tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62502011485401372232024-03-14T04:36:31.496-04:00Mike ColomboA chronicle of ideas and projects from an expert thinker in repurposing obsolete technology and discarded materials.Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.comBlogger76125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-52287630109441969982016-04-16T11:03:00.000-04:002016-04-16T11:38:10.461-04:00Of 2001, Rope Lights, and the Surveillance State: Wayne Coyne in 2013<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oWMnRToHTmg/VxJUFp1PBEI/AAAAAAAAZDo/hdqV5KoJztYsOGQPxcOPWIGvpNRii5QnwCLcB/s1600/704024_10151575551962157_2087170573_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="470" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-oWMnRToHTmg/VxJUFp1PBEI/AAAAAAAAZDo/hdqV5KoJztYsOGQPxcOPWIGvpNRii5QnwCLcB/s640/704024_10151575551962157_2087170573_o.jpg" title="Wayne Coyne" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="color: white;">This interview was conducted with Wayne Coyne on July 15th, 2013 after the Flaming Lips' performance at the Oakdale Theatre in Wallingford CT. Wayne talks about art, DIY, politics, sci-fi, and the Future with a capital "F." It was originally pitched to be published by a major tech news source, but never reached publication. I hope you enjoy it.</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">First of all, great show!</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-7fa953bb-1f95-1ae8-4a0d-007780b2ad7e" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My eye is squeaking! I’ve got a squeaky eye! But thank you, it was a great show. I mean, when you can see the love and feel the energy that's so good.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well I really dug it and I've been listening to your music since "She Don't Use Jelly." I wanted to talk to you about the other stuff you do that's more visual and more technical.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well I'll try, I don't know.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know that the origins of your DIY ethic were those early show where you were setting cymbals on fire and burning out motorcycles...</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I mean back then everyone did that. It was before weirdo bands thought they were going to get signed to major labels. It was after punk rock-- as the 80s rolled along Bon Jovi and Guns and Roses sort of took over. We were sort of resigned to working in a restaurant and in your spare time being in a band and working on your art. Everyone I knew in bands did the same thing. It didn't seem like the world should be any different. We make weird music, and nobody would to give us money to live on. </span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But I would say by the time we signed to Warner Bros. it was a great relief because you do that thing for a while, and I think it's like anything-- after 4 or 5 years of a certain anything it's like "okay that was cool. What's next?" And right when we felt like we wanted to do something different, Warner Bros came in. We thought that maybe we should take this to the next level ourselves and really think about our recordings and the things that we do-- see if we could spend most of our time doing that. Those records with Warner Bros. got more elaborate, like The Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In terms of the visuals and the stage show there was a certain point where I'm guessing you were getting bigger and maybe you had the choice of going with a lighting designer on tour, but you decided to keep it close and go DIY. Why did you make that decision?</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In the beginning it was because we couldn't afford anything else, and we liked doing it ourselves. And then we would go out with groups. Candlebox would be one notable long tour where they were a group that had just formed and suddenly they were playing stadiums. Unfortunately for them, they didn't have any idea how anything worked because it was their first record. And what do you do? You're playing these big places, you gotta get lights and stuff, you call people, you pay money, they set it up. So we would see firsthand how stupid and how horrible and what a waste of money, what a bunch of a**holes they were. Everything along the way would be like: if we could do it our way, let's never do it that way. </span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even a couple of days ago we were playing shows with the Black Keys and it's a similar situation. They've got to where they're playing big shows rather quickly and they're not really interested in turning on their own lights and stuff. It becomes a giant beast of a production pretty quick. Most of the day is spent parking trucks, and we've been on tours like that enough where we'd just never be into that. To us it's just boring-- it's just not our trip. So, doing it our own way, thinking we like this, but also seeing it the other way. Seeing we don't want that. But we knew there was something in between. The guy doing our video walls helped invent some of that stuff that we're using. He just happens to be a cool motherf*cker who wants to do something cool as opposed to going out with Celine Dion.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It seems to me like in your setup now I can see your tool marks, like the LED rope lights. How did you work with your visual designer to make that stuff work together.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We're all trying to do it together and make something new. Even the idea of having the video wall in front of the stage-- people always put them way behind. I said "no, it has to be way in the front." Playing with the lasers... all this stuff, we own it so we can play with it. It's mostly that. He knows how it works, here's what I want to do, and we figure out how to work it in. Those rope lights are mesmerizing. There are a lot of things those lights do, but that's a program he made. People think they're just coming on and off but it works like watching a waterfall or fire.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Do you know if it's triggered by something specific, like the drums?</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, it's someone hitting it. They're just playing along with the music.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So he's not only doing the visuals, he's like another musician.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Totally! And that makes all the difference because a lot of guys are musicians. They just do all kinds of other stuff and it makes for a really great, intuitive show where everybody's doing their thing. It's just great.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I saw “Fearless Freaks” so got a little picture of what you were like as a kid. It seems like you were always a handy and/or mischievous kind of kid.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">No, not mischievous. Not really. That movie sort of condenses a lot of stuff.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, if you were tinkering on something or building something when you were a kid...</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I mean, I would say drawing or painting. When I started to play guitar and play with other people I still to this day cannot play other people's music. I'm not musical like that, but I was just interested in writing my own songs. I didn't know how they worked, but I just wanted to make something up. And in the beginning you run into people and they want to do other people's music. I couldn't really do that so little by little the people I would run into would just be more like punk rock. I can do my thing, you do your thing. But I wasn't tinkering with stuff. I mean, we would use strobe lights, fog machines, and echoplexes.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But at some point you were making your own movie sets. So there must have been a change at some point.</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, it was never just music. Even when the Flaming Lips started we came up with MTV doing videos and we did our own album covers, stickers, gig posters, videos, movies, and visuals for when we played. We just wanted to be the ones that did it. It wouldn't make any sense for us to bring someone in. That just didn't occur to us. I think we were lucky to run into people that wanted to help us do things our way. Jonathan Donahue, Dave Fridmann, and even our manager Scott. They said "I like the way you guys do your thing and I can help you." Once that has enough momentum and you prove that you're not insane or something, that's really attractive to people, especially someone like Steven [Drozd]. He's a genius musician. He's such an advanced musician but he doesn't want to play just normal music. He wants to be involved with something original-- he wants to go somewhere. I think that makes all the difference. I think if he had met me fifteen years earlier he would've said "You're retarded. You don't know what you're doing." But I think you meet people at the right time where it's great that you don't have any rules and you don't follow the logic.