Just to Get Some Attention

On Hiatus

2010-05-27T08:39:00.000-06:00

Just a note to let you know that this blogger blog is going to be retired. I'm working on another setup that will allow me to better control and organize what I put online. I have nothing against blogger, but for my purposes, it doesn't work to have my blog hosted by an independent provider.

However, the blog ("Just to Get Some Attention") itself is not going away, it will be reborn at another place. I will make a post here when that occurs. See you soon... ish.

Just a Reminder

2010-02-15T20:39:00.000-07:00

We all need a reminder sometimes...

Google Buzz Rethink

2010-02-12T13:56:00.001-07:00

In my previous post, I tried to give a run down on how use Google Buzz (Gbuzz) in a manner that would allow you to share things with an intimate group of people without exposing yourself to the world. However, after thinking about it for a while, it is apparent to me I was attempting to use Gbuzz in a manner contrary to its intention.

I wanted Gbuzz to be a private area where sharing and communicating as a group was easier than it is with email, but still allow each participant as much anonymity as they wanted. And certainly, I wasn't interested in broadcasting things to the world with Gbuzz. And yes, sometimes just exposing people's names is too much information especially when I'm put into a position of having to decide for other people whether their names are exposed.

However, private use really isn't the intended use of Gbuzz. Gbuzz is really about public communication. I can speculate about (and even appreciate) the reasons why Google would embed Gbuzz in the middle of their private communication Gmail app, but the bottom line is I think it was a poor choice, and I definitely feel the roll out was mismanaged with unclear configuration options and poor documentation. (To Google's credit, they are responding quickly to many of these things.)

The bottom line is that I will leave my Gbuzz account enabled as I feel I finally have a handle on privacy issues and privacy controls, but I will only use it for public postings. I'll only use it for things I'm comfortable having in public.

This will actually limit its usefulness to me. I really have no need for another public platform. What I really wanted was that more private area that I can't seem to find in the google world outside of Gmail. I suppose there are other social applications (like Facebook maybe?) that might fit the bill, but I really don't feel like joining yet another social web site.

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on Gbuzz, and who knows, maybe it will demonstrate its usefulness as a public platform? But for now, I'll just follow Gbuzz developments with interest and maybe play around with the API.

Also, for further thoughts on other services related to Gbuzz that I didn't even touch on, see this piece. And here's a link to the Gbuzz privacy FAQ again. If you want to completely disable Gbuzz, I would pay particular attention to question 15:

Q15: How do I get rid of Buzz?
A15: Follow these steps:
1) Delete your profile by going to http://www.google.com/profiles/me, clicking Edit Profile, and then Delete Profile (at the bottom). This will delete all of your Buzz posts.
2) Block all of your followers (See Q10)
3) Turn off Buzz in Gmail by clicking on "turn off buzz" at the bottom

Some Gripes About Google Buzz

2010-02-11T00:53:00.006-07:00

This post is mostly about issues of privacy surrounding Gbuzz. If you don't care about the private use of Gbuzz and want to use Gbuzz to share everything with everybody on the internet, you don't need to bother reading this post. However, if you'd like to give Gbuzz a try to share with an intimate group of family and friends without exposing yourself to the rest of the world, then you may find this post useful.

You may have heard that Google rolled out a new product that they embedded into their Gmail application. It's called Buzz, but I'm going to call it Gbuzz for the purposes of this post. Gbuzz is a new "social application" that google is trying to leverage Gmail to launch, and I think they botched this roll out for a couple of reasons. (If you don't currently have Gbuzz enabled on your Gmail account, you soon will.)

I understand Gbuzz is web software, so it will likely see many changes perhaps even quickly. So the information in here (and my gripes) could be addressed very quickly. But we'll see.

Before I go any further, my comments below are premised on how I treat gmail. For me, gmail is a place when I have private conversations. It's a place where I can assume that the people I communicate with don't necessarily know any of the other people I communicate with (at least if I'm careful with email To: and CC: lists), and ordinarily my address book is not exposed to the people I email let alone the whole world.

These are qualities also shared by standard email services, and I assume I'm not alone in how I regard Gmail. I consider these desirable features not just for myself, but also for the people with whom I communicate. And I think it is an underlying assumption of email communication and a generally understood etiquette (which is why long email To: lists are generally considered a no-no when they contain a bunch of people who don't otherwise know each other).

This leads me to my first gripe about Gbuzz. When you first sign into your Gmail account after Gbuzz has been enabled for your account, Google requires that you create a public Google profile. Google profiles are something that Google rolled out a while ago that is associated with your google account. They are intended as a place where people with Google accounts could provide discoverable information about themselves.

Generally Google profiles have been something that could be ignored while using Google services, but it appears Google is being more aggressive with attempting to expand how many users create (and potentially fill out) their public profiles. I assume this is in an attempt to convert Gmail users into instant Gbuzz users and thus creating a very large, public social network in one fell swoop. Perhaps there is a technical reason for requiring public profiles to use Gbuzz, but I can't imagine what that would be nor that these technical reasons couldn't have been surmounted if Google didn't want to require public profiles to use Gbuzz.

Now I admit that your public profile does not need to contain much in the way of identifiable information, but if you are like most people, and use your real name when emailing, and enabling Gbuzz is the first time you've created a public Google profile, then it will at least declare your name. That's not such a big deal right?

(By the way, this is a link to my public Google profile.)

By itself that wouldn't reveal too much except to let people know that you have a Google account of some kind (and even that you might want to keep to yourself depending where you work), but the next step Google has you take is to decide whether you will share your list of following/followers to other Google account holders. Here's what my screen looked like at this point:

This is where I get a little upset because Gbuzz takes your initial set of following as many of the people in your list of Gmail contacts without really explaining the ramifications. If you accept this default option, your profile will now expose a list of names from your contact book in the following list!

Granted these don't necessarily expose email addresses and other personal information. Just their names and public profiles, but even the relationships alone can be revealing for people. Not just your relationship to them, but also their relationship to you. You are making decisions on the behalf of others and the others don't get a say in the matter. I think making this the default behavior is a poor choice. Google should not be treating your Gmail contacts like something that can be easily turned into a social application's buddy list. They aren't the same in the least. Your Gmail contacts were generated over months or years under a wholly different set of assumptions than your typical social application buddy list.

You can turn this feature off, but at the moment it seems you only get one chance to do so when you are signing in to Gbuzz the first time. (update: I found a way. See end of post.) On a test account I have, I turned it on, but I couldn't find a way to turn it off after that. The same was true for the other way around. A setting for this may be coming shortly, but I don't think it will be fast enough for some of us. My recommendation here is to turn off sharing of your followers and following lists. Your screen should look like this:

My second concern in that in the attempt to leverage Gmail to launch this social network app, Google has conflated the private and the public domains in a potentially dangerous manner without properly warning users. After you've enabled your Gbuzz account, you can now make posts directly within Gbuzz. By default, these posts are public. Meaning they are available to all your followers (which can be pretty much anyone [see below]) as well as on your public profile (again, see my public profile for an example of what that looks like).

However, you can enable a private posting which allows you to select which people are able to see your post. This is done by grouping your followers into new groups that are managed like contacts. I haven't bothered to appropriately manage my groups yet, so my friends and family lists aren't filled in, but you get the idea.

The good news is once you set this privacy post option, Gbuzz seems to default to it. The bad news is that Gbuzz defaults to public and the user has to take the second step of establishing a private post. I don't think Google has taken sufficient steps to warn people that what they post to Gbuzz can be exposed to more people than they realize if they chose the default public posting.

My final gripe is that while Gbuzz has a way to block followers after they are following you. There doesn't appear to be a way to require potential followers to ask permission before following. So somebody undesirable could follow you for a while without you knowing about it. Now, if you're careful about using private posting, then you can mitigate this issue (see below).

Again, all these things that I consider issues have mostly to do with how I expect Gmail to operate: as a private communication domain. Maybe other people don't feel this way, but I'm touchy not just about my privacy but also the privacy of others. It's fine to share things, but people shouldn't be ambushed into sharing things publically either by intent or by poorly designed software.

I feel the roll out for Gbuzz has been poorly done. Too little information is provided to new users (I found out everything I did by trial and error with one public account and multiple test accounts I keep around), and the default for Gbuzz settings should've been highly restricted privacy. Then users would hopefully be made more appropriately aware that Gbuzz is not Gmail and that steps need to be taken to keep information and posts as private as they are comfortable with. Users should have been forced to choose to go public, not to have to stumble into realizing their posts and contacts aren't private by default. By placing Gbuzz in a convenient tab in people's Gmail window, Google has conflated the private realm of Gmail with a potentially much more public realm of Gbuzz. This will likely have undesirable consequences for users.

Here's my suggestion to people interested in using Gbuzz for private sharing with close friends and family, and not interested in exposing everything to the whole world unintentionally.

When signing into Gbuzz for the first time, disable sharing of your following/followers. Maybe in the future there will be more control, but for now, I feel this is the best way to go if you have a respect for you privacy as well as those of your friends and family. If you're sharing Gbuzz with an intimate group of people, making your list of following/followers public doesn't add value to the experience. You all know each other already.
When making your first post on Gbuzz, select a Private post, and create a group that contains the people you most often would like to share with. This will make this private posting group the default (but keep an eye on it to be sure).
Now if you always use this private group for your postings, you don't have to worry about accidentally leaking information outside that group of contacts, and your posts won't show up on your public profile. Even if you get new (undesirable or unknown) followers, you will not reveal anything to them without you adding them to your private group. This creates a de facto permission to follow feature (which is perhaps what Google intended, but they should've made it clear).

If you follow those three steps, I think you will find that your Gbuzz stream is about as private as your Gmail account (assuming you trust the people in your private posting group).

Finally, despite my gripes, I do think Gbuzz has some potentially nice features for staying in touch with friends and family, especially if you already use Gmail. I intend to give it a try. I hope you do too.

UPDATE:

Gbuzz docs
Gbuzz privacy FAQ
You can change the setting for publicizing your followers/following list here

Christmas Card 2009

2010-01-28T12:00:00.006-07:00

For quite some time now, I've wanted to design my own Christmas card. In the past, the closest I came to making my own Christmas card was a linoleum block print I attempted, and that failed miserably. I couldn't for the life of me get a good print.

In 2009, I finally succeeded thanks to the assistance of my mother and my girlfriend. Both of them provided not just encouragement but also ideas for the card, and they both put up with my indecisiveness. Also, while they didn't see themselves this way, I felt they were both "clients" of mine, and I didn't want to disappoint them. My mother planned to use the card as her Christmas card, so she actually was a client. For experienced artists, I'm sure designing a card like this is no big deal. For me, my inexperience proved to be something of an obstacle and added to my insecurities and fed my procrastination.

At any rate, my experience with the linoleum block print taught me not to waste my time this year with too much of a hands on effort. Maybe some other time I will attempt a more personal approach for the construction or printing of each card, but for this year I decided that if I wanted to get some cards made I should rely on professional printers.

Early on I chose Overnight Prints to print my cards. I came across them via a tweet from a professional cartoonist who mentioned using them. Considering the time of year, I'm sure they were extra busy. The results were pretty good, and I had plenty of good cards I could send out. But the print quality was a bit uneven. So if I decide to print cards again this year, I will try to locate a printer local to me. I may not get better results, but at least I have the option of working more closely with them and not have my experience mediated through an opaque web site.

Once I decided on a printer, all I needed was an idea. This proved to be the biggest obstacle in all this. I brainstormed with my mother one day while running errands in Billings, and we pretty much came up with the basic idea immediately. Great! Only problem was that it was scatological humor, and I was very reluctant to use that as a Christmas card. I wasted a lot of time trying to come up with other ideas and delayed working on the design. However, this may have been a good thing as we came up with three variations of the joke. The third one we came up with at the last minute, and I think it was the best.

While brainstorming, I doodled and sketched on a couple of different pages. The page below was done at a coffee shop shortly after we came up with the first version of the scatological joke. I had already come up with the second version of the joke on the page. But it was harsher than the first joke, and I didn't really like it either.

After delaying starting the card design, I finally gave in and decided to start working on the design based on the second joke. At this point, I was still doodling, but I was also trying to come up with final designs and working on the basic approach. I decided I was going to go for a cartoon look: black ink lines with flat colors. Here I have played with inking some ideas to see how they look.

Here's a thumbnail of the interior of the card. I wasn't worried about details, just placement, proportions, and composition. I was worried that the interior scene was a bit crowded, but it seemed like it would work.

Despite knowing the look I wanted, I still didn't know how I would render the design. Would I try to ink with an actual brush like I have with my other cards? Would I attempt to color with physical media? I wasn't sure, but I knew I would start with physical media as that is what I'm most comfortable with. So I started the tighter pencil drawing and scanned the card design at various stages of completion. That way I would have multiple versions, and should disaster strike, I would have options.

It was somewhere in the process of rendering the tighter pencils (before lettering) that we came up with the third joke. My clients approved the new joke, and I kept working.

This is a scan of tight pencils. You'll notice that I was able to fit the entire card design on one side of standard sized paper. This allowed me to work at the actual size of the final card. Initially I thought this was great as I would get to see the entire card all at once, but it may have been a poor choice as it forced me to work at the size of the card which was a bit small when it came to inking with a brush. I should have perhaps worked on the interior and exterior on separate pages at a larger size. I could've always reduced it in the computer. On the other hand, working at actual size did make sure I didn't put in details that wouldn't be seen when printed.

It turns out my plan to scan my design multiple times was a very good idea. When I got done with the pencils, I decided to ink the page with a brush pen. I hadn't used this brush pen before, and the brush proved to be a bit too large for how small my original drawings were. When I got done, I was not happy with the results.

So I gave up on those inks, and used ArtRage 2.5 as a virtual light table and ink pen. My scanned pencils were used as a tracing layer, and I worked on my "inks" directly in ArtRage. Oh, I also used a wacom tablet.

This is an example of the "inks". Depending on your browser settings, the image may look a little funny because the background is transparent and only the ink lines are opaque. You'll notice I've also separated the interior of the card from the exterior as required by Overnight Prints' printing process. This is the interior inks.

The transparency of the inked pages was important because it allowed me to easily approach the coloring stage. I probably could have done the whole card design in ArtRage, but ArtRage isn't about pixel perfect editing, and for the next stage, I wanted pixel perfect editing because I had to meet the very specific requirements of Overnight Prints. So I imported the inks into GIMP. There may be better tools for the job, but I found GIMP to be a great tool for the flat coloring I planned to use, and it allowed me to do pixel perfect editing.

After importing the inks into GIMP, I arranged the inks on the page, and I proceeded to color under them using multiple layers: highlights, mid tones, and shadows. I also cleaned up various ink lines that I was dissatisfied with.

This is the final exterior image that was used for printing.

This is the final interior image that was used for printing.

All in all, it took longer to make the card than I liked, but that was mostly due to my worried procrastination. I learned a lot in the process of making this card, and it has been received rather well. Most importantly, I actually enjoyed the process once I was able to put aside all my worrying about how it would turn out. I plan on making another one this year. There's only ten months before I have to send them out again! I better get started. Maybe something a little more tasteful this time?

Internet Clippings

2010-01-21T17:19:00.007-07:00

I'm trying out a new blogging service from tumblr. I'm not moving my blog over there. I'm just going to use it as a place where I can store random neat things I find. I often find cool things I would like to share with people, but I don't like to be a bother. So faced with emailing people junk they don't want or posting all sorts of random things on this blog, I decided to just put these little interesting bits in one place dedicated to sharing stuff like that. A place you can look at if you want, and (politely) ignore if you don't want. I call this new site Internet Clippings.

