DRIVE

so i’m almost done with the book scanner; and i now know almost everything a person would want to know about turning books into computer files nondestructively.

…in other news, truck is flaking again. internet consensus is that it’s a prob w/ either the choke or float. i tested the choke and think it’s ok, i think… which sucks b/c the floats aren’t adjustablel

you know, it’s not like i want to be a millionaire or anything; but someday i’d like to spend slightly more time making things than i do fixing them.

Today I built a footswitch that can fire two cameras while they’re tethered to a computer running Linux (or Windows if you buy the right software, or probably OSX). The fun part about this is that I now know how to wire up all kinds of crazy external switches and controls to make computers do anything they can be made to do from a keyboard. As in, turning pretty much anything in the world into a USB interface.

Turns out it’s really easy. I posted instructions here. Right now it looks like this:

…though it will probably get prettier over time. Not that, y’know, febrile‘s discarded Dr. Pepper bottle stuffed with an old dog toy isn’t reminiscent of the Bauhaus era or anything… but it’s not. That said, those colors are kind of Bakelite-evocative…

Yikes, I need sleep…