Content-type: matter-transport/sentient-life-form

Reconstruct your world with ReconstructMe. Hey, cool, 3D scanning with Kinect. This actually makes it suitable for hobbyists - although the question is whether you can meaningfully scan things smaller than head size with it, as the Kinect is designed for larger scanning areas.

foosel/OctoPrint at devel · GitHub. Also nice - a 3D printer control program that runs on a web server and can be installed on a RaspberryPi. Add a WiFi module and a small nice case and you can set up your 3D printer in the next room or basement and print comfortably from the sofa. Then connect a USB webcam and you can also watch it print from there.

usb-serial-for-android - Android USB host serial driver library for CDC, FTDI, Arduino and other devices. - Google Project Hosting. Very nice, this will certainly be interesting when I delve deeper into the Arduinos. Maybe it even works with the DigiSpark. Building control consoles for Arduino projects with Android would certainly be quite practical.

Recently on the Internet (Black and White Edition)

Dicht bebaute Häuser an einem Flussufer mit grauem Himmel Weiße Burg mit Türmen über Dächern und Stromleitungen. Alter Bahnhof mit Glasdach vor einer Burgruine auf einem Hügel. Steinburg mit Türmen und Torbogen, Person davor, Wald im Hintergrund Kahler Baum vor einem Fluss mit Schiff und Zugtrasse im Hintergrund Weißer Turm mit Treppe und kleinem Balkon vor Hügel Kirche mit zwei spitzen Türmen und rundem Fenster an der Fassade. Weißer Turm mit Zinnen und Brunnen im Vordergrund Gewölbter Innenhof mit Säulen, Brunnen und Treppenaufgang Große Steinstruktur mit Reiterstatue auf einem Podest und Treppe davor Großer Steinlöwenkopf an Brückengeländer mit Stadt im Hintergrund Schneebedeckter Weg mit Geländer unter einer Brücke Fotograf mit Kamera spricht mit einer Frau in Menge Hohe Glasgebäude und Schild Potsdamer Platz bei bewölktem Himmel Drei Musiker auf einer Bühne mit Gitarre, Schlagzeug und Mikrofon Vier Musiker spielen Gitarre, Bass, Schlagzeug und Keyboard in einem Studio Drei Musiker spielen Gitarre, Schlagzeug und Bass in einem Proberaum.

I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. This is the black and white edition.

Write Yourself a Haskell... in Lisp 17 February 2013. I always find this kind of thing exciting, even if I have to admit that I probably won't do anything with it. Still, it's interesting to read.

Controlling Arduino with Android using Processing. This way, you can quickly build a control system and a matching console for the Android phone with simple sketches, without having to pull out the big IDE. And since the Arduino environment is also based on Processing (at least the surface of the programming environment), it should be easy for both Processing and Arduino fans to understand the other side.

Cura. This would be software that can make the printing process more efficient - an all-in-one package with integrated model preview, slicing, printing and all kinds of parameters. And also available across systems (which I am always excited about: almost all software in this area is available across systems).

3ders.org - Infographic: step-by-step guide for 3D printing with a RepRap. Nice little overview of what all needs to happen for 3D printing. Certainly, some of this can be made more efficient with the right software choice, but in one form or another, everything is involved.

328eForth. Hmm, whether this will catch on is questionable. Commercial Forth systems have rarely been successful. On the other hand, the description sounds quite interesting. But somehow, I would almost rather cobble together a Forth myself.

AmForth: Atmega Forth. Wow, cool! A Forth for the ATMega chip used in Arduinos. I think I should look into this for my Digisparks to see if I can get it to work.

Industruino. Cool project that provides Arduino solutions in a housing for wall and rail mounting. Comes with control buttons and LCD display at a very reasonable price. Currently still in beta and without I2C support, but already interesting if you want to have an Arduino in permanent use somewhere.

Sync API - Dropbox. Finally, a normal sync for Android and iOS. So far, you had to program the sync more or less yourself, but I like this much better when you can simply write local files on mobile devices and the sync then happens automatically in the background.

Wings 3D | A Polygon Modeler. So, I need to take another look at this - it impressed me back then for SL, but it wasn't quite perfect because the exporters were a bit finicky. But it could be quite interesting for 3D printing again.

FreeCAD: An Open Source parametric 3D CAD modeler. And since I'm currently collecting 3D software, here's another free (this time also Open Source) software for technical models. I should definitely take a closer look at it.

Pixologic :: Sculptris. Another modeler and this one interests me particularly - it is a stripped-down, free (as in free beer) version of ZBrush. I do have an older ZBrush license floating around, but for my plans this one would probably be more than sufficient.

