SML Posterous

TV shows I am watching

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:47:43 -0700

See the full gallery on Posterous

Sent from my iPod

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Google Image Search implements searching by color

Tue, 06 Apr 2010 10:38:41 -0700

Red:

Orange:

Yellow:

Green:

Teal:

Blue:

Purple:

Pink:

White:

Gray:

Black:

Brown:

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Twitter new home page design... I almost don't recognize it!

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:12:48 -0700

http://twitter.com

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Gay lifestyle magazine publishes SML Kiss series in latest issue

Sun, 28 Mar 2010 12:30:23 -0700

PREF Magazine, a french, bimonthly gay oriented magazine publishes photos from the Kiss series in their March/April 2010 issue (No. 37).

COVER

CONTRIBUTORS: PP 6-7

Goodies. Now I have a bio in French!

SPREAD: PP 92-93

KISS: RYAN GILBERT + MICHAEL CORRENTTE / 20100117.7D.02106.P1.L1.SQ.BW / SML

SPREAD: PP 94-95

KISS: MATTHEW OSSENFORT + JEFFREY DENKE / 20100117.7D.02081.P1.L1.SQ.BW / SML

Special thanks to Ryan Gilbert + Michael Correntte + Matthew Ossenfort + Jeffrey Denke who were so kind to kiss in front of my camera! Also much thanks to the editor in chief at PREF for this wonderful opportunity.Go Creative Commons! SML Thank You! ^_<

Cross posted on SML Pro Blog

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Casting call for 10 female superstars to appear in viral music video

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 09:07:00 -0700

New York electronic musician Saddet (SoundCloud) is looking for a team of 10 models / actresses to appear in a viral music video that will make its debut on all major online video networks (YouTube / Vimeo etc)

We're looking for the following attributes:

female
18-30
5'9 - 6'2
slim / athletic
will be wearing face masks (and /or face paints)
dancing experience (no formal training needed but be able to to move to the music)

The finished music video will be available for global VJ remixes as well so you will get a ton of exposure.

The role is unpaid but we will give you full credits on the video as well as link to your site in the description accompanying all videos. You can also use the video in your portfolio.

Interested parties please send headshots and any relevant information to jireh.ivan@groverwatts.com (photographer / director of the video)

If you are interested in hearing the music first, you can check out
http://soundcloud.com/groups/groceries-remixes

Thanks!

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Tungle.me = scheduling made easy

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:58:00 -0700

Have you tried scheduling a lunch with someone? How many emails back and forth have you gone through before you both agree to a time and location? What about scheduling a conference call with 10 people across the entire globe all in timezone? How many emails did you gone through to get it right?

If you are working within the same organization and have access to the same server, it is relatively easy - enterprise calendaring software has solved that problem a long time ago. But when you need to work with different people using different calendar tools living across different time zones with different daylight savings settings, this quickly becomes a nightmare.

http://tungle.me solves this problem swiftly. I recently checked out their service after several recommendations from Aardvark.

Setup is very easy. I signed up to have it synchronize with my Google Calendar, but this free collaboration tool also supports synchronization with other popular calendars, such as Outlook (with or without Exchange), Apple iCal, Entourage for Mac as well as Lotus Notes. Within moments my calendar is displayed:

Now the trick for scheduling meetings is that people must figure out when you are available. Using a nice paint roll tools you put in the time when you are available, and the site automatically look at your calendar to figure out time where you are unavailable to render your profile public view:

Perhaps most fantastic though is that people don't have to member to schedule a meeting with you, but if they decide to get onto the site, they have the handy option of having the site pick the best time for the meeting. Also genius is its ability to suggest multiple times for the recipients to pick - this saves on going back and forth to pick just the right time.

The site also comes with a widget where you can insert anywhere on your site. A true time saver.

All in all this tool has saved me a ton of headaches - and I no longer feel the pain to have to schedule meetings with 10 people across the entire globe. If you need a more thorough walk-through, here's an intro video from the developer:

Highly recommended!

Oh and of course, if you want to schedule a meeting with me from now on, just head over to http://tungle.me/seeminglee :)

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LiveStaats = Self-surveillance for Brian Staats

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 16:47:00 -0800

Brian Statts, a designer + engineer + researcher at MITRE, visualizes his moods and activities and turns them into a live infographic with multiple data points with respect to time - this beats any lifestream I've seen. Extra points for having a fitting last name. Bravo!

See the full gallery on Posterous

http://www.brianstaats.com

http://twitter.com/brianstaats

via Juhan Sonin on SlideShare - SML Thank You!

