puck!

I am sucking at LJ

2009-10-20T20:53:59Z

Hi there,
This post is to say that I am currently sucking at LJ, due to the myriad of alternative social networking options. Twitter is currently working out for me. I also keep on trying whatever the new fandangled social networking tool is, so you can probably find me there at any point in the future, you can even stalk me on foursquare if you must.

I sometimes try to read friends posts, but rarely remember to log in. If I'm not up to date with anyone's life because I don't read LJ often enough, then I'd love to catch up for a coffee or a beer.

Also, I have a slight hangover, after drinking one very strong drink at DNA last night. Amazing. More exciting updates like this one, can be found in the twitterverse.

LASER talks

2009-08-13T06:15:56Z

Is google search training us how to think, based on the ordered accuracy of search results, and us learning how to query it?

Does that mean we are converging in a common thought process? Is that good? Or dangerous?

I just got back from this LASER thing - Leonardo Arts and Science Evening at SETI. It was pretty cool. They even had a 30 minute talk on biofeedback gaming. Sweet!

Also, come to Lovetech on Saturday!

http://www.lovetechsf.com/

I love San Francisco

2009-04-06T03:03:02Z

It's all worth it.

I work in a Cognitive Neuroscience lab, writing patten classification stuff for MRI and EEG, and making games aimed at reversing the affects of aging. I get free pizza and beer on fridays.
I'm working on an art project - Perceptron, which has lots of room for sensor/visual/audio interactions. Just the things I like. Other people seem interested in this kind of thing too which is just awesome.
I'm working at some big music festival called Coachella running fire art.
I'm going to be part of another big interactive Fire Art project called Carbon Garden(perhaps borrowing from some of the tech developed in Perceptron).

I'm busy. Too busy... but I love it. It's too much but I seem to work best when inundated.

Some cool dude gave me a Gakken Analog Synthesizer when I went to an awesome show called Bohren and der Club of Gore on Wednesday night. I went to Lovetech, this DIY electronic music night at the ranch, and had an awesome time. There are many people I'm attracted to, instead of none.

Thankyou world.

I'm not perfect, and have many strange things to work through, but I love this life.

Back to doing stuff in Jitter.

We have lift off.

2009-04-02T00:59:02Z

I got paid for the first time in 5 months today.

I thought I'd feel really happy but I just feel relieved and exhausted. I think things are officially... back on track.

In the meantime, we had the Aussie dollar go from 0.98 to 0.55 at its lowest.
A burglary where my laptop got stolen.
I got laid off, had to find a new job in 4 weeks which would also get me a Visa or else I'd need to leave the US. I found one.. but they couldn't pay me until the Visa docos came through, which takes a while at universities. My awesome startup which I was kinda attached to went under.
Then, I had to make an emergency trip to and from Australia to get the Visa.

Then... I had to wait, with Visa now, until the once a month pay came through.

Now, I am living in the city and country of my choice, with the optimal Visa, with an awesome and interesting job, which pays me an adequate salary. I have a small debt, which I can hopefully pay back in the coming months.

Now, I can catch the BART to go places. I can buy coffee. I can even possibly eat out with friends occasionally, or go for drinks. Maybe, I can even see a show here and there(after debt payback). In the meantime, I've become more cognizant of my spending habits, and will try maintain some of the habits I've acquired.

Strangeness

2009-03-13T05:17:47Z

I joined Twitter!

2009-03-02T05:39:28Z

Why! Oh why!

I think I've finally been talked into giving it a go.

There are just too many social networking sites. It's ridiculous. Social networking addiction! Are they all really that different? Can someone combine them all into one please?

LJ
Facebook
MySpace (although I never really got into it)
LinkedIn
Twitter
Flickr

Then, there are mailing lists. It's really quite distracting.

Then, on top of that, there is AIM, ICQ, Googlechat. No wonder I have the attention span of a gnat! There are too many diversions!
I wonder if all these micro-tasks change what you brain does? I think I have greater trouble focusing for prolonged periods of time, compared to when I was studying and wonder if the way I use the internet, jumping from site to site, network to network, is to blame?

I wonder if I can survive a week without logging into a single social networking site? It'd definitely be an interesting challenge. Can I control this addiction? Maybe I'll try it.

