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anfractuosity

2,989 karma · joined April 26, 2009

https://www.anfractuosity.com/

Feel free to contact me via my website.

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anfractuosity··on European scientists developed a tactile sensor capable of 100 μm resolution
Kind of related but using a different approach - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtQ4rK66vlE ('This microscope uses touch')

Also see https://hira.hope.ac.uk/id/eprint/2869/1/Paper2_LowCostGelsi... for a DIY version.

anfractuosity··on IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats
Wouldn't line pairs / mm count as resolution.
anfractuosity··on IMAX vs. IMAX 70mm: The difference between these two cinema formats
Isn't the depth of field primarily determined by the aperture of the lens and focal length.
anfractuosity··on Darktable
Really like Darktable, was playing printing a few photos at weekend from it, on my large-ish dye-sub printer - DNP DS80, works very nicely under Linux with cups (once I figured out how to make it print in colour).

I switched to it from Lightroom and made a little Python script to copy photos based on their exif data, into the same file structure as Lightroom.

anfractuosity··on Darktable
Doesn't arch already package it (https://archlinux.org/packages/extra/x86_64/darktable/), I was using darktable on arch, but recently switched distros.
anfractuosity··on Recreate famous water profiles using supermarket bottled water
There's a process some brewers use to treat water, to make it similar to a well in England, called burtonisation, using various salts
anfractuosity··on Nailing jelly to a wall: is it possible? (2005)
Maybe astronauts on the ISS could try a similar experiment ;)
anfractuosity··on Researchers print structural colour with an inkjet printer
Yeah, it's very cool, I found a rather interesting document on the chemistry to create a lippmann plate 'The True Colour of Photography' by 'Hans I. Bjelkhagen, Darran P.M. Green' seems their exposure times where in the order of minutes.
anfractuosity··on Researchers print structural colour with an inkjet printer
Sounds very interesting. Just started looking at the paper, which seems very complex to me "An alternative approach utilizes light absorption via localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) of noble metal nanoparticles (NPs)".

I came across https://www.nano-resonance.com/ which appears to be the promotional page for the technique, it has a nice diagram which appears to show how the size of the silicon nanoparticle enhances certain wavelengths of light.

Very cool how they can use an inkjet printer for their approach.

Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippmann_plate for a photographic process that creates colours using diffraction patterns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DyrBDsKA5s is a fun video on lippmann plates.

anfractuosity··on Ask HN: Any interesting niche hobbies?
That sounds really cool, how did they do the DNA testing out of interest?
anfractuosity··on A sea of sparks: Seeing radioactivity
https://dberard.com/home-built-stm/ shows individual atoms.
anfractuosity··on Is it a pint?
Maybe it was a Czech Mlíko pour ;) The faucets they use are pretty cool (https://www.lukrfaucets.com/en/)
anfractuosity··on Microscopes can see video on a laserdisc
I have a magneto optic sensor that can visualise the field lines of a magstripe when using a polarising microscope - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8nM4Z-hkTw

I'm going to try a VHS under it, to see what I get.

anfractuosity··on Raspberry Pi Pico as AM Radio Transmitter
Based on a repo I found that twiddled the memory bus, I transmitted audio from a wav file via Pulse Density Modulation - https://github.com/anfractuosity/musicplayer
anfractuosity··on Raspberry Pi Pico as AM Radio Transmitter
If you PWM a signal, I presume you could add a filter to convert to amplitude changes?
anfractuosity··on PCB Tracer
I skimmed through a couple of youtube videos, would I be right in thinking the tracing is done always manually here.

Would be really neat if it could trace automagically too, possibly with sanded PCBs?

anfractuosity··on Ask HN: Are there examples of 3D printing data onto physical surfaces?
Wow that printer is fascinating!

Good point re. film, related to that see - https://archiveprogram.github.com/arctic-vault/

anfractuosity··on I overengineered a spinning top [video]
Thanks! I came across http://www.pocketwatchrepair.com/how-to/jewels.php recently, hadn't realised the jewels weren't for aesthetics.
anfractuosity··on Time Station Emulator
You can apparently lock shopping trolleys using the same kind of principle - https://www.tmplab.org/2008/06/18/consumer-b-gone/

And https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmSyb0kBvGE

anfractuosity··on OpenFlexure Microscope
Another 3D printed microscope https://github.com/TadPath/PUMA looks very interesting too.
anfractuosity··on The Science of Fermentation [audio]
Thought that podcast was very interesting. I bought the book - 'textbook of sake brewing' a while ago. I've brewed beer before, but rather fancy trying making sake.
anfractuosity··on €5k Swiss cameras with zero electronics
I remember speaking to ALPA at a photo show, from what I recall the cameras also have very fine metal shims to align the camera to a digital back.

Do they manufacture the optics themselves too? Not sure I realised that.

Edit: just found this "ALPA cooperates with the acknowledged best manufacturers of large format lenses"

anfractuosity··on Find a pub that needs you
Great idea!

https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/personal-finance/finance-expe... shows how little pubs make per pint, very sad.

If anyone's curious about cask beer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ud_eTwY4nc&list=PLyDTS7ZG3z... is a very interesting youtube video series by The Craft Beer Channel.

anfractuosity··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (January 2026)
Sounds fascinating, do you have any documentation on how you modify the yeast?
anfractuosity··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (January 2026)
Trying to visualise magnetic fields of a floppy disk.

So far I can see magnetic fields on a magstripe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8nM4Z-hkTw with two polarisers (one of which I rotate in the video, which is contained in a 3D printed holder with gears I made).

I'm awaiting some different polariser film, to see if I can get it to work with a floppy disk.

anfractuosity··on Drones that recharge directly on transmission lines
Remember seeing this a little while ago too - https://www.fastcompany.com/91089861/this-genius-vampire-dro...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-uekD6VTIQ has a video of their drone on a power line.

anfractuosity··on Ask HN: What are you working on? (Jan 2026)
With OpenSCAD I've made a 3D printed rotatable polariser for my microscope - https://github.com/anfractuosity/polarisers

I used these two polarisers in my microscope and a magneto-optical sensor (which exploits the faraday effect), to visualise magnetic field lines of a magstripe card - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8nM4Z-hkTw

I intend to try to use with a floppy disk, however it's not currently working for that.

anfractuosity··on OpenSCAD is kinda neat
It's super useful, been using with my 3D printer to print things such as an adapter to connect a Canon EF lens to night vision tube and parts to link motorised linear stages together.

Currently I'm playing with a gear library which is part of BOSL2 (https://github.com/BelfrySCAD/BOSL2/wiki/gears.scad), to make something to rotate a polariser in my microscope.

anfractuosity··on $5 whale listening hydrophone making workshop
Acoustic analysis of the electric grid sounds interesting, is that to detect things like sparks?
anfractuosity··on Blasting Yeast with UV Light
Since as far as I understand the UV light also acts as a mutagen, wonder if you could potentially create some interesting new yeast strains for brewing.

It might also be interesting to use a dye to highlight dead cells.

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