Jer's Life

Molecular Camera Catches DNA Replication In Process

Jer — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:06:28 +0000

Ok, not really. No cameras that powerful, so Drew Berry had to use what we know about DNA in order to recreate the process in 3D. Back in 2003 I had seen a talk with Drew Berry and he had primarily used Maya to make the animations. I wonder if he’s moved on and is now using more appropriate tools for this kind of work.

Another reason not to stress too much about things. Think about what happens to traditional system “stress tests”. Imagine what kinds of chaos it wreaks on these little guys.

The Raffle Results Are Coming In

Jer — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:40:07 +0000

This year I haven’t yet made my attempt for tickets., but it sounds like 40,000 of the 50,000 are already gone. More go on sale soon, but I already know many burners who have been denied. I wonder just how many people registered for tickets.

It’s strange to think that I may not see this again, for awhile… though I am hopeful this will cause Burning Man to spread outside the playa. Following some of my burner friends on Facebook, it appears that a large percentage (almost half??) have been told they will not be getting tickets from the raffle. My heart goes out to all of them. I attended the last two years, but I have a hard time imaging how this is effecting the veterans who have been going for years (for some, decades). One burner brought up the fact that many camps are also reporting losses in numbers, which will effect their art projects. Oh boy… change is a scary thing. There’s gotta be irony in there somewhere. No?

On the flip side, there will be SOOO many happy virgins that get to experience the playa for the first time (assuming there’s enough veteran burners to host an experience) . Very curious to see the media buzz during and after this year’s burn.

Take a deep breath, Jer. It will be ok.

And if you haven’t seen it already, Trey Ratcliff’s photo gallery captures the burn perfectly (and it was probably a strong factor in so many registering for the ticket raffle).

U-Flycam – Steadicam

Jer — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 23:18:02 +0000

About a month ago I purchased a steadicam from Ebay called the U-Flycam. This think is almost 1/10th the cost of most steadicam units, though you do get what you pay for.

For general running around, it works pretty well, but the more I use it, the more I am beginning to realize how many things can be improved. Here are some ideas that other Youtube users have.

First thing I noted was the cheap construction of the mounting device for the camera. Spokes me out a little bit, as I can picture this lever just breaking off. This guy just replaced the whole mounting unit with a quick release plate from Cullman.

I spent a few hours today trying to get my unit balanced with my Canon 60D. The big issue is that my camera is too light. I’ve used bolts and wing nuts in order to add weights to the top, but they are too close to the center pivot. This guy moved the center of gravity up, by raising the camera with a block of wood.

Besides the weights, I also noticed that the universal joint is pretty cheaply made and although one axis can be adjusted, the other axis cannot. The pivot is slightly off, and since this is very close to the balancing center, even a few millimeters throws it off. So, for example, even if it’s balanced, when I twist the handle by turning, every get’s wonky again. I guess I should consider replacing the u-joint with something better, like one of these babies. Or, I could just follow this guy’s DIY handle assembly. Wait a minute, I want to use a gimbal, not a universal joint.

$100 for the U-Flycam, plus $40 shipping, $6 for misc bolts, plus probably another $50 – $100 for more parts to get this rig working the way I’d like. Or, I could just invested a few thousand in this full body unit. HAH! Oh, but this reminds me that I need to find a way to control the sled. Or get all steampunk and build a suit myself from PVC piping like this DIY project.

Besides the hours of playing around, I did come across a reminder to make sure and get as fast a shutter as I can get, to reduce motion blur, assuming that is the look I am going for.

Weekly Digest – 2012-01-30

Jer — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:00:00 +0000

Brian Cox explains quantum mechanics with the help of some celebrities. http://t.co/IdazHaK4 #\
Task time tracking: Using Toggl. Very simple and effective, with Android and iPhone apps available. [thx @lizgallo] : http://t.co/ucQE91Om #