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are a lot of people out there right now who are doing work with microcontrollers, 3D printers, and laser cutters. There's a whole wave of people doing their own thing. They're tiny computers so you can program it to make a motor move. I could put a microphone on a bass drum and make that trigger all your rope lights, which is a different way of doing things. So people are doing this and it's very cheap. It's a new version of what shop class was, and it's really interesting.</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I mean that's exactly what my guys are doing with the laser. I mean that laser we're using is a 60 watt laser. You can't just walk in and turn this on. People get pretty upset. He's just a friend of ours who figured out how to do it. He's not some laser tech from laser school.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And that's what's so exciting about this. The lay person can learn this. </span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They're literally giving away these medical lasers. Our guy turns it into a 60 watt laser and if you see it it's this thing that people used to use to shoot into breasts for radiation treatment. It's weird, but a lot of people are doing that. They don't have a big show to put it in, but people are doing it. It's stuff that we know to get. </span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We rented video walls. I know the bullsh*t. I rented a video wall and paid a guy $70,000 per week. Almost every show that we did he'd wake up and he'd say "we can't use the video wall today. It's too windy." I said "I'll do it myself. I don't give a f*ck." He was so lazy and we did it ourselves even though we paid him. By the end of the tour we didn't need him anymore. We knew exactly how to do it ourselves. You get to where you want to do this for yourself. So I think I'm stubborn like that. Plus I want it to be a f*ckin' cool show! I want it to be something people haven't seen before!</span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In a lot of your lyrics you talk about the future, robots, and space. Those seem to be your muses for a lot of your tunes. Where does that come from, and what are your thoughts on the future and futurism?</span></div>
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</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I was very I remember sitting with my brothers about a year after this movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. But it would play on television. I remember sitting with them and thinking about the actual year 2001 and what it would be like. We had just landed on the moon. I remember sitting in our backyard and thinking, "there's guys on the moon! There are people up there!" I thought, in the future we would be living in outer space, listening to the Beatles, and the rest didn't matter much. For the longest time that seemed like it would be true, but little by little we realized it wasn't going to be true. </span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I think about the future now I think it's going back to people just doing their own trip. When I talk to young people now, the idea that you're going to pursue some job that you don't like but it's got benefits and you can get things that you want. More and more people I talk to are just not into that. They'd rather make sh*t for money and do what they like to and take the chance of gaining experiences, learning about the world, learning about life, as opposed to getting up every day, going somewhere that I know they hate. I knew I hated it on the first day, and I'm gonna stay just for the benefits. And that's different from when I was growing up. The guys that I knew from high school-- they wanted those jobs. They wanted a job, they wanted to get a car. That's a cool twist instead of people becoming more about security. Let's make sure we live, let's make sure we're happy, let's make sure we like what we're doing.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There's a sea change in the sort of things people are thinking about. At the same time we have things coming out like Google Glass or the NSA Eric Snowden issue. People are scared about these things, but this is the future that we're seeing. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People will like parts and ignore other parts of it. I mean, who wants to record their whole life? I mean, I have 10,000 pictures on my phone and I get rid of them all the time.But even if I lose my phone, it's like "hold on!" For me it's like television. Some days if I have a night off in a hotel room I'll text with 300 or 400 people. I'll just say hello and say what I'm doing. I'll just go back and forth with my people. To me, the idea of sitting and watching Anderson Cooper or NPR about some Toyota recall, it just seems so petty. It seemed like every five minutes they had something important to tell me. I sort of took it like "if NPR is telling me it must be important," but after a while it's like "Jesus Christ! You're really gonna report on this, and the president's shocked?" </span></div>
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</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Little by little I just went and I thought, you know, if it's important I'll read the New York Times on Sunday. If it's in there I'll act like it's real news, and if it's not I'll act like it must not have mattered. I just don't care that much. I still think that if it's true we'll know about it. I spend more time dealing with my local stuff. I care, but I know it's an abstraction to think on this world level. I really do work with my own mayor in my community and I call and text him. We were flooded a couple of weeks ago after the tornados and I showed him the gutters that were still blocked. It's petty, but it's my own world and I can do something about it as opposed to thinking I should think about these things that I really have no power or control over. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't think about those things. I just decided I'd spend my time doing that. Where do we think the Google glasses are going? I would definitely try them and have them and see what fun could be had from them.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You should talk to Google!</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Anybody who naysays that stuff, I mean "C'mon man!"</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah, some people think we're going to be in a surveillance state, but do you think we have bigger fish to fry than that?</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well it's just a matter of ego. If someone really surveilled most people, most of their life would be picking their nose in front of the TV. Do you really think someone's going to care what they're doing? The truth of it is that nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear that. You're not dangerous, you're not anything. Most people want to think...when we got audited the first time (we get audited quite a bit) they were like "what are you guys doing?" When you first get audited you realize how it works. This month you make 300,000 and the next time you make 1,000,000 so they say "let's put a note on there. What are they doing?" And you can understand why they care, but once they understand it's ok. </span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But for most people they don't care what you do. You have a job, you make ninety bucks every three days. But if you told people that nobody cares they would be devastated. The truth is everybody secretly likes that there's Big Brother, if it really existed. Who would have the time, energy, and storage space. The idea that we have these cameras on these busy streets...it's wonderful. Every once in a while something happens and we can go back and see what happens. But the fact that everybody's life is going to be watched?</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So it's not going to be Orwell's future?</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People secretly like that because they think "my life is important."</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Right. I deserve to be watched.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yeah. Exactly. It's just not true. Even this idea of the internet...we've totally bypassed the idea that we even need television. We go right to the source. We make videos and news, we just go right to it. I think it's beyond amazing. I can't even imagine a world without it.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It's not the future of 2001: A Space Odyssey but it's its own brand.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There's a lot of vagueness about what you would really do in 2001: A Space Odyssey. We skipped the whole middle part of it-- what was going to happen in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. As we got into our 20s and 30s we saw our parents do things and I know people whose Dad showed them how to do things and maybe they got a little better at it and it just goes on. The way we worked, we loved our Dad, but we didn't really want to do it because he worked his ass off and didn't seem to make very much money.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What did he do?