Month: October 2011

Biking while black and white

Svart Katt is an Alleycat in Gothenburg, and yesterday was the third time it was organized in as many years. As soon as I’d heard about the first one, I wanted to take part. Who wouldn’t like to wear corpse paint and bike furiously across the city, scouting out dark places in search of clues and whatnots? Apparently most people are uninterested in this, Tobbe calling it “hipster orienteering,” so I ended up not going. This year though, I thought that I’d give it a chance, alone or otherwise. And it was awesome.

There were plenty of solo riders there, but I got to chatting with John, a friendly Irish fellow, and we teamed up — he needed someone reading Swedish, I needed motivation to go through with it — and it worked out well. With a delayed start at twenty past nine we set out to find answers to all the questions on our map. It was stuff like “how many cherubs are there on the lamp-posts in Vasaparken” and “when did the youngest unwed daughter of this family die,” questions which quite often had us running about cemeteries with flashlights.

All were in costume, and it was grand to see groups swish by on bikes, navigating drunk kids near Trädgården or slippery leafs and taxicabs. The theme of the night was “bad mood” — dålig stämning — which later would serve to explain why some stuff was marked out wrong on the map, annoying the shit out of us. The theme was successful, as it were. At half twelve we came in for a checkpoint and received a new map with new missions, and had one hour until deadline.

In hindsight, we should have paid more attention to the instructions. We thought we were still looking for answers to questions, but twenty minutes in we realise that we’re probably looking for a physical object — most likely the chains I had overheard mentioned at the stop. So goddamn fuckbucket, now with a drizzle and headwind we head toward Majorna in hope of scoring one of the chains furthest from city center. We found bike traces but no chains, and the clues were obtuse and hilariously annoying. Theme succeeded once again.

So with no chains found, we head back to the finish just in time to not be disqualified, and John gets some beers which I’m looking forward to repaying at some point. It’s too cold outside the bike club, and stifling inside, so we alternate until it’s time for the prize announcements. The winner had only two chains, so it’s a comfort knowing it wasn’t just us being stupid. John came in seventh, but not I, which was a surprise because we had filled in the same answers to everything. I assumed that I’d forgotten to fill something out and ask to check it out, and was told that the final score is adjusted by some dice you got to throw at the half-way stop; I rolled “white” which deduced some points, while John rolled “black” which gave him some. Once again, annoying as hell in it’s arbitrariness, and a success for the theme.

All in all, it was great fun, made even more so when I had someone to bike with. Until next time I’ll have to fix my brakes. And perhaps some gears, a headlamp, something waterproof to wear, not to mention my wheezing, coughing and general unfittiness. I got to see new places and pedal furiously, eat vegan space sausage in a dark cemetery, and met some friendly people. Good time and I’m looking forward to the video of it all. Below is the video from the first year.

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In concert: Fucking werewolf asso

iTunes keeps track of how many times you listen to songs, and upon my return from Finland I’ve apparently listened to Fucking Werewolf Asso’s album Kid, just letting you know we’re doing it again 69 times. I was sure the number would be higher, but there you go. Ever since I saw them at Henriksberg two years ago, I’ve been hoping to catch them again, and yesterday they played at Pustervik for the release of their computer game, made by Cactusoid I think. The game looks like any self-respecting retro LOL-pixel adventure ought to, judging from the video loop the band had in the background.

It was enjoyable to hear old and new ditties, and singer Dennis is shouty and entertaining. There was a strange vibe to their show though; While Dennis is a spastic nihilist who’s jumping around (probably very bruised today) Martin is an angry drummer who keeps tipping over cymbals and swatting at things, particularly the new bass player EmoHair who mostly tries to hit people with his instrument and whose strongest card is “menacing pose.”

Had I been a bit more drunk or a half my age I wouldn’t have minded the posturing and the throwing of stuff, but since I got the show straight from work I was too sober not to frown disapprovingly on throwing cymbals at audience and staff. In all, it was a throwback to the days of mosh pits and bodysurfing; The music is excellent and would the energy be focused more on kicking ass instead of each other the show would be even better.

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Saturday: Civil Civic. Monday: Fucking Werewolf Asso

I’ve been back from Finland for a week, but my ambitions and sense of urgency hasn’t caught up yet. I have enough material for a couple of more Turku videos, not to mention the hours and hours of assembly footage I should put together for the general betterment of the RepRap noob community. Somehow the beer and the Sara and the visiting mom and — not to put too fine a point on it — the stupendous amount of lazy I can bring forth has been given priority above most other things.