OpenSCAD - The Programmers Solid 3D CAD Modeller. Not uninteresting - a parametric, non-interactive CAD system. Basically, you feed in a base and write scripts that then use this base. Or you work directly with scripts that combine models from solids. For technical elements, this can be much clearer and more flexible than interactive CAD systems.

dashclock - Lock screen clock widget for Android 4.2+ - Google Project Hosting. I'm not a big fan of lock screen widgets, but this one is visually quite nice, expandable, and open source. This could work.

php.js - PHP VM with JavaScript. Simply move PHP execution to the browser. Hey, then the security vulnerabilities in PHP will only have local effects for the user and no longer for the server!

Berlin Again

Personen betrachten Ausstellungsstücke in einer Glasvitrine in einer prunkvollen Halle. Graue Stadtlandschaft mit Autos, Gebäuden und Straßenbahnschienen. Zwei lächelnde Personen sitzen in einer U-Bahn, eine trägt eine Winterjacke und Mütze Gelbe U-Bahn fährt über Brücke mit zwei Türmen Graffiti eines Mannes mit rotem Lenkrad und Ampel auf einer Mauer Bunte Zeichnung mit mechanischen Teilen, Vögeln und abstrakten Formen Frau in Winterjacke reinigt Fenster eines gelben Vans mit Aufschrift Farbenfrohes Wandgemälde mit abstrakten Formen und Figuren in einem Tunnel Großes Wandbild mit Zeichnungen, Skizzen und kreativen Elementen. Gemälde von zwei Männern, die sich küssen, auf einer Mauer Zwei Personen betrachten ein farbenfrohes Mauerbild mit verschiedenen Illustrationen Menschen betrachten bunte Mauer mit Graffiti an der East Side Gallery Buntes Graffiti mit Batman, Joker und anderen Comicfiguren Zwei Personen betrachten ein Wandgemälde mit historischen Szenen. Graffiti auf grüner Mauer mit abstrakten Figuren und Schrift Großes Wandgemälde mit abstrakten Figuren in Schwarz, Weiß, Gelb und Rot Weißer Trabant durchbricht Wand mit Graffiti und Rissen Wandmalerei mit Vögeln und Zitat an der Berliner Mauer Frau in Winterjacke und Mütze betrachtet Schmuck auf einem Marktstand. Beleuchteter Fernsehturm vor dunklem Himmel, Glasdach im Vordergrund Menschen betrachten ein Schild am Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin Farbenfrohe Graffiti-Porträts mit Namen und Länderangaben an einer Mauer. Große, bunte Skulptur mit Seilen und Stühlen auf einer Straße Frau in Winterjacke balanciert auf Metallstreifen im Boden Person verkleidet als Pferd auf Straßenpflaster, Passanten im Hintergrund. Säulen und Quadriga des Brandenburger Tors bei blauem Himmel Zwei Frauen stehen auf einem Kopfsteinpflasterplatz und unterhalten sich. Historisches Gebäude mit gläserner Kuppel und deutscher Flagge Betonblöcke in unregelmäßiger Anordnung auf einem Platz Betonblöcke in unterschiedlichen Höhen auf einem Platz Glasfassaden und Wolkenkratzer an einem sonnigen Tag in Berlin Frau in Winterkleidung steht vor Tisch mit Schneeschrift "I ❤ Rüssel". Zwei lachende Personen in Winterkleidung vor rotem Absperrband Hohes Gebäude mit abgerundeter Fassade und Glasfenstern Hohes Glasgebäude mit spiegelnder Fassade und Wolken im Hintergrund Modernes, rundes Hochhaus mit Glasfassade und Logo oben. Gelber Bus fährt davor.

Juliana's friend Natascha was visiting from Russia in Berlin, so we went there too so that the two could meet again. We visited Potsdamer Platz (and the area where the Berlinale takes place), the Reichstag and the Holocaust Memorial, the East Side Gallery and the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and the Kurfürstendamm. And in between, we spent a nice evening at El Burriquito. Cold, but beautiful. The fact that the titles are a mess is due to these stupid WordPress programmers, who have once again designed the media interface in such a confusing way that it now takes a bunch of individual edits to enter all the titles - and the idiots are also too good to use the titles from the images. And the RPC upload nonsense is also completely irrelevant. WordPress is slowly becoming no fun anymore.

