Escape from Portland

Happy holidays one and all!

I'd like to share with you the tale of my escape from Portland.

Between Friday and Sunday 8~10 inches of snow fell on Portland, royally screwing things up. The cold killed off my already weak car battery leaving me in the hands of public transit for getting around. Sunday this was fine, but on Monday, an hour after I arrived at work, service on my route was cancelled. In order to get home, I had to take a bus that got me within a mile of my house, and then hiked the rest of the way home.

The snow was deep. (And largely non-shovelled and non-compressed.)



Tuesday the snow had stopped falling, but the roads were still covered in snow. My bus route was still cancelled. Airport shuttles were not running, and taxis would only pick you up if you were medical personnel trying to get to a hospital.



Tuesday also happened to be the day I was flying out. This lack of easy transit nearly had me thinking I was going to have to hike to the airport, which would have...well, it would have sucked hard, and probably would have kept me from leaving. After some serious research into the status of various bus and MAX lines, I eventually found a way to get to the airport.

It took a half mile snow hike (with luggage), a bus down Lombard to the MAX yellow line, a shuttle that was running to supplement the yellow line because the switches were frozen, two more MAX lines (blue to Gateway, Red to the airport) and a total of two hours to get to the airport.

Thankfully I gave myself 7 hours to get from my house to catch my flight, so I still had 5 hours to kill. Also working in my favor: I wasn't the only one who had a hard time getting to the airport.



Because of this... shall we say... shabby attendance, I managed to get on standby for an earlier flight, and despite the fact that people had been able to fly out of Portland for the three days prior, I managed to get on the flight, and arrive in San Francisco an hour before my original flight was scheduled to leave.



Which was great... since when I later checked my flight, it got delayed three and a half hours.

Tweet.

Have I mentioned that I've succumb to twitter?

...Well, I have.

Oh internet (Tim Biskup)

I love how often the internet seems to bring me to great coincidences.

A link from Diesel Sweeties brought me to this episode of BoingBoing TV which features a studio visit with Tim Biskup.



This got me looking at Biskup's work, which I love. (His texturing and simplistic shapes remind me a lot of another painter who's work I love: Shag. Gotta love artists with similar influences!)

I particularly like his pieces with his recurring character Helper. In the studio visit he describes Helper as "this conflicted deamon" and I think he does an amazing job capturing that.



Then, after drooling over various pieces, and wishing I could afford large prints by awesome people, I came across this photo a friend put up on facebook.



That's right, Colin Williams has a Helper star. How sweet is that?

I Saw You

Hey Dustin, have you seen this book? Could be interesting to see how someone else approached a similar topic.

For those of you that don't know Dustin and his work, lately he's been doing a series of animations based on local missed connections ads. They're pretty sweet.


Thanks for All the Snuggletimes (work-in-progress)

Snowed In

A considerable amount of snow fell today (no idea the actual depth) so I bunkered down at home and watched a bunch of movies I had yet to see. (Can you believe I hadn't seen 40 year old virgin before now?)

I also disassembled semaphore-bot v2.0 and built a robot arm out of its servos, aluminum rods, and rubber bands. It's got 3 points of articulation, but currently no hand. Unfortunately my arduino is in my studio at the stag. ... so it's not currently running.

Quick Illustration

I haven't one any drawing in a few months, but tonight the urge hit me. So I sat down and drew this up.



Definitely got what I was going for, but I really want to see this printed large, as part of a series.

Gel Remote

I've seen this thing before, but all the information about it had been in Japanese. Good to see it making the rounds on the internet in English.

Once you get past the initial "I wonder if they ever used that tech in a sex toy" impulses (who said that? ...not me...no sir), there's still a lot of interesting things going on with that remote.

[via Make] [via NextNature] [via The Popular Uncanny]

(Normally I only link to the first site I read it on, but this trail is great because The Popular Uncanny has info on another project from that show: fruit skinned juice boxes)

Belgian Endive

Finally found a grocer in portland that sells belgian endive (Trader Joes) so I made some yesterday, stuffed with blue cheese, wrapped in prosciutto and puff pastry.



It came out perfect, but really, this is a dish that's next to impossible to mess up.

