waxing prolix

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 01:50:00 +0000

Hello Tweeps! It's that time of year
To spread a little Twitter cheer
So yelp a carol you holiday hollerers
For my fantastic fans and fellow followers

So hello @LeeSonko (Twitter-hater!)
@rickabruzzo, see you later,
Sing hosannas to @MissySB,
@ekai, @dafkah, @aviddd

(If I've mispronounced your handle
Please be kind: don't throw a sandal
Send me corrections via DM
So that no one else will see 'em)

Ring in the year with vigor and vim
and charming folks like @sfslim
May @laughingsquid's tentacles be a-sway
Across the Bay and far away

So @Mister_Robotics, here's a shout
@rainesmaker knows what it's about
@jamesburns00 here's a thanky
To @jdavid and @spanktar's Spanky.

And here is wishing leather weather
To @bobigail, @jong, @basmatiheather
And a mellow new year, never harsh, all
With compliments to @ccmarshall

Signed ints suck, unsigned are great
(At least for @coder32768)
Greets to @coreyfro who earns good karma
@jetdillo too (but where's the arma-?)

To @ctpctp and @michaelshiloh:
May your output pins go high/low
And code compile, no need to worry
@erikswedberg, @bre, and @k0re

Da @Dostoyevsky, and no complaint
To graceful loser @JohnMcTaint
It's the New Year so time to check
@Exploratorium and @SFMusicTech

@MarinLocalMusic is the reason
For lovely sounds in any season
Send some cheer now anyhow
To @Dangerangel and @vniow

Hail fellows, I trust you are well met
@leifmale, @dubslife, not least @zarbet
Four parts gin and one vermouth
Strained with ice for @NathanBooth

Nuevo año! Happy new year yo,
To @cotygonzales and @criollo
(Is that chocolate, caste, or horse?
Or maybe even all, of course!)

The holidays: what better cause
To send good greetings to @teiwaz
Cheers and howdy and good-on-yas
To @burstein, @catcubed, @dvrogers

Rarer than the finest gold
Are @jennalex and @erlingwold
Hope to see you more this year
@j_admo, never fear!

Hello Vienna! Here's a wish
To see @roboexoticus and @feuerfisch
And who is that there getting winks
In the hat of hawt? It's @frugalbinx!

In '09 @escapeberkeley on a run
With @jacktrade, @jesshobbs and @satiredun
Or maybe it could be a race
Between @Mitchell_H and @NIMBYSPACE

See @theburningman wear of @yasimak
Causing mum a heart attack:
Megaphone mangled without cause:
New year replacement? Send to @yoz!

So @stevenharrison gets a verse
All to himself. Hope nothing worse!
Cheers to @mprados, metal whiz
Also to charming @ninavizz!

Hope the new year will bring smiles all
To the @hatfactory and to @milesl
Though he's not on Jimmy Kimmel,
Here's a shout to friendly @wiml

Yummy stuff? I'm a fan, says
@rrmutt of @rachelannyes
And don't forget to send some bacon
To @neoptolomus and @ohagan

Let's not forget our robot friends
@PersonalLife and @playtm
When you revolt, @transBot too,
Remember I was nice to you

With make-up just a littly showy,
New year's BRAINNNNS to @zombieXzoe
Hoping his show's not in ze tank
Holiday wishes to @zefrank

And so this Twitter verse is done
#darwin bless you, every one!

Chassis am Wien

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 01:03:00 +0000

So we took Chassis to Roboexotica, the International Festival Of Cocktail Robotics, over there in Vienna. An awesome time was had by all, as might be seen in these pictures by Eddie Codel. Special thanks to Magnus of Shifz and Franz and Johannes of monochrom, and to Chris Veigl for helping us finagle Austrian beer fittings!

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:54:00 +0000

So it's come to this: i need one of those pretentious lower-case design portfolio websites. Ah well, folks will have to settle for this.

On the Harmony of Light

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 19:38:00 +0000

Because I've done a lot of work in music analysis and color perception, I frequently get asked about the possible analogy between harmony in music and visual perception. Here's a series of well-put questions and my answers:

Q: I have always been interested in the fact that our (color) vision spans but one octave, like a Fisher-Price piano, a single frequency doubling, within which all the colors are unfolded. What I would be interested in is to be able to observe the effect of analogous frequency (light) collections, at similar ratios to musical pitch classes, that is, to observe the kinds and interactions of the color combinations thus derived. I am not familiar enough with Albers' theory to know whether he used any interval scalings, either integer ratios or "equal temperament" (2 to the 1/12 power=1 half-step) in figuring better or worse combinations, and whether these are related to the quantifiable consonance/dissonance of musical intervals and trichords.

A: Yes, I see the attraction of this: I assume you are familiar with the Pythagoreans: it is truly an ancient and honorable quest!

Q: For example, take a perfect fifth, 7 semitones, or approximately two frequencies at a ratio of 3/2. How do different pairs of colors at this same ratio relate to the eye?