The Larch Environment. Another approach to visual programming, but unlike many other approaches, it is a mix of textual Python and visual representation of code and data structures. Looks quite interesting as an environment in which to experiment with elements of the language.

storm-gen - Lightweight DAO generator for Android SQLite - Google Project Hosting. Hmm, I could take a look at that, another ORM for SQLite under Android.

Repetier Software | The software driving your 3d printer. Interesting, this is software that combines all the steps of printing in one interface and is said to be significantly faster than pronterface. There is also a Mac version, so it might be worth a try. It also comes with its own firmware, so I naturally need to find out first whether the Robo3D can work with it (but since it is based on open source printers in principle, this could very well work - and their FAQ already states that they want to use Repetier-Host directly, so the chances are good).

Filabot Personal Filament Maker for 3D Printers - Desktop Extruding System – Environmentally Friendly. And with this, you make your own filament from plastic shredder. Also a cool idea.

Slic3r - G-code generator for 3D printers. Oh yes, another important 3D printing software. Slic3r is used to create the actual print plan from the STL model, which the printer then uses to produce the workpiece. This is about the layer thickness, how the head moves, what the infills should look like, etc.

Printable wood available. Cool - printable wood. Basically just a wood powder-plastic mixture that can be processed like normal wood after printing.

LightZone | Open-source digital darkroom software for Windows/Mac/Linux. Just remembered, it's now free. And because it's Java, it's available on multiple platforms. During my experiments back then, it was quite a cool alternative for Linux. Specifically, the contrast control through a digital zone system is quite cool, and the program saves JPEG previews and the editing steps directly in the previews, so you can easily exchange them between computers. Attention: currently, Lightzone still requires a license key. The whole licensing stuff still needs to be removed, but the source is already on Github, it's just a matter of time.

Thingiverse - Digital Designs for Physical Objects. And you can go there to search for inspiration and starter models. Presumably also on the other usual 3D warehouses, but then you have to convert the models to STL first (and make various preparations to the models so that they become printable).

Tinkercad - Mind to design in minutes. Wow. There's even 3D design software for 3D printers that runs completely in the web. Okay, since you can boot Linux in the browser, nothing should surprise me anymore, but it's still cool ...

repetier/Repetier-Host-Mac · GitHub. And the necessary software to control the printer.

RepRap - RepRapWiki. Well, this will probably soon become important reading for me. Pretty cool stuff, 3D printing.

Recently on the Internet (Black and White Edition)

Schräge, geschwungene Metallbrücke mit Treppen und Geländer Schwarz-Weiß-Foto eines Engels an einer Laterne in historischem Raum. Person in Winterjacke vor Fenster mit Blumen und Weihnachtsdekoration Wohnzimmer mit drei Fenstern, Gardinen, Dekoration und Möbeln Alter Bahnhof mit Glasdach und Straße davor in Schwarz-Weiß Lächelnde Frau mit Brille, Hut und Schal, im Hintergrund Straße Frau mit kurzen Haaren und Brille, die nachdenklich aussieht Mehrere Vögel in V-Formation am grauen Himmel Frau mit kurzen Haaren blickt zur Seite, Hände gefaltet Ältere Frau und jüngerer Mann sitzen an einem Tisch mit Weingläsern. Verwitterter Steinturm mit Efeu und Holzbalkonen, umgeben von Bäumen Zweistöckiges Fachwerkhaus zwischen kahlen Bäumen im Wald Steinbogen mit Metalltor vor winterlichen Bäumen Zwei Musiker spielen Gitarre und Geige auf einer Bühne mit Instrumenten und Verstärkern. Große Burg mit Türmen hinter Wohnhäusern und Stromleitungen

I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. This is the black and white version.

Recently on the Internet

Zwei bemalte Figuren in einem Fenster mit blauem Tuch Teigfläche mit Tomaten, Brokkoli, Champignons und Erbsen auf Backpapier Großer Schwarm Vögel in V-Formation vor blauem Himmel Acht Kraniche fliegen in V-Formation am blauen Himmel Silhouetten von Vögeln in Formation vor blauem Himmel Drei Fledermäuse fliegen vor einem blauen Himmel Teller mit gebratener Wurst, Kartoffeln, Kohl und Zwiebeln. Weiße Orchideenblüten und grüne Knospen vor einem Fenster Weiße Orchideenblüte mit grünen Knospen im Licht Weiße Orchideenblüten und grüne Knospen an einem Stiel Weiße Orchideenblüte mit grüner Knospe im Hintergrund Rosa, grüne und lila Blumen in einer weißen Vase auf Holztisch Teller mit gebratenem Fleisch, Sauerkraut und Kartoffelpüree neben Besteck Zwei Würstchen mit Kartoffelpüree und Sauerkraut auf einem Teller. Glas mit dunklem Bier und Schaumkrone auf Holztisch

I have uploaded new pictures to Google+ and/or Flickr. Here they are - unsorted and uncommented. And presumably mostly from last year.

