Completely Irrelevant

I need something silly, something foolish, something that had little to no bearing on anything else. And this is what happened:

Once Upon a Time in a land far, far away there was a drier with a taste for the odd. Now this drier it loved nothing more than to eat peoples socks; however, this particular drier was picky. Unlike the other driers it wouldn't eat just any old sock, it liked red socks above all others.

This drier--whose name was Pinch--would watch each of the inhabitant's of the land of Linen as they came through the door just waiting for someone with red socks. The other drier’s would hic-up, burn and otherwise not dry anyone's laundry if they had red socks. They did not want to listen to Pinch bellow and complain about how they stole his red socks any more then they had to.

 One day a little girl came in with a basket full of stinky smell linen. She pushed back her red hood and Pinch; oh yes, Pinch could see the red socks peeking out of her basket as she talked to Mrs. Wash who owned the Laundry Mat where Pinch and the other driers worked. Yes, she'd come straight from Grandmother's and Yes, she'd go straight back to Grandmother's just as soon as the laundry was dry.

 Opening up the basket as she talked, Pinch watched in wide eyed fascination. There was so much red in the little girl's basket that he could almost imagine how it would taste and he rumbled softly--happily ignoring the groans of the other driers. Oh yes, Oh yes, Oh Yes!

 The little girl in the red hood talked with Mrs. Wash but Pinch he had eyes only for all the wonderfully delicious red that was spinning around and around and around and around inside the washer. He began to hum with sheer joy at the thought of the feast he was going to enjoy. Indeed he was salivating so much that the load in his tummy didn’t get dry. The little old man—who hadn’t a stitch of red anywhere in his laundry—pulled it out in frustration and put it into the drier next to Pinch, complaining loudly the whole time. Couldn’t Mrs. Wash make sure that her machines did their work properly? He remembered how things used to be before, everything worked properly and on and on and on.

 Finally, little Robin Hood—as Mrs. Wash had called the girl with all the red—was pulling all that wonderful red out of the washer. It felt in one mouth watering pile in her basket and Pinch was purring again. Robin tried to pick up the basket and failed, finally she dragged it along the floor right over to where Pinch was waiting. The first few arm loads came in landing in the back of his belly.

 “I wouldn’t use that one if I were you,” The old man said from where he’d finally lapsed into silence by the window with a day old paper, “It’s not working,” He glared at Mrs. Wash who was pointedly ignoring him.

 “Oh, okay,” Robin said with a brief flash of a smile for the old man, “Thank you.”

He harrumphed and Pinch groaned in frustration, as Robin began to pull all that lovely red out. Pinch would’ve turned bright red if he could as the other driers began to laugh at him.

 TBC

Hahahha! I win...

... Welcome to failure number 2! I'm on a roll here, apparently whether I understand it or not--to some extent--electronics and myself do not get along. I can mostly get the computer to do what I want to do with much effort and heart ache but it is just not working with my own circuits. Everything worked when the resistors and the LED lights were stitched together, on all the fingers. However, I get the rest of it all put together and connected to the battery and.... nothing. *sighs*

 

Okay, actually I need to find a smaller needle and connect the battery better. I'm hoping that'll do it but it is actually making contact and I'm not getting anything so... ha. Anyway, I'm going to stop looking at this thing for a while and try and stare at flash for a bit and I need to put together some screen printing screens in illustrator. *disappears* 

Edit: I can't ever just stop working on something. It sort of works. I tightened up some of the connections. Not sure about the switch now or maybe I need to put something conductive over the whole back of the hand to get a better connection there when the beads touch... at least that would be easy to test.

Other Projects

Alright well I haven't just been doing nothing--and I haven't just been doing the failed project in the past few weeks. *chuckles* Granted I haven't been playing around with Flash as much as I should but whatever. Anyway so I spent a good portion of yesterday watching Flash tutorial's and having fun and getting frustrated trying to figure out how to do what I want to do. Anyway, successes and failures the current one is getting the whole image to scroll together. *laughs* I actually rather like the fact that it doesn't all move together it creates quiet a creepy effected.

