Comments(3)April 14, 2008
gaming class!
So far there are only 3 students signed up for the “Ubiquitous Game” class and about 15 for the “Flash” class. So I made a flier. We’ll see.
April 26, 2008
How and why flash sucks my ass
In answer to the previous post comment,
Flash is popular because it’s easy to use and you don’t need to know how to program in order to use it. You can make very shallow, gratuitous (but arguably beautiful) animations without knowing anything.
So back in the late 90s, early 00s, people were using flash all over the place and it made the web look much nicer than just plain tabled and framed html. If you used flash, things moved; circles got bigger, etc. It was vector-based, too, so it was small, quick load-times, and looked great. And every computer came with the flash player loaded, so everyone could watch words fading in and out and circles rotating.
Back then, the only people creating web pages were designers and programmers; content-creators (i.e. heads of companies and normal people) had no experience with the web and were just trying to understand what types of things should be on the web. So flashy, flash-driven shallow designs (like the kind you also find in processing) were ubiquitous; it was because there was nothing else available. Hired web designers didn’t know much about the company, and they shouldn’t; they were busy learning flash and dreamweaver.
Now, however, we have CONTENT. Everyone, even non-programmers AND designers, can create content. Everyone knows why the web exists. So there’s no need for crappy shallow spinny graphics; there’s more of a need for content and upkeep.
Unfortunately the rest of the world does not move as quickly as web innovators, so you still have company owners and ‘those who call the shots’ looking for Flash programmers so their sites “look modern.” It’s in job descriptions everywhere. It will be a couple more years before they realize that flash templates are available for under $100 all over the web, and that gratuitous animation is irritating - what we want to see is quick and constantly upgraded content (not something you usually see in flash-driven sites). Content management systems (CMS) are way more useful because content-creators can add information quickly and efficiently, without having to buy additional software authoring suites, and without having to pay someone $100 an hour to make circles and text fade in and out.
Now, Flash still has some very important uses. It is wonderful for web-delivered education / edutainment content; children’s games like you find on pbs and nick. I’ve made some educational game content using flash; it’s nice because again, most people have it. If I could use anything to make games, I’d probably use director, because I’m more familiar with the programming (and I am a programmer) but not everyone has shockwave player, which is necessary for viewing director-created content. The flash actionscripting environment used to be so disgusting that any self-respecting programmer wouldn’t take two minutes to try to figure out which catacomb of the authoring environment to hide their “on mouseUp” script, but I hear it’s much better now.
The one thing I hate most is if I’m on the web and I’m looking for content (which I usually am) - either for art information, or more likely, for something to buy - and I have to watch something slide in or fade in, or rotate in.. with tiny words sliding and fading in… it makes me insane. I’m on the web for content.
my 2 cents.
April 13, 2008
Why to keep awards in a closet
In searching for examples of interconnectedness I found this, which is amazing:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/9280/coarise5.htm
“A simple example: For the average person living in a competitive world, success does not stop at merely the social phenomenon of success, with all its trappings, but includes clinging to the identity of being a successful person, which is a ‘becoming,’ or life state (bhava). Occasionally the feeling of self will manifest as thoughts of “I am a success,” which in effect means “I have been born (jati) as a successful person.” However, such success, in its fullest sense, is dependent on external conditions, such as fame, praise, attainment of special privileges, admiration and recognition. Birth as a “success,” or “being successful,” depends not only on recognition and admiration from others, but the presence of a loser, someone to succeed over. As soon as a successful being is born, he or she is threatened with fading, obscurity and loss. In this situation, all the feelings of depression, worry and disappointment which have not been properly dealt with by mindfulness and clear comprehension will become accumulated in the subconscious, and they will exert an influence on subsequent behavior in accordance with the Dependent Origination cycle.
Whenever there is the arising of the self-concept, there is an occupation of space; when there is occupation of space, there must be a boundary or limitation; when there is limitation, there must be separation; when there is separation there must be the dualism of ’self’ and ‘not self.’ The self will grow and extend outwards through the desire to attain, to act and to impress others. However, it is not possible for self to grow indefinitely according to its desires. The expanding self will inevitably meet with obstruction in some form or other, and desires will be thwarted, if not externally then from within. If one has any sensitivity to the esteem of others, opposition will arise in the form of one’s own sense of conscience. If there is no suppression of these desires and they are allowed to express themselves fully, opposition will appear from external sources. Even if it were possible to indulge every desire to the full, such activity is weakening. It only serves to increase the power of craving itself, together with its attendant feeling of lack. Not only does it increase dependence on externals, but it increases internal conflict. When desires are unfulfilled, tension, conflict and despair are the natural result.”