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The introduction to Art.sy doc is so hot that it is on the Slideshare homepage!

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 12:13:00 -0800

Introduction to Art.sy at SMartCAMP 2010
(go to Slideshare for presentation with audio)

View more presentations from Caroline Lau.

Update: now available as a video on Vimeo:

Also available on YouTube:

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Blogged Effect: Create Digital Music + Makezine: SML Thank You!!!!

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 21:11:30 -0800

Photojournalism doesn't pay, but within two days Create Digital Music and Makezine combined sent my video interview with Lara Grant on Vimeo more than 10,000+ hits and close to 3,000 plays:

I am speechless. SML Thank You!!!

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Diana Eng's Fairytale Fashion Collection Debut at Eyebeam NYC

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 11:47:00 -0800

Cross posted on SML Pro Blog.

The Fairytale Fashion Collection uses technology to create magical clothing in real life. Electronics, mechanical engineering, and mathematics are used to create clothing with blooming flowers, changing colors and transforming shapes.

I first learned about this project by Diana Eng (Twitter / Wikipedia) at Eyebeam's Open Studios last year. As a designer + technologist, I actively seek out people working on things that infuses art + science. And so when Diana told me that her collection's debut at the Eyebeam Art and Technology Center in New York, I was more than delighted to check her out.

The Collection

Research and development for the Fairytale Fashion collection are shared online at FairytaleFashion.org as an educational tool that teaches about science, math, and technology through fashion. Fairytale Fashion was created with the support of Eyebeam Art and Technology Center, the leading not-for-profit art and technology center in the United States.

A total of nine looks were showcased on the runway on February 24th, 2010, and some of them will be available for purchase on March 1st at DianaEng.com.

1. EL Wire Dress. Aqua silk chiffon organically draped dress edge with electroluminescent wire controlled by an accelerometer. Circuit boards are housed in 3-D printed neck piece.

2. Deployable Hoodie. Red wood silk hoodie with Miura Ori structure pleat pattern to help the hood collapse small and open big.

3. Twinkle Dress and Twinkle Cardigan. LED circuits are hand embroidered with silverized thread and a custom sewable circuit board Twinkle Pad, developed specially for the Fairytale Fashion Collection. Twinkle Dress's removable grey silk chiffon twinkle pad circuit overlays washable black cotton American Apparel dreww. Twinkle Cardigan's removable black wool melton shoulder patches overlay a cotton sweater.

4. Cameo. Peach silk organza edged with electroluminescent wire. Circuit boards are housed in 3-D printed Cameo.

5. Twinkle Skirt. LED circuits are hand embroidered with silverized thread and a custom sewable circuit board Twinkle Pad, developed specially for the Fairytale Fashion Collection.

6. Puff Sleeve Jacket. Lavender cotton canvas jacket with deployable structure pleated sleeves.

7. Inflatable Dress. Cream silk chiffon, draped over plastic inflatables and white silk flowers.

8. EL Wire Coat. White silk organza illuminated by EL wire patterns beneath which are controlled by an accelerometer.

9. Floating Dreams Dress.

Circuit Bending Orchestra

In typical geek fashion, the music accompanying the show was no other than a circuit-bending orchestra made up of team members: Lara Grant, Sarah Grant, Peter Kirn and Matt Ganucheau.

In fact here's a video of Lara Grant explaining to me how this all works:

SML 720p HD Simulcast: Flickr / Vimeo / YouTube

About Diana Eng

Diana Eng is a fashion designer who specializes in technology, math, and science. Her designs range from inflatable clothing to fashions inspired by mechanical engineering. She is a designer from Bravo’s Emmy nominated TV show, Project Runway season 2 and author of Fashion Geek: Clothes, Accessories, Tech. Diana is cofounder of NYC Resistor hacker group. Diana is currently a resident artist at Eyebeam.

Extra, Extra!

Hilary Mason (Facebook / Twitter), a computer science professor with a background in machine learning, data mining, and web applications, tends the lighting control. She is currently on sabbatical to explore real-world implementations of these technologies.

Gadget Galore at the press section:

Twinkling Backstage. The backstage literally lights up because of all the electroluminescent wires and Twinkle Pads.

Last but not least, SML Me with Diana!

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Japanese Ukulele Bear + Rabbit Duo U900 music videos: Crazy is Good!

