Sunday, January 31, 2010

Handcrafted Earrings

Thanks lB for the year of cuteness! It's so kawaii! =) Hope you and your boy are sleeping well.

My Noisebridge-affiliated art has expanded. We're now working on two projects - the pulse choker (convertible to bra) that will light up in different patterns in time to the wearer's heart beat and a wearable breathalyzer armband (convertible to necklace). The convertible versions demarcated in parentheses will be jazzed up and chic, i.e. all electronics will be hidden with no black boxes peeking through. It's become much easier to camouflage circuits now that we've found the sewable circuits Aniomagic offers!

Last week my collaborator built the truth wristband kit, which has provided tons of fun. There were a couple mirrored pieces of plastic shaped like lightning bolts that were extraneous from the kit. We thought that they'd make for cool earrings. And yes, they do:

Lightning storm earrings
Mirrored plastic piece as bolt, wire as cloud, Swarovski crystal bead as rain drop

While I was at it, I turned some laptop keys into earrings. These earrings cater to the web programming geek with one earring as the '<' key and the other as the '>' key that go around your head to stand for the <head> command used in html programming of web pages:

<head> earrings
laptop keys, wire, plastic beads

One last shot with all the earrings together:

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Insomniac


This cross stitch sampler pattern is for you, dB.

I'm living with another one. Maybe it's me, but every roommate, boyfriend and house guest I've had to share a bed at some point can't sleep a wink for a couple days straight. Now, my attitude towards it is to be as patient and kind as possible and otherwise ignore it. I (extremely frustratingly) can't help matters and any advice, assistance or aid is snapped at angrily (no offense taken--they haven't slept in a while).

But I expect I'll be tired and wanting to sleep for 10 hours and not leave the house soon anyways (not because i'm pregnant). Also my body wants weird things when I don't go to the hospital enough. In order, cravings list dependably includes:
1. Soda, any kind but preferably something with caramel flavoring and spicy.
2. Sushi - seaweed and raw fish in particular, but sweet shrimp (with fried head) something awful too
3. Cheeseburger
4. Ramen, cheap kind with flavor pack, bonito flakes, fried egg and oyster sauce
5. "Mongolian" lamb with leeks - though I seem to only have it at Muslim restraunts
6. Jook, with that chopped salty pickle stuff my grandma serves it with
7. Chocolate mousse (but only towards the beginning when i'm not too tired to think about making it).
8. Cheese--enough said

Also i'm very proud and excited for my boy. Now I gotta step up and find something permanent in this silly, high taxation town.

Friday, January 15, 2010

RIP Eric Rohmer

I famously love his films but only ever want to see them when I'm totally peaceful and serene or high. Go figure. Check out Slate's particularly lovely eulogy.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Another light-up bra

After meeting Nwanua and Ali, the founders of Aniomagic, this past weekend, I found great parts for my next bra-hacking project.

This bra has 5 LEDS of various colors that can be flashed with different patterns. The flashing patterns are controlled by a neat schemer chip Aniomagic has developed. The programming of the chip is so elegant. It's done online in a beautiful user-friendly interface that literally flashes different patterns of light onto a photoresistor to reprogram the schemer. There's also an on-off switch, which I've placed near the edge where the bra cup meets the strap.

I hid the center blue LED behind a pink Swarovski crystal bead, which serves to diffuse the light and keep the bra looking non-geeky by keeping all of the electronics hidden. The rest of the LEDS are behind the black lace and peak out from the centers of the lacey flowers.

Below is a photo of my pink geeky attire - the light-up bra and my USB necklace, which I made a while back:


For the grand finale, the bra in blinky mode:



Still so much to learn about soft circuits! And the brain! Hopefully I can get hired in the future - definitely not going to become a politician with the type of art and science I do. =P