According to the article and other Internet wisdom, making cheese at home can be pretty tricky–but Mozzarella seems within reach. I purchased the liquid vegetable rennet and some calcium chloride at Rainbow Grocery, and Rob acquired the requisite high quality fresh milk. Bi-Rite has a kit which includes everything needed except for the milk, but it cost more than twice as much as the separate ingredients, and we already had a thermometer. The list of ingredients was not long, but the process did require a commitment to stirring. Rob got the recipe and milk, I got the weird cheese making stuff.

So we poured in the milk and calcium chloride and nothing much happened. We stirred and heated for a while before it was time to add the rennet. A little bit of that stuff, and a few seconds of stirring and something weird happened. It was as if we were making cheese! The milk turned to curd, and we had made some real progress.

Despite the fact that the recipe seemed to call for breaking up the solid pieces whenever we thought we were finally making progress, we persevered. We stirred and stirred and eventually we had cooked it enough. We hung the cheese to dry. When it had fully drained, we cut the mass of curds into slices. The questionable recipe now indicated we should microwave it until it just starts to melt, then quickly stretch it and work it into a ball. Gloves are recommended, because the cheese is hot at this point, but having no gloves, nor interest in wearing gloves, an alternate technique was needed. Adapting a trick I heard about this summer, I ran my hands under cold water for a few seconds, then picked up the cheese and pulled it. As soon as I started to feel the burning again, I set it down and ran my hands under cold water. After a few stretch and fold cycles it had clearly become something new; real fresh mozzarella. After a cold saltwater bath it was ready to marinade and eat!

I think next time we’ll stretch it less, because it was a bit tough, but delicious other than that. Overall, it was a success.

More Photos

Helen and Heiko asked me to contribute to this article about the Nuage Vert project. Abstract included and link to IEEE article below. Check it out in your July-September issue of IEEE Multimedia or get it online (fee based).

Editor’s Note

Nuage Vert [Green Cloud] is a major environmental artwork that engages light and public participation. A stunning and important work, Nuage Vert has won many accolades and several prestigious prizes, including the 2008 Golden Nica in Hybrid Art from Ars Electronica, the 2008 Green Prix from ZeroOne, and the 2009 Award from the Environmental Art Foundation. The implementation process is particularly interesting as the team found new and successful ways to work with lasers that will benefit future artists.

—Norie Neumark

Helen Evans, Heiko Hansen, Joey Hagedorn, “Artful Media: Nuage Vert,” IEEE MultiMedia, vol. 16, no. 3, pp. 13-15, July-Sept. 2009, doi:10.1109/MMUL.2009.54

I’m currently busy working on a couple of things, but I realize it has been a while since I’ve posted updates on anything I’ve done. Back in September of last year I put together a DMX-512 level converter breakout board for my EasyLase USB.

(more)

I’d previously ported and debugged the DMX portion of the driver for the board just using TTL level loopback adapters. I also went on to build the Wonderwall project using the DMX output of the EasyLase, but the level shifter and RS-485 transceivers were all on a solderless breadboard. That needed to be corrected. :)

I’m rather proud of the size of the board–especially being made of all through-hole components. It neatly plugs in to the existing headers, and I think it looks right at home where it has been mounted on the board. All the schematics to build one for yourself are available on the Müller Elektronik website. Enjoy!

I know the usage of the symbols is non-standard, but I love looking at the beautiful text ornaments and the space efficiency. I know I’ve seen this concept somewhere else, but I just can’t remember where.

Mouse over so you may see to which link each symbol correlates.

☺

Update:
Looks like it comes from Merlin Mann circa 2004.

Alas, an example photo:

Cocoa Beach • Santa Cruz

(2463.6 miles apart)

ClickToFlash version 1.4 and later includes functionality to automatically load H.264 versions of YouTube videos, without the need to do anything special.

ClickToFlash is a WebKit plugin that prevents all flash content from loading in Safari. This excellent software prevents runaway CPU usage, and if you’d like to see the Flash content, simply clicking it will cause it to load.

As of version 1.4 a feature has been incorporated to do exactly what the QTYouTube bookmarklet did, replace the flash with a QuickTime compatible H.264 video. With the default settings, control-clicking and choosing “Load h.264″ will load the QuickTime version. You can also go to the Settings (from the Safari->ClickToFlash menu) and choose “Load H.264 videos from YouTube” to automatically do everything for you.

I really want to thank Jonathan ‘Wolf’ Rentzsch, Troy Gaul, and the rest of the team working on this for the excellent plugin and incorporating this feature!

Just recently I purchased a Presonus FireBox from Charlie–most likely just as part of my audiophile addiction–and indeed it is a great device. The 24bit/96khz DAC is quiet and outside of the noisy electronic environment of my MacBook Pro. The headphone amp in this thing goes to 11, both figuratively and literally. This is a point of safety concern. Of course there is the standard warning about not listening to audio at a loud volume for extended periods of time, but in this case I feared plugging my E5s into the FireBox. Setting the volume to anything above zero was too loud. I was concerned I might accidentally turn the volume to a dangerous level.

So the solution to all of this was not to buy more expensive equipment, but just stick some resistors inline with my headphones. I decided to build an inline attenuator pad to drop the signal down by about 20db. This solves the above mentioned problems elegantly. It requires I turn up the volume a bit to listen which keeps the signal to noise ratio low on the laptop’s internal headphone output, and gives me a safety margin on the FireBox.

Construction wasn’t too involved, but it was a bit tricky to keep everything within the small dimensions I wanted to maintain. I used SMT resistors to minimize space, and had to scavenge the female 3.5mm jack from an extension cable to find one that was narrow profile.