</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you go into a big office building downtown, it's full of all this stuff. Desks, lights, partitions. Someone puts this stuff in and that's what my Dad would do. Building electrical things and covering it up with this plastic stuff. And it's a great job if someone wants it, but we didn't really like it. He didn't even seem to like it.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But was he handy in the house or the yard?</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I know it would seem like that, but it wasn't. When we were all very young we would withdraw to art. I think since I was so influenced by my older brothers I would sit down and draw with them. I was really drawn to that, but they weren't, so I found a way to do that by myself, but they always encouraged me. I can't tell people how much that mattered. These older people could say what you're doing is stupid and you'd be self-conscious about it and not do it, but my siblings would say what you're doing is cool and you should keep doing it. </span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And even when I started to do music everyone around me said "Man that's cool! You should keep doing that!" It didn't matter what it meant. Being 15 and 16 and hearing people say that, that's a big deal. And then you pursue it and then you'll always run into people who will naysay you, but to be young enough to have them around you makes all the difference. It didn't matter that much what people thought because I was obsessed, a freak, and would just do my thing. </span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That started when I was young, but not really from my Dad. What I think I got from him was that he's so determined, and he's a strong, bad-ass dude. He would get up early and work, but he couldn't find work sometimes. My older brothers and him were willing to get up and do anything, but sometimes there wasn't work. That part of it got in me-- this idea that you gotta work. Even to make music, people think that being in a band is something that's lazy and easy. The bands I've been around that are cool and making music... they're working!</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was in a band for a while, and a guy I knew told me that when you're in a band playing clubs you're basically a glorified moving company, because you're schlepping amps and drums every night.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To me, I wouldn't begrudge that as being that bad. The truth is though, if you're going to be in a band, which is different than being a musician, if you don't like traveling, loading in, meeting people, flying in airplanes, sleeping in hotels... If you don't like those things, you don't want to be in a band. Playing music is a little bit of it, but that other stuff is a lot.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You said you were interested in art when you were a kid. You've definitely done this artistic stuff like the Boombox Experiments. Now you're doing the Gummy Song Skull, the Gummy Song Fetus, the tour poster that you silk-screened with your own blood. </span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And we did those blood-filled records...</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So there's something completely separate from your music that's artistic.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don't look at it that way, no. Being in the Flaming Lips is a vehicle with which you get to do whatever. Any group out there has had a team of people putting together all these things: t-shirt designs, posters, videos, and all that. Someone's doing it. In our group it's not just me. I have a lot of people helping me. It's a visual aesthetic and without that there are too many things to do. We have a song, you gotta make a video, you gotta make posters, you gotta make covers, you gotta make websites. Everything has to have a design and if you're not into that you can get someone. I saw a recent biography about Black Flag and Raymond Pettibon, the guy who did the covers and the logo... without him you wonder would it have worked so much. All that visual stuff becomes iconic.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or with Radiohead and Stanley Donwood.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it's stellar. It's a part of what they are. </span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Are there any artists and designers specifically that you draw from?</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, no. We see stuff all the time. A week ago I saw Beyonce and I was interested in what she would do. She owns the world, she could do whatever she wants yet there is this mega production. She doesn't just sing and say "See ya later." Every song is a costume change. I was interested because a lot of the same lights that we're doing their crew is doing. We know because they told us. It's interesting because you want to see how they're doing it. How do they make twenty songs and have each of them different. But it's also about trying to do your own trip and seeing what we can do. You don't know what's available, but if you're not interested you just sit at home. I don't know if there's any one thing. </span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was probably mostly influenced by things like heavy metal magazines when I was 16 or 17. Just stuff that seemed more adult with no rules. I liked things without any rules. It could be Walt Disney crossed with XXX. Who cares? I think part of that shows in what we do. It's outrageous, it's too bright, and the bands we were hanging out with the early 80s like the Butthole Surfers, when we were hanging out with them they really changed us because they just didn't care. They just did what they wanted to do. If a group isn't doing what they want to do I just don't see the point. If you're in this kind of rock group playing this kind of music, what are you doing? We talk about getting a 3D printer but I think I need a big one. We talk a lot about making our own toys. I think a lot of toys I see on 3D printers are small so they have to put them together a lot. At the moment I'm working with a guy who was doing the gummy skulls and the gummy fetus. He runs a gummy corporation. He's the guy known for making the five pound gummy bear. So to run into someone who already knows how to do it and take your weirdo idea and say "Hey I can do this." There's a woman I ran into in Dallas who's making a white chocolate life-sized skull with a life-sized brain on top. But they're weirdos who want to do this stuff. She made a life-sized human heart that we sold for Valentine's Day.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well all the weirdos who do stuff like that come to a place like Maker Faire and they cross-pollinate.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe I should get more involved in that. I see the way I work is I'm just on the top of it. I like this and I like that. If you really want something unique you gotta know what you're doing. Even when we did the vinyl: we spent the whole of 2011. We were out of our contract with Warner Bros. We spent all of 2011 through 2012 doing whatever we wanted to do because we had no label. Especially being on a label like Warner Bros., because it's so big, everything has to go across someone's desk and sit there for three weeks. </span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We started making this vinyl at the very beginning with a little company out of Dallas which is a couple hours from where I live. We'd drive down there for a couple of days and come back with a couple thousand records. We had this guy that would be there making them all the time, getting different colors of vinyl, trying different concoctions of it going into the machine, getting glow-in-the-dark vinyl, getting black light vinyl. I thought at the beginning we were making cool sh*t, but by the end it was just getting better and cooler. It shows you that if you ain't doing it, you probably ain't learning from it. And that's really what I like, you're getting into it, you're f*cking with it, you're failing, you're failing.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Failing's important.</span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: white; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Succeeding really is just that: failing over and over and not letting it get you down. I love that! Just doing it! </span></div>
<span style="color: white;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
</span><br />
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<br />Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-79956986195861952992013-01-21T14:15:00.000-05:002013-01-21T14:15:29.156-05:00Homemade Wire Spool Holder<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/8403187028/" title="Wire Spooler 3 by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8085/8403187028_ef2f6b874b.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Wire Spooler 3"></a>
I recently made a visit to <a href="http://allashers.com/">Al Lasher's Electronics</a>, an establishment that has been in Berkeley for over 50 years and has virtually *everything* an electronics DIYer needs.