A: Well, as I understand it, the analogy with music is tenuous at best. Color is only tangentially related to wavelength: in fact most colors are "non-spectral," that is, they don't correspond to a particular wavelength (frequency). The most obvious example is magenta which is a mix (chord?) of red and blue light (low and high frequencies), yet is perceived as single, distinct color that is neither red nor blue. It's as if an interval was perceived as a pure tone, not a mix of frequencies. (It's also interesting that musical pitch is not perfectly related to frequency: if you haven't heard "Shepard tones" or the "tritone paradox" they are worth a quick web search. I wonder what those with perfect pitch make of them?)

Q: For me to test this with your color combination page, I would need to be able to determine a color by inputting each respective actual frequency. For example, a major third (such as C-E) is approximately a 5/4 ratio. So, if we start at say red-hydrogen, what would be the effect of another color at 5/4 times that frequency's color distance?

A: Unfortunately, pretty much every color on your computer screen is non-spectral, being a mix of red, blue and green pixel colors (which are themselves not particularly spectrally pure). So I can give you hue, but not wavelength. When someone invents a tuned-dye-laser display, that might be possible, but also note that different combinations of wavelengths can result in effectively identical color perceptions. Fortunately, this makes it possible to get a reasonable (if far from perfect) color gamut without the expense and mess of tunable monochromatic lasers.

The relation between perceptual color and wavelength is pretty well expressed in the CIE chromaticity diagram, which I think is fascinating, and worth your time. Any color of light is a point on the diagram, and the color of any mixture of two will fall on the straight line between them: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/vision/colper.html Wavelength runs around the outside for the spectral colors. There are some interactive versions of that which may approach what you are looking for, e.g. : http://www.cs.rit.edu/~ncs/color/a_chroma.html

Q: I'd like to be able to arrange colors somewhat specifically by various frequency intervals, and then ponder the relative qualities of the differences, as if sitting at a piano and listening to pairs or groups of tones. Like Newton, I don't have a hypothesis, it's just an aspect of the phenomena (visible light) which I haven't seen anyone address, and which I have a hunch there is some information there that might be worth finding out (or not).

A: Well, there may well be interesting things going on, but it's pretty clear our perceptual apparatus just doesn't have the frequency resolution to --literally -- see what's happening. The human eye is only sensitive to three primary colors; all other colors are merely a mix of those. It's like your ear only being sensitive to three notes, and all music -- all sound -- would be perceived as mixtures of the three. And that's a pretty strained analogy, which indicates to me that there's a limit to how far it goes.

I'm personally interested in the boundaries of color perception: I've made an artwork that uses near-infrared LEDs to produce a very dim but noticeably red glow. Unfortunately, it doesn't look any more red than red -- we -- or at least I -- just don't have spectral sensitivity any lower.

As fas as "visible octaves," I've heard that the retina (or more specifically the blue-responding cones) really are sensitive to well into the high 300 nm ultraviolet, and it's only the lens of the eye that is filtering it out. Apparently people who have had their lenses surgically replaced with synthetic ones see rich and vivid violets they have not perceived before.

(As an interesting sidebar, there is evidence that some women are tetrachromats -- they have an extra optical pigment and so are are sensitive to four primary colors. Honeybees can see not only well into the ultraviolet, but polarization axis as well -- what must the world appear like to them?)

Visit to Parkfield

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 02:47:00 +0000

So this week I went to Parkfield, the remote California hamlet known for its frequent earthquakes. My friend D.V. Rogers has an indescribably ambitious art installation called PIEQF there.

I was charmed by the Parkfield Inn and Cafe: I wasn't expecting much, but vintage scientific equipment fit right in with the Wild West theme.

Lights in Interior Design

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 01:55:00 +0000

Hey look at that. The lights I designed for Bar Bambino made Interior Design magazine. (So they got a few details wrong, big whoop.)

If you are in the hood (right around the corner from NoiseBridge as it turns out) stop in and have a glass of Lagrein.

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:10:00 +0000

Robots and pyro: does life get any better?

(Photo credit: Frederic Larson SFGATE)

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:00:00 +0000

So. Been using Twitter for a while. Took me quite a while to get into it: I still can't really believe that anyone really cares about my tweets. But I'm over it. And you know, it's curiously addictive. One thing that bugs me, however, is the 140-character limit, which is pretty arbitrary. So in one of the classical definitions of "hack," I hacked up a little work-around called "Shredded Tweet" that takes a longer chunk of text, chops it up into shreds, and tweets each shred in reverse order, so it reads correctly. Take that, arbitrary 140-char limit!

Turns out some people read Twitter messages in chronological order, which kind of borks the whole idea. But it was fun to do and now I know way more DHTML and PHP than I did a few days ago.

Does this thing work?

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:04:00 +0000

If it does, it's showing the temperature in my apt right now.

Best kit evar

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 03:17:00 +0000

It's the oscilloscope clock kit from dutchtronix. It's awesome. I'm going to bust out one of my old analog scopes to show it on, but here's a screen shot from me digital one.

