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ajax

Tuesday, May 31, 2005



i started playing around with ajax today, using my artwork portfolio as a playground. the basic idea behind ajax is to make web interfaces smarter, enabling you to update content on a page from the server without having to load a new page. google has been at the forefront, using ajax in google maps, gmail, and google suggest.

it's not really a new technology, like dhtml wasn't a new techonology. it's a new(er) way of using existing technology, mostly javascript, specifically XMLHttpRequest, to load (replace) content in a page element.

check out my portfolio to see it in action.

posted by j. Permanent Link 1 comments

memorial day

Monday, May 30, 2005



We went to the South Kettle Moraine State Forest this weekend-- twice. I go there pretty often with my friend adny to hike and finally realize that there are all of these "Nature Trails" all over the park. Nature trails are basically shorter trails, compared to the 3-5 mile hiking trails that we do. The nature trails all seem to average about 1 mile long, which is perfect for the kids.




Graham was like a little natural... in nature.




Elise loves to be outdoors and running around. We were even able to convince her to stop talking for brief periods to listen for birds and little animals. Unfortunately we weren't able to spot much wildlife.




Kim stands in reluctant cuteness in one of the clearings in the forest.


It was supposed to rain all weekend and i think we got about 10 - 15 minutes of cumulative drizzle. It didn't rain once today, Memorial Day, so it wound up being a great weekend for being outside. (Wisconsin really is quite beautiful in the summer, for how much i complain about it in the winter.) It was also our 6th anniversary this weekend, so it was nice to have a 3 day weekend to run around in the woods and enjoy each other in the warmth.

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fly over ny

Friday, May 27, 2005

I added a map of new york to Flying!







It's huge, so you'll prolly want to use the F4. Be aware that it's almost a 3MB map, but it's zoomed in a little further than most of the other big cities. Really, it's because i wanted "ground zero" to be relatively clear. I decided to include the statue of liberty too, for better or worse.

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New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (pt1)

I didn't even originally want to go to NOCCA, though that's probably more a reflection of my reluctance to accept suggestion than any kind of valid opinion. My mom mentioned it numerous times and i always felt like i was being pushed toward it, so my natural reaction was to oppose going.

NOCCA is an art school in new orleans, a half-day public high school that complements the curriculum of your "home school." You fulfill your requirements at your home school and all of your elective credits are devoted to learning about art, music, dance, theatre or writing. (Granted, this all speaks to my experience in 1991-92, things have changed significantly since.) Students were required to audition for NOCCA; there were several auditions held throughout spring and summer the last of which was held a week or two before the school year began. Because of my reluctance, i didn't audition until the last possible date, i think August 28th or 29th.

The audition itself consisted of an interview with the three primary instructors, which included showing a portfolio, and a drawing test in which you sat in a classroom and sketched from a still-life. I can't even imagine what my portfolio consisted of. When i went to draw from the still life i chose to draw a combat boot that sat on the table and i was confident that i was going to draw that boot in every little detail. I wasn't told how much time i'd have, so i just set to work. I think i had gotten maybe a quarter of the boot done when the scary Mrs. Gross came in and told me that i'd done enough. I guess i didn't have as much time as i needed after all.

I'm not the type of person that is very comfortable with strangers, i don't do well with small talk, and i don't like places and situations in which i am unfamiliar. But, for some reason, i seem to have this uncanny knack for calmness and confidence in interviews. It's probably a reflection of a lack of emotional investment in the outcome. If i'm not accepted, oh well. I never really considered that i wouldn't get in, though. When i was there for my audition i can only remember seeing one other applicant coming as i was leaving, most likely because it was so late in the summer and the new school year was so close. If there had been a lot of other kids there, i might've been nervous, though i most likely would also have felt more competitive. Even though i hadn't gotten much actual drawing done, i figured that what i had done was well drawn and perhaps they'd see that. A week later, i was accepted.

Continue Part 2 ->

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Guess the Google

Wednesday, May 25, 2005


(what a terrible name)

So, i'm a pretty big fan of images.google, as i may have already established. Today, i found this game, done in flash, that loads in images and you guess the search term. It's a pretty simple concept, but i'm all for simplicity when it's used well! My final score was 287 (i played all 10 rounds only once).

I wonder how many possible search terms there are.

