Staticfree Blog

This is my first Threadless submission and my first attempt at design of this sort. It's a cheerful reminder that we don't have to use solar cells to be powered by the sun. If you like it, you should go vote on my design so it can become a shirt!

I've been playing with my infrared-modified Canon Powershot A40 some more. I've managed to work around the blurriness due to the confused auto-focus and have done some post-processing work to make the images cleaner. At least for starters, I think I've managed to come up with some images worthy of the time it took to hack it :-)

Below are a few of my favorites so far. Check out my infrared gallery for more or go visit my flickr page to leave a comment.

I finally did the Bluetooth handset mod using a vintage Series-500-ish handset. It can connect to my phone and using the button on it, pick up the phone and do voice dialing. Click the above image for more details.

I finally made a real version of my 24h analog clock. You can play along at home, as I put up some notes and pictures about the build process. I think it looks quite nice in our kitchen.

I have been working on a design for a noon-at-the-top 24h analog clock. It is going to become a real clock for our kitchen, as soon as I buy the hardware for it and get the face printed.

For fun, I decided to animate the SVG source so that it displays the current time in your browser. You can see the smaller, live version of the clock that should work in quality browsers such as Firefox.

Of course, this is all released under an open-ish license (non-commercial), so feel free to hack away! See the project page for more details.

Update: I've updated the design to version 2.1 so that it works better across platforms. Apparently the text-on-path feature isn't reliable for spacing things out. This new version seems a bit more readable from a distance, too.

Inspired entirely by Xkcd's recent foray into morphing images of people he knows, I decided to try my hand at it. I found xmorph in Debian and poked around using a photo of myself and a certain revolutionary who people often say I resemble.

Steve source image, Che source image.

My next little project is to get a certain beret made, so I can more effectively show my true revolutionary spirit.

I know you.

I can smell your cell's RF scent
when you enter the station.
I can see your body
from ultraviolet to infrared;
watching you get hot
when you see the cute boy
with the spiked hair.
And I can hear your heart's murmur
from the back corner of the train.

But you don't know me.
You may see me,
but you do not perceive me
the way I dream that you do.

You are oblivious of my desire,
as I am oblivious of the thoughts
in your head.

And so we pass.

You exit at Kendall,
heading towards your 7th floor,
corner-window job at Biogen.
And I continue on,
watching.

Some day you will see me.

Ladybug ladybug,
what do you eat?
What do you do
that powers your feet?

Ladybug ladybug,
why are you here?
Such hostile grounds,
have you really no fear?

Ladybug ladybug,
why must you die?
You've beautiful wings,
just get up and fly.

This was accidentally posted before I finished it. Apologies to those who were horribly confused.

foreach my  ( @lives ){
    live( \@lives,  );
}
live();

I've been writing a few little poems in my random bouts of inspiration before I go to sleep. Usually I just use them for my away messages, but I figured I'd share them here too. Dreaming of Dreaming and She Dreams. Yes, you are correct: the theme you might be noticing here is purely coincidental.

Singing in the shower this morning made me come up with a little tune. I decided to try my hand at capturing it in some manner. I considered singing it for a brief moment, but decided that'd be rather ineffective without accompaniment. Lacking any MIDI equipment, I tried SoundTracker. Considering this is the first piece of music I've written - well, ever (ok, so I lied. I'd write tiny little tunes when I was younger, but never really went this far with them) - as well as my first time ever using SoundTracker, I'd consider my venture successful. You can listen to the results in either SoundTracker (xm) or OGG Vorbis. (if you can't play either format, try getting WinAmp 2.9 and playing the OGG Vorbis version) Tell me what you think :-)

Update: I put together another one: chip box 2. Again, leave a comment saying what you think.

Updated update: Mental note: never ever compose music by listening only through tinny laptop speakers. this is what it was supposed to sound like.

Well, I've finally put together an avi of an old project I started 4-5 years ago. The output is viewable here (high quality or low quality). It's fairly short, about 40 seconds, but took quite awhile to render (a few days). Of course, this is on one 900MHz machine and in Wine, so performance is not to be expected. Also check out one of the stills I put together a few days ago.