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All my life, I've been a fan of Roadside America, but I got an email from my folks last night about the amazing Miniatur Wunderland in Germany — the largest model railway in the world. Really makes me want to visit Hamburg:

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May Your Holidays be Occupied with Good Cheer!

Our card depicts the #occupytheoven movement complete with a gingerbread policeman employing non-lethal frosting spray on the protesters. Don't worry, they'll be OK—although we eventually did have to use force to get them all out of the oven. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

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I love this short by Nick Scott and Michael Berliner!

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Wednesday night, I attended the Washington Printmaker's talk at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. My friend Andrea Way has a beautiful piece called Cicada in their current show of prints called "Multiplicity" curated by Joann Moser.

CICADA, Andrea Way -  Silksreen Print 30"x42"

Twenty years ago, I worked hard to bring that print to life when I was the masterprinter at the Hand Print Workshop directed by Dennis O'Neil. Cicada is fairly large for hand-pulled silkscreen and has about 22 layers of color thus making it a challenge in terms of registration and printing. Andrea explains the creation of Cicada at around the 22:00 minute mark of the video on the American Art Museums webpage for the evening's discussion. She doesn't go into too much detail about her process, but suffice it to say that in many ways, her drawing style, comraderie with us printmakers and willingness to explore the possibilities of printmaking techniques made her someone we really enjoyed working with at the studio. Be sure to listen carefully around the 23:38 mark for some serious name-dropping ;) Andrea and I had fallen out of touch over the years,but it was great to reconnect with her and her friends. Please visit her blog and check out her work.

The reception in the courtyard during the evening looked amazing.

I enjoyed the show and the panel discussion with Andrea, Joann, Michael Platt, Linn Meyers and Lou Stovall. They touched on a number of interesitng topics. One in particular: "digital printmking" is something I'm going to talk about in my next post.

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TEH AWESOME!!!

via Waxy

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In early August, one of my colleagues forwarded me an article on Read Write Web heralding Adobe's open beta of Edge: a tool for creating animated web content in HTML, CSS and javascript. At the time I wrote:

I’ve been following Edge for the last year when teaser footage of it showed up on Adobe Labs. I’m sure it will eventually be pretty cool, but any talk of Flash’s death is greatly exaggerated. I have Edge on my (personal) laptop as well as Tumult’s Hype and used to have Sencha Animator. I don’t think there’s any danger of any of these replacing Flash for its breadth of mature programming capability, workflow or file I/O in the next few years. I do think that a vast majority of Flash banners, basic web animation stuff and interactive infographics will be replaced by HTML5/CSS3 alternatives. But deep stuff like games, applications and specialized front-end interfaces will require more than basic web technologies alone can deliver - at least until a competitively-priced robust, easy-to-author framework comes along.

FWIW, Adobe doesn’t have a spotless record when it comes to championing software… Anyone remember PageMaker, TypeManager, Dimensions, Framemaker, AuthorWare, LiveMotion or GoLive?

Yesterday, Adobe officially announced they were euphemistically "focusing" Flash on "PC Browsing and Mobile Apps." In other words, they're abandoning further development of the Flash Mobile plugin. The very same product that many said was Apple iOS's biggest failing and the intractable Steve Jobs' personal bugbear. Now many are saying perhaps he was right.

I stand by my assertion that Flash isn’t going away soon. The news about  Adobe abandoning Flash Mobile isn’t surprising – as far as I can tell they never got much traction with it anyway. But in line with what I said: as more “banners, basic web animation stuff and interactive infographics” are built in HTML/CSS rather than relying on plug-ins, Flash’s web usage will ebb. It’s not just Flash Mobile that will be affected. This change will affect PC browsing and hasten Flash’s obsolescence. Just browse the comments.

Besides the kneejerk overreactions, there’s so much anger and apprehension. Too bad Adobe can’t simply state that they want to make the best software available rather compromise on shoddy initiatives or all that ambiguous mumbo-jumbo about ‘increasing investment in HTML5’ and ‘delivering compelling web and application experiences.’ Flash may not be dead, but this will be seen as an epic fail.

Now is much like ten years ago when Flash became ubiquitous. The state of the web was shifting from static pages to interactive ones; from CD-ROMS to streaming media. Flash had a decent authoring environment and adapted to the programming challenges well enough, but never could keep up with the shift toward simple standards-based accessible content. Even now, the best it can do is act as a browser or mediator for such content. We don’t need that anymore. What we need are tools that help us take advantage of the advanced capabilities inherent in HTML and CSS. I don’t think it will be one of our current crop of word processors, page layout applications or IDEs. Whoever builds a scalable, efficient, capable authoring tool for HTML5 web applications may rule the next decade.

