IZation Labs

After several months of heavy thought, I’ve come to a decision. Those of you who see me in daily life may have noticed how stressed and inward I’ve seemed these past months.

Well here’s your reason.

I’ve decided to halt all studies and find my way to a monastery. There I will devote my life to their ways, and come back a better man for it. True, it may be decades before my return. But I think the wait is justified. I’ve been trying to decide on this pamphlet they sent me for quite a while now, and it’s really effected me, socially. I’ve made up my mind, and no one can stop me. It has been nice knowing all of you, but I have to move forward, no matter what the cost.

In other news, Google has changed it’s name to Topeka.

-Lace

Amal Graafstra, author of RFID Toys, has recently collaborating with Robotics Connection to create a brand new, incredibly powerful RFID reader! Here’s an excerpt from his website.

“Here’s the feature shortlist;

The following device has been unofficially dubbed the “Blasphemous Bible Box” by my roommate. It was built for my art class, in which we were instructed to create our own ‘box’ project. The limitations were few. The size and style of box did not matter. The concepts were to be approved by the professor, and it did not need to be comprehensible, ie, it could be extremely personal and secretive.

My project was built from a lightly modified inexpensive cigar box. From the outside it looks like a modern though simplistic black box, with a kind of hammered metal sheen.

The inside is lined with genuine leather, complete with a New Testament Bible. The Bible is stuck open to the book of Revelations. Specifically, the primary verses concerning the Mark of the Beast.

Hidden beneath the paper and leather is a bird’s nest of electrical wiring and components. Inside is an Arduino, six AA batteries wired in series, a five volt regulator, a servo motor, and an RFID reader.

This is an art project, you ask? Yep. Read on, there’s a video of it in action after the break.

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For one of my SAG (that’s Simulation, Animation, and Gaming) classes this semester I had to create a flash animation based on a child’s fairy tale story. The story I randomly chose was named ‘The Three Feathers’. After picking it we wrote out a basic synopsis of the story, did some character drawings and storyboards, and set to work. We had much more than a month to do it. I waited until I had a little less than 2 days worth of ‘time’ until the submission cut off, then got to work. First, I worked on the backgrounds. (Click the images below to make them larger.)

The evening before the project was due, I realized that I had managed to nearly overachieve myself into oblivion. I had made it too long, too clunky, and had high goals and aspirations that my talents in Adobe CS4 wouldn’t allow me to reach. In my mind, the project had been set up and planned like the ReElect the Dead film we created last summer. In the depths of my mind, I had known that was a bad idea. The next thing I worked on was the script and music.

I resolved that I would not sleep until it was finished, or finished enough to show in class. I animated. I fiddled with the software, trying to understand the keyframes and motion tweens. Trying most of all to figure out how to sync the audio track to the animation itself.

I did not sleep that night.

At 11:45 the following morning a haggard, bearded, dead exhausted man was sitting at his desk, sighing at his unfinished work (unfinished as far as personal standards are concerned) and packing up his gear, ready to head to his noon class.

Click here to read the rest and watch the final animation

ReElect The Dead, a personal project of my cousin and myself with no direct connections to IZation Labs, is an upcoming political satirical zombie film from Brian Lynch and Lace Williamson. The film stars President Obama and George Bush as a one two punch against a small town spiraling out of control. Filming for the indie project took place towards the end of Summer 2009, and editing is now being done. The final release will be sometime at the beginning of this Summer.

Here’s the link for anyone interested. I’m always updating it with new screenshots or sneak peaks. It just sums up to a good laugh.

-Lace

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately concerning CNC Mills, homemade ones in particular. Now, I won’t get too in depth before I give anything away, but I found some very interesting full size CNC machines with five axes of movement. What’s that mean?

Well, most entry level or home made CNC mills/routers have three axes of movement. X, Y, and Z. What this means is that the movement of the cutting tool is to the ‘left and right’, ‘up and down’ and ‘in and out’. This creates a decent range of movement, and works especially well on mostly two dimensional parts.

Click here to read the rest and watch the videos

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Wed, Dec 16th, 4:03 PM

It’s been almost a month and a half now, and there isn’t much left in the way of an incision mark, just a patch of new pink skin and a bump where the needle broke the skin. I’m not having any problems with the implant. There’s no migration at all, and my body seems to have nestled it in place quite well. What I mean is that it used to kind of float in place, whereas now there must be an impression in the flesh beneath it that holds it steady. It is pain free, though I’m still careful with it. On the few occasions when I’ve strained my hands, be it lifting or catching my balance, things of that nature, it may have been little sore afterwards, but to such a small extent that I may just be imagining it.
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