The Recipe
Thaw 1 sheet of puff pastry and cut it into quarters.

Roll one of the quarters large enough to completely wrap around your endive.

Place enough prosciutto to completely wrap your endive on the puff pastry. (Honestly, deli ham works just as well, I just happened to go with prosciutto this time)

Take your endive and core it (I use a pairing knife for this, just basically sticking it in the bottom and twisting it around)

Stuff the hole with blue cheese.

Crumble some more blue cheese on the proscuitto, because lets face it: blue cheese is good, especially baked.

Place your endive ontop of the proscuitto, and wrap the whole thing up, sealing the puff pastry.

Bake @350 for ~45 minutes, or until golden brown.

Caution: Baking the endive causes it to release a lot of steam, which is trapped by the pastry. When you first cut into this thing, give it a minute or so to cool before biting into it, or you'll find yourself doing a serious reverse blow.

Enjoy!

California Love

Really diggin' this piece from french animation school Gobelins.



I love the cell-shaded, stylized 3d work, but more than that I love the little details that set the time period without ever explicitly stating them. The game boy, the flannel, and best of all the Los Angeles Raiders hat. The Raiders were in LA from '82-'94, the game boy was released in North America in '89, and flannel: total staple of the early '90s wardrobe. Excellent!

Female posturing makes me cringe a little... Those poor spines.

[Via NOTCOT]

I've noticed...

NPH + Singing always equals awesome.

Prop 8 the musical is no exception.

"Prop 8 - The Musical" starring Jack Black, John C. Reilly, NPH and many more... by Jack Black

[Via WWdN: In Exile]

Cornish Game Hen

Made a cornish game hen with parmesan rice stuffing tonight. The hen came out alright, but the stuffing was AMAZING.

You should be warned: I don't really measure when I cook. (Baking, yes, but cooking, not so much.) So all these measurements are estimates.




The Stuffing
Melt 1/4 cup butter in a sauce pan.
Saute 1/2 chopped onion
Add half a cup rice
~1 cup white wine
~1 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
Let simmer until the rice is fully cooked.




Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
Rub the hen inside and out with olive oil.
Mix together equal parts salt, pepper, cinnamon, basil and garlic powder.
Rub the hen inside and out.
Stuff full of stuffing. (Wow... that sounds dumb when I say it)
Place in a roasting pan breast side up.
Roast for 1 hour.
When finished do NOT forget that you just left the roasting pan in a 350 degree oven for an hour and grab the lid with your bare hands. (Yep... did that)

As I said earlier, I'm really happy with how the stuffing came out. I wasn't as pleased with the hen though, the skin was delicious, but once I got past that, it was a little bland. Next time I either need to use more spice, or marinade it in something.

Quiche

I made a quiche today, inspired by a quiche my former roommate Stacy and I used to make. I don't have the recipe for that particular quiche, nor did I have all the ingredients it used (it used evaporated milk) so I made up a recipe as I went. It came out pretty well.

Since this is the first thing I've posted here where I used my own recipe, I have no problem sharing it with you all.

Rules of 3 Quiche
(aka Spinach Quiche)

Preheat the oven to 350.

Put a pie crust in a pan, filled with pie weights, and bake for 10 minutes

While it's baking beat together:
3 eggs
1 cup cottage cheese
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup cottage cheese
1 cup cooked chopped spinach
1/3 cup parmesan cheese

Dash of paprika
Dash of garlic powder
Dash of salt
Dash of pepper

Remove the pie weights from the crust and fill with the beat egg mix.
Bake until firm. (I started with 45 minutes, but I think it wound up taking an hour)

I'm fairly happy with the results. If I make it again though I think I'll do it with 1/3 cup less cottage cheese and an extra egg.

Today...

I woke up and put on my work uniform. I'm now taking it off to go to bed. While it was a relatively good day at work, the above mentioned circumstances are my definition of a bad day.

Semaphore-Bot v3.1

Semaphore-Bot 3.0 never saw an audience because his arms were too long/heavy for the motors. Last minute design change later, v3.1 was born.

