January 2008 Archives

Happy Technology Awareness Day!

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A year ago today Boston authorities completely overreacted to a creative ad campaign promoting the Aqua Teen Hunger Force animated series. The people who made the promotional LED signs faced very serious criminal charges for a harmless decorative act. Let's all try to make technology a little more open, friendly, and familiar to the world. We need to keep all this rampant fear in check - our rights really do depend on it.

The Staccato Prototype

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Here's the first working version of the Staccato guitar effect pedal. I ended up choosing the name based purely on sound description. It uses the Ampeg Scrambler distortion circuit and passes the signal through a Vactrol for a softened gating effect. Every time I try to record a sample of it in action, I end up playing around with it much longer than necessary. But this is a good sign.Controls from Left to right:Pots - Texture, Blend, Rate, WidthFootSwitches - Bypass/Power, Staccato-ON/OFFThere's switch built into the texture pot that acts as a big ol' gain boost as well as a DC Jack in the rear with reverse polarity protectionHere's a sample I recorded off of a little practice amp I rescued from the dumpster. It starts off Dry, then uses the straight distortion, and finally, adds the staccato gating/tremolo effect:Staccato Proto sample AAC 1,009KB

MAKE & Me

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makeLogo.gifI've just been appointed MAKE Flickr Pool Curator! I'm very psyched about this new role I'll be fulfilling at makezine.com. I honestly couldn't imagine a publication I'd want to work with more. I'll be on the lookout for great projects in the pool and adding some hacks/how-to's/how-not-to's of my own as well. We'll be upping the interactive ante with some contests and prizes for user projects. It's a natural progression - MAKE shows people how to do cool things, people show make how to do cool things, repeat.

IR LED Glasses

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After viewing Johnny Lee's incredible head tracking demonstration using the Wii hardware I had to experience it for myself. I had a pair of LED safety googles lying around and decided it was time to put them to better use.

Click each photo for more info.

IR Emitting Safety Glasses 1.0

IR Emitting Safety Glasses 1.2

IR Emitting Safety Glasses 1.5

IR Emitting Safety Glasses 1.6

IR Emitting Safety Glasses 1.7