Oh and Silverlight, watch your back…

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I came across a fascinating post on graphing the value social networks today and fell in love with part of it. I think it neatly summarizes everything I feel about big social enclaves like Facebook. The marketing department I work within places a great deal of faith that the effort they spend using services like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter will increase business through curiosity and brand awareness. I remain unconvinced. I think people usually know the difference between being solicited and being enlightened or at least being included in the conversation.

I have often had a tough time articulating all the issues I have with Facebook, but chief among them is the join-or-be-excluded aspect. And to join, you must agree to their terms which have long-reaching implications. At least when we post things on our personal webpage or blog, we are utterly responsible from our effort. The benefits are ours (or our audiences') and can't be co-opted for someone else's gain. Our presence goes away when we decide to cancel, not when the site changes business strategy or someone decides we have violated the terms of service.

Just like how network television is made of entertaining content to keep you watching the commercials, I feel the primary motive of big social networks is ulterior to what most of us think we use them for. Stephen Fry said this:

It's hard to explain. I mention hives and it really is like an allergy. Every aspect of design and every decision in terms of connection and privacy is like a loaf of bread to a coeliac or a haunch of venison to a vegetarian ... I wish I could give you a rational explanation. I am quite prepared to have my loathing dismissed as prejudice and "motiveless malignity", as Coleridge said of Iago. Doubtless it's all my fault.

I've tried out a number of other things like Quora, LinkedIn, Last.fm, Dribbble, Google+, etc… That's why I've stuck with Twitter. It's pretty transparent and you don't need to agree to anything to follow anyone. Nor do you need do anything special to share with the general public. You can follow me @burblebeep if you wish - no obligation. But none of those have yet generated the enthusiasm I've felt as much as the organically-grown grassroots bulletin boards, blogs and online communities founded on mutually-shared interests that I discovered through my own research and effort.

Anyway, back to the main point of this message: yesterday, maciej, a developer at Pinboard posted this brilliantly-reasoned argument that I love:

Imagine the U.S. Census as conducted by direct marketers - that's the social graph.

Social networks exist to sell you crap. The icky feeling you get when your friend starts to talk to you about Amway, or when you spot someone passing out business cards at a birthday party, is the entire driving force behind a site like Facebook.

Because their collection methods are kind of primitive, these sites have to coax you into doing as much of your social interaction as possible while logged in, so they can see it. It's as if an ad agency built a nationwide chain of pubs and night clubs in the hopes that people would spend all their time there, rigging the place with microphones and cameras to keep abreast of the latest trends (and staffing it, of course, with that Mormon bartender).

We're used to talking about how disturbing this in the context of privacy, but it's worth pointing out how weirdly unsocial it is, too. How are you supposed to feel at home when you know a place is full of one-way mirrors?

We have a name for the kind of person who collects a detailed, permanent dossier on everyone they interact with, with the intent of using it to manipulate others for personal advantage - we call that person a sociopath. And both Google and Facebook have gone deep into stalker territory with their attempts to track our every action. Even if you have faith in their good intentions, you feel misgivings about stepping into the elaborate shrine they've built to document your entire online life.

Open data advocates tell us the answer is to reclaim this obsessive dossier for ourselves, so we can decide where to store it. But this misses the point of how stifling it is to have such a permanent record in the first place. Who does that kind of thing and calls it social?

[…] Right now the social networking sites occupy a similar position to CompuServe, Prodigy, or AOL in the mid 90's. At that time each company was trying to figure out how to become a mass-market gateway to the Internet. Looking back now, their early attempts look ridiculous and doomed to failure, for we have seen the Web, and we have tasted of the blogroll and the lolcat and found that they were good.

But at the time no one knew what it would feel like to have a big global network. We were all waiting for the Information Superhighway to arrive in our TV set, and meanwhile these big sites were trying to design an online experience from the ground up. Thank God we left ourselves the freedom to blunder into the series of fortuitous decisions that gave us the Web.

My hope is that whatever replaces Facebook and Google+ will look equally inevitable, and that our kids will think we were complete rubes for ever having thrown a sheep or clicked a +1 button. It's just a matter of waiting things out, and leaving ourselves enough freedom to find some interesting, organic, and human ways to bring our social lives online.

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Wow! This video of a Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo is amazing.

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Real people don’t deal with uncertainty by carefully evaluating all of the relevant information. They stink at statistics and rarely maximize utility. Instead, their choices depend on a long list of mental short cuts and intemperate emotions, which often lead them to pick the wrong options. […] Human reason is rather feeble, easily overwhelmed by ancient instincts and lazy biases. The mind is a deeply flawed machine.

