brainwagon

Here is the usual page of links to SIGGRAPH 2005 Papers. Not many have been filled in, but as usual, I suspect that as time goes on nearly all of these papers will be available online.

One for the Make blog for Tom: Nintendo controllers as musical instruments

The article on the Dirkon Paper Camera reminded me of the couple of pinhole photographs I made using a simple cylinder of cardboard and some photographic paper.

The Make blog this morning also mentioned WINKsite, a service which allows the simple creation of mobile websites. It’s pretty nifty, check out brainwagon mobile, which is also running in the emulator below live. I don’t know if I will keep this up, but if you have need of such a service check it out.

Courtesy of the the Make magazine blog, here is the instructions for Dirkon – The Paper Camera [pinhole.cz], a pinhole camera design first published a Czech magazine in the 1970s.

On the other hand, my new Dell 20.1″ LCD monitor is the bee’s knees. Beautiful 1600×1200 resolution, with no bad pixels. Yum.

My son’s Chevy was in the shop this week for difficulty starting. Today, I got it back, after paying $700 and replacing three seemingly unrelated parts. Tonight, its check engine light is on, and it’s running rough. Sigh. Back to the shop tomorrow, with a calm but stern discussion.

Carmen told me about this: Infinity Broadcasting on Wednesday said one of its San Francisco radio stations will carry programming created exclusively by listeners using podcasting technology. I wonder what this will be like. Addendum: Some people don’t seem to like the idea: What an uncompelling proposition for me and any other podcaster. In fact, [...]

There is a nice interview on dpreview.com with David Coffin, author of dcraw.c, a nice little Linux program that decodes most RAW formats from digital cameras. Very cool and useful stuff. From the interview: 3. Are you ever concerned about the legal implications of reverse-engineering proprietary file formats? If anyone sued me, I’d be the [...]

This morning as I was driving in (and running late since traffic was bad, and the UPS outlet where I was supposed to be able to pick up my monitor wasn’t even open so I went out of my way for nothing and… oh, never mind, I digress) and our local PBS affiliate ran a [...]

I ran across a reference to the patent on the wheel system used by NASA in their Mars Rovers, and thought that Patent 4,840,394 – Articulated Suspension System might be worth noting for future examination. A vehicle is provided which maintains a substantially constant weight, and therefore traction, on all wheels despite one wheel moving [...]

Courtesy of Lambda the Ultimate, here is your inspiration for the day, a transcript of Hamming’s lecture: You and Your Research. Addendum: John W. reinforced the importance of courage in my convictions. My pessimism is slowly retreating under the continuous onslaught.

Awesome bug pictures!

A cool freebie: Free Mag 7 Star Charts distributed under a Creative Commons license. Can’t beat the cost!

A hacker’s project of old, perhaps as would have populated Make magazine had it existed in July of 1887: The Project Gutenberg eBook of Scientific American Supplement, July 9, 1887 HOW TO MAKE A STAR FINDER. Being all of wood, it is easily made by any one who can use a few tools, the only [...]