Dream Egg 1, Flash Attempt 1, Dream Egg 2, Flash Attempt 2, Zombie Fun 1, Flash Attempt 3, Zombie Fun 2, Flash Attempt 4 (A work in progress)

But yeah, I've also been working on the webpage project which I put aside for a bit in the beginning. I don't seem to be able to develop web designs that I like any more. Mostly I think because I can not present them in a sophisticated manor as I wish graphically. Anyway, this is the current mock up. So far I'm still actually happy with it. Still need to get some of the content up but yeah. Alright other work that needs to be done. *disappears*

Images Of...

... the so far still a failure project. Ahaha, I have figured some things out since this. a) wire mesh from the hardware store while conductive is a pain to work with, it's sharp, it's hard to get a good connection and for what I wanted it's much too visible. b) connecting both ends of the battery to each other is a bad thing. c) voltage is important you either burn out LED's or you get no light or very little light. d) if you want to put more then three LED's together on a circuit you have to have a resistor or you simply get no lighting up.

So, I went from there to using wire when I wanted to sew the whole thing. However, after a few problems wire was a better way to figure out if it worked before sewing everything. Needless to say I did get it to light up when the wires were attached.

However, I'm not so sure I really like this set up for what I want to do. It's cute and it's fun but it really has no purpose and it doesn't really amplify the materials the way I wanted it to. Which could be worked with placement and type of LED's... anyway, trying to figure out exactly what I want to do. It is being difficult. For some reason with this class I have less ideas about what to do. I'm not sure if that's because it's simply not really a familiar medium or something else. Anyway enough ramble, sleep is needed and it's late. *disappears*

Fail # 1

So while talking with Amy about our project, I've also on the side been trying to do something simple with LED lights for BFA class, simply to see if I can. Today was the first day I tried to get the first layer working and it failed.

Mostly I think because the connections weren't good enough but I'm not positive. Either that or not enough power (pokes little AAA battery). I was going to try a larger battery, after looking around on this website. However, while I know the screen mesh conducts and will light up one light it might not work with this. I mostly wanted to us it though because I couldn't find any wiring that wouldn't have shown up like none other (and I got the wire mesh for free from the hardware store when I went in there.)

If that fails, the conductive thread would probably work. However, I don't have any of that right now. I may have to try and fix that though. As that might be my best bet. Though I must admit I'm rather apathetic in the hand sewing department and this would have to be hand done. We'll see, I have until Friday to get it working... At the moment I'm just shooting to get the lights working, I would like to program the arduino to do some simple patterns to but I'm going to focus on it actually lighting up first. ^_^

Edit: Hahaha and this is why I'm doing this project because even going through the work shop... you sit down to wire your own circuit and it gets complicated really fast. How to Wire LED lights; however was much more helpful then the other link. Or maybe I just didn't read the other one carefully enough. Another link, Quick guide on how to wire LED's in a circuit. Oh and this was neat Resister Calculator but I'm out of time now to play with it.

Rambly Thoughts

You know, I never really considered myself technologically stupid. Granted I don't really know how to take a computer apart and put it back together. However, I can switch out a power supply or a drive without too much trouble. I can usually figure out how a program works, it might take me a while to figure out some of the neater tricks but I can get to a point where I can get it to do what I want--usually.

I've always wanted to learn to do things a little more efficiently, to gain a greater understanding and skill base when it comes to technology/programs. *chuckles* Other things keep coming in the way, everyone probably has some idea of how that goes. I think in part I let it happen because I'm worried I won't be able to figure it out--silly, I know.

So, the Ardoino work shop last week, was insightful and yet rather daunting as well. Especially going from there, things just get more and more complicated. It's like learning a whole new language or perhaps a different way of thinking and looking at things. I'm not sure what exactly to do with it yet but I feel like it's good to know. I'm trying to do a project with LED lights for my BFA program right now, mostly to prove to myself that I can do it. We'll see.

I've been playing around with felting wool through fabric and the resulting gathering that you get. Anyway, I'm trying to create a layering of fabrics/wool and then working LED lights into the back layer to a series of switches that people can connect in different places to create different light effects. I was kind of thinking about how we wish on stars and something like that. Honestly though, I mostly want to do it to prove to myself that I can. Baby steps, I suppose. *disappears*