Dan Wheldon 1978-2011

The Original Image

In the last post with the tribute to Steve Jobs, it was a photo of the image on my iMac screen slightly edited on Instagram. Here is the original I created last week.

Fourth Year: Summarising Area with a Picture

On Monday we were asked to summarise our chosen area with an image along with a haiku. This was for the following day so we didn’t have long to do this. I enrolled the help of a friend studying at Abertay University to be in the photo.

It basically shows someone with a split personality and how colour can change someone.

#179 Two Years Apart…

Quite a lot usually happens in 2 years. Luckily for me, this didn’t. Going back to the same place on Grimsay, North Uist and being able to take the same picture, only better. It was always my intention if I went back to try and get this picture again of the light trails of cars going over the causeway from Grimsay to North Uist and I think I have a winner in what is going to go onto the canvas I still have yet to get printed up. The original one from 2009 was blurry and was from the first couple of months with my A200 DSLR. Now in 2011, having had the camera for a good few years, I knew it better and how to work it better (along with editing photos in photoshop), and it is much crisper. It is sharper, has better colours and even has a sheep on it! The same principle was used as the first one, layering the images up instead of one continuous shot, this was because of the sheer lack of cars going across the causeway at 11 o’clock at night.

I could see cars in the distance exiting Balivanich on Benbecula, crossing the causeway to Grimsay and I would get excited thinking this would be another one only for it to turn off before.

The original from 2009:

The 2011 version:

#178 Electronics Practice Begins…

And so it has begun, the commencing of trying to refresh my memory as to how to work PicAXE microcontrollers in preparation for going back to Uni in September. The long and short of it is that it didn’t go well. I can’t find anything which simply says how to wire the 28×1 Pic up just so I can even plug it into the computer. I even rummaged about in my book from second year where I had written down bits of code, circuit diagrams and whatnot but to no avail.

The picture below doesn’t quite show the extent of my efforts as I did get as far as putting wires onto the breadboard and managed to put in a transistor and a ceramic resonator but trying to hook that up to the USB serial breadboard adapter and consequently, my iMac didn’t produce any results whatsoever. I ended up calling it a day with a semi built breadboard due to the temperature in my room getting a bit too hot for my liking.

I am hoping that I can get it all set up soon and being doing some of the things that I managed to achieve in the Bluebird’s Duet, but a bit more advanced considering this is all going to be part of our final years project…

#177 Rocket Robin

Another blast from the past (I guess there was no pun intended there). I did these a good few years ago, about the time when they did that Reliant Robin Space Shuttle piece on Top Gear. It was done so long ago I was still using GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) and not photoshop. The basic robin rocket shape was from an image on the Top Gear website and I added the background, the SRB’s and the other rockety bits. I am sure if I tried to do this again, I would come up with a better outcome, but it isn’t bad the way it is just now…

#154 iPhone Tracker

I know I am a little late to the party with this, but when this first came into the public eye, my MacBook was unable to run this application.

What I am talking about is the iPhone Tracking (dare I say it, scandal?) where some researchers had been rummaging around in the iPhone backups located on the computer it is synced with and found a file which has locations from where the phone had been used. They had then created an application which visualised on a map where the user had been.

I tried to run this application on my MacBook 3 weeks ago, just when it emerged, but it was unable to run. I do not know why this is, and I am just going to guess that it was that it was on Leopard and it needed Snow Leopard to run. Now, 3 weeks later, and back home and reunited with my iMac, which is running Snow Leopard, I have been able to run this application. This is what the results were:

It clearly shows the main areas where I have used my phone. The centre of Scotland is where it has been used most and is where the points are most accurate. Towards to top left of the map, things start to go a little bit wrong. This is where, from what I gather from the people who created this application, the locations are out because of something to do with the phone mast (I might be wrong with this though), I haven’t been to where all the little dots are but I have been to some of them. The cluster of blobs around Inverness seem to be about right though, and there is a small cluster about Oban which again is true.

It isn’t the most interesting of applications but it appeals majorly to the geeky side of me.

#144 Don’t Know What I Was Trying To Achieve…

In the same theme as the last post, I have been doing something relating to F1 and Red Bull Racing. But if I’m honest, I think the last one is great compared to this… I don’t quite know what I was trying to achieve this this one. Anyways…

#142 iPad to PS3

The other day I was thinking, as you do, and it came across me, why can’t you use an idevice such as an iPhone or iPad to control basic functions of a PS3? A bit of a random thought I know, but using one as a remote would give more functionality than a standard controller.

The way I see it would work (and I have googled to see if it has already been done and as far as I’m aware, it hasn’t), is that it would be in app form. It would be loaded up and connect via either bluetooth or wifi to the PlayStation. Almost acting as a secondary display, an XMB (cross media bar) would be displayed on the iPad screen, all the usual gestures would be usable and the functions could be used. It wouldn’t be able to be used to play games with, but it would make sense if it could be used to view images, play music or play video with good playback functionality.

Using the standard PS3 controller for media functions on a PS3 can get a bit confusing, and not many users would be willing to fork out for a specific media remote for it. The number of users who have iDevices is pretty much at 100 million at the moment, and the app would be available to all, and in my opinion, something which could be quite popular.

Here is something I quickly knocked up to show what I mean, even if it just looks as though it is a secondary screen…

#137 HT30007 Business Proposal Research

Some of the research conducted by the group for our business proposal.  The research revolved around allotment owners and allotment users, their tool usage habits and the way in which they or other users might like to rent tools. The research included conducting a questionnaire and looking at secondary sources. The data was made into graphs to visually represent the information.

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