Category Archives: Interesting

Something interesting I found or like

Swype Alphabet

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I just got a new cell phone, a Samsung SCH-I415. It has a physical keyboard, but it also comes loaded with Swype, a virtual keyboard that uses word patterns on the keyboard to interpret input. This annoyed me, because I’d wanted to do sculptures based on these shapes and don’t want to be considered as derivative. I’d done some maquettes in recent years and posted about it here, but hadn’t showed anything, except for a small piece I showed at the Samson Project‘s Chain Letter show in 2011. For the curious, documentation occurs on the far right panel of the 13th image from the show, it’s the little wooden piece to the left of the tangle of wires. My own documentation of the show is here.

Well, I started playing with Swype, and it works pretty well as an input system, much better than pecking at a virtual screen with fingertips and missing every sixth letter. It doesn’t much like usernames and oddities, but it does a decent job of adding things to its dictionary, although I’d rather not trust it with any passwords. It’s funny, but it’s easier to Swype with my left hand because it doesn’t seem to cover up as much of the keyboard while I’m drawing. It then occurred to me: since I’m drawing on the keyboard, I could take a page from my alphabets fixation and see how Swype would interpret my letter shapes.

I did the capital alphabet several times, to get something of a statistical collection of words, and here is a selected list:

A: Cyndi
B: Truth
C: Itch
D: Tactic
E: Rancho
F: Through
G: Using
H: Rerun
I: Truck
J: Until
K: Reign
L: Ten
M: Exton
N: Darby
O: Hecht
P: Trig
Q: Grub
R: Flubbed
S: Utrecht
T: Thai
U: Ruby
V: Rio
W: Echo
X: Eric
Y: Rub
Z: Rick Flynn

I tried to keep with a single word for each letter, with the exception of “Rick Flynn” for “Z”, because it was pretty awesome. Also, honorable mention to the runner up for “Z”, “Gagnon B-)”. I didn’t include it because an emoticon isn’t really a word, but it’s also pretty awesome.

PostArtPoetry: “IHDRkXTPLTEttXX//”, a PNG poem

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In honor of the Post-Art Poets (@postartpoets), whose motto is THE TIMELINE OF ART HISTORY MUST BE ABANDONED IN THE NAME OF PROGRESS, I have interpreted their logo as its own form of machine poetry, reproduced below in both full representation and as edited to retain all English text letters.

Full Poem:

PNG

IHDRkXTPLTEttXX//

]],,ggTTAA<<qqhh”EE66YYJJbb22rr33DD–44yySS[[iillzz::**FF__

>>ssOONN!!        0088&&aa$$ZZMMGGKKRR11II))PPnnUUpp;;LL77~~dd??..jj%%}}^^BBHH""{{WW@@kkffooy&IDATxCeE%BMe5]HSBtIS;2CRC]Jsgd;wf`08 m=`B\ $Qb G@Hc `H] $HgNiBhwC t9(@&m56.l;n=|gAiWo

N(@_Brr]rE?o48@3x@_P7Wd3Zb’Z NBFDl_7)PtPX`T
@FEh ZlO653-|c572!;\d@P’
@duB.].G2k<o04e3t”,r{Q`9!+_86@S5′+!1T7w\<tV@3Y,.<Kp_d.n[`Xic h%T4n5%\QXDUTD    PFOZ<;g)u5}:YPF^`k.L%z@QgF
reeCFu>(Ma{B>tC7@0l    q"`hh(:N2@k@QwQY)9fe'`W60_
/:@6
Uo/I_0@:_0"TNvS3}k+zJ$4E@tt@-<0x'E`-g+f<nqtX3kwkF532aNY-t1W!P. k<~UA(odoV7@_Uq{C
`,
oX`th:
v`aw>|wk    @4.Y0sP]04dW”@{z5_1/A3_1C pu]`};’5@i<i@tX|&”M5U7_T[(i?!N\}&]DZA`i}U=l~F~sw{U_3 ,WO2@Wj{Uehyidc2q]@fMy-G^    S”q|~I5&%ue
72&]    W{7MTP
*2z7k+S8dJdF>N8^n]ooGyIGeYA(P`bh4`k
@hgdaX6X5p`qM)[zli`C.0,:g@-I@:9_j\hO;=v-5`=Gr/    2t@A@@@@fxmLm
}}c+:0@pCmF]&gkA3LP?M&`7T:CK    @sw4y/ey@V.7-.,7TO0*KBh]@wc38Lr!\?]+5@0KK@3P,5tvG,l%$C{|&QZB@@@WQX<R`0f4J
L0`0*0jN8_IENDB`

English Text Version:

PNG

IHDRkXTPLTEttXX

ggTTAAqqhhEEYYJJbbrrDDyySSiillzzFF

ssOONN        aaZZMMGGKKRRIIPPnnUUppLLddjjBBHHWWkkffooyIDATxCeEBMeHSBtISCRCJsgdwf mB Qb GHc H HgNiBhwC tmngAiWo

NBrrrEo483xPWdZbZ NBFDlPtPXT
FEh ZlOcdP
duBGkoetrQSTwtVYKpdnXic hTnQXDUTD    PFOZguYPFkLzQgF
reeCFuMaBtCl    qhhNkQwQYfeW

UoITNvSkzJEttxEgfnqtXkwkFaNYtWP kUAodoVUqC

oXth
vawwk    YsPdWzAC puiitXMUTiNDZAiUlFswU3 WOWjUehyidcqfMyG    SqIue
WMTP
zkSdJdFNnooGyIGeYAPbhk
hgdaXXpqMzliCgIjhOvGr    tAfxmLm
cpCmFgkALPMTCK    swyeyVTOKBhwcLrKKPtvGlCQZBWQXRfJ
LjNIENDB

 Machine-Readable Translation:

54302f6a68d7ace23530650304f8d269-1

 

When I Say “City” Twitter Volley

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On Thursday, 5 April, Neil Freeman at fakeisthenewreal.com started posting tweets starting with the phrase When I say “city”… and then continuing with some aphorism, trope, concept, observation, stereotype or definition of the urban landscape. Several people, including myself, joined in the fun. Here are my contributions, taken directly from my Twitter account as a screenshot:

WhenISayCity

Fortunately for all involved, Neil collated his own entries here. There are also some fun compilations at Storify, here and here.

