IZation Labs

This has nothing to do with anything technology related, if you don’t count the fact that I did the sketching on paper but the editing using the Gimp. If you need a photoshop substitute and you like open source software, or if you want to get away from Apple’s overpriced software, then Gimp may be for you.

And don’t you dare think you can’t handle it. Mr. B is using it. No offense, B-san. I praise you for taking on new technology and ideas so openly, and encourage everyone else to spend their lives doing the exact same!

The Pandora continues to blossom! Head over to the OpenPandora website to check out some new photo realistic renders of the console, as well as some recent blog posts! I’m really torn between buying the Pandora and funding the purchase of an HD camera. Blender compositing is calling my name…

Sorry for the low frequency of posts! Things have just been a little hectic lately! Mr. B has been speaking of classrooms without walls quite a lot recently, and I realized that that is exactly what IZation Labs is. IZation Labs has no actual physical location. The only true constant of this site is the web address itself! It is made up of individuals all over the place, and no physical connection is needed! Kind of neat when you think about it!

Lace

Gigawatts, actually. Pronounced Gig-uh-wots. So, after reading that and the title, who can guess where I’m going with this? I’ll give you a hint. Guess what I saw in the parking lot the other day?

Click for more detail.

There it is; a Delorean. My favorite car in the world. Someday, I will own one.

And yes, this still ties in with steampunk. Who has seen the third Back to the Future movie? That’s Steampunk.

In my mind it's not "...if I ever own one...". It's "...when I own one..."

Man has always dreamt of moving objects with his mind. It’s just one of those things that everyone would love to be able to do. Let me give you an example:

See the little stick figure? See what he’s doing? Telekinesis: manipulating objects with his mind. In this case he is lifting a wooden box and stopping bullets.

Mind numbing announcement. We’re getting there. No, really. And knowing the kind of things I blog about, how do you think we are ‘getting there’? That’s right. Technology.

Enter Emotiv’s EPOC. A controller that captures signals through the skull much the same as electroencephalography does and shunts the data into a computer or game system for processing. (Think of actually reaching out and using the force instead of pushing the left trigger in the next Star Wars game.) For around 300 dollars, you can own a device that has the potential to turn your thoughts into commands for not only digital, but also real world items.

It’s actually an amazing device, and seems to do a decent job of coming-through performance wise. There are multiple videos showing off what it can do at Emotiv’s website. To get an a basic idea of what the EPOC is capable of, watch this video. Note: I found a better video that isn’t hosted by facebook. Click the link to enjoy!

Think of the possibilities. One could tie this to a microcontroller or a small computer (eee PC, anyone?) and use it to take control of anything from, for example, remote control toys to heavily modified remote operated lawnmowers. Think of any item you own that requires a button push; maybe the turn of a dial. Theoretically, you could do away with the physical contact of pushing a button or turning that knob, replacing it with nothing but mental concentration.

Not to say that is a simple thing to do, but have you looked at the hacking community? If it’s possible, then someone can do it. Enough said. Go check out that website. It’s worth it.

And yes. I have reserved my EPOC headset. :]

Woodchuck62 suggests that we change IZation Lab’s catch phrase to “Making the Brain USB 2.0 Compatible One Unsuspecting Victim At A Time.” Maybe we could put that on a t-shirt and sell it!

I can finally find a moment to talk about the dorm and the university!

Our dorms are a little spacier that typical freshman dorms. There are 4 people to a room, and there are two bedrooms with a living area in between the bedrooms. The bathroom is off to the side of the living room. Honestly, there’s plenty of space.

There

Of course, they matched me up with my roommates perfectly. We all listen to good music, play good games, and are into technology and computers at a fairly heavy level. All despite the fact that only two of us have declared technology intensive majors. One of us is going into Network Engineering, one into Nursing, one into (I think) Biology and English, and I have declared a Computer Engineering Technology major.

Plenty of storage space!

There’s a pilot program they are starting here next semester. I’ve had a very positive experience being a test subject in pilot programs, so when the Dean of the College of Technology here told us of this new program, my ears perked up.

The new program is Gaming, Animation, and Simulation. The core of the education is learning to do CG animation. They teach you by making you develop video games, with the ultimate goal being CG animated simulation, as I understand it. My ears perked when I heard animation. I love bringing things to life on the computer, and I would jump at the chance to get involved in a program like that. Read more »

All are broken in one way or another. No, really.

As the months battle ever onward, I enjoy making a habit of jumping around to my usual online stores and checking out the newest computer component prices.

Almost every time I find myself in the position to think, “Oh! Hey! I bought that 3 months ago for double the price! Cool!”

Of course I always check out Tiger Direct and Newegg, but there’s one that some people haven’t heard of, and it is my favorite of all, mainly because I love upgrading my flash memory collection. Dealram is part of a bigger site called dealnews, where people report the best deals on all things electronic. The cool part is that it doesn’t seem forum based, which may be a turn on for some people due to its quirky, semi haphazard arrangement. Instead, it acts like a business in itself. You search for products, and the best deals that are the most up to date appear in a heartbeat.