If you fell like following the things I post there, I recommend subscribing to the feed that you will find linked under "Subscribe". If you don't know what that means, then I refer you to Google Reader which is what I use to monitor blogs and the like.

I'm going to rededicate this blog to be strictly for the things I make or do or think. Which means in short order it could become the internet equivalent of a ghost town complete with virtual tumbleweeds. We'll see.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-04T20:17:00.003-07:00

I wanted to post something hopeful and inspirational here as a nice way to start the year, but sometimes it is better to defer to the words of others and simply join in the sentiment. New Year's wishes from Neil Gaiman...

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful. And don't forget to make some art. Write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can.

May your coming year be a wonderful thing in which you dream both dangerously and outrageously. I hope you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return.

And most importantly, because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now, I hope that you will, when you need to be, be wise and that you will always be kind, and I hope that somewhere in the next year you surprise yourself.

That's a transcript from this video. The audio is fairly decent, but I typed the transcript out just in case you had trouble understanding what he says.

Happy New Year!

Via Terri Windling.

Orson Wells Meets HG Wells

2009-12-07T12:08:00.003-07:00

The title of this post says it all: An audio program where Orson Welles meets HG Wells. The connection between the two men (besides the similarity of their last names) is that Orson Welles adapted HG Wells' War of the Worlds for the radio. A radio program that apparently caused some panic among... uh... certain... uh... credulous people...

Sugru

2009-12-01T21:50:00.004-07:00

If you ever need to prototype a physical object or perhaps make repairs, it can be handy to have material that is easily worked. In the past, I've used a product called Shape Lock (it may also be known as friendly plastic). It's not difficult to work with, it sets as quickly as it cools, and it can be reworked easily and indefinitely.

Similar to Shape Lock, there appears to be new product just launched called Sugru that could also prove to be useful for some of the same applications as Shape Lock, and it has applications that Shape Lock does not have since it is adhesive and has a higher operating temperature. The biggest weaknesses compared to Shape Lock (that I see) is that it appears Sugru cannot be reworked once it cures, and Sugru has a relatively narrow 30 minute working time before curing starts.

However if you need the adhesive qualities as well as the higher working temperature ranges, then perhaps that doesn't matter. Also, if you don't need to rework, then Sugru could be worth a look. It's best application may be repairs, but I can see other uses as well.

I haven't had a chance to use Sugru, so caveat emptor, of course.

A Short Film from Pixar

2009-11-24T21:42:00.001-07:00

If you haven't seen Pixar's movie Up, then this short might not make a lot of sense. But if you have, then enjoy.

Slightly Used Bookmark

2009-09-26T22:45:00.009-06:00

Whenever I find myself writing some code, it seems a doodle or two pops out. Seahorses are one of those sinuous animals that are easy and fun to draw. Just make some pleasant curves, add a few embellishments, and voila!

Bobby McFerrin and the Pentatonic Scale

2009-09-21T15:53:00.006-06:00

Wow! Another video! How original! But it is pretty cool. I found this video via the Create Digital Music blog. In it you will find Bobby McFerrin "conducting" an audience through a little musical interlude. His comments at the end seem to indicate that he's done this before all over the world, and people seem to readily grasp the pentatonic scale he wants them to use.

It's a neat example of our common humanity. See if you can follow along.

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Another Great Animated Short From Gobelins

2009-09-13T20:34:00.009-06:00

Here's an animation that's just terrific on any number of levels.

This animated short is from some animation majors (Marion Stinghe, Meryl Franck, Benoît Guillaumot, Nicolas Caffarel and Elen Le Tannou) at the Gobelins school in France. From what I've heard, the school has a seriously good (but hard to get into) program and as such manages to attract some very talented students. Many of the best animated shorts I've seen in recent years has been the work of the students from this school. "Pandore" above is from third year students. If I could just keep track of where the students go after their schooling...

Here's a link to the video on youtube in case the embedded video isn't showing up in your reader or if you want to be sure to watch the movie full size.

(Via Charley Parker and his Lines and Colors blog.)

Edgar-Allen-Poe-meets-Classic-Disney (but better)

2009-09-06T20:55:00.004-06:00

The Cat Piano from PRA on Vimeo.

From the cats over at People's Republic of Animation. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Nick Cave perform the narration. He has a fantastic speaking voice and was an excellent choice for this film.

(Via CGHUB.)

One Hundred Year Old Color Photos

2009-09-04T21:35:00.006-06:00

Here's some color photos from Russia that were taken around one hundred years ago! I found the introductory photo (which is also photo 21) to be quite nice in a romantic sort of way. But they're all very interesting. The photographer's name is Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii. (Thank you, cut and paste!)

These aren't painted over color photos like you may have encountered before. These are "true" color photographs. The original pictures were taken as three separate black and white images through red, green, and blue filters. This produced three separate black and white plates of each color. To reproduce the photos during the time they were taken, the photographer would use a light projector and project each of the black and white plates through appropriate colored filters onto a single area. When overlapped in that manner, the projector could display the color photographs.

Very clever. Very clever, indeed...

Anyway, to create the digital copies that you can see online, it was merely necessary to digitize the three black and white plates, align them, and then combine the red, green, and blue channels (this last step is essentially how our computer screens work). This is practically child's play with the sophisticated tools we have today, and now everybody gets to enjoy these images!

The people at the Library of Congress are the ones who have preserved and digitized these plates. You can get more information and photos here.

(Via Tim Bray's twitter stream.)

Summer Pictures IV - Sunflowers

2009-08-30T22:39:00.008-06:00

Along with the modest vegetable garden we planted, I also planted some flowers. Why not? Everybody likes flowers. I'd never grown them before, but I decided to grow some sunflowers. I tried a variety of sunflowers. Maybe a half dozen different types.

I haven't been dutifully recording the progress of each variety as any self-respecting gardener probably would, but I'm sort of new to the whole concept of having land, and I haven't fully adapted to the concept since I don't believe it will last. There's also the fact that I spent the majority of my life dwelling in arid deserts where land was often plentiful but growing non-desert plants was usually much more trouble than it was worth (because I am lazy). It was probably out of necessity, but I learned to respect the innate beauty and sheer will to live expressed by most desert plants. Heck, even cactuses and yucca plants have flowers to enjoy.

Anyway, back to the sunflowers. Not only are sunflowers pretty with their large green stalks and colorful flowers, they also attract and support a variety of bird and insect life. You'll see a couple of picture below where I attempted to capture some of that. Also, I'm not going to list each variety's name. Except for the last variety shown below, I'm just going to post some pictures without more comment (because I am lazy).

The one sunflower that I will make an exception to point out is called, I believe, a chianti hybrid. The flower has a wonderfully dark but warm color. In full sunlight, the petals glow from within. These photos don't really do it justice.

While the flower is first growing, it looks a lot like any other sunflower with thick green stalks. However, as the plant matures and it gets ready to bloom, a dark color begins to work its way up the plant. Before long the stalk and the veins in the leaves have this dark color. All the darker colored flowers do this to a certain extent, but for these very dark flowers, the total effect of the dark color is slightly sinister (but very beautiful). If I ever grow sunflowers again, I will grow some of these, and I will make the patch as large as I can. You know, to warn off the neighbors.

Summer Pictures III - Frolicking Fawns

2009-08-29T19:34:00.013-06:00

Being somewhat out in the boonies, we are frequently visited by deer. You can be walking around out back minding your own business, and suddenly you're staring down the accusatory stare of a couple of deer.

I'm normally tolerant of deer. They give me plenty of space, and they seem to have enough problems with hunters and highway vehicles, and I see no need to harass them further. However, for a short period earlier in the summer, they were using our barely established garden as a buffet, and I lost all tolerance for their presence. I even went so far as to chase after and run off a suspect deer who had the temerity to eye our garden while I was standing right there! It didn't really help, but it made me feel a little better.

After that, we worked out some makeshift barriers that seemed to dissuade them, and right now the deer seem to be happy to munch on the apples that are falling from the trees.

Somewhere in the middle of all that excitement, we had an extremely blustery day, and we spotted two fawns playing around in the back. We'd seen a doe with two fawns a couple of times before, so we suspected that the fawns became separated because of the weather. Does will call to their fawns, but in the wind, we doubted they could hear her. At any rate, the event afforded me the opportunity to get some action shots of these fawns.

(I apologize for the graininess. I couldn't get too close, and I was using a point and shoot camera with 6x zoom in low light conditions. I'm amazed I got the photos I did.)

Summer Pictures II - The Fair

2009-08-28T21:13:00.016-06:00

Whenever summer nears its end, you can always find some fair or other running. The Montana Fair recently made its run here, and we made a trek to see it.

I enjoy fairs. I'm not really into the rides, or the "games", or the crappy and expensive food. I know what you're thinking, "That's all there is to fairs, so you don't really enjoy fairs, you dummy." First, name calling is uncalled for, and second, you'd be right except you forgot about the exhibits. You know, the exhibits showing off people's baking, knitting, sewing, painting, photographing, place setting etc. skills. I enjoy viewing exhibits of people's industrious efforts. For instance, here's a picture of somebody's giant flower... thing.

I really don't know what sort of flower it was, but believe me when I tell you it was impressive in person.

Some other things people like to exhibit at fairs are various farm animals large and small. I admit that I don't appreciate the farm aspect of fairs as much as I should even though that is probably the traditional purpose of fairs. I just don't have enough experience and knowledge about animal husbandry (*snicker*) to really appreciate what I'm looking at. Usually when people inform me we're heading over to the animal exhibits, my initial reaction is pretty much that of this fair goer I spotted near one of the animal exhibits (I empathize completely).

However, I have to admit that if I give it half a chance that there is usually something interesting to look at in the animal exhibits. So, I try to keep an open mind.

This year we went to the fair just a day after it had opened. By the time we usually visit the fair, all the animal judging has already happened. But this time we visited the animal exhibits while judging was going on. I caught some of the cows being shown. Even kids get into the act (#141 had better be quick on his feet).

I can judge the heck out of people, but with cows, I wouldn't know where to begin. After each round, the judge would helpfully explain his choices as the cows were moved out of the pen single file. However, I still couldn't follow him. He said things about round flanks, feminine somethings, and straight backs. He also talked about the way they walked as they were led around the judging area. Actually, the only thing I could really appreciate was the straight back. The rest was lost on me, especially the whole "feminine" thing. I'd appreciate it more if I was a cow connoisseur. (Man, I sure hope somebody in the world has "cow connoisseur" on their business card.)

However, I have to say that this gentleman's cow (which won its judging) did have a straighter back than its competitors. Also, he was very adept at moving his cow around and getting it to do what he wanted. I assume that helps the judging quite a bit.

Before seeing the cows, we passed through some of the bird areas. The birds are always a lot of fun to see. There's just such a wild variety of birds. This is especially true of chickens. This year there were quite a few excellent examples, but I'll just highlight two I really liked.

Here's a proud fellow. He isn't the showiest rooster you'll find, but his solid, dark, iridescent color is striking, and his shape is just classic rooster form.

Then there is this hen. Again she has a simple feather pattern, but I find it striking and very beautiful.

Beautiful birds are cool, but apparently there is also a whole category for ugly birds. While it's nice of them to try to provide opportunities for the less endowed birds, it seems a shame we have to be so judgemental about it. Here's an example of one of the poor benighted hens entered into the ugly category.

Before you ask, apparently that is a "healthy" bird. They're bred to be that way.

Finally, there's one other thing I like about the fair: all the cute chicks you'll get to see.

Yeah. Lame pun. Well, there's nothing you can do about it except to futilely shake your fist at the monitor.

Summer Pictures I

2009-08-27T22:05:00.004-06:00

I didn't used to be much for snapping photos, but now that I have a digital camera, I've steadily increased the number of pictures I take. It's just so dang easy! As a result, I've got a little pile of pictures I've built over the summer. Nothing dramatic, but I thought I'd share some of them over the next few days.

First up, baby pumpkins! Actually, I don't know what to call them. Pumpkin buds? I'm no gardenologist, so cut me some slack.

Anyway, we started a modest garden this summer in an attempt to make this land give a little something back. One of the things we planted was jack-o-lantern type pumpkins. I really like the light and limited color scheme in this picture.

Just to prove the thing was growing, I came back a week later. The lighting wasn't as good this time, but the growth is evident.

More pictures tomorrow!

When Comics, History, and Computer Science Combine!

2009-07-11T12:43:00.009-06:00

I'm sure you are familiar with the fascinating story of Charles Babbage who, long before the invention of transistors or vacuum tubes, designed and attempted to construct a general purpose computer he called the Analytical Engine.

[cricket sounds...]

I'm sure you are also aware of the story of Ada Lovelace who was one of the very few contemporaries of Babbage who fully appreciated what he was trying to achieve with his Analytical Engine. She's credited with being the first programmer since she published notes describing how the Analytical Engine could be programmed. Sadly, she never had the opportunity to see her programs run on an actual machine.

[more cricket sounds...]

Well, if you've longed to read an appropriately appreciative comic treatment about these far seeing intellectual giants, you owe it to yourself to read this stunning work by Sydney Padua.

In the remote chance you are not familiar with this rich piece of history, Padua provides plenty of resources at the bottom of the comic. Additionally, for a brief look at her motivation for creating this comic, Padua provides a FAQ.

And Now That it is Summer

2009-07-09T19:49:00.011-06:00

Well, my previous worry about peacock population collapse may have been premature. One of the females around here has some chicks following her around now.

There's actually three of them. She does her best to keep them safe. She tries to keep them under cover and guide them around. She'll cluck warnings to them when danger approaches (like me). She'll sit on them or otherwise try to obscure your view of them by keeping them under her wings. But peahens aren't the most ferocious of birds, and she spooks pretty easy depending on the situation. So, we try to give her room.

Of course, the chicks aren't only in danger of predators. Some of the other peacocks and peahens initially followed her around pretty closely. They seemed very curious about the chicks, and not all their interests were benign. My mother says that in the past she's seen peacocks flinging the chicks around. I've heard of this aggressive and sometimes lethal behavior in other animals, and you can readily find possible explanations, so I won't horrify you with an explanation here. Regardless of nature's cruel reasons, it's not really something I want to see.

However, when things are going well, the guys are pretty fun to watch. I actually saw some behavior that I don't know what to make of. Sorry for the low quality picture below. It was dusk, and the exposure was a little long (I didn't want to use the flash). You see one of the chicks below sitting on the mother's back. What you don't see is that he was hopping on and off her back for a good minute. I managed to catch him in the middle of perching on her back. She just sat patiently while he did this, but I was wondering if this was a form of play behavior. I didn't know birds did that. Well, except maybe crows and ravens and types of parrots (Okay, maybe I did know birds played).

Anyway, I've never seen peacocks exhibit play behavior, but this little guy seemed to be having fun. Oh, and it has nothing to do with trying to fly. These guys have been able to fly around for a while now. He just seemed to enjoy trying to perch on her back.

Weird but Wonderful

2009-05-17T18:30:00.004-06:00

I've seen this animation posted in multiple places, and I just remembered I could share it with you. I really love the flat coloring combined with the fluid animation. Also the sound is strangely effective.

This one time... from nelson boles on Vimeo.