While I was there I picked up some four-foot long strips of heat shrink tubing, and figured I should buy spools of wire to match the colors.
Until recently, I'd been storing my wire spools on a rope hung from a hook on my workshop wall, but it wasn't an ideal situation. The spools would come undone and often become a tangled mess.
This spurred me to make a simple wire spool holder out of just some scrap wood and wooden dowel. One end of the side wall has a hole to receive the dowel.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/8402097489/" title="Wire Spooler 1 by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8376/8402097489_9b34c2e2b6.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Wire Spooler 1"></a>
And the other end has a slot to make the dowel removable. I made the slot by running a spade bit through the wood a few times, then chiseled out the excess bits. Works like a charm so far. It's always a good thing to put some work in to streamline the building process.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/8403187160/" title="Wire Spooler 2 by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8230/8403187160_31827836b7.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Wire Spooler 2"></a>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-6312039151625227792013-01-13T08:25:00.000-05:002013-01-13T08:25:33.771-05:00Headless Bass Conversion<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/O83FpFXnynU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
A while back a friend of mine gave me a bass that had a split headstock. The crack was so bad that it wasn't repairable. I decided to lop off the headstock and remount the tuning machines on the bottom of the bass. The results were great. See the accompanying article and build process at <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/2013/01/10/how-to-guitar-or-bass-headless-conversion/">Make Magazine.</a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/8376653340/" title="Headless Bass 2 by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8215/8376653340_9382640295.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Headless Bass 2"></a>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/8375579291/" title="Headless Bass 1 by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8073/8375579291_54f076d45e.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Headless Bass 1"></a>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-71894205153495237502012-10-12T08:40:00.000-04:002012-10-12T08:40:43.816-04:00New and Improved Power SupplyAfter months of reliable use, the external hardware on my <a href="http://pushtheotherbutton.com/index.php?id=5679245433167681022">homegrown 12 V power supply</a> started loosening up. Perhaps it was in my haste to finish it that I didn't screw those nuts in tightly enough, but here I stood with a dilemma. How to open a case that had been hot-glued shut. Well, some careful work with a razor blade fixed that, and I was able to tighten the hardware. But what if I needed to open it again?
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6266445045/" title="finishedsupply by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6092/6266445045_99a2d29a95.jpg" width="356" height="500" alt="finishedsupply"></a>
The solution was to mount three steel angle brackets to the casing, allowing me to open it by loosening just six screws. Plus it makes the unit look totally bad-ass. While I was there I replaced the old knob with a vintage radio dial for a cooler look and easier tuning.
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/8075733105/" title="Power Supply Update by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8464/8075733105_5a93c11bec.jpg" width="327" height="500" alt="Power Supply Update"></a>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-74597819639383770252011-12-16T18:18:00.001-05:002011-12-16T18:30:56.583-05:00Magnetotron Featured on MAKE and Hackaday<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/zW6HIPDGDhc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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So the folks at <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/12/making-music-with-the-magnetotron.html">MAKE</a> did an awesome profile of me and my Magnetotron, plus I just found out that <a href="http://hackaday.com/2011/12/16/magnetotron-is-an-armonica-mellotron-mashup/#more-63533">Hackaday</a> featured it as well. Very excited here in NYC.<br />
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BTW, if anyone's interested in the Magnetotron, I'm accepting offers for its sale. Email me - colombo.michael [at] gmail.comColombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-45593762018757200292011-12-15T12:52:00.001-05:002011-12-16T12:33:43.974-05:00Magnetotron World Debut<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/tVPbtO8A1EQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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I performed with the Magnetotron, my cassette tape-based instrument, at the ITP NIME show at Cameo Gallery in Brooklyn on 12/11. Accompanying me on bass is Kevin Bleich, and Justin Storer on drums.<br />
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It was a great time - special thanks to my fellow musicians and the videographers Alex Kozovski, Roopa Vasudevan, and Rose Schlossberg.Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-10278764661321178522011-11-18T05:52:00.000-05:002011-11-18T05:52:19.204-05:00Spines of Theses' Past<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6339729355/" title="Spines of Theses' Past by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6102/6339729355_4409c7a6c9.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Spines of Theses' Past"></a><br />
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Over the summer I worked at ITP, and one of the jobs I had was to help in scanning every single thesis in ITP's archive from the past thirty years. <br />
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Papers had to be taken out of folders, binders, and bindings.<br />
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Unfortunately some of the theses were professionally bound, which would have meant scanning each page individually rather than running them through the automatic tray.<br />
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I found a solution to this by cutting off the spines of every thesis on the bandsaw. I amassed quite the collection of spines so turned them into an art piece.Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-5850463571999175682011-11-08T06:18:00.000-05:002011-11-08T06:18:08.863-05:00My Blue SculptureTo those paying attention, I took a mixed media sculpture course in the fine arts department at NYU. It was a lovely time that got me out of my comfort zone. As a musician-turned-builder I never thought of design as a crucial component in my work. Since taking that class I've learned all about presentation and context that now informs my work.<br />
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Anyway, here a couple of pics from that course. The assignment was "something blue" so I raided my junk box for all that seemed to fit, then pieced it all together. I hope you enjoy.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6325700934/" title="blue sculpture by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6218/6325700934_b3f7273bca.jpg" width="494" height="500" alt="blue sculpture"></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6325702354/" title="blue sculpture by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6230/6325702354_02c21ccf53.jpg" width="487" height="500" alt="blue sculpture"></a>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-26733032740977430552011-10-26T10:26:00.000-04:002011-10-26T10:26:09.055-04:00Presenting the Magnetotron<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/HnzPpr0ujSY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
