Year: 2010

New Website & CMS

I’m migrating shan @ moonbase to a new content management system with a new look and feel. The template is a work in progress. The online gallery and downloads will be the last items to move, as they will require some gnarly scripting and SQL to import (no way will I try to move it manually!), as will the story archives older than 2008.

Playing with Content Management Systems

Harvard

I took two courses for the Spring 10 semester at Harvard. One was an easy elective on Content Management Systems.

Here are a few of my projects:

First Flight of Spring Soaring Season 2010

Video of Today’s Flight In My Sailplane: 2 1/2 minute video of a flight today in my sailplane… assembled from short clips I shot from my iPhone in flight…. neat view of space mountain about 35 seconds into the video… apologies for the dorky audio… I had no idea how much I talk to myself when flying, lol.

Steampunk Analog Instruments

blip box
www.yoshiakai.com
I discovered these freaky little blip boxes by Designer Yoshi Aki. What’s most interesting about this is the Steampunk design aesthetic.

My personal favorite is the “Cube”, a 4 Channel 16 Step Drum Sequencer.

The main box has 4 input section. each square has 4 different trigger pattern on a side.
Each cube makes a unique sound.

Putting the cubes on the main box makes drum pattern and rotating the cube makes a new drum sequence.

The Cube in action….

Star Wars Steam

Star Wars Steam
Star Wars Steam

I’ve got some new toys for my desktop… steampunk Star Wars action figures! Droids rock, and they rock more when they are steamed!

The imperial figures are pretty nifty too, but nothing beats R2-D2, the coolest ‘bot of all time.

The Whirlygig Emoto

Steambike
This lovely Steam Electric Hybrid Motorcycle was featured at the 1st annual Handcar Regatta in Santa Rosa, Ca. as part of the Ratchet and Rumble Crew.The Whirlygig also traveled to San Mateo, California for the Bay Area Maker’s Faire and recieved a Make Magazine Editor’s Choice Blue Ribbon!

The story of the making of this masterpiece can be found at the owner’s website.

Ride
I’d love to ride off with this bike! I wonder what the top end is? I need to plan my get away with this beauty.

Steampunk Laptop

Datamancer
Datamancer
This is the finest bit of Steampunk engineering that Steampunk Girl has seen to date. It may look like a Victorian music box, but inside this intricately hand-crafted wooden case lives a Hewlett-Packard ZT1000 laptop that runs both Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux. It features an elaborate display of clockworks under glass, engraved brass accents, claw feet, an antiqued copper keyboard and mouse, leather wrist pads, and customized wireless network card. The machine turns on with an antique clock-winding key by way of a custom-built ratcheting switch made from old clock parts.

Look here for the details on the making of this steampunk masterpiece