Hopefully this explains why the awards are kept in a closet!
April 4, 2008
Lifetime Achievement Award!
Wow - does this mean we have to move now?
Rick and I won the “Lifetime Achievement Award” (for Poster Children) at the Local Music Awards tonight!! Thanks to Buzz, WPGU, the217.com - that was something else! We are in the company of past winners Mark Rubel, Chef Ra, and Ward Gollings - people for whom we have a great deal of respect. I told the awarders that we were honored and speechless!
It is just such an incredibly NIFTY thing to have happen to us - I mean, I suppose we did give up a good deal of money to press up Hum, Lovecup and Steakdaddy Six albums, and we did take local bands on tour with us… housed tons of other national bands …taught other bands to do E-CDs and webpages… spoke lovingly of our fellow C-U bands and colleagues while on tour, anytime we had the chance - and we lived by the DIY ethic - but all that is so natural and so healthy and made us so happy over the years! It’s a funny thing to be rewarded for. But it’s really nice.
I said, “Rick where should we put the award?” and he said “We can put it with our other awards.” I realized that we do have some others. We have them laying in closets, under shelves, etc. It’s just like Doc in the Cars movie. Trophys are just Empty cups.
Life at work has been rough. I’m never sure if I’m teaching enough. The students seem happy - most of the time. It’s the toughest time of the semester right now. Everyone’s losing steam. All I need to do is to keep people engaged and learning for another month or two, and then in the summer I can fill up my mind again so I can disseminate more knowledge.
And when it FINALLY gets warmer I can practice my FUCKING CARTWHEELS outside! HURRAY!!!
March 31, 2008
Lie your ass off
From my sister in London:
Q: sascha [her child] has been really scared to go to bed at night. tonight she told me that she was scared of robbers. she asked if there were any robbers in london and i said “well…” then she asked if robbers have guns and i said “sometimes”. [daddy] said that i should have lied and said no. she was shivering in her bed saying she didn’t want to sleep alone.
i told her that we live in putney because it is a very safe place to live and that there is no way any robber could get into our house. i don’t think this helped. should i have lied? Bear in mind that i have spent my WHOLE life being scared of robbers coming into my house….
My Answer:
In my opinion, until the kid is old enough to start not believing you,
LIE YOUR ASS OFF.
about those sorts of things. Lie and distract. That’s what I’ll be doing with gram.
Of course Gram also still sleeps in our bed. I figure that even if we got him out of our bed, he’d still come back in from time to time, so why get used to sleeping alone? Besides it’s freezing in his room and he warms up our bed, and his room’s kind of a mess anyway. This spring and summer is when we’re gonna try to get him to sleep alone.
But about death and heaven and robbers, I’d lie my ass off. This, I think, is what our parents did for us.
Here’s what I’d tell Sascha:
“There are no robbers in England.”
“There are no robbers where Gabba and Papa [grandparents] live.”
“Robbers are not allowed to have guns, so they don’t. If they did, the police would pick them up in an instant and put them in jail.”
“Robbers don’t care about little children. They just want money. If they take our money we can always get more.” (this is TRUE; the media have blown all child and adult kidnapping cases terribly out of proportion because they sell very well.)
“Robbers are people too, people who just don’t have enough money.”
God forbid if they ask about dying:
“Only very old or very sick people die.”
“When a person dies they go to heaven and they see everyone on earth and can talk with them on special occasions”
“Heaven is full of candy, chocolate, and everyone there is a real princess”
“Some people (like Auntie Rose) believe that all people come right back to earth after they die”
“Mommy and Daddy are not going to die for a very, very, very long time”
“You are not going to die unless you don’t listen to Mommy.”
I haven’t come up against this yet but Gram’s been slightly freaked out in bed lately. So we’ll see. Perhaps I am talking out of my ass, but this is what I will say. I will lie my pants off.
February 1, 2008
4′33″
I watched my music business students talk about John Cage’s 4′33″ today. One of the students (one of my best) had just encountered it in my other class and … well let’s just say she is learning a lot in college. I asked her to explain what she’d seen - she saw the YouTube performance of it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUJagb7hL0E) earlier today and she was floored - not in a very good way. “If I paid money to see that and there was just silence, I’d be very, very angry” she said in a bit more colorful language than that. The class was hysterical by the time she finished describing it.
I think that John Cage would have loved to have been in the room watching 10 students laugh their asses off at the prospect of a silenced orchestra at a concert. I know I loved it!
I’m sitting in Noodles Anonymous trying to coerce myself to stay at a motel tonight instead of driving 46 blizzarded miles home. I’m just afraid that if I stay overnight here I might accidentally not come back. There has to be a line drawn somewhere and 10pm is going to be that line.
