dorian moore : (digital media) technologist

I've made the final prototype for the data collector, complete with stat-stop switches and a status indicator LED. It's much much simpler than I expected when I started this project, and that can only be a good thing in my book. Now to get soldering and get it all into the box, which I picked up from Public Works today.

Whilst I was at Public Works earlier Andreas showed me some of the signs, and I also picked up the final box for the data collector, and started fitting it out.

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Posted by Dorian Moore on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 20:40 GMT
Last modified Monday, July 14, 2008 at 16:25 GMT

I'm going to be heading out to San Jose ('do you know the way?') next week with Julie Myers to work on some workshops with her, as part of Zero 1 festival.

More details on the workshops here

Posted by Dorian Moore on Monday, May 19, 2008 at 09:26 GMT

Having waited for the Tirna Electronics to mount the one-wire controller chips from Maxim I've inserted their chip into the circuit and was more confident that it's my dodgy code that's the problem reading the one-wire network, so I got back into the code and now have it working, a set of code for searching and manipulating a 1-Wire network via IC2 and a DS2482-100 One Wire Controller... the next step is to swap in a DS2482-800 and try and read multiple inputs.

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Posted by Dorian Moore on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at 20:32 GMT
Last modified Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at 20:25 GMT

they are what is left after we have stopped thinking.

Something said elsewhere reminded me of this postcard my mum sent me in 1997. I've had it by my desk ever since, and is an adage I remind myself of often, one of my tenets in life. It was even my .sig for a while.

Opinions are the mind's way of making dung, they are what is left after we have stopped thinking.

I wondered who had originally said it, and so did a search: no references. Anyone? perhaps it was just the typographers - Typochondriacs, whoever they are/were - thoughts. It seems this card is perhaps long forgotten, so I thought I'd post it and save it. And the nice message from my mum - 'another obscure bit of designer typography for you'....

See also:

Opinions are like assholes; everyone has one and most are full of shit.

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  design: typochondriacs, 1997

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  Words: Alison Leeper, 1997

Tags : design typography,
Posted by Dorian Moore on Friday, May 9, 2008 at 15:22 GMT
Last modified Tuesday, May 6, 2008 at 14:29 GMT

Wow, loads of stuff just arrived for me for building the controllers: Here's what came from where:

A couple more Arduino Boards and some spare ATMega processor chips from Tinker.it

I've got a programmer for the ATMega processors from ebay seller Sure Electronics in china: £15+shipping vs £100 in the UK. I hope it works...

The Maxim One-Wire controller ships have been soldered onto mounting boards [incredibly quickly] by Tirna Electronics

There is some more RAM for the MacBook from Offtek

A nice box mounting USB connector from Maplin

And the start stop switches which Andreas sourced from I don't know where.

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Posted by Dorian Moore on Thursday, May 8, 2008 at 20:12 GMT
Last modified Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at 20:25 GMT

I've come up with a final application design I'm happy with and confident will work. Now to start implementing it all.

There will be numerous components in the system, and it's a pretty loose description, but it will do the job.

Data Collector

This will be based in the collector box, running a piece of software on an Arduino base ATMEGA Micro Controller. The program will check for presses of the start button, signalling a listener application on the connected MacBook that the mapping has started. It will then wait for the stop button to be pressed, and collect the data from across the 8 wire networks it can be attached to, and transmit that information to the main computer along with a stop signal.

Listener Application

This will be a background application on the MacBook, which will listen for signals for the data controller. Upon a 'start' it will create a new mapping, and grab co-ordinates for the floats location from the GPS device connected to the macbook, as well as logging the start time and creating a unique ID for the map. When the stop signal is recieved it will log the information gather from the various circuits into a database.

As we won't have a 'live' internet connection on the float this application will also listen for an active internet connection and upon receipt start synchronising data with he primary server were the website lives, uploading new maps and downloading any data that's changed on the website.

Display Application

This will be an application that will run on the laptop on the float, and also on the website for the project. It will work slightly differently for each context, but visually will be mostly identical. It will display the latest map available, as well as allowing exploration of the maps and augmentation of the data collected.

Web Synchronisation

This will be a backend application that will be triggered by the listener application, and handle the details of synchronising data with the main server.

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Posted by Dorian Moore on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 21:14 GMT
Last modified Monday, July 14, 2008 at 16:25 GMT

i've been playing around building the next prototype for capturing the data from the network. I started playing with the 1 wire libraries that are available for the Arduino, but wasn't getting very far with them, and I'm still somewhat wary of the bit banging approach this takes. If my electronics/physics wasn't quite so rusty I may be more confident.

To that end I've taken on board a different challenging task. I soldered one of the very small surface mount packaged DS2482-100 that Maxim sent me as a sample onto a mounting board from eP board. The soldering is not a task for the feint hearted, and I hope it works. The trouble is that I'm not sure whether it's my dodgy soldering, or something else, which is preventing me from talking to the chip.

I guess I'll just have to carry on getting my head round the [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I²C
I²C and one-wire protocols, in the hope that I can be sure it's one thing. An interesting and challenging task.

The reason I've opted for this route is that I can use the Arduino to control start/stop signals, light a status LED, and collect and send data to our MacBook. Finally I intend to swap out the DS2482-100 for a DS2482-800 in the final build to allow up to 8 one-wire networks, for better contextualising the data we gather.

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Posted by Dorian Moore on Tuesday, April 29, 2008 at 09:20 GMT
Last modified Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at 20:25 GMT

My friend Sonja has started selling her loving hand crafter jewellery on-line, go check it out and buy something JewelleryWorks

Posted by Dorian Moore on Friday, April 11, 2008 at 13:09 GMT

Having met up with Andreas and Kathrin we've solidified more how the mapping language will work, and I can see it coming together in my head as a technical and software implementation.

Kathrin has produced a layered spider map showing the various parts of the mapping process and how they all fit together physically, this is also going to be used to work out the breadth of the language and the various parts that will need to be made.

Mapping Areas
The mapping will be broken down into three basic areas, a 'Portrait' which provides some background about the person being mapped, their links to the Folkestone Triennial, which may reflect any involvement with the triennial, and finally there reasons they are interested in the Triennial. On the right is the collector device we are going to use to trigger the collection

This shows how the language will be split up into groups of 'storage signs' and 'collector signs'. The storage signs will be used to hold numerous 'clip on' signs that are used to represent parts of our mapping language. Each storage sign will cover a context, for instance location, or artworks at the triennial.

Here we see the collector signs in place

Storage Areas
How items are grouped in the storage areas. The storage area provides an implied context for each clip-on.

A representation of the clip-ons. These will be small versions of the storage signs, but each will have it's own icon representing it's purpose in the mapping. There are going to be a lot of these.

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Posted by Dorian Moore on Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 14:40 GMT
Last modified Monday, July 14, 2008 at 16:25 GMT

Via mobile phone

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Posted by Dorian Moore via mobile phone on Saturday, March 29, 2008 at 20:16 GMT