C. Dillon Martin Hall http://cdillon.net Technology, Photography, and Life Mon, 15 Aug 2011 22:24:43 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.1 Analog Dive at the Dragonfly, 4/11/11 http://cdillon.net/2011/04/analog-dive-at-the-dragonfly-41111/ http://cdillon.net/2011/04/analog-dive-at-the-dragonfly-41111/#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:33:56 +0000 C. Dillon http://cdillon.net/?p=372

Enjoyed catching my good friends of Analog Dive opening up a night of hip hop and visual art at The Dragonfly in Hollywood about a week ago. Really wish I could’ve stayed longer to get some shots of the other musical artists, but Monday nights are not the best for being out late. Still, it was a great show at an awesome venue.

Reflecting on my shots this time around, I feel like I’m getting a more natural feel for the use of flash in low-light situations, but there’s still much I have to learn and become accustomed to. I love that I can pull off the slow-sync look with surprising ease now… the flash and camera settings are so logical now that I barely need to think about it as my fingers fly over the controls. Also, playing around with the zoom effect at the last show was really helpful… the shot of the DJ plying his craft with lights streaming outward from him used this technique, and I was able to get the shot with very few attempts.

SONY DSC

Want to try using my wireless flash next time I’m at this or a similar venue. There were some great angles available at this particular location, helped by well-arranged lighting and a great crowd, but my distance from the stage occasionally prevented decently clear images of the performers themselves. Having my flash conveniently mounted or someone holding it near the stage with wireless set up would have solved that problem nicely, and made for some really pro shots with minimal setup and effort.

SONY DSC

I always enjoy events where they bring in visual artists to do live work, and this one was no exception. There’s something about watching visual art transformed into something not unlike a performance piece that really makes it enjoyable and almost interactive. I imagine it’s probably the same for the artists themselves, as some of the images crafted at this particular event showed definite influence from the musical talent and the feel of the event itself.

SONY DSC

BTW, if you see yourself or your group here and would like a copy of the shot, feel free to snag it as-is from my site and repost it. Or, send me an e-mail and I’ll be glad to send you a high res copy without the watermark in the bottom. I would humbly request a brief mention and link back to my site, and am happy to give you further credit in my images and on my site.

Thanks to all of the artists showing off their skills and to the folks at The Dragonfly for putting on a fun and professional event. Looking forward to finding myself back at this venue sometime soon. Special thanks to Crazy Eight and Analog Dive for a killer performance and for inviting me to be a part of the fun.

]]> http://cdillon.net/2011/04/analog-dive-at-the-dragonfly-41111/feed/ 1 CES 2011, Part 1: 3D Tech http://cdillon.net/2011/01/ces-2011-part-1/ http://cdillon.net/2011/01/ces-2011-part-1/#comments Tue, 11 Jan 2011 23:24:34 +0000 C. Dillon http://cdillon.net/?p=341

CES 2011 was a whirlwind of tech gear, gadgets, and business-types hawking wares and comparing gigahertz. I posted quite a few photos, panoramas, and videos to Twitter and Facebook during the event, but I thought it might be helpful to collect those here with some less-brief reactions and impressions.

Today, for my first post on the event, it’s all about the third dimension.

3D Technologies are going mainstream

3D was clearly a (if not the) driving force behind this year’s show, with companies like Toshiba, Sony, Canon, Kodak, and LG all trying to outdo the others in tech and displays thereof. It was a bit overwhelming at times, and that third dimension started to look increasingly trivial with each new example, but there were some clear frontrunners in the pack.

Toshiba’s Glasses-free 3D

The line outside their mostly-enclosed booth was enough to tell you that something was up. We suffered through the wait, and I would say it was worth it. I wasn’t blown away by any means, but as an example of the current state-of-the-art I wasn’t underwhelmed either.

This is totally in 3D, really.

