 |
||||
|
The personal web log of Mike Lee, a web information architect, and teacher working in New York City "I surf as much as I eat." curiouslee in...   Hiptop Nation Mirror Project Google Images The City Paper UMBC TechPort email me past monthly... 2000:10.11.12 2001:01.02.03.04.05.06 07.08. 09.10.11.12 2002:01.02.03.04.05.06 07.08.09.10.11.12
 [?] |
Friday, August 31, 2001
CNN interface recomped Melanie Goux, a motion graphics designer, has posted her recomped version of the controversial CNN TV interface to go along with her critique. Thursday, August 30, 2001
The pinnacle of cubicles CNN reports on a collaboration between Ideo and Scott Adams to design the perfect office cubicle. Wednesday, August 29, 2001
The nature of a long weekend Part of our vacation this year was a return to the wonderful cabin near Level, West Virginia. Naturally, I took lots of photos, and here are a few to add to the ones previously posted.  This was our early morning view of the eastern side of the valley.  My view of relaxed trip companions.  A katydid with nothing better to do checks out my coffee cup.  A red newt I almost stepped on.  Some pretty mushrooms that must serve as a getaway or hideout to some fortunate bugs.  The cabin at dusk. The first day of 40 Well I turned a happy 40 yesterday. What gets me is that I have co-workers who were just discovering solid food when I started using computers. Friday, August 24, 2001
Trees on Mars? After the debunking of the face on Mars, some have found what appear to be large trees near the south pole. Earthfiles has an article about the new controversy. Thursday, August 23, 2001
3D printing My neighbor Rich Lipsher, a sculpture and 3D graphics teacher at The Maryland Institute College of Art (where I also teach), told me last night about a special demo they were running today of a 3D printer. The system, developed at MIT and marketed by Z Corporation, produces three-dimensional solid objects from a box of powered starch or plaster. The key innovation is that the system uses an ink-jet printer mechanism to spray the adhesives on the power surface. This approach (plus advances in computer software and hardware in general) drastically reduces the cost of these systems. The one shown below costs $49,000. If you think this is a lot, consider that this same kind of technology used to sell for $250,000 or more a few years ago.  Here's an example of concentric balls created by the system in one session without special preparations. When completed, the operator just pulled the object out, and shook the excess powder out.  The machine is the size of an office copier. They just rolled it in, plugged it into standard AC, and turned it on.  Rich shows off one of his sculptures produced by the system. The school is close to purchasing one of these, and both students and faculty are excited. Wednesday, August 22, 2001
Cool fog  I went out to test the new hammocks they've placed on our promenade and watched the water mist system in action. Billed as the longest one outside of Disneyland, it provides a cooling effect for strollers on hot windless days, and adds a surrealistic atmosphere to the front of the building—especially at night. I'm not sure who built ours, but ReddiMist and Great Western Fog are examples, and someone has posted instructions on how to build your own. Tuesday, August 21, 2001
Multitasking counterproductive The American Psychological Association's Journal of Experimental Psychology has published a paper on a study by two researchers at The University of Michigan who demonstarte that multi-tasking is counterproductive. This discovery doesn't come as a surprise. Monday, August 20, 2001
The American Dime Museum Yesterday, we finally took a trip to The American Dime Museum, which is just south of the Charles Village area where we live in Baltimore, and a place I drive by every day on the way to work. The museum is a public gallery and research center celebrating the era before traveling circuses, radio, and television where people paid a dime admission fee to see amazing displays and performances. Some of the things on display are modern day reproductions inspired by the methods of the day, others are actual artifacts acquired from a variety of sources.  The proprietors of the museum greet the day's first visitors.  The two-faced calf!  A giant ball of neckties!  The gum woman ... sticks of fresh gum were provided for you to chew and add the result to the display. This is interactivity that deserves an era of its own. Next on our list of offbeat museums is the National Cryptologic Museum. Sunday, August 19, 2001
A little origami  I was feeling fidgety after downing a big mocha at Donna's Coffee Bar, and made this origami piece out of a paper napkin ring. The flapping crane is pictured on a nickel coin. It's the only pattern I remember from my childhood play days. I surfed around and found that someone made a seriously small version. Here are the plans in PDF. Friday, August 17, 2001
Philip Greenspun rants about the Nikon Coolpix 995 user interface Phil, and avid photographer, and founder of Photo.net posts a long rrant about the problems with the hardware, software user interfaces of the new Nikon 995 digital camera. By the end of the article, he predicts that these products will have to standardize on an operating system. What's sad is the fact that many of the problems he describes have been in the 900 series of cameras all along. Despite all the convenience and cost savings I enjoy using my Nikon 950, there are so many times I miss descisive moments due to slow auto-focus, camera shutter delays, and system crashes. I'm tempted to start carrying my Leica M2 again. Thursday, August 16, 2001