Sun, 21 Feb 2010 09:57:00 -0800

U900: Diamond Head

U900: Walk Don't Run

U900: Crazy G

U900: Jingle Bells

http://www.myspace.com/ukuleleduou900

Artist Bio

Wild rabbit U
Part: lead vocals / ukulele
Personality: bright, poseur. Moro Akkeraka tears as often they are one side and the icon.
Favorite things: carrot juice. western pop latest hits (Beyonce fan now).
Hobbies: Dance / prank

Kumano 900
Part: ukulele / piano and harmonica / vocals and all other side 合財
Personality: quiet and Bo ~ thorough fact that it looks like and Tsu. Better cared for, good savings ends meet.
Favorite things: plenty of honey lemonade. Purogure and fusion.
Hobbies: practicing instrument / Your daytime sleep

U900 secret story
U is old, and is aiming to knock out Teketeke Ventures guitarist, too large for the body guitar and frustrated. Later, his quest for (Hawaii) know about the ukulele, and aspire to Ukurerisuto. Then, Akekure were trained in similar circumstances at Ukulele 900 (Crelle), and fate play a live encounter Inokashira street. Ukulele unit two got along famously "U900" had been formed!

メンバープロフィール
兎野U（うさぎのウー）
パート：リード・ボーカル／ウクレレ
性格：明るく、目立ちたがり屋。アッケラカ〜ンとしているが涙モロい一面も。
好きなもの：にんじんジュース。最新洋楽ヒット（今はビヨンセのファン）。
趣味：ダンス／いたずら

熊野900（くまのクレレ）
パート：ウクレレ／ピアニカ／サイド・ボーカル・・・その他一切合財
性格：無口でボ〜ッとしているように見えて実は几帳面。面倒見が良く、節約やりくり上手。
好きなもの：はちみつたっぷりレモネード。プログレとフュージョン。
趣味：楽器の練習／おひる寝

U900 結成秘話
U（ウー）は昔、ベンチャーズのテケテケにノックアウトされギタリストを目指すも、ギターが体に対して大きすぎ、挫折。その後、自分探しの旅（ハワイ）でウクレレの存在を知り、ウクレリストを志す。
その後、同じような境遇でウクレレの修行にあけくれていた900（クレレ）と、井の頭公園の路上ライブで運命の出会いを果たす。
意気投合した二人はウクレレ・ユニット”U900”を結成したのだった！

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Creative writing rules!

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 09:53:00 -0800

As a designer, I love creative writers. They open so many channels for us visually. Today I wish to give you one of my all-time favorite Flickr profile from Erotocrat (Twitter):

Dear Managing Director,

Thank you ever so slightly for reviewing my credential deficient resume for Conference Room Preservationist position as per advertised on Craigslist.

My indifferent responsibilities included all aspects of fabric and pressboard furniture sales, low-rent merchandise handling, and resolving customer service issues, "yes, you want to put 35.89 yards of the Pubic Hair Woven on reserve, do you what a cutting for approval on that, Madam?"

I wore many hats in snail-paced environments and this has utterly enabled me to successfully handle a multiplicity of schizophrenic tasks. I have worked in call center environments pretending to have an accent and tech support for Dragon Systems, eloquently explaining to customers how to use speech to text software. Ah, you have to reformat my hard drive honey and not the good hard drive either, you sassy beast, you!” Moan...You will also find that I am introverted, needy, disorganized, rodent oriented, and unmotivated. “Telecommunication I did it dude” is my motto all the way, I’ll say!

Thank you very little for your sacrosanct time and I look forward and backward to hearing from you, provided that the chemical reagents in my brain are to snuff, so we can attempt to discuss how my past and future experiences can coalesce so that my multiple personalities and I can best meet your needs.

When the past and future have sex the only present they get is the now.

Insignificant regards,

Hulgatha Doodlesack

P.S. I hate HDR Photography and mediocre hipster wannabees who think they are artists.

Have an average day!

Source: http://www.flickr.com/people/erotocratnyc/

Crazy is good!

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Yahoo Travel uses CC photos without credits, is that legal?

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:02:00 -0800

Some photo stats shot up in view stats today. Looking at referrer source, I've identified it as the page here: http://travel.yahoo.com/p-promo-31305151 (screenshot attached). Right below the Starbucks frappuccino ad is a module called "Photos from Yahoo! Users" with a very prominent flickr logo. The page is marked "Copyright © 2010 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved". Meanwhile, I thought that Creative Commons photo required credit inline and that linking back to the page does not count as credits.

I don't know how they decide to place my photo as the first among many, particularly since it's not exactly high in the interestingness ranking. Flattered but annoyed - since when did links count as credits?