Worst Bushfires in Australia's History

2009-02-09T19:16:24Z

Wow!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25033480-5000540,00.html

I go there tomorrow! They aren't near Sydney so that is a good thing.

Zombie Prom!

2009-02-07T23:09:28Z

Fake blood can be made from cherry kool-aid powder and dish soap.

The things we learn. Zombie Prom was fun! If figuring out what to wear a little last minute.

art bike?!

2009-02-06T05:21:47Z

This dude Billie Grace Lynn seems pretty nifty.

Plump!

2009-01-21T20:02:09Z

Apparently my grey matter is plump!

It's better than having a big nose! I think.

I had my first fMRI yesterday, and I'm waiting to get the data from the people who are conducting the study to make a script so I can make an animated walkthrough of my brain. Maybe oneday soon...

puck555 @ 2009-01-14T10:27:00

2009-01-14T18:37:06Z

The most expensive and most important thing I own got stolen in a fairly extensive house burglary. I don't have a laptop anymore.

Also stolen from my housemates were two other laptops, a car, a Mosberg shotgun, the lease to the apartment, credit records, a passport, coat, credit card, Xbox 360 and about $1100 worth of games, a condenser microphone, a $4000 camera and some suitcases to haul it all away in.

The police came last night, and CSI are coming tonight to check out a window on the third floor, which has a ladder near it.

Eye Tracking Experiment!

2009-01-13T00:38:19Z

$30 richer !

w00t!

Rargh!

2009-01-05T01:38:41Z

Rushing is bad mmkay. The first box was always going to be a tight squeeze... but I thought it might be compact. Why have compact when you can have spacious? Now I know this.

Peppermint Bark Tin vs Deliciously Large Cookie Assortment. Cookie assortment wins. Might actually design placement in tin this time, with newer better arrangement strategy so wires don't get crossed or moved by lid removal. I now have excess cookies and peppermint bark, and altoids. I also got some more altoid tins. It should be noted that Fry's Electronics (Thanks for the fun day KarmaAdjuster) sells Altoids at 2.10 and Trader Joes for 1.51. Fetus Jars, and Interactive Dancefloor Brain Boxes ready to go! I'd never been to a large electronics store in the US and it's a bit different to Aus. They package individual components like capacitors in their own little plastic containers... so they take up heaps of shelf space. In Aus, they put these things in draws, without packaging. Different mentalities.

So, it looks like I still need to do more stuff for project hardware, revisiting this box issue. Progress on this may slow momentarily, since I'm starting my new job on Monday! Focus shift, and will see how settling into new job goes.

Argh! I'm excited and nervous and I hope new job goes well. It sounds awesome. I have been reading about cellular mechanisms and synaptic transmission. Ok... better get ready to make a good first day impression. Argh!

doodly

2009-01-04T04:15:52Z

San Francisco

It was meant to be the ocean but turned out a bit different

Little doodly creature

I haven't been drawing much lately and am a bit out of practice. I should try to make a bit more time for it.

Interactive Dancefloor Update

2009-01-01T02:07:39Z

Since I've had some time off I've been working on an a grid of 16 ultrasonic rangefinders (also a camera), to make an interactive dancefloor. This is where it is up to so far.

This thing is big- about 6.5 feet square. I only have a few sensors so far as can be seen by the little black dots.

Here is a close up of the ultrasonic rangefinder, and the colour CMOS camera.

At the back, each sensor is mounted in an altoid tin, with a 4 pin mini-din plug on the back. The idea is to make a modular system, where sensors, wall plates can be interchanged fairly easily to try different things.

It's by no means finished, and Blue Estro, Yosh and Fetal Toaster have all been helping on bits. It still needs the brain box - from a larger tin gained from peppermint bark at Trader Joes, which will port all this sensor information into the computer by a single USB to be utilised in Max MSP or any other program as the programmer/musician desires.

The idea is to have music which dynamically changes with movement...and to investigate the idea of translating physical movement into music and/or imagery. There is also the potential to project visuals on the back of the wall, as it is white...

