It’s a blog!

That’s right, I poped my new camera’s cherry tonight, at the Epidemik Coalition party at Octane Coffee Bar. Enjoy.

Yet another page with no design attached. This site’s a work in progress.

Busy today. Can’t get things to do what I want them to do, so I’m killing time learning some cool shit. Here’s another work in progress. That weird fisher price goal will eventually be your target. I just need to get to collision detection first. Give the ball a toss.

This page is starting to look a little ridiculous with all the moving objects on it. I’m gonna start linking the files to their own html pages.

A flash exercise exploring the physics of gravity and angular velocity:

from Dictionary.com:

denotation — n.  the explicit or direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression, as distinguished from the ideas or meanings associated with it or suggested by it

connotation — n. the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning

Think of the words sad and miserable. They both have the same denotation, but which one is worse?

Just some thoughts on disrespecting data. I used to be an English major you know. I also used to be sober, not 60 minutes ago.

Last night I caught the second episode of Discovery Channel’s Future Car. This episode was about the design of the car of the future. Right off the bat, the show caught my attention when they had an interview with Luigi Colani.

In his interview, he discussed how design can get ahead of itself. If people aren’t ready for the change, they won’t be as accepting of it. He claims that as the primary reason he feels he’s so misunderstood.

(more…)

WARNING: I’m probably going to get into more of my shallow philosophical bullshit.

Earlier today, I was reading an article on Transparency in Social Networking that I found on Digg, and I found it somewhat disturbing. It was was discussing the topic of voting rings, voters that will vote up or down certain articles based on the topic, without reading the material. Digg shows who gives a positive vote, but conceals the identity of a negative vote.

Late last year, Sen. Ted Stevens, the “series of tubes” senator, placed a secret block on a bill that would require the government to publish an online database of federal spending. The “liberal” media grabbed a hold of this story for a short time.

In theory, the U.S. is a democratic state, meaning that WE are the ones in control of the government, however for practical purposes, we elect representatives to do the work for us. It’s our government. There’s a certain degree of irony in the fact that Sen. Stevens was able to place a secret block on a bill promoting transparency. (Is irony the right word?)

(more…)

This is my version of the “making the space-ship move across the screen.” I took the original shape of the Asteroid space ship and animated it on my sketchpad. Maybe this is how they came up with the original game, or maybe you’re really high when you’re drawing this. What if you were high while you were playing this on the computer?

It has a surealistic feel, and two things that are familiar, paper/pen and Asteroid, in a relatively new environment for me, a multi-purpose application that can mimic physics. Enjoy!

Click to start. -probably needs one of those so the page doesn’t move around like crazy.

UP: Go
LEFT: Turn left
RIGHT: Turn right

Here’s a little swf I put together. It changes the background color based on what you type in:

happy
sad
meh

I cut this video directly after our meeting. It’s a little rough, and I had software issues. Try and enjoy.

I just wanted to share some thoughts on today’s seminar by Philips Design:

The main project they showed us today was the Ambient Experience in which they created a system of “ambient” graphics to guide patients through the process of an MRI.

The first thought I had was that this seemed slightly pointless. The only time I had an MRI, I was so doped up, they could have had naked cheerleaders and I wouldn’t have noticed. (How would you know that they were cheerleaders if they didn’t have the uniforms?)

But, the most practical application seemed to be the comfort level of the children that would be placed into this machine. That made sense to me.

They also showed the interface for an un-named coffee machine, that could adjust your cream and sugar. Again, I take my coffee black. It was a fairly cool interface.

But somewhere between hazelnut implants and mocha soy latte grande flachito, I realized that my thinking was flawed. If I was designing everything for myself, digital cameras wouldn’t make that fucking shutter sound, my iPod wouldn’t *CLICK, and things would only make noise when my attention was needed.

But a lot of people aren’t used to technology and the idea of depending on technology, so they need this reinforcement that these devices are working, which usually is in the form of it’s analogue predecessor. Technology’s relation to society is definately in a transitional phase, and many people need these old comforts.

I haven’t always kept in mind what the end user wants in my projects. I just somehow assumed that they were somewhat like me, but they aren’t, which is probably why Myspace is so popular.

Oh yeah, Ambient Experience: With all that other stuff in mind, I can see why people would probably dig it, but for someone who doesn’t go to the doctor a lot, it would seem kind of weird. I guess I want my doctor’s office to make that clicking shutter sound.