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Snow Globes by Ligorano/Reese

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 18:11:00 -0800

I met Ligorano/Reese last year at the Eyebeam open studio. They were showing their Deadly Sins snow globes at the show. During my video interview with them, they told me that besides the deadly sins, they also have a very popular snow globe: the F**K snow globe. For this valentine's day, they released a "making of" video on YouTube:

The artist duo Nora Ligorano and Marshall Reese have been collaborating for the past 17 years, and they are really fun to talk to. Here's my video interview with them shot last year at Eyebeam:

And some photos taken on the same day:

Nora Ligorano

Marshall Reese

Deadly Sins

For more artist interview covered on the at the Eyebeam Open Studio, see SML Pro Blog: Eyebeam Open Studios Fall 2009 / Art in New York City

For more information about the artists:

Artist Bio

NORA LIGORANO and MARSHALL REESE have collaborated together as Ligorano/Reese since the early 80’s. They use collaboration to blend perse talents into a singular voice and vision. In the process of creating their work, their inpidual contributions cross and criss-cross between each other from brainstorming to realizing and making the art on location or in the studio.

They use unusual materials and industrial processes to make their limited edition multiples, videos, sculptures and installations, moving easily from dish towels, underwear, and snow globes, to electronic art and computer controlled interactive installations.

They take and manipulate images, audio and text from old media: print, television, radio and combine that with the new: internet and mobile telecommunications. Their pursuit is an ongoing investigation into the impact of technology on culture and the associations and meanings that the media brings to images, language and speech in politics.

They have an interest with using open forms to involve community interaction, like their drawing contests, Crater Bay Area for the 01 Festival in San Jose and Crater New York at Location1. Installations that combine sculpture with public participation in drawing, within the context of a contest that is also streamed on the internet and in Second Life. Their ice sculptures, “Main Street Meltdown” and “The State of Things” share that same sense of open possibility, fusing natural processes of erosion and decay as flexible durations and markers to determine the experience of the work.

Many of their sculptures and installations reinterpret and reexamine older forms of technology - using objects that signify truth, authority and manifest cultural historicity. Ligorano/Reese use mirrors, clocks, metronomes and medieval codex bindings and combine them with video screens. They have invented micro-projection systems to display films on the head of a pin or the counterweight of a metronome.

Since 2004, they’ve investigated portraiture as a construct of social representation. Line Up (2004-5), their series of portraits of Bush administration officials in mug shot, acknowledges that the mug shot is the preeminent form of portraiture now that more people are incarcerated in the U.S. than any other country in the world. In December, 2007, the exhibition of these photos at the New York Public Library caused a firestorm of controversy with heavy rotation on FoxNews, DrudgeReport’s homepage and many, many other publications.

In 2001, they launched www.pureproductsusa.com, the online retail website for their infamous political art series the Pure Products of America. Since 1992, Ligorano/Reese have made 11 multiples in signed editions of 3 to 100. They are best selling editions at Printed Matter, artbook@ps1 and the New Museum store and have prompted, at least on one occasion, the RNC to threaten them with copyright infringement.

For more information see “The Joy of Collaborating: recipes for time-based art.”

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Everyday reasons to learn 1337 (Leet)

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:18:00 -0800

Photo credits: The fuel of nerds by KayVee.INC

leet, also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters. For example, leet spellings of the word leet include 1337 and l33t; eleetmay be spelled 31337 or 3l33t.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet

Now you might think that I'm not a hacker, so why should I bother knowing it? Well aside of geek or spam use, leet actually has some unique everyday use that non-geeks can apply.

Obfuscate sensitive but otherwise public content. I learned this from my class secretary, who posted class notes with people's name in leet syntax such that it allows public viewing yet maintaining all content to be un-Googleable.
Create passwords with easily memorable text which contain numbers and symbols. All security experts recommends that you include numbers and symbols but how many people really do this properly other than appending 1 to their commonly known words? Leet to the rescue! Say you want your password to be wikipedia, so you 'translate' it as w1k1p3d1@ and voila - now very much secured :)
Get the vanity URLs you always wanted. Now we know that getting the domain name you want is hard, and equally hard when you want to lock your vanity URLs for social networks. So why not transform some of your letters instead of adding meaningless numbers? (though this branding wise this practice is not recommended for commercial businesses unless you're in the tech industry)

Need a substitution table? Start by checking out the orthography table on Wikipedia. Feeling lazy? Here's a bunch of translators and generators!

h4ppy 1337!n9!

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Happy Valentines Day!

