Writing good articles just doesn't seem to be my style right now.
Either that, or it's one slippery horse.

Here's the birds eye overview.

Hum Circuit

A new hacker-slash-maker space is trying to get off
the ground up here in Humboldt county. I intended to write all about
that 1st meeting but I wanted to wait till I got permission to post the image.

Everyone there was pretty excited about getting things started.
I mentioned CCAT would probably be a good place to meet at least
until we find a more lab like place. (Hopefully, a classroom sanctioned through
some helpful campus club. *cough Computer Science Club *cough)

We'll see what comes of all of it.

New DSLR

I had always wanted a DSLR. But when I heard they could shoot
great video. I was sold. It was only a matter of time before I did
all my homework and obtained one.

It's like seeing the world with new eyes. It catches so much more detail
and provides so many more options. I've got a lot of learning to do.

The following is a test video for compression/sound/video quality.

Perhaps, not the best choice in music but it was just handy for a test.
Finding that version of "Ave Maria" by krishashok via Sound Cloud got my
wheels turning for other possibilities. You may have noticed the slick noise
profile trick. I was very happy to see the updated Noise Cleaning plugin
from Audacity. It's just what I needed.

I've run many tests in the past week. Since, I'm now tape-less I can
hit record at any random point in my day and be editing literally minutes
later.

Ah. Nearly accurate green screen keying. The Holy Grail of home film making.
Have I finally conquered the elusive beast? May just be close enough to justify
the time it will take to create better CGI to stand in front of. At least, I think so.

I find I enjoy a certain look. I use the threshold plugin of Final Cut Express to crush
the blacks and remove some of the color. I feel it gives it a bit more of a rustic noir
look that I like. The dramatic lighting is an accident due to the fact I don't have much
room to move about without having the green screen lights casting side light on me.

I saw this one frame on the TV monitor as I was filming. The contrast on
the monitor shocked me. You see, I could obtain clean blacks with no noise for
the first time in my life. I was looking at something on my TV that might actually
look like it belonged there. You can't tell from this frame but in theory I have
enough pixel information to make a slick 480x270 web frame.

I can push the footage a bit towards the warmer old-timey style.

Blender 2.5?

I realize that a lot of subscribers on the site and on the youtube channel
expect more Blender. I don't wish to disappoint them so it's in the back of
my mind. Still, I'm going in a different direction and things just won't be
the way they used to be.

...
It's probably better that way.

There's a lot of thinking to do out there. It's a good thing I've got a world
to play in. But this isn't the normal world of every day normal lives.
It's Chris World. A place where learning new skills isn't like grinding nails
between your teeth... unless that was the skill you were learning.

The site is in flux. Stop by whenever you feel that tingly feeling that
tells you something is afoot over at Chris World. Anyway, since you're finally here... kick off your
shoes, sit back, dim the lights, make some popcorn and enjoy.

Sincerely,
The Management.
(aka. Chris Stones)

I can't look at a sunset without thinking about QED.
It's amazing that all those colors come from all that math.
Incredible.

I find it sad that I have thoughts of past times and then I think, "Was that before or after I got sick?" It's just been hard not having the same stamina. I have learned a great deal about sitting and admiring the beauty in the world.

The wonder of the cosmos is helping me through these troubling times in my life. I'd say things have improved. But I also say I'm not 100% back. In the mean time however, I have to pretend I am. And so far it hasn't been that hard to fake with company.

It reminds me just how many people have to put up with things no one else would know about. They have to live with hardships that are beneath the surface. It makes me wish I could do something for them for everyone that has to deal with anything like that.

I suppose people have noticed that I'm getting things more technical these days. Since, I'm still using my regular journal for the bulk of my life experience. I'm merely starting to post the polished cogent thoughts online.

That's a real difference. I hope you don't feel like you're missing out.

ps More Bot Talk to come. I've made a lot of progress with the web interface but since there's no interesting picture to post I'm keeping quiet. I will say however that I've decided to have it say interesting things while you drive it. I actually got side tracked a little while writing up odd things for it to mention. The top of my list had:

"Don't drink and drive me."
and
"Don't make me pull myself over."

This is a challenge here. I'd like to update this site with images of the progress on this telebot project.... But I'm stuck in a mess of javascript webapp code. I might add that it is non functional code.

And did I mention that I'm stuck in it?

Now I can't tell if it's that I'm bad at this or that I'm just very very impatient with javascript.

Let me step back and explain the overall picture of this project.
The first half is the hardware and the local realtime control that I've proven can work. In a lot of ways, that has been the easy part.