As many of you know, I'm a big fan of old media, especially audio cassette tapes. This will be the realization of an idea I've had for a while, which is to make a musical instrument using tape. A rotating cylinder containing strips of tape with different tones on them will be played by tape heads attached to my fingers. Check out my <a href="http://prezi.com/tgsgj2gckprj/present/?auth_key=mxirsmk&follow=colombo.michael@gmail.com">NIME proposal on Prezi</a> and this nifty hand-drawn pic of the concept.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6282815259/" title="magnetotron sketch by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6038/6282815259_70dda7cb20.jpg" width="500" height="387" alt="magnetotron sketch"></a>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-23698682579174918962011-10-23T14:39:00.000-04:002011-10-23T14:39:52.958-04:00Eight Games of Tetris at the Same Time<object height="81" width="100%"> <param name="movie" value="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F26218200"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed allowscriptaccess="always" height="81" src="http://player.soundcloud.com/player.swf?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F26218200" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%"></embed> </object> <span><a href="http://soundcloud.com/pushtheotherbutton/octotetrimino">OctoTetrimino</a> by <a href="http://soundcloud.com/pushtheotherbutton">PushTheOtherButton</a></span> <br />
A generative piece consisting of eight 2:00 games of Battle Tetris that are perfectly synched. The general strategy of the player dictates the rising and falling action of the piece.Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-56792454331676810222011-10-21T12:56:00.000-04:002011-10-21T12:56:24.610-04:00Variable DC Power Supply<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6266445045/" title="finishedsupply by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6092/6266445045_99a2d29a95.jpg" width="356" height="500" alt="finishedsupply"></a><br />
I completed this project for Eric Rosenthal's Basic Analog Circuits class. It was an exercise in point-to-point soldering, but after completion I decided to build an enclosure for it with a voltmeter I bought from Adafruit Industries.<br />
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You can also see a complete post and tutorial on my <a href="http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/10/how-to-variable-dc-power-supply.html">blog post at MAKE: Magazine</a>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-32161908136519253542011-10-12T12:42:00.000-04:002011-10-12T12:42:23.938-04:00Retro-Reflective Flashlight Tag Variant<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6237619533/" title="Flashlight Tag Timelapse by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img alt="Flashlight Tag Timelapse" height="375" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6172/6237619533_b162ec9469.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
This is a variant of flashlight tag that I originally developed with <a href="http://www.eszterozsvald.com">Eszter Ozsvald</a> for the Big Games class at ITP. It stemmed from the frustration of trying to play flashlight tag as a kid. There was no way to reliably verify that someone had been tagged. This changes that. <br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6237622089/" title="Flashlight Tag Armbands by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img alt="Flashlight Tag Armbands" height="355" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6051/6237622089_c30b358461.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
We used iron-on retroreflective material to create velcro letters that stick to the players' arm bands. Each player picks out letters to spell a word and put it on his/her arm and then run off into the darkness before the game starts. Once the game starts, the object is to shine your flashlight on your opponent's word. If you can spot it and yell out their word, then they're out! <br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6238141756/" title="Explaining Flashlight Tag to Campers by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img alt="Explaining Flashlight Tag to Campers" height="331" src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6219/6238141756_1238eeb163.jpg" width="500" /></a><br />
I play-tested the game this past August with around 20 campers at <a href="http://www.frostvalley.org/">Frost Valley YMCA</a> in the Catskills. Not only did they enjoy playing it, but we even collectively came up with some interesting and successful game variants. I'm planning on presenting the game to the Northeast YMCA Directors' Conference in January (also being held at Frost Valley).Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-61852073747557128392011-10-07T20:37:00.002-04:002011-10-07T20:37:59.661-04:00Broke the Water Cooler, Fixed the Water CoolerIn my zeal to hydrate, I pulled a bit too hard on the school's water cooler spigot, and broke the durn thing off. But within minutes, I had it working again, though with quite the kludged together solution. They should have it fixed by wednesday. Until then, I left instructions on how to use this new contraption.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6220448549/" title="watercooler by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6045/6220448549_f7a7cd10da.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="watercooler"></a>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-77004102426087837892011-09-24T22:15:00.002-04:002011-09-24T23:28:59.822-04:00Modular Scrap Metal Percussion Instrument<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/uZV7l254dBI?hl=en&fs=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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The first assignment for my class "New Interfaces in Musical Expression" was to build an instrument in one week and perform a one-minute performance using it in class. <br />
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I based the instrument on a solid steel piece of aircraft surplus I picked up at the <a href="http://www.manufacturersmart.com/prodindex/p&w/">Pratt and Whitney Surplus Store</a>. This piece made an appearance in another work of mine, the <a href="http://pushtheotherbutton.com/index.php?id=4420467121497622658">Fruit Powered Sound Generator</a>. What can I say, its become a favorite. <br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6179904956/" title="Modular Scrap Metal Percussion Instrument by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6171/6179904956_cce115beda.jpg" width="500" height="268" alt="Modular Scrap Metal Percussion Instrument"></a><br />
The piece has two rows of machined screw holes. I taped a contact mic to it and just started screwing in parts from my scrap metal bin. After some experimentation, I found that I was able to get a few tonal sounds, and some interesting percussive sounds from the instrument. I hooked the whole thing through a distortion to give it a bit more industrial grit, then a delay pedal set to a long delay time. It was fun to do, and could be interesting in the future because I could swap out parts depending on the type of sound I want.Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-16479411736158199582011-08-22T00:09:00.000-04:002011-08-22T00:09:28.770-04:00Flexible Venn Diagram Crowdsources Comparative Relationships<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6067829673/" title="Flexible Venn Diagram by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6203/6067829673_6a88008f44_m.jpg" width="240" height="229" alt="Flexible Venn Diagram"></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6068377526/" title="Flexible Venn Diagram by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6070/6068377526_15faa8b42f_m.jpg" width="171" height="240" alt="Flexible Venn Diagram"></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/6067835071/" title="Flexible Venn Diagram by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6084/6067835071_199aff80c3_m.jpg" width="230" height="240" alt="Flexible Venn Diagram"></a><br />