I was amazed but not surprised, if that’s even possible, to find out that for the price I purchased my 16 gig flash drive for last winter, I can now buy a 32 gig replacement. Think about that. That is a huge decrease in price. And what’s more, 64 Gig flash drives are, at the time of writing this, under 500 dollars. Wait 6 months. I guarantee they will be under 250, probably closer to 100.

It just blows my mind every time. Do you remember when you first bought a flash drive? I believe mine was a 64 meg. Weighing in at close to 40 dollars, that was a lot of money for such a small amount of storage. But it didn’t feel like that then.

64 megabytes! Wow! I’ll actually be able to move my dos games around now. I can get them off of that old computer and onto my parents new laptop… I won’t have to rely on those darn floppies anymore!

I had no idea that a few years later a 32 gig flash drive could be purchased for under 100 dollars. What about a year from now? What about 4? At the rate that technology seems to be improving and prices dropping, by then we could be storing Terabytes of data on something barely larger that our fingernail, and at an affordable price.

Made a new short SFX clip today named “Jump Stunt”. It took about three and a half to four hours to make. The final cut turned out better than I expected. If you’ve seen the movie Jumper, then you can probably guess where my inspiration came from.

You can also tell that I’m not the best actor, but hey, it’s not easy when you have to be the camera man and the guy who jumps off the porch 10 times in a row to get the right shot! That kind of thing can leave you a little disoriented..

We spent the better part of five hours at the Propeller expo yesterday, and it was an enormous success. I am happy to hear that they are most certainly going to try to make this an annual event! It was every interesting, I met some amazing people and they made both myself and my significant other, Genny, feel extremely welcome.

We arrived a little late, as we had a previous engagement. The expo started early in the morning, around 8 or 9-ish, but we arrived closer to 12:30. The expo itself had upwards of 70 people there, some of them from as far away as California, and we even had Paul Baker, a Parallax Applications Engineer there to speak with us. It was only a forty minute drive for us, but it would have been well worth the trip no matter how far the drive.

There were all kinds of projects on display, created by people ranging in age from 11 to upper 50s at least. There were autonomous vehicles, lighting displays, product demos, a magic touchscreen Etch-a-sketch, and even a set of bells hacked to ring when their corresponding notes on a midi keyboard are pressed.

A special mention goes out to a young man named Thomas. He is eleven years old and is positively brilliant. He nearly has a savant-level of understanding of computers and technology. Let me illustrate.

While we were talking, I mentioned that it looked like his (yes, his) Macbook Pro had crashed. He said that it was actually just a screensaver he had located on the net that consisted of crash and error codes from unix and linux based operating systems, as well as various other programs. Wow. Okay.

He is running Parallels on his Macbook Pro, so that he can interface his microcontrollers with the computer, and showed me an example of writing a very simple “Hello World” program for his Propeller, which we got on the topic of after I asked about freedos, or something to that effect.

He also pulled up some files from his home ftp server that he had set up. He saved a Dell Optiplex from being trashed at a local mechanic shop and installed freenas on it, which is a Free Network Attached Storage system. He then routed it and set it up so he could call up files on his home computer from anywhere in the world via the internet.

Keep in mind that this young man is only eleven years old. I can’t impress upon you enough just how blown away I was. I think he could have out-coded my electronics professors from last years classes when it came to the Propeller. His father is very proud, and tells us that Thomas is almost entirely self-taught. He said that he listens to what Thomas tells him, nods politely, absorbs as much information as he can, and then gets out of the way. Thomas is an active member of the Parallax forums, and I’m sure that he has a very bright future ahead of him. I hope to see him again next year!

For a ten dollar per person entrance fee, everybody left with at least 130 dollars worth of components, including two Propeller Prototyping USB boards, two forty pin DIP propeller chips, and a ultrasonic sensor module. There was even a sensor product manual, a propeller sticker, and a fancy little spinning propeller that I enjoy flying outside. :] There were multiple vendors there, and its a good thing that they didn’t take debit or I would have spent a lot more than I did.

While there I picked up 15 one dollar solar cells, each one rated at 4V open, and 80 MAs.
I also purchased a 50 pack of USB connectors for 5 bucks, and a Micro datapad, which is a very popular little piece of equipment when your microcontroller projects require user input.
Altogether I spent 22 dollars on other items.

There were quite a few speakers, the most prominent one being Paul Baker from Parallax. There were also prizes given out throughout the day, ranging from sensor kits and professional development boards to Boe-bots and Hydra kits. We didn’t win any, which was okay, because I was already extremely satisfied with my ‘haul’.

The man who set up the entire event, Jeff Ledger, has posted a gallery of images from the event, so if you want more pictures, head on over here. Thanks Jeff! My full gallery can be found on the next page.