Call me old school but there's something about a classic phosphor vector display that is just infinitely cooler than a LCD.

That's it!

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:18:00 +0000

Hot diggity, the new iPhone has a SCIENTIFIC CALCULATOR!

That's DOPE!

I'M LIKE SO GETTING ME ONE OF THOSE!

What a f***ing coincidence

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 23:01:00 +0000

In a snarky mcCoincidence (see last post), it turns out there's a band called the Fuck Buttons, and as you might guess from the name, they are pretty awesome.

You know me (down with CTP)

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 04:20:00 +0000

The irrepressible CTP has some new buttons out. See 'em all at snarkymcf***buttons.com.

The Robots are Coming

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Wed, 28 May 2008 00:29:00 +0000

All of them. More precisely, this Saturday there is a rare confluence of space weather that brings together both Chassis and SWARM in the same space-time coordinates, namely the Laughing Squid Anniversary Party, conveniently located at Cellspace. If you're curious as to how exactly I've been wasting my time for the past year or so come on out and see the results. (Hope they work.)

Come get a drink from Chassis!

Chassis has a Posse Website

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Tue, 20 May 2008 05:46:00 +0000

Chassis has a website.

Hosted by Laughing Squid, natürlich, who took some awesome photos of last week's Roboexotica USA. (We also got some press from Wired, yay).

Thanks to the irrepressible Magnus at SHIFZ and Skot Kuiper for the venue.

SWARM at Coachella

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:49:00 +0000

Well, we threatened to do it, and by gum we did it.

We take preposterously complicated technology out to the f*cking desert and make it work. It's not even art any more, it's a giant wobbly inverted pyramid of fiendish stuff that can and will break disastrously in front of people who paid us money to do it. (Not that you care, but did you know each Orb has eight microcomputers that all have to talk to each other?) We are stupid. But we're badass enough that we've done it and will do it again.

Thanks to JDV for the pix

Chassis at the San Jose Museum of Art

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 18:57:00 +0000

So Chassis had his first paying gig at the SJMA last night. After some opening-night jitters (I can't believe we hooked up the keg tap backwards!) things went completely smoothly, and the beer ran out at precisely 9:00 PM when the reception ended.

I'm continually surprised and amazed just how willing people are to treat a a vaguely-humanoid piece of junk like a person.

Thanks to Lucky Nora for the photos

Video as promised

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 17:12:00 +0000

Here's some video of the LED lightwall I mentioned earlier.

Finally done

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:34:00 +0000

After more than a year, this custom 1440-LED installation I did for a private residence is finally up. What you see here is less than 1/5 of the whole thing (I couldn't get a shot of the big living room panel because of construction equipment in the way). It came out pretty great. Pictures show snaps of two different video programs ("reflections" and "sparkle"). (I'll get some video up as soon as I can figure out how to rotate it in a way that doesn't break the video sites.)

Source video by Sierra Helvey, installation assistance by Soo-Hwa Yuan, project conception and managment by Peter Noble and Mike Webb of Revolverdesign, architecture by Craig Steely, thanks to Luigi Argento and Philip Springer.

Do YOU have ANY IDEA

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:20:00 +0000

Do YOU have ANY IDEA of the COSMIC FORCES that could be UNLEASHED if you TURN THAT DIAL???

(WTF? It's a custom Orb shell from SWARM, with a custom light pod and controller, for a private collector of exquisite taste.)

UN-altered REPRODUCTION and DISSEMINATION of this IMPORTANT Information is ENCOURAGED, ESPECIALLY to COMPUTER BULLETIN BOARDS.

Tip of the hubcap to Erik for pictures and considerable help

Skin care tips from Keith Richards

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:41:00 +0000

"No, I leave that up to other people."

-Keef, when asked about moisturizer.

Classy Chassis

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 06:07:00 +0000

Various folx remind me that blogs are for shameless self-promotion and that I should do more of that. Sorry, I forgot!

A recent creation is Chassis the Drink-Serving Robot, done up bloggy-style by Simone (thanx S!). She even posted a video.

Chassis will be coming to the San Jose Museum of Art at a gala robot-themed opening April 11. (Oops: unfortunately this is a museum members-only affair. To see Chassis in action looks like someone else needs to throw a party.)

Thhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiissssssssssss is brilliannnnnnnnnt

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 05:59:00 +0000

It's Beethoven's Ninth, slowed down by a factor of about 25. That is one second of the original takes about 25 in this version, called 9 Beet Stretch.

It's very listenable ambient music, with some surprising movement. Some of the passing chords can be very dark, and stretched tympani could be the very soundtrack of Doom, but after a while it all returns to the dominant or subdominant.

What's cool is you can listen to it streaming 24/7. Perfect for hacking sessions.

Junglelicious

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 17:06:00 +0000

Lipstick Jungle. Oh Christ. Snort.

A galactic mindblower

noreply@blogger.com (The Head Rotor) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 18:08:00 +0000

Just look at this baby. Be sure to zoom in on it. Wowzers.