I grew up in the music scene of the 80s, from a midwestern perspective. We still had the hard rock of the 70s, with a bit of a country fried rock flair, but we also very much had the electrosynth goodness coming through the local college stations and, of course, MTV. Buggles. Adam Ant. Eurythmics. Phil Collins. Peter Gabriel. It was so new and amazing at the time. Still amazing, but not so new these days.

At the time, I was just a consumer of these amazing beats. I was aware, though, that there were some pretty epic stories behind how some of this stuff came to be. And in the decades since, how so much of the music from that era went on to influence the next generation of artists and the artists that came after, too.

Trash Theory is a YouTube channel largely focused on documenting the various British pop artists of that era. From Eurythmics to Paul McCartney to the pre-Sabbath metal days to documenting really weird songs that made it on the charts, they have it all. Each video weighs in around 30-40 minutes and covers how an artist came to be, focuses on some pivotal breakout hit or moment, and then follows through with the legacy of the artist and/or hit.

Brilliantly well produced, with tons of quotes direct from the sources, and many samples of both the focal artist’s work and from artists who either contributed to their sound or took inspiration from them.

Trash Theory spans well beyond just 80s Britpop. I’ve found myself watching various videos for genres and artists that I never really cared for simply because the history and presentation is so compelling.

Definitely worth a watch!

I needed a pencil holder for my workbench. Was tired of never being able to find a pencil and optimistically believe that it is because the pencils don’t have a home.

Now they do.

Printed in PET-G.

I printed this version which is threaded so the top and the bottom hold together. There is also a flower pot version that has a hole through the bottom of the two pieces.

When I first got my GlowForge, I started collecting bookmarks to various sites with plans, generators, tutorials and other useful information. Over the years, the list has grown considerably.

It lived as a set of bookmarks in the sidebar of Safari. I’ve been meaning to break it out of there and put it into a proper page.

Laser Resources.

The page includes:

• Box Generators - parametric tools for creating boxes, trays, and enclosures
• Downloadable Plans & Assets - SVG collections, clip art, and ready-to-cut designs
• Generators & Tools - snowflakes, jigsaw puzzles, mazes, and more
• Tutorials - Fusion 360 workflows, wood inlays, vector cutting techniques
• Materials & Suppliers - wood databases and suppliers of lasercutter-friendly materials

It’s a living document that I’ll continue to update as I find new resources.

The new home of “bbum’s weblog-o-mat”.

New content & revisiting the posts from days of yore….

More to come.

Above is a photo of a Belionota sumptuosa from Indonesia. Commonly known as a Tricolor Metallic Wood-boring Beetle.

It isn’t a regular photo, though. It is a focus stacked image.

Specifically, it is 276 photos combined to make a single image. When shooting macro, the depth of field — the distance in front of the lens that is in focus — tends to be really narrow. By taking a bunch of photos where each has a different depth in focus and then combining only the in focus areas from each image, one can effectively create a composite image that is entirely in focus.

So, this is really 276 images taken across about 40mm of camera travel; about 0.15mm of travel between each picture taken.

Since optics are optics and physics are physics, changing the focal plane by either moving the camera ever so slightly (10 to 20 microns per photo, in this case) or by changing the focus depth via the lens’ focus ring, the scale of the subject changes just slightly and anything in the foreground becomes blurry and obscures the background.

All that has to be compensated for and there are a handful of software stacks that do exactly that.

Continue reading →