The TVs were large and sharp, but the effective viewing angles much smaller than one would hope, and a few steps forward or backward caused a significant shift in 3D depth. You had to find the right viewing angle, and there were times when I could tell it would be so much cooler if I wasn’t shifting around to test it out, but they’ve demonstrated a viable proof-of-concept in consumer tech. Given the option, I’d choose glasses over their current solution, but a few improvements and it will definitely compete.

Lots of potential here

Then we saw their prototype Glasses-free-3D laptop. A camera tracks your eyes and shifts the display to match your position. This really convinced me that there’s a future in their tech… when it locked onto your eyes, there was a palpable satisfaction in knowing that this device was confidently in control of the experience. Someone described it as feeling “like the laptop knows me”. It’s impressively smart, too… the 3D view works when you’re in range, then switches to 2D when you’re not.

The really exciting part here for me is that this system could conceivably go one step further, adding relative motion parallax to stereo images to make a truly immersive window into a world beyond the screen. For a great example of what I’m talking about, check out Johnny Chung Lee’s 3D Wii hack. It’s not the sort of 3D most of us are used to, but the first-person view sells the potential here. Add this to Toshiba’s tech, and you’ve got a visual display just a hair short of reality.

Sony’s 3D toys: Large, Medium, and Small

Even their sign was in 3D...

If Toshiba was the innovator, Sony was the ambassador of 3D tech. Their biggest selling point (literally), was an impressively large display that was the center point of their presentation on the show floor.

Booth-workers hustled to get 3D glasses to everyone as the show started, and it was worth the effort to find a pair and get them out of the wrapping and on my face. The display itself must have been at least two standard movie screens wide, and the synchronized lights added to the effect throughout the speedy montage of Sony 3D toys. There was no moving around the floor once it started… If you had glasses, you were looking up and not going anywhere. This was clearly a fancy toy to impress people, but I’d argue that it served it’s purpose.

Panorama from deep within Sony territory. Click for a large VR panorama view.

On the consumer side, Sony was showing off 3D gaming on the PS3. While I didn’t get a good look at all they had to offer, I watched someone play an iteration of Killzone (are we on #3 now?) complete with gun-encased move controller and 3D. He was clearly impressed by the effect, and my experience with FPS titles on the Wii suggests that this game/application will be more than just a fan-service to Sony adherents. Not sure I’d go so far as to call this a killer app of Sony’s 3D and motion gaming, but it could come close.

Finally, we got to play with a prototype 3D head-mounted display before leaving Sony-land. It wasn’t my first experience with an HMD, and not even my first that day, but it was easily the most impressive I’ve used by leaps and bounds. The display felt large and sat at a comfortable apparent distance. The 3D was calibrated to your inter-pupilary distance while you waited in line, so the effect was instantaneous and thoroughly convincing. They were careful to remind us that it was only a prototype, but one can’t help but hope that Sony keeps putting effort into this with the amount of polish and engineering they’ve been able to put into it so far.

LG rounds out the frontrunners with a mobile glasses-free 3D demo

While we were rather distracted by the bevy of portable Android beauties on display in LG’s corner, I was glad we got to check out their mobile glasses-free 3D example. This might not be very exciting for most with the availability of 3D digital cameras and the upcoming Nintendo 3DS, but it was my first experience with mobile 3D, and stands out to me for it.

It clearly had some room to grow, and the effective viewing angle was even more sensitive than Toshiba’s TVs, but it was passable and fun. They definitely get bonus points for explaining their implementation of the technology in simple terms… I thought it would have to be so much more complex than what they pulled off.

3D is ready for market, but I’m not buying quite yet…

While I’ve always been a tech adherent, I’ve never called myself an early adopter. Primarily, I usually can’t afford to plunk down the cash for a freshly released technology, but my concerns about 3D go a bit further than that.

