Anybody Home

Hey guys, just wondering how many people check on this site. It's kind of a pain to keep up on a regular basis. I am a very purpose oriented person and talking to the internet for the sake of talking isn't for me.

If you like my links, check out my twitter tiwtter.com/erichanley , tumblr erichanley.tumblr.com/, and facebook facebook.com/ericthanley . Anyway look forward to me releasing my own portfolio blog where you will see much more of what I work on, and how I do it.

Pumping Station: One 2010 Crowd Sourced T-Shirt Contest

I posted this over at the Pumping Station: One's blog. It's about a T-Shirt contest at Pumping Station:One.

http://pumpingstationone.org/2010/02/the-2010-crowd-sourcing-t-shirt-contest/

Blogging

Blogging for the sake of blogging is difficult. It's like talking for the sake of talking. Not a whole lot of point to it, just enough to keep your listeners attentive. I've noticed if your not generating a lot of content for your blog, not a lot of people will stop through your blog. The unfortunate truth. Which is why I'm not going to blog for the sake of blogging. I now intend to BLOG WITH A PURPOSE. I will limit my posts to amazing stories, project updates, and probably a few creative ideas every now and again. Also, I am now part of the PumpingStation:One's blog pumpingstationone.org so expect to see a lot of my posts over there!

Resources

Hank The Curmudgeon and a few other hackers posted this great resource list on the Pumping Station: One's wiki. Here's the table of contents for the page as of 2/4/10.

• 1 Electrical
  • 1.1 Reference
  • 1.2 Suppliers
• 2 Electronics
  • 2.1 Reference
  • 2.2 Suppliers
    • 2.2.1 General Electronics Suppliers
    • 2.2.2 Specialty Electronics Suppliers
    • 2.2.3 Robotics
• 3 Free Stuff
• 4 Genetic Sciences
• 5 Industrial Suppliers and Vendors
  • 5.1 Broad Range
  • 5.2 Capitol Equipment
• 6 Mechanical
  • 6.1 Reference
  • 6.2 Suppliers
• 7 Miscellany
• 8 Raw Materials
  • 8.1 Chemicals
  • 8.2 Fabrics
  • 8.3 Junk & Salvage
  • 8.4 Masonry
  • 8.5 Metal
  • 8.6 Paper
  • 8.7 Wood
• 9 Reference
  • 9.1 Calculators And Conversions
  • 9.2 Chemical
  • 9.3 Creativity, Brainstorming, Learning And Teaching
  • 9.4 Food
  • 9.5 Engineering
  • 9.6 General
  • 9.7 Workshop
• 10 Reading Materials
  • 10.1 Books
    • 10.1.1 Chemistry
    • 10.1.2 Computer sciences
    • 10.1.3 Crafts
    • 10.1.4 Electricity & Electronics
    • 10.1.5 Engineering & Design
    • 10.1.6 Food
    • 10.1.7 General Reference
    • 10.1.8 Human Factors
    • 10.1.9 Hydraulics
    • 10.1.10 Inventions & Inventing
    • 10.1.11 Learning & Problem Solving
    • 10.1.12 Material Sciences
    • 10.1.13 Metalworking & Machining
    • 10.1.14 Old Things New
    • 10.1.15 Physics
    • 10.1.16 Robotics
  • 10.2 Magazines
• 11 Retail Suppliers
• 12 Surplus

The list is enormous! http://wiki.pumpingstationone.org/index.php/Sources

Bubble Wrap Turns 50

That's right, this month is the 50th birthday of the best invention ever, Bubble Wrap! Bubble Wrap was created by two engineers, Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes, in 1957, who went on to found the Sealed Air Corporation.

Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_Wrap

Thinkgeek: Electronic Bubble Wrap

http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/giftsforhim/982f/

Magnets in your Brain!

So preceding last nights hackathon at the Pumping Station: One was a talk by Nancy Milnes and Dan Simbor about neurofeedback with EEG and boy was it inducive!

EEG like the machines used in hospitals, measure magnetic fields in the brain. Neurofeedback, or biofeedback with an electroencephalogram(EEG), is a potentially revolutionary technology. You can use it to train your brain for increased focus, improved meditation, and to alleviate various medical conditions including: substance abuse, anxiety, depression, epilepsy, OCD, learning disabilities, bipolar disorder, migraines, chronic pain, autism, and sleep disorders. Wow! It can really do a lot.

While neurofeedback is not a cure, it's definitely a great treatment. The gist of the treatment Nancy showed us included cycling your brain through various modes of operation, or various magnetic field frequencies. It's like weight training, where the different frequencies are the different machines in the gym. Cycling through them works out the different areas of the brain and gives you a total brain workout. Great!

So where can I sign up? Nancy Milnes runs a private Neurofeeback Psychotherapy practice with offices in Chicago and Homewood Illinois. She observed that after an average of ten sessions there would be a noticeable difference in brain activity. However if you don't like going to the doctor there's some other options that might fit your needs.

For those gamers out there the Emotiv Epoc is a PC game controller based on the EEG principals used in neurofeedback. It is available now from their website for $299 and has 3 available games: Emotipong, Cererbral Constructor, and Jedi Mind Trainer, along with a photo viewing app.

For the hacker/maker crowd there is the OpenEEG project. Which intends to make plans and

software freely available for you to make your own EEG machine and controller.

One day we'll be writing papers with our brains. Until then, I'll keep typing.

Pumping Station: One event

http://pumpingstationone.org/2010/01/neurofeedback-the-ultimate-in-self-hacking/

The OpenEEG project

http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/index.html

Emotiv website

http://www.emotiv.com/

Emotive Epoc video demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDpmSiMiscA

Hello World

First post. I've been meaning to start my own blog for the longest time, and tonight is the night. And what better night than the Hackathon at Chicago's Hackerspace PumpingStation:One. Scared by the name? Intrigued by the name? Check out http://pumpingstationone.org/about/ to find more.

Many more posts to come.