A few thoughts on the review:

While I agree that the design/construction of the bot needs to be cleaned up a bit, and I may have to reconsider how I approach the flags, I think too much of my review was spent discussing the bot himself.

The piece is as much about the robot as a webpage is about the computer or a phone call is about the phone.

Before I next show it to people I really do need to finish the complete installation, that means create the key cards so that people who are intrigued enough by the motion will try to assertain the message. This will also give a hint as to the meaning of the flags.

On the subject of "why semaphore / why flags?" As far as I know semaphore is the most reciever invested means of communication. Maybe morse code is equally or more so... Morse code is definitely more recognized... this may require exploration.

One happy accident during the critique was a set of loose screws, combined with the occasional contact between arms caused one of the gear boxes to fall apart. While unintentional, this definitely falls in line with my thesis that the load of modern communication is destroying the value of communication itself. (The bot is communication incarnate.)

Triumph Breakfast

Saturday morning I woke up after a little over 12 hours of sleep. It was wonderful. Since I got back in town Monday I'd been sleeping 2-3 hours a night on my couch (knowing full well that if I slept in my bed, there would be no waking me). I'd get home at 5 am, crash, wake up at 8, and go back to the studio.

Toward the end of the week the combination of lack of sleep, and poor eating habits were really getting to me. I was moody, and at times a careless (see: I had a mental lapse and grabbed the hot end of a soldering iron.)

But it was all worth it. I got my piece finished in time and went through a fairly successful review. A lot of questions were posed that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise, and some fabrication errors presented themselves to bring a possible new direction to the project.

When I woke up Saturday, I decided it was time to celebrate. And in my world, there is only one way to celebrate: food. So I made spinach bacon eggs benedict!

Start with fresh home made biscuits, topped with spinach sauteed in white wine:



Add a couple strips of bacon:


Next: 2 perfectly poached eggs (ie: yolks still soft)


And finally coat in hollendais sauce:

(I let mine sit about 5 seconds too long and it started to curdle. Unfortunate, but still delicious.)

Soooo good.

Ska Is Dead 4!

Ska Is Dead just announced their fourth tour, featuring The Toasters, Voodoo Glow Skulls, Deal's Gone Bad, Mustard Plug (Jan 23-25), Buck-O-Nine (Feb 3-8), and Monkey (Jan 22-Feb 1)! I'm very excited!!!!

The show hits Portland Friday, January 30th, and tickets are only $13. Who wants to join me? (Hint: everyone!)

...Ska in Oregon! Yay!

My first contribution to the Arduino Playground

The Arduino: Playground has given me so much that I felt it was time to contribute back.

So I wrote this article: Arduino + PERL

Blogger Upgrade

Apparently blogger upgraded one of the backend pieces of their atom / rss feeds, migrating from OpenSearch 1.1 to OpenSearch RSS 1.0.

There aren't a lot of people this really effects, but since this blog is driven by a blogger feed, it screwed with me for a second.

Foul Mood?

I recommend maple bacon


Thanks for curing my grumpies Voodoo!

(image ruthlessly stolen via google image search from this blog...just attributing. Cause my camera battery is dead.)

Semaphore-bot v3.0.alpha

Untitled from Andrew Parnell on Vimeo.

Semaphore-bot 3.0 is on its way!

I went through and rewrote the control code from the ground up in PERL, letting me eliminate processing from the equation all together and making everything run more efficiently.

I also built some gear boxes so that I no longer need to stack servos.

All in all, major improvements all around.

Tomorrow I rebuild the casing and get it ready for show.

Interested in the script? Click here!

...actually... [PERL here] [Arduino here]

Klutz

I'm still at my parents house in California (until my 6 am flight tomorrow) and I found an old Klutz book sitting on my shelf. (Specifically a Klutz Aerobe book)

After reading it through, and completely loving it, I decided to hit up Klutz's website to read up a bit more on the company.

On the bottom of the about us page I saw this line "For those of you who collect corporate mission statements, here's the Klutz credo: "

Collect corporate mission statements? I've never heard such a thing. But really, they tend to be modern day equivalents of Confucian doctrine, so it's a neat idea (there I go using the word neat again.).

