So there is this building for lease that I occasionally pass on West Burnside. It is called The Weave Building and has a logo that is almost, but not quite, an ambigram: I like how they were a little liberal on the letter usage in the almost-ambigram of “building”, leaving part of the descender off … Continue reading Dictionary Ambigrams
Author: Brian Enigma
Brian Enigma is a Portlander, manipulator of atoms & bits, minor-league blogger, and all-around great guy. He typically writes about the interesting “maker” projects he's working on, but sometimes veers off into puzzles, software, games, local news, and current events.
My last cable box had pushbuttons
Today a couple of different people at work commented on the screensaver I currently use. It is xanalogtv from the xscreensaver package. It simulates switching channels on an old boxy rotary-channel-selector television, complete with snow, image ghosting, wiggly vertical sync, and all of that. The author of this screensaver put in an impressive amount of … Continue reading My last cable box had pushbuttons
WikiPub 1.1
This is just a quick note to point folks to the 1.1 update of WikiPub. This is an incremental update that adds two options: By default, the WikiLeaks cables are split apart into separate ebooks, one per year, instead of one monolithic book. The size of the single book made some readers sluggish. There’s an … Continue reading WikiPub 1.1
The science of optical shoe recognition
This week’s episode of The Big Bang Theory, The Bus Pants Utilization, revolved around the guys coming up with an iPhone app. It sounded cool for certain people in certain situations — it basically amounted to Wolfram Alpha with optical character recognition, so you didn’t have to type in the equations to get them solved. A … Continue reading The science of optical shoe recognition
More imagery from the 3rd dimension
I made a cat today. Yes, it’s very roughly constructed and has no tail, but it’s the first real 3D mesh that I have created without following a tutorial. It also pushed my meager abilities to the limits due to the organic curves and overall shape. The proportions are a bit off, it’s lacking the … Continue reading More imagery from the 3rd dimension
From atoms to bytes and back again
Last night I went to a belated Winter Solstice party. It’s a yearly thing with a fun mix of people and a very particular gift-giving tradition. You are required (or, at least, highly encouraged) to bring something from your life as a gift. It’s not exactly “white elephant,” but something more symbolic. What you bring … Continue reading From atoms to bytes and back again
I made a 3D!
In recent weeks, I have slowly been learning to use Blender, the Open Source 3D modeling application. My ultimate goal is not animation, but 3D printing. I’d like to design my own objects in bits and bytes, as well as have a better understanding of the object files for download at Thingiverse. I’d then like … Continue reading I made a 3D!
127 Hours
I saw 127 Hours this afternoon. For those that have not heard of it (I only just learned of it in recent weeks), it is the story of a guy who goes out climbing alone, without telling anyone, who then gets his arm pinned by a large rock. He’s out in the desert for 5 … Continue reading 127 Hours
I should probably have that looked at
’tis the season for broken laptops. Last month, I took in my laptop-turned-server with the broken video chip and expired AppleCare. Fortunately, it was a known defect and they covered it, even with the expired warranty. My main computing device, an older-model (Rev. B) MacBook Air (also with expired AppleCare) has been slowly deteriorating over … Continue reading I should probably have that looked at
Foursquare heat map, Mark 2
Last December, I generated a FourSquare heat map. The site to do this (wheredoyougo.net) recently popped up on the tech blogs again, so thought I would see what the current one looks like. It is certainly a lot more central — no more lunches in Wilsonville. Posted in: