People are using them, enjoying them, playing with them – and generally resulting a positive reactions all around. We are like proud dads. More photos will be uploaded when the paris experience slows down to a walking pace.

If anyone reading this is going to be in Paris between now and the 11th, let me know!
Pictures will follow soon…

Hansi Raber, Federico Urdaneta, Carlo Zoratti, Andy Cameron & I finished installing the final prototype of our Tuned Stairs project which intends to take the every-day footfalls of visitors to the Pompidou Fabrica Exhibition – and convert them into something of a tinkly musical experience. Read more about it here. We’re not certain whether it will go in or not… But naturally we’ve only been working and reworking it for the last 6 months. So here it is for prosperity!

It ought to be loads of fun ;-)
We’re setting up an interactive installation at Paris’ fabulous Colette. Im so excited to acutally see a project Ive been able to work reaching its installed conclusion! I also expect it to be a slick installation. So if you’re in Paris, please come check us out!

- I officially have a lovely girlfriend named Bethany! She’s a beautiful young lady hailing from New York and working at Fabrica too! Daniel is in fact a very happy chappy as a result ;-)

- Bethany and I went to this fantastic old Villa near Udine. Villa Manin is a massive, gorgeous monument to the power of the area during the time it was built. It is now a contemporary art center… With an amazing sculpture park – combining super old plaster sculptures that have become embedded in the earth in the garden over time – with crazy colorful pieces of modern madness.

- There have been a number of interesting events here – one being the ALMOST PROTOTYPING of the next version of Glowbits. It was all on the cards – the research done, the proposals re-re-re-re-rewritten, the budgets scrutinized … and naturally – as with most things here at the Fab: The Plug Was Pulled. The only words that can express the feeling this gave me are: “rrrrrrr rrrRRRRRRrrRrRRRGGRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOWRRRRRR!!!!” hehehe … and so life goes!

- Had a fabulous easter “pasqua” experience in Bergamo Analisa and her family invited me and two other friends to their home where we feasted on magnificent easter foods… I’ve always heard talk from my italian friends about the magnificently full stomachs over the easter weekend…. Now I understand. It was wonderful! After the feast we spent some time in the old city of Bergamo – at the top of this hill. Quite gorgeous.

- Went to the Milano Salone di Mobile (Milan Furniture Fair) with Bethany and had a fantabulous time seeing really fascinating stuff… There is some magnificent intelligent design in the world… (And its not just a creationist theory ;-)

- Went to Amsterdam with Bethany where we met up with Taku and Vivian. It was sooooooo lekker to see them there. The Dutch are some of the friendliest Europeans I have ever come across. The number of random conversations we got into was phenomenal – and not because of the grass being smoked. ( most of them happened pre-grassy experiences!) I HEART Holland. Now to figure out how to go work there …. hmmmmm…

- Hans Steiner came to visit here in Treviso! (And so did Vivian for that matter) Last week we had so many guests! And this week, Eric and Judy have arrived for a short visit. When it rains, it pours, ya know?

And thats it for now. More soon…

:Top reasons for loving it here:
- Im living in Italy; Learning Italian; Learning to cook; Learning Capoeira; Meeting interesting people from around the world; Living in a different culture; I share my apartment with a Thai Ice Cream designing lass named Prima, and an Italian improvisational saxophonist named Diego; I walk through a city thats been around for a couple of centuries… walking the same cobbled (read: uneven as hell) streets that people have been walking for centuries; and well… just taking in a whole lot of wonderful things. Plus its kinda like being in high school again

:Top reasons for being frustrated:
- I work for an organization that is totally lost; Ive worked on a number of projects – some for a short period of time, and others for a long period of time… But for almost all of them, the result is the same: It gets swallowed up by inconsistency, bureaucracy, lack of creativity, and an obvious lack of vision. Fabrica is such an interesting place. It is full of potential – almost bursting at the seams with people who are desperate to make marvelous incredible things – but more often than not, their ideas are misunderstood – or don’t fit within a vision that is supposed to be Fabrica’s – though they really don’t know what their vision is anymore. Also its a lot like high school… Sometimes you want to get away from the gossip (although most of the time you REALLY want to know whats been going on with everyone else that you’re so close to so often!

Fabrica is changing. Theres no doubt about it. I don’t know how long its going to take before Toscani’s vision of a creative hub disappears, and gets replaced with emotionless corporate fun.

I’m a little on the cynical side tonight. But its because Ive been seeing the frustration grow in all my colleagues / friends eyes.
The up side is that its spring, and there are some potentially interesting projects that could… well probably won’t (but lets be optimistic) COULD make their way to completion! Heres hoping ;-)

Continuing the catch-me-up posts: December 6th was Prima, my super duper awesome roommate from Thailand’s birthday. She got herself all ‘dolled up’ for the occasion. There was a lot of fun to be had by everyone. Its inspiring to see so many people devoting themselves to celebrating with one of their close new friends (whom they’ve known for a comparatively small time!) Cakes were made, songs were sung, and for a day, the winter was forgotten!

As 2005 slowly came to an end, we, the vast and numerous group of ’students’ at Fabrica were offered the chance to express ourselves in some way for the impending Fab Party. The date unfortunately couldn’t be settled (as with many if not most things here) but that didnt deter us! Oh no! So Juan and I submitted the most magnificent hand written proposal of all: (drum roll please) FABRIOKE!
Imagine a mash-up of: funny pics of fab folk; funny videos made by fab folk (often OF fab folk too); awesomely horrendous MIDI music; and Karaoke. What you’re left with is our creation. Anyway, sadly with all the date changes Juan was one of the few that was forced to hang out in Holland with his lovely lady Tamara (and smoke loads of high class pot) – instead of be with us for the party. He was missed from the proceedings, and Fabrioke went on to magnificent success! (Er… well I was drunk enough to believe anything – so success it was to me!)

As for everything else, please take a look at the photos. There was a lot of wine, and a LOT of madness. Great projects all over the place, and a wonderful bunch of drunken friends to end the year with. Thus ended 2005 at Fabrica.

So about 2 weeks ago I threw a babootie african meal party for my capoeira friends who were leaving for distant lands… Click the photo for more visuals from the south africanese extraveganza…

So! Just a brief post with a link to the photos shot over the re-celebration of Vladimir’s 26th birthday. A gorgeous brunch was given to all who joined in the festivities. And it truly was a gorgeous sunday! (3rd of July – im a bit late)

I’ve been working on the Virtual Glowbits – a Ann and Mark went off to Amsterdam for a little … er…. well for a little break from the Italian language I guess ;-) So I was given the responsibility of watering their babies. And so far they’re still alive!!! (By babies I mean plants, by the way)

::BEGIN DREAMER COMMENT::
A friend of mine, Gaia, from the Fabrica Administration building helped save 2 little baby birds that had no nests or momma’s that wanted them… Its so damn good to see people being so free of their time and effort to help others (no matter how small or inhuman.)
::END DREAMER COMMENT::

Last weekend:

So the plan was to do one of the two ‘capoeira spectaculars’ over the weekend. For reasons totally unknown to me, i chose to go with option number 1: Saturday. So I met up with some of the cap-crew, and got a ride to a place called Giavera (about 40 mins from Treviso… I didn’t expect very much… just a quick dance, and drum and then get back into treviso where I would better manage my throbbing hangover. What I got was a full-on ethnic festival of racial groups from all over the world with communities in the veneto district of italy.

We were supposed to be a large portion of the Brazillian contingent. And after the 30 minute parade through the streets (Which I genuinely wasnt expecting) we were joined with a few more unlikely looking brazillian’s who were playing mad samba style instruments and made our little attempts at song into something with REAL umpf… You know what I mean…

So we did a little ‘playing’ in front of the massive crowed. (and there truly was a massive crowd!) After which it was the senegalese’s turn. After the parade / show was over the ethnic festival actually begun! So we did a whole range of things including eating some indian food (my first in Italy); playing LOADS of capoeira; dancing to Italian folk music from the South. (Goooood times!) And finally MORE capoiera at 1AM… We only stopped because the heavens chose to wet us quite thoroughly. It was a fantastic – totally unexpected excursion into the lives of people who actually live in Italy permanently – and not with the same liminality of those of us at fabrica.)

Last weekend I moved out of my little dingy unhomely apartment into a newer BIGGER apartment a little way outside the center of the city. (Think Bedford stop on the L-train – which is the first stop in Brooklyn from Manhattan… … WTF am I talking about? Check this out: MTA Subway map) Enough sidetrack. So yes, moved apartments. I am now living in a fantastic place, with one Thai and one Italian roommate! Its all very exciting. In fact, I am even doing a whole lot of cooking! (4 times in the last week) All the jewish momma’s out there would be so proud.

This weekend, Mark and Ann and I are going to see the TOM IGOE! WooHoo! We’re all very excited to be seeing him. The grandpappy of physical computing…
Therefore it looks like Daniel’s weekend will include many hours driving – in Italy – on the wrong side of the road – in Benetton’s car! I love saying that… Watch this space for a review of the Ivrea show. And to all – Buon Weekend!

To ensure the correct current draw: The system was 5V, Tip120, 4.7Ohm in series with R, 2Ohm in series with G, 1 Ohm in series with B.

The peak operating temperature is supposed to be 105 C, BUT at 70 C the Red channel fades…
SO: Heat sinking == SUPER important, OR lowering the current draw. (increasing resister)

UPDATE: Using R=9.4 Ohm; G=3 Ohm; B=4.7 Ohm I can limit Current to btw 170 & 200mA each. The lack of heatsink is apparent, cause each channel is hot to touch. As heat increases, so too does the total current draw. (all together = too hot to touch.)

LED Testing Begins:
Conditions: Using a 5mmX5mm Grid on A3 paper. Grid = 65mm away from LED. Lighting = daylight indoors.

Comparing 5 RGB Superbrightleds versus 1 Prolight RGB led:

Overall the 5 superbrights seemed brighter. However this test is unsatisfactory due to the simple fact that the superbrights were running at the normal forward current, while the prolights were running well below their norm. The solution is to test with a constant current sink circuit.

How to create a constant current sink: (Thank you Ohms law ;-) )
1) Identify the required current
2) Identify the expected load used by the LED (voltage)
3) Subtract the LED load from the supply voltage, and then identify a resister with the result and the required current from (1)
Ahhh now we know!

Details of the outputs / loads / etc are found by clicking the photo