Pinoccio - A Complete Ecosystem for Building the Internet of Things | Indiegogo. Another exciting Arduino-compatible project. Compact Arduino boards with integrated mesh networking and gateway capability via WiFi to the Internet. All of this as open-source hardware and without a mandatory central server.

i.MX233 Product Summary Page. The CPU used by the Chumby One - pretty cool what's already in the core.

Chumby tricks - ChumbyWiki. If you look around, it's quite interesting to see what all could be done with the Chumby. It was really an open platform after all. So perhaps it's not so bad that the manufacturer is gone and the infrastructure is slowly disappearing, because it shows whether an open system can really continue to live, even if the originally driving force is gone. And apart from that, it can still remain a fun tinkering project. I think I will really replace my old radio alarm clock and do more with this thing. So if I'm late for work in the near future and miss morning appointments, you know what it's all about - then my hacked alarm clock has crashed.

Falling Faster than the Speed of Sound « Wolfram Blog. Interesting analysis of Felix Baumgartner's jump with Mathematica. I'm still in the play phase with Mathematica, so such things are quite exciting to get a better feel for how to approach problems with Mathematica. Working with Mathematica is quite different from normal programming environments.

ZDoc - Browse Files at SourceForge.net. And here comes the provisional salvation - a firmware that works offline and loads the widgets and all the stuff from a thumb drive. Not everything will work, but if I can at least get a radio alarm clock working again, it's already quite okay. So, it seems like another DIY project is on the agenda.

End of Chumby as we know it... Page 1 - Chumby.com - chumbysphere forum. The cloud is not always a good idea - I also have one of these Chumby devices at home, but if the rescue plan here doesn't work, it won't even be usable as an alarm clock. It looks like I should hurry up and root the device to get local software running on it myself. Basically, the Chumby is just a small embedded Linux system with a few hardware sensors and an integrated touchscreen (well, more of a squeeze screen - it's as imprecise as the first generations of Palm Pilots were after one year of use).

Coblenz and Stolzenfels Castle

Alte Kirche mit zwei Türmen, spitzem Dach und großen Fenstern Weißes Gebäude mit rotem Rahmen, Uhr und Wappen an der Fassade Mehrstöckiges Haus mit Türmchen, Balkonen und Restaurant im Erdgeschoss Großes steinernes Denkmal mit Reiterstatue und Treppe davor Großer, verwitterter Strommast mit Kabeln und Stahlkonstruktion Große Festung auf einem Hügel über einer Stadt am Fluss mit Schiffen Blau und goldene gotische Bögen mit dekorativen Elementen an der Decke Gewölbter Säulengang um einen Brunnen in einem schachbrettartigen Innenhof Dünne grüne Stängel mit roten Knospen vor hellem Hintergrund Mann mit Hut und Kamera auf einem Balkon mit weißem Geländer Person betrachtet Wandmalerei mit historischen Figuren in einem Museum. Rundes Kirchenfenster mit kunstvollen, symmetrischen Glasverzierungen Kirche mit Kreuzigungsszene, Heiligenfiguren und hohen Fenstern Großer Saal mit Wandgemälden, Möbeln und hohen Fenstern. Gotisches Rundfenster mit Metallrahmen in Steinmauer Gelber Zug fährt entlang eines Flusses mit einem Schiff im Hintergrund. Hoher, detaillierter Kirchturm mit Uhr und Brüstung, dahinter Hügel und Stadt. Gepflegter Innenhof mit Brunnen, Beeten und Arkaden in historischem Gebäude Mann mit Hut und Kamera steht neben Säule und Brunnen Steinernes Burgtor mit Türmen und Bogen, Person läuft darauf zu. Mehrstöckiges, verfallenes Gebäude hinter kahlen Bäumen im Wald Steinerne Burgmauer mit runder Eckturm und Treppe nach oben Großes Schloss mit mehreren Türmen und Zinnen vor bewölktem Himmel Altes Bahnhofsgebäude mit Bogenfenstern, dahinter eine Burg auf einem Hügel Weiße Gebäudefassade mit aufwendigen Stuckverzierungen und roten Fensterläden Weiße Gebäudefassade mit aufwendigen Stuckverzierungen und Statuen. Mehrstöckiges Gebäude mit hellem Anstrich und roten Akzenten an der Ecke einer Straße. Braunes Wohnhaus mit Erker, Balkonen und Fenstern, neben Verkehrsschild Frau in Winterkleidung am Flussufer vor Stadt mit Booten im Hintergrund. Frau sitzt im Zug am Fenster, Hund auf dem Schoß, Thermoskanne auf dem Tisch

Juliana and I took a day trip to Koblenz by train. There we mainly visited Schloss Stolzenfels and of course the German Corner. And otherwise just felt like tourists. It was nice, a bit cold, but lots of sun.