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 10:25:04 -0800

Most of you know by now that I have been working on a Kiss project (more on SML Flickr) for a while now. For this valentine's day, I thought that I would post some recent photos of the project here. These are new so they're mostly shot with my new Canon 7D! :)

Also on

SML Photo Blog

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Everyday reasons to learn RegEx #1

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 08:57:00 -0800

Regular Expressions have many uses, it constantly saves my time to deal with frequently used handling. I thought that I would start posting reasons why I use it everyday, and why even non-geeks will find it helpful.

Today I wanted to share something a list on FriendFeed, you know, one of those top 100 most useful xyz resources. The post I want to share is here: http://sixrevisions.com/resources/fresh-design-blogs-you-should-be-reading/ but for quoting it on FriendFeed, I just want to include the names and not the explanation: http://friendfeed.com/smlgraphicdesign/ba443b53/50-fresh-design-blogs-you-should-be-reading

In other words, I want to delete all the text that does not start with a number. So I C+Ped the post, dump into my text editor, then RegEx replaced ^[^\d].+$ with an empty string and voila, outcomes:

1. Design Informer

2. DesignOra

3. Onextrapixel

4. Three Styles

5. ideasonideas

6. Inspired Magazine

7. Inspect Element

8. Blog of Francesco Mugnai

9. Design Boom

10. Position Absolute

11. Circlebox Blog

12. The Web Blend

13. Folio Focus

14. Blog Design Heroes

15. Type Inspire

16. Siiimple

17. Bevel and Emboss

18. Web Designer Help

19. Script & Style

20. D-Lists

21. Cats Who Code

22. Design Blurb

23. Tutorial Board

24. Marco Folio

25. [f5]

26. Little Box of Ideas

27. Nouveller

28. Designussion

29. Creativity Den

30. Web Developer Plus

31. Creative Opera

32. Minimal Exhibit

33. From The Couch

34. Cart Frenzy

35. Design Snips

36. XHTML-CSS-CODE

37. DesignNewz

38. Line25

39. Bit Rebels

40. Freelance Shack

41. Paper Leaf Design & Photography Blog

42. Scarlet Bits

43. Blue Blots

44. Red Bilby Blog

45. Smashing Share

46. Echo Enduring Blog

47. PSDeluxe

48. Webitect

49. Slodive

50. letscounthedays – Notebook

Handy huh? :) New to RegEx and want to get started? Look no further than O'Reilly's Mastering Regular Expression by Jeffrey E.F. Friedl - the book is so good I got productive within the first chapter!

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So there's a photo on SML Flickr now that has a Google PageRank 6...

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 19:09:00 -0800

Life Celebrates Diversity / 20091207.7D.01478.P1.L1.BW / SML

Sculptures of gay and lesbian couples at Sheridan Square, West Village, New York City.

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Wakoopa = Awesome personal productivity monitoring tool

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:16:00 -0800

http://wakoopa.com is an interesting web app that tracks your software usage over time. You download a utility (available for Windows, Mac and Linux) and let it run in the background in your tray and it will track everything that you are doing.

See the full gallery on Posterous

What I like about it:

It distinguishes web sites as being different than web browsers. This is cool as many applications run inside the browsers these days and simply tracking how many hours you've spent using the browser is pretty much pointless.
Top 10 software dashboard shows current ranking relative to previous weeks. In screenshot #1 you see that Photoshop usage just jumped 3 ranks and it's reflective of what I'm doing: busy working!
Software review integration. For each of the apps, you have the option to review and comment on its features.
Top users. Wakoopa has an interesting features that track top users on the site. This is pretty cool - and totally nifty for a social site where you can find people who might be similar to you this way. In screenshot #8 and #9 you will see that I am apparently the top users of SoundCloud and FriendFeed among all Wakoopa users! This came as a little bit of a shock to me but is interesting anyhow.
Game mechanics. The award system of FourSquare took them leap years ahead of BrightKite, and Wakoopa is no different. It sure is nice to see an 'expert' graphic on you profile. To level up, you just try out more web app. This is not something I would consciously do, but I can see why it gives an incentive for its user base to look for new software to try. Nifty interaction design idea!

I used to use RescueTime but now Wakoopa is what I use. That it works on Linux definitely gets my thumbs up. Highly recommended!

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Time.is = Global time comparison made easy

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:03:00 -0800

Working in global team with teammates in different timezone? No problem. http://Time.is makes is easy to compare time quickly. Super useful for scheduling meetings as well while not bothering people with IMs when they are sleeping!

http://time.is/compare/san_francisco;new_york;london;berlin;kiev

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