I'm going to begin my collection with Klutz: Create wonderful things, be good, have fun.

I'm down in the Bay Area

I'm down in the Bay Area and the internet was down for the last 4 hours. But that's ok. I'm on vacation.

Note to self: always double check ratios when ording gears.

I'm a little irritated with myself. I ordered some servos, servo gears, shafting, and plain bore gears last night, and while doodling up schematics today, I realized that I reversed the ratio in my order. Seriously lame.

I went back and ordered the propper ratio (4:1 not 1:4). What irritates me is that if I'd gotten it right the first time, I would have saved a buck, this way I spent an extra twenty-three.

Lesson learned.

Amazing Feat of Makeup and Lighting

This is pretty amazing. The women pictured above are all the same woman, made up and lit to look like she's 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 years old.

She's actually 20.

...I'm not sure why she's topless at 10 and 20 though...

[via NOTCOT]

Lesson Learned

Wind sprints are for out doors, or at least, not for 3 am when Dom is asleep down stairs.

...sorry.

Pastry Experiments

Wednesday night I made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies, and brought them with me to school on Thursday.

Baked goods have a strange socializing ability. They spark conversation. Questions, comments, anecdotes, and eating. They're pretty much the ultimate ice breaker.

Last night I made a(nother) cheesecake, and brought it to school to share. I feel like I've stumbled upon something. Now I just need to figure out how to go forward with it.

...I'm thinking lemon bars.

My First Instructable!

One of my socks gave out yesterday, giving me all the material I need to make a slick little electronics sleeve, so I decided to document the process and put it up on instructables.



- More cool how to projects

I wish I spoke french...

but even without understanding the words, I get the gist.

Le caf�lt;/a>
by pheneu_et_meleu

Sooooo worth it.

...I also made cheesecake.


Quite tasty. (Should have taken a picture before I started cutting it)

Making a double batch of chili...

...which starts with chopping 8 onions.



... my eyes burn so bad.

The unconscious mind.

My alarm went off at 8:30 this morning.

*bee-da-be-boo bee-da-be-boo* (I memorized this rhythm when I was 10...)

I woke up, got out of bed, trudged across the room, hit the snooze button, and flopped back into bed.

-3 minutes later-
*bee-da-be-boo bee-da-be-boo*

Again: out of bed, across room, snooze, flop.

Repeat every 3 minutes until 9 (when I remembered I had a meeting to get to and woke up)

What confuses me though is that the entire time I was doing this get up and snooze routine... I was convinced I was conducting a sports interview.

...yeah, makes no sense to me either.

Can't sleep.

My mind is racing.

Actually, cluttered is a more accurate way to view it, but one way or another, I'm awake. I have a 9 am meeting at work, and I'm not asleep. Can I say "this is not restful" any other way?

So, instead of sleeping, I'm reading an interview on Kicksology.net with Wilson Smith III, and I just read a quote that I really like. (Well, a meta-quote... a quote of a quote)

"When I studied architecture in school one of my professors said: "We're teaching you about architecture. We're not necessarily making you an architect." The great thing about that way of looking at it is that once you understand the concept of how to put a building together, you can apply that to almost anything."

Yeah, I like that.

Practicing What I Preach

Considering how much I've been talking / thinking / ranting about flash websites lately, I figured I really should do what I talk about. That is, if I'm going to champion standards based sites, I should learn to do the shiny effects using standards based tech.

So that's what I'm doing, currently making a css, xhtml, javascript (prototype & scriptaculous at the moment) clone of the flash site that Nina has been working on.

...thus far I've got the little bar of posts. But hey, I literally just picked up scriptaculous and prototype last night.

Beach Day!

I've got no real commitments today, so Nate, Travis, and I are going to the beach.

Yay beach day!

Oh happy day.

I have more at home.

Shit...

It's 1:30, I'm about 75% done sewing a project... and my needle just broke.

Time to head home and see if I have any spares.

It's 1:20 in the morning, and I've been hypnotized...

Coolest clock ever. (Better with the music unmuted)

Remember an Article by Veerle

Thinking about flash based sites I remembered an article by Veerle.

Read it.

