Category Archives: Uncategorized

Cooool, while I was browsing the web looking for metal plate suppliers last night, I found these guys, Edinburgh Printmakers Studio. They say they would be happy to sell small quantities of supplies to me, so I’ve just mailed them back to find out pricing. Very convenient as they’re based in Union Street. I’d suggestContinue reading “The evening’s etching update”

So, an evening’s research on the portable difference engine later 🙂 It seems Copper Sulphate is the best option, as it is reasonably non-toxic, easily obtainable, and doesn’t generate toxic vapour during the etching process. Another option is Ferric Chloride, which I’ve looked at before for etching circuit boards, but I was always put offContinue reading “Etching research”

Hmmm, anyone know where I can get thin brass plate in edinburgh (or copper)? I’ve just been reading about electrolytic etching and I want to play! I remember trying electroplating things with my chemistry set when i was wee, but it never “stuck” very well: now that we have internets, this problem can be researchedContinue reading “Thin brass plate”

We tried the Garden Sculptures geocache today. Dead fun, will definitely do it again. I especially liked being able to have a wee treasure hunt in the middle of the city as a small break from shopping 🙂 However we couldn’t actually get the cache as there were a couple of teenagers snogging right onContinue reading “geocaching”

After an afternoon of learning APIs and library porting, I have just taken my first camera picture controlled over USB/PTP by clicking a GUI button on the Nokia N770! Apart from porting the python usb binding library, the PTP python code required absolutely no changes from running on my dev laptop. Right, better start designingContinue reading “Success!!”

We went to Cramond today; got the 41 bus there and walked down. Had a look at what was left of the the Roman fort, which seemed infested with Dowsers. After that, we walked up the River Almond until we got to the main road, and had something to eat at the Cramond Brig… whichContinue reading “Cramond”

Just uploaded some new photos from last weekend to my flickr. Some infrared shots from round calton hill, and my first attempt at a panorama shot. I stitched the panorama together using the opensource hugin software.

I wrote this line of code last night: reduce(lambda acc,v: (acc << 8) | (v & 0xff), bytes[::-1]) That takes an array of bytes, reverses it (for CPU endianness), and then builds it into a single integer by ORring each byte together and shifting left 8 bits each time. I use it to convert 16Continue reading “Beautiful Python”

I had a whole piece written about the weekend, but managed to accidentally zap it, and I can’t be arsed rewriting it just now. Anyway, I’ve just posted some more photos from the Botanics and Inverleith row. Do the clicky, you know you want to! .

Hmm, I think I need to get a wee camera for taking to parties/ windy-hilltops-when-I’ve-had-far-too-much-to-drink-*cough*. Looking about, I think its gonna have to be a Canon. Why Canon specifically? Well, have a look here. I quite like the idea of being able to write custom photography-assisting scripts which run on the camera itself….