January 23, 2008
On Augmented Reality-Enabled Social Network Traces of Pratitya-samutpada (Interconnectedness)
Things you didn’t even know you needed.
ACCEPTANCE!
Looks like some of us are going to ISEA2008 in Singapore! Of all places, why Singapore? It’s like New York City on steroids.
To be fair, any city to me is like New York City. I don’t like them. I can feel the millions of voices crying out, too much humanity around me. Actually, no, I think I dislike the commerce of cities, the stores. That’s why I like places like Kathmandu so much. Not much to buy.
When I’m around places where I can acquire THINGS, my mind gets addled.
Speaking of that. Since Ian MacKaye and Amy Farina visited us couple of months ago, and they made us show them where our local co-op was, guess what. We became members. And it’s wonderful and amazing. The co-op is in a little room, the size of our bedroom, and it has pretty much everything we need. We can buy bulk nuts, beans, eggs, by bringing in our old jars and egg cartons. We are cutting down so much on packaging here in our house! And when we need sauces, like BBQ sauce, there are usually only one or two types there, but you can look at the back and they do NOT have High Fructose Corn Syrup! So we’re eating healthier, just because Ian decided to stop by and visit on the Evens’ way to Peoria or wherever they played.
Stewart Dickson, visualization programmer at the ISL lab at Beckman (a place I kinda used to work with), is hot on the tails of our Eggpass (http://www.eggpass.org) eggs! This is very exciting to me. (If you want to know more about Stewart, google him. He has done everything art and tech!) Anyway the eggpass project was supposed to continue, with people passing the eggs from friend to friend. QUICKLY. With 12 eggs, you’d think at least one of them would get passed. What are people doing with them? Are they on their shelves? Did they throw them out? It would be so neat to find out what went wrong with the experiment, especially since we need to do a phase two of it.
The problems of the week now:
1) How to teach the History of the Music Industry and have it be interesting. I don’t find it interesting. Should I dress up in a costume?
2) How to physically and/or electronically manifest the idea of interconnectedness. Should I dress up in a costume?
You cannot just say ‘Oh, web2.0 shows interconnectedness.’ ‘Social networks show interconnectedness.’ Interconnectedness is not just about people. It’s about everything; it’s about rocks, snow, chocolate, and events. How to manifest an event?
Interconnectedness theory leads into a perfect explanation of emptiness. I understood it 3 months ago but now I have to revisit and review everything again. I suppose I should take notes in this blog.
But right now it’s time for Korean Food!
January 10, 2008
16 Eames Stamps for 2008
I need to start blogging again, but until I do, here are some nice Eames stamps for you to look at.
November 26, 2007
20 years ago today…
a guy cut into a Dr. Who program on WTTW Channel 11 in Chicago to broadcast himself in a Max Headroom mask and someone’s butt. http://tinyurl.com/2co77h
I actually missed this, and never thought I’d see it, in my lifetime. What a great invention Youtube is.
And I have to agree with some of the commenters that Max Headroom was a great show.
We are on a new dietary kick - we have bought some vegan cookbooks (Veganomicon and The Garden of Vegan) - and it’s like a new world. Vegetarian cookbooks for some reason befuddle me, and they’re usually filled with Cheesy Potato and Cheesy Broccoli recipes, and my problem with that is I hate cheese. I just don’t like it. Now vegan cookbooks, you don’t have that kind of crap to fall back on. Everything here is new and non-cheese, and awesome. There are all kinds of grains and beans and tomato recipes, and recipes that contain olives and stuff… very exciting! I’m overwhelmed just looking at them.
I’m working on the new HMD Academy website which I promised to do a year and a half ago. So no fun at all until that is done.
November 20, 2007
SURF COMBAT!!!
Gram saw his first rock concert (that his parents weren’t playing at) - it was Riotfest 2007, in Chicago. One of his favorite bands, Naked Raygun, was playing. They played his favorite song, “Surf Combat,” after which he promptly fell asleep.
He also saw a bunch of kids with mohawks - he was SO excited, he started screaming, “LOOK!!!! LOOK!!!! THERE’S A KID WITH A MOHAWK!!!!”
I had a pretty good time parading him around Riotfest; there were lots of other parents there that were around our age and of course, less, and they came up and told us about their kids, and then there were the kids who were probably only about 10 years older than Gram who were there and were not happy about seeing a toddler there. My laughing thought: Gram’s a lot closer to your age than you are to the bands’ ages. Ha Ha Ha.
SURF COMBAT!!!