Thinking about flash

I'm part of the team that's building the website for the 2008 digital arts bfa class @ UO - Portland.

Today we all got into a good, hour long...maybe less, but I doubt it...discussion/fight centered on the idea of having a mute button for sound effects on the site. I am, and always will be, of the opinion that if you're going to have sound on your website you must have a mute button. The easiest example at to why is that many (if not most) people browse the web while listening to their music library, or to a lesser extent watching tv (or some sort of video). Not giving the option to mute, you're sending a message to those people saying quite clearly "look, if you can't dedicate all of your senses to this website, leave." That's totally unnecessary, if not a little offensive.

Another reasoning I have behind always being able to mute specific items is that it creates a barrier to those who need to use a screen reader. This doesn't really apply in this case though because we're developing the site in flash.

The more I think about it, the less fond of this second fact I am. Infact, I'm not fond of this fact at all, and really never was, but failed to bring this up. (Why, I don't know.)

Flash is a means of web development. Yes, it's great for interactives, but it's awful for basic tasks. For starters: it completely excludes anyone with ANY accessibility concerns. Secondly, flash is proprietary software meaning that if for some reason you can't get a player from Adobe, you can't view the page.

Alaternatively a standards based website can have the text scaled, have the colors changed if need be, and information can be ported to other devices (such as a screen reader) so that the same site can be used by anyone. Also the only requirements for access are to have a web browser and an internet connection.

For many the solution here is to create a second standards based version of the site so that those who for whatever reason can't/won't visit the flash site can still access the site. This is a good first step. But often these non-flash sites get neglected in terms of design. Here you're creating a seperate but equal senario. (And we all know how that winds up)

The better solution is to ONLY make a standards based website. "But Andrew!" You might exclaim, "if I do that I'll have to sacrafice all the nice fluid elements of my interface." And to that I would say you're mistaken. The solution here is to incorperate ECMAScript, otherwise known as JavaScript (no relation to Java). Why is this better? It's standards based, allows you to all those web interface things you might wish to do with flash, but without telling those with accessibility concerns that they belong at the back of the bus.

Macintosh 128k

So I've been reading a lot about the original Macintosh - the Mac 128k. For its time, it was a wonderful machine, and the epitome of good design (again, for the time). We're talking about a computer that was designed so well that people actually wanted to have one in their home.

Of course, we're talking 1983-84. Now most people would be appalled and ashamed at the notion of having one in their home. To counter this notion, I've decided to turn it into a stuffed object. Made from fleece, it'll be warm and cuddly. Who wouldn't want one?

I went out and got the fabric yesterday, and I made my patterns while I was at work today. Also, I made a prototype out of paper. I'm pleased.

Vinyl

Those of us in the digital arts department in Portland often feel like the redheaded step child in the Stag. We've been slow to move into our studio and have a visual presence there. In an attempt to combat this, we're doing a continuous vinyl piece around the studio.

Back story aside, I've been struggling with mine. I've been trying to do this fluid, morphing, chronological piece involving bubbles, jellyfish, balloons and water. It just wasn’t working out.

Then, after talking to Daniel, I came to an idea that works REALLY well (if I may say so) and fits the rest of my practice, illustrating what I’m all about.

I have a few tweaks remaining so that the mechanics of it work out for what I’m trying to get at, but here is a preview of the near finished piece:

Art Futura

Watch this video, so many brilliant pieces. ...I wish I'd been there.

We should all be like Don Draper

Gears.

I really need to get / make a bunch of gears. These motors I've got are fast, but they're really weak.

That being the case, even though I cut the conks, my pumpkins ended up having to go out as stationary devices. That's a shame. Of course, Tuesdays events have been kind of a distraction.

Joining the Party

Hey Zara

Just think you should know, there's something going on in your office.

[Cursing goes here!]

This could have been a good week, really it could.

But no, it's generally been a bad week.
Sunday night I broke my cellphone. Now I can only use it if I'm wearing a headset.

Tonight, I get off work and I find that the little triangle window of my car is smashed, there's glass all over the back seat, and my glove box and console are both emptied. As far as I can tell all they got was 1) my TomTom gps (sn: JQ5050JVQKQ ) and 2) my iPod (sn: Y14467D00333 ) , which was a 4gb mini, and fairly old. Still, what the hell?