My first thought here is that the market may not be ready for yet another upheaval, especially when we’ve just weathered a transition to HD/Blu-Ray. It requires an expensive new set of tools for everyone involved, especially content producers and distributors. Average consumers won’t bite until the content is there, and producers won’t bother until there are consumers to sell, and everything the industry is doing to try and ease this “chicken and the egg” problem might not be enough.

The wide range of divergent technologies available at 3D’s relative infancy turns me off a bit as well. There are too many types of glasses, too much variance in quality among devices, and the potential for glasses-free 3D on the immediate horizon. Just like I avoided backing Blu-Ray until I knew it had HD-DVD beaten, I wouldn’t want to pick a horse in this race until there’s a clear favorite.

Finally, I don’t think there’s a killer app for 3D yet, and I don’t think it’s cool enough to float without one. As my sister observed, 3D in its current incarnation tends to look like a bunch of “cardboard cutouts” rather than a truly immersive experience, and even those who are sold on the third dimension alone will feel the magic of it fade over time. When someone starts showing me 3D experiences that couldn’t exist without the presence of 3D, then I’ll take a closer look. For now, I’m content to sit on the sidelines and watch the technologies duke it out.

Coming soon in Part 2: Why my iPod Touch Case is so much cooler than yours

]]> http://cdillon.net/2011/01/ces-2011-part-1/feed/ 0 Crazy Eight comments on LA Got Aloha, some of my photos reposted there =) http://cdillon.net/2010/10/crazy-eight-comments-on-la-got-aloha-some-of-my-photos-reposted-there/ http://cdillon.net/2010/10/crazy-eight-comments-on-la-got-aloha-some-of-my-photos-reposted-there/#comments Sat, 16 Oct 2010 02:26:41 +0000 C. Dillon http://cdillon.net/?p=334

My good friend Blake (aka Crazy Eight of Analog Dive) just posted a run down of his most recent event on his blog (http://analogdive.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/l-a-got-aloha/). Encourage everyone to check it out, comment on the photos and video, and subscribe for updates on this Hawaii-LA transplant group with serious talent and aspirations.

Blake hustles like nobody else I know to support local talent, and has worked to bring visual and musical artists together for fun and engaging events, and I’m honored to be able to help out with event photos and occasional logistics. Even got a few shots reposted on his blog, yet another reason to have a look if you’re reading this =).

Check it out here: http://analogdive.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/l-a-got-aloha/

]]> http://cdillon.net/2010/10/crazy-eight-comments-on-la-got-aloha-some-of-my-photos-reposted-there/feed/ 0 Macrowikinomics releases today! My review of it, not so soon… http://cdillon.net/2010/09/macrowikinomics-releases-today-my-review-of-it-not-so-soon/ http://cdillon.net/2010/09/macrowikinomics-releases-today-my-review-of-it-not-so-soon/#comments Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:02:24 +0000 C. Dillon http://cdillon.net/?p=325

As my homepage was happy to remind me:

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
- Bertrand Russell

You may know from my twitter feed that I picked up an advance copy of Macrowikinomics, by Don Tapscott (@dtapscott) and Anthony D. Williams (@adw_tweets), through a pre-order deal with the publisher, and had made it my goal to have read it and posted my review here by the release date. Having read and enjoyed Wikinomics and Grown Up Digital, I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while, and the wait seems to have been worth it.

Well, despite some attempts to plow through it like I’m back in college, I’m pleased to announce that I’m nowhere near finished with the book. It’s nothing less than what I’ve come to expect from these two authors so far, and I don’t intend to sacrifice one bit of enjoyment in the service of speeding out a review artificially quickly. I think Mr. Russell may have intended to suggest that his “two motives” are mutually exclusive… Nonetheless, I expect that when I do get around to finishing Macrowikinomics, I will be able to boast about having enjoyed reading it.