The printer is on my kitchen table, in pieces, but with an aura of assembliness about it. I left the printing bed in Finland, seeing as it was temporary to begin with and the plexi was all messed up like, so I need to get one of those; Need to decide on either a solid metal or PCB heating element, and find a source of cut and drilled glass.

Sara has already invited people over to my place for a print party next week in an attempt at social blackmail. So with the start of a few evening courses this week, I go back to work for money as well as continue the printing work for glory.

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Tomorrow I start teaching two photo courses, and after the last one finishes I’m hoping to catch Fucking Werewolf Asso play at Pustervik. You should really come because they’re bloody awesome and their albums — which you can practically steal here — kept me going late night in the studio. I first saw them play a set just after Civil Civic two years ago, and as it happens Civil Civic played yesterday at Jazzhuset and I ended up going since Petter had a man-cold and Sara needed company.

I’ve seen them the three times they’ve played Gothenburg, and even though the music is made for driving cars through deserts and/or biking very fast, it’s quite a treat to have the base and drum hit you at a live show as well. As it happens, they just finished recording their crowdfunded album, and you can listen to it in the nifty embed below, or just go to their homepage and give them your ill-gotten gains: civilcivic.com. Sixty odd people where at the concert yesterday, and the mood was good and I was very happy that I’d brought my Etymotic in-ear headphones cause the noise was noisy as all fuck.

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Also, as a public service announcement: I shoot video quite often and imagine that people are annoyed when I’m in their way. I do my best not to be too much of a bother, and try not overdo it. For example, I don’t stand front and center of the small stage wearing a stupid hat, trying to record half the concert on my iPhone. Don’t be that guy, cause that guy is a jerk.

Turku: Spatial presentation

As my residency is coming to a close, I’m getting to the things I’d initially thought I’d get done the first week. Like for example putting up a presentation of Gallery Titanik where the residency is housed. With the co-operation of Kimmo Modig, the director of the gallery, I finally got around to it.

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Doing the RepRap #13 — Printer finished

It’s been a long road, but my Reprap Mendel Prusa 3D printer is finished and I’m printing stuff. There have been so many problems and fuckups along the way, that when I finally started printing stuff a week ago I didn’t think much of it, but with hindsight it was a Grand Moment™. I’ve joined the ranks of 3D printers. You may now commence the “oohing” and “aahing” I understand are my dues.

So far, with the exception of a frog and a replacement LM8UU Y axis holder, I’ve mostly been printing calibration cubes. These are shapes intended to troubleshoot your printer and give you an opportunity to get your Skeinforge/Sfact setting correct. As you can hear in the video there’s some rattling going on on the Z-axis, and I have some trouble with Y-alignment on some prints, but with lowered acceleration on Z and Y, and perhaps tightening of the belt on the latter, I think I’ll be able to print halfway decent parts.

Sara came over for a few days, and as any good boyfriend I set about making her feel comfortable helping out with the build. It was much appreciated as it often seems I have three hands too few to get something assembled. Making the print bed was slow going, and as I’m using plexiglass for print surface we broke off a couple of pieces before getting a more-or-less square one. The plexi is actually good for printing on cold, at least once the PLA starts sticking to it, but if your hotend gets too close the PLA fuses with the surface, and you’ll inadvertently run the head through the board which will create pockmarks in the surface, and possibly plug your nozzle with plexi — which is the reason I’m printing with the 0.5mm nozzle instead of the 0.35 I started with.

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We were leveling the print table for a good two hours, and found that the design with springs between the lower and print bed wasn’t optimal, since the springs were unevenly springy. I had bought a whole kit with the suckers but none seem to fit well enough and give enough force to work. It’s a good design on paper, but we found that it was just easier to use two sets of nuts per fastener bolt. Protip: Get spanners which fit instead of fiddling with adjustable ones or pliers; it’ll save you so much time and temperament it’s worth the expense.

At this moment thanks might be in order. A great amount of those go out to Traumflug for design and massive help with the electronics, and Kliment, Triffid_Hunter, Action68 and everybody else who’s been quick to lend support in #RepRap on IRC or on the reprap.org forums. When you’re as ignorant of a subject as I was about the RepRap, you rely on the help and input of friends and strangers, and without the support of everyone from awesome girlfriend Sara to KKV electro to that guy who barely spoke English but cut me some metal rods, this project might have fallen over and not gotten up after any of innumerable stumbles.

Of course, thanks to the people here in Turku for providing an incentive to start this, as well as the means and time to finish it. Ultimately, bigup to Adrian Bowyer for getting the RepRap project started, as well as all those who keep improving upon it. I have a public presentation of the project on Thursday 6th October at 1800 in Gallery Titanik in Turku, and if you’re nearby I’d love to see you there.