Cannes Short Films

2009-05-13T22:04:00.004-06:00

If like me you couldn't make it to Cannes this year (again), you might be happy to hear that you can get a little bit of the Cannes film festival online. The National Film Board of Canada has been hosting an online short film competition they call Cannes Short Film Corner. This is the fifth year. Several films are presented, and you get to vote for the ones you like.

As of this posting, I've only watched the movie you see above. I have no idea what other types of films you will find, but there's bound to be a few gems (if you like short films).

Found via the Drawn! blog.

Playing for Change

2009-05-04T13:26:00.012-06:00

This morning NPR did a story about a music project called Playing for Change: Songs Around the World. I was previously aware of this project, but the NPR news story prompted me to write about it here since I realized it has progressed much further since I last heard about it.

The basic idea of the project is musical collaboration. But this isn't simply getting some well known musicians together and having them hammer out some songs. The vision of this project is larger. The idea is to record individual musicians and groups in their own settings all across the world. The collaboration occurs across time and continents via recordings of the other musicians that the producer brings along with him to the different sites. The result is quite beautiful and moving.

But my words aren't really doing this project justice. Here's the video that first introduced me to this project (you can see more videos if you click the above link to their website):

The project is also associated with the Playing for Change Foundation which appears to be trying to build music schools. I don't know enough about that foundation to comment one way or the other about it, but I'm always game for having more music in our lives, and more music schools sound like a worthwhile goal to me.

When I sat down to write this, I thought I was going to say something about how this project could be seen as a metaphor for all human endeavor. But I just realized that this musical collaboration isn't a metaphor, it's simply a wonderful example of the global human jam taking place all the time. We're all building off of what each of us have done. Ideally we do this in peace, but we know that isn't always the way we do things. Regardless, we keep trying. The project isn't metaphorical. It is better than that. It is inspirational.

MicroVisions

2009-05-03T23:20:00.003-06:00

Irene Gallo has just posted that MicroVisions 4 auction is open! MicroVisions is a fund raiser for the Society of Illustrators scholarship fund. The idea is that several talented and well known artists create and donate 5"x7" works of art to be auctioned off. So far they've held the auctions through eBay. This is really cool because it allows anybody with an eBay account to have an opportunity to bid and win one these items. In fact, I won a nice piece one year.

I recommend following the link to Irene's post for more information, but click here if you want to go directly to the list of items being auctioned off.

All the pieces look good, but for me, the stand out items this year are from: Gregory Manchess, Michael Whelan, and Justin Gerard. (All those links go directly to their respective eBay pages.)

Gregory Manchess (website) is an established artist and illustrator. Even if you don't know him, you have very likely seen his work since he has done illustrations for many magazines (National Geographic being a notable example) as well as book covers. He has an energetic, painterly style I enjoy. I always look forward to seeing more of his work. I think his soaring spaceman would make an inspirational piece of art to have hanging around your home.

Michael Whelan (website) is an "old" favorite of mine. I discovered him through his book covers to the Memory, Sorrow and Thorn fantasy trilogy from Tad Williams, but he has done much more than that. Just go to your favorite bookstore and browse the fantasy and science fiction section. You will easily find his work gracing the covers of many of those books. He's one of those illustrators with the exquisite ability to distill a book's contents to a single, symbolic image while retaining wonderful compositions that make you want to find out what's the story behind that image. From what I understand, he has been focusing more on his "fine art" work, and his MicroVisions entry is a nice example of that. If you'd like a piece of art that makes you wonder and contemplate, I think his entry would be a way to go.

Finally, Justin Gerard (website) is a recent favorite of mine. I discovered him by browsing the internet. I follow various artists' blogs, and those artists inevitably will lead you to other artists. I'm sure that's how I found out about Justin. I wrote about his series of Hobbit paintings a while back. He has since updated his website's gallery with those paintings. Those are definitely worth checking out. Additionally, Justin went the extra mile for MicroVisions. Although he only entered one painting, he actually painted several and chose one. I personally think he chose very well. His introspective portrait of a dapper looking faun is fun and mysterious.

So, if you've ever wanted to own some original art work from talented illustrators, now's your chance!

Spring!

2009-04-22T21:10:00.014-06:00

Yes! It's finally spring where I am! No more of this (taken on a day when the power went out):

And no more having to run in this stylish ensemble (also the beard is gone).

The peacocks have come out in full dress.

Here is one silently (strictly in the aural sense) stalking a potential mate.

The peacocks and peahens like to roost up high. Many of them take advantage of the trees. This isn't all of them, but it's quite a few. I'm pretty sure there are peahens in there as well, but they're not as easy to see.

Actually, at the moment, the peacocks drastically outnumber the peahens, and we only have a handful of peahens.

Before too long, if these numbers don't change, we may be looking at the last of the peacocks.

The last of the peacocks in our yard, at any rate.

Finally, this is Noname (Noh-nah-mee).

He plays fetch.

Can You Scream Inside Your Mind?

2009-03-27T23:49:00.006-06:00

I can't remember where I came across this film today, but it was a welcome diversion. I've embedded the standard quality video below, but I recommend watching the high definition one if you've got the bandwidth or the patience.

(It doesn't look like the embedded player has the high definition button. Follow this link for some high definition good times.)

!!! SPOILER ALERT !!! Don't read further until you've watched the film.

I've discovered that I don't appear to be able to scream inside my mind (you'll have to watch the film to know why I'm bringing this up). I can talk loudly and sing in my mind, but screaming doesn't seem to be a thing I can do inside my head. I can replicate the sound the hero of the film makes when he "screams" in his head, but it doesn't feel like a scream in my own head. It's just a copy of his distant scream sound. Maybe that guy did have a super power after all? Maybe he's the only guy in the world capable of screaming in his own mind? Maybe that's part of the reason why that apparently telepathic lady was so surprised?

Screaming in my mind was never something I've thought about before this film, but now it is all I can think about...

Oh wait. Nevermind. Now I'm thinking about sleep.

Her Morning Elegance

2009-02-02T17:54:00.005-07:00

Yet another post about a music video, but what the heck. If that's all I've got for you people, then that's all I've got. I think you'll enjoy it. I not only enjoy the video but also the song. The chorus lines that begin "She fights for her life..." have an interestingly subdued power and subtle meaning.

If you can't see the video, then try this link. Also, there is some information about the making of the video here.

Bubbillicious

2009-01-23T20:37:00.004-07:00

I don't have anything even marginally useful to contribute to the world at the moment, so I will point to another music video. This one is a fun, stop motion papercraft thing. I found it through the Drawn! blog. As they note in their post, the video acts as its own how-to guide. Very clever.

Bubblicious from Rex The Dog on Vimeo.

Coparck is a Band

2009-01-18T19:42:00.008-07:00

I came across this video from Irene Gallo's blog. At first I didn't realize it is a music video (I missed that part of her original post), and I thought it was just a short until the band made a cameo appearance and just happened to be singing the song that I initially took as a soundtrack. Truthfully, it works either way. I think that is a rather refreshing change of pace from most music videos.

I'm not going to comment too much on any potential meaning behind the video and the song. I think we've all faced enough workplace (and even schoolyard) scenarios to understand the ways we restrain ourselves for the sake of a job. I found the irony of the ending to be delicious.

The band is Coparck and their website is here should you like to check out more of their stuff. I found the music video to Thoughts You Thought You Could Do Without (warning: brief nudity) to be as entertaining as the one above. In that one, the band makes as little appearance as in the video above. I wonder if there is a pattern here?

Slightly Nerdy Dragon

2009-01-15T17:25:00.007-07:00

The following links may not be safe for work (if you work in a very uptight environment). Here's another take on dragons you might enjoy. And this is a new treatment of a well known fairy tale.

Silverbacks II

2009-01-10T22:00:00.007-07:00

Another study of a silverback with notes (trying a little harder this time). Man, gorillas have some extreme anatomy. You think you've pushed the anatomy too far only to look back at the reference and realize you haven't gone far enough.

Silverbacks

2009-01-10T20:30:00.005-07:00

I needed some references for silverback gorillas, so I fired up Google's image search and entered the appropriate terms. Up popped some useful images. Why do I need references for silverback gorillas? For reasons.

Justin Gerard Paints The Hobbit

2009-01-09T23:17:00.006-07:00

I follow several artist blogs. Usually of the illustrator variety if only because illustrators seem to be the most prolific bloggers. There are so many talented artists out there producing some fantastic work.

Justin Gerard is one such artist. He's been working on a series of paintings based on The Hobbit. As far as I can tell, he's doing this series out of a love of the story. Gerard says he's attempting to capture his own visions of this story before the upcoming movie comes out and replaces his visions with its own. Here's a detail from his latest painting of Smaug, which should be more than enough to entice you to click through to see the rest.

I'm not exactly certain of his method, but it appears he starts with a pencil sketch which he paints over with watercolor. He then scans the watercolor image into a computer for further digital painting treatment. Regardless of the method, the results have been absolutely stunning. The paintings have a depth of light and color that I seldom see with digital paintings.

You can click on the image above or follow this link to see a list of posts that shows the progress and his thinking behind several of the paintings in this series. Even if you aren't familiar with The Hobbit, you should indulge a few minutes to appreciate Gerard's work.

I Have Total Recall

2009-01-08T15:44:00.007-07:00

I saw this guy yesterday while I was out for my run. He was just hanging out in one of the fields. I waved, but he didn't wave back. I think he's shy.

I don't know what to tell you about the flying, sliced sperm whale and the ghost chicken in the background. It was a windy day.

More Snow

2008-10-12T17:14:00.013-06:00

Well, it continued to snow slowly but steadily throughout the night. So we got treated to more snow, and I just feel compelled to share.

My poor car. It has had to put up with a lot of crap lately.

More peacock action.

A lone peahen contemplating her choices in life... Or maybe I'm projecting.

This is just a glob of snow, but it built up in a way that is openly defiant of gravity. The glob is built up on a fence post, but the fence post is under it on the right. There is nothing holding it up on the left except its own internal structure. I'm sure somebody out there understands how snow/ice structures like this can build up, but to me it is just mysterious. And being ice and snow, also crappy. It is mysterious and crappy.

This one is just further proof that there was quite a bit of snow. Nothing like they get in Buffalo, NY (thank goodness), but quite enough for me.

This is an expanded view of where the peacock parade was yesterday. You'll notice that that the tree in the background appears to be leaning against a power line. In fact, what you can't see is that there is a peacock sitting on the power line right up there just behind the top of the tree. The tree is actually not leaning against the power line. Regardless, we later attempted to shake off the tree and shoo away the peacock. In the process, I was covered in snow. Good times... Good times...

Fortunately the storm seems to be over, and the snow on the ground is already melting. Although it might take a while for it to go away completely. Thankfully we never lost power and were able to stay safe and warm.

Moving Around

2008-10-11T12:38:00.013-06:00

As many of you know, I am currently footloose upon the world. Sort of. I've moved from one Mountain time zone state to spend some time in another Mountain time zone state. Eventually I will likely leave the Mountain time zone all together.

But that is not today, my friends. Today my current Mountain time zone state has given me, and the rest of the people in this state, an early winter warning of sorts. It has dumped snow. Those of you who know me know that I consider any amount of snow unacceptable. I just don't care for it. The only white christmas I like is the movie. The only white powder I enjoy is the powdered sugar I use in orange cookie frosting. The only skiing I like to do is none. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.

I won't attempt to judge the harshness of this situation because I am clearly not objective. I'll just give you pictures, and you can decide whether you wish to shiver in empathy or fume in minor jealousy.

As you can see, even the trees were caught off guard. They still have most of their leaves and had only just begun to turn colors for fall.

The peacocks were trying to make the most of it. Most of them were up and out of the way of the snow, and when they had to walk, they stuck to the snow free areas.

If you aren't being hit with the same sort of snowy weather as I am, I urge you to enjoy the crap out of it. And when you do, think of me for just a moment.

This is unrelated to the snow but related to the move. I thought you might find it funny that just prior to moving from my previous state of residence my workstation/entertainment center was reduced to this:

Truthfully, it probably could be reduced even more. Certainly it could be made to look cleaner. One of these days I might strive to go back to something like that for my full time setup. Its efficiency and simplicity are appealing.

Grrr...

2008-04-23T22:35:00.008-06:00

I use too many words sometimes. I know this. You know this (just see my last post for an example). In fact, I'm doing it right now.

I'll try to keep this post brief. While looking for that old character design doodle in my previous post, I came across a bunch of other doodles that I had put aside. I guess I thought I'd have a use for them later? Like putting on a traveling show of little office pad doodles that are taped into a notebook. Instead of viewing art on a wall, you just get to sit down in a bean bag chair with the notebook and a pretentious audio tour headset and... quickly fall asleep.

I'm just kidding. Nobody knows why I saved them. Nobody. I've asked around.

Anyway, I decided to get some practice with my graphics tablet and cleanup (sort of) one of the doodles I made of a seemingly irritated, anthropomorphic gator. I show you both before and after. Before looks like ball point on some old engineering graph paper. After was done with ArtRage 2.5 using the pencil tool on "cel" paper.

Rough sketches and doodles have a certain energy that always seems to disappear when the ideas are finished. Even in the case of my still rough looking "clean up", the doodle still has a little more something.

In this case, part of it has to do with some choices I made about the gator's right hand that changes the mood a little (also the background is completely white), but maybe doodles and rough sketches leave more for the brain to fill in, making them more interesting than finished pieces? That implies that as the artist's "vision" becomes clearer, the interest of his audience could decline (that'll be my excuse anyway). That's a sobering thought.

Oh right. Fewer words. I'll get right on that.

Story Time

2008-04-15T21:43:00.012-06:00

Well over a decade ago, I had just graduated from college. I went straight from college into a job. Which is great in some respects, but my college buddies and I had always talked about going into business for ourselves. Even before graduation we'd all had some experience working as human resources in our chosen majors. Without getting into specifics, let's just say our experiences gave us the impetus to pursue the idea of starting our own business.

We used to brainstorm all sorts of ideas. Some of these ideas were actually a little ahead of their time (meaning they didn't exist at the time, but do now), and I'm sure there were some that would have made money, but some of these same ideas also were not... savory... (I take the blame for most of those.) But these were brainstorming sessions. So, we tried not to rule anything out to start with. Just throw stuff out there and see what sticks. One of the ideas we had was to develop an advanced 2D side-scroller game for the PC.

Keep in mind, that this was before 3D games were the norm. This was before hardware 3D accelerators were readily available. 320x200x256 with an 80486 or Pentium processor ruled the PC gaming universe, and Sound Blaster compatibility was a requirement of all sound cards.

In short, a side-scroller game still stood a chance of some success, but this wasn't going to be just any simple side-scroller. Being ambitious, technically minded geeks, we cooked up all sorts of specs for the game engine. It was going to have arbitrary number of layers with parallax scrolling. It was going to have an arbitrary number of sprites. It was going to have advanced physics models to allow us to create ice levels or sand levels or sticky theater floor levels!

And if you just understood those past two paragraphs, I weep for your misspent youth.

Actually, I have to admit that although I would have been capable of helping, I provided very little input into the engine creation or planning. It was all I could do to find time to graduate between all the hackey sack sessions. This was my senior year. The best I could muster was moral support. Additionally, my college buddies happened to be a year behind me in school, and one of them was even two years behind (I've always been immature for my age). When I graduated and went to work, I had to leave my friends behind.

