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