Live Camera/Emacs Link

I mostly use Emacs for WordPress blogging, and it works fine, but it’s a bit cumbersome to snap pictures, hunt around for them, and include them in the article manually.

It would be nice to be able to type away at a blog (or email), and then take some pictures and have them included in the Emacs buffer immediately.

So: This tiny Emacs function. (It requires an Emacs with lexical binding; i.e., one from the last two years or so? Four? Nine? Time flies. (This is the first time I’ve written something in Emacs using lexical binding, and everything just worked. Kudos to Stefan Monnier…))

See, I’m writing…

It worked!!!one!!!

Here’s the obligatory video:

A short demonstration of watch-directory.el

Magic!

It’s not particularly snappy, because the FlashAir SD card isn’t all that snappy, and the cinematic epic up there ends with a close-up of the wifi range extender I have to use because the range of the FlashAir card is like two meters, but…

Oh, one final stupid trick: Most MTAs frown on sending jiggobytes of data via email. That’s so three months ago. To work around that, I send things directly to the WordPress MTA, which has pretty generous thresholds:

(setq smtpmail-smtp-server "mx1.lax.wordpress.com"
      smtpmail-smtp-service 25)

Or rather, I bind those variables around the `C-c C-c’ command…

The WordPress MTA/blog link thing is very fast.  The drafts usually show up in the “all posts” list a second or two after the mail finished being sent.

Couture: Interrupted

DSC01734I said “-reverse” instead of “-negate” to ImageMagick, so I got an image with the wrong polarity.  I interrupted the printer and the thing to the right is the result.

I thought it was mildly interesting that the interrupted edge of the print doesn’t just stop, but kinda drops off.  It’s supposed to be 100% black, so I guess this means that my Epson R3000 is printing every bit many, many times when printing “best quality”.

I mean, the printer takes forever, but the result is immaculate.

Couture: Jimbo

On the previous screens, I got a bit too much emulsion wash-off.  Yesterday I experimented with increasing the exposure time, thinking that if it washed off, it can’t have been exposed enough?  But instead the un-exposed areas were very difficult to wash clear, and the exposed bits washed off, anyway, since I spent so much time hosing it down.

So today I went the other way: I decreased the exposure time.

DSC01733And what do you know!  The unexposed bits washed off straight away, and the exposed bits stayed put.

DSC01727Note to self, this is apparently the magical exposure: 2x 150W light bulbs, 35 centimeters distance, 35 minutes.

(The image is from an early Raw issue: A Jimbo story I can’t recall the title of by Gary Panter.)

Bonus Jack Survives:

DSC01728It’s really difficult lining up different parts of the print without one of those hinge thingies.  I should get one of those…

Couture: Target

For this screen printing experiment, I’m coating the 32TW screen with three layers of emulsion, and drying for three hours.  Would that affect how much emulsion is washed off?

DSC01725Not really.  I still got excessive wash-off at the bottom there…  Hm…  Perhaps my main problem is the exposure stage.  Perhaps it’s not even enough? Perhaps I need a bigger lamp…

I printed anyway after gaffaing off the problem areas.  Glow pink on marine:

DSC01726Kinda nice.

(That’s Tony Target by Mark Beyer.  (I’m fortunate enough to have several of his paintings on mah walls.  And more prints.))