ninja mode

?¢‚Ǩ?ìForm follows function?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùthat has been misunderstood. Form and function should be one, joined in a spiritual union.?¢‚Ǩ¬ù
?¢‚Ǩ‚ÄùFrank Lloyd Wright

I was told Wednesday evening by a total stranger that I was “amazing.” The context and content of the conversation are entirely irrelevant, but I thanked her kindly for the compliment, and then got to thinking about the word itself.

What is amazing?

According to Webster, “amazing” is an adjective, meaning “causing amazement, great wonder, or surprise.” Wikipedia gives several song titles among other items as uses of “amazing,” and searching Google generates approximately 270,000,000 results. So, although “amazing” can be used in a multitude of contexts, it seems that the prevailing majority of its uses resonate a certain kind of positivity.

So, where am I headed with this? Well, in honor of the glorious and entirely unexpected compliment I was given, I am declaring every Wednesday from here on out “Amazing Wednesday.” In the past, Wednesday has been known as “Neutral Wednesday,” and Tuesday sometimes called “Positive Tuesday,” but that’s all about to change.

Amazing Wednesday:

Every week I will do one of the following and make a post about it here on Wednesday through some kind of documentation: photo, video, writing, etc.

o Make note of one positive event or point that happens to me in that day or during the week leading up to that particular Wednesday
o Pay the compliment I received forward and give someone else an equally positive compliment
o Be witness to something extremely positive, or read about and consider something positive occurring on a massive scale somewhere in the world
o Do something positive for someone else

Amazing Wednesday activities aren’t explicitly limited to those listed here, and can be entirely spontaneous. Actually, it’s probably better if they’re completely unplanned, since part of amazing’s definition is its surprising nature. And if I miss a Wednesday, well, I miss a Wednesday and that’s that.

It is my new personal goal to bring a little more amazing to all the world, and a little more amazing to Wednesday! Who’s with me?

Okay, so what’s the deal with these strobe lights on top of school busses now?

If you don’t notice a giant American-cheese-yellow shoebox on wheels driving around, how is a tiny strobe going to make a difference?

It’s so distracting.

In late middle school/early high school, I remember using a laptop in class on rare occasions. The district had purchased a set of laptops which were placed on a cart which traveled the school. I can’t remember what we specifically used them for at the time, but I was always disappointed that it wasn’t for anything particularly significant or for any extended period, since they didn’t seem to be very well-maintained. Since then, I’ve found the subject of computers and children (especially in education) fairly interesting. It’s definitely something unavoidable; computers are so mainstream now that it’s almost impossible not to encounter them in some way in life. To assume that children won’t need to learn about them in order to be successful is silly.

I was particularly lucky because my mom was pretty forward-thinking in that respect – going to computer class and computer camp are some of my earliest childhood memories. Well, not earliest, but very early just the same. I got to use the internet in some of its earliest public incarnations, and you can bet I was the only second grader in my school who knew how to handle a 5-1/4″ floppy. Where has this taken me now?

Well, where am I? I’m in college, studying communication design, which is a field where computers are utilized heavily. I work at a job completely unrelated to what I’m studying, because I know how computers work and how to make them work when they stop doing what they should. These are things I’ve picked up through experience, and I still use some of the knowledge I gained in those early lessons. Knowing the difference between ROM and RAM, for example. A huge part of one of my classes last year focused on numbers in binary, which I learned about when I was very young in a game in one of those classes where we flicked flashlights on and off to represent zeroes and ones to spell words.

In short, I think my own experience with computers has helped me to go much further with what I want to do and enjoy doing, as well as given me many more options as to where I can go. I don’t know what other schools were like early on, but I know my own was sadly lacking in this type of education for a very long time. A few classrooms in elementary school were equipped with Apple ]['s. (Yeah, those Apple ]['s.) The teachers were completely unprepared to use these, or to allow students to use them, which was really unfortunate. Although they were a little dated for the time, they were a really good experience in learning the basics for how a computer works – what its parts are, what they do, how it works, etc. Am I lamenting antiquated technology? Okay, maybe, but the jist of my argument is that everyone else could have had just as good a start as I did had the technology been made available to them. My mother had to find classes for me independent of my school as a result. While it was worthwhile, it’s illustrative of the techno-phobia that seemed to exist then.

It seems that the world is finally catching on, at least in my own observation. High schools are suddenly expanding to include new computer labs, and apparently making some attempt to keep up with the rapid turnover that dominates the technology world. By the time I was a junior in high school we’d finally gotten some decent Dells in the labs, but they were just as quickly outpaced by everything else on the market at the time. I wonder how schools stack up these days.

Regardless, the effect on children is something interesting. For a brief period after I graduated high school, I worked as a sort of day-camp counselor, and part of our day involved taking the kids into one of the labs for a while and letting them loose. Some of my colleagues and I constructed various games for this block of time, like Google scavenger hunts. We involved them (all of them – from Pre-K to 6th grade) in the production of a newsletter that they could take home to their parents. It was really interesting to watch them work. They were very interested in how neat and professional the finished product looked and actually took their time perfecting their articles and drawings, whereas at craft time they’d give anything to rush through it so we could get outside faster. I could never get as large a roomful of them to be quiet and well-behaved as I could when we were in the computer lab. Children have an innate curiosity which makes teaching them about technology a logical move.

Anyway, all this ranting was brought to you by a couple of internet finds this evening:

The Laptop Club: unprovoked, a group of children start making their own paper laptops and playing with them after school. To me, this just expresses the same sense of curiosity and interest to learn about technology that I had which I also witnessed in the children I worked with. It’s interesting to look at the types of features the kids draw into their paper computers. It reminds me of all the features we have now; Dashboard Widgets in OSX (or Yahoo Widgets) and Firefox plugins. Customizations are unlimited.