Ben Discoe's web site I wandered into this programmer's web site today, and enjoyed the array of computer graphics experiments. There are some thoughts and explorations on mapping web sites, the Dynamaxion car, and virtual landscapes. Tuesday, August 14, 2001
Monday, August 13, 2001
MIT alphabot Nikita Pashenkov, a research assistant at MIT's Aesthetic and Computation Group, built a prototype of a robot that reconfigures its form in all the various letters of the alphabet! He's offering drawings of the letterform configurations as a Mac Truetype font. Sunday, August 12, 2001
A browser grid background Web Page Design for Designers offers a downloadable desktop wallpaper with grid lines showing standard browser window sizes. The color palette is a bit much, but you can easily adjust it in any image editor. A digital image recovery service It was only a matter of time before a company appeared offering services to recover data from corrupted digital camera memory cards. Digital Photography Review reports on the details. Saturday, August 11, 2001
One degree of separation The web makes the world so very small. Flutterby linked to a news story about a man who met a woman through an online dating service who turned out to be his wife! Thursday, August 09, 2001
Mybutthurts now A friend called yesterday and offered free tickets to an advance screening of Apocalypse Now Redux at The Senator Theater. So after rounding up a bunch of people from work, we went tonight. Most of my co-workers had never seen the film on the large screen, and I gave away my age when I recalled seeing at The Uptown in DC on opening night in 1979. The recut sequences, and new print were gorgeous. But towards the end, my butt started to ache — another sign of slowing circulation due to age. Elsewhere, photojournalist Dirck Halstead has a great story about his assignment to document the film's disasterous production. Bill's house I remembered a great illustration of Bill Gates' house that ran in U.S. News & World Report a few years ago, and find that the interactive site is still up, and they are selling posters of the three page foldout. I also saw mention on someone's site that architect James Cutler's monograph has some nice photos. Wednesday, August 08, 2001
Old bitmapped fonts Via Splorp comes news that designer Mark Simonson's has released his old Macintosh bitmap fonts collection into the public domain. Many btmap font designs continue to be useful for low-resolution web interfaces. Sunday, August 05, 2001
Wireless networking encryption cracked EE Times reports that a group of leading cryptographers have released a paper describing how to crack the encryption used by popular WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) products. The protocol, called 802.11b, is used by most consumer wireless network products for home and office. This doesn't seem to surprise techs I know who adhered to conventional wisdom about the protocol's vulnerability. Wireless hardware was banned from our network when we moved to our new building. It would have been nice to wirelessly surf the web from the waterfront. Since the release of the paper, an undergraduate student at a Rice University has demonstarted the crack on real hardware. Saturday, August 04, 2001
Intellectual property and the good society Jon "Hannibal" Stokes presents a longish editorial about the current state of intellectual property law. He points out the shortcomings of rights language in focusing on disputes between individuals while ignoring the top-heavy control of copyright by large, wealthy corporations. He asserts that the overall structure of how intellectual property rights are distributed and controlled needs to be recognized and better managed. Though informative, the article serves as a reminder of the sad fact that those with lots of money to hire lawyers end up controlling information. Full screen web ads Brandium has reached the ultimate in web ad intrusion with a system that almost completely blacks out your web browser window to display an ad banner. It looks like they put up a black table cell in a layer with a javascript "close" link". Zone Alarm My wife has been using Zone Labs' Zone Alarm firewall at home, and has been amazed at how often our DSL connection is probed. Zone Alarm is free in its basic version. A Mac equivalent is Doorstop. Friday, August 03, 2001
Quantum Battery Now that the cost of memory cards has gone way down for digital cameras, the problem of ample battery power still needs solving. Leaving the camera LCD screen on continuously over several hours of shooting is one way to overcome camera start up delays, but this requires an external battery. One company that has made batteries for flash equipment is Quantum, and they've adapted their line of products to work with digital cameras. Some of the camera makers charge up to $150 for an extra rechargable battery, making the Quantum battery and similar products a viable alternate for serious shooters. Central Camera has prices. Thursday, August 02, 2001
Interview with a distance learning guru Here's a brief interview with MIT's Distance Learning guru Richard Larson. He answers questions about the state of the industry and provides a tip on how he uses a buddy system to pair students as a way to increase interaction.
|
|||
