Idea : the laser glove

This is an idea I had for a simple, dirt-cheap glove-based input device, for intuitive control of audio/video synthesizers like Perceptron and such. It consists of a glove with a commodity red laser pointer oriented along each finger. This allows the user to control the shape, size, and orientation of a cluster of laser dots on a screen. A webcam watches the screen and uses the dots to control software.

The software could do any of a number of things. One approach would be to fit the dot positions to a set of splines, then use properties of these splines such as length, average direction, curvature, etc. as input parameters to the synthesizer system. At Drop Day we had a lot of fun pointing lasers at feedback loops, and that was without any higher-level processing.

Laser pointers are now less than $1.00 each, bought in bulk on eBay. (I have several dozen in my room right now.) I don't know of a good way to differentiate one dot or user from another without adding a lot of complexity, but I think cool effects could be had by just heuristically detecting dot formations. The emergent behavior from multiple interacting users might be desired, anyway.

On a slightly related note, here's some guy's MIT Media Lab thesis that I found while browsing the Web one fine day: Large Group Musical Interaction using Disposable Wireless Motion Sensors

I'm on the Interblag!

I finally got around to writing something for this blog. First, I have a quotation from our beloved Admiral:

"Do you want this fire extinguisher? No? How about this tag that says 'do not remove under penalty of fire marshal'?"

Second, the Perceptron screenshots on here look really damn good, and I decided I should post some of what I've been working on lately as well. This started yesterday as a CS 101 assignment and kind of got out of control.






There's also a movie here of me playing with it. It's 56M and still looks shitty due to compression, but you can at least get the idea. May cause seizures in a small percentage of the population.

Update: The video is (maybe) on YouTube now:

Jesus Died For Somebody's Sins, But Not Mine

In my college tour of doom, the first school I had the joy of visiting was Hampshire. My good friend Dusty goes there, and she told me to get in early, because Sunday was their annual Easter Keg Hunt, a magical time where students from all over the 5 colleges come to Hampshire to get their drunk on.

I arrived at 1:45, called my contact Dusty, and she immediately handed me a mug full of delicious high quality beer that tasted of blueberries and love. We went back to her place, where they had a keg of the stuff in the shower. Several glasses later, I found myself in an another apartment with a massive stoner circle of hippies, passing around Isaac Haze, one of the the largest, most powerful bongs I have ever experienced. I ran into a guy who'll I'll call Dave, a Physics/Math double major who "took a lot of acid, and realized that reality was an illusion, and that only through insanity could we find the truth." Generally, one of the crazier people I've met.

Shortly thereafter, a bunch of us went for a walk in the woods. We had only got 20 feet in when we found another keg. After more drinking and wandering, I got cold, and headed back to Dusty's place. Inside were a bunch of U Mass students, and some hot Hampshire artists, who were passing around these truly epic blunts and playing Mario Kart 64. After 3 of those deadly fatties, I felt the tiredness coming on, and I passed out on Dusty's floor.

All in all, a truly epic day.

I like these trees