(For the record, yes, I know you shouldn't leave those things in the car, but that's where I use them, and if I take them out, I almost always forget to bring them with me.)

First Things First

Okay, before I spend another 3 hours here avoiding actually writing about this stuff, let me take a quick moment to talk about the 1964 and 2000 First Things First Manifestos.

When I talk to people about being a digital arts major, I'm generally met with confused stares. It makes sense, "Digital Arts" is such a vague term that it seems to carry no inflection of what I do. In many ways I'm really thankful for this fact, since it also carries with it few restrictions on what I can focus on. When I was still in community college I leapt from Computer Engineering into Graphic Design because I felt that design would allow me a more meaningful means of interaction/communication. Like engineering though, pure design seemed to be missing something as well, sure I now had a means to engage people, but I had no substance to engage them with. After I transferred though, I found a means to backslide a bit, into a sort of middle ground between engineering/innovation and the tools of communication. So when asked what it is I want to do after college, I try to explain to people what it is I do now. Most think about this for a second, blink, and come back with "ok, but how do you want to use that after college." Not having the words to explain it in terms better than "I want to engage people" I start to talk about how it can be used for things such as marketing. Is this the noblest cause? Depends on the product or service really. But in any case it pays, and for many people what they really seem to be asking is "how will this secure you an income."

The First Things First manifestos are both declarations to use artistic/design skills for purposes other than mass marketing. What I find interesting is that the only difference between the two publications seems to be the suggested alternatives:

1964 There are signs for streets and buildings, books and periodicals, catalogues, instructional manuals, industrial photography, educational aids, films, television features, scientific and industrial publications and all the other media through which we promote our trade, our education, our culture and our greater awareness of the world.

2000 There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.

If you compare the two the alternatives to advertising suggested in 2000 seem almost purely...I have no word for it other than noble causes. "Social Marketing," "educational tools," "charitable causes"...

I'm not scoffing at these suggestions, they're certainly positive things. What I find odd/unfortunate is the things they left off from 1964 like "signs for streets and buildings," "scientific and industrial publications," "and all the other media through which we promote our trade, our education, our culture and our greater awareness of the world." (I really like that last bit.)

The focus between 1964 and 2000 seems to shift from using design meaningfully to using design nobly. Noble is good, but meaningful is far more relevant.

Meaningfulness vs Nobility aside though, I feel like First Things First miss one important problem, especially when ending the 2000 manifesto with "Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart." I refuse to believe that there's a shortage of artists/designers out there who are uninterested in fulfilling more meaningful purposes. What I do believe is that there's a market shortage of demand, ie: people willing to pay, for them to do it. Most of the initiatives they offer as alternatives in the 2000 manifesto are things typically done by designers as pro-bono work, and while pro-bono work is vital to the soul, doing it exclusively can be troublesome for the landlord.

I should be...

talking about First Things First, the 1964 and 2000 manifestos, but as happens ANY time I should be doing something else, I just got distracted by Johnny Cupcakes.

I came across a NOTCOT.org entry showing that he's venturing tshirts into the land of belts.


I'll be honest, the man's Tshirt designs over the last 2 years have just been a bit too much for me aesthetically, often falling into the realm of gaudy. But these belts...they're glorious. Amazingly understated while still maintaining that slight edge that comes with indy brand clothing.

And the packaging is just beautiful. There's something about wooden boxes that is just nice, fun, and more lasting than cardboard/plastic packaging. I've got a collection of boxes from watches, wallets, and cufflinks that I just can't bring myself to get rid of. I have no need for them, but they still remain. Thinking about it, I even used to keep around the box from a package of smoked salmon until I tripped and broke all the joints.

I really shouldn't be surprised that JC has such nice packaging though, he and his pay really close attention to packaging, creating very memorable and lovable enclosures. (I didn't want to use the word packaging a third time in this sentence.) Just look at the boxes from his limited edition Halloween shirts:



Or for that matter, take a gander at what they use in store instead of "bags":



God, I'm in love.