However, my friends decided to spend the summer working on this game engine. They allowed me to participate. I already had a full time job writing software and documentation and designing logic for CPLDs and FPGAs and being our company's IT guy (I have a modicum amount of useful skills), and I found it difficult to gather my energies to work on technical things in the evening after work. (I'm not as big of a nerd as I would have liked. I get picked on a lot by the other nerds. *sigh*)

Considering these issues, we decided I should work on implementing a sound library. The stuff that allows games to play music and sound effects. I did manage to get something going during that summer. As I recall, I mainly managed to get somebody else's example code to compile using our compiler of choice and have it play sound files. In summary, what I accomplished was pretty much nothing.

Truthfully, I spent more time dreaming up story lines and back stories for the game than I did working on the sound library (sorry guys!). I wanted a compelling reason to use all the features that my friends were cramming into their game engine. I actually came up with two stories I thought might work, but I only remember one of them now, and I'm not going to detail that story at the moment. This post is already too long.

Along with the story lines, I tried my hand at some character designs. I came up with a character that was going to be a sort of guide but also an integral part of the story. I had in mind a comic character capable of exaggerated (if alien) expressions. He also needed to be a character that was literally out of his element. He needed to be ineffectual for the predicament he found himself in the game. That's where the hero character (player) would come in.

Anyway, I was remembering all this stuff the other night while I was doodling in a sketchbook, and I doodled a version of this character. This made me want to track down my original design so I could compare it. I was surprised that I was actually able to find the original. I'm sure there were other versions, but I think the original captured a little energy and fun that were probably lost in any others I may have attempted. The first is the original doodle, and the second is the one I drew the other night.

Sometimes I think all these side activities should tell me something, but I have no idea what that would be. Doodling is a waste of time? Fear is the mind killer? New Coke sucked?

My friends did actually finish a lot of work on the game engine. As far as I can remember, it worked quite well, and they accomplished many of their objectives. Of course, a game engine is only a part of the work that goes into a game. At that point, what they really needed was some content. Unfortunately, going to an engineering college isn't conducive to meeting many artists.

The game, unfortunately, was never completed. They had to start school again, and I still had my job. I still think the game was a good idea, but we just couldn't pull it off (not that I helped much anyway). Some time later, I ended up working for a game development company, but you guys already know how that turned out...

Screw the Doodles

2008-04-12T23:03:00.007-06:00

Screw the doodles. I have something more interesting to share. I'd heard about the following item a while ago, but I only recently heard about this nice compact demo of it. A fellow by the name of Johnny Lee found some novel and innovative uses for the controllers that come with Nintendo's Wii game system. He basically turned the control system on its head to provide for some novel input devices. You can see or download the demo here.

I certainly admire Mr. Lee for his clever use of existing technology. However, what really interested me about this is that I had been reading The Brain That Changes Itself, and I began to wonder about the possibly using Mr. Lee's ideas in inexpensive rehabilitation devices. I think that would be tremendously cool.

And just for the heck of it, I found this really nice performance by Rokia Traore. It's the first I'd heard of her, and I have no idea what she is singing, but it is a lovely, soulful sound.

By the way, TED has a lot of cool and interesting videos of presentations given by all sorts of passionate and intelligent people. It's enough to give a guy hope. You can find more about TED here.

I think this presentation given by Sir Ken Robinson was the first TED talk I had ever seen, and it is a favorite of mine. This presentation by Jill Bolte Taylor is a recent video which may be of some special interest to people in my family.

More Doodles

2008-04-12T20:02:00.005-06:00

You know, I do other things (e.g. I am actually working on my stone sculptures), but for some reason I'd rather just show you some doodles. I've been watching too much "Daily Show" lately. I was trying to capture the likenesses of some of the cast with just a few lines of a calligraphy pen. I think John Oliver is a win, but I somehow managed to screw up Stewart's hair and placed his eyes too far apart. And you get two flavors of Stewart: "young" and "old".

Vacation Pictures

2008-03-30T22:37:00.005-06:00

Last summer I went to visit my sister's family in Chicago. I'm usually camera shy both in front of and behind the camera, but I managed to snap a few photos. I was going through those pictures tonight, and spotted two I really like. These are from our trip to the aquarium.

I don't know what variety of fish this is, but I do remember he was very active. He was very quickly swimming laps in his tank. Additionally, the lighting in the aquarium was pretty dim and we weren't allowed to use a camera's flash. So to capture this, I had to pan my camera with him as he swam back and forth and hope for the best. I think it came out rather well. He really is a strikingly beautiful fish, and I like the little blue "eyebrow" that makes him look a little serious as he swims forward. I'm glad he was so willing to show us his full profile like this.

I won't swear to it, but I think this next fellow is a variety of iguana. Iguanas are interesting lizards to begin with, but I thought this photo captured a certain dignity and showed a more handsome side of the animal. Iguanas have great faces.

I have a few more photos I might share. I can't promise they'll be as nice as these two, but I'll do my best.

Kiskaloo

2008-02-25T23:17:00.009-07:00

Since you guys suffered through my poor examples of pen and ink, I thought I'd share the work of a true skilled hand. I don't remember how I came across Chris Sanders' blog, but I am glad that I did. He recently started a weekly strip called "Kiskaloo" which he posts on his blog. Start at the bottom with #1 and work your way up.

(I just noticed that his strips open up within a frame on his blog. Be sure to open the images in a new window or tab for easier viewing.)

According to at least one of his posts, Sanders uses brush and pen and ink. His lines are luscious, and the drawings clean. His characters have perceptible life and volume even though they are "cartoonish". He's also very skilled at composing his panels (or shots), and he's not afraid of dynamic scenes (i.e. not always drawn 3/4 view at about eye level). He makes good use of darks and shadows. He shows how much energy and zest you can get out of just black and white. His animation background really shows in the emotive qualities of his characters faces and poses. In short, absolutely terrific in every way and something for me to aspire to.

Also, I find the strips very funny. I find #7 especially delightful. Hopefully you will too.

You may find that his work looks familiar. If you check out his bio page, you'll see he's worked in feature animation at Disney for a while. Notably, it says he directed Lilo & Stitch, and I'd have to assume that he had a large influence on the look of that film.

While you're at his site, don't forget to check out his sketchs. There's more fine work there.

It's terrific that people like Sanders are willing to share their work like this. In the past (before the internet), it wouldn't be so easy for him to share his more personal work nor for us to get to see it. We live in a time of many problems, but we also live in a time of ample opportunities. For some reason, little things like "Kiskaloo" really help me remember that. Great art and good times.

Custom Greeting Cards - $500 each

2008-02-23T22:23:00.012-07:00

This past week was the last week at work for a friend of mine. She had decided to pursue another opportunity (a good opportunity). So, I'm really happy for her. It's good to see people pursuing things they want to do. I see them as role models.

Anyway, I wanted to give her a memento of some sort. I wanted it to be personalized, so I decided to make her a card. There just some things you can't find in the greeting card aisle. It appears I'm becoming a regular Hallmark^TM. This is my second card in a month. Of course, it's silly humor because I don't know any other type of humor (besides silly humor is almost always appropriate). Also, you should know she is a chemist, otherwise the gag might not make any sense.

This is the outside of the card. The back is on the left (with my fake imprint). The front is on the right. I blurred out where I wrote her name. To read the blurred part, I suggest substituting "nice lady" in your best recolection of Professor Frink's voice.

This is the interior.

I wrote some other things like you would any normal card, but I scanned it before I did that because I'm all about privacy and stuff (except for this blog, I guess).

It was fun to do this one, but it's killer to work on these things for friends. I want them to enjoy it, and I really want to do a good job, and it really stresses me out! But it's a good stress. Builds character.

I think these cards turned out well, but I noticed how simple I kept everything. Simple is effective, but I sort of feel that I stick to simple because it's safe not because it's the best choice. Also, I want to use some color. Maybe if I can find a way to motivate myself to practice more, I'll have more skills to draw on. Uh... Pun intended only in retrospect.

Materials: Hobby Lobby card stock, various pens and brushes, and india ink.

Happy New Year! (again)

2008-02-09T20:14:00.003-07:00

This past week saw the beginning of the Chinese New Year. I admit that it is not a holiday that I normally celebrate. However, for the Chinese, the New Year seems to be as big a deal as the Christmas holiday is for many people in the U.S. (especially with regards to families getting together). If you're curious, you can find more information about the Chinese New Year here.

I was talking to a friend of mine who is Chinese about the New Year's holiday. We were talking about all sorts of things, about the way it is celebrated, about the Chinese zodiac, and about the horrendous weather China was experiencing a couple of weeks back and how that might impact people's travel plans (at the very least).

It wasn't until I talked to her and read the weather reports that I started to understand how important the holiday is for people. I also realized that the New Year is practically a nonevent in the states. So, I decided I wanted to do a little something for my friend since she is so far from family this year. For some reason, despite the serious potential for unintended cultural insensitivy, I decided I'd make her a card.

My friend has given me permission to post a scan of the card here so I could share it with you guys. I thought you might enjoy seeing it and gaining whatever minimal cultural insight I can provide. The gold ink loses a little luster in the scanning, but what can you do?

The red paper was chosen because red is used liberally during the New Year. So, I went with it for purposes of the festivities.

The Chinese symbol means "good fortune". I am unclear as to whether the symbol itself represents good fortune or rendering it in gold confers "good" to the meaning of the symbol. I wasn't sure. The internet makes a terrible resource for learning about certain things. So, I went with the gold just to be on the safe side. Also, gold appears to be a festive color as well.

The next part was the less than traditional part. It was also the part fraught with potential misunderstanding since (as far as I know) it was my own invention and not backed up by anything I read about. It was more of my idea of what a Chinese version of the whole old man/baby new year thing might look like. An attempt at light hearted humor.

The pig represents the year that is passing. Last year was the year of the pig (the golden pig to be more precise). Apparently it was the end of the sixty year cycle. The new year is the year of the rat and the beginning of a whole new sixty cycles. So, the rat is chasing the pig off as part of his cleaning for the New Year (that's why he's chasing the pig with a broom). He's taking charge now, baby!

That's a lot of words to explain a single symbol and a couple of scampering cartoon animals. Fortunately for me, my friend appeared to understand the intent immediately and appreciated it (*phew*). So, the card appears to have been successful and caused no international, interpersonal disasters.

--

P.S. I did all this stuff with brush and ink. The smudge you see at the bottom of the rat's leading foot was partially corrected prior to giving the card. That's the risks you take when you work with ink on paper (and haven't done so in years). When I slipped up, I felt a deep despair that I think anybody who has worked with pen/brush and ink can understand. I almost scrapped the whole card in a fit of disgust to start over. I would have done that in the past, but age has apparently mellowed me. I managed to salvage the card with a light use of an X-acto blade. A sort of poor man's electric eraser.

Christmas Confessions

2008-01-06T20:30:00.001-07:00

So, this post is a little late. I kept meaning to post it, but my camera and my computer always seemed so far apart, and I wanted pictures. You've probably had enough of holiday talk and revelry and want to get on with a new year. But if you'll indulge me, I'll make this quick.

I don't bake or cook very much, but each year around Christmas I try to make some Christmas goodies, and I usually give them away to friends and coworkers (some of whom act skeptical when a guy gives them homemade holiday treats). This year I didn't do too much. I only made orange cookies (as depicted in the above left) and some fudge (as seen below).

The orange cookies turned out great. Most people like them quite a bit. The secret is in the icing. I may be a bit too generous with the icing, but I don't really believe that is possible. The only real trouble I have with the orange cookies is that it seems like I make them bigger each year. This year you pretty much needed two hands to eat them. But they turned out pretty well regardless. And in truth, I like my Christmas goodies to have a little gusto to them. Not dainty, wimpy confections. But big treats that demand attention and make you worry about your weight while you can't stop eating them... Yeah! *ahem* Anyway...

The fudge also turned out pretty well, and I made two batches (one with mint extract and one with pecans). But while I was making the fudge, I couldn't help shake the feeling I was forgetting something. But everything seemed to be going well. So, I shrugged it off.

The next day, when I went to cut the fudge, I noticed it was really rather soft. Not in an entirely bad way, but my family's fudge recipe is usually fairly firm. I knew then that I had screwed something up, but I still couldn't figure it out. It tasted fine, so I took the fudge to work anyway. Everybody really liked it, but I was still curious as to what had happened.

That night I happened to be talking to my mom on the phone about something, and I brought up what happened with the fudge. And she says something along the lines of, "You boiled it for five minutes?" And I say something like, "What? The recipe doesn't say to boil it for five minutes" (even while remembering that is what I've done in the past). Then she says, "I'm pretty sure it does." And I'm all, "Let me check" because I think I couldn't have possibly missed this.

So, I go to check, and what do I see in the first line of the recipe?

I mean, it's underlined! How'd I miss that? Keep in mind that I have made this recipe many times before. So, I don't really have any excuses except for the fact that my mind wasn't entirely on the fudge, which is really more of an indictment than an excuse.

Also I shouldn't argue with my mother about the contents of the cookbook she wrote for our family. Sheesh! You'd think I'd at least know better than that.

The Risks of Global Climate Change

2008-01-01T18:36:00.002-07:00

This video is over seven months old, but I only recently became aware of it. (Link here if it's not embedding.)

It's a cool example of how people can use the internet for something other than LOLCATS (not that there is anything wrong with LOLCATS). In this case, I think this gentleman makes an excellent attempt at shifting the discussion about global climate change away from whether humans are having an impact towards the idea of risk management.

Of course, while I think that's the proper discussion to be having, I am aware that it will be very difficult to stay on topic. Risk management can be a dry subject that really requires cool heads and responsible, humane leadership. Controversy, on the other hand, can be incited by any chucklehead with a radio program, newspaper column, or blog (this chucklehead included if this blog were read by somebody besides my mom). Unfortunately, controversy trumps dry discussion anytime. But I do agree with the video that if we want to work on this issue in a realistic manner we can make it happen.

I haven't had a chance to look at his other videos that he uses to bolster his arguments. So, I have no comment on those.

My Decadent Lifestyle

2007-12-16T15:43:00.001-07:00

I was going to title this post "Winter, My Nemesis", but it really has nothing to do with winter. I simply have strong, negative feelings about winter that sometimes manifest themselves in mildly inappropriate ways (like shaking my fist at a snowing sky or beating up skiers for lunch money). Fortunately, winter has so far been mild where I am. It has been snowing primarily in the mountains like God intended. This means the lowlands are mostly easy to navigate, we'll have water next year, and those people who've invented many ways of sliding down snow covered hills have an outlet for their strange and unnatural passions.

What this post is really about is my decadence. As many of you already know, I recently purchased a new vehicle. This is after almost nine years of driving an '83 utility van, and a prior five or six years of driving a '79 El Camino with an impressive pompadour of a camper shell. (Sorry. I can't find any pictures, but let me assure you that my El Camino was ridiculous.)

Neither of those vehicles were what you would call fun, comfortable, efficient, or even remotely nice. In fact, my van apparently scares people to a certain degree considering the number of off color jokes I've received about it over the years. I received enough of them that I started to beat people to the punch with self-deprecating jokes about the thing. Of course, when it comes to moving something, well, people like the van just fine. Hey! Screw you guys! No offense. ;)

My main motive for buying the van was that I thought I was some sort of nomad, and the ability to throw all my possessions in my vehicle and just go whenever I pleased appealed to me. I've only recently realized I'm not much of a nomad, and I've only run off to nowhere a few times, and the last time I did that was a while ago. So, my van is almost always entirely empty except for the sandbags I carry around during the winter.

