DIY Mardi Gras masks

/ Hacks

Lately I’ve been experimenting with making hardened-leather face-masks. I’m making a bunch of butterfly-looking ones to adorn my wall, but with Mardi Gras just around the corner I figure people might enjoy a quick DIY guide:

Start with vegetable-tanned (also known as saddle-skirt) leather. I picked mine up at a local Tandy Leather.

Update 2/25/06: Get 5/7-weight leather (that is, between 5/64″ and 7/64″ thick). Thicker is OK, though you’ll get more shrinkage (less soak-time may help that). Thinner won’t harden as quickly, will be brittle and won’t hold a shape very well.
Cut a mask pattern, allowing for about 30% shrinkage.
Soak leather in cool water for 10 minutes.
Heat water to 180°F.
Soak in hot water for around 90 seconds. The leather will shrink, curl and thicken, and then start to uncurl. The longer you soak it the stretchier it will be at the start and the smaller, harder, thicker and more brittle the end result will be.
Once the leather comes out, you have about 5 minutes to stretch and shape it before it becomes stiff. For a good face-shape be sure to add bumps for the bridge of the nose, eyebrows and cheekbones. If you have any dangly bits they can be twisted or braided, and they will harden into whatever shape you set them. Over the next 10 minutes, give it a pinch every now and then to make sure it stays in the shape you want, then let it dry overnight. By morning, it should be hard as wood.
If you decide now that you need to expand the eyeholes or change the outline you can use a drill or saw. Otherwise, you’re ready to paint it, using a paint suitable for leather. I used several coats of “3D” fabric paint. Mardi Gras colors are green, purple and gold. Add ribbon-ties if you like. Have fun!

Update 2/25/06: More masks I’ve been making:

This guide can also be found on instructables.com.

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Optimus mini-three keyboard

/ Media Technology

optimus-mini-3-kbd.jpg

I’m not sure yet what I’d do with it, but the Optimus mini-three keyboard looks very fun: it’s an auxiliary keyboard with three keys, each with its own little OLED screen displaying the current function (potentially animated). The most compelling examples are where not only is the button’s function displayed but also what effect it’ll have in the current context, like what image, song, or PowerPoint slide is coming up next when browsing through media.

USB 1.0, currently Windows only for the configuration software but others are coming. Pre-orderable for $100 until April 2nd, shipped to arrive on May 15th. This is coming out of the Art. Lebedev Studio in Russia — looks like they’ve also got a complete keyboard coming soon too.

(Thanks to Nerfduck for this link too!)

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On the Internet, no one knows you’re a pigeon…

/ Media Technology

PigeonBlog

Via Reuters: UC Irvine professor Beatriz da Costa will be releasing 20 pigeons into the San Jose skies during this year’s International Symmposium on Electronic Art. Each pigeon will be equipped with a camera, GPS, air-polution monitor and cellphone, and images and location-based polution data will be automatically posted to a PigeonBlog. (No word on whether PigeonBlog will comply with RFC 1149.)

Thanks to Nerfduck for the link!

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iPods for the Senate

/ Intellectual Property

The “balanced intellectual-property policy” advocacy group IPac has a new campaign to educate senators about media in the Internet Age by sending them iPods:

Last week, the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation held a hearing on the “Broadcast Flag” and “Audio Flag,” a set of proposals by the MPAA and RIAA that would stifle innovation by giving content holders a virtual veto over new technologies and existing user rights.

But Senator Stevens, the 82-year old committee chairman from Alaska, surprised the audience by announcing that his daughter had bought him an iPod, and suddenly Stevens had a much greater understanding of the many ways innovative technology can create choice for consumers. Content industry representatives at the hearing found themselves answering much tougher questions than they typically receive.

I’d thought this same thing when I first read about Senator Stevens, but figured it’d be illegal for Senators to accept the iPods as gifts. IPac’s FAQ says they’re donating these to the Senator’s campaign offices (for use in campaign-related activities) and so they get around the rules — whether the Senators will accept them given the current scrutiny over lobbying scandals is another question.

(Thanks to Amy for the link!)

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Congressional staffers try to whitewash Wikipedia

/ Media Technology

The Wikipedia community is trying to respond to whitewashing of politically-sensitive articles that appear to be coming from congressional staffers themselves (with the staff of Marty Meehan (D, MA) being one of the biggest culprits).

I’m always amazed that Wikipedia works as well as it does — hopefully the bad press Meehan and other congress-critters get over this flap will outweigh any good press specific staffers may have hoped to achieve.

Detailed coverage at Lowell Sun, C|net and Slashdot.

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