"The discovery of the alphabet will create forgetfulness in the learner's souls,

because they will not use their memories; they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves...You give your disciples not truth but only the semblance of truth; they will be heroes of many things, and will have learned nothing; they will appear to be omniscient and will generally know nothing." - Socrates, "Phaedrus"

I found this quote while reading Marshall McLuhan's "The Medium is the Massage" and as much as I want to, I can't say I disagree, at least not when speaking from the point of view of personal experience.

I have an awful, AWFUL memory when it comes to absolute facts. I used to joke that it took 12 introductions before I remembered my last girlfriend's name. My memory isn't THAT bad...but it's pretty horrible. However, what I do learn nearly instantly is WHERE to find particular pieces of information.

Is this the alphabet's fault?

Tumblr

Hate Tumblr. Soooo much. Mostly their rss feed. Far as I can tell there's no way to get it to give you more than the latest 20 posts. Their api has a read function that's more usable...but it's a really ugly xml file.

PHP Blog Aggregator

So here's a bit of what I'm working on for the backend of this year's Digital Arts BFA website.

It takes this xml (provided by my feed burner NewsLife) and dumps all the feeds into one very large xml file.

<blogs>

<outline text="Nina Pavlich" title="Nina Pavlich" description="" type="RSS" version="RSS" htmlUrl="http://www.ninalp.com/bfarts" xmlUrl="http://www.ninalp.com/bfarts/rss/"/>

<outline text="Zach Rose" title="Zach Rose" description="" type="RSS" version="RSS" htmlUrl="http://zachrose.tumblr.com/" xmlUrl="http://zachrose.tumblr.com/rss"/>

<outline text="Dominic C" title="Dominic C" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://dom4art225.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://dom4art225.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Joe" title="Joe" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://contempjoe.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://contempjoe.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Nathan Emerson-Verhoeven" title="Nathan Emerson-Verhoeven" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://nevpdx.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://nevpdx.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Sarah Moore" title="Sarah Moore" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://smoore5.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://smoore5.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Bryson" title="Bryson" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://gazzookabazookaz.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://gazzookabazookaz.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Daniel Strong" title="Daniel Strong" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://danielstrongdesign.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://danielstrongdesign.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Mac" title="Mac" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://macschubert.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://macschubert.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Travis" title="Travis" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://thelightisfading.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://thelightisfading.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Shawna" title="Shawna" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://shawna-x.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://shawna-x.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Lindsay AuCoin" title="Lindsay AuCoin" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://sheddingthequills.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://sheddingthequills.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Peter Baston" title="Peter Baston BFA 08" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://bastonbfa08.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://bastonbfa08.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Dustin Design" title="Dustin Design" description="" type="Atom" version="Atom" htmlUrl="http://dybevikda1.blogspot.com/" xmlUrl="http://dybevikda1.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

<outline text="Andrew Parnell" xmlUrl="http://andrewparnell.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss"/>

</blogs>

the code in question:

<?php

header ("content-type: text/xml");

$blogfeeds = array(array(),array());

$doc = new DOMDocument();

$doc->load( 'blogs.xml' );

$blogs = $doc->getElementsByTagName("outline");

$x=0;

foreach($blogs as $blog) {

$blogfeeds[$x]["path"] = $blog->getAttribute("xmlUrl");

$blogfeeds[$x]["title"] = $blog->getAttribute("text");

//array_push($blogfeeds[0], $blog->getAttribute("xmlUrl"));

//array_push($blogfeeds[1], $blog->getAttribute("text"));

$x++;

}

$out = new DOMDocument();

$out->preserveWhiteSpace = false;

$out->loadXML("<blogs/>");

for($i=0;$i<count($blogfeeds);$i++) {

$docBlog[$i] = new DOMDocument();

$docBlog[$i]->preserveWhiteSpace = false;

if(strpos($blogfeeds[$i]["path"],"blogspot.com")!==false)

{

$tot = new DOMDocument();

$tot->preserveWhiteSpace = false;

$tot->load($blogfeeds[$i]["path"].'&max-results=0');

foreach($tot->getElementsByTagNameNS('http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/', 'totalResults') as $openSeach_totalResults) $total = $openSeach_totalResults->nodeValue;

