We are still not in Kansas

AI unreality continues. One of my favourite cameras has decidedly dodgy batteries. You can’t get them any more, so I thought I’d have a go at making my own. This might not actually come to anything, I was interested to see how ChatGPT would get on converting photos into 3D designs.

So, I took a bunch of pictures against a ruled background and then had a bit of to and froing with measurements and hints. After about 20 minutes we came up with the design you can see above, which I 3D printed. It looks like it will fit into the slot in the camera.

This is the design it came up with

I want to stress that I didn’t use any kind of 3D scanner to make this. I did give ChatGPT some measurements and told it that the slot near the contacts was a slot not a bump. But it did everything else. So we are now in a world where you can create a duplicate of a 3D object with nothing more than a camera and some paper with lines on. Strange times indeed.

Instax film holders now on Thingiverse

I was chatting yesterday about the Instax film holders I made a while back and I realised I’d not got around to putting them on Thingiverse, which is where I put my 3D designs. Anyhoo, I’ve fixed that. You can find them here. They let you use Instax Wide instant film in old cameras made for glass slide film. They are a bit of a faff to use. You have to take sheets out of the Instax film cartridge and put them into the holder and then, after exposure, put the sheets back in the holder to be developed in an Instax camera. A lot of work, but the pictures (and the way that you are using a machine from the century before last) makes up for this. You can also find more details of the holders on GitHub here.

Ducks in colour and black and white…

Leeds Cameras and Coffee

Today finds us in Leeds for a very nice Cameras and Coffee event. They have these every month. You can find out more here.

Thanks to Howard for organising the event and bringing sweets.

Almost artistic

They are putting up the Christmas lights at the moment. I took the above picture this morning. I kid myself that it is almost artistic. Oh, and the Chinese is a good one too.

Custard Cream Spread

..you can also eat it straight from the jar. Although perhaps not in public.

I know someone who thinks this is the best thing since sliced bread. Which is what she puts it on (after toasting). Me, I think Nutella just beats it. But it is super nice.

Busy Busy

Me: “So much to do, so little time…
FX: Knock on the door and door opening
Harry: “Hi, I’m Harry the handyman”.
Me: “Great. Can you fix the broken door handle?”
Harry: “Nope”
Me: “Can you fix the puncture in the car tyre?”
Harry: “Nope”
Me: “Can you fix the outside light?”
Harry: “Nope”
Me: “So what makes you think you’re so handy?”
Harry: “Well, I only live round the corner…..”

Actually, I did manage to fix all these today. So no need for Harry.

Sorry about this

I’ve just had an idea for a new video game about a bloke who has to search through a “Lost and Found” in an alpine resort. I’m going to call it “No man’s ski”

1000 things you never thought you'd see in a Rob Miles Blog - Number one - Saxophone music

I’m starting a new blogging theme. Things you might not expect to see here. I’ll not post them very often (in fact I’ll probably forget and never post another one) but anyhoo, here’s the first one.

If you happen to be learning the saxophone. And have a friend who is also learning the saxophone, here are some practice tunes, complete with fingering.

Go and see Wildwood

Wildwood is the best film I’ve seen this year. It is also one of the best films I’ve ever seen. It looks like a labour of love. In fact, considering the time and patience that it will have taken to make, it must have been.

Most animated films last around 90 minutes, sometimes less, because of the sheer amount of effort it takes to make them. Wildwood gives you nearly two and a quarter hours of breath-taking quality. The story is excellent, the characters are beautifully voiced and the animation - that is incredible. It’s a fairy story at heart. But with some very sharp edges.

Anyone expecting happy ever after and tales of wonderful magic will have those ideas knocked out of them right at the start, with a gripping opening sequence that sets up a story that has a happy ending, but not for everyone.

Very young kids won’t like it. Slightly older kids will love it. I really hope it does well. Artistry at this level deserves all the support it can get. And it also makes you want to go and see Portland USA. Strongly recommended.

Floppy Watch

The “hour went” last night. Clocks were moved one hour back to make the mornings brighter. This was too much for my comparatively new Apple watch, which seemed to be having trouble working out what the time was. Perhaps they’ve put the AI in charge of timekeeping.

