Cadillac renderings

Here is a recent 3D model. They will eventually be greatly transformed to use in a story that I want to make about post-apolcalyptic rodents, but that's for another post.

These were made entirely in Blender, and the model was done entirely by me. The outdoor shot is from the warehouse parking lot where I store exhibit materials for clients. I modeled it in 3D and 'projected' the photo onto it to create the textures.

Secede? I have a better idea...

So Obama won, and now the more radical right is saying they want to secede. Everyone else is replying with sentiments from 'yeah, sure, whatever' to 'Good riddance!' Both sides have been acting like spoiled children for the past twelve months, and it was fore-ordained that roughly half of the population would lose, and given the fever pitch the marketing machines of both parties were working at, it's no wonder the reactions of the more embedded voters are going over the line.

I have a different suggestion: let's secede from their parties.

The two political parties have been defining themselves not by their core beliefs, but by opposition to whatever the other party is saying. They aren't even thinking about compromising and getting things done. How can our government actually govern when it is paralyzed by partisan rhetoric? I think we need a separate centrist party to act as a mediator and tie-breaker for the two geezer parties who aren't talking to each other anymore. The vast majority of the population isn't far left or far right, and they currently have no representation in the two party system.

 

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New iPad

A few months ago I bought a new iPad, 3rd generation, and I must say I'm liking it for a variety of tasks, and a little disappointed in a few areas that I thought it might be better.

First, it is a lovely gadget, and for any sort of consumption of media, looking at Facebook or reading my RSS feeds, it's a joy. Netflix, ebooks, so many things, it's very enjoyable to use. But I bought it for professional use. So I'm looking at it with a few aims in mind:

Notes: B

There are a slew of note-taking apps, but as a visual person, I really want something I can draw ideas out with, and as a practical matter I want to be able to record meetings as well. I've used Notebook, Soundnote, and Evernote. Each one has advantages over the others, but none has emerged as a clear winner.

Notebook has a 'real notebook' visual metaphor, which is slightly annoying. I wasn't fond of Apple's decision to go with faux realism in its Calendar and Address Book apps, either. It feels a little cheesy to me, like I'm supposed to forget I'm working with software on a glass screen. However, it is a nice app to use, and includes a sketching tool which doesn't suck. For involved drawing I'll stick with one of the dedicated apps and bring it in. It also has voice annotation and Dropbox syncing, which is very nice.

Evernote primarily has the advantage of being aggressively synced across devices (or even through the website if I'm away from my tech). But my primary use for it is to gather web clips that I want to use as references for later.

 

Presentation: B

I need to be able to show images and 3D data. Keynote works well for normal images and text, with some built in charts. It lacks a 'runtime' navigation system: you can't make a link to one slide from an onscreen button, so there is no way to have a branching presentation. There is an app called Picture Link that says it can do this, but I haven't had many opportunities yet to use it. Also, neither has a 'markup' tool. I might start saving things out as a PDF and opening in PDF Pen for just that reason.

3D is a bit of a problem. Ideally, I want to be able to provide a 'walkthrough' of an exhibit or store layout, and it would be great if I could make simple changes to both the structure and textures of the model right on the iPad. So far no dice. There are 'augmented reality' apps that should be able to provide the walk through, but as far as I can tell, there's no way to do any sort of markup on the model. I'm thinking about how 3D implements in Adobe PDF, but that is very difficult to implement without expensive software, and still doesn't do what I really want–not to mention it doesn't work on the iPad.

Communication: A

So far it's worked pretty well. Most of my main problems were alleviated by switching my main email over to imap from smtp. I also have Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ apps for social networking. And I'm writing this post on my iPad using Blogsy. I've even used Skype and Teamviewer on my iPad.

Data entry: B

I've had a lot of experience with FileMaker Go and Bento, and I must say they continue to impress. The addition of design on the iPad in Bento is wonderful, and even without the capabilities of Filemaker it can be very usable. And of course, having the power of FileMaker in a (free) mobile app is a great boon.

The main problem I have with FMG is a lack of desktop sync built in. It's something you have to code for yourself. Not insurmountable, but a big omission. It would have been fine if you could use ODBC connections like you can in FileMaker on the desktop. That way you could have FMG serve as a back end to a readily available and cheap MySQL database hosted anywhere. Getting a FM database served over the internet is a bit of an investment, and truly integrating it into an existing website is still far from trivial.

Still, this makes for an excellent use-case, as long as you don't have to do too much typing, like I am right now. The dictation feature will hopefully alleviate that to some extent, but that has it's own limitations.

 

 

Drawing: A

I recently acquired a pressure sensitive stylus from Adonit, the Jot Touch. I does change the whole idea of making sketches on the iPad from "meh" to "not bad". I have yet to actually finish a drawing on the iPad, but it does make for some good sketching.

There are a bazillion drawing apps, but primarily use Sketchbook Pro, ArtStudio, Procreate, TouchDraw and iDraw. They are all pretty good in their own way, and I imagine I'm going to be moving back and forth between them the same way I move back and forth between brush pens, crowquills, and technical pens. I'm not sure if they are really ready for prime time, but it is fun watching the curve.

I don't know if a serious artist would be satisfied with the capabilities of an iPad; certainly it is less mature and capable than a cheap computer with a Cintiq, but for someone who just wants to sketch on a portable device, and maybe develop and finish on the computer, it is compelling.

But if we're talking about sketching, my current favorite is Paper, which is very bare bones but intuitive. It follows a visual metaphor of the Moleskine notebooks, but the metaphor doesn't extend where it isn't useful. It lacks any 'pinch to zoom' features, or layers, and it only has five tools plus an eraser, and only nine colors, but what it does do very well is get out of your way. There are some nice sharing.

