MyPaint – Free and Under 10MB
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.
Weekly Digest – 2012-02-27
- LSD inventor's letter to Steve Jobs – http://t.co/o2JUWR0Y #
- FRACT OSC game – Create electronic music to solve puzzles in a Tron/MYST/Rez environment. (crew=3) [via Nathan Blume] http://t.co/x6AkvIzb #
- Finally, a little help to distinguish nerds from geeks. #infographic http://t.co/ZyguPlaK #
- WebGL ball in water. I can't believe this is happening in my browser. http://t.co/fZSTQ88N #
- “@winsontang Adobe employee speaks out about bloatware http://t.co/eIK3vxyU” #
Standing Desk
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 back and neck. There are other benefits but, for now, let’s just say there are MANY reason’s not to sit around all day.
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.
Here’s a photo I took of my setup last month. it’s been tweaked a bit, but the height is the same.
More details soon!
*UPDATE 2012-03-14*
if you absolutely MUST sit, this Capsico is a fun jungle gym.
A friend of mine reminded me of this post, so I’ll add a snippet update as I progress (organically?) towards a final, more flushed-out post.
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 favourite chairs was the HÅG Capisco (pictured right).
In the end, I’m standing… and I love it. The change is significant enough, where I have reset my awareness on my body. I quickly notice when I’m leaning too far in, craning my neck or 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. Standing with locked knees does not promote movement.
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.
The easier thing to remember is this…
“The best posture is always the next one.” – Peter Opsvik
Weekly Digest – 2012-02-20
- Yet another motivator to remain open and positive. http://t.co/gLsDMLBG #
- I don't want it in my food, but it this waterproofing technology will look pretty sweet on my shoes. [thx Allen] http://t.co/RCA6Fr9x #
- Can you see the population growth ripple in this 2000-2010 infographic? Includes Detroit. http://t.co/hnaf0wDF #
- Do infographics get more beautiful than those in this collection? If so… please share! http://t.co/p7cuURWe #
- Burning Man 2011 photo gallery… with links on the left to tons more galleries. *sigh* http://t.co/8grGQA5T #
- Amusing hero formula infographics : http://t.co/YEtYaZFU #
- Star Wars story formulas laid out in an info-graphic. http://t.co/F0TmTKNJ #
- Man sacrifices everything to build 3D printer that prints houses. http://t.co/As1oO29r #
- Cheaper medical devices allow for crowdsourced health. http://t.co/zFffstEM #
- Character animators are the best bullshit detectors. It's their JOB to understand the relationship of thought to body language… at 24+ fps. #
- Can disco make this Petman robot seem less threatening? http://t.co/1eMUqwDc #
Linux Shell Prompt Customized
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.
Weekly Digest – 2012-02-13
- Ghetto Hikes – Read dat aloud and laugh yo fu#&in ass off. [via Zak] http://t.co/xeLpz3g5 #
- We might get $2,000 for loosing our homes? Gee… thanks. http://t.co/WqAXr4nl #
- “Sweet” doesn’t really cover it. Me wants Nemo in real life. [thx Dave Lyster] http://t.co/lftdYeE0 #
- I will be taking advantage of this figure drawing reference material soon. http://t.co/2czknjZu #
- Rubik’s cube speed freaks might have to slow down on this baby, or they’ll risk loosing a fingertip. http://t.co/kMACNDMm #
- Lightning in super slow motion. http://t.co/ihZnuwMY #
- The original “Carlos”, in it’s entirety (339 minutes), on Blu-Ray and DVD, thanks to a Criterion Collection. Loved it. http://t.co/AoV5fABj #
Moments Gallery
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.
UFlycam Steadicam and SynthEyes
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!
Learning Web Development
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.
