If you enjoyed that, I highly recommend watching his TED talk, which has some a wonderful tale of a misunderstood artist who has become enormously successful, and demonstrates his sense of humor. Feeling impatient? Then skip to 15:00 on the TED Talk.
Thanks to Rick Jayx for reminding me of Ken Robinson.
You can play at normal, double, 1.5, 1/2 or 1/4 speed. No joke. Check this link and see if it works for you.
But now that I’ve shared the link, the feature isn’t there anymore. WTF? Ok, I’m doing a video screen capture while this is still up. This is a pretty cool feature and a VERY cool feature for those that like to dissect visual effects in film OR for all the animators who are studying animation. Dear Vimeo, take note.
*UPDATE*
The Speed option is back again. It’s probably because I was jumping between browsers. I don’t see it in Firefox, but I do see it in Chrome (Chromium). I really am digging this (obviously). It seems that it’s an HTML5 feature that you have to opt in to.
I met Bob over 10 years ago, during a very challenging time in my life, while I was unemployed and still studying for a new career in 3D animation. This good friend and mentor has provided me with many tools and advice that have been invaluable over the last decade. Some of the tools he referred me to include Many Lives, Many Masters, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, and (a favourite of mine) How to Meditate: A Guide to Self-Discovery by Lawrence Leshan.
I recently came across a list with a few other points of interest that he recommended to check out. I am digitizing them here for future reference.
Thanks again Bob. I hope to see you again soon.
Another great talk on web design, that feels like it shifts a little outside of the World Wide Web. What I learned:
My notepad…
Wilson Miner‘s talk is about the power in design, interface and simplicity. He realizes that a website is not just a website.
I discovered this talk at a perfect time in my computing career. From I.T. support and development, to animation and visual effects… and now I am getting a little deeper into web development. I’m happy to see that the current world of web development is quite different from the world I turned my back on during the late 90s.
One of my favorite quotes that Wilson presents in this talk is from Alistair Smith.
“At times of change, the learners are the ones who will inherit the world, while the knowers will be beautifully prepared for a world which no longer exists.”
Thank you Wilson Miner. Your talk was a quick n cheap therapy session that I needed to experience.
Thanks to Natalie Downe‘s Practical Maintainable CSS slideshow for this inspirational idea of using Legos for design grids for laying out web pages.
Don’t be thinking that this application is a toy because… well.. it is a toy, but a very powerful one.
Download MyPaint (8.5MB) now, for Windows, Linux and Mac.
Ikea’s $150 “Fredrik” desk
A few months back I was shopping for a stool to perch on. “Perching” is a half sitting / half standing position that takes tons of strain off your lower neck/back and distributes some of the weight onto your legs, like a tripod. There are many reason’s not to sit around all day. Studying on my computer is a bit of a drag, especially when I go to points where I’m watching tutorial videos or doing reading research. Posture suffers greatly in these situations.
My plans to purchase a chair had fallen through and I needed a solution. I was staring at my desk for a few minutes before I realized the solution. “Hey Jeremy. You know that the chair is killing you, so why not give standing a try?” 30 minutes later I had reconfigured my desk to standing height and months later I’m still standing The photo above shows the result.
*UPDATE 2012-03-14*
if you absolutely MUST sit, this Capsico is a fun jungle gym.
Over my computer using history (20+ years) I’ve sat, leaned back, no back, too short and too tall. I’ve sat on stools that were about the height of dining tables and I’ve knelt down in contraptions that bring out my claustrophobia. I’ve even bounced around on a ball for a bit. One of my favorite chairs is the HÅG Capisco (pictured right).
In the end, I’m standing… or sometimes perching and I love it. While standing, I quickly notice when I’m leaning too far in and craning my neck/straining my eyes. My legs do get fatigued, but this acts as a constant reminder for me to shift my weight. I think it’s important to have the desk slightly lower than elbow height when standing straight. This allows your shoulders to drop (a major point of tension) and also gives you room to bend your knees. Of course, too low isn’t good either, as I this can cause issues also. Standing with locked knees does not promotemovement.
It’s easiest to just remember:
“The best posture is always the next one.” – Peter Opsvik (Norwegian industrial designer best known for his innovative and ergonomic chairs)
For a better understanding of chair ergonomics (“ergo-chair” sounds a bit like a contradiction), I highly recommend the book “The Chair“, by Galen Cranz’s. This University of California, Berkley professor also provides a bit of history, so you can understand exactly how the chair came into being. For a summary of some of the points illustrated in Galen’s book, check out What’s Wrong with the Chair.
Yes, I know it is not the most exciting thing in the world, but the simplest things are often the most meaningful, and for those of us who grew up before windows, or for those n00bs who are brave enough to dare travel the land of the command line, here’s a tip for you. (That was all in one sentence… and it felt good)
You can customize your prompt in order to make it more effective. My default prompt was about half a line long and didn’t really contain much useful information to me, so I changed it, including added a little color. Me? I like to see the time and my current directory, so that’s what I added using the instructions here, and even fancier color management instructions here. Simply put, I edited my .bashrc file’s prompt entry to the following. If you haven’t done this kind of edit before, first make a backup copy file.
PS1="\e[0;35m[\t]\e[m\w$ "
*UPDATE*
Ok, the above line looks pretty, but the text wrapping gets funked up. You have to put escaped opening and closing square brackets around the color code chunks. The following revised line works great.
PS1="\[\e[0;35m\][\t]\[\e[m\]\w$ "
And here’s the before and after.
Ahhh… almost zen.
Today we visited a new gallery downtown. I took some video, which I will have to re-record, as the location is pretty deserving of it.
