt more like a friend swinging by than a drone airplane.

Like the iPod, the ‘fly itself seems to have a non-replaceable internal battery. Interestingly, the way it works is you put 6 AA batteries in the remote control, and then you connect a cord to recharge the dragonfly’s internal recharchable battery. Charging takes about 20 minutes … flight time seems to be about 5-10 minutes. Never enough.

I think with some practice I will be able to launch Dragonfly from my 4th story balcony, fly around a bit, and then turn around for a SMACK!! landing against the sliding glass door. Naturally this will probably annoy my snotty neighbors

Link to FlyTech Dragonfly on Robots Rule

Filed under: design, science, tronix | 7 Comments

I love this! Do you think we could fit a couple in the rAnCH??

Filed under: tronix, video | 0 Comments
Tagged: wtf???

So, an artist makes some blinky adverts for an upcoming major motion picture, featuring a well-recognized cartoon character, and the Boston police go ballistic and have the bomb squad detonate one of them. Pretty typical for Boston.. Well, then they arrest the artist who made the blinkies! They are holding him on terrorism charges, and calling a bunch of LEDs connected to some batteries a PIPE BOMB! Crazy, right?

Well, last year San Francisco police detonated a flashlight that was left in a Starbucks bathroom by a homeless guy. A fucking flashlight! From CNN:

SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) — An explosive device was found in a Starbucks coffee shop in central San Francisco on Monday. The building was evacuated and a police bomb squad disarmed the device, authorities said.

A Starbucks employee found the device about 1:15 p.m. (4:15 p.m. ET) on the coffee shop’s bathroom floor, police spokesman Neville Gittens said.

“If it had detonated, it would have caused damage,” Gittens said. “It was what we consider an IED,” an improvised explosive device.

Acutally, it was just a flashlight. And guess what? They arrested the flashlight dude too.

Filed under: tronix | 9 Comments
Tagged: counterproductive

Here are some pics that show size comparisions between the OLPC and the 12″ powerbook. I’m trying to figure out how to design great ebooks for the OLPC form factor. Although its screen is quite a bit smaller than the powerbook, it has more pixels!

Filed under: tronix | 3 Comments

Make apple crisp of course. Tom Dickson demonstrates much better on his ipod below (though i think he’s blending up a smoothie).

I tried this recipe today and it was good, but the “crisp” was not as crispy as I would have liked. Anyone got tips on how to make the “crisp” part extra-crispy???

Filed under: doodles, support, tronix | 3 Comments