February 2010 Entries
I got my hands on the Canon T2i and I ran it though it’s paces, the things I was most interested in was the video modes and low-light performance.
To see the HD version downsized to 720p, you have to load the video from vimeo directly: Canon T2i, 550D Practical Video Tests.
T2i Vs. 7D
First a quick word about the T2i vs. the 7D. The T2i does not have that pro-feel that the higher level cameras have. The body is fairly light and it is most defiantly made of plastic, and you can tell when you hold it. For me...
Over the last few years HD video has been getting constantly cheaper, easier and better. I bought a used HD camera in 2001 (JVC HDGR1) for about $2,000 that was one of the first cameras under $10,000 that could do HD, and that it does at 720P, with some other deficiencies. For a while now cheap HD has been available, for instance last year I bought a $150 camera that could also do 720P, but the sensor was small and noisy, that and the audio quality made the footage unusable. However now the latest versions of digital...
Every year I release a small “Image Book” of my favorite pictures, images and art. Some of the images I’ve published here, some are new to you.
To see last years edition see: Image Book 2008
As always I’m releasing the PDF for free, download and enjoy it.
I also have a printed version in limited quantity, and if you like my work and want to support what I do. I’m offering a printed version of this book as a thank-you for US donors, while I still have supplies.
Soon I'll be buying a new camera, my old camera is now about...
Over the last week I’ve been working on the next version of the Jansen Walker, this will be the 3rd release.
The goal is to make it much easier to assemble, faster, and 1/3rd larger using 3mm (1/8in) material.
The biggest change is that instead of using modified servos, which seem to scare a lot of people off, use geared motors which are about the same price. That will make the electronics side easier, perhaps slightly more expensive depending on your controls.
The new version will use the Tamiya Twin-Motor Gearbox, that has a good 203:1 ratio that is ideal...
For Christmas this year I made some custom toy blocks with friends and family initials. The blocks were cut from square wood stock into 1.25in cubes. The stock I used was indented for banisters, and had peg ends, but they were easily cut off. I made a batch of both Oak and Fir. Oak turned out fine, and is what is pictured here. The Fir blocks came out with a more slightly more desirable finish since the end grain was more smooth after sanding. Setup First I taped down a...
Recently, I posted a article about how much computational power it would take to emulate the human brain, and my calculations were off by a factor of 10. I've corrected my estimates and here are the updated sections:
Emulating the Human Brain
The Blue Brain Project has successfully simulated 1 cordical column on the Magerit super computer (100 TeraFLOPS), and human brain has an estimated 1,000,000 columns.
So with 5.2 ExaFlops, one could emulate 52,000 cordial columns. And that’s 1/20th of enough power to emulate a human brain.
To emulate the entire human brain you would need approximately 100 ExaFLOPs
That's a lot of...
'Stel' is a song I've been meaning to make a music video for since I released it in 2008, and with a few effects I wanted to experiment with and the short length of Stel made it an ideal test.
I used 2 effects pretty heavily, Adobe Premiere's "Time Warp" effect and PSCombine in video mode.
I used Time Warp to "morph" between stills, and all the video you see here, is actually still images taken with my still camera imported as video. Once the stills are imported as video I used Time Warp to slow them down by 200-500%. The result...