I decided to go in a more efficient direction with my new car and picked up a Honda Fit. Everybody that sees it seems to be concerned with whether I fit in the thing. Actually, I fit just fine (unlike the Toyota Corolla I test drove). It is quite comfortable and is a little easier to get in and out of than the El Camino was. (It's not fair to compare the Fit to the van in this case, because, for me, the van is the easiest vehicle I've ever gotten into. I practically just walk into it.) Honda has done a remarkable job of making use of the available room. Of course, thinking about it now, the Fit is nearly form fitting for me. It's comfortably snug while I'm wearing my normal winter clothes. I guess I'll just have to watch my figure.

People have requested some pictures. So, I took some with the Fit next to my van for comparison.

I've only had it since Wednesday, but I've been enjoying it (especially the maneuverability). It seems well designed and well engineered. I don't know what a person who drives a "luxury" car would think about it, but it feels downright luxurious to me. Luxurious to the point I feel a little guilty about it and worry that I'm going soft. I mean, it has AM and FM! Of course, for nine years I have been driving a noisy, metal box whose main redeeming feature is that the heater does work. So, my perspective may be a little different from other people's.

Now that I've been driving this car, I do wonder that if recent cars hadn't become so comfortable and well engineered, whether the nation's average commute time would have continued increasing. Think about it. If you hated driving your vehicle like I did, you'd want to limit how much time you spent in it. I know I did. Maybe instead of mandating better fuel efficiency, congress should mandate less comfortable cars. I bet that would have a greater impact on driven miles and gas consumed than any fuel efficiency standard! Okay, maybe not.

Idealism and the Internet?

2007-11-13T21:35:00.001-07:00

Over the years as the internet has been rapidly developed by many eager individuals, it has become clear that, despite extensive commercialization, there is a persistent streak of idealism about one-to-one and one-to-many communications that runs through many online activities and much of the internet development. I use idealism in its positive sense but with reservations. I don't think this idealism is misplaced so much as it might sometimes be overheated. The ability of anyone with internet access to send out messages to be received by anybody else with internet access without being vetted by a corporate or government authority is a very powerful tool that I would argue is almost the definition of the internet (although I admit many people would like to change that).

Of course, this powerful tool isn't always used towards idealistic ends, and in fact can even be abused. However, it can be used towards idealistic ends, and that's what I'm posting about here. I'm not endorsing the following websites. I'm just pointing them out for you to consider.

First up is the site 10 Questions which I found out about via this post from Susan Crawford. The site's goal is to have the public vote on ten user submitted questions and to attempt to get the U.S. presidential candidates to answer those questions. I don't know how successful this will be, but I like the idea of using the internet to "directly" ask questions of the candidates (although the fact that the questions have to be delivered in videos is an unnecessary and unhelpful restriction). How many of us have sat through televised presidential "debates" waiting for the press to ask a question you'd like to ask or waiting for the press to call bullshit on a candidate's non-answer? Yeah, that's what I thought. I've been sitting on this link for a while, so it might be too late to participate in the question phase (sorry).

This next site is called Congresspedia. It's attempting to be a Wikipedia for the U.S. Congress. Unlike the Wikipedia, you have to be a registered user to edit the Congresspedia. I assume this is to attempt to reduce on vandalism and other undesirable activities. It's hard to know how well Congresspedia will work out since the U.S. Congress has to be one of the most hairy and deliberately obfuscated legislatures in the world, but I applaud any attempt to make the inner workings of the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government more accessible.

Last but not least, many people use the internet to bypass traditional corporate and government media to try and communicate directly with an audience. A site was recently announced call The Hub claiming to be the "YouTube for human rights". It's supposed to be a site where people can post videos documenting human rights abuses and other human rights related issues. It's a potentially grim topic but an important one, and a good use of the internet. I don't link directly to the site because I want you to read the announcement which uncharacteristically endorses skepticism when considering any content on the site. That's good advice when considering any source.

So, how about you guys? Do you know of any sites or online resources attempting to achieve idealistic goals?

P.S. I was just thinking that 10 Questions could be extended to be something that goes on yearly or quarterly and could be applied to the legislative branches as well as the executive branch. We can bypass all those media people who claim to know what's on our minds or ask inane poll questions to attempt to discern what's on our minds. Instead, we can just tell them what's on our minds. He he he... No. Wait. We should be nice. ;)

Helix Wind Turbine

2007-11-11T20:23:00.002-07:00

This wind turbine design seems cool. I don't know enough about energy production to really evaluate the turbine. However, energy production and use is complicated by circumstances. So, I imagine what would work for one person won't work for somebody else. But I take it as an encouraging sign that more and more of energy generators are appearing on the market. The more alternatives we have, the more choices we have which increases the potential to have a true "energy market".

Mariza

2007-11-06T22:01:00.001-07:00

So, have you heard of Fado? I hadn't heard of it until several years ago when I was introduced to the music of Mariza. I don't remember the introduction itself. The only thing I do remember is that whoever I was listening to at the time described Fado as the Portuguese Blues.

This comparison is apt in capturing a certain essence of Fado for American audiences, but in the process it falls far short of really conveying the power of the art form. But then, most prose fails when attempting to convey the power of music.

The reason I bring this up is that a little while ago David Letterman had Mariza on as the musical guest. Up to that point, I had only heard Mariza from her CDs and hadn't seen her perform. She sang only one song for Letterman, but what a performance! Normally YouTube makes a poor first introduction for musical talent, but in this case the transfer is good, and Mariza's performance is powerful enough that it shines through the obscuring veil of aggressive compression. (For those of you using a feed reader that doesn't show the embedded video, see here.)

When I watched that on TV, I literally got goose bumps around 2:49. It still moves me even though I've watched it several times now. I hope I can catch a live performance sometime.

I have the CD whose cover you see above. I know she has newer music, but I have yet to listen to it (I will now that I've been reminded). However, if you want to give her version of Fado a try, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend anything from "Fado Em Mim". Also, it appears that Mariza's music is available on both iTunes and as an MP3 download from Amazon. Pick a track and see what you think. If you insist on a suggestion, try "Barco Negro".

You Tried to Reach for the Stars...

2007-09-06T23:21:00.000-06:00

So, you may have noticed that I'm a fan of music, and you may have further noticed that I'm a fan of music delivery services that don't try to "enhance" my experience with digital restriction management schemes (a.k.a. DRM). For that reason, I've been subscribing to Emusic for a while. Emusic is cool and has wonderful selection and gets new stuff all the time, but it doesn't have everything, especially independent artists.

Well, I just found out some fantastic news the other day. CD Baby (my favorite retailer of independent music) has started to sell MP3s of the albums that they sell! Along with the CDs they have for sale, they sell the album ripped as a series of high quality MP3 files in one big archive.

The really interesting bit is that CD Baby is being very upfront about how they money from the MP3 downloads gets distributed to the artists: 91% to the artists and 9% to CD Baby (more details here). I assume that serves two purposes. One, artists potentially wanting to sell their content through CD Baby will know the deal right up front. Two, customers (like myself) can tell exactly how much of the money they're spending is getting to the artists. That second is very important to me. I like knowing that I'm directly financing the artists whose work I enjoy.

At the same time I heard about CD Baby's foray into MP3 sales, I found out that my favorite Lovecraftian band Darkest of the Hillside Thickets have released a new album on CD Baby called The Shadow Out Of Tim. So, I decided to give the MP3 purchase a shot. All I can say is that it worked as advertised, and I have absolutely no complaints (oh yeah, I'm enjoying the music too). The nice thing about MP3 downloads is that you get instant gratification (or delayed instant gratification in my case since I only have 256k DSL). No waiting for a CD to ship.

The only thing that may turn people off from CD Baby's MP3s is that they've decided to sell the entire albums in one archive. You can't pick individual songs. For me, that's fine. I tend to pick up entire albums anyway. I download the occasional single from Emusic, but most of the time when I find a new artist that interests me, I just grab their whole album. I give the artist plenty of opportunities to woo me. If CD Baby didn't offer the MP3s, I'd just end up buying the CDs anyway. Support the musicians, man!

Anyway, I haven't said much about Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, but if your curiosity is piqued, I'd suggest starting with their Spaceship Zero album (you can play some samples by clicking the little play buttons). It's cheaper than their latest, and I've spent a lot of time listening to it. It's my favorite album from them and full of examples of nerd rock at its finest. So, if you've got a spare ten bucks burning a hole in your pocket, give it a try. If you don't support nerd rock, who will?

--

I found out about the CD Baby news via a post from Jonathan Coulton. Mr. Coulton is a musician in his own right. Feel free to check out some of his stuff. His listening suggestions are a good place to start.

Play: It's Not Just for Kids

2007-08-28T21:47:00.000-06:00

Hey, did you know we have a National Institute for Play? No? Neither did I until today, and now that I know about it, I'm all for it. It appears that play isn't just important for children, but it is also important for adults (and no you don't have to play like children, but it doesn't hurt either). Play apparently helps keep us healthy and mentally flexible.

The founder of the institute gave an interview on "Speaking of Faith" which you can download by following the previous link or this one. It makes an interesting listen.

I write this post more for me than for anybody else since I know I can be a bit of a stick-in-the-mud. Like a lot of people, I used to denigrate play as useless, but I have been trying to loosen up lately if for no other reason than to actually enjoy myself a little. As such I've been in the process of trying to identify the fun things I used to do that I no longer do. It's become an embarrassingly long list.

Now that I know how important play is to one's health, I will use that knowledge to let go of those inhibitions that I've developed that prevent me from doing something when the only reason to do it is simply because I enjoy it.

Anyway, play a little today and every day.

--

I found out about this stuff from Summer Pierre.

Blobs Become Doodles II

2007-08-26T22:34:00.000-06:00

I've been traveling around this past month visiting various members of my family. Any of you that know me realize that traveling to somewhere besides Montana has been a rare thing for me. I actually managed to visit my sister and her family in Chicago. I even took a plane to get there! I know! I'm surprised too.

Now I have no fear of flying, but I am wary of the airline industry and its too often exposed callous disregard for passengers, and its frequent overbooking and mishandling of flight schedules. I realize most of the time things work, but that doesn't change the fact that I don't enjoy submitting myself to the airlines. It's like getting digested by some monstrous process in the hopes that my belongings and I will eventually be crapped out at my destination. But I'll put aside my neurotic dislike of airlines for the sake of this blog and just say that I don't enjoy flying the friendly skies.

Anyway, I survived the flights, and enjoyed the trips. But the traveling is part of the reason why there has been so few posts here in the past month. But I'd like to point you to the doodles that other people made in response to that blob doodle exercise. There's some fun, creative stuff there.

Blobs become doodles

2007-07-29T19:41:00.000-06:00

I can't remember how or when I found Kevin Cornell's blog, but I've been following it because he posts some pretty charming little comics and artwork. Some of his comics involve a sock monkey named Mojo which are always fairly awesome. At least I think so, and that's all that matters in this part of the internet. Ha! Take that Andrew Keen. I'm killing culture! HA HA HA HA HA!

*cough*

Anyway, Cornell's latest post invited people to try a little drawing game. Start with some blobs, hopefully be inspired by their shape, and doodle whatever comes to mind. I decided to give it a shot in an effort to clean the cobwebs out of my head.

I actually had a hard time with blob C (upper right hand corner of image above). I tried several different things and hated them all. So, you're left with that strange fellow with a tooth infection. However, I also considered this dinosaur guy.

And this guy is apparently me just channeling pure frustration onto the page. It's like you're seeing right into my mind...

I feel sorry for the guy. He's apparently having a severe alergic reaction. So, "pfft" is really all he can say.

Sorry if the pictures seems a little washed out. I played with the levels a bit but decided to leave them alone in the end. Also, if you're feeling up to it, you should give the little doodle exercise a shot. You don't have to post anything and embarrass yourself like I did. You can just doodle for the fun of it (but it'd be cool if you did post something).

Google to enter 700MHz auction?

2007-07-20T07:11:00.000-06:00

[Update: Further comments from Google about the reasoning behind their offer.]

Talk about putting your money where your mouth is. With regard to the auction of the 700MHz band here in the U.S., it looks like Google is interested in using its monetary muscle to shift the balance of power and take a stand for open networks. You can see the news here.

It's an interesting development. Too bad it might take power plays from private companies to get the U.S. government to do the right thing. I suppose it has always been that way for any government, and, of course, the auction rules may not change despite Google's efforts.

A cynical part of me thinks Google expects no change in the rules with appropriately cynical analysis as to why they would make their offer anyway. But I think analyzing people's hidden motivations is usually fruitless and ultimately incorrect. So, I'll take the offer at face value and say that, regardless of the outcome, at least there was one company that went on record to say, "Yes. Open networks and spectrum are valuable to us, and we are willing to spend money on it." Which is quite contrary to what the incumbent telcos have been saying.

Of course, if Google did win the auction, you'd still have the problem of a network carrier who also delivers services. As other people have pointed out, even with the rules in place at first, eventually the "owner" of the spectrum gets more and more control over time through lobbying of the government.

Susan Crawford (as usual) has a concise summary of what Google wants to do with the spectrum. If Google really intends to make money off of realtime auctions of spectrum, then perhaps the problem of "owner" lobbying wouldn't be an issue since Google's income would be increased by having more services and applications using their network. They would have an incentive to be open which is the opposite of the incentive incumbent's currently have. Is it possible for a network to be optimized for both billing and innovation? It would be interesting to find out.

Finally, here's Google's letter.

Wholphin

2007-07-18T23:30:00.000-06:00

I don't have an update to the stone sculptures I've been working on. They have become informally on hold. I don't want them to slip into abandoned. So, I will be working on them this week.

In the meantime, I thought I'd share an interesting little find. You know how I enjoy short films? Well, I found a recently launched quarterly "magazine" called Wholphin which is devoted to short films. Their masthead claims "DVD magazine of rare and unseen short films", but considering the limited venues available for short films, I think "rare and unseen" is a bit redundant. Of course, it does have a certain ring to it.

I picked up the first three issues. I haven't watched everything, but I've definitely enjoyed what I've seen so far (except for "The Passion of Martin" on disk 3). It's difficult to give a taste of what Wholphin offers using just words, and I suspect that if you're into short films, you probably followed the link above and haven't looked back. However, I will say that if you're into watching things like Dennis Hopper's explosive performance art, a guy singing "Stairway to Heaven" backwards, God taking potshots at unseen targets with a rifle, or even touching or just interesting documentaries, then you should give Wholphin a shot.

In fact, if you were willing to check out just one issue of Wholphin, I would suggest issue 3. That one contains a documentary called "A Stranger in Her Own City" that follows a young girl named Najmia for a couple of days. Najmia lives in Sanaa, Yemen and is 13 at the time of the filming. She's apparently come to the age that she is supposed to wear a veil, but she refuses. Najmia is practically the definition of indomitable, and watching her made me realize just how easy I have it. But while viewing the film, I just "knew" that spirit couldn't last much longer as the cost of resisting society's demands can be very high, but I was probably projecting onto her my own weak response to societal demands that I reject. Regardless, it's the first documentary that had me on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next.

Anyway, it's interesting to watch the incredulous and spontaneous reactions people have to Najmia. Where she lives, the idea that a woman should wear a veil and disappear into her home is the norm and taken very seriously, and rejecting it seems to be considered either an insult or a challenge. Many reactions are angry, but some are surprisingly not. I did find a short clip on Youtube to give you taste. Also, there is some good news about Najmia, but I think you should pick up issue 3 to find out about it. Yes, I'm a jerk.

