Distributed Search Engine
Yacy is a distributed open source search engine. Interesting as a way to avoid the censorship, surveillance and centralized control of Google & co.
Python Qt with PySide
PySide is a new set of Qt bindings for Python. LGPL licencsed and supported by Nokia.
Encoding Ogg Theora From a Webcam
ffmpeg2theora seems like the easiest way.
gstreamer is pretty doable as well. some tips here and here.
Embedded Web Fonts with WOFF
Firefox 3.6 supports WOFF embedded fonts. Designers rejoice! You can finally stop using Verdana for everything. Now be prepared for a flood of web sites with bubble letters.
Packaging Python Apps with Libs
Virtualenv is a tool for building batteries-included virtual environments for python. Looks like it will be very useful for packaging up PyCessing for the Mac and MSWindows.
Art Object that Sells Itself on eBay
Caleb Larsen's A Tool to Decieve and Slaughter is a device and piece of conceptual contract art that automatically sells itself on eBay. (via slashdot)
Socialist Computing
Article, in German, about the DDR (former East Germany) computer industry. The slideshow has some fantastic photos, even if you can't read Deutsch.
ASCIImeo
Watch Vimeo videos through rendered with colored text instead of pixels.
Mechanical Copying and Parallel Motion
Of several historic methods for copying documents, one of the oldest is the Pantograph. The device finds its modern incantation in the Autopen device which is designed for the mass production of sincerity. Artist Theo Jansen applies the same principles of mechanical tranlation of motion to produce strange air powered beach creatures.
Friendship and Web 2.0
William Deresiewicz has written a polemic arguing that the whole social networking thing has a tendency to debase the meaningfulness of friendships as well as being symptomatic of a general modern tendency to turn all relationships into "friendship". Now go twitter about it.
Avoiding the New Big Brother
Two interesting approaches to avoid giving up privacy every time you search or look at a map:
- TrackMeNot - plugin that tries to overload the search machine with noise
- GoogleSharing - another plugin that uses proxies to anonymize searches, maps, news and other google services.
Linux and Web Fonts
Some good suggestions with comparisons of standard web fonts and typical open source alternatives installed on most Linux distros.
Cool, FLOSS Friendly FPGA Board
This board is from a little company here in Germany. They support open source development. Quite a decent price too.
Simple PWM Motor Control
Simple design with just a few cheap parts. Works for dimming lights and other
Blown Out Hits
30 15 Moog - music blog with lots of blown out 70s synth jams, library music, bad-but-good new age stuff, etc.
Joystick Input in Python
Two approaches to catching joystick events:
And here's a good overview on hacking MIDI/Joystick ports on standard PCs:
Yuppie Go Home
Even handed essay on gentrification, post real estate crash.
Communications Theory Background
Wayne Clements has a nice explaination of Markov Chains.
Claude Shannon's original paper "A Mathematical Theory of Communication".
Synth Circuit Plans
Music From Outer Space has quite a few plans, boards, etc for various modular synth components.
Minimal Orientalist
Quite a dancefloor hit at the moment; Blaue Moschee (Blue Mosque):
Ethics or Aesthetics
Very clever argument for the notion of marriage, specifically, as relates to the debate on gay marriage.
Console Interfaces in Python
Nice HOWTO on using the built in curses library in python.
Paranoid Steganography
Amazing article in Playboy (yes, er, actually) about some crazy dude who conned quite a few powerful US officials into thinking that he could pull secret messages out of Al Jazeera's satellite TV feed. The desire to believe these phony results was great enough, among high ranking officials, to result in several major Orange Alerts despite there being no corroborating intelligence.
Extemporaneous Boat Building
Some Australian friends have gotten into doing experiments building boats, in the bustling seaport of Linz, Austria!? They have a nice blog about their research and travails.
AVR USB Open Source Firmware and Boards
- Lightweight USB Framework for AVR (LUFA)
- German Atmel USB AVR Vendor
- Dr. Stefan Salewski's GPL AVR USB Firmware
Update: more links from Martin Howse:
- Teensy
- Bumble-B
- Nanduino - DIY Etchable
- Micropendous
The Drop Shadow Talks
My esteemed colleague Johannes Osterhoff has put together an amazing set of talks at the BTK on the collision of design, interface and pop-culture: The Drop Shadow Talks. If you're in Berlin, don't miss it. And get the T-Shirt!
Cheapo 8-bit Computing Platform
Uzebox is an 8-bit RISC computing core with an NTSC video output signal. It was designed to be an Open Source NES/SNES equivalent 80s video game console but folks seem to be into hacking it all sorts of different ways. There's even a black and white version that only needs a cpu and a few external parts.
mplayer remote control with slave mode
Very hackable. Roll your own TV studio. Thanks to Linda Hilfling for the idea and instruction (via pickled_feet/micro research). Relevant mplayer docs are here.
The Hedonistic Imperative
So reassuring to see that extropian nutso stuff is still on the internet. Come to think of it, in 1994, half the web pages on the Internet were like this.
Hiding and Showing Elements with jquery
For reference. Some good tips here.
Amazing Illustrations
Bibliodyssey is a fantastic little blog that collects and links scans of often uncany scans from old illustrated books.
Resources for Grants
Creative Capital - Arts Writers Grant Program
The Sound of North Jersey
Tony Humphries, true old school master of garage and house. He's still going strong.
How to Set Up a Python Package
Quite useful post on how to organize a proper Python module package.
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Tag Cloud
aesthetics, archives, berlin, dirtstyledesign, electronics, events, exquisitecode, generativetext, gentrification, graphics, hardware, historictechnology, industrialdesign, interface, kooks, linux, mac, money, music, naturallanguage, paranoia, pycessing, python, steganography, synth, technohubris, typography, video, web, writing(all)