]]> http://cdillon.net/2010/09/macrowikinomics-releases-today-my-review-of-it-not-so-soon/feed/ 0 A few impending reasons to love KCRW http://cdillon.net/2010/09/impending-reasons-to-love-kcrw/ http://cdillon.net/2010/09/impending-reasons-to-love-kcrw/#comments Fri, 24 Sep 2010 23:00:02 +0000 C. Dillon http://cdillon.net/?p=320

UPDATE: Ended up leaving both of my camera batteries at home on the charger when we went out to Glow (doh!), so no photos coming from the event. I may still post some impressions from the event, though… probably search up some Flickr shots from some of the other talented photogs in attendance.

It’s no secret that KCRW (89.9 FM or kcrw.com) is the paragon of what I think public radio should be… NPR news, some of the best unique and syndicated programming, and the only music worth listening to regularly. I flip on Eclectic 24 during parties, listen on the way to and from work, and have been a subscriber for a few years now (though my yearly membership is waiting for finances to catch up at the moment). If that’s not enough, KCRW also hosts and participates in some of the most engaging and enjoyable events that I’ve attended in LA, and I wanted to take this post to highlight two upcoming KCRW-associated events worth noting on your calendar.

GLOW 2010, Santa Monica:

Friday, September 25th, 2010 (Tomorrow!), 7PM–3AM

Place-based  independent art, music, lights, all night long, FREE. A production of the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Arts Foundation, Glow is a

free dusk-to-dawn biannual event featur[ing] the work of international, national and local artists.  Glow is the only all-night art event in the United States that emphasizes the commissioning of original artwork. Glow projects invite active audience engagement and exploration and constantly surprise in their unexpected placement in spaces and times not normally reserved for fine art.  Santa Monica joins such cities as Paris, Toronto, Montreal, Rome, Brussels, Madrid and Riga as part of a global movement producing “white night” or “nuit blanche” events.

http://glowsantamonica.org/about/

This’ll be my first time attending Glow, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about the art and experience of this event, and will be posting my feedback and photos from the night here.

Apart from being my source for hearing about Glow, KCRW is a partner in the event, and has contributed a set of curated “soundscapes“, free for the use of Glow 2010 attendees. If you’re thinking about going, download these ahead of time, bring your headphones, and you’ll have a spoken and musical guide for the event… think museum audio tour but much cooler and without the ridiculous listening device.

KCRW’s Second Annual Halloween Masquerade:

Saturday, October 30th, 2010, 9PM–2AM

KCRW’s halloween extravaganza returns. This is easily the best party in town, and worth attending if only for the music, the costumes, and the food trucks. From the website:

This Halloween weekend, KCRW plays host to our 2nd annual Masquerade Costume Ball at the Legendary Park Plaza. Explore your inner ghoul in style with five uniquely themed rooms, dance to music on four stages by 13 KCRW DJs, lose yourself in the wild wonderworld of Vaudeville circus troupe Lucent Dossier, and dine at a handful of frightfully tasty artisan food trucks.

http://www.kcrw.com/events/masquerade-2010

Caroline and I attended this last year, and it was an absolute blast of a night. Check out their website for the details, but don’t balk at the price tag… $65 pre-sale tickets are cheaper than last year, you’ll be supporting public radio, and you get to brag about this party on Halloween night. Tickets go on sale this Tuesday, September 28th at 10AM on the website.

I won’t have any photos up from this one because I’ll be dancing and enjoying the scene, but I’ll post my impressions here with some shots of our costumes and any other halloween debauchery.

]]> http://cdillon.net/2010/09/impending-reasons-to-love-kcrw/feed/ 0 What I’ve been up to for the past year… http://cdillon.net/2010/09/what-ive-been-up-to-for-the-past-year/ http://cdillon.net/2010/09/what-ive-been-up-to-for-the-past-year/#comments Fri, 10 Sep 2010 01:34:30 +0000 C. Dillon http://cdillon.net/?p=305

Just stumbled on this video, and it was too cool not to share it. Those who know me well enough know that I’ve been swamped with various responsibilities and efforts that finally resulted in a Master’s Degree in Learning Technologies. Many have asked what that means exactly, and I’ve gotten better at describing it over time, but this video makes a killer summary, and you can even catch glimpses of myself and my classmates from our first meeting back in July of 2009:

This program has been one heck of a mindscrew (in the best way possible), and proved to me time and again how much I can accomplish with the right motivation and in concert with some amazing people.