Metabones announces Speed Booster lens adapter for mirrorless cameras: Digital Photography Review. The idea sounds compelling - simply use optics to compress the large full-frame image circle down to an APS-C image circle (approximately) and turn the 1.5x into a 1.1x with higher light intensity. But does it actually work as well in practice as described? I'm curious to see the test results.

Permaduino | Indiegogo. Interesting project: an Arduino-compatible board designed for permanent installation but still has a prototyping character (so it comes with a breadboard for wiring additional elements). The idea behind it: prototype with one of the classic systems and then rebuild it with this board to use it permanently - video cassettes with 8mm casing are used as the housing.

Back To Top: Android vs. iOS. An article about a curiosity in Android that has also irritated me several times. On iOS, you can quickly scroll to the top if you tap the title bar. On Android, there is nothing similar as a system-wide gesture. And it is not so easy to build something universal, as this article explains.

SPT100 Pan & Tilt System. Ok, I think I know what I need. With a device like this and, for example, a camera with simple image processing behind it, you can build a follower with which you could, for example, make sky observations. Or automatically created panorama sequences for Google+. Or optical area monitoring with detection and logging of changes. And it's not particularly expensive either.

Reflow Controller Shield Arduino Compatible - Rocket Scream. Oven control with Arduino. In this case for the optimal distribution of solder over circuit boards - but you can certainly modify this for optimal baking results or for curing prototypes or whatever. Pretty cool.

the_silver_searcher - Interesting for anyone who, like me, manages and searches through large source trees. Essentially something like ack - an automatic grep that runs through entire hierarchies and additionally filters files by various patterns, taking into account gitignore and hgignore. And all this not as a Perl script like ack, but in C with various native libraries and various optimizations for searching. It doesn't get faster than this unless you use pre-generated indexes (which come with their own problems).

If you want to use the Atom publishing protocol, you now need to install a plugin in WordPress 3.5 because it has been removed from the core. Of course, the WordPress developers didn't bother to include a corrected version of the Atom Publishing Protocol server in the plugin; it still contains the over 2-year-old bug with media uploads. Fortunately, my patch still works, but now it needs to be applied to a different file. Quite a mess, what they're doing there. And when I see how the bug in the WordPress core was ignored, my hope that someone will take the trouble to fix the plugin is pretty close to zero.

Polaroids interchangeable lens camera is awful hands-on | The Verge. Well, that's probably it then. The first prototypes and images are definitely different from what actually appears at CES, and that doesn't sound good at all. Sure, things could still balance out by the release, but I wouldn't bet my money on it. There are other, better cameras at comparable prices (e.g., the V1 sale, which is currently floating around for 310 euros with the 10-30 on Amazon). Update: this is probably a different camera; Polaroid seems to have released two different models with interchangeable lenses, only one of which has Android. But that the other one is actually good, well, my hopes are rather low there ...

[[CES 2013]] Bring On The Influx Of Android-Powered Photography Machines: Polaroid Announces The iM1836 Mirrorless Camera With Jelly Bean. Could be interesting to hack. And the system really looks suspiciously like the Nikon J1 as the basis - which would be even more interesting because you could also get other lenses (and in the long run other bodies). Of course, the question remains whether Android is messed up or quite open and if it is open, whether you can also easily put your own apps on it.

Use Your iPhone, Android, Or Windows Phone To Lock And Unlock Your Mac Using Bluetooth | Redmond Pie. Nice little hack - only needs a small open source program and two Apple scripts and you can trigger actions when, for example, a smartphone comes close to a computer or moves away from a computer - here using the example of the screen lock.

Aachen Cathedral

Aachener Dom Aachener Dom Aachener Dom Aachener Dom Aachener Dom Aachener Dom Aachener Dom Aachener Dom Aachener Dom

Spontaneously decided while dropping off my mother-in-law at the airport, if we had already driven half the way to Aachen, we might as well go all the way there and finally take a look at Aachen. Took pictures of Aachen Cathedral. Wow. It's really quite different from what we usually see in Münster (perhaps with the exception of the Klemenskirche).