Agent Avenue is a wonderful game

Went from zero to one of my favourite games today. Agent Avenue is a two player game where you recruit agents that let you move around the board loop and chase your opponent. Different agents let you move different distances each time you play them, and before a move one of the players has to choose between two possible recruits that their opponent has picked for them. One recruit is in plain sight, the other hidden. And the opponent gets the other one. Strategy and bluff abound. Do you show the card you want? Or do you hide it? Can you get the opponent to recruit a saboteur who will send them backwards? Or do you take a chance and use the daredevil who brings with him the chance of sudden death? Great fun.

We are not in Kansas any more

Take a look at the two screenshots above. They show my Thingmaker program editing a cyberdeck design. The top one is the Python program that Claude and I (mostly Claude) have been writing over the last week. Below it is the JavaScript version. I created it yesterday morning before coffee. All I had to do was point Claude at the folder containing the Python version and ask it to implement all the same behaviours using NodeJS and JavaScript. It asked a few clarifying questions, and half an hour later I had a fully working clone of the original. It reads and writes the same design files and provides exactly the same user interface, even down to the colours of user interface elements and the behaviour of the image processing.

I like to think that I could have performed the conversion myself. On the plus side, I’d have learned a lot about how JavaScript graphics primitives map onto Python, and how the user interface is built, On the negative side I’d have lost a few weeks doing it. We are now in an age where “whim coding” is a thing. I only did the conversion because I had some effort left on my Claude subscription for the week and I didn’t want to waste it. Projects that nobody would have had a go at are now within reach as long as you can properly explain what you want.

Programming is no longer about making a program that works. It is about describing your requirements and understanding what you get back from the system that built it.

Custard Cream Server in Raspberry Pi Magazine

To read more you’ll have to buy the magazine….

The latest edition of the Raspberry Pi magazine is now out. It’s got an article about the Custard Cream Server which is well worth a read. I think. It’s worth taking a look at the subscriptions section at the bottom of the magazine page. They have some rather enticing download options, including one where you get free copies sent to your inbox.

Handy Hardware Meetup

We had a quiet little Hardware Meetup tonight. Brian has finished his hand (and it looks awesome). Ian was working on MIDI messages. And I fixed a bug in the keyboard that I didn’t know I had (the bug - not the keyboard).

Do not try this at home

It turns out that it is possible to power a Raspberry Pi, keyboard and screen from three AA batteries. But you wouldn’t like the results.

Beverley Autumn

One of the nice things about having a camera with you at all times is that when the weather and the light is right you can get some nice pictures.

Soldering On

What do you call a digital camera with a broken power supply? A paperweight. The power supply for one of my favourite old cameras broke today. It’s a big complicated circuit board, as you can see above. Fortunately the fix was quick and easy. On the bottom right you can see the power input socket which is soldered directly into the circuit board. Over the last 20 years the waggling that it got as people plugged and unplugged the cable had caused the soldered joints to fail. I just had to put some more solder on the two connections and we are back in ancient digital business. Note that this side of the circuit (marked primary) is at mains voltage, and so I was very careful about making sure it was turned off and disconnected before I ventured inside the box.

Images in Thing Maker

The “Thing Maker” now lets you put images on the surfaces of the boxes that you make.

Well, what do you expect I would put on the back….

Off to York

We went to York today in celebration of a working keyboard. Or perhaps because the weather was nice. Very good time of year for photographs.

It seems that I take pictures of much the same things each time I go to York. But I’m OK with that.

The keyboard has arrived..

Big day today. The keyboard I used AI to design has arrived. I sent the designs off to PCBway a week or so ago and now I have the manufactured board in my hands. Amazing. It even looks like it might work.

All I have to do is solder a Raspberry Pi PICO onto the back and I can test it.

There we go. Now to add the Micro Python code and see if the keys actually work.

Yay! The code worked first time. I now have a keyboard, Time to put it in its enclosure. First we put the keycaps into the frame.

..and then we add the frame to the cyberdeck. Today was a good day.