05/21/2010 08:35 AM -
chris pirillo's video: is open source important?
my video response. ok, so i don't have much to record video of and i didn't like seeing my 1080p videocamera go to waste.
1080p = blu-ray quality. bandwidth intensive.
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05/04/2010 10:06 PM -
submitted the great home office rewiring project of 2010 to lifehacker and was their featured workspace. how cool is that?
obviously this resulted in a big bump in human traffic. not half bad for 4 days into the month.
wow, google really didn't like the site being down all december.
though their writeup got a couple things wrong:
the project was done in three days over a period of 5 days; not a month as they indicated.
lots and lots of velcro straps; only a few zip ties.
lifehacker workspace show and tell flickr pool
workspace version 17 on flickr. a small subset of the images i've posted here.
guess the website took a hit - saw a comment on the lifehacker thread about it getting hammered. thus are the costs of running your own website from home (in that same server rack). sorry 'bout that. seems fine now.
thanks, lifehacker, for the feature; and for not nofollowing the link.
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05/01/2010 03:57 PM -
phase 3 complete. therefore, project complete. the home office is rewired.
previous phases:
phase 1 - rewiring computers
phase 2 - rewiring server rack
phase 3: rewiring desks
stitched pano. things that look curved are actually not; and that second pair of lights on some of the lower desks is actually a reflection from the lights on the top shelves.
dig the effect. not bad for computer parts, eh?
i struggled with a good way to put the computers on illuminated desks, but later realized several problems with this scenario:
the lights come with mounting velcro that has very bad adhesive
the additional wires would be too fragile for the heavy-duty cables that tend to swing around under the desks when i move or install new things. which i do frequently. case in point.
i tend to move my knees and legs around alot throughout the day/night as my comfort levels alternate, and being that my contract ended yesterday, i'll be spending a lot more time here in the near future. that leads to more potential for light bumping and tube breaking. and these are fragile tubes.
would require the power be distributed across a much greater area, definitely requiring hand-twisting wire for extensional purposes. that leads to increased fragility; see previous point on that matter.
backlighting reduces the ability to focus on the monitors. put your screen up against a window in broad daylight to see what i mean.
not one wire or cable is touching the floor. anywhere.
wiring up the lights
ok, so there were a lot of wires to contend with. when i unbound them from the zipties there was a great deal of loose wire, but i had to unbind said zipties to stretch across all three desks. turns out that this way, the wires were long enough that i didn't need the spool of wire i bought for the occasion. also because i used half of the cathodes for the top shelves instead of the other three desks. this gives me overhead lighting for the 3 p's: projects, paperwork, and pizza (protip: blue pizza does not look appetizing). also visible: the power switch for each pair of lights is on a computer expansion slot bay cover thing, because of course these are supposed to be computer parts. so i velcroed them in such a way that they face outward and i can turn each pair on and off, for whatever reason.
messy, yes; but these are the only wires on these desks so i don't care. the lighting itself is done pretty cleanly, this is just back-end stuff you'll never see unless you crouch under the desks like i had to.
the tubes are wired in pairs, one pair per desk, with a control box in the middle of each pair leading to the power supply.
also got some ultra-bright leds encased in small project boxes. unfortunately they broadcast a lowercase 'h' for whatever reason, but when placed at this angle they still look pretty good while minimizing unintended free advertising for an unspecified lighting company. for lack of a good mounting solution, i just mounted them directly to the wall with stickyvelcro. by pure chance, i got exactly the right number of them (five) to place exactly one-half desk apart for what i believe to be a really cool effect.
left: another underside shot of the lights. dig those wires; makes me feel homebrewey.
right: the computer power supply and enterprise-grade mounting system (more velcro strips). also pictured: the remote control receiver.
more detail on the power supply mounting and power system.
during construction.
left: desks wired up with the cathode tubes. before led installation.
right: one layout i was experimenting with. this shot makes me wish i had wired the other ones up, but the monitors would have hogged all the glory.
what each of the three completed illuminated desks looks like.
the three in series, just for the symmetry factor.
the cathodes make a pretty cool leadout effect when turning off. here i am turning them off and back on again. the loud background noise is al
Post.aspx?Title=The+Great+Home+Office+Rewiring+Project+of+2010+Complete