Here are some other clips to give you a little more of an idea of what to expect with Wholphin:

Part one and two of a "documentary" that was apparently supposed to be part of Gore's presidential campaign. For some reason, it was never released. Honestly, I've never seen the man so natural and relaxed as he appeared to be in this video, and as much as I decry how superficial most American political discourse has become (especially during campaigns), it would have been interesting to know if that small documentary could have changed people's perceptions of Gore. Probably not...

A quick clip of people playing volleyball using part of the never completed wall that separates San Diego from Tijuana.

I'm not grinding any political axes with either of those videos. They just happen to be the ones I could find. Just watch them if you're interested. By the way, according to Wolphin, the U.S. taxpayers (or maybe future taxpayers?) spent 3.4 billion dollars on that wall you see in the video. I feel so embarrassed right now.

Hey, I found that video about God I mentioned earlier. You probably shouldn't watch it if you don't have a good sense of humor about religion. You know who you are. "Tactical Advantage".

---

P.S. The other wholphin.

Street Painting

2007-07-08T16:02:00.000-06:00

There was recently an "Italian Street Painting Festival" in San Rafael, California. Apparently it is an annual event, and this year's featured artists were Mark Wagner and Clayton Thiel. They collaborated on a piece that mixed sculpture with the more traditional form of street painting. The picture is a concept sketch of the final piece.

I heard about this festival and would have loved to see it, but I obviously wasn't there. However, Wagner and Thiel have been gracious enough to post photos of not just the final piece but of some of the process leading up to the final piece. Check 'em out. I think you'll really like the final result.

I'd been thinking about posting about both these artists at some point. So, now seemed like a good time.

Links via Endicott Studio.

Internet Policy and You

2007-07-07T13:54:00.000-06:00

I was reading this post from Susan Crawford's blog, and I thought I would pass along this brief explanation of why it is important to keep the business of carrying network packets separate from the business of providing services using those packets. If what I just said didn't make any sense, but you have an interest in the internet, do yourself a favor and read that explanation.

I realize there are many other worthy and worrisome things in the world, but technology policies happen to be something I watch closely and think are important to our lives. However, I'm also aware that I'm just as misinformed and opinionated as everybody else. So, I try not to indulge in expressing my opinion too often. It seems there is no shortage of people willing to do that without actually being edifying and without moving any discussions forward. Like I said, I try not to be that way myself, but I trust you'll forgive my indulgence...

I've been following the developments in the U.S. internet policies for a while now, and there is clear movement away from the policies and ideas that the internet was built on. Policies that led to an almost literal explosion of services. Policies that freed subscribers of internet services (i.e. you, me, and anybody with an internet connection) to not just choose any service they wanted to use that was available but to also create new services that didn't yet exist.

If you wanted to use Amazon, go for it! If you'd rather use Barnes & Noble, go for it! If you wanted to establish a used book store clearing house like Alibris, pay to connect to the internet, start up your business, and go! If you want to wear your heart on a blog, nobody is stopping you! Publish a webcomic, start a search service, provide an online feed reading service for all those blogs. And that's all just the tip of the iceberg of the possible services and ways to use the internet. I mean, I haven't talked about all the different ways people use to communicate and coordinate with one another using forums, and email, and any number of other things...

Besides being on the internet, what's the one thing all those services and tools have in common? You and I and the other parties involved didn't have to get advance permission from the network service providers (the entities that carry the packets). You pay for your connection, and you go. Regardless of who provides your internet connection, regardless of how you are connected, you can communicate with anybody else on the internet. You can use free services, or you can use paid services. You can communicate whatever you want (within the limits of the protocols and the law, of course). You can do all this, and all the while your service provider stays the hell out of the way.

Contrast that with how other networks work. Do you have a cell phone? What sort of services can you access with your cell phone? Only those that your cell phone service provider is willing to let you have. Do you have a cable television (or equivalent)? What sort of services can you access there? Only those services that your cable television provider is willing to let you have. If you had an idea for a new cell phone service, how would you go about implementing it? Well, first you'd probably have to approach the various cell phone providers and see if any of them are interested. If none of them are, too bad. If you have an idea for a new internet service, pay for your hosting service and go for it!

Additionally think about what several decades of monopoly on radio waves, phone service, and cable companies provided in terms of innovation of services, and compare it against what has happened on the internet since about the mid 90's. That's the difference I'm talking about. Closed networks versus open networks.

Another way to think about it, and I'm pretty sure I got this from Susan Crawford, is that closed networks, like your cell phone provider, are optimized for billing, while the internet was optimized for innovation. That isn't a flippant comment about "greedy corporations". It's simply an observable fact about the different intent of the design of these networks. An observation that raises the question: is it okay if all networks end up closed or, knowing what we know now, should we make an effort to keep at least one network open?

I don't know what will happen in the future. I'm not making any predictions, but if you don't want the internet to turn into just another cable or cell phone service or quietly languish while it is demoted to a second class service by the service providers, you may want to keep an eye on policy developments, not just here in the U.S., but wherever in the world you may be. And I'd recommend that you pay attention not only to your government policies but also to the policies of your service providers. Those are just as important.

---

P.S. Susan Crawford's blog is a good place to stay abreast of U.S. communications policies as well as international internet policies.

P.P.S. Believe it or not, I tried to limit my comments. I also considered ranting about how policies developed around the limits of technology circa 1920 have hampered innovative developments in the use of the radio spectrum, but that's another topic. However, it is related to internet policy. So, I'll refer you to this Wired article about the upcoming auction of the UHF spectrum. The part of the spectrum that is being vacated by TV broadcasters (a horrible use of spectrum in my opinion) as they move to so-called digital broadcasting. Actually, the first paragraph of that article brings up a good point about the devices we use to connect to networks that I didn't even touch on.

If I Were a Simpsons Character

2007-07-01T20:28:00.000-06:00

I was visiting here and found out about the little create-an-avatar feature of the Simpsons Movie website. I decided to give it a shot, and this is what I came up with.

The only thing I added were the wire frame glasses. I thought about touching up some other things (like maybe a little more hair), but then I realized that this probably is how I would be rendered in the Simpsons world.

The funny thing is that I actually own a shirt similar to the one above. Only in the real world it is the mascot of the OpenBSD project.

Some Favorite Songs

2007-06-24T23:48:00.000-06:00

Despite the advent of downloadable music tracks, I am still a fan of albums. However, in this post I want to highlight some favorite songs that I've heard in recent years that stand up very well all on their own. It's highly likely that you'd be able to find these songs on one of the music download services (you know my current favorite).

In no particular order:

1) "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You" by Colin Hay from Men at Work fame. This is actually the song that made me decided to do a post like this. I've been listening to this song for a good long while now, and every time I hear it, it never fails to touch me. In fact, it's one of those rare songs that I try very hard not to interrupt once I've started to listen to it. It's a spare and intimate acoustic song with incredible sincerity. He's never explicit about what happened, and it is clear that he means what he says, but he's not singing to us. You have to hear it for yourself. If you go looking for this track, try to get the extended version from "Transcendental Highway" that's over 7 minutes long. There is a shorter track that contains the complete song, but the longer track has a little bonus ending that I really think adds something. [Update: Hmmm... Googling around for links and such has led me to discover that this song appears on the "Garden State" soundtrack. I haven't heard the soundtrack or watched the movie. So, I don't know what version of that song you'd get on that disc].

2) "Won't Give In" by the Finn Brothers. I was initially exposed to this song by issue #14 of Paste Magazine. It was actually in the DVD. So, I first heard this song by watching their video. Normally, I prefer to hear a song before watching a video because videos often have nothing to do with the song and can forever taint the experience. But in this case, I think the video compliments the song nicely. I don't know how other people will feel about the song, but there's a sentiment expressed in the chorus that resonates strongly with my own experience.

3) "Fisherman's Blues" by The Waterboys - An achy fiddle, a lamenting mandolin, and some full throated singing (and some great hollerin'). It's the only song that's ever made me feel, even for a moment, that I might want to be a fisherman. Anyway, it's a great song that absolutely revels in its tragic ways. The version I have came from the "Good Will Hunting" soundtrack, but it looks like the song was the title track for an album.

4) "Wish You Well" by Bernard Fanning. This was a another Paste Magazine introduction from issue #25. This song is a very upbeat and pumping and seems to be about forgiving and moving on despite being hurt and rejected. Who can't use a good theme song for times like that? Anyway, if you aren't smiling, bopping around, and singing along to the chorus while you listen to it, I would consider looking for your misplaced soul. You can hear a version of the song in the player on his myspace page.

5) "Song No. 6" by Ane Brun (with Ron Sexsmith). This song was also on the sampler CD for issue #25 of Paste Magzine (that was a particularly good issue). This is one of those rare, sweet love songs that don't make you cringe when you listen to it. I think that's partly because there is a duo singing to one another. So, the love isn't unrequited within the song. Also, it's not all coos and sighs, but has clever lyrics. It's good fun with just enough sincerity to make it legit. Neat! You can also hear this song on her myspace page.

This was fun for me. I might do this again. Maybe next time I'll try to make sure you can readily hear all the songs I'm talking about.

Sheldon

2007-06-19T07:03:00.000-06:00

I obviously enjoy the occasional comic strip. However, I no longer get my comics in the traditional, printed form. All the strips I read are accessible via the web like God intended. In fact, most of the strips I read aren't even syndicated. There's one in particular that started out syndicated but has since gone independent. I think the strip has actually become better since that change. Maybe that's just a coincidence, but I like to think that with the creator firmly in control of his creation that his creativity has been let loose.

Anyway, the strip I'm talking about is Sheldon by Dave Kellett. In particular, if you are a Star Trek fan, check out this strip and the next one.

Hey! His site has a feed. So, if you already use a feed reader, you can just subscribe to his feed and never miss a day.

The Earth Nativist Movement

2007-06-17T15:36:00.000-06:00

Just in case you thought this post was a joke, I provide you with photographic evidence that it is not. This is a picture of what my bumper used to look like. As you can see, it bears the mark of the previous owner's declaration of fealty to a hospital in New Mexico.

After some application of razor blades and rubbing alcohol, I managed to clear away the remains of that old sticker. In its place I give you the Earth Nativist Movement sticker.

Maybe I'm Amazed

2007-06-13T22:08:00.000-06:00

I'm once again delivering stale music news, but just in case you hadn't heard, Paul McCartney (Sir Paul McCartney?) has a new album called "Memory Almost Full". I haven't listened to it yet. However, I already consider it notable for one reason. The album is available on emusic. It might also be available for download elsewhere, but emusic provides DRM free mp3s. If an "old" school dude like McCartney can get on board with providing his music in customer friendly formats, I think that's a positive sign for the music industry as a whole. Hopefully it will pan out monetarily for him.

Maybe this event is more psychologically significant than actually significant, but it just seems like an indicator of the way things are going in the music world. You know, finally giving customers what they want. Yay!

Fishy Things II

2007-06-04T21:35:00.000-06:00

I'm sure you've been waiting for this with bated breath: more progress photos.

After working that clay into a form roughly like the stone, I proceeded to carve out something similar to what I have in mind for the final sculpture. This isn't exactly what I'm going for, but it is close enough. I seem to be drawn to the more stylized renderings. I don't know if it is because of time constaints or if it is just what I'm interested in. Probably both.

You'll notice the little blobs of my quick attempts at suggesting water plants on the sides of the fish. I'm thinking about doing that for two reasons. One, I want a solid base for the sculpture to stand up. (This may not be a big deal as the sculpture forms a pretty solid three point stand they way it curves.) Two, I'm a little worried about making the sculpture too thin towards the back end. I'm still pretty new at this stuff. So, we'll see what happens.

And in case you doubt my working method with the clay. Here's a picture of the fish along side all the clay that I removed in the process.

By the way, the clay I used above is a firm Klean Klay. It's the same clay I used while making the model for my bronze bas-relief. I pick this stuff up from Sculpture Depot since it's a short drive away.

The nice thing about this clay is you can work it easily, but it holds form very well. The down side is that it doesn't harden nor can you "bake" it in any fashion. I have used sculpey in the past, and I may return to it in the future. I mean, the Klean Klay models I've made hold up fine, but if you want to keep the model around for reference, like I do, and not simply make a mold or something out of it, you probably want a more durable form.

Anyway, after making the clay model, I of course worked on the stone.

I've just noticed that I may have been too close to the sculptures when I took the photos. They appear flatter in the images than the do in life. In my humble opinion, the fish form is really taking shape. It has a very pleasing curve at this point. I'm hoping to be able to keep that curve and accentuate it on the concave side. I'm also hoping to be able to accentuate it with a few other touches as I go.

I'm struggling a bit on the concave side as the grinder may not be the best tool to work on that side. In fact, the entire sculpture may not be ideal for just the grinder. I guess I'll see as I go.

Fishy Things

2007-05-31T21:53:00.000-06:00

I have been working on my fish sculpture. I have made some progress as you can see here.

I will probably change the shape of the head some more. Bring down the forehead a little and incline it more sharply so it isn't so rounded.

I'm struggling a bit with this one. This stone already has a very specific shape and it already feels like a fish. I fear the only thing I can possibly do is screw it up. I can see how I can utilize the shape, but I'm lacking confidence. Especially with the fins. So I've decided to try to model in clay where I can go with it.

In the past when I've done this, I found that I actually like to work the clay like I work stone. Take away and not build up. I mean, I'll add clay to build up an initial chunk, and I'll add clay if I go too far while removing something, but I feel best when I'm removing the clay to reveal the form rather than just trying to build it up. Sort of like problem solving how I might actually tackle the stone. Anyway, that's what I've done above. I created a (crude) model of my stone as it currently stands, and now I'll try to figure out how to make the most of it.

By the way, while I was working with the clay the other night, I was watching a terrific program on PBS called Craft in America. There was quite a bit of wonderful work on display in all manner of styles and media. Inspiring stuff. You should catch it if you're into that sort of thing.

My Fellow Earthicans

2007-05-30T01:02:00.000-06:00

UPDATE: It appears we have a winner: #2! As Nate said, "Yay for #2!" Interestingly (for me), when I first posted these candidates, I was initially thinking that #1 was the best (which didn't even get a single vote). Then after seeing all three of them together on the blog I started to think #3 was better, but primarly for the reason everyone mentioned: it's pretty. However, it is now clear that #2 is superior since it meets both criteria mentioned as well as being a subtle dig on that other loathed bumper sticker. I am convinced. Come to think of it, I like that the map in #2 doesn't quite stand out like the other two. It will require more attention from the viewer which will hopefully lead to the AH HA moment I'm looking for.

Thanks to everyone who voted. I'm off to get some stickers made.

Original Post

After moving to Colorado, one of the first things I noticed were the occasional "NATIVE" bumper stickers like the one displayed here. Not being "NATIVE" to anyplace other than the U.S., I tend to take these particular bumper sticker statements a little more seriously than I know I should. It just bugs me that somebody who happened to be born in this state or can perhaps trace their family back a couple of generations thinks they are somehow better than the rest of us filthy new comers coming here improving the economy like a bunch of lousy so-and-sos.

