Sunday, November 30, 2008
sense of touch
What makes all of this possible is some nifty coding. But last week a new programming language came out called Processing 1.0. It is still in beta, but it allows for rapid coding of visualization demos for all sorts of applications. Many multitouch demos are coded at least in part with Processing. You can google 'Processing 1.o" and download the compiler. It was written in Java, so it is similar to that. The site has a good collections of man pages and resources for learning the lanugage. The compiler also comes with a bunch of really cool examples. I like the ones that involve capturing live video and messing with it. For those examples to work, you have to download QuickTime 7 and a program called WinVDIG, version 1.01 (NOT the lastest version). If you can't find a copy of WinVDIG, email me and I will send you the setup.
So Microsoft released a video of some multitouch research they were doing that does not require a physical screen or touchpad. It uses only the webcam input detects and tracks certain points. After seeing this demo, guru remade a version of the demo in Processing (in only 20 minutes, a tribute to the power of Processing). Here is the post. I ran it myself and got it to work with 2 post it notes like he did and also got it to work by coloring the tips of my fingers with purple and red sharpie. Note that for it to work, you have to copy and paste it in, then save it, and put an image called 'mangoofdeath.jpg' in the same directory. Or you can change the name in the script to whatever the image is called. Anyway, it is a really neat demo. Over Christmas break, my friend and I plan to whip up a couple demos and play around with more multitouch applications. It would be really cool to make a bootable Linux Live CD that had all of the libraries preconfigured and the USB drivers for a bunch of webcams and a bunch of demos for multitouch. It could also have Processing installed on it. Hmm. I have never made a Linux Live CD before, but I have a post somewhere in my 1700 bookmarks that details how to do it. I think that will be another project to look into over break.
But this week is dead week at Tech, and next week is finals, so I will most likely not be posting anything for the next 2 weeks. Like anyone reads this anyway! But to the one person who subscribes to my RSS feed, go take something apart.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Hack it Up
The basis of the robot is basically a bunch of really cool electronics that would normally be expensive and several motors and a camera and speakers. That means that the shell that the bot comes with (which is cool) could be replaced with anything (vex anyone?). So for $250, thats pretty awesome. However, I think I will wait for it to come down in price or see if I can get one on the cheap from ebay or amazon or something. Instead, this Christmas I will be setting my sights on an Asus Aspire One. Tiny laptops are tasty (and good for testing...stuff...).
I just realized that I made a mistake. Wowee doesn't make the Spykee, Erector does. But I'm not going back to change all that. But Wowee deginatly make some awesome stuff for hacking. If you know me and want to some over to hack some stuff, shoot me an email and we will make it happen.
More on the Asus Aspire One later.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Toolbox
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Eyecandy
Aside from changing the look, I also changed the sound. I changed my logon, logoff, and startup sounds to sound themes from Mandriva Linux. These are all really easy to change, just go to control panel, sounds. However, the startup sound is not easy to change. For some reason, Microsoft really didn't want you to mess with it. But, it is possible, and here is how. I am posting this so readers can do it, and so I don't forget (because I had changed it before, and then I forgot how to and it took me a while to figure it out again). First, download Reshacker. its a standalone exe. right click it and run it as administrator. Then, go to open, and navigate to C:/Windows/System32 and open imageres.dll. expand WAVE and 5051, and click on 1033. If you click play, you should hear the vista startup sound. Next, right click on 1033 and click replace resource. navigate to your new sound and click ok. then fill in the boxes with WAVE, 5051, and 1033 respectively. Click ok, and then click play again, and you should hear your new sound. Now save it as imageres2.dll in C:/Windows/System32. Now, go to start, type cmd in the search bar, and right click, run as administrator. Type
net user administrator /active:yes
and hit enter.
you just enabled logging in to the administrator account. Now, go to switch user and log in as administrator. Navigate to C:/Windows/System32. Find imageres.dll. Rename it as imageres_backup.dll and rename imageres2.dll to imageres.dll. Now logout as administrator and log back in as your username. Open cmd as administrator again and type
net user administrator /active:no
and hit enter. So what you just did was replace the original system file with your modified one. You have to log in as administrator because permissions for system files are tight and I couldn't get my user the right privileges no matter what I did. You should not log in as administrator except for maintenance things like we just did. Staying logged in and using it as your normal account is a bad idea for the same reason that logging in as root all the time in linux is a bad idea. If you screw something up as administrator, it is a lot harder to fix. Anyway, restart and you should be good. If you are looking for some cool sounds, I suggest here.