Hotot – TWitter / Identi.ca client for Ubuntu seems like a good substitute for Qwibber. #
Linux Tip: Configured KTimerTracker (KDE) text color using “systemsettings” app, : http://t.co/Uwj4RWwJ #
I just discovered Drunk History, and I likey. http://t.co/wb5BavVn #
Visualizing your brain on shrooms, booze and cigarettes… not all at once. http://t.co/W8kEH1Sk #
Sacred Geometry – design portfolio presentation [via Zach Zoski] : http://t.co/8YP4830O #
“How To Steal Like An Artist” book is coming out in Feb. For now, here’s the inspiring blog article version: http://t.co/2QcnTJ5a #
Thorough introduction of Linux shell commands. http://t.co/EhWe40Jm #
Mysteries of the Star Wars prequels solved… kinda. [great infotainment via Greg Hunsburger] http://t.co/IBJiAmv4 #
The MRI scans showed lowered bloodflow to regions linked to the ego… due to mushrooms. http://t.co/j6oBzxqU #
Apple expects employees to be their own IT department. w0rd – http://t.co/qxiVW9h3 #
Discovered Malcolm Sutherland’s sketchbook & animations after watching the Star Wars Uncut crowdsource project. http://t.co/ANWwqQ5n #
Seeing the repeating simplicity by visualizing powerful networks with Manuel Lima. http://t.co/fes02pdI #
Jaaam (The Fresh Prince Remix) – Hurry up and view this beauty before a SOPA-like act gets passed and this disappears: http://t.co/3esd6IIL #
Into Eternity, a fascinating documentary on nuclear waste storage. Releases Feb 2nd. http://t.co/7sW8aGxW #
Do you have a local backup of your Gmail emails? http://t.co/UtbysRlJ #
Flow demonstration by Eyedea (R.I.P.) and SLUG. [via Tony D.] http://t.co/83YRmrQb #
Blender offers a 3D camera tracking solution, for those wanting to save themselves thousands of dollars and stay legit: http://t.co/fxQaNBKZ #

Dan’s Paris Photos

Jer — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:56:17 +0000

Dan Laczkowski returned from Paris, France with a large collection of beautiful photos. I’ve seen many photos from Paris, but there’s quite a few shots in here that capture elements that I have never seen. His gallery has many many more photos here.

The push to tour Europe has gotten even stronger, if that’s possible.

Dance Application from Oliver

Jer — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 02:40:34 +0000

My friend Oliver shared some of his dance audition recordings with me from 2002. I’ve put them online so that more of the world can see these impressive moves.

My Photos in Pummelvision

Jer — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 16:46:10 +0000

Last night I set up Pummelvision to scour my Facebook and Flickr photos to create these two video presentations. I set it up to go through my videos “very fast” which is 8 photos every second which matched the default soundtrack nicely. Pretty neat, eh? Apparently they’re taking the site down on January 24th, so if you want to make your own collection, you better act quickly.

Star Wars Crowdsourced

Jer — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 03:17:00 +0000

I could go on and on about why I love this, but I’ll have to share those feeling for another time. In the meantime, grab a bear or tea, sit down with some friends, and enjoy the hundreds of fan submitted clips that have been painstakingly put together into this Star Wars Uncut: Director’s Cut. I will have to start scouring the internet for more projects like this.

Jahshaka 3.0

Jer — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 18:55:00 +0000

*UPDATE* The counters on Jahshaka.com are all at 0 / 0 / 0, yet no software release is to be found. There are quite a few disappointed potential users in the Facebook community, as well as some angry voices in other forums. It has not even been 24 hours yet, and people are already screaming, “SCAM!“. Well, I hope things change in the next few hours, otherwise there might be some people out there looking for their donations to be returned. Best case scenario is that this is just a PR fail.

——————————

Previously known as Cinefx (name change probably due to the effects magazine with the same name), Jahshaka 3.0 is expected out in less than 1 week. I’m truly excited to see what this looks like. A free professional level editor/compositor for Linux?

Take a look at these screenshots.

Detach Process from Terminal Window

Jer — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:39:26 +0000

Running Ubuntu Linux and am starting an application process from my terminal window. The problem is, that window is then basically locked, not allowing me to execute more commands while the spawned application is running. To fix this, I found this command, where I basically add a & to the end of the line.
i.e.

~/tools/shell/mycommand &

This allows me to execute the command and gives me back access to the command prompt to execute more commands.

So the next issue I have is, if I close that terminal window, all processes that were spawned from that window are instantly killed. No warnings, pleases or thank-yous. That’s scary for those of us that don’t save often. Ah, but there are more solutions. After executing the command, as shown above, simple execute the following command, and it will separate spawned processes from that terminal window.

disown

Or, simpler yet, why not just kick the application off from in an independent process, right from the beginning, with this util-linux command.

setsid ~/tools/shell/mycommand