I know these bumper stickers aren't all the frequent these days, and I'm sure the people who bother to put these bumper stickers on their cars actually mean it in a joking way or more in the silly, possessive way people will make sure you know they were into something before you were. However, as anonymous statements on the rear end of cars, they don't quite come off that way. Especially if you happen to be the non-native.

Anyway, I have an inclination to want to stamp out all the useless, needlessly divisive tribal allegiances I come across. I prefer to be as inclusive as I can. I claim all of humanity as my tribe. We're all natives of earth. I'm sure my attitude is just a defensive mechanism to avoid being rejected (or whatever dismissive rationale you wish to apply). Of course, it doesn't work very well for that end since as far as I can tell most people don't feel the way I do.

Regardless, I too wish to wear my heart on my bumper just like the Colorado nativist movement, but I can't seem to find an appropriately designed bumper sticker. So, I came up with my own. I'm attempting to match the feel of the other bumper sticker as much as possible to make it clear that I'm poking fun at stupid bumper stickers, but at the same time I want to make clear my own position.

So, I need your help, friends and family. Help me choose which bumper sticker I will place on my vehicle. You can vote in the comments or email me. I know these designs leave a little to be desired, and if I was willing to spend more time than what I already have, I would probably try to fix them, but these are the finalists.

Number 1:

Number 2:

Number 3:

I already have my own opinion, but I don't want to bias your own. I'm not necessarily looking for the prettiest image. I'm looking for the image that reads most readily. So, it needs to do two things. 1) Scream WORLD MAP! and 2) NATIVE needs to be legible from a large distance. I think if the sticker can do those two things, then it will probably get my view across while simultaneously giving the hand gesture of their choice to all those native Colorado bumper sticker people out there.

So, what say you, people of earth? Which of these stickers works to those ends?

A Little Quarrel

2007-05-24T21:49:00.001-06:00

He who quarrels with himself will never lack for a dispute.

That doodle above is an illustration of a fight I had with myself. I thought I made some good points early on. But in the end I became frustrated and shamefully resorted to name calling. Eventually I had to just agree to disagree with myself.

My red pen finally ran out of ink. Anyway, I'm working on more substantial things, but this will have to tide me over for a bit.

Short Stories are the Best Stories

2007-05-21T22:25:00.001-06:00

I was going to post this later, but I didn't want the previous post to be the first thing on my blog for very long. Even though I only linked to a trailer, and even thought I don't think we should be afraid to explore topics (especially in stories), there are some things I don't necessarily want to dwell on either.

I don't know if I really believe that short stories are better than all other stories in some absolute sense, but I really do appreciate short stories. Perhaps it is the focus? (Not to keep harping on that.)

Anyway, I found a cute short story that I would like to share. I hope you enjoy it. Notice how much is not said in this story. Of course, this time the author expects you to already know what he is referring to. It's useful to have a shared context with your audience.

Focus in Stories

2007-05-21T21:02:00.000-06:00

I was reading this post about elements of story. In particular, how much you can leave unstated while telling a story. I consider this a variation of focus (something the writers of Spider-Man 3 should have really worked on). For many of our media today like movies, TV, and other short form story telling, focus must be nearly relentless. Decide what your story is about and strip away everything that doesn't serve to tell it.

Of course, leaving some things suggested or mysterious can also be a powerful way of drawing an audience in. Your brain will latch on to the mystery and mull it over. So, it's not just about focus. But mystery in a story can only take you so far. I admit that whole TV series have been based entirely on mysteries (e.g. X-Files, The Pretender, Lost, etc.). In the end, if all you have is mystery with no forward progress, the story is likely to be unsatisfying because, well, there isn't a story. All you have is a fictionalized mystery.

Anyway, I realize I'm being vague. Maybe I'll expand more on that some other time should I ever feel sufficiently proficient in story telling. What I really want to point to is this trailer for "Day Night Day Night" linked to in the aforementioned post. It's just a trailer, but it suggests the movie has a relentless and intense focus and probably hasn't bothered to explain the whole context.

One thing about leaving something unstated is that sometimes it's not meant to really be mysterious. Sometimes the story writer knows you will readily fill in your own experiences or fears. In fact, leaving something unstated can actually make it more powerful because of that. You don't know what it is, but you can't help but fill in the blank with your own personal demons.

P.S. Honestly, the trailer made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Considering the nature of the film, I don't know if I'll want to see it when it does arrive. Horror movies don't scare me. They just turn my stomach, and I usually don't bother watching them. But movies like what "Day Night Day Night" seems to be like can be very unsettling. They're the stuff of my nightmares. Imaginary monsters don't scare me. What people are capable of doing scares me. Having said that, I would probably see it given the chance. I don't believe we should be afraid to examine these sorts of topics. That gives them more power over us than they deserve.

Steve Canyon

2007-05-16T22:33:00.000-06:00

In the days before TV dominated all media, a newspaper's comics pages used to have a pretty good representation of genres. It wasn't all a gag a day or the occasional long form drama. Among other things, there was also adventure comics. Well the adventure is back, baby! Sorta.

The adventure I'm referring to is not actually on the printed comics page. A site called Humorous Maximus is "reprinting" the Steve Canyon series a day at a time as it originally appeared. They started reprinting the series sometime in January of this year. Apparently the starting date was the 50th anniversary of the original beginning of Steve Canyon. You can get more information about the long running comic here.

I'm not familiar with the comic myself. I know that Steve Canyon was well known and well regarded in its time. I've read a little bit of the series that they've revealed on the site, and I've enjoyed what I've seen. Considering the limitations of the comics form, Caniff seems to have done an excellent job moving the story forward without losing the thread. His drawing and inking style is effective as well, but I have to wonder if people actually ever talked like his characters do. The dialogue seems highly exaggerated, but it is entertaining. Anyway, if you like such things, don't miss it.

Madame Tutli Putli

2007-05-15T21:44:00.000-06:00

If you're interested in stop motion animation, you should check out this trailer for a recently completed short film called "Madame Tutli Putli".

I found the trailer from this post on the Drawn! blog. There's more information on the official Madame Tutli Putli site.

If you watched the trailer, you may have noticed something striking about the character. The thing that stood out for me were the eyes. They looked too human. Sure enough if you look here you'll see that they have combined real actors with the stop motion animation. Pretty cool. That will really add an extra element of life to the animation.

I don't know if the story is going to be any good, but too bad films like this (especially ones five years in the making) get very little distribution outside of film festival circles and the occasional DVD. I wish they'd show short films prior to the main feature when you go to the movies, but apparently cramming more advertising and trailers is more profitable. Too bad. Short films can be quite wonderful, but we don't have many venues for them.

P.S. This is off topic, but since we're talking about advertising: Anybody notice that DVDs increasingly have more advertising sections that lock you out and prevent you from skipping them? That's a nice way to treat your paying customers. This makes me wonder who owns my DVD player (I know I shouldn't be so naive). This particular feature (and its abuse) is part of what has led me to mostly stop buying DVDs. It's also part of the reason why I'm not going to bother to upgrade to HD-DVD or Blu-Ray. I don't like being treated like a chump. I hope someday I get to meet some of the people who either made the decision to incorporate this control lockout feature into the DVD spec or who decided to use it. I will heap scorn and insults on them. I will try to refrain from kicking them in the balls. ;-)

A Boy and His Stone

2007-05-12T16:48:00.000-06:00

I'm continuing my stone carving education by taking a power tools class. I'll be using an angle grinder primarily. I just had my first class today. Using the angle grinder is definitely different from using just hammer and chisel. For one thing, you can remove material much more quickly. About as quickly as using a cold knife on cold butter. Which is pretty fast if you think about the fact that the butter in this case is actually stone. It works quickly enough that I need to plan more carefully. The other aspect is just the fact that the broad spinning disk is just different, dang it, from using a variety of pointy chisels.

Anyway, I had a couple of spare stones to work with. I had intended to use them as experimental pieces. So, I'm not even sure how good the stones actually are. I chose this one just because it is so interesting.

After initially toying with some other ideas, I've decided that it will be a fish. Probably modeled after a koi. I've always liked koi. They have an aspect of grace and peace about them. The gray stone won't do the koi's color justice, but that's alright. I'm going for form. I don't know if I'll be able to pull off the graceful curve I'm looking for (not to mention the fins), but we'll see. And besides, as the fortune in the cookie says:

I live my life by these fortunes.

This is me at the end of the first day. Can you believe that shirt started out black? Oh... Alright, alright... I'm lying. It was beige to start with, but it is holding about a pound of stone dust in its fibers.

As you can see, we are practicing proper safety procedures in this class: safety goggles, respirator, and ear plugs. That bench I'm leaning against was designed (and mostly built) by one of the previous students who is skilled in carpentry. It's a good little bench. We built several of them, and I have one just like it that I use at home.

Mountain Views

2007-05-11T17:35:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd push that ugly picture of my van's dash out of the main page of my blog. This is a picture of what I see when I step out my front door today. It's a hazy day. So, it's not the best picture. But I guess I can see why people like it here. This really wasn't the reason I came here. Having grown up in the mountain states, I tend to take all this grandeur for granted. My loss.

I have to say that I was disappointed with sunsets when I moved here (that mountain is to the west of me). It's hard to compete with the sunsets of New Mexico. Especially the sunlight filtered through a gypsum haze (Yo, Alamo, what's up?!). However, the place I currently live has given me unencumbered views of that mountain, and I've learned that there is more to a sunset than pretty colors. Given the right cloud cover, that mountain produces dramatic scenes. I'll try to capture one before the summer is out.

What the heck. Here's another doodle in ArtRage. I hadn't intended to draw a werewolf. I simply started by drawing a stick form (which you can still see), and somehow the werewolf came to mind. I'm trying to carve out more time for this sort of thing.

Now I need to try my hand at finishing some of these. My doodle's tend to look better than my finished jobs. Oh well. Practice make perfect, and the cool thing with all this digital technology is that it is so easy to save these images and use them as reference. In the bad ol' days, I had to use a light table which tended to limit what I could render on to only what I could shine a light through. And forget about the despair involved in spilling ink all over a piece. Anyway, enough about the dark ages.

This is an ArtRage!

2007-05-08T22:40:00.000-06:00

You may have noticed I am playing with some things like scanners, hammers, chisels, clay, and cameras. I suppose people of a certain bent would identify a theme there and attempt to reduce my activities to a word or two, but I'm not one of those sorts of people. I refuse to acknowledge any such theme. There is no unifying thread in this blog other than I'm writing all these posts.

However, if I were the type of person who attempts to reduce everything to some sort of identified pattern so that it can be quickly dismissed out of hand, I would probably recognize a continuation of the purported theme with this: ArtRage. I've been playing with that program recently. I've only had a little bit of time to use it, but I like what I've seen so far.

In a nutshell, ArtRage is an art materials simulator. In other words, you can create images with your computer using methods very similar to painting and drawing. It goes so far as to attempt to simulate things like paint drying (insert joke here), the type of material your canvas is made of, how different material blend and mix together, and how much paint you have loaded on your "brush". It seems to do an admirable job at these things. A person with experience working in physical media would probably be initially frustrated since you don't get all the normal sensory feedback, but if they gave it a chance, I think they would quickly adjust to the program. A person with no experience working in physical media may also be initially frustrated (at least with the more esoteric features of the various media), but I think they could also quickly adapt.

Keep in mind that the program is strictly a painting/drawing program. It doesn't bother with frivolous things like region selections or box/circle/line drawing tools. It's not a pixel perfect image editor. There's not even a way to type text. The program is solely focused on mimicking traditional methods. The only computer-like features ArtRage gives you while working on your images are undo/redo, layers, and a surprisingly useful reference photo pin up feature. You won't be using this program to create diagrams for your next business meeting or touching up your photos, but that's not what it is for.

While Ambient Design has put a lot of effort into simulating the various materials, it is still possible to tweak the various media and materials to achieve not-so-traditional effects if that is what you want. I just throw that out there for those of you who might find the idea of a true simulator a little daunting.

To give just the most bare minimum taste of what this program can do, I've uploaded a very rough sketch I drew in a minute or so using the pencil and paper capabilities of ArtRage. When I say a minute, I'm not bragging about my skills (I am so not bragging). I just want to emphasize how simple it was for me to just pick up and use. Other than using a tablet (more on that in a second), creating this rough sketch was about as close as you can get to feeling like drawing on paper while working with a computer.

If I hadn't told you I had drawn that directly in ArtRage, you probably would have assumed it was a scanned image of a real world pencil and paper sketch.

The above picture is a screenshot of the ArtRage application window. You can see the reference picture feature in action. I placed a self-portrait (also created in ArtRage) in the upper left-hand corner while I worked on a crummy cartoon self-portrait. The long window hovering in the center shows the other layers that I had created. The only thing you can't see is the color picker which I tucked away in the right hand corner.

The interface is a little off-putting at first if you are used to applications looking a certain way, but I think Ambient Design has done an excellent job with the design and implementation. Most features are accessible from the application window and the little sub windows. You can work quite efficiently within the screen and never have to give things too much thought or jump to the menu. Which is exactly what you want while you are deep in throes of artistic passion. By the way, all the hovering windows you see are smart. If you are drawing on the canvas, and you approach one of the windows, they will instantly disappear to get out of the way.

I've played with some of the other media that ArtRage supplies, but I only did so with an eye for achieving other effects. So, I can't comment on how well the paint simulation appears to work. However, other people have stated they like the paint media ArtRage provides even better than its pencils.

ArtRage provides a complete little art studio in your computer for only $20, and you don't ever have to clean up when you're done! In fact, it's probably the best little painting software you can buy at that price (it's certainly the most fun). To get more features and capabilities with competing programs will likely require you to drop at least five times that amount (most likely ten times that amount). So, what's not to like?

The only downside to ArtRage isn't really the fault of ArtRage. To really get the most of this program, you will want to have a graphics tablet (or maybe a tablet PC). You can use all the features of ArtRage with a mouse, but you will lose the pressure sensitivity that a tablet provides that makes painting programs work as well as they do. You can adjust the default sensitivity for the mouse, but the ArtRage experience won't be as smooth.

Of course, if all you have is a mouse, and you really want a program like ArtRage. Go for it. There's a free preview, and if you like it, it's $20! I'm sure you've spent more money on other occasions and received much less in return. If you already have a tablet, you should give ArtRage a spin. At the very least it will provide a nice break from all the expensive tools you are probably already using.

By the way, that little self-portrait I've just installed as my user profile picture was drawn using ArtRage. The fact that it appears like something you might see while watching America's Most Wanted (insert joke here) is not the fault of ArtRage.

Here's some examples of what an experienced artist can do with ArtRage.

Here's a review that compares ArtRage to a more expensive alternative.

And one more link to ArtRage itself.

A Softer World

2007-05-06T19:49:00.000-06:00

I'll try to refrain from turning this blog into some sort of link dump. Don't get me wrong, there's plenty of cool, link-worthy things out there. But I'm trying to be somewhat selective with what I link. I want to only pick things that I think may actually be worth your time to look at should you be so inclined. (I'm just creating artificial scarcity so that you find my links more valuable than they rally are. Wait. Did I just blog that out loud? Crud.)

Anyway, I had linked to this particular site earlier (over on the right), but took it down shortly after. However, I think this particular panel is definitely worth a small amount of your time. Don't forget to hover your mouse over the image for even more fun! It's a good way to start your week.

I like A Softer World's dark humor, but it may not be to everyone's taste. You should feel free to try some of their other stuff, but be prepared. It ain't all puppies and kittens. Sometimes it's zombies!

