Archive for category Art
Places to find good music!
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Gravity Driven Tai Chi
The idea of “gravity” is only a few centuries old, and still not fully understood… although it forms the principle force which exerts an influence on our physical body. As a fighting art, Tai Chi would of course have had to account for this force, and it does so albeit using different more esoteric words and concepts.
During Qi Kung (not Qi Gong) today, while discussing the idea of feeling energy flowing into the ground (which seems like lying to myself) and energy flowing up into the universe, with a split being made at belly height, everything suddenly made sense with respect to gravity.
At any moment in time, ala school physics, there is not just a force acting downwards (gravity) there is also a force acting upwards (the resistance of the ground through which gravity is trying to pull you). Internally, these two forces are acting simultaniously, as gravity tries to pull you down and through the earth, and your musculature, and skeleton, and will, try to keep you upright.
When, in Tai Chi they refer to energy flowing into the ground, I realised it seems possible to perceive this precisely at the moment where you relinquish as much resistance to gravity as possible, allowing the “down” force to exert its maximum influence (which results in as much down force as is basically possible without hooking yourself to something on the ground and pulling!). Equally, energy flowing up into the heaven, can be perceived as precisely the motion of you acting against gravity to raise yourself. These two concepts only work during motion – a change in position, releasing yourself to gravity, or acting against it.
The reasoning for the belly high split seems likely to be that Tai Chi attempts to establish a very solid foundation from which to launch strikes with the upper body (as opposed, for example, to Capoiera). This means that it is desirable to maintain a downward force below the belly (i.e. from the top of the hips, while you release your body weight through the minimal possible structure preventing and hindering you from falling over whilst retaining flexibility to move) whilst above the belly one maintains an almost free-floating body able to strike, pull down, push up etc. i.e. using the spine and the roundness of the back primarily, to act with or against gravity.
To me, this seems to be a much simpler description of what is going on, using words which have modern meaning.
Designing a dream home
I have long wanted to find a home that fills several needs:
- Minimal energy consumption in construction and use
- “Anthroposophic” in form (we apes are not “at home” in boxes. we have emerged amidst non-rectangular organic forms)
- Utilises “phased” construction over multiple years (for more economically responsible self-building, in tune with a growing family and income)
- Uses traditional lo-tech materials and construction techniques (to simplify self-building with local craftsmen)
- Simple to maintain/repair/replace (repeating sub-structures)
- Low cost (repeating sub-structures)
- Spacious
- Possible to pack up and transplant to another location
I think I have found the basic template in Bill Coperthwaite’s self-made “yurts” :
It doesn’t take much imagination to see how effectively this beautiful form can be constructed from repeatable natural elements using traditional techniques and skills, has excellent properties in heat (shade) and cold (circular forms minimise surface area and present little obstruction to cold winds blowing from the north!), is eminently suitable for solar collectors, and can be built in stages according to available budget and time.
If it is designed according to the core principle of a Yurt, wherein the walls support a free standing roof by means of tensioning ropes around the perimeter this design can allow for incredible interior flexibility and re-purposing.
I’m in love with this form.
Making timelapse movies for free in OSX from JPG images
It was a bit of a stress to find it, but check out avidemux , an incredible little tool that works on OSX (yey!).
Just select the first JPG in the directory of images you want to turn into a timelapse and it does the rest… super fast and efficient.
Just save as the output type you want!
About to take timelapse photos for a week at a festival wedding
It’s been months in the planning, and a few prototypes (thanks to the help of my engineering brother) in the making… but now a simple, transportable, hopefully robust setup is in place :
One large car battery with cable attached permanently to contacts, leading to a water proof socket, attached to several meters of cable, going to a cigarette lighter salvaged from scrap with a transformer all held within a watertight container (an old lemonade bottle suitably waterproofed), going to a water-tight lunchbox with a rectangle removed and 2cm thick perspex hot-glued into position. The box contains the camera and power-in from the battery, and will be strapped to a tree out of harms way with a ratchet strap going through a hook made with bindatwine at the bottom of a tripod which pulls tightly into the tree.
Given that I have a 4Gb card, and I’m going to take 640×480 images of about 100k disk size, I’m gambling that the card can hold around 40,000 images. If I take two pictures a minute for 7 days it’ll need (7 * 24 * 60 * 2) just over 20,000 images, so I have a good safety margin.
Now I just have to hope the car battery holds out so long, that animals don’t rip the box off the tree, that none of the cables become detatched, and that water doesn’t seep into the camera box!!!
How to turn off the display on a Canon A590 when doing timelapse photography
Simple. Roll up a bit of paper, and shove it in the Video Out port on the side of the camera. Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt, the display is turned off and the camera continues to function with a dramatically reduced battery consumption (although if you’re doing any interesting timelapse, you’ve got your camera connected to a car battery over a convertor, right? Good.).
Making time-lapse happen with a cheap digital camera
This is a fantastic project. http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
It’s an open source project providing firmware for Canon Powershot cameras…. only it unlocks all the potential of the hardware which canon either don’t want to give you access to, or think you are to stupid to use, such as :
- RAW - CHDK can record raw files, giving you access to every bit of data the sensor saw, without compression or processing. Raw files can be manipulated on the camera, or processed on your PC. CHDK also has experimental support for the open DNG raw standard.
- Override Camera parameters - Exposures from 64s to 1/60,000s with flash sync. Full manual or priority control over exposure, aperture, ISO and focus.
- Bracketing - Bracketing is supported for exposure, aperture, ISO, and even focus.
- Video Overrides - Control the quality or bitrate of video, or change it on the fly.
- Scripting - Control CHDK and camera features using ubasic and Lua scripts. Enables time lapse, motion detection, advanced bracketing, and much more. Many user-written scripts are available on the forum and wiki.
- Motion detection - Trigger exposure in response to motion, fast enough to catch lightning.
- Edge overlay - Detect the edges in a scene, and display them later. Ideal for timelapses, stop-motion, stereography and much more.
- Live Histogram - CHDK includes a customizable, live histogram display, like those typically found on more expensive cameras.
- Zebra-Mode - Displays under and overexposure areas live on the screen.
- GRIDS - Create custom grids and display whichever one suits your shooting conditions.
- Multi-Lingual Interface - CHDK supports about 22 languages, and adding more languages is simple.
- DOF Calculator - Display detailed DOF information on the screen.
- Customizable OSD - Improved display of battery status, free space, camera parameters, and much more. Fully customizable with an on-screen editor.
- Filebrowser - Manage files without a PC.
- Textreader - Display text files on your camera.
- Games - Play Reversi, Sokoban, Mastermind or 4-in-a-Row on your camera.
- USB remote - Simple DIY remote allows you to control your camera remotely.
- Benchmark - Compare the performance of your SD cards.
- User Menu - Edit your own customizable User-Menu for fast access to often used features.
This is going to be perfect for my idea of crossing the alps whilst taking time-lapse photos all the while 
Making music from video sequencing
The person who does this best is, I think Lasse Gjertsen. His classic is “Amateur” :
…but he’s not the only one of course. This is a really nice Ambient tchoon