Good luck, and enjoy your new sounds.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Us and Them
So since I have been taking a class on MATLAB, I have had some interesting ideas. For instance, I wrote a little simulation of swarm behavior. Now, please note that one script I borrowed from someone (I think the credits are in the comments of the code) and the rest I pieced together myself. I know that it is only in 2D and that it may not be what is technically considered a swarm simulation, but I was messing with an idea, and this was a rough sketch. ThinkGeek sells these little R/C flying things, and in the video, they show a bunch take off from a table. I immidiatly thought of a system that worked similarly to USB missle launchers. There would be a webcam pointed at the door to a room, capturing images. You would calibrate the system by taking a single picture of the door with no one there. Whenever someone walks in the line of sight, the software makes all of the little R/C things attack that person. Practically, this cannot be accomplished with the things from ThinkGeek because they can only go up and down. However, R/C helicopters could have no problem doing this. So the software sim I wrote for this is really simple. It does edge detection on the pictures from the webcam. You then set a threshold that is the difference in percent from the calibrated picture. This tolerance can be set so that if a cat runs by, nothing happens, but if a person walks in, then the script starts a swarm sim that takes a certain number of points (the number of R/C devices) and swarms them at a certain point. There are several ways of cheating this system, but oh well. Here are the scripts. They are hosted on my school website. If you want to test it or play with it, download everything in there and the sub directories. The main file is swarmTest1.m. Pop that in to MATLAB or the equivalent and let her rip. The arguments that it takes in are the 2 filenames of images to be compared. You can edit the if statement in there to change the tolerance. I should probably have just made that one of the arguments, but I don't feel like changing that right now. The test case I provided is to give it the arguements yesperson.jpg and noperson.jpg.
Thats all for now. Gotta go learn Inventor 2009.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Reading: Its a good thing
THE LIST (in no particular order):
-----------------------------------
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/backend/geeklog.rss
F Minus
http://community.livejournal.com/fminus_strip/data/atom
FoxTrot - GoComics.com
http://www.gocomics.com/foxtrot/rss.pxml
Futility Closet
http://feeds.feedburner.com/FutilityCloset
[Geeks Are Sexy] Technology News
http://feeds.feedburner.com/geeksAreSexyTechnologyNews
Hack a Day
http://hackaday.com/rss.xml
Hacked Gadgets - DIY Tech Blog
http://feeds.feedburner.com/hackedgadgets
Hackszine.com
http://hackszine.com/index.xml
HackThisSite - News Articles RSS
http://hackthissite.org/pages/hts.rss.php
Hak5 - Technolust since 2005
http://www.hak5.org/feed/rss
I-Hacked.com Syndication
http://www.i-hacked.com/index2.php?option=com_rss&feed=RSS1.0&no_html=1
Inventgeek.com
http://inventgeek.com/rss.xml
Irongeek's Security Site
http://feeds.feedburner.com/IrongeeksSecuritySite
Joomla! powered Site
http://johnny.ihackstuff.com/component/option,com_rss/Itemid,0/feed,RSS2.0/no_html,1/
Lifehacker
http://lifehacker.com/index.xml
MAKE Magazine
http://www.makezine.com/blog/index.xml
MakeUseOf.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Makeuseof
MythBusters Results
http://feeds.feedburner.com/MythbustersResults
Packet Storm Security Advisories
http://packetstormsecurity.org/advisories.xml
Packet Storm Security Exploits
http://packetstormsecurity.org/exploits.xml
Popular Science - DIY
http://www.popsci.com/taxonomy/term/4/all/feed
Room362.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Room362com
xkcd.com
http://xkcd.com/rss.xml
Monday, November 10, 2008
The new blog
I'm gonna try to keep this updated more often. I'm also gonna see about hosting this myself. For now, here is something to keep you entertained:
One of my favorite books of all time:
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
The entire book. Even if you don't read it all, read some. If you have a kindle or another ereader, stick it on there. I have a massive link repository of things I found interesting, I will attempt to post at least 1 per day (right now I have enough to post 1 per day for at least several years).
actual post time was [11/9/08]11:24pm
actual post time was [8/25/08]12:25am
actual post time was [6/25/08]11:32pm
actual post time was [2/18/06]3:35pm
actual post time was [1/15/06]4:34pm
we ordered a new computer and it should get here tuesday (1/17/06). then i hope to be able to use it as a DVR. i've been trying to get a second computer up in my room, but its having HDD problems. hopefully i'll get that fixed. we bought a new air compresser, which should prove entertaining as i launch mt. dew bottles off in the yard. got some neat gadgets for christmas. trying to read up on electronics theory too. all for now.
First post (actual post time unknown)
this is my temperary page for info. a better site is coming as soon as i have time. meanwhile, here are some of the projects i have been undertaking.
i am in the process of installing linux on my xbox. i built the usb adapter over thanksgiving break and bought an old copy of mech assault from eb games. (i also played the xbox 360 demo in there. SWEET!!) i did all this only to find that my jump drive dosent work. so, i have to borrow kyle's. if you have no idea what any of this is, search google for "softmod the xbox" and click on the first hit. pics are coming soon.
my second project is the ongoing r/c can. it has been at a standstill for a while, and i need to buy a low-rpm cd gearhead high-torque motor. then, it shall be complete. i have pics of it, and i will upload them soon.
i also bought a small wireless color camera, about 1 cubic inch. i got it off ebay, and it should be coming in the mail soon. i hope to attach it to anything and everything i can find.
there is book out called "kickin bot" by grant imahara. i looked through it and its pretty cool. so if anyone remotly interested in electronics is reading this, go get that book. and then email me at "aloishis89@gmail.com". cool.
thats it for now. check back soon for updates and pics and maybe, an actual site layout.