Posts from ‘technology’
the machinarium
i’m going to suggest visiting the machinarium
http://www.vimeo.com/3082659
Have an analog TV? Then bring it to the funeral (I assume you own something black). This particular service will be held at the Berkeley Art Museum, Tuesday, February 17, at 7:00 PM°
They invite you to bring your Analog TV for display; they’ll be stacking the first 40 in memoriam (the remainder will be responsibly recycled). The guests/events at the ceremony include Author & Punisher performing a funeral dirge, Stanford Professor and media scholar Paul Saffo, and author Bruce Sterling who is set “to deliver the eulogy just before the analog signal winks out for the last time and the frequency wasteland is invaded by pirate TV artists. It’s rare that the entire nation gets a specific date on which one major medium dies and is replaced by another. This event will be a scholarly and artistic reflection on the passing of one of the dominant mediums and cultural influences of the late 20th century.”
Show up early and build your own pirate TV transmitters, which may get used for the funeral ceremony. Artists from Neighborhood Public Radio will teach attendees how to build small low-wattage analog TV transmitters that can accept input from computers and VCR’s.
Presented by the Long Now Foundation, Berkeley Center for New Media & Berkeley Art Museum + Pacific Film Archive.
°Congress has debated changing the official date for the switch to digital television; however the event will proceed on Feb. 17 “because we prefer to bury a fresh corpse rather than wait for the walking dead to fall over.” You can also check out the FCC’s official page on the dtv transition with all the details.
NASA’s TRMM spacecraft observed this view of Hurricane Gustav on August 27, 2008 as it attacked Haiti. At this time the storm was a category 1 hurricane with sustained winds of 65 knots (75 mph) and a pressure reading of 992 millibars. The cloud cover is taken by TRMM’s Visible and Infrared Scanner(VIRS) and the GOES spacecraft. The rain structure is taken by TRMM’s Tropical Microwave Imager (TMI) and TRMM’s Precitation Radar(PR) instruments. TRMM looks underneath of the storm’s clouds to reveal the underlying rain structure. Blue represents areas with at least 0.25 inches of rain per hour. Green shows at least 0.5 inches of rain per hour. Yellow is at least 1.0 inches of rain and red is at least 2.0 inches of rain per hour.
Made by the awesome nerds at NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio (I wish I was one of them).
[singlepic=323,450,,,center]
view of left hand, fractured scaphoid. taken 2008.08.15. viewed with open source xray viewer OsiriX. normal xray view of scaphoid in lower right.
Radiohead just released a new video for its song “House of Cards” from the album “In Rainbows”.
No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.
Watch the making-of video to learn about how the video was made and the various technologies that were used to capture and render 3D data.
My apologies for the launch delay. The iHole was originally scheduled to be released on Jan. 15. to coincide with MacWorld and pay tribute to the woz all in one fell swoop, but unfortunately we experienced the all-to-often unforeseen delays (of life) in a few of our manufacturing processes. These issues have been resolved and we are pleased to announce, without further delay, the official launch of the world’s first iHole; the revolutionary analog photographic device constructed from the recycled packaging of digital technology.
I tried to keep it simple and the only external items I used were tape, tinfoil (for the lens), a piece of foam, and a leftover screw and tightener from an old ikea desk. Oh, I also used a black washer for the cover of the lens but that was purely cosmetic. I used the cardboard lining that was on the inside of the original box to construct the film holders on the back. I even left the serial numbers intact, so if my roommate ever needed to return it he could (I don’t think I’ll be switching until the phones work on other networks). For the lens I used a small piece of tinfoil (the thicker stuff from the hardware store) punctured by a tiny needle. For feeding the film through the box, I cut two long, thin rectangles about 2mm wide on the left and right bottom (interior) box. I had some trouble at first with the tension, as I had to thread the film through backwards so the emulsion of the film would be facing the right way. On the right side, I punched a hole through the top and put the screw through the piece of film and then through the film holder. Once I threaded the film, I twisted the screw into an empty 120 film holder until it was secure. Then I loaded the film, threaded it through and taped both sides of the film holders shut and closed the box.
I suppose it might have been symbolic to take the first pictures of an actual iPhone, but that seemed just a wee bit too cliche. I decided to shoot a steam pipe on my roof that I’ve had a fascination with for some time. The focal length of the camera proved to be wider than I thought and most of the images I took overlapped each other. The first two were the best exposure, at around 1 minute each. You can faintly see the etching of the film numbers on the bottom and top of the image.
There were a few minor light leaks, but I think that was from me being sloppy while rolling up the film. I also noticed a little shaking during the exposures (it was raining slightly) so I propped it up with a tiny rock. I also noticed halfway through the roll, that it would unwind slowly as time elapsed, from the tension built up winding the film, blurring the edges of the last few images (which were way over-exposed).
The best part (that I like) is that I didn’t have to tape the entire box shut (just the film holders on the back), therefore giving the iHole adjustable bellows. I haven’t taken any tests using the bellows yet, but will have to tape it once the bellows are pulled out.
Take a bunch of solar cells. Lay them between some recycled plexiglass. Use them to repair or replace crumbling bus shelters, or shelters at stops where historically people people have had to brave the elements. Then use solar energy to small power screens in the middle that tell you when the next bus is arriving, what the local weather is like, sms messages, any videos from around the world, and emergency warnings (among many other uses as well). Developed for Current TV, 2006.
