For the Love of Blog

Here

It’ll be down now though but it works…

I checked out Yahoo Live! It seems like it could be cool tool. But it’s also kind of dead right now. The sound quality is really bad and the image jittery. maybe it’s my network. Some users are not streaming anything but leaving their cameras on and not logging out, so they appear as a live channel but nothing’s happening - that’s bad. Now I’m watching a stream inside a kitchen restaurant, but there’s no information on where it is or who the chef is. The kitchen is clean and there is a good looking waitress. They’re french. I don’t know why anyone would watch this.

It’s interesting to think though that in a few years there might be cameras everywhere, with wi-fi available everywhere.

Article in the Times

another one on streaming on the iPhone

How about a site dedicated to streaming band rehearsals? Some fans would probably dig that. And the viewers could request songs from the band. Or streaming the filming of a movie or a TV show in realtime. Or putting tiny cameras on athletes - for example a football game, allowing the viewers to “feel” how it’s like being on the field. They have that in race cars..

Hole in the Tree - just 3 videos that loop, sounds overlapping…

For me the most confusing thing is what exactly is independent? Does it refer to the content, or how the content is made? Both? Does it matter what the conditions are? There are so many places on the web that let everyone participate from Digg to YouTube to blogging that it’s hard to tell how it will shape the tastes of media consumers in the next few years, or how fast it will become mainstream (it eventually always does, right?) It’s defenitily different than what was considered “indie” in the 80’s or 90’s.

What’s most fascinating to me is that if you have talent and would like to expose yourself you can do it pretty easily. Of course, you compete against many, but you get a lot more exposure and you have a chance to succeed like anyone else.

With  a few exceptions though, people are still relying on mainstream media as far as how to produce content. Most videos by people try to emulate television, and I can see how independent media will affect television and newspapers the most.

I remember hearing of the 2girls1cup video that was going around. On youtube there are hundreds of videos viewed by millions of people filming people’s reaction to the video. That’s amazing. I’m watching a video on my screen of someone watching a video on their screen posted by someone else. That’s really bizarre… especially the piano music in the background in all of the videos, it’s almost art… example
Wait, now there’s a whole trend of people fliming their grandparents reactions! here

For fun, Weezer’s Pork and Beans video is pretty awesome - takes all the most popular characters from youtube.

Also Gondry’s movie “Be Kind Rewind” is all about “indie” and mirrors what’s happening now on the web..

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 Just a guitar drone

A kinetically powered synthesizer - Ithai Benjamin & Alex Abreau

Using energy creatively to produce and manipulate sound

We were challenged to create an object that runs only on energy provided by the user and/or the ambient environment. We wanted to make a musical instrument that uses energy creatively - something that would be fun to do, as well as educational. We experimented with various analog circuits and familiarized ourselves with how the power a motor generates can effect the circuit we built and Synthinetic was born.

As you spin the two motors (each controlling a different sound source) power is stored in a capacitor that powers the analog circuits. Various controls manipulate the sounds and things become interesting when the capacitor reaches its limit.
Pushing the button in the fur hole drains the circuit - surprise!

Video demonstration:

To play the instrument the player has to turn big square knobs that turn the motors and slowly electricity is fed to the circuit, power is stored in capacitors that slowly charges. The instrument will start to produce sound when it has enough power. Two LEDS show how much the circuit is charged
There are various controls, knobs and switches to manipulate the sounds.
It gets most interesting when the capacitor is pushed to its limit - The sound will vary and produce unpredictable results.

One of the best features is the KILL switch - the switch, accessed by sliding your finger in a fur hole, drains all the electricity into a motor that spins a pirate flag. The sound slowly dies as the flag spins. Pressing the button again will stop the kill process and use whatever energy is left to run the circuit.

More Pics:

Check it out :
version 1 (components only)
version 2 (components + exploding flowers)

For my final project I took the basic ideas from my midterm but continued without implementing sound. I created a visual interface comprised of invisible components that move around by themselves and connect to other components.

When they connect to the center circle a flower is created around the component. When they are close to each other a line connects the two, and a big flower is created around the center circle. The size of the circle depends on the y-axis of one of the components.

All the points are draggable. Click on the center circle and drag it around to change the visual appearance of the interface, or click on one of the flowers or where the lines make a connection and move things around. The colors are created randomly when teh program starts.

I really like how it came out and how the code works. Now the code is a bit messy, but I have a lot of control over each component and what happens when they connect. I finally understood what Object Oriented programming is all about (well, sort of). It was a really good exercise for me to experiment with everything we’ve learned in ICM this semester.

Vikram and I have begun working on our PComp and Softness of Things final:

Two interactive wireless cement fiber-optic light interfaces that respond to touch

The interfaces will be made out of two 11″x11″ cement blocks interlaced with fiber-optics and wire seperated 1/2″ apart (that’s 400 fiber-optic strings). The wire goes to 200 QPROX-240 Touch Sensors. The fiber goes to a panel of 400 LEDS that light up when touching the cement surface. 

Today we received a huge order of:
- 800 LEDS
- 110 Shift Registers- 7 LED Driver
- 103 QProx Touch Sensors
- 18 MAX7219 LED Drivers

We started by wiring a simple up a 3×3 led matrix:

This is the code: (modified from here)

Then we discovered there is a Matrix Library for the Arduino (which we ended up not using).

Some interesting stuff in this forum post

DESIGNING PLASTIC PANELS

The next step was to order 4 plastic panels from Canal Plastics. Each was cut 11″ x 11″.

We then designed an illustrator file with holes for LEDS and holes for the Fibers. We had the holes laser cut at the ITS center at NYU. This is a very cool process. It comes out really pretty:

BOARDS ARE STUFFED, LEDS ARE WIRED:

DESIGNING CIRCUIT BOARDS:

I collaborated with Alex on Light & Sound installation. Alex wrote about some of it here.

I must admit that when Alex came to me with the idea of instaling and controlling the lights, I was a bit skeptic. “Isn’t that just a light show? What’s special about it?” I asked him. Alex wanted to create sound that would emphasize the breathing of the room - make breathing architecture. We talked about some ideas but didn’t get anywhere. A few days later we met and recorded Alex breathing. It was just breathing though - it wasn’t interesting. I suggested Alex just talk and we record him say whatever he wants. He did that and said “hot dog”. I liked it and started looping it and cutting it up with the breathing sounds. But it sounded bad. I suggested Alex talk about food in Japanese. It’s kind of fascinating to me that he can speak Japanese. He went with it. I messed around with the breathing samples and put it all together. We rehearsed it with the lights and Alex installed the lights.

The result was very very cool, and I think people really dug it. Alex did a great job programming the lights. He hid them behind the pipes and the air tunnel and they created shadows. Later Alex and I went to a Japanese resteraunt and he ordered us so much food. It was great.