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Driving to work this morning, I slow to stop at a red light. It's the first beautiful morning in a while here in northern Virginia. The air is cool and crisp. Sun is bright after what seems like weeks of rain. The leaves are finally turning warm autumn hues. Suddenly, in the right turn lane next to me, I see a gray-white feathery ball fall ouf the sky into the road and squirm. After I stop, I lean over and look down to see what I assume is an injured mockingbird writhing in the middle of the lane. I worry it's sick or dying and will be crushed by the next driver deciding to turn right. Should I try to move it off the road? Would it be more merciful to let it possibly die in an instant of random automotive violence or suffer the effects of whatever disease afflicts it? I lean back and look around to see if other drivers notice. Hard to tell. Do I have time to pull over and move the bird? I glance in the rear view mirror and don't see any cars coming up the right lane. I try to find the animal again but it's moved. I lean over further. The poor creature is still. I think about what might be the best way to pick up the thing and move it to the grass without frightening it or getting germs all over myself. Then it fidgets. And soon I realize it is not one mockingbird, but two entwined. In fact, one is almost standing upon the another now.

Ohhhh… Not injured at all. Not yet at least.

Look up in the rear view again. Car coming up the right lane. I sit back in my seat. Am I the last person to understand what is going on here? Do the other drivers think I'm some kind of perv for paying so much attention to the fowl In flagrante delicto? The light turns green; I throttle the engine. The startled birds jump out of the way just before the driver of turning car would obliviously squash them. Must get back to concentrating on traffic again. I'll probably forget this whole episode by the time I get to the office.

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Yesterday I learned that Steve Jobs passed away, and it was a bit of a shock - mostly because I heard it on CNN after dinner switching channels looking for something my son could enjoy before bed. I rarely watch much television at all and get most of my news online through the Mac or iOS devices with which I work and play a good part of each day. In fact, we had just recently been comparing the old Knowledge Navigator video to the new Siri Demo, talking about how the date in the older video suggested it was Sept. 16, 2011!

I've been an ardent Apple-enthusiast since we first owned an Apple ][ in the early 1980s. I remember designing my own levels in Lode Runner and programming it to play the Ramone's "Slug." My design career was built on Macintosh computers starting when I convinced my wife to max-out her credit card so we could buy a souped-up Quadra 650, monitor and laser printer. We had just returned from working in Moscow, and had few job prospects. I was convinced I could shift gears from fine arts to graphic design, capitalizing on the desktop publishing boom and perhaps get into multimedia authoring. We had copies of Quark Xpress, Photoshop and Illustrator on floppy disks. I made a portfolio of dreadful images featuring every trick I could figure out: spherized circuit boards, Copperplate typesetting, page-curls and lens flares galore. But it earned me a job and freelance work. I paid back that initial investment within a year and have managed to find enough steady work to buy a home, raise a family and prosper since then.

I've tried to be platform agnostic, but I've always preferred to work on Macs. I much prefer OS X to any version of Windows or Unix I've used. I've had work that prevented me from using Macs, but I tired of it quickly. Some people think it shouldn't matter which OS you use as long as YOU can get things done. That's true to some extent, but them more you care about what you do, the more you care about the tools you use. I prefer that which enables me to work efficiently and make the drudgery as elegant as possible. Steve Jobs is quoted as saying, "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works." That succinctly sums up my form-following-function philosophy as a designer.

As a Mac-user in the tech industry since the 1980s, I put up with a lot of suspicion, scorn and disdain from IT departments, other users and associates. Especially in the late-1990s when many thought Apple was finished. Despite that, I stuck with them - seeing their products improve and become more affordable. Today, Apple is the biggest tech company in human history. That's no accident: they are also kicking ass in customer satisfaction, retailing, marketing, logistics. One man didn't do that alone. Jobs passionately built and rebuilt Apple, but as he said himself, "The people who are doing the work are the moving force behind the Macintosh. My job is to create a space for them, to clear out the rest of the organization and keep it at bay."

Some still see Apple as some kind of cult of personality - once again doomed because it has lost its dear leader. Many of us think we know who Steve Jobs was, but few who know his name ever knew him at all. Naysayers will foolishly claim some kind of hubris has finally caught up with the 'reality distortion field.' Fanbois who eagerly await his yearly unveiling of state-of-the-art will be anxious to see who will inherit his mantle. And those of us who were just happy to use such insanely great products hope Apple will continue to innovate, disrupt and set the standard by which good business is measured.

I am very saddened by the news that Steve Jobs has passed away. My thoughts go to his family and friends. It was only a year ago that I lost my closest friend to cancer. I am reminded again how precious is this fleeting time we have and how I should try harder to accomplish more. I have every confidence that the people doing the work at Apple will continue to be the moving force; creating even better tools and making this the best time to be alive.

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First thought was that Invisible Nasties are too cute to be truly nasty. In fact, they remind me of characters from Monsters Inc. Second thought was who brushes the Nasties' teeth? Would they have their own tiny Nasties frolicking on their toothbrushes? Now that I think about it: I've never seen anything like these creatures in my bathroom; perhaps the only way to attract them is to purchase Colgate Toothpaste. Or to turn off the heat in my home this winter! Is that the messaging I'm supposed to infer?

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Brilliant!

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