I got most of the design info I needed about making audio pads from this article. It turns out, they’re just simple voltage dividers. I’m confident I didn’t actually get the 20db I wanted, but it does indeed drop the signal an appropriate amount. I used 150Ω shunt resistors with 680Ω series resistors.

This whole problem of over sensitive headphones is usually solved by sticking a passive volume control inline with the headphones. In fact, new Shure headphones ship with one of those in the box. I chose not to go that route here, not only because I didn’t want another volume control to fiddle with, but because this way I couldn’t accidentally leave it turned up when plugged in to the FireBox.

Overall I’m happy with the result, despite the fact I had to use clear heatshrink to house the pad instead of red. Perhaps i’ll upgrade housings later :).

Let me know if you know of a commercial source for headphone fixed attenuators or you built your own.

Recently I had run across the megazoomer SIMBL plugin, and found that it could make a Terminal.app fullscreen! Something just wasn’t quite right about it though. The white text on the solid black background wanted to look as if I had booted in to single user mode, or started my computer with the verbose boot option on, but no font I could select seemed appropriate. So I began the hunt for the Mac OS X console font to use in Terminal.app in earnest. Eventually I found it, in the form of a C source file. All of the character bitmaps were described in an array in a file called “iso_font.c” in the XNU source. I went on an adventure to find appropriate software to make a font file, and eventually I found a rather dreadful tool called Font Forge, but it worked so I used it. I prepared my font in the BDF ASCII format with liberal application of TextWrangler’s grep based find & replace, as well as a Python script to massage it a bit more. After lots of messing with Font Forge and some tweaking of the metadata, I could export a TrueType bitmap representation of the original Mac OS X console font, which I have provided here. The font is free to use, according to comments in the file as well as the original APSL license, so I am providing it here freely as well under the same terms. Enjoy!

Note: The bitmap is 16pt; other sizes are not recommended.

Update:
Cory Klingsporn submitted an updated version that fixes issues with accented characters. Thanks Cory! Get the new version below.

Download Darwin ISO-Latin-1 Font (TrueType):

Darwin-ISO-Latin-1.zip.

Oops! is a classic board game of skill, cunning, and regret. Battle against up to three highly intelligent computer opponents, or go head to head against real people in competitive network play. Taunt your enemies as you move swiftly around the board, knocking their pieces back to start on your way to glory and victory. Available exclusively for Mac OS X!

I highly recommend downloading today from the Oops! Product Page.

Alas, I’ve had a busy month or two. May 11th I graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a BS in Computer Science. An excellent time, but time to get a job now.

May 28th through June 2nd I was in Naples, Italy at AVI 2008. I had a great time presenting our well received poster on the ideas behind VCode & VData, and had the chance to visit to Pompeii. Incidentally, a new release of VCode is pretty much ready to go, so watch for it in the coming days.

June 7th I boarded an American Airlines flight to SJC with a one-way ticket! After attending a most exciting WWDC 2008, I finally moved in to my new apartment in Santa Clara with my roommate Erik.

We do great things here in California. I enjoy going to work every day, and there are lots of cool places to go like WeirdStuff and untold numbers of unfound places. Erik and I went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival this weekend, and Mo even came out for a visit a couple of weeks ago. Charlie is here now too.

[I had intended to put lots of photos in this post, but I've delayed it long enough already. Perhaps I'll update it with photos one day?]

Algernon is a keyboard-based launcher that provides lightning quick access to categories, classes, morphs, and global variables in your image. It’s inspired by similar tools like Quicksilver and LaunchBar for Mac OS X. We’re really proud of it, as it seems to really increase productivity. If you’re a Squeak user, I encourage you to check it out.

Class Project Page
Development Home
SqueakMap Page

I’m headed to Advanced Visual Interfaces ‘08 this summer in Naples, Italy to present the work Josh and I did on VCode + VData regarding video coding tools. I’m really proud, as it’s my first first-author!

You can download VCode and get more info about it on the Social website.

Enjoy!

Home-built Blu-Ray Laser Pointer

I focused on building a high quality device. I am really happy with the size and quality of the case, and current-limited power supply, as opposed to the simple resistor based design some other designs suggest. I also opted for rechargeable Li-Ion batteries for great performance and size. This necessitated the installation of a charging jack on the back of the pointer as well.

Parts:

• Sony KES-400a replacement Blu-Ray drive module for PlayStation 3
• Pomona Electronics Size “B” Die Cast Aluminum Box with Cover, Baked Blue Enamel finish, Model# 2417
  as seen on page 53 of their catalog. All of their other products are great too. Highly Recommended.
• 650nm 5mw 12X30mm laser module from Aixiz. This company, on the other hand, is as sketchy as you get, but I’ve always had great services, so, if you need cheap lasers, it works.
• (2) AAA Li-Ion cells with solder tabs.
• Protection Circuit Module for Li-Ion cells.

You’ll need some other items as well, such as a jack for charging the device, wires, a breadboard PCB, and various components for the power supply. You can pick those out from the schematic below though.

There’s lots of great info regarding the Blu-Ray diode on a page at Sam’s Laser FAQ. This was the source of the power supply circuit, and information about the amount of current that could be run through the diode. Unfortunately, the construction quality of the power supply isn’t the greatest, and I find the case design for the pointer at the bottom rather wasteful. The circuit is, however, of sound design.

It is only somewhat difficult to fit the power supply on to a suitably small breadboard to fit in the case. I think a smaller package version of the LM317 would be better suited than the TO-220 packaged one I chose.

All parts ready for assembly / Power Supply

Aperture / Operational