Fritz the Cat

This is why I'm in the program, man. I started bitching about hardware creation in the "ancient networks" section of a class, and someone said "Oh, you should check out Fritzing". Never heard of it. Apparently, they are using the Romulan Cloaking Device to keep underground, and I was surprised there was something I hadn't already rejected.

Got it, crashed it several times (it's in Alpha state right now) - but also got the board I wanted in the sizing I wanted. Its parts list is limited, but they are doing the right thing w/r/t limiting the wholesale creation of bogus parts; you can use generic parts easily, and the labeling allows you to make sense of them in the schematic and PCB views.

This is going to be THE KILLER TEACHING TOOL for hardware-focused media tools; I'm going to dive into this whole-heartedly, because it radiated "The Future".

[ddg]

Notes to self...

... about proposed network plans:

- The military thing I've been talking about.
- The musician thing I've mentioned, although it might have to be an older style of music to meet the "collapsed network" requirement.
- The network of word/vocabulary usage, origin and spread.
- Nefarious hackers to newly presented servers (using a bee-like algorithm).

That's four. More to come I'm sure. In all of the reading, it is the bee activity that resonates most clearly with me - perhaps it is that I see more bee-like behavior than any other, or maybe it is my history with bees (a long story to possibly be related later...).

In any case, some of this is starting to formulate in my pointy brain. I'm not sure how some of the Cell Designer-like software is going to help my in my quest, but I'll keep on sniffing the area.

[ddg]

Making Military-time Progress

Sketched out, on paper, the basics of the military piece. Basically, I'm going to try using some basic algorithms to simulate a tank battalion that goes after goals set by a "military leadership". When the goal is reached (or not), the results are transmitted to a general populous through a news-reel style communique, complete with Great Big Arrows showing progress and movement.

I was drawing this up during a class when a friend said "Hey, are you planning an invasion of Normandy or something?" That's when I knew that the overall graphics were appropriate.

Now, the questions is whether I do this in Netlogo, Processing - or something a little more heavy-duty...

[ddg]

Netlogo warfare

So, I spent a little time this evening with Netlogo - mostly getting to know 'er, and trying to decide if I was going to buy into 'er. At this point, it seems like a viable tool to use for my Military Reversal Of Misuse (using Military Tactics to create art). To reiterate, the idea is to use a networked Military maneuver to create art, as opposed to the military using artistic concepts to creating maneuvers.

I can already hear you say "Whatever"...

Maybe this will be more interesting: I plan to use a basic flocking algorithm (probably using this Netlogo package), but with image alterations that should provide for interesting artistic results.

First steps first, though. I need to do a little more research into the Blitzkrieg movement, and also try to establish some sort of idea of networked communications between participants. My suspicion is that, unlike the current army, there was relatively little direct communications between tank drivers; instead, they had to depend on visuals and proper spacing to prevent constant crashes and mayhem. I also suspect that, in and effort to maintain maximum forward motion, they avoided anything that was too troublesome and took the easy road to the end location.

This is all useful information for working with a simulation.

I have started fishing around about the military history of the thing. It turns out that Wikipedia is more complete than most of the crap on the net. It's section on the Blitzkrieg contains both historical information and strategic validity (which it turns out is mostly negative), and gives a pretty full view of the concept - along with a lot of links for more info. This is one of those cases where Wikipedia is a robust fount of knowledge.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll make my first Netlogo sketch that will get me on my way.

[ddg]

Here, let me show you the gate...

Reading that I'm approaching today includes "What is Biomedia" by Eugene Thacker. Looks like it lives a rich and fulfilling life behind the curtains of Project Muse at John Hopkins. Apparently, learning about what Biomedia is need to be restricted to a list of university sponsors that is about 40 strong; anyone else trying to access the information is surely either too stupid or too broke (i.e., $20 for a copy of the PDF) to bother with.

Project Muse: "Today's research, tomorrow's inspiration". Try adding "yesterday's monetization" to complete the thought.

[ddg]

FutureNetworkHardware

In addition to the blitzkrieg described below, I'm also working on a piece of hardware that didn't have a reason to exist prior to yesterday. This is a little bit of a mess right now, but I was able to have a little proof-of-concept party this evening, and it does its thing.

What is its thing? Well, it's a generalized audio generator that produces voltages useful for analog hardware synthesizers. What that means to me is that I can create (or gather from sensors) information that produces voltage output that could actually be called music.

My goal for this is to create an example network that will attempt to duplicate some (very) small portion of the decision making that goes on in the head of a jazz instrumentalist and produce it using any voltage-controlled synth. Will it be great? Possibly not, but it will be interesting, and it will be the first thing I've ever done that doesn't have to be tethered to a computer.

But this was a slug-fest for me. Thanks to Grant Richter for his help with Real World (vs. theoretical book-learned) electronics.

[ddg]

DBG kick-off call

Had a good talk with Katie today about the mixed-media+dance performance for early November. She is starting to work on choreography, and wants to also make sure that we are moving forward. I tried to reassure, but also had some questions for her (what do I need to provide for her to practice, what is the projection surface like - and, most of all, am I really in?). All were answered to satisfaction, and I'm going to pick up example fabric in the morning that should allow us to do some reflectivity testing for the long-throw projection lines.

This is going to be a tough one - the large-format display area will be a bit of craziness. Also, all attempts at text for the ceiling end up looking like the Disney Hall of the Presidents, so I still need to find out how to resolve that. I'm in the process of talking to some people about putting together a production team; hopefully I'll have that in place by next week.

I'm probably going to see rehearsals next week. Hopefully I can get the sound requirements in place so I can complete whatever composition work is necessary.

[ddg]