I mention my Master’s program often because it has been a thoroughly transformative experience, and I expect I’ll be reaping benefits from it for decades to come. Guess this includes the benefit of being able to put a little “MA” after my name, but that seems hollow compared with the changes wrought in my attitudes and abilities.

I miss it dearly, but mostly for the people I got to know and work with throughout a tiresome and tumultuous year. The work was often grueling and assigned with very little top-down direction, and I can say that it was valuable but I don’t really miss it much… free time is kinda nice to have, ya know? All in all, I doubt I’ll ever have a year quite like the last one, for better and for worse, and I hope this gives you a glimpse into the program and a hint at it’s tremendous potential.

]]> http://cdillon.net/2010/09/what-ive-been-up-to-for-the-past-year/feed/ 0 New Photoset Uploaded from LA Got Aloha http://cdillon.net/2010/08/new-photoset-uploaded-from-la-got-aloha/ http://cdillon.net/2010/08/new-photoset-uploaded-from-la-got-aloha/#comments Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:32:12 +0000 C. Dillon http://cdillon.net/?p=298

Just uploaded my first set of images to this site. They’re from last Thursday’s “LA Got Aloha”, a music and art show at Daydream Republic put on by Analog Dive’s Crazy Eight. Click through the slideshow below or check out the full LA Got Aloha Gallery.

Enjoyed this event quite a bit, despite minor issues. In particular, I forgot to grab new batteries for my flash unit, so I was stuck using on-camera flash or longer exposures all night. No biggie, really, and it gave me a chance to play around with slow sync flash and zoom effects in my images, with occasionally impressive results.

Now that I’ve got the workflow down a bit better, expect to see some of my library of older images in occasional updates here.

]]> http://cdillon.net/2010/08/new-photoset-uploaded-from-la-got-aloha/feed/ 1 Microboids: Flocking Boids in Microworlds EX http://cdillon.net/2010/08/microboids-flocking-boids-in-microworlds-ex/ http://cdillon.net/2010/08/microboids-flocking-boids-in-microworlds-ex/#comments Fri, 13 Aug 2010 22:12:51 +0000 C. Dillon http://cdillon.net/?p=206

I’ve updated my project pages to include details of Microboids, a simulation of flocking behavior based on the Boids concept built for Microworlds EX. It’s a fun little collaboration between myself and Michael Weinstein, a classmate and good friend. Here’s a demo of Microboids in action:

Having gotten a chance to stretch my programming skills a bit earlier in this class, I really enjoyed the challenge that this project presented. It’s rare that I get the chance to do some solid programming, and rarer still that it’s a self-directed project in an area of personal interest.

Why simulate flocking? It’s a classic example of emergent behaviors, and there’s a functioning community of practice online for various simulations built in a range of languages and environments. It was simple enough that I was pretty certain we could pull something together, yet challenging enough that I had to really stretch my abilities.

The final results were better than I think either of us had expected given our lack of previous programming knowledge and only a week or so to work on this. It was, for me, a killer lesson in the power of constructivist learning theory, and the resultant deliverable is something I’m proud to share. Thanks are due here to Dr. Gary Stager for running an enjoyable and enlightening course.

It can run a bit slowly if you spawn too many turtles, but you can artificially speed them up to see some improvements. Most of the sliders work in real time, giving users without Microworlds programming knowledge a chance to play with the simulation themselves. The program is much simpler than the behavior appears, which is the basic idea behind emergent phenomena and part of the reason flocking is such a great entry point into exploring emergence.