And, you know, I wish I had a “mathbotton.”

OLPC: The One Laptop Per Child project is an interesting one I’ve been following for a while. I absolutely see and agree with the importance of teaching computer skills to children in developing countries, but at the same time I would like to see a similar movement within the United States. It’s not as though we don’t have the money or technology available to us, especially with new developments that appear constantly. What about technology like tablet PCs? I can say with certainty that my own made me a much more organized student in college so far. If only I’d had something like that in high school. I don’t understand why schools aren’t making use of these things which are available to them. Or why companies who produce textbooks and other materials don’t take better advantage of it. In my perfect world, textbooks would exist digitally. Why show in pictures or words what you can better express with video or sound? But that’s just me, I guess.

According to oldcomputers.net, the original Macs had all the signatures of the designers cast into the inside of the case.

I have one of those. I’m sort of tempted to crack it open and see.

I just watched a segment on 60 Minutes about this supposed ongoing “battle” to force fast food restaurants to put the amount of calories in any given product on the menu board. The restaurants claim it’s impossible to list this kind of information on the board. Subway already has implemented it, but it’s imperfect and difficult to properly calculate once you’ve added extras like mayo or other toppings.

I think they’re taking the wrong approach entirely: they should give the project to a class of overachieving design students and see what happens then.

metafiction: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metafiction

hypertext: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypertext

I feel like blogging, but I have nothing to blog about. Well, nothing huge.

Had S’getti night at my dad’s house with my dad and my brother. Dinner was spaghetti (what else) with cheesecake afterward and then movie-ings.

I drove over, which was best, since Al had been up since some unholy hour of the morning which I refuse to believe exists. Four? Five? Is there such a thing as five in the morning? No. That’s definitely not a time that people should be awake, ever, much less up and doing things. Regardless, he was, and by that time of the evening he was reasonably exhausted.

So we get there, and get settled in; dinner is almost ready, so we’re just hanging around chatting. Al flops down in a comfortable chair. A short time later he’s completely out. Snoring and everything:

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Completely and totally out.

Dad and I laugh and resume getting dinner ready. When the food was about ready, we either called to Al or made some kind of loud noise, I can’t remember, but he woke up for a split second and started yelling:

[something grumbling, sounds like "DAMN"?] CANADIANS!

Dad and I collectively said “Whaaat?” and turned in Al’s direction. He responded with,

THEY LIKE A DIFFERENT KIND OF BACON!

“Al, what are you talking about?”

By this point he was completely awake and had no idea what we (or he) was talking about.

We ate, had cheesecake, and watched Blades of Glory, which was very funny, sort of on the same level as Dodgeball or Talladega Nights. And you know, I’ve only just realized this trend of weird sports-related comedies we seem to watch on Spaghetti Night(s). Hmm. Anyway, good food, good movie, good….stuff.

And now, random filler pictures because I feel the need:

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I have a computer. Go me.

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Digit/Orange is watching you. I have the orangest cat ever.

Also, I love Food Network but at the same time I’m tired of how repetitive it’s gotten lately. I understand Thanksgiving is coming up and that’s like the biggest holiday for food ever, but really, couldn’t there be at least a few more different Thanksgiving episodes of all these shows? I feel like I’ve seen all of them at least three times now. I like turning the channel on while I’m doing other things because it’s interesting to listen to, but I have seen their “All Star Thanksgiving” or whatever it’s called about four times now, and it’s really not that interesting anymore. Maybe I just watch too much Food Network, I don’t know. You’d think the fact that Thanksgiving is such a huge food-related holiday would give them a reason to make an extra episode or two, but apparently not. I’m bored, guys. Bored.

Also, Tyler Florence has got to be my least favorite chef ever. I honestly think they just pulled some jock off the street and told him, “okay, we’re going to show you how to make this thing, and then you’re going to do it in front of a camera. Got it?” Seriously. No personality. I like him even less than I like Sandra Lee or whatever her name is, and I really can’t stand her. The whole concept of her show is a little condescending. Like, “you’re not smart enough to figure out how to make pre-made things yourself, so here’s how.” And then she always makes something with alcohol in it, and then she always has to show off her table decorations. Aaah! It drives me crazy. I don’t want to watch someone cut up paper on the food channel. But I guess I can complain when I have my own show or something, which will never happen. Apparently these people have done something that got them there, I guess I just don’t see it.

And thus ends the least interesting post I’ve ever written.

Back towards the beginning of the semester, one of our projects was to convert a USB keyboard into some type of alternate controller for a computer game. I took pictures while I was working on my project (a pair of gloves with contacts on the fingers and various other locations) but only just got them off my camera. Here are some of the initial steps in putting them together.

Here’s the circuitboard taken from the old keyboard. Getting it out was difficult because it’s important not to break it. Click here to go to my flickr photostream where you can hover over the picture and see the various parts of the circuitboard…

In order to make contacts for the fingertips of the gloves, I needed metal. Cheap or free is best. So, I cut up a couple of aluminum pop cans into square pieces. I bent the edges over and sanded them so they weren’t sharp.

Then I sanded the coating off of each piece. Though it looks like just metal, there is a thin filmy coating over the surface. This needed to go. The dark spots on the edges in this picture show where the metal is still coated – the shiny part is clean!

This is one completed contact. The metal has been sanded and is completely shiny. Then I soldered a long piece of copper wire to it. The metal square will later be attached to the fingertips of the gloves, and the wire will be soldered to the pins on the circuitboard.

A bundle of completed contacts! They are all made the same way. I added tape to the solder point for extra strength and stability.

That’s all I have for now, but you can view all of these photos by visiting my flickr page here.