An external input for a factory stereo

Posted on September 28, 2008 by mahto

Note: I’d been meaning to post about this for a while, and since the project made the MAKE blog, I figure it is high time…

After having two aftermarket stereo systems stolen from my car in less than a year’s time, I decided to give up and go back to the factory radio. The problem? It only has tape and radio inputs, and I prefer to have access to my entire MP3 collection. The traditional way to fix this is to either get an FM broadcaster or a tape adapter, but where is the fun in that? Instead, I elected to wire in an external input, and built a little circuit to let me switch between the two. Here is a photo set to document the process:


(click on the picture to view the album)

Source code after the break.
Continue reading →

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Ableconf: Free Software conference, this Saturday

Posted on September 16, 2008 by mahto

Interested in Free Software? Live in the Phoenix area? Come on out to Ableconf this Saturday, at the University of Advancing Technology. Rumor has it there will even be a presentation on the Arduino platform by yours truly.
From the flier:
The Arizona Business and Liberty Experience (ABLEconf) is a Free Software / Open Source conference organized by volunteers representing a broad coalition of Arizona Free Software groups promoting the latest developments and information on Open Source. This includes the latest developments in open source
projects, programming languages, and licensing with a focus on open source use in the enterprise.

Posted in Journal, tech | 3 Comments

Excuse me, sir!

Posted on September 1, 2008 by mahto

Moustache
Has someone been looking for me?

Posted in Ridiculous | 2 Comments

Midwest Adventure 2008

Posted on August 13, 2008 by mahto

Here are some photos from my trip eastwards to visit friends and family. This should be everything except the wedding (coming soon!)

(click the image to view the gallery)

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Ignite Phoenix is This Tuesday (August 12th)

Posted on August 10, 2008 by mahto


This is rather late notice, but Ignite Phoenix looks to be a cool event. Twelve speakers (schedule) will each be given 5 minutes to present a lightning talk on a topic of their choosing. Check out the event site for more information and to RSVP!

(via James Britt)

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Demonstration of Aperture and Focal Length

Posted on July 25, 2008 by mahto

Row of beer bottles, show with a narrow DOF to highlight a single bottle of Killian's
The simplest things you can control on a camera are aperture, shutter speed and ISO (film) speed. Unless you are really trying to create a special look, you probably want to keep the ISO setting as low as possible to cut down on noise, so that leaves shutter speed and aperture. If you have a zoom lens (or two), you also get another lever to control: the focal length of the image. Here are two photo sets I built to help me visualize how the different settings will contribute to the final image. Use the prev and next controls to jump to the next setting, or press play to see a slideshow of the entire range of settings for the control.
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Posted in Photo | 5 Comments

Direct video manipulation using DimP

Posted on July 7, 2008 by mahto

I don’t usually like to re-post things from other sites, but this one is too pretty to pass up. A group of researchers from the University of Toronto and INRIA in France have developed a nonlinear video interface tool that allows you to manipulate video in the context of object motion rather than through the standard, static time dimension. It looks really cool, and seems like a very natural way to scan through film. Here is a demo video:

Get the whole scoop here.
(via Hackzine)

Update: I tried out their demo program with my own video. The first few seconds of the video are navigable, but it cuts off rather quickly. I think that this might be because the kitty crosses her own path so many times. Even so, it is pretty impressive that the program pulled that much data out of such poor quality video. Their demo videos worked much better, as would be expected :-). Note: I used CamStudio to grab the screen. Heres how it went:

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