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This was a quick project, borne out of a piece of scrap MDF left over from someone's laser cutter project. The circles were joined just so to make a venn diagram, and sized perfectly for post-it notes. The idea came as soon as I picked the piece up. As you can see, over the three weeks it remained up on the <a href="http://itp.nyu.edu">ITP</a> floor it was used quite a bit, often with quite hilarious results. Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-89899168711172130482011-07-24T22:55:00.000-04:002011-07-24T22:55:00.425-04:00Lamp Painted Honda Glacier Blue<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5972277487/" title="Lamp Painted to Match my Honda by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6132/5972277487_d5c26a303c_b.jpg" width="417" height="1024" alt="Lamp Painted to Match my Honda"></a><br />
Since my wife and I moved back to New York City after a two year stint in upstate New York, we quickly found it difficult and impractical to hang on to our 2008 Honda CRV with the Glacier Blue finish.<br />
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The car, which brought us on an epic cross-country trip in 2009 (during which I proposed to her in Albuquerque) was recently sold. But I plum forgot to give the buyer my touch-up paint kit. <br />
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During an aimless drive through Putnam County once, I salvaged an interesting looking lamp with a dated color scheme - natural wood and brass. I just got around to revamping it with the chrome and glacier blue theme of the Honda. It's fitting that it should bear the colors of the vehicle with which it was discovered. I'm quite pleased.Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-18759041111425027102011-07-14T20:23:00.001-04:002011-07-15T06:54:05.783-04:00How To Build a Loft BedWhen my wife and I moved back to NYC last year, our new apartment was still packed to the gills despite some significant downsizing. Since we moved into a turn-of-the-century brownstone in Brooklyn with high ceilings, a loft bed with plenty of storage space seemed ideal. After our wedding, we promised to treat ourselves to a brand new queen-sized tempurpedic mattress.<br />
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The hunt was on, but after some local inquiries, we discovered that major furniture stores simply don't carry queen-sized loft beds. They can be special-ordered, but only at great expense. The more I looked at pictures online of loft beds, the more confident I was that I could design and build one myself. Soon I found myself designing what would become the largest and heaviest object I had ever built (and one that had to be sturdy enough to hold two adults and three cats for several hours at a time). <br />
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I erred on the safe side, and overbuilt the heck out of it. I planned on using 2x6's and 2x4s for the framing, and plywood for the mattress platform, and put together with bolts, nuts, and washers. <br />
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My father and grandfather both spent time as draftsmen at some point in their careers, so I suddenly found myself with a board set up with graph paper, meticulously laying the bed out to scale in three dimensions.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5938011277/" title="Untitled by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6149/5938011277_fb22fa51a8.jpg" width="395" height="500" alt="Untitled"></a><br />
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The construction itself took a lot more time and effort than I anticipated (this is always the case), especially hoisting the heavy bedframe up onto its 5.5 foot tall legs. <br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5937999741/" title="2011-07-02 21.51.25 by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6123/5937999741_5bcd5d164e.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="2011-07-02 21.51.25"></a><br />
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In the end it worked out wonderfully - sturdy, clean, with about 160 cubic feet of storage space! <br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5937999839/" title="2011-07-02 21.51.02 by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6017/5937999839_276430e5ce.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="2011-07-02 21.51.02"></a><br />
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This past month we moved yet again, so I broke the bed down into pieces the movers could handle. Since our new place has lower ceilings, and we've downsized even more in the past year, I chopped the legs down to a more reasonable height. It still has plenty of space underneath, but climbing into bed isn't as much of an ordeal.<br />
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Enjoy this stop motion video I took of the bed's reconstruction. It was hot as the dickens while I was doing it, and I was a bit reticent about putting a video up of me in shorts and an undershirt. But then I read this article about <a href="http://www.betabeat.com/2011/07/14/the-difference-between-mit-and-itp-les-savy-fav-vs-boston/">ITP students vs. MIT Media Lab students</a> and figured f*ck it. Enjoy!<br />
<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/-wDXagpv1fY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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The song accompanying the video above is called "Green Thumb" written by the lovely Ann Courtney (now frontwoman of the band <a href="http://motherfeather.com/">Mother Feather</a>). I helped arrange and engineer this tune in 2005.Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-46234787187198620642011-07-07T16:06:00.001-04:002011-07-07T16:10:27.423-04:00I Circuit Bent the Hangout Feature In Google+I'm definitely a big fan of <a href="plus.google.com">Google+</a> so far, and yesterday a group of friends and I decided to use it's "Hangout" video chat feature. We thought it would be fun to keep adding more users to find the breaking point.<br />
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I think it was after getting 9 people simultaneously video-chatting that the app froze on my Macbook. I refreshed it, and this is what I saw and heard - a tableau of blank faces with soundtrack that sounded like R2D2 with a head cold. I did not know software could be circuit bent, or unintentionally datamoshed. I recorded the sound with my cell phone and did a screen shot of the page, so this fairly accurately recreates what was going on. Enjoy!<br />
<iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/sa6ltmaQnAQ?hl=en&fs=1" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-36496455584243544742011-06-22T19:21:00.003-04:002011-07-07T16:08:57.445-04:00Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861163321/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5195/5861163321_5a49926f69.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
