« June 2007 | Main | August 2007 »
David Bolinsky: Fantastic voyage inside a cell
A fantastic video about the quest for Truth and Beauty, and running commentary of the incredible movie presented by XVivo to Siggraph 2006.
Continue reading "TED | David Bolinsky: Fantastic voyage inside a cell" »
My first batch of MOO cards arrived today.
That was fast. About 5 business days total - far below the announced 10. I guess they are giving themselves a marging of operation when they come up with these time estimates.
Quality of the cards is nice. They do feel more like business cards than just printed pieces of paper.
The finish is matte and lack contrast on some images. I will have to remember to compensate for that in the future.
They are quite smaller than regular business cards - hopefully, they will be noticed for that and not get lost too easily.
The refresh of this site is mostly complete. All I need now is the final version of Movable Type 4 to incorporate more dynamic features in a fresh new design. At the rate updates are going on the MT4 website, it will be probably sometimes in the Fall.
In the meantime, I recreated my gallery pages using JAlbum and Simpleviewer. I will look into using more of that great little flash viewer across the site when the updates are complete.
I took that occasion to update my personal photostream, organise pictures into (flickr) sets and even place some photographs on a photo map. Updating the gallery made me rediscover my flickr account and the capabilities for self publishing I completely ignored since I signed up two years ago.
Since Siggraph 2007 is fast approaching, I tested some of these services :
MOO | MiniCards - for sleek, colorful contact cards. They look cute but the company is based in the UK and the service not particularly quick (5 to 10 business days to receive an order).
QOOP business cards - to compare the speed and print quality with a company based in the US. They had more choices of templates and customization available but their format is more traditional.
Zazzle - to print out joint flyers with Crealab (follow the link for a web version of the flyers). They will be printed on the inside of notecards and folded to show both sides at the same time. I am curious to see the result of that project .. especially since they pride themselves with their superior speed (only two business days ?!). They also have a marketplace and a selection of products similar to Cafepress.
Blurb - with their nice desktop tool to compose books, their large selection of templates and their marketplace, they look like an interesting alternative to Photoworks for producing books. I stared working on a first book to test the print quality. It will take a few weeks to finish the content, so there is no rush on that one.
The orders are in... I will update my comments when I receive the final products.
Music for inspiration, without the brainwashing of ads. More signal, less noise.
Support internet radios such as Radio Paradise - eclectic online rock radio or Radio Akasha
These radios, like many others, are under direct threat from the music industry to fall under the weight of a royalties system not adapted to an internet age.
The sad thing is that I had stopped buying music from the recording industry for years because of the album model and the lack of diversity available in stores. It is only with the advent of itunes, ipod and internet radios that I have started buying music again. And I am clearly not alone thnking along those lines.
Internet radios are a perfect way to find out about new artists. They can be segmented into the tiniet niches, each with their following. It is BECAUSE they are about music and not ads that people support them and listen to them.
When are the RIAAs of the world going to wake up and adapt instead of asphixiating themselves by trying to squeeze as much rofit as possible ?
WHITEHURST STUDIO : CAMERA COMPUTER
Hybrid between professional photography and computer graphics. And the best part of this - he uses Poser at a professional level.
These images are a perfect reply to anybody in the elite crowd of CG looking down at Poser users as if they were slightly more evolved than worms. What counts is the vision, the final image created. The tool used to get there is irrelevant.
They also illustrate my point of view that digital illustrations place themselves between photography (since you always have to render a shot of elements of your scene) and traditional painting (for the composition and final details).
Face Hunter and People I Have Asked
Two fascinating collections of portraits from people in the streets. Real life appearances, fashion and expressions. These are people you may walk by every day and never notice.
The photographers must be doing something right when they get these shots judging by the number of people haboring happy faces.
Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?
A wonderful demonstration of the impact of education on creativity and the urgent need to rethink an educational model that was created for another era.
Don't let yourself be 'educated out of creativity'. Find what you love and do it well.
Ideas echoed in the famous graduation speech by Steve Jobs at Berkeley - 'Steve Jobs : Stay hungry, stay foolish'
Continue reading "TED | Do schools kill creativity? - and Steve Jobs" »
Charles Leadbeater: The rise of the amateur professional
A couple of years ago, I read an article in Wired talking about this wonderful, almost secretive conference around topics such as Technology or Education. At the time, I couldn't find more details about the conference, so I forgot about it... until I came across some videos on YouTube referencing TED talks.
That same conference again - TED | Technology Education Design.
Only this time, there is a rich, official website about it. A real gold mine of stimulating talks to watch and listen to.
I will post here links to the ones that I particularly liked.... starting with this talk about amateurs professionals and how creativity is rarely the fruit of individual, isolated labor but more often an evolutionary process of collaborations.
Continue reading "TED | The rise of the amateur professional" »
After almost a year without any update, I decided to break the routine and start with a clean up of the site. On the menu : new style, new portfolio page and various tweaks across the site.
This is in prevision of the upgrade to Movable Type 4 in a few months ... or whenever the final version becomes available.
store