Blogs

Today, I decided to perform some tests on the Toner Transfer method for etching your own PCBs. I took the basic idea from Thomas Pfeifer's site. I gathered all the required materials, and started with a simple, ATtiny 2313 based circuit (done in Inkscape %-) that some day shall end in a midi mapper, allowing me to play drums in Blofeld's multi-mode with my channel-restricted MPD18 (one channel per bank).

Today was a good day. A really, really good one. That's why I'm writing about it. I mean, not only did my mind come up with one heck of a theory, but I also was provided living proof for it just a couple minutes later.

My new theory goes as follows: Replace all known measurement units with percentages, and noone will notice.

Since whenever I learned about subtractive synthesis and started building my own synths and widgets with Synthedit, I've always been silently shaking my head at people getting obsessed with hardware synthesizers. I mean... Sure, having hardware dedicated to the specific task of generating sound is a useful thing to have, and sure, most proper synths tend to have their quirks that make them memorable, but I really don't care if the bassline I hear is a genuine 303, or an analog reproduction, or a digitally calculated emulation. And, I never had any issues with my sounds not being "fat enough" or sounding "too tinny" for my taste. And I've been using softsynths for years now.

Although few actually know about HTML5, it has already been around for a while, long enough to get some decent support from a huge share of of browsers, among them trusty ol' firefox, so all the geeks should be compatible already.

I'm getting old...

it's been 10 years now since I've registered shang.de over at a small webhoster called 1und1, and actually a bit longer since the idea of the shang usergroup exists. Nothing ground-breaking happened since then, tho, but nevertheless, it's been a busy time. We've switched the hoster a couple times, had a couple minor and very few major changes to the site itself, and the membercount still is as undefined as ever. We're still sporting an understatement of a "design", and the content is as diverse as can be. And we're still recruiting.

I'm currently seriously thinking about buying a Nintendo DSi just to play Scribblenauts...

Yes, you've read right. I've been shot at. Three times. With paintballs, luckily, but still, on the highway, doing a hundred kilometers per hour. I was in a totally unsuspecting mood when I suddenly heard a sound somewhat like kadaplonk coming from the roof, and wondered what the hell was going on. My mind raced through a whole set of different questions ranging between what kind of insect could be this huge? and is the car breaking up already?.

So, I finally traded a whole bunch of my free time against this money stuff (albeit at a poor ratio, but I'm working on that...), so I couldn't resist spending some of it on some new "gear". I started small, of course. At nano level, actually: I bought myself a Korg nanoKontrol and a nanoPad.

I always had the subconscious desire to - one day - write a game that would rank up with my once-favorite, now-retro console games that I grew up with. You know, those who did a huge part in fueling my interest in the most diverse fields of everything around da comput0r, but still kept me in touch with my fable for audiovisual art.