Category: diy
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Pencam shoots and scores
I was pleasingly surprised to find out that a picture I took this weekend was selected to be featured in Today’s Photos on Chicago’s Windy Citizen yesterday. The interesting thing is that I shot this using an inexpensive “lo-fi” digital camera, the Aiptek Pencam SD. The design of this little cam is about 10 years…
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From miniDV to dSLR – Contemplating the New Era of Digital Video
When I saw the first miniDV digital camcorders in the late 1990s I was blown away by the edit-ready broadcast-quality picture they captured on tapes half the size of an 8mm videocassette and on cameras smaller than ever seen before. Yet, I couldn’t predict that only about a decade later we’d see the ability to…
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Six Months with my Sanyo Xacti VPC-CG10 Pocket Camcorder
One of the biggest problems with most electronics product reviews is that the reviewer has a very limited amount of time to use and get to know a particular item. That’s why so many digital camera and camcorder reviews rest on technical specifications and relatively easy to measure qualities like resolution, image noise and sharpness.…
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On Thursday’s Radioshow: Environmental Encroachment the Magic Circus Band
Independent media comes in all forms, next to ‘zines, podcasts and blogs there are trombones, drums and batons. In parades, clubs and gatherings of all types across the US, and across the world a fresh wave of marching bands are bringing musical chaos to the streets. Insurgent marching bands from around the globe are soon…
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Life Inc., Publishing and Radio
I really enjoyed my conversation with Douglas Rushkoff, discussing his new book Life, Inc; How the World Became a Corporation and How To Take It Back. The first part of this interview is on this week’s edition of the mediageek radioshow. I find that Doug is articulating very clearly a lot of ideas that have…
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Cassettes Are a Weird Way to Distribute Music?
My, oh my, where has the time gone. Sure, cassettes might be nearly obsolete and decidedly retro. But weird? Wired’s Epicenter blog recently compiled “10 Weird Ways to Distribute Music.” But, really, the list might be more accurately characterized as “10 Unique Ways,” rather than weird. Seems that some popular indie bands like Dirty Projectors…
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FCC Steps Up Pressure on Boulder Pirates
A short blog post from Monk, formerly the brains behind the first iteration of Boulder Free Radio KBFR, reports that two separate unlicensed stations in Boulder, CO were recently “shut down” by the FCC. A new KBFR with new a new crew behind it has been operating in Boulder since sometime last year. Monk has…
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Interview: The End of Television
Although the delay of the DTV transition to June 12 has taken a little wind out of the sails for the potential of a massive rude awakening for an American public unprepared for the sudden obsolescence of their analog TVs, the transition is still going to happen. While more households will have obtained DTV converter…
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On Tonight’s Radio Show: The Value of Retro & Vintage Technology
On tonight’s radioshow my guest with be Bohus Blahut, one of the bloggers behind the popular Retro Thing blog which tracks vintage gadgets and technology. It’s a site I’ve been reading for a couple of years not just because I have my own love for vintage tech, but because I think there’s value in holding…
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Cheapskate Audiophile
As a geek videophile audiophile there’s the tendency for that interest to be conflict with my critical side that questions our modern consumerist capitalist economy. I believe that balance can be found, as long as one accepts that it’s nearly impossible to be entirely non-comsumerist without checking out of modern technological society altogether. Yet, it…