So, the watch project continues apace; I’ve thrown out the initial design, that was based on the “OSWatch”:http://oswatch.org/index.php ; I may still use some of his code, but for now my efforts are in getting a prototype up and running. I blabbed about the project on twitter, and a friend suggested I look at the RFduino, an arduino-compatible module that has a built-in bluetooth module. It’s a pretty sweet little chip, except for the small problem that the bootloader is closed-source. I’ve decided to let that be a problem for another day, and run with it. note: this post has been sitting, unpublished, for a month and a half. oops. <div class=”center”> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/last_photos_from_austin/431/0001.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/last_photos_from_austin/431/0002.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/last_photos_from_austin/431/0003.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/last_photos_from_austin/431/0004.jpg’ /> </div>
Posted by matt on 2014-06-02T06:02:21Z GMT
A friend of mine pointed out on twitter that an “arbitrary set,” in mathematics, is possibly infinite. I kind of like the idea that the sea of hipsters in austin that night was infinite. I certainly couldn’t see an edge. Anyway, before all that, there are some nice pictures of the folks I was with, Quin and Serena and Soph. You may have noticed a bit of a gap in the posting here. It’s been for very nerdy reasons. I saw a link on the “Adafruit”:http://adafruit.com blog about the “Open Source Watch”:http://oswatch.org/index.php and knew right away that I wanted to build one. Not just build one, but go one better, make it more extensible, and clean up the rough edges. There’s nothing more personal to me than the watch that I wear; I’ve been wearing one for the better part 25 years, after pestering my mom to buy me one sometime around age 4. It’s not just a status symbol, a beautiful toy; a watch is a hand-hold on reality. It says “This is now,” and “It’s only been 5 minutes,” and “I really did sleep 5 hours on that plane,” and “T-minus 5…” Then there’s the maker’s credo, that you don’t own something until you can hack on it. It’s beyond the skills of a lot of people to do surface mount soldering or board layout or the half dozen other skills required to build a watch for the 21st century. None of it is terribly hard by itself, but it’s all over, different bits of knowledge to cobble together from different parts of the web. Once it’s done and you can program it over bluetooth or plug it into a USB, something wonderful happens. Everyone can hack it. I don’t want a watch for the future, I want a watch for right now. Somthing that gives you a better grip on reality. It says: “You’re here, right now, and this is wh ere you can go.” The author swears this was going to be a dry feature list and blow-by-blow of the design process, but it’s late and he’s feeling inspired – Ed. <div class=”center”> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/the_scale_of_the_thing/432/0001.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/the_scale_of_the_thing/432/0002.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/the_scale_of_the_thing/432/0003.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/the_scale_of_the_thing/432/0004.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/the_scale_of_the_thing/432/0005.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/the_scale_of_the_thing/432/0006.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/the_scale_of_the_thing/432/0007.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/the_scale_of_the_thing/432/0008.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/the_scale_of_the_thing/432/0009.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/the_scale_of_the_thing/432/0010.jpg’ /> </div>
Posted by matt on 2014-05-20T06:17:12Z GMT
I know I promised pictures of the wild hipster here next, but tonight ended up being a long fight with laundry and the kitchen sink. My arms are tired, and so are my hands. So here are some nice pictures of clouds, which I don’t have to think about too hard. <div class=”center”> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/clouds,_for_reasons/434/0001.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/clouds,_for_reasons/434/0002.jpg’ /> </div>
Posted by matt on 2014-05-07T06:59:42Z GMT
I dealt O.K. with not having a camera most of the time. I kinda had to, as with the move and everthing, I simply couldn’t afford a new one. I carried my nikon, made a few pictures here and there, and mostly just waited. Then, there was another trip. I knew I wouldn’t be able to do a real trip with just my iphone, a film camera, and a few rolls of film, so I rented another camera, this time the Fuji XT-1. The first couple hours were a complete love-fest. It’s a great little camera, and I do mean little. Smaller than my Xpro by a smidge. The EVF, the main thing I was worried about, wasn’t laggy at all, it seemed, and fine enough to make compositions on. Signifigantly better than the EVF of the Xpro. Also, ergonomically, it’s a slam dunk. I was able to get it up and running in about five minutes of fiddling: turn off auto review, turn off beeping, turn on RAW, forget and then remember to turn off the focus assist light. After a little while, I set up the custom screen setting. There are half a dozen or so things I like to know at a glance; the battery level, the exposure setting and ISO, focus distance, exposure comp, stuff like that. No histograms. No gridlines. Anyway, I shot with the camera over a long weekend. Not enough to really live with it, but long enough to get a feel for it, anyway. When it came down to it, there really wasn’t enough difference for me to justify buying one over another Xpro. I liked it, but there wasn’t a signifigant difference in the things that mattered to me. First is shutter lag; they’re both excellent as long as you’re prefocused. Focus itself is a bit faster on the newer body, of course, but not fast enough to make a difference outside a sports stadium (and incidentally, the only long lens I own is manual). In low light, the XT was a bit better, maybe a stop, but it’s hard to say without doing a side by side test. The real killer is the viewfinder. Yes, the EVF is really good, better than any I’ve used so far. It still lags a little bit; optical viewfinders never do. Also, I really like the rangefinder style. You get a little more around the edges, yes, and there’s a bit of parralax error, but that helps. Somehow it makes visualization more real. More about the vacation in the next post, were there will be actual photos of hipsters in austin. <div class=”center”> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/another_borrowed_camera,_another_vacation/435/0004.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/another_borrowed_camera,_another_vacation/435/0005.jpg’ /> <img src=’https://images.matt.pictures/another_borrowed_camera,_another_vacation/435/0006.jpg’ /> </div>
Posted by matt on 2014-05-06T05:37:07Z GMT