When I was a kid I had one of the first Macintosh computers (you remember, the ones that looked like big cinder blocks.) To this day I love the classic styling of the original mac mouse. I happened to still have one, and recently modded it to accept USB compatible optical components while being virtually indistinguishable from its original design. I'm happy to say it works perfectly, and now I'm the envy of all my local geeks and hipsters.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861161047/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3008/5861161047_455863182a.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861713556/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5232/5861713556_27369c9673.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
The first attempt at the mod was with this microsoft optical mouse. I had it on hand, and it looked like I could hack it to make it fit. Though in order to do this, I had to saw off the front part of the MS PC Board that contained the buttons and scroll wheel.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861714026/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5063/5861714026_eca3639cca.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861713788/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3155/5861713788_40a52bfbe4.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
This didn't seem to be a problem at first, because there were no other essential components in the part I was planning on cutting off. Also, I would only be needing one button since I wasn't interested in modifying the external functionality of the mouse (some people have tried this with IMHO <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/transplant-your-clasic-single-button-mac-mouse-ina/">hideous results</a>).<br />
I tested the IC with some wire probes, and found which pins controlled the left-click. My plan was to break these out and fabricate a new mount for the button. This would've been fairly labor-intensive, not to mention that because of space constraints, it would put the button smack on top of the IC.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861162959/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3225/5861162959_516ebca78c.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
I fiddled around with the configuration and tried drawing up a jig to make it work, but decided to scrap the idea and shelved the project for a while. <br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861716316/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3176/5861716316_2cc8c06ea6.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
When I decided to come back to it, I tossed the Microsoft mouse and went for a Macintosh ProMouse instead. When I opened it up I could tell right away it was going to be easier. The PCB fit into the vintage mouse with just some minimal trimming, and the click button was mounted smack in the middle. It was even the same make and similar type switch as the old mouse. You could tell these two mice were part of the same lineage. It was actually a bit eerie.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861716004/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3287/5861716004_38a17c0ddd.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861163479/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3029/5861163479_a297d59202.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861163109/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5155/5861163109_8fc5de068e.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
I traced out the footprint of the ProMouse and cut the silhouette out of the vintage mouse with a dremel. I popped it into the spot with epoxy, waited for it to dry, then sanded the whole bottom flush.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861164081/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5022/5861164081_ec57c6ed65.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
Through trial and error, I mocked up a button assembly that would mate well with the switch on the ProMouse's PCB. Once I found a hot-glue prototype I was happy with, I took it apart and reglued with JB Weld.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5861162773/" title="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5223/5861162773_53ebcee847.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Vintage Macintosh Mouse Case Mod"></a><br />
The last step was splicing open the rubber piece the cord fits into. Once done, I hot glued the new USB cord in place.Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-42113528547418637492011-06-06T20:59:00.000-04:002011-06-06T20:59:51.655-04:00Building a Telepresence Rig at ITPFor the next two months I'll be working at NYU's ITP as shop and equipment room staff. It's a great gig because I can be within my grad school community, and even get some of my own work done when there's not much going on.<br />
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But sometimes I'm asked to do an odd project, and the other day I was given a fun task - rig up a telepresence station in an afternoon. We had the camera already to go, so this was a pure construction job.<br />
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Full-time staff member Marlon and I slapped together a bunch of speed rail onto a chair, and secured it from beneath by sandwiching some flat plates together. <br />
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All in all it was a quick but satisfying build. The 360 degree, remote controlled camera floated at head height in the chair, and the addition of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domo_%28NHK%29">Domo</a> head made it seem like it was just another day at the office for Bob.<br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5806698194/" title="Afternoon Project: Telepresence System by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3652/5806698194_b7838a4997.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Afternoon Project: Telepresence System"></a><br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5806134291/" title="Afternoon Project: Telepresence System by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5192/5806134291_4f04e1ca25.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Afternoon Project: Telepresence System"></a>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-31329322225255392352011-05-27T23:55:00.000-04:002011-05-27T23:55:32.771-04:00Scrapwood Box, String, and Text: "Provenance"A couple of months I covered the construction of a <a href="http://pushtheotherbutton.com/index.php?id=1177020469991357806">scrapwood box</a> I've been using to keep materials in. The hacked together look made it an oddity amongst my other functional furniture pieces I've made before.<br />
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It occurred to me to turn it into a piece of artwork because I've been investigating this connection between the inherent intrigue in an apparatus that's idiosyncratically constructed for something purely functional or whimsical. Exposing the parts, accentuating ugliness, has been something I've been pushing more and more in my work.<br />
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To go even a step further with this, I catalogued the story of every single piece of wood I used in the box. It turns out they fell into groupings because they were scrap pieces from several different projects I've worked on. I mapped all of the pieces into short descriptions on paper by tacking strings from each piece to it's corresponding story. Thus when looking at the piece, one can learn the provenance of each component that went into it.<br />