$blogfeeds[$i]["path"] .= "&max-results=".$total;

}

$docBlog[$i]->load($blogfeeds[$i]["path"]);

$docBlog[$i]->formatOutput = true;



foreach($docBlog[$i]->getElementsByTagName("channel") as $chan) {

//$chan->setAttribute("auth",$blogfeeds[$i]);

$in = $out->importNode($chan, true);

$in->setAttribute("auth",$blogfeeds[$i]["title"]);

$in->setAttribute("path",$blogfeeds[$i]["path"]);

$out->documentElement->appendChild($in);

}



//echo $docBlog[$i]->saveXML();

}

$out->formatOutput = true;

echo $out->saveXML();

?>

Notes:
Nina's feed seems to be home brewed, so everything she has is there. AWESOME!
Blogger feeds are by default limited to only the 25 latest entries. I subvert that by first opening them empty, so as to get the value from the openSearch:totalResults node, and then reopen them with the query string max-results=[that total] appended to them.
Tumbler seems to also truncate its feed...but I can't find any way around that (it also doesn't make any mention of this truncation.)

Still a work in progress.

Looping wonder.

Taiwa-Hensokuki by Mohri Yuko is a text-to-speech-to-text-to-speech loop, where 2 computers constantly analyze the other's speech, convert it to text, and speak it back. Over time the text degrades and changes. A very interesting experiment in information mutation.

NES Cufflinks

When the weather starts to get colder, or I've failed to do laundry in a while, I switch from T-shirts to french cuffs. Cufflinks are far supperior to buttons as they're just much more stylistically interesting.

Being a giant nerd I LOVE these cuffs


...want.

[Via Unplggd]

Reverse Blog Crawling

In a way this is a self congratulatory post. (alternate title: Hey Look! Make picked up my NOTCOT post)

During this mornings blog crawl I spotted this post on Make




Following the via link brought me to this:

^Hey look, that's my moniker.

Which I'd also posted here a few months back.



...which I originally found at Make.



Apparently the sphere is a loop...

I build prototypes.

I find that instead of thinking about / drawing ideas I have a much easier time developing solutions if I prototype devices I'm thinking about. I think in many ways this explains why I did so well in physics labs when I was an engineering major, but so horridly in the lecture/theory classes. I need to do.

For my pumpkins I've found that the Evil Mad Scientist Snap-o-lantern article really necessitated a flatish pumpkin. (Well, at least one that was less tall than wide.) My pumpkins are round. Tiny, but almost perfect circles.

So I've been developing other means to mechanize the jaw.

Here are some of the prototypes I've worked out (click the image to see a b&w animation of them in motion):

I've been meaning to talk about this for almost 3 weeks now, but I only just now took the photo.

During the second week of our Contemporary Design class we talked about Charles and Ray Eames, going really in depth about their furniture designs, which I confess, are amazing.

After class that day, while walking to work I passed a store with a window full of...pretty much everything we'd talked about.

Unfortunately, since then they've moved some of the chairs out of the window, but you can still see them in the store:


I guess to be fair, I should point out they are a Herman Miller dealer...

Double-Taker (Snout)

Making his (Edit: well...his/their. Flong is "Golan Levin and Collaborators") second apperance in my blog Flong has done it again, with another great eye installation that follows the viewer. This time, a giant worm-eye that sits on top of a building and follows people as they come in, proving yet again that anything I can do, someone else can do a million times better. *sigh*

[via botjunkie]

[See also Opto-Isolator also by Flong]

Snap!

Last year for halloween I secretly carved portraits of all my roommates.
 
They didn't come out perfectly, but for a first attempt at pumpkin portraiture, I was pleased with the results.

This year, I was playing around with the idea of doing the same thing for my entire BFA class, but with miniature pumpkins, but honestly, I don't have the time, or the drive to. Instead what I'm making is my own version of these:


Robotic Pumpkins. Seems right up my alley. [via Evil Mad Scientist]

(Other news: I'm miserably congested. All I ask is to be able to breath again... please?)