Dragon's Eye News

Alright, I know I'll be able to pick it up at noon tomorrow but I want my new Mini NOW!!

It's not completely filled out yet but it's got a good beginning.

The new holography Wiki at HoloWiki is available and if you'd like to participate give Colin Kaminski a shout.  This is a great opportunity to help build up the encyclopedia of holography that we all wish we'd had when starting out.

February 17, 2006 7:30pm

Preliminary testing

Under very dim lighting I opened thecardboard mailer to find a 4x5” stack of film packed in a tightly fitting black plastic bag. Very tightly fitting. Getting the film stack back in was a pain. The film was sandwiched between two small pieces of cardboard. I haven't counted to make sure there are 10 pieces of film but that's what's listed on the label.

I held the first session of a new holography class at Carpenter Park Recreation Center last night.

It went well although only one of the two students showed. Fortunately she was a sharp young lady and while the session wasn't as structured as I'd planned I think it went pretty as she was asking good questions and clearly was "getting it".

So, Google's motto used to be "Don't be Evil". Or so I heard, I'll have to check the Internet Archive later to see if that's true. Their current motto is "You can make money without doing evil" which may have always been their motto and just paraphrased to death.

Since going public, their motto of course is "Don't be so evil that we can't make tons of money."

Continue reading "Don't be evil, my ass"

Related to this post, I purchased some new film from Integraf this past week, received the film on Friday and opened the packages today.

I discovered that one of the packages had been cut improperly (not their fault) and instead of getting 8x10" film I received 8x8" film.

Cutting glass isn't hard and if you're budget minded won't cost much. Some of the benefits of learning to cut your own glass are:

• Custom sized plates. If you make your own plates or film sandwiches you can make more anytime you need at a lower cost than going to the local glazier.
• Hologram framing. Framing your own holograms can save you quite a lot of money. One part of this is cutting your own glass either for standard frames or custom sizes.
• On-demand glass. If you keep a few large sheets on hand you can cut your glass when you need it rather than buying it when the stores are open.

Note that the instructions which follow assume a right-handed user. If you're a lefty you'll need to adjust accordingly.

Making a safelight for use with red sensitive film (actually any monochromatic film) is easy and by using the right materials you can make a light that is both bright and won't fog your film.

You might be tempted to use LimeLites and while that will get you by for quite some time, just as nothing beats a spatial filter for cleaning up a reference beam, nothing beats a bright and truly safe light.

You don't have to break the bank though.