Kris Arnold

Coffinworm

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In this installment I have added the mosfet’s and an adhoc wireless network to the lowPI. In order to communicate with the raspberry pi when I am not by a wireless access point a netgear WNA1000M usb wireless card was added and configured to operate in Ad-Hoc mode. This was fairly easy to accomplish and I wont go into setting up udhcpd and a wireless card as it’s already heavily documented across the web.

For the mosfet circuit I used the following example that I found from . This example uses an Arduino, but essentially acts identically as we are using the GPIO pins on the arduino as digital out pins. Instead of wiring the mosfet to a 12v light bulb on the D pin, this pin will go to ground on the sump and inflate pumps on the truck.

This will probably be my last update for a little while as it’s cold outside and I don’t care much for working outside on electronics in the snow. But then again, maybe it won’t.

You can view part 1

This is the beginning of a project that I have eagerly been working on. I wanted to be able to control the air bags in my truck with my iphone, so I’ve taken to the raspberry pi and phonegap to make that happen.

The Raspberry pi is running a rest api with django to talk to the iOS app over wifi. Currently I am awaiting the parts to make the GPIO pins interact with a 12v dc system. This will be handled by 8 N-Channel 30a Mosfets sold by sparkfun. So while I am waiting on parts I hooked the gpio pins up to LEDs to emulate the action of raising and lowering the wheels.

The source code is available at GitHub

As instagram has become more and more popular I have noticed a correlation in a reduction of fauxtographers. Actually not really, but it does seem that more and more of the type are putting more effort into establishing their “photography career” by posting to instagram. Which in a way is great, but more on that later.

It is true there are still many people buying their first digital slr and slapping together a facebook page for themselves. Then call themselves a photographer and try to pony into the jobs that professionals spend their lives studying and working hard to get in the first place. If there wasn’t, pages like this wouldn’t be alive and well.

The surplus of photographers doing this has created huge bust in the market for professionals that work hard to hone their craft. It has completely undervalued the work and effort that is required to make a great image. Here are just a few choice quotes I have heard over the years

• You just push a button, why would anyone pay for that?

  Of course, there is no math, math, or math involved what so ever.

• You want how much? My friend just bought a DSLR and has photoshop, I’ll just have them do it

  Knock yourself out buddy, enjoy that precious moment

• I love your photos so much and the work you do is perfect, but I can’t pay you

  Now dont get me wrong. It’s not about having a fat check at the end of the day. I have done plenty of pro bono work. And when it comes to working with artists and musicians that are DYI I can’t in good faith charge any more then what it takes to cover my costs. In part because artists and musicians are busting their asses to share their work too, so we are all in the same boat together.

But I digress.

Don’t get me wrong, I love instagram. Quite often I find it as a great supplement to lugging around an SLR when all I want is to catch a moment when I am casually relaxing or hanging out with friends and family. Or the event when there is a beautiful scene infront of me and the only camera available is my phone. It’s also a great platform to find great artists and photographers sharing there work, and not just pictures of food and cats.

While one could argue that instagram is diluting the photography space, it is with out a doubt that bad photography by amateurs is hurting good photography by professionals. It’s hard to compete with someone that just bought a camera, learned that photoshop has filters, and is willing to do the work for a third of the price. It’s not so much of a problem with the people that are doing this, as it is the customer loosing the value in good quality photography. And it’s very discouraging.

My theory and observation is that with the rise in popularity of Instagram, more and more of the fauxtographers that would polute that space are jumping ship and snapping that “amazing”ly bad photo and posting it to Instagram instead of trying to convince their coworkers and family members that they can shoot their wedding or portrait.

And lets not kid ourselves, you look silly at a wedding holding an iphone if your the “professional”.

Oh yeah, there is another plus side to instagram for professional photographers. There are some amazing artists sharing their work there. Here are just a few of my favorites

_blemish_

gilesclement

gudinni

For some reason I just can’t stop using vim. This article is not ment to get into the debate of pros and cons between using a modern IDE like Eclipse or Netbeans. However I have tried many IDE’s and always find myself back to pecking away at a terminal. VIM is available out of the box on every modern Unix/Linux/Mac computer out there, and with in 20 seconds I am up and running with the configuration that works for me.

So here is the configuration I use incase anyone else would like to try it out. It supports among other things the following features

• Support for black terminals
• Auto indenting after {
• Syntax highlighting
• Shows line numbers
• Dictionary auto completion
• Shows tabs and extra whitespace
• Ctrl + B for php syntax checking
• Ctrl + X for svn commit
• Ctrl + C for git commit
• Ctrl + A converts tabs to spaces
• Ctrl + D Hides line numbers (useful for copying text)
• Ctrl + F Show line numbers (for when your done)

The motor shield provided sold by Arduino is pretty awesome and can control 2 DC brush motors or one stepper motor. After coming home with mine I found finding a good example of how to use it with the Stepper class a little difficult to find at first.

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Another winterfest has come and gone. And there was no shortage of great beer to try. Along the way I decided to shoot a few cinemagraphs. Click here to see all of the photos on indianacraftbeer.com

For my most recent trip to New Orleans, I decided to ditch my digital camera (for the most part) and strickly shoot with my Speed Graphics 4×5.

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Saturday night brought in the preverbal passing of the torch as PRN Host Greg Brenner retired his spot and handed over the reins to Rich Barker. Performances by Mr. Clit and the Pink Cigarettes, Livermortis, Riverbottom Nightmare, and Belligerent Bendajos.

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