Scanner Doodles

2007-05-03T21:28:00.000-06:00

Despite my long career as a Human Resource what works with computers and such, I have lost touch with the price/value ratio of pretty much all computers and accessories. I just lost enthusiasm for tracking that crap a long time ago.

However, I was recently in the market for a scanner. So, I started looking around and was completely surprised that many scanners are well under $100. Heck, some laser printers were $99 at the brick and mortar stores. Toner cartridges used to cost twice that! (A friend has pointed out that some still are which reveals a bit more than any of us want to know about certain business practices.)

But I wasn't looking for a printer. Just a scanner. They did have some combo units (scanner, printer, etc.) at the $100 price point, but I decided to just focus on what I wanted to get right now: a scanner.

I came across the CanoScan LiDE70 which you can find selling from $70 to $90. It's just a scanner and it doesn't require yet another power brick. It is powered from the USB bus.

I picked one up. I haven't used it much, but it seems to work well and fast (compared to my experience with previous generation models). The main beef I have with it right now is that it generates a highly annoying whine while it scans. Luckily I'm not scanning tons of documents, but if I knew it was going to sound like it does, I would have seriously considered another model (maybe the HP G3010).

I didn't mean this to sound like a review or anything. I haven't used that scanner enough to call it good or bad. I just wanted to express my astonishment of how inexpensive some technologies have become. I suppose it was inevitable, and certainly moving all manufacturing overseas seems to have paid off. Hopefully inexpensive does not mean shoddy in this case.

Anyway, when I need to take a mental break from my work as a Human Resource, you can often find me "mindlessly" filling pages of graph paper with doodles. Lately I've been using a red micro rollerball pen from Uniball that seems to be slowly running out of ink. The doodles are often tiny (I guess I'm trying to be inconspicuous), but here's a couple of silly examples of what my new scanner can pick up.

The grid, if you can make it out, is spaced at centimeter intervals. Teeny-tiny.

Lawrence Northey

2007-05-03T21:15:00.000-06:00

The image to the left is a sculpture by Lawrence Northey. I've seen his work presented in the Spectrum annual. I've always enjoyed his works when I've seen them in print. I've yet to see them in person, but his works are clearly imaginative and whimsical.

Anyway, I hadn't thought about his work in a while, but Charley Parker of Lines and Colors (one of my favorite blogs) recently posted some good comments which made me realize you guys may also be interested. I won't say any more since Mr. Parker has already said it better than I would have. Check 'em out.

In progress

2007-05-02T20:50:00.000-06:00

I've been working on another sculpture for a while now. Actually, this is the second time I've started this particular sculpture. The first time didn't quite work out.

I made the mistake of making my clay model larger than the stone I was going to sculpt. Oops! Somehow I find scaling something down harder than scaling something up. Additionally, the stone had a nasty flaw that prevented me from continuing with my original idea.

In the end, I think the mistakes and the flaws were for the best. The sculpture really wanted to be larger than it would have been with the first stone. I picked up a larger stone and started again. Things have gone much better.

I don't want to reveal it all just yet. So, here's just a taste.

More to come.

Feist - Somebody else said it better

2007-05-01T20:00:00.000-06:00

Man, I wasted a lot of words in my own post about Feist. Jeffrey Rowland really hits the nail on the head.

"New Feist album is out today! If it's half as good as her last one it'll still be three times better than the average album. Feist is not one of those musicians who just makes as many notes as possible all willy-nilly and calls it is a song. She also doesn't make songs where she just speaks loudly and crudely about cars that cost more than houses and compulsory, frequent coitus with numerous, anonymous partners. Feist places each note exactly where it is supposed to go and sings like an angel with a new puppy."

Exactly!

You can see the full post here (which doesn't discuss Feist any further), but only click that link if you aren't bothered by comics that discuss internet addiction while simultaneously implying a murder on a golf course. I can't believe I just wrote that sentence.

I Hate Cars

2007-05-01T19:19:00.000-06:00

Do you want to see something gross? Too late:

OK. So, it's not really gross. I just figured I'd let you guys laugh at the consequences of my intransigent refusal to buy a new car. The above picture is what I currently see when I'm in the driver's seat of my van. Don't worry. It'll probably be fixed tomorrow. I'd tell you the rest of the story involving broken speedometer cables (followed by broken speedometer head), u-joints, and power steering pump hoses that required machining because they no longer make the parts, but I've already bored you.

Maybe this is finally the last major repair I have done to the beast. Maybe it really is time to blow a wad of cash on a future POS.

Man, I hate cars.

Not Your Father's Car

2007-04-29T21:34:00.001-06:00

I know this was news a couple of weeks ago, but I still want to bring it to your attention just in case you missed it. The same people who brought us the Ansari X Prize are now bringing us the Automotive X Prize. The idea is to try to spur development of a commercially viable 100 MPG car.

I think that is awesome! I love creative ideas for trying to promote innovation. The X Prize for the rocket was cool and all, but this Automotive X Prize has the real possibility of impacting all our lives in the near future not just the lives of billionaires and hundred millionaires. The more ideas we can get for this and other problems, the better off we will be.

However, while looking at ways to improve existing transportation methods, I hope we are also able to spur a diverse marketplace of automotive technologies. Too many people seem to be looking for a silver bullet solution to our traffic woes and our gasoline dependence. For example, the "hydrogen economy" was all the rage at the water cooler a while back. Well, the water cooler where I work anyway.

I think this narrow view (at least here in the US) is caused by the fact that we've basically had one solution our whole lives: gasoline powered automobiles. We're so dependent on these things, that almost any city that has seen significant growth since the '40s has a design that basically only accommodates cars and is hostile to any other form of transportation including pedestrians. So, when we think of solutions, we tend to think that there must be just one solution when in fact there are many solutions to our problem. At least, I'd like to think so.

I'd like to see a true marketplace for transportation. Not just a marketplace for conventional cars and trucks and sometimes motorcycles. I'd like to see whole new categories of automobiles and cities that accommodate them. So, with that segue, did you hear that the Smart Car is coming to the US next year? I'm keeping my eye on that.

Feist - Let It Die

2007-04-29T15:22:00.000-06:00

I'm a little late to the party with this particular "review". Let It Die has a copyright date of 2005, and while it doesn't feel like it was that long ago since I first became aware of Leslie Feist's music, it probably has been two years. Time flies...

When I first heard Feist, I was initially attracted, but somehow she failed to capture my heart and mind enough for me to put down the cash. But I admit that my own moods can affect my perceptions about new music, and after two years, I finally came around and picked up Let It Die.

You may have heard "Mushaboom" and "Secret Heart" on standard commercial radio, and if you listen to the excellent World Cafe, you've had multiple opportunities to hear more of the music off this album.

Most of the tracks on Let It Die have a spare and open arrangement. Feist's voice takes center stage. She's not a loud singer, but her voice is steady and clear and effective (and probably stronger than it seems). Combining the minimal music with her distinctive voice creates a somewhat intimate listening experience. This is especially true when using headphones. The music wouldn't be out of place in a small room with a handful of appreciative listeners.

A few of the songs remind me of something you might have heard on the radio in the seventies. "One Evening" and "Inside and Out" especially give me that feeling. Looking at the liner notes reveals that "Inside and Out" is a Bee Gees cover. I suppose that explains that song and some of her apparent influences. I have to admit that the seventies influence I detected two years ago prevented me from really giving her music a chance. I got over it.

I think "When I Was a Young Girl" is my favorite track on Let It Die. Oddly enough it is a traditional song but may be the most rhythmically complex on the CD. Feist also gives one of her stronger performances with that song. Her singing is more full throated and emotional.

Anyway, I obviously like Let It Die. So, I'm sharing as much as I can with you using my meager writing abilities. But there is also an intentional coincidence in the timing of this post. Feist is coming out with a new CD called The Reminder that should be available starting in May. Just a heads-up.

Feist has an offical homepage with some music samples. I always hesitate to send people to MySpace since it is one of the ugliest places on the web and people seem to be busy doing things I don't fully understand (I'm probably too old). However, musicians have been using it effectively. I guess it can't be all bad. Here's her MySpace page with more music samples and the like. Just be careful where you click.

Before Boardacious

2007-04-26T19:55:00.001-06:00

In my previous post, I showed off "Boardacious" pretty much in his final form. He still needs polishing, but I'm very unlikely to shape him much more. However, I thought you might like to see "Boardacious" before he was as boardacious as he became. I dug up some pictures that I took with my first camera. I didn't document the whole process, but there's enough here to give you an idea of how things went.

So, I'll start this story in the middle to keep it short. About 13 to 14 billion years after the universe appears to have expanded from nothing, the universe eventually got around to producing a big chunk of what we call alabaster and deposited it in the Colorado foothills around Ft. Collins. It was there that a fellow with a front loader dug out a big chunk of alabaster and dragged it back to his storefront. It was as this storefront where I, stumbling around unsure of myself, spotted a particular piece of the original chunk that looked like it would be suitable for what I had in mind. Although I was uncertain of my own vision, I could see its potential.

I humbly, and probably too cautiously, hammered away at this stone and produced what could surely be called a smaller stone.

I eventually began to make noticeable progress. Success or failure felt equally likely at this point. After the ten thousandth hammer blow, my neighbors were voting for failure.

Eventually I did finish as you can see here.

The third image above above shows the setup I used while working in my previous apartment. I crafted a crude dust barrier from PVC tubing and plastic sheets you might normally use as a painter's drop sheet. The PVC barrier was a little taller than I am and when I worked, I arranged them around the opening to my open balcony and draped the plastic sheets over them and along the floor. My carving stand went in the middle on top of the plastic. Once everything including myself was inside the wrap around barrier, I closed it off except for the balcony. I also placed a fan on the floor blowing out through the balcony door. That kept any floating dust moving outside instead of into the apartment. In the third picture you can't see the fan nor the pumping techno music that's playing.

Remarkably it worked pretty well. I only had a little bit of dust outside the barrier, and I think that happened mostly when I took down the plastic sheets. I was surprised that I didn't actually get any complaints from the neighbors while I worked. I know they heard me because somebody commented on it when they saw me moving out. I did try to stop work before prime time. I'm sure that helped.

Here's a more complete picture of the barrier.

You still can't see the pumping techno...

Boardacious

2007-04-25T21:16:00.000-06:00

I think you guys may have already seen this guy, but I just picked up a better camera today. So, I'm takin' pictures! Part of the reason I started this blog was to satisfy the ever increasing demand for pictures on the internet. I feel I need to do my part. I don't want the internet to run out of pictures.

To start, I've taken one of my sculptures and posed it on one of my finest black t-shirts.

You probably noticed that I still need to polish him. I will. You know, later, man.

As the title of this blog states, his name is "Boardacious". That clever name was my sister Dina's idea. I'm not nearly so clever nor concise. The best I came up with is "Totem" which is more a dictionary definition than a title. And while it is concise, it is hardly clever. So, thanks, Dina!

Here we see a close up of his mug.

So, I realize the sculpture leaves something to be desired. But the truth is that he came out much like I wanted him to. I wanted a totem like feel. Not something that looked like an actual boar, but something of an idealized version of the boar. He's meant to be a symbol. I mean, would you look at the size of those tusks! I wanted something with a sense of power and direction. I think I achieved some of that, but I still feel it could have more umph.

Since he actually came out much like I planned, all his failings can be attributed to where I set my sights when I started out. I think there is a life lesson in there for all of us. [Cue cheezy music]

Also, as this was my first stone sculpture, I learned something else. I actually attempted to design something easy (something I was sure I could complete). While he was easy to draw, I discovered that large spherical and conical shapes are actually tough to form. Their symmetry makes all flaws obvious! So, that head of his has a lot more time and effort into it than you may think. Additionally, the whole design was symmetrical. That symmetry made things tough. You can end up disappointed because the stone may not entirely cooperate (it didn't in this case).

Of course, maybe I just need to get smarter about how to pick my stone.

Specs: Colorado Alabaster carved with hand tools.

Picture

2007-04-25T16:44:00.000-06:00

This is just a test upload from a device that is not my main computer. The picture is the view above my desk at home. His picture was taken with the same device (Nokia N800). I´m thinking about trying to use the N800 portable computer should I ever actually take a trip someplace. Hopefully, it won´t just be an expensive toy. Since I´m here, here´s a review of the N800.

Update: By the way, I should mention that the above sculpture is a creation of Sandra Lira.

Books in your email or feed reader

2007-04-25T10:21:00.000-06:00

I think I saw a reference to this the other day but ignored it at first. I saw another reference today and decided to take a closer look. There's a service that will send you small sections of books in your email or through a syndication feed (you can set the frequency). It's called DailyLit. It seems like a neat little service and a way to stay disciplined about reading a book if you already spend a lot of time sitting at a computer. Of course, maybe this isn't a good thing if you're trying to spend less time at the computer.

I already read way too much, but I've signed up to receive War of the Worlds through a syndication feed. They not only have books whose copyrights have expired, but they are also adding books that are offered through Creative Commons licenses. The syndication feed only had one small "sponsored" link at the bottom to buy the book at Amazon. If you're worried about giving away your email address, I'd recommend using the syndication feed.

Birds and the...

2007-04-24T12:28:00.000-06:00

You've probably already heard some news stories about the apparently alarming disappearance and decline of bee colonies, but have you heard any news stories that weren't delivered in the usual breathlessly sensationalistic manner? You know, quotes from Einstein describing how humanity will perish within four years if honey bees suddenly disappeared? Some simultaneously wild and vague numbers of decline like "25 to 75 percent" of all bee colonies are gone? What useless news reporting.

Anyway, I did find some good coverage of this story here if you are interested. The biggest take away is that people are all over this problem. Which isn't to say that it is something to ignore, but at least it seems the right people are tackling the issue.

Rodrigo y Gabriela

2007-04-22T15:12:00.000-06:00

On Saturday morning, there was a segment on NPR about a guitar duo that perform as Rodrigo y Gabriela. They apparently have been performing for a while starting out in a Mexican heavy metal band, but eventually they left that band and started busking in Ireland playing acoustic guitars. Considering their musical tastes, it shouldn't be too surprising that they used to perform acoustic versions of heavy metal tunes.

I found their story and music samples too tempting to pass up. I discovered that Emusic carries them. Since I subscribe to that service (and had downloads available), I snapped them up. I've been listening to them quite a bit since then. I'm not a music expert. I'm just an enthusiast. I find their playing to be expressive, passionate, and more than proficient. I'm sure an expert on acoustic guitar would find faults (how nice for you) or not compare them favorably to traditional flamenco (or whatever). All I know is that they rock, and I find their playing exciting and interesting.

In reference to their musical roots, they have two covers on their album: "Orion" (Metallica) and "Stairway to Heaven" (Led Zeppelin). I enjoy their cover versions, but I have to agree with others in that I find their original material much more powerful and recommend the album based on that material. As a bonus for the guitar players in the audience, the CD appears to be packaged with a DVD that contains (among other things) a tutorial on their method of playing.

Links: Amazon, Emusic, NPR

Catching Up to the Present

2007-04-21T23:22:00.000-06:00

I've noticed that this blogging thing has been all the rage for a while (on the internet at any rate). It does seem like a handy way to keep people abreast of various goings-on. And then once I saw that even my folks have a blog, I finally decided to join in.

This is obviously a personal blog, but being the sort of person I am, it is unlikely to be too personal. That's all I'm prepared to say at this point. Let the blogging commence!