For sketches, it is literally a joy to use.

 

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Funerals

This year I've had to attend two funerals, one for my grandmother and one for my mother-in-law. Neither was a surprise, and both were painful. They say these things come in threes; if so I can wait.

Both of the funerals were bittersweet. They were celebrations of lives lived with courage and grace, attended by family and friends. Strangers whose stories you have heard but never had a face to match to. An underlying sadness that the vital connector for our disparate lives is no more.

My wife and her sisters are now having to sift through the boxes of paperwork that even a normal, too short life accumulates. Their mother was a very organized person, and a lover of writing, journals, correspondence, short stories and two published novels, so there is more than might be usual. It is a form of closure, I suppose.

I feel useless now, same as I did for my grandmother. All I can do is stand ready in case heavy lifting is required, or a pickle jar needs opening. I can be a source of calm for my wife, a shoulder, a maker of coffee and burner of meals that she doesn't feel like making.

She says she's grateful, so I try to be more calm and shoulder-y. I can't help but think that this is dreadful practice for later in life, when these things become more common, but I don't want to think about it. They say the stages in your life can be marked by what formal occasions you attend, the gateways of our lives. Children go to Confirmation or Bar Mitzvah, young men and women graduate, then start going to all the weddings of their friends, then the showers for their kids, then the funerals. All of my friends who are likely to get married and have kids have done so. After that it's mainly funerals. It feels like I've reached the funeral stage, and I can't wait for the next generation to start up the graduations and weddings so I can vicariously feel more hopeful.

Even a celebration of a life well spent is a reminder that life is meant to be spent, and to be careful how you spend this one life.

 

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Hokusai Exhibit

Last weekend we went to Washington DC to see the exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum. The exhibit was beautiful, and of course the Smithsonian is always worth the trip. And it gave us an excuse to go up and finally see where Alessa and Dean are living. It's a very spacious house in a farming area near a small town, reminds me some of Uncle Paul's place in Michigan. Hopefully we'll be able to get the Tomasi's up to DC later inthe summer, but there are a lot of logistical hurdles for that. We've volunteered our timeshare points for the location in Alexandria, but that's just the start of it.

And of course, you can't take photos in the exhibit, so you'll just have to take my word for it: it was great!

Ecolab Project

This is the big project I'd been working on from around January through the middle of May (though about two thirds of that was planning, design, and client buy-in). It's a reworking of their existing Octanorm structure. We used swoosh shapes and increasing height toward the middle to help draw the eye to the main corporate ID signage, and lights with colored frosted plexiglass and angles to distract from the grid like structure of the extrusions.

It was a lot of work, but It's finally done, barring some repairs on the returned freight.

Lesson learned - for a project this size, I have to go on site with it. No questions. Also, set up a 'feature drop' time frame, so if a client stalls the production for too long, they get less booth options.

Still, I'm glad it went so well, and I think it turned out spectacularly.

 

Amendment One

I normally steer clear of politics, both in my general life and in this blog. But I feel I have to speak out.

This week, North Carolina (where I live) passed its first amendment to it's state Constitution, to restrict the legal definition of marriage to being between a man and a woman. Which sounds like simple bigotry and homophobia masquerading as morality, but frankly also eliminates a lot of public services from single parents, including heterosexuals, and people fleeing an abusive spouse. I can't understand the justification for this. The reasons I have heard most about are just not defensible:

The Bible says so - The bible says lots. Most people simply pick and choose which passages are worth living by, and make excuses for the rest. Whenever someone invokes the bible as a reason for their actions, I shudder at the hideous history of that justification. The separation of church and state should nullify the validity of this in any public policy discourse, but lately it has been creeping back in. The religious (left and right) are trying to overthrow our government, and I can't stand for that.

Defending the sanctity of marriage - Seriously? What are we even talking about here? That marriage is sacred, more sacred than civil equality? Something is sacred only if people imbue it with that quality, and frankly there aren't a lot of people out there doing that for marriage. If you want to protect the sanctity of marriage, lead by example, not by rhetoric. Protect the sanctity of your marriage. You have no right to mess with, or deny, anyone elses. And still, we are blurring the line between church and state. If the government holds anything to be sacred, it is only those self-evident truths we built our government on.

Marriage is a privilege, not a right, and therefore not protected by the constitution - Finally, someone is trying to couch some arguments in a non-religious context. Unfortunately, marriage falls under the broad definition of 'pursuit of happiness'. So, yeah, it is a right.

Heterosexual union is the best for children and society - Best for children? Care to show any documentation on that claim? Most pedophiles are straight men, molesting girls who are most often their own, or closely related to them. Best for society? How is that being measured?

The purpose of marriage is to provide a stable unit for raising children - My wife and I are childless. Is our marriage not valid? Stand within spitting distance and say that.

As I'm writing this, I realize that I'm using straw-man arguments here. But I haven't heard any valid reasons for what transpired here on May 8th, 2012. To me, the law was not only bigoted and homophobic, but poorly worded and ambiguous. It's defeat seemed like such a no-brainer, there was no way my fellow citizens would allow it to stand. I forgot that I live in a state where even thirty years ago, the Klan was a legitimate power. It seems that the weakness of moral fiber that infects my state has not truly been eradicated.

My wife and I cast our vote, and lost. But I haven't given up hope on this state. Not everyone here is so deluded, and we will drag North Carolina back into the light of freedom and justice for all, I do believe.