qDot

I've been following Masahiko Inami's work for years, but I'd never seen this video before. You've probably heard me talk about GVS before, but check out this application of it. Evil.

Me too (doing some AR stuff)! from Anatoly Zenkov on Vimeo.

And the music is a track called Bumpy Bump Face, which is one of the best names for anything ever (but my god googling it brings up horrible results).

I've got a few new projects on the radar.

libomron

This is a framework for accessing the USB capabilities of Omron medical equipment, specifically the Omron 790IT Blood Pressure Monitor at the moment. There has been some talk online about accessing their pedometers in a cross platform manner (reference: dullest.com), and I'm hoping the protocol for that and their other blood pressure monitors are basically the same, so I can extend the protocol parsing to the whole family of products.

libambx

libambx is an open source, cross platform library for the Ambx ambient environment feedback system that I'm working on in conjunction with the people at Electrosthetics. I'm currently working on reversing the ambx communications protocol (document available here). It's nice to work with someone else on this stuff for once.

libnifalcon updates

libnifalcon is still coming along nicely, if a bit slow at the moment since I'm stuck on some rather difficult problems with firmware loading and kinematics. It's been used in a couple of papers (including this one on teleoperation of an insectbot), and there's also been some work on porting it to Chai3d for use in the Dimple environment for physical interaction with sound.

My AmbX system came in today

I've been talking about reverse engineering this for 4 years.

Now I have one.

Rainbow technofarts by the weekend!

Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.

Via Pixelsumo, still one of my favorite blogs ever

via PixelSumo

via 15people

via VR Geek Blog

FC2009 Fursuit Parade Point Cloud Test Render from qDot on Vimeo.

via 15people.net

Photo by imweasel

So, what'd you do this weekend?

Well, most people do these at the end of the year. However, to both avoid the flood and because my birthday is far more important than NYE, it's time for my year "day before my birthday" review.

Prior years

• 27
  
• None for 26 (Moved to SF, started at Linden, the end)
• 25 (Another one of these will kill me)
• None for 24 (It involved a lunar rover and titties. That sums it up pretty well)
• 23

January

• Built the WiiYo Project

February

• Finish Mass Effect
• Work on developing a controls system for my first actual fucking machine. Fail, and quadruple the total amount of parts I've made magic smoke escape from in the process.

March

• Speak at ETech. Tell Web 2.0 people about sex.
• Acquire Monochrom Sun Breast Hammer Logo Coke Bottle. Definitely a high point.
• Ramp up serious work on libnifalcon, a project that will end up requiring most of my year to get even near v1.0

April

• Put out first Max/MSP and Pd patches for the falcon, along with first kinematics model, which turns out to be way, way off.
• Post The Interactive Fleshlight review on Slashdong. This pretty much ends up being my farewell to sex toy development post, at least, for the year.
• Speak at the Leather Leadership Conference. If only all web panels were anywhere near this entertaining.

May

• Idly do a search for robotics in jobs on craigs list, just to see what happens. Find one that sounds intriguing. End up quitting my job at Linden and starting anew at 510 Systems.
• Spend month freaking the fuck out that I just changed jobs

June

• Realize that even though the work schedule is rough, I really, really missed working near hardware, making May worth it.
• Start flying kites again. Quickly devolves into being the Summer Obsession of 2008. Out at least 8-10 hours every weekend flying
• Discover what is probably my favorite music video of the year.
• Present at Uncle Abdul's BDSM Colloquium Series. Promise myself that this will be the last time I use the AE 2007 slides in a public presentation. A promise that has so far held.

July

• Develop KiteLight RGB lighting system for kites

August:

• Attended first Kite Festival

September

• Receive the Lifetime Achievement award for excellence in the area of Butt Plugs and stuff at Arse Elektronika 2008. Wonder what to do with rest of lifetime.
• Other than that, not much, apparently

October

• Start libnifalcon on the v1.0 path. First time I'll have ever gotten any piece of personally written software to a 1.0 point (now at beta 2 as of this writing)
• libnifalcon starts seeing usage in physical interface for virtual instruments class at Stanford
• Built OSC based iPhone control interface for KiteLight

November

• See performance of new Merce Cunningham piece. Holy shit.
• See first US performance of Blixa Bargeld's 'The Execution of Precious Memories'. (Holy shit)^2.
• A good month for art, over all.

December

• Receive a random, unexpected box of sex toys in the mail. Again.
• Try Lutefisk for the first time. Definitely an experience.
• Enjoy 2 week vacation, full of drinking.

January

• Kick off the year by fixing a dildo. apparently it's going to be a dildo fixing kind of year.

So yeah, all in all, not too bad. Can't really complain. Here's hoping for a year of more modern art performance and random adult product mailings.

Talking Head Vibrator Demo from qDot on Vimeo.

Things I've Pushed Through Toast

OO-Ray - Shoegazer Cello Project

Think My Bloody Valentine meets a cello.

Disquiet post with MP3 of live set from a few weeks ago

Fuck parties, fuck people, and fuck things ending in either 8 OR 9.

This is how you properly spend a New Years Eve.