November 2018

Sassbot

Not doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I’m still maintaining the bot!

(And what a wonderful thing to be coding in Ruby again!)

This year it got some sweet upgrades, including a new database backend (to store richer information and perform more powerful queries), a bunch more sources for its !name command, and an adaptation to Discord because the channel moved.

Art

I’ve started on a cool art project mapping all earthquakes around New Zealand from 1900 til now (early data is a bit imprecise, but it works out) using some interesting techniques for the rendering. I hope to be done during the month.

Specifically, after doing the data crunching, I transposed the key positions onto an A2 piece of white solid cardboard / foamboardish material. Then I painted each dot (hundreds of dots so far, at about ⅓ done) to approximate size in clear nail polish resin. The idea is then to splash ink onto the sheet, and the ink should slide off the resin while adhering to the cardboard.

In the end, I hope to have an earthquake map in a form reminiscent to a night sky star map, with some interesting random flow effects from the ink, and a tactile/glossy feel to its surface.

We’ll see how it goes.

Laser

I’ve acquired a small 80x80mm 2W laser engraver. It should arrive closer to the end of the month, and I’m excited to try new projects and experiments with it!

Casting

I’ve done some preparatory experiments for clear resin casting using cork molds for fast prototyping. I’ve also got glow-in-the-dark powder, graphite, stone powder, metal powder… all possibility for engineered materials of various capabilities and styles.

Not quite sure where I’m going with this, but it could be interesting.

End-of-year sec cons

I’m going to both purplecon and kiwicon! Actually I’m more excited about purplecon, but I have a kiwicon ticket so why not. Hopefully I’ll be seeing friends there too!