This weekend was pretty funny. I had a rare weekend ‘off’ with nothing I had to do and many projects I wanted to finish. As fate would have it, I got co-oped into helping Max on a project as part of the Red bull challenge. The goal was to put an animated light up mouth behind the grill of the 1970 10 wheel diesel army truck that he and Jac picked up in Wisconsin last week

As always, it was great collaborating with max.. it was fun trying to put this together while he was in NY and I was up here. All weekend I was sending him code and he was helping me debug it.. In the end it was not a ton of code.. but a little tricky.. It reads an  analog value from a microphone or sound source, converts that to a small range of numbers and uses that to pick one of several image frames of talking lips which max drew for me in photoshop.  I then take the selected image and output it to the LED strips. The effect is that the lips s move as someone  is talking or singing. It’s much creeper and more realistic than it sounds.. if a talking truck can be said to be realistic..

Again.. not a big effect.. but I’m hoping this will be well appreciated on the playa at burning man.

I’ll get soem more pics/moives tonight as max posts them…

speaking of pics.. I can’t help posting a few of our friend Joannes wonderful  pics from our canoe trip last night. Joanne. you have such a nice eye !

thats it for tonight.. more tomorrow.

nite all, nite sam

-me

I worked very hard day. I had so much things I had to do both fun and for work that I couldn't do any of them. I spent the day instead looking for creative ways to not work. I went for a run. I went for a walk. Swimming in the Winooski which was at least 40°. I even cut the grass, one of the things I hate most in life. In the end, I am glad to say that I completely avoided doing anything useful …now that's saying something.

I did do some Random acts of making: I wrote a bunch more code for Max's Redbull project, I updated the flooris exhibit to put it a couple of new Effects ( a digital clock !)'and I worked on a very late but very fun musical instrument that I'm doing for friend.

I didn't take a break from taking a break this evening to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. We went to Jen and Tims and had burgers and margaritas. I skipped the burgers.

Afterwards all of us went boating on Gilette pond. We were quite a flotilla. It was a beautiful and still evening. Blackflies were out, but not yet biting. We saw several beaver and heard tons of birds. It's definitely sproing day, the day when all of the greenery is fully engaged. It was beautiful.

I Was working to almost 4am with max last night… Looking forward to sleeping now. More after that.
Night all, night sam
– Me

Posted with Blogsy

It was a beautiful, glorious, once a year perfect weather day… And I spent it on the couch programming.

I hadn't planned to do it. It wasn't something I had signed up to do. It had nothing to do with work. But, my son Max called me this morning with an urgent plea for help in a crazy project that is due tomorrow. It's for one of the Red Bull hacking contests. Max had applied to be one of the 200 contestants at the very last moment and none of us expected to make the deadline.

But we did. On Thursday max got the supplies kit. the finished results are due tomorrow. What could I do ? What would anyone do if their son was in need of help… Programming or otherwise. The project details are a little fuzzy to me… I know my friend Collin was down helping Max yesterday but I'm not exactly sure what we're doing. I do know it involves a 10 will 40-year-old diesel Army truck that is going to have an animated happy face on. I'm working on a happy face code. That makes me happy.

It's actually a real pleasure to be able to work with Max on stuff like this. And despite missing the beautiful weather I really had a good time today.

I say had… Because I think I hear an all nighter coming on. I'll let you know tomorrow. For now I'm going to try to catch a nap so that when Max comes back from dinner we can start again after all it's only 11 PM.
Night all, night sam
– Me

Posted with Blogsy

2 days ago scientists at IBM published a really short movie called a boy and his atom..

Not only was it short.. But it was small all around. It was made entirely of a hundered or so carbon monoxide molecules on a piece of highly polished copper at 4 degrees aove absolute zero, The animators made the movie by manually moving the individual atoms around using the tiny tip of an atomic force microscope. The device not only moves atoms.. But it lets you 'see' them by magunifying them 100,000,000 times.

, i know this partially because i watched the making of movie .. And partially because almost 2 years ago i used that exact same machine to make the worlds smallest samstone. My friend don e. was kind enough to work with me for neary 4 hours as we manually dragged the carbon monoxide molecules aroudn to spell out sams name..

it was a slow, medititative process,., requiring lots of patience and love. in the end, i had made the worlds smallest samstone,. perhaps the worlds smallest memorial of any sort… I just lear ned that ibm has submitted thenn boy and his atom movie to guiness and hadmit certified as the worlds smallest movie.. I thought about doing the same thign with my samstone.. But then thought somehow that wouldn't be appropriate,,

You can read about my experience here.

I am very proud of my Colleagues, for making this movie. Not just because of the technical feat involved… Because of how it humanizes science and nature. my very tiny hat is off to all of you.

More tomorrow
Night all, night Sam
– me

Posted with Blogsy