It seems like other people are interested in working on the project, so that'd be cool, especially to get help with music composition. For now, my goal is to get the brain box part working and a small grid of sensors running into max so that the hardware is working, by the end of the week. Once the physical interface is nutted out and proven, more sensors can be acquired to fill out the 16 grid spaces, and work can start on how to convert the input into music/imagery.

I'm semi-keen to enter the original musical interface competition at next years Yuri's Night. Other than that I'll be trying to get people in Labs and Noisebridge interested in contributing. For now, physical interface and prepare for new job!

So far it has been an interesting way to spend the time and I'm interested to see what comes out of it.

Ram Horns

2009-01-01T01:49:23Z

I while ago I said something about making a pair of ram horns. Ebay, and a chat to a nice guy called Eirik later lead to this:

I like them, but it is not exactly what I was thinking of. Close, so I might have another go sometime later in the year.

Bi-Rite has Pot Pie in the freezer

2008-12-22T00:07:49Z

I haven't had a meat pie in over a year. They are the best winter food.

They are not at Safeway, Rainbow, Trader Joes... but... they do seem to be available at Bi-Rite.

End Transmission.

Alcohol

2008-12-20T01:26:07Z

It occurs to me that my tolerance level for such things has gone down considerably.

I am definitely a social drinker only these days, if that.

Ughhh.. I still have a headache.

In other news, Meat at DNA was great fun... for the parts I remember. It's fun to go somewhere and be able to chit chat with a bunch of people... seems more like a private party than a club night sometimes.

A years worth of small change

2008-12-16T01:56:06Z

I'd been having trouble deciding what to do with my small change. Quarters are for laundry, everything smaller seems almost like an insult to leave as a tip, so it inevitably just started building up. Initially it built up in my wallet, then in a cup, then in a large bag. With my new found spare time during the day, I investigated the coinstar machine before using the money I got in return to buy my groceries for the week. Not too bad!

Coinstar spat back an Australian $2 coin, 50 cents, 20 cents and a 5 cent piece. Aussie coinage is easy to distinguish, full of kangaroos, emus, platypus and echidna, as well as being easily distinguishable weights and sizes. It also spat 1 rupee and twenty pence back at me! I think I obtained the 1 rupee at 4thJuPlaya when some random dude on drugs walked past and gave people small presents. The twenty pence is possibly from last Christmas in London.

Little Metal Man

2008-12-02T20:54:20Z

The little man includes some MIG, Oxyacetylene welding, brazing, some hot metal forming, some grinding, bandsaw chopping, and some extruding metal sheet into cylinders. This completes welding course 1 at Cellspace.

One Chance

2008-11-27T02:53:40Z

Further updates on more serious issues next week. I am hopeful, but hopefully not prematurely so! There is a potential job opportunity available which would be entirely my cup of tea. *fingers crossed*

Monday was a bit of a downer however, seeing only 3 companies at a job fair with about 500 unemployed people standing in line to speak with the 3 small tables(possibly only offering about 20 jobs).

In more diversionary news:

Here is a bucket of bits at my welding course.

I made this on Monday night. It is hot formed using an Oxyacetylene torch to heat a straight rod, which was then slowly bent it around a thick metal tube. I welded one to the tube to keep it steady, then used a band saw to chop the welded bit off to loosen the spiral, then another big tube to whack it off the tube which it had unfortunately shrunk around when it cooled. A liberated spiral - yay!

Oxy Cutting

2008-11-12T22:50:55Z

I started a MIG and Oxyacetylene Welding Course which goes for 4 weeks. I cut through some mild steel on Monday evening before coming down with a cold:

Viva la Revolucion!

2008-11-06T03:12:14Z

I want a shipping container house

2008-10-24T22:56:04Z

http://weburbanist.com/2008/05/26/cargo-container-homes-and-offices/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWpSzGqS4m4&feature=related

It's on my dining table

2008-10-22T22:33:19Z

Now that I have a dining table!
Thanks Bash.
Prototype 555 timer based Theremin Sensor 1 complete!

Moving along...

Other things seem to be in disarray and need work.

Noisebridge seems like an interesting crowd. They rent out a space about a block from my house, and it appears half of Death Guild go there. They have the beginnings of a workshop, a big table, and lots and lots and lots of shelving. A random hackspace down an alley way with a little sticker on the door. Makes you feel like some sort of underground super spy.

Goodo.