I have talked about this to several people and have described the details to a couple, but I figured I should finally document the setup I have for my Halloween/Christmas/everyday computer-controlled lights. I have never really done traditional Christmas lights at any of the places I have lived in Portland. Between high ceilings, basement offsets, and … Continue reading Arduino Halloween Lights
Category: Projects
Designed by Brian, manufactured by lasers
I have been making 3D prints on the MakerBot for almost a year now (see my posts tagged MakerBot for more detail) and have always wanted to try doing things with a laser cutter, but felt intimidated. First off, to actually own a laster cutter is a pretty big investment — like a brand new luxury compact … Continue reading Designed by Brian, manufactured by lasers
Parametric Measuring Spoons
I recently developed some measuring spoon models. The math and basic design were, surprisingly, the easy part. Attempting to realize an idealistic design within the constraints of the real-world was a bit more difficult and ended up being the majority of the work. The design itself is fairly simple. Maybe you remember the volume of … Continue reading Parametric Measuring Spoons
A couple of months with the MakerBot
At the beginning of the year, I picked up a MakerBot for (relatively speaking) cheap. As best as I could tell, it was “last year’s model” and being closed out to make room for updates — but the nice thing about the MakerBot is that it is Open Source and modular. As updates occur, you … Continue reading A couple of months with the MakerBot
Dictionary Ambigrams
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
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
WikiPub: WikiLeaks on your eBook reader
I read. I read a lot. I do not necessarily read as fast as the folks that can power through a book in a weekend, but I get a lot of enjoyment out of it nonetheless. Part of this reading occurs during my daily commute. Recently, I managed to grab a copy of the WikiLeaks … Continue reading WikiPub: WikiLeaks on your eBook reader
The Home Depot Absinthe Fountain
In the past few weeks I have mentioned my “ghetto, Home Depot absinthe fountain” to a number of friends. Given the internet mantra of “pics or it didn’t happen” and my difficulty of describing all of the little details in words, let me start out with a photograph: The project arose from my desire to … Continue reading The Home Depot Absinthe Fountain
The business card companion cube
A few years ago, I ran across Ned Batchelder’s instructions for making a business card cube. Since then, I have made dozens of them, including a few conjoined cubes that form Tetris pieces. It occurred to me the other day (about a year or two too late to hit the Portal craze and at least … Continue reading The business card companion cube
LJProxy: From friend-locked LiveJournal posts to Google Reader
I have been on LiveJournal since 2001. I have had a Permanent Account since 2005. Many of my friends have used it for similar amounts of time. In the past few years, I have migrated my posting and reading off of LiveJournal. I do most of my blog reading through Google Reader, but still have … Continue reading LJProxy: From friend-locked LiveJournal posts to Google Reader