The second half is the webservice/internet remote control side.
Eh, I think it was June 21 when I was trying to nap unsuccessfully while thinking over how to make the webservice work. I need access control and I need an admin panel I could use locally to override the random
internet dwellers that want to crash my laptop into things.

As I laid there the solutions began to mill around in my brain.
I'll keep the bot communicating with my local computer. I've dubbed
that HQ for headquarters of course. So, then I'll have a page on
this site or 'another' that curious internet folk can stumble upon
and checkout the status of Mr. Autonomous. That service talks
to HQ and HQ relays instructions to Mr. Autonomous.

Sounds simple right?

Simple as in.. requires 4 programming languages to complete this whole
task. (And a few file formats)

Think of it as a song.

The robot is runin' the C code.
The C Code is talkin' to the java.
The Java is talkin' to the HQ
The HQ is usin' the PHP
PHP is servin' the javascript

And that's what makes this crazy thing work.
... eventually.

*Points to anyone whom can tell me what tune I'm going for
there.

But enough talk, have at you. This is just a teaser post about something that I'm excited to share with the world eventually. I think you can guess where this is going. The wheels under the laptop might have been a hint.

There will be a web interface. I'm not sure how useful it will be given the fact the robot keeps moving while the video takes 20 seconds to update. I'm going to have to build in some collision detection before I let someone drive the thing.

Still, a lot of the code for this telerobotics project will come in handy for many more cool tech art installations.

Stay tuna-ed.

The real issue has been my health and problems stemming from them. In this moment, I'm reminded of my dear friend up North. She made sure to prod me about the lack of text here. I didn't even know she was checking. And I didn't even think of it as being so important to friends of mine. (And I suppose by extension family.)

Now, you may be curious at this point. Perhaps, you wish me to elaborate on this health issue? Well, I've decided not to reveal the specifics. I'd rather say that I understand what people whom deal with chronic problems must be feeling like. You never can tell what someone is going through just by looking at them. I'll say that my stamina to carry even simple daily activities has been reduced enough to make getting up an issue.

Despite all of it I've still had a job to tend to and I'm thankful it's a job I can pull off from home.
Still, I'm willing to state that good things come from such experiences. I've learned to cook, fixed up my place and spent a great deal of the time I was stuck in bed learning physics and the mathematics that accompanies said physics. Still, the lesson I've learned is that your health is the platform for which all the rest of your life is built. It's worth spending the time each day to give it what it needs.
And I'm trying, I just hope it takes the hint that I need it back.

I'm just going to
give you the gist for now.

Stereograms need to be somewhat simple to be effective so when
you're modeling your scene think simple big shapes and use depth
with strong foreground and background elements.

We are aiming to obtain something called a depth map.
Essentially, that is data that can be stored in an image where black
represents something at the very furthest point (height = 0) and white is the most near. (height = 1)

The trick to obtaining good depth maps for stereograms is to
adjust the Camera Clipping settings.(Clipping Start/End )
They are values you find on your camera object.
Make sure that the End: setting just barely captures your furthest
element without cutting it off. This will insure that your model
spans the entire range of values for the depth map.

Thus, objects will really 'pop'.

Next, you need to Use Nodes and set up something like this.

Basically, we run our Z depth buffer through a Normalizing vector node
and then invert that to obtain our depth map.
I used an output File node to pull it directly to a file, but you
need not do so. You can simply route it to the Compositor node
and hit the Render button.

It might take a bit of work to get the image just right.
You're aiming for a lot of shading variation like so.

Once you have that...
Run the openstereogram java project

And set Hidden Element to Depth map.
Set your file and click Generate.

And then try to see if it worked.
I must say I had to quickly get good at seeing these
in order to test my output.

Best of luck, and remember this is just the gist.
I'll be motivated to do a more detailed guide when
I'm healthy and thinking straight again.
... and who knows how many more months 'that' will be.
Sheesh.

I like this site because they tend to run statistical queries over
the population of data and tell me about the state of the human condition
in a quantitative sort of manner.(oktrends)

Regardless, I found a rather odd message in my inbox this
morning.

What the h$%^ll?
If this is spam it's pretty amazing spam.

Anyway, I trust this site a bit more given that,
"All four of OkCupid’s founders were math majors"
And their system for analyzing data is quite intriguing.
Regardless, it's a bit vague on the details here.

It says, 'top half of' the users.
The actual number might be slightly above average
I have no idea what the confidence interval or dataset size was.

*I'm perfectly fine meeting people in real life but I'm not about to
pass up any chance to find perfection in a world with nearly 4.5 billion choices.
Nor can this small town really provide the necessary selection. Double hence
wait for the movie. It ought to be a delight.