Author: John

Linux on Laptops

Tux!

Lets suppose that your tired of your current operating system and want to try something new. It happens, nothing wrong with that. The problem is that you’re a laptop owner and as we all know laptops are a delicate little box of hardware. Part computer, part monitor, and part strange alien technology that breaks when you look at it wrong. You have a friend that said ‘Get Linux, it’s kewl!’ Well, you know darn well that your sleek exotic beast was barely able to take an install of Microsoft Windows let alone some free OS made by people with more time that you ever remember having. Face it, Microsoft has enough programmers to build an Egyptian pyramid (hey, Gates is going to die someday…) So the notion that free software is going to install might be as crazy as open source XP. But as with many things on the ‘net, other people have forged into this unknown territory and have left notes as to their experiences.

This is an index of information and documentation of interest to those who now use or are considering using the Linux operating system on a notebook or laptop computer.

All in all a very handy site if your thinking of making the switch and want to push your laptop into a new dimension. Heck, I’m downloading Debian right now and have a 20GB drive ready to go into my Toshiba Satellite. Live free, use Linux! 🙂

Linux on Laptops

laptop, linux, OS, cool

Panoramic Camera Made From a Flatbed Scanner!

Last December I posted a note about the Panoscan digital panoramic camera and Mr. Sharpless was kind enough to make a comment about how he had built a few cameras that did pretty much the same thing but at a far lower price. Well I asked if he had a web site and I just got a reply saying that he was inspired to put a site up about his creations.
Thank you!!!

My “ScanCams” are panoramic cameras made from old flatbed document scanners and photographic lenses. They take images one vertical line at a time while rotating under control of the scanner’s electronics and drive motor. An attached laptop computer decodes the scan data and records formatted image files, using software I developed.
This kind of camera can have very high resolution and can make very wide images – up to 360 degrees or even more. The vertical field of view, and hence the angular resolution, depends on the lens focal length and the length of the linear image sensor.

I’m used to using a swing lens camera, I use a Russian Horizon 202pretty often, so the ‘limitations’ of such a camera are familiar to me. I don’t have a problem with the whole moving lens thing, it can make for some cool effects.

On the right is my second ScanCam, and the only one currently operational. Its CCD is 42mm long — the length of the diagonal of a 35mm film frame – and it uses Pentax screw mount SLR camera lenses. The sensor has 10,600 pixels, giving an effective resolution of 49 megapixels over the 35mm frame. I usually scan at one-half, one-third or one-quarter of the maximum resolution – roughly 12, 5 or 3 megapixels per frame.

GHAA… 49 megapixels per 35mm frame? Oh yeah… I am eyeing the screws in my HP 7400c scanner even as I type this…
So have a look at his site and go out and build one yourself! Make some art, why don’t ya… 🙂

TKS Digital Scanning Panoramic Camera
panoramic, photography, scanner, cool, digital, DIY

Neko Shinkansen

Neko Shinkansen

Very cool, and the cat ears make it all the better if you ask me. The ears act as air brakes to slow the train down in case of an emergency (earthquake, fire, etc…) Top speed is expected to be around 405 kph and run at 360 kph in normal operations. So, why can’t we have a few of these here in America? Once between Las Vegas and LA could pay for itself in a year, loads of people want to lose money in sin city. You know, on second thought I don’t think America is ready for something like this. For a start, if it was run by a private company it would be asking for an immediate bail out because the operation costs would be far too high. The company would try to cut costs and lower maintenance standards to keep the money pouring into the pockets of the shareholders from the government funding. Oh yeah, now that would make for some fantastic headlines…

Neko bullet train
Japan, train, fast

Store the Force

Vader USB

The whole custom USB memory device trend is taking longer to catch on than I had thought it would. This is the latest batch, Star Wars inspired memory units. So far this is falling in the same catagory as all the other ones, looks nifty but the storage capacity is far too small to be of any practical use. I suspect that some one is selling smaller (older) USB memory drives for very cheap and because the margin would be pretty good those get used in the cool custom cases.

May the USB Memory be with you my Young apprentice

USB, memory, Star Wars, storage

Decorer

Decorer

Well, nice to see that fashions in Tokyo are keeping up with the reputations that suround it. Looks like Harajuku, that would make sense as that is where you find all the supporters of the latest fashion… craze (or is is affliction?) If you ever visit Tokyo make sure you stop by Harajuku on a Sunday so you can see the locals get all weird.

In the past, this style was called “ shinorer ” because Japan ese talent, “ Tomoe Shinohara ” wear like this. After that, this fasion trend disappear at onece. But recently this fasion start to rampant again as “ Decorer ” .
At first, their way of decoration is very slight, subtlety and casually. But now their decoration technique go to extreme. Yes, they are really decorer !

Decorer, process of cheerful decoration fasion trend

fashion, Japan, decorer, weird

Cinema Redux

Cinema Redux

Pretty cool, like an storyboad after the fact. Pretty cleaver idea, I’d like to see a larger version of this, say 80×60 pixels on a big poster.

This explores the idea of distilling a whole film down to one single image. Using eight of my favourite films from eight of my most admired directors including Sidney Lumet, Francis Ford Coppola and John Boorman, each film is processed through a Java program written with the processing environment. This small piece of software samples a movie every second and generates an 8 x 6 pixel image of the frame at that moment in time. It does this for the entire film, with each row representing one minute of film time

cinema redux

photo, movie, java, art