Here are my entries in text form:

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I mean Chicago at 5am seen flying in over Lake Michigan.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I mean a closed-system O’Neill settlement five miles long orbiting at the fourth lunar Lagrange point.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I mean “Trantor”.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr when I say “city”, it’s because I had to go fire up my old Maxis game and hit the “Tornado” button.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I mean the human equivalent of a climax forest.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I mean photogenic young people in large apartments maintained with no visible means of support.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I mean a place of hedonism, debauchery, and women refusing their proper roles in society.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I really mean “anti-Arcadia”.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I’m saying they’ll never stay on the farm after they’ve seen it.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say, “city”, I am referring to the abode of the Holy God King, long may be his days and great his victories.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I mean men in expensively-tailored suits steepling their fingers over plans to increase their power.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I indicate that savings in transportation costs dictate increased density.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city”, I’m referring to a place where the benefits of collaboration outweigh the desire for autonomy.

Ted Ollier ‏@mindhue 5 Apr
@fitnr When I say “city” I’m talking about a location with anomalously high temperature profile compared to its surroundings.

Exquiste Corpse Letterpress Piece at the Bow & Arrow

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We’re doing a Spring Show at the Bow and Arrow Press on Thursday, and in celebration we had people typeset anything they wanted, as long as it was 22 picas wide and about food. Here’s the resulting exquisite corpse, set up on a galley and ready for printing on the SP-20:

BHR57WICAAMJxAY

I printed it using PANTONE 194 dark red (something close to Harvard crimson), on some awesome paper stock. The head of the dining hall at Adams House comes into the Press to typeset, and she had a box of Fryolator filter paper that wasn’t the right size for the fry machines and had been kicking around for a few years. I cut it down to 12″ x 18″ and it worked wonderfully:

BHSL1lDCcAASHI5

Camera Setup for the Equinoctal Skygrid

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Got some last-minute kinks worked out, and the camera is in its housing and set up on my deck, ready to snap pictures of the sky. One such is right here:

image13-03-18_18-02-57-12

Lovely image of clouds at dusk, in case you’re wondering what that is we’re looking at. Here’s a couple pictures of the installation itself:

InstallationViewFrontShot

And here’s a shot from the time-lapse camera itself, of me taking its picture:

TakingCamerasPicture

I’m a little blurry because it’s not really set for close-up images. : )

Network Video Movies!

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So I continued to play around with the Axis network video camera I was graciously loaned, and got it set up so it automatically uploads HD-sized video stills to my FTP site, starting at 5:00 am and ending at 9:00 pm. In fact, it should just be finishing up right now. However, from about 7:15 on, the images were basically black, because we’re not even at the equinox yet and that kind of day duration won’t be prevalent until the solstice. But it works! Awesomesauce! To celebrate, I whipped up a quick time-lapse video of my neighbor’s roof and the sky:

Since I’m interested in the sky colors, I did a crop of the sky quadrant and averaged out the values to create this time-lapse:

And just because I was feeling silly, I cropped out the right-hand roofline and averaged out the values to create a final time-lapse:

I just have to figure out where to mount the camera and I can start a six-month collection regimen of a new skygrid! Woo-hoo!

Network Video Still (Precursor to Great Things)

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And here’s a lovely thing: a still taken from the new networked video camera I got that does 1080p images just because. As soon as I can finesse the settings I’m thinking about doing an automated setup that will result in a new skygrid running from equinox to equinox.

Camera Snapshot

It’s dark and orange because I have the white balance set on “daylight 5000K” and because I’m hoping to fix the settings at something close to the “sunny 16″ rule, or the shooting setup for sunlit scenes. I need to get the proper configuration file for the lens the camera is fitted with, and then I hopefully will have full control of the f/stop and other settings.

Upcoming Printmaking Show at the Nave Annex

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This coming Thursday, February 21st, a printmaking show I organized with Carolyn Muskat as juror will open at the new Nave Annex, located in bustling Davis Square in Somerville, literally right next to Redbones BBQ. Any Boston folks will definitely want to go check it out. We’ll have a closing reception on Friday the 8th of March. Here’s the front of the postcard:

Black-Ink-Postcard-1

Participating artists are Nancy Brooks, Elizabeth Cameron, Lisa Conrad, 
Christiane Corcelle, Nancy Diessner
, Gary Duehr, Dominique Duroseau, Amy Kaufman, 
Jackie Miller, Elisabeth Nicula, Katie O’Brien, 
Damir Porobic, Anne Russell, Annie Silverman, 
Karl Stephan, Emily Trespas, William Turville
, Katherine Vetne, and James Weinberg.

Fun with Powdered Graphite

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I dug up my jar of powdered graphite recently, and figured, hey, we have transparent white at the Bow and Arrow for mixing purposes, maybe it would work as a pigment base? And it was so. Of course, once I mixed it up, I had to print something with the graphite ink, so I did a little piece celebrating carbon:

Four-Natural-Forms-of-Carbon
Four Natural Allotropes of the Element Carbon

I’ll do a numbered edition of 27 for this one, so if anyone’s interested in purchasing a piece, let me know. I also did some one-offs, just messing around with the type on the press, and this one was amusing:

Flipped-Allotropes

I call it Flipped Allotropes.