If you find this interesting or entertaining, please feel free to leave a comment or share this post or the project pages on your social network of choice using the “SHARE” button to the right.

]]> http://cdillon.net/2010/08/microboids-flocking-boids-in-microworlds-ex/feed/ 0 Keep on learnin’ http://cdillon.net/2010/08/keep-on-learnin/ http://cdillon.net/2010/08/keep-on-learnin/#comments Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:08:02 +0000 C. Dillon http://wordpress.cdillon.net/?p=3

As you may or may not have noticed, things look quite different on my personal web site.

I’ve decided to switch the platform on which my site is based from Drupal to WordPress, and am liking the change so far. Not only am I happier with the new setup, but I’m also enjoying the chance to learn more about yet another valuable Web 2.0 platform.

Drupal was great, and has far more power and configurability than WordPress, but the overhead in terms of maintenance and configuration time was far more than I was willing to invest for a personal website. I’ll probably redesign this site from the ground-up for Drupal later, especially when I finally get the chance to implement the kind of site I’ve always envisioned, but that requires time to play around that I don’t have at the moment.

WordPress, though much narrower in focus and power than Drupal, implements everything so much more cleanly with much less effort required from the user. I can do things in WordPress in a few minutes that would have taken 20 or more in Drupal because of the way it’s designed, and that’s the kind of streamlined simplicity my website needs to have right now.

In my opinion, Drupal is the superior platform in general, as you can do anything with it that you can do in WordPress just by enabling the right modules. There are definitely some things that you can build and create in Drupal that WordPress will never be able to match. For me, WordPress wins out for now because it’s the right tool for the right use at the right time.

Interestingly, I was hesitant to play around with much PHP and CSS code in my former Drupal site, partly because of the amount of time it took to load up my FTP client, find the right file, load it for editing, save it, reupload it, check it… etc… In WordPress, I’ve been playing around quite a bit more because the editor is built into my dashboard, and the benefits to my efficiency and ability to mold this theme to my uses has been tremendous.

Hope you enjoy the changes, and let me know if you have any feedback or issues.

]]> http://cdillon.net/2010/08/keep-on-learnin/feed/ 0 Identifying Opportunities for Change http://cdillon.net/2010/05/identifying-opportunities-for-change/ http://cdillon.net/2010/05/identifying-opportunities-for-change/#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 00:47:36 +0000 C. Dillon

Q: How do you know when change is needed?

Setting aside the “need” for change for a moment, I feel like my impetus to change something is most often triggered by two criteria:

1. Persistent frustration with the way that thing currently works, and,

2. The belief that it could work better.

The only exception to this is that I can become frustrated with the knowledge that something could work much better, thereby fulfilling both criteria.

There have been instances where something similar to the criteria substitutes for it, such as a supervisor requiring a change in my habits or practices. When I’ve attempted to change something on my own, though, I would say it usually fits the above.

Determining the need for change is a more complex issue in my opinion, and one that in all but the most extreme cases probably requires reflection on the results of implementation of change before one can be fully certain that a need was addressed.

One potential shortcut exists when you’re talking about change within an organization or community. When the need for change is something that the majority of your community can agree with, I’d say you have a good reason for believing in advance that change is necessary.

Q: How do people become passionate about change?

My personal passion for change often comes from the support and encouragement of others, especially those who might be positively affected by said change. This has been my reason for pursuing my particular action research project… conversations with colleagues and classmates has strongly supported my belief in the potential benefit of my proposed changes, and their continued encouragement has helped see me through my frustrations and doubts.

On a community level, getting others excited about proposed changes tends to be both necessary and difficult. I expect that the leadership of one or a few committed individuals within the group is the best force for overcoming momentum and building a group’s passion for change. This requires quite a bit of the leaders driving change, including a convincing argument, a well-crafted plan, and infectious levels of enthusiasm.

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