Biznass Boombox

In preparation for the Decentralized Dance Party, I decided to make a business-themed boombox most righteous and true.  Find below the buildlog...

First, I set out with the plan to construct this out of the following:

• A solid briefcase (not soft-leather)
• A battery-powered boombox
• Speakers of some variety
• Some sort of stylish speaker cover

Finding a briefcase for cheap was not an easy process... but I eventually haggled one out of a local flea market regular for $30.  Kind of steep, but not horrible.  The boombox was a donation of a former roommate, and the speakers were picked up at a local thrift shop

Here we see a dry fit of the speakers on the briefcase, as well as a collander to make a slick speaker-cover.

Apartment finding script

Need to find an apartment?  Turnover times got ya down? Throw this bash script on a cron job and never miss a posting again!

Requires: *nix, mailx, cron, an apartment agency that lists their vacancies online.

Click "Read more" for the code listing

Webcam mouse interaction in X11

After taking a class in Computer Vision not so long ago, I often find myself straining to think of a cool project that takes advantage of what I have learned.  Finally, after a solid week of banging my head against other schoolwork, I decided I should take a break and code up something fun.  In other news, I have no idea what fun is.

My initial goal was to take input from a webcam, track the users finger, and use it to move the mouse cursor.  Pretty ambitious!   Although the finger is still a long ways off, I have it tracking red rings.  Code available here.

Boss BR-532 DC Jack Repair

I really like playing music, recording it has been historically difficult.  This is mostly because I am too cheap to shell out for adequate hardware.  After trying to fix a tape deck for a good 2 hours (post on that if it ever happens...) , I figured my time was better spent fixing my roommates 4-track recorder - and so I dove in!

The problem was a simple one, the unit would frequently turn itself off, unless you held the plug just-so.  From having spent too much time fixing shitty electronics, I knew that this was simply a matter of re-heating the solder joint on the DC barrel plug.

 Some obligatory circuit porn