#lamemaker

[pick-a-plush]

I was wondering if you haven't already if you can do a poll with shrimp plushies?

Sure! I haven’t done any of those yet so this will be perfect!

JelArts, Lemon Sprinkles, and lamemaker are all small artists running their own businesses. If you like their plushies please go check them out!

[lamemakes]

Welcome to the dumpster fire baby

First off, let me give a huge thanks to YOU for even being here. You could be doing literally anything else right now - but instead you’re here (even if just to call me a damn fool), and for that I’m incredibly grateful.

But who am I anyway? My name is Lamar, but I’m often just called lame, which is fitting enough. I really enjoy the general act of making, and that extends to all things I do in my free time. I make art, music, content (which is new to me), dabbling in carpentry & metal work, but the major category in which I make shit is electronics. A soldering iron and a keyboard are two of my favorite tools, and you’ll hopefully see this soon enough.

In general 90% of my making has been inspired by the work of others, and I’m sure they can say the same thing about their projects, which I think is the beautiful thing about cultivation. It’s pretty cyclical. The work of one inspires another and it’s a domino effect from there. That’s why I’m starting this lamemakes project, as hard as it was for me to decide to finally do it. I want to put stuff out there that I’m proud of that can be criticized to the highest degree, that I can learn from, that can be pondered over a bit, and maybe, just maybe, inspire a few makers like myself. 

Realistically I don’t have any concrete plans. Time is one of my most valuable assets and I try to allocate it accordingly. Trying to get through college & working just about full time, so I can’t make any promises of consistency/frequency, but I’m going to really put my best foot forward. I see myself putting the bulk of my content out in 2 forms: Tutorials, and Show & Tells. Tutorials will break down step by step how to do something, providing resources and sources for everything that I did. While Show & Tells will be much more of an overview. I’ll be showing something that I’ve made. I might include some of that process, a little of how I did it, and the materials it took but it definitely won’t be as concise as the tutorials. Don’t expect just these two either, I’m sure I’ll have smaller segments and what not as I move forward.

Lastly, I wanna say that making is absolutely incredible, but it’s difficult for sure. It’s even harder to put the things you’ve made and are proud of out into the world to be available to the judgement and scrutiny of others.  This is my exact motivation though. For too long I’ve been making things in a comfortable bubble, keeping them to myself. It’s time I end that and really get out there. I wanna learn from you, and I want you to learn from me. So reach out, give me feedback. Confused on something? Ask me. Liked or disliked something I did? Tell me. Think you could assist with a current project? Help me! Thanks for taking the time check me out, it really does mean a lot. Now without further ado...

Let’s fuckin’ make some shit

All love,

Lame

[lamemakes]

Weekly Update #3

I couldn’t even make it to #3. Had a weird last few months, trying now to get back to business even though we never really got it cracking. Moved into a new place, which means getting settled in a new place AND settled into a new shop. In general just a lot happening on a personal front too, mostly good! But a real struggle with free time, and I’m seeing that here. Not only have I not been working here, I haven’t been making or creating in general and it’s eating me a live a bit. But coming back to the grind, I’ve got some fun lined up, starting with...

PILOT

The prodigal son of course! PILOT is still on the forefront of everything I’m doing, even though it’s getting kinda tiring, just about ready to be done but knowing me I’ll call it quits when I’m dead. Making everything more robust and doing GUI improvements as of late, up next is an easy install script. It’s coming, but spearheading this stuff and doing it solo is a lengthy process. If it sounds interesting and you’d like to try it out/improve on it by all means! https://github.com/lamemakes/pilot

POPNET

On my quest to find new opportunities to make, I wanted to start on something that was more geared toward a “greater good” application. I custom car head unit is cool, but it’s a project I can’t see many outside of myself actually doing anything with. POPNET is my attempted solution to that. POPNET would be a robust Peer-to-Peer network that could be deployed with little technological accessibility or tech knowledge. I can’t take full credit for this idea by any means, I was inspired reading N-O-D-E’s Vol. 02 zine, specifically the section that proposes a new solution he calls “CommunityBox”. I wanted to extend his idea of an in person social network to more, like an emergency network when all else fails. NODE proposed doing this with a Raspberry Pi and I couldn’t agree more. Different network nodes could be implemented for emergency scenarios using a robust design on the Pi, OR potentially extended to things like phones that are already pretty robust in their own regard. Definitely check out N-O-D-E, though. He’s an essential for any maker, and I’ve been watching him from the start.

Thanks for checking out this week’s update. I’m trying my best to be more active, I really enjoy this stuff.

Much love,

Lameo

[lamemakes]

Weekly Update #1

Welcome to the weekly updates! These will likely be done every Sunday/Monday & I’ll use them to give you a little glimpse into what’s going on behind the scenes. These will be consistent while I work on the bigger content drops like videos & whatnot. So without further ado...

TELETYPE

Currently I’ve got a few things in the works. One is a receipt printer + RPi concept that’s looking promising. Watching WarGames the other week left me with an urge to easily print terminal output. I obviously could do this on a regular printer, but ((in my opinion)) that's a waste of both full-size paper & ink. But why stop at terminal output? I wanna see if I could manage mini-receipt printouts of pictures, PDFs, grocery/to-do lists, etc etc etc. There’s a sweet python library that is capable of this, I’d just be wrapping it up into a neat[ish] server, and putting the Pi in the actual printer. This kinda thing certainly has been done before but I think I’d be able to put a fun spin on it, maybe. This would likely be my first/second video.

E-INK HELPER

Next up is my E-Ink dashboard stuff. I have this whiteboard that does a lot for me in terms of allowing me to kinda illustrate my ideas, but that’s as functional as it gets. In the top right corner I wanted to add an IOT E-Ink display that would allow me to see a quick dashboard of things like weather, my calendar for the day, maybe some limited news articles, and whatever else I can think of. Can’t do anything too crazy because the refresh rate is trash, but it’ll work for what I need it for.

PILOT

The last is something that I’ve been working on & off for the last year, and has been a royal pain in the ass but holds a very special place in my heart. I call it PILOT; it’s big ol’ project that is basically a head-unit to turn a regular car into a smart car. If you hadn’t guessed yet, my Raspberry Pi fetish is going to shine through here too, as it uses that for it’s brains. Been a long road, but I’m proud of it so far. Looking at a July “finish” line for V1, so I’ll probably put together a big video around then on it.

HOUSEKEEPING

Lastly, working logistics for this lamemakes project. I need to make a clean profile picture, get out a channel trailer, and start working on a video #1. I think my biggest struggle is starting because I want everything to be perfect and concise and all that bullshit, when realistically I just need to get started. That’s why the first few videos won’t be anything groundbreaking, just more stuff to get my foot in the door and get the ball rolling if that makes sense. I think that’s about all for this week, punching through finals so I’ll have more time to work at all this.

Cheers,

Lame :)