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<object width="400" height="300"> <param name="flashvars" value="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Fmichaelcolombo%2Fsets%2F72157626822197054%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Fmichaelcolombo%2Fsets%2F72157626822197054%2F&set_id=72157626822197054&jump_to="></param><param name="movie" value="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649" allowFullScreen="true" flashvars="offsite=true&lang=en-us&page_show_url=%2Fphotos%2Fmichaelcolombo%2Fsets%2F72157626822197054%2Fshow%2F&page_show_back_url=%2Fphotos%2Fmichaelcolombo%2Fsets%2F72157626822197054%2F&set_id=72157626822197054&jump_to=" width="400" height="300"></embed></object>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-80775244914048668272011-04-27T11:06:00.001-04:002011-04-27T15:25:23.702-04:00The Best Way to Store Rolls of TapeWhether it's Duct, Gaff, Packing, Electrical, Masking, Painter's, or any other tape roll under the sun, the easiest way to keep them is on a loop of rope with a clasp or carabiner on one end. <br />
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5660973457/" title="The best way to store rolls of tape by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5149/5660973457_93f5f5e661.jpg" width="278" height="500" alt="The best way to store rolls of tape"></a><br />
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Just like using the right tool for the job, using the right tape is also essential. There are folks who are in the cult of duct tape, but frankly, it's comparatively expensive and in many cases there's a tape that can do a better job. Keep them all together in the way I've shown, and get familiar with which one is right for the job.<br />
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I learned this little trick when <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2513182/">I worked briefly in film production</a>. I didn't see it being used anywhere outside that field, until I met my classmate <a href="www.violantemedia.com">Luis Violante</a>. I asked him where he learned to do that and he said "oh...when I worked in production." Go figure.Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-44204671214976226582011-04-18T09:00:00.000-04:002011-04-18T09:00:04.439-04:00"Fruit Powered" Sound Sculpture<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ShtkAMLR-9g" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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This was constructed from an obscure piece of aeronautical hardware I procured at the <a href="http://www.manufacturersmart.com/prodindex/p&w/">Pratt and Whitney Surplus Store</a> in Hartford CT. I snaked stainless steel wire from it to act as resonators. Then at key points I installed piezo transducers. At the center the stainless steel wires stab into a banana and a pear. The whole works sits atop a speaker that the transducers constantly feed back. <br />
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Standing waves appear on the floor surrounding the piece and viewers' position and footsteps alter the resulting drone.Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-75739900668566115692011-04-11T09:00:00.002-04:002011-04-11T14:51:20.091-04:00Welding for the First TimeThis semester I've had the privilege of studying sculpture in a studio setting with <a href="http://www.beverlysemmesstudio.com/images.html">Beverly Semmes</a> and her students at NYU's Barney Building. A perk of being in the class has been gaining access to the school's wood and metal shop.<br />
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Today I met Gustavo Velasquez, a sculptor and professor at the Steinhardt School. He taught me the ins and outs of the shop, as well as how to use all the equipment safely. He seemed relieved when I told him I had experience in building and fabrication - he just needed to fill in some gaps.<br />
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Luckily, the bulk of my time with him was spent in learning how to MIG weld - something I've never done before. From what I learned, timing is everything in this craft. Make a zig zag bead at just the right pace, and you've got yourself a good weld. Varying the rate at which the welding rod comes out makes a big difference. <br />
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One of the strangest things to get used to was that moment between flipping the welding hood down and actually beginning to weld. Until that bright tip glowed, I was essentially blind. Like Luke Skywalker, I had to "use the force" and trust I was hitting the right spot, making sure to line it up properly beforehand.<br />
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He set me up to get some practice in, and I must say that while my welds were still sloppy, they held up well. It's only a matter of time and practice before I really get the hang of it. Here's the first piece I did: <br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5591050120/" title="My first Welding Project by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5143/5591050120_66317e7885.jpg" width="230" height="480" alt="My first Welding Project"></a>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6250201148540137223.post-27102581791211461172011-04-04T09:00:00.001-04:002011-04-04T11:18:57.245-04:00Making Candles from Scrap WaxSome of you may remember how my wife <a href="http://melodysia.com/">Melody</a> and I had to scrape through <a href="http://pushtheotherbutton.com/index.php?id=241306054760210768">4 days without electricity</a> last winter when we lived in our cottage.<br />
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Of course we busted out every last candle in the house and used up nearly all of them too! As you know, sometimes candles come in a nice little all-encompassing jar that catches and burns nearly all the wax. Then there are others that don't have receptacles, and can end up making an unholy mess, terminating their lives as frozen, gelatinous blobs that get tossed in the trash.<br />
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I've hung on to all that leftover wax and recently melted it all down to make a new candle with it!<br />
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Here's the scrap wax I started with.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5587259637/" title="Making a Candle from Scrap Wax by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5187/5587259637_44524faab2.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Making a Candle from Scrap Wax"></a><br />
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Then I put it all in a standard aluminum can and set it on the stove to melt.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5587853172/" title="Making a Candle from Scrap Wax by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5261/5587853172_8333459bab.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Making a Candle from Scrap Wax"></a><br />
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I hung a piece of cotton string in the liquid wax.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5587260617/" title="Making a Candle from Scrap Wax by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5023/5587260617_91038952eb.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Making a Candle from Scrap Wax"></a><br />
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When it had solidified (this takes several hours) I cut the can open with a hacksaw.<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5587260951/" title="Making a Candle from Scrap Wax by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5186/5587260951_c74238ded5.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Making a Candle from Scrap Wax"></a><br />
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Now I have a beautiful, fragrant, candle!<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/michaelcolombo/5587261331/" title="Making a Candle from Scrap Wax by Push The Other Button, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5141/5587261331_50fbbfd40a.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="Making a Candle from Scrap Wax"></a>Colombohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09787504092274226509noreply@blogger.com0