An interesting story…
The owner used to own 18 Rogers locations. He sold them all, then went off to travel India for a year, collecting art. Now he’s slowing moving the art over here to a restaurant that he’s opening up. I expect there will be a more complete article coming in the future.
Now that I have things balanced out, I did a quick test with the new rig. I’d say it worked out nicely, though the extra weight that the clamp adds is basically doubled because I have to counter balance everything at the bottom. This makes the horizontal rotation a bit stiff. However, a quick pass through Syntheyes cleaned things up.
Now I can simulate the first-person perspective of a spirit flying through the loft!
I have made a few web pages in my life, but most are pretty darn simple with minimal code snippets. I’ve built a skeleton database using MySQL and PHP. I have set up phpBB, Drupal and WordPress sites, hacking them in order to get them functioning the way I need. However, I haven’t had the chance to really “build a website”, at least not by my own definitions. Well, this has got to change now, as I’m a little tired of hacking templates to get them to do what I need. As much as I would like to focus strictly on my graphics work, the world won’t let me… for now.
So begins the geek streak.
I’ve started reading this HTML, XHTML & CSS Visual Quickstart Guide that I picked up at the local thrift store. It was published in 2007 so I’m sure that some of the information is outdated, but most is still valid. I’m about half way through it and it’s helped solidify my pretty loose knowledge of CSS. Once in awhile, I put the book and my highlighter down in order to verify some stuff on the computer. HTML5 is something I keep referring to, in order to compare to XHTML. Trying to get a feel for what the future holds.
Boilerplate appears to be a good template of standards to start with. There’s some HTML5 code examples out there and even a test site that gives your browser a ranking based on the number of HTML5 features available.
I think that once I finish with the boilerplate demo video below, I will walk through this code demonstration of common HTML5 techniques.
I keep watching this and practicing, yet I can’t seem to get into that one position…
… ok, a few…
…ok barely any of these positions.
`
Or maybe the safest thing to do would be a Nauli before breakfast.
Ok, not really. No cameras that powerful, so Drew Berry had to use what we know about DNA in order to recreate the process in 3D. Back in 2003 I had seen a talk with Drew Berry and he had primarily used Maya to make the animations. I wonder if he’s moved on and is now using more appropriate tools for this kind of work.
Another reason not to stress too much about things. Think about what happens to traditional system “stress tests”. Imagine what kinds of chaos it wreaks on these little guys.
This year I haven’t yet made my attempt for tickets., but it sounds like 40,000 of the 50,000 are already gone. More go on sale soon, but I already know many burners who have been denied. I wonder just how many people registered for tickets.
It’s strange to think that I may not see this again, for awhile… though I am hopeful this will cause Burning Man to spread outside the playa. Following some of my burner friends on Facebook, it appears that a large percentage (almost half??) have been told they will not be getting tickets from the raffle. My heart goes out to all of them. I attended the last two years, but I have a hard time imaging how this is effecting the veterans who have been going for years (for some, decades). One burner brought up the fact that many camps are also reporting losses in numbers, which will effect their art projects. Oh boy… change is a scary thing. There’s gotta be irony in there somewhere. No?
On the flip side, there will be SOOO many happy virgins that get to experience the playa for the first time (assuming there’s enough veteran burners to host an experience) . Very curious to see the media buzz during and after this year’s burn.
Take a deep breath, Jer. It will be ok.
And if you haven’t seen it already, Trey Ratcliff’s photo gallery captures the burn perfectly (and it was probably a strong factor in so many registering for the ticket raffle).
About a month ago I purchased a steadicam from Ebay called the U-Flycam. This think is almost 1/10th the cost of most steadicam units, though you do get what you pay for.
For general running around, it works pretty well, but the more I use it, the more I am beginning to realize how many things can be improved. Here are some ideas that other Youtube users have.
First thing I noted was the cheap construction of the mounting device for the camera. Spokes me out a little bit, as I can picture this lever just breaking off. This guy just replaced the whole mounting unit with a quick release plate from Cullman.
I spent a few hours today trying to get my unit balanced with my Canon 60D. The big issue is that my camera is too light. I’ve used bolts and wing nuts in order to add weights to the top, but they are too close to the center pivot. This guy moved the center of gravity up, by raising the camera with a block of wood.
Besides the weights, I also noticed that the universal joint is pretty cheaply made and although one axis can be adjusted, the other axis cannot. The pivot is slightly off, and since this is very close to the balancing center, even a few millimeters throws it off. So, for example, even if it’s balanced, when I twist the handle by turning, every get’s wonky again. I guess I should consider replacing the u-joint with something better, like one of these babies. Or, I could just follow this guy’s DIY handle assembly. Wait a minute, I want to use a gimbal, not a universal joint.
$100 for the U-Flycam, plus $40 shipping, $6 for misc bolts, plus probably another $50 – $100 for more parts to get this rig working the way I’d like. Or, I could just invested a few thousand in this full body unit. HAH! Oh, but this reminds me that I need to find a way to control the sled. Or get all steampunk and build a suit myself from PVC piping like this DIY project.
Besides the hours of playing around, I did come across a reminder to make sure and get as fast a shutter as I can get, to reduce motion blur, assuming that is the look I am going for.
Dan Laczkowski returned from Paris, France with a large collection of beautiful photos. I’ve seen many photos from Paris, but there’s quite a few shots in here that capture elements that I have never seen. His gallery has many many more photos here.
The push to tour Europe has gotten even stronger, if that’s possible.
My friend Oliver shared some of his dance audition recordings with me from 2002. I’ve put them online so that more of the world can see these impressive moves.
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