Currently I'm the President of the DPRG and have been with the Dallas Makerspace since the very beginning. My big desire is to find other cool people to work on cool stuff.
Interests
Pretty much everything; no joke. I'm really into electronics, so if you need some help designing a circuit, let me know. I'm also into photography, both film and digital.
Here's the big list: electronics, photography, cars, video games, making and designing all of the previous.
Ok that wasn't that big. Here's another go:
radio transmitters/receivers, nixie tube clocks, vacuum tube amplifiers, developing your own film, experimental cameras, renewable energy, gardening, car repair on the cheap, steam engines, mechanical clocks, analog synthesizers, building things with Lego, high voltage shenanigans, algorithmically generated music, chaos and fractals, CNC milling/engraving on the cheap, embedded Linux and normal Linux, toy programming languages, demoscene/chiptune music, digital signal processing, analog signal processing, retrocomputing, amateur radio, building your own everything, doing anything from scratch (at least once), ... jeez
Wiki Pages
These are the pages where I am working on new ideas
Projects
- mini tankbot ( a little robot to show how little work you need to do to build a cool robot )
- Polaroid camera refurbishing
- BASIC interpreter from scratch in C
Analog Photography
There are many neat things you can do to get into analog photography without having too much hassle. I started out the traditional way: I would shoot "standard" print film and get it developed at the drug store. The next step was to get some black and white film.
- load the film into canisters (or just buy it preloaded)
- shoot pictures in your camera
- take the film home and develop it
- Scan the negatives and put on flickr
- go into the dark room and make prints of the nice shots
This is a bit time intensive, but it is very rewarding. After I lost my dark room to a new roommate, I've not done much of this stuff. But I know how to do all the steps if you'd like some help.
Now I'm getting into instant film, with the Polaroid/Fujifilm pull apart instant films. It remove all those steps, so you get your print "instantly". But it comes a price: about a $1 a shot instead of pennies a shot.
Analog Photography Frustrations
There are several parts of analog photography I find frustrating. It isn't so bad that I've gone all-digital, but it I shoot a lot less. That makes me sad, because I still like "the look" film produces and enjoy the process.
- Developing black and white film is temperature dependent and in Texas its nearly impossible to get the temperature of the chemicals right without jumping through annoying hoops (ice baths!)
- Making prints requires a good deal of space that is light tight and has access to a drain.
- Chemicals for developing go bad after a while.
Analog Photography Awesomeness
It isn't all doom and gloom. There are many things I really enjoy about analog photography.
- The look of film. Sure you can spend hours in Photoshop or Gimp to fake the contrast curves and saturations, but I spend all day in front of a computer. It isn't any fun.
- The latitude of film. You don't need to be an exposure Nazi to make sure your image isn't blown out or under-exposed.
- The physical-ness of film. Everything is hands on, and you end up with something you can hold and work with.
- a lot of the film handling process is easy, such as loading your own cartridges in a film bag or making prints
Analog Photography Mitigation of Frustration
- to counteract the difficulty in controlling temperature, try using a "panthermic" developer such as Panthermic 777, aka Harvey's 777. Here is a link to a table of times for developing various films in 777.
- using "positive" photo paper means you can skip film and go straight to prints. Photo paper is very slow (about ISO 4. yes: FOUR), but it is still suitable for pinhole photography or perhaps flash photography. (You might need a nuclear bomb to get a flash bright enough, however.)
- Some photo chemicals last longer than others. Panthermic 777 and HC-110 come to mind.
- perhaps some sort of robot or homemade developing machine could be made to develop a ton of film all at once in a reproducible way.
- you can use medium format film to get super high resolution pictures that are easy to scan on a flatbed scanner and also very easy to make simple contact prints without an enlarger. Cheap 120 film cameras are available: the Diana, the Holga, the Seagull, or any of the myriad of box cameras.
- Perhaps developing by inspection would help things. You literally watch the film develop, much like making prints. Usually this is for large sheet film used in view cameras (which are their own neat photography sub-hobby), but I've read references about doing it with 120 roll film.
Photography Calculators and Resources
General Membership and Administration TODO List
- paper work for Audelia business park
- collect personal credit applications from Mark,
Ed, and Peter ( should get Mark's no later than the Thursday meeting at XMax )
- turn in the remaining credit application to Courtney (of PS Business Parks); she will draw up a 12 month lease (latest would be Friday Morning)
- get liability insurance "certificate of insurance" with landlord as "additional insured"; OK to not have at signing (cleared with Courtney. We'll have it Monday)
- sign the lease (Friday at lunch) - remember to check lease for req'd clauses
- sign a lease
- schedule an inspection with the City of Dallas (reqs going downtown someplace, paying a fee)
- buy "the $50" fire extinguisher for the building and get it into the building some how
- the inspection for a certificate of occupancy from the City of Dallas actually occurs at this point
- schedule power company to hook up power
- which company?
- schedule internet company to hook up internet
- we know its going to be AT&T
- which plan? U-verse, sounds like
- get power hooked up ( who will let them in? )
- get internet hooked up ( who will let them in? )
- Get keys around the 28th
- move a few tables and chairs into the space
- Official start of Lease: July 1st, 2010
- have our Thursday (July 1st) meeting in our building!!!
- get either a key card setup or duplicate keys made (key deposit if physical keys!)
- DnO insurance
- ...
Membership Ideas from Other Groups
From VHS:
- two month probation for key
- keyholders can waive probation for other new keyholders (to be used for grandfathering in existing longtime members)
From some video on hackerspaces I saw (I think it was NYCResistor who was speaking):
- limited number of members
- members vote in new members
- member = keyholder, in this sense
- space is still open for people during 'open meetings'
- base rent cost is split between members, period.
- Big tools and projects are 'privately' funded
Idea from DPRG meetings, DMS meetings, various places:
- Members can "sponsor" other members by paying extra
- give a free time-limited membership to various students as a scholarship and a way to reach out to the community
Random Notes
help with wiki tables
CSS styling: tables
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