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book list

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

I've read more than i thought i had in the last 4 1/2 years. Anyway, i mentioned in yesterday's post that i might post my book list. I attempted to write it out chronologically, but i'm probably way off on some of them:

Gravity's Rainbow (2x)
Thomas Pynchon

Beautiful Crescent (A History of New Orleans)
Joan B. Garvey, Mary Lou Widmer

The Brothers Karamazov
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace

Life on the Mississippi
Mark Twain

Catch 22 (2 or 3x)
Joseph Heller

Swann's Way
Marcel Proust

Love in the Time of Cholera
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Milan Kundera

Don Quixote
Miguel De Cervantes

Uncle Tom's Cabin
Harriet Beecher Stowe

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Dave Eggers

A Confederacy of Dunces (2 or 3x)
John Kennedy Toole

Walden
Henry David Thoreau

The Broom of the System
David Foster Wallace

The Stranger
Albert Camus

Within a Budding Grove
Marcel Proust

100 Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Life of Pi
Yan Martel

Of Love and Other Demons
Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen

A Prayer For Owen Meany
John Irving

Moby Dick
Herman Melville

Crime and Punishment
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

and just about everything by Kurt Vonnegut.


Leave me some recommendations.

posted by j. Permanent Link 3 comments

gravity's rainbow

Monday, May 23, 2005



I finished Gravity's Rainbow today, for the second time. It took me forever to get through, though i have to admit that it wasn't like i was consistently putting a lot of time into getting it done. It's dense, complex, disturbing, insane (paranoid!), inspiring, humbling, funny... and difficult.

A few years back i decided that i wasn't reading enough and i was going to get back into it. I started with Gravity's Rainbow, which was probably a mistake, but i made it through. My plan was to read through my book list, which culminated in Swann's Way by Marcel Proust (reading Proust symbolizing reaching another level of reading), then perhaps read Gravity's Rainbow again in hopes that i could absorb a bit more of it. I eventually added many more books onto my list (which i was keeping as a .txt file somewhere... if i can find it i was going to post it in hopes of getting some referrals), so it took me longer to get back to G.R. than expected. And, even though i've read many classics and other acclaimed books in the meantime, i have to say that i still only managed to absorb so much of G.R. It is in part because i have come to realize that i have this reading style that is often based more on the aesthetic than the symbolism, which, as it turns out, seems to suit Proust way better than Pynchon. But mostly, it's because G.R. is such a densely complex book that it's impossible to really get it all without reading the companion book along with it. My big mistake was to think that i should read it twice before using the companion.

I have found some pretty good companion-type websites, that i probably should've been actively consulting the whole time as well. I haven't really been able to find much in the way of in-depth analysis; i've found more chapter by chapter breakdowns, which can be handy in revisiting things, but they're not particularly explanatory.

There is this summary by Dr David Law from The Modern World's G.R. reference site.

There is this Web Guide on the HyperArts website (HyperArts is a web design company, ironically) that's quite good, and links to Alec McHoul's Summary of G.R. in the resources section.

I haven't seen all of them yet, as the book has a lot of pages, but Zak Smith illustrated every single page. What an undertaking.

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john singer sargent

Friday, May 20, 2005

During my first year at NOCCA (New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, an art high school in new orleans... perhaps i'll go into more detail about that another time), one of our three primary instructors, the aptly namedMr. Gross, taught us American Art History. I should say right off the bat that i'm not a big fan of american art, at least not until sometime in the early mid twentieth century. But that's not what Mr. Gross was into, he was mostly into 19th century art, especially Remington.

Anyway, Sargent is one of the artists that i remember him teaching us, the painting The Daughters of Edward Boit in particular. (You have to wonder why he wouldn't have chosen something like El Jaleo, but whatever...) I think considering Sargent an American artist is somewhat of a stretch, in a sense, though he was of american descent-- an expatriate, though i can't seem to find out whether it was he or his parents that left america.

He's considered somewhat of an impressionist, though i think the impressionists debated whether or not he was one of their own. When you think impressionist, you undoubtedly think of Monet and Degas. I always associated Degas and Monet with images of beauty, in color and subject. Sargent, though, seems to be darker and deeper in some respects. This is kind of ironic, given this quote that i wanted to include:

His life, with some exceptions, was a succession of successes, and reviewers of a recent biography seem uniformly resentful of a man who made it through life as an artist without much spiritual agony or material want, and who even died, painlessly, in his sleep. Against the psychopathology of the artistic spirit as we expect it to be lived out, Sargent seems to have been too happy to have been deep.
I should remember to try to return back to this idea, as well, at some time in the future, and how it relates to the movie Pollack.

Lack of focus be damed.

Sargent was obviously interested in painting in terms of beauty, i think, but his work goes deeper into depicting life in a more real sense, capturing his subjects bring tired, being playful, being sweaty, being provacative, being bored... being themselves.


Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose



El Jaleo



Unsure of title



Lady Agnew



Madame Pierre Gautreau (Madame X)



Monet Painting at the Edge of a Wood



Repose



Self Portrait



Street In Venice



The Daughters of Edward Boit



Venetian Interior


Here is a great article on J. S .Sargent.

posted by j. Permanent Link 4 comments

more maps...

Tuesday, May 17, 2005



I spent a bit of time working on the flash flying toy (it's not a game till it's got bombs, if i decide to add bombs). I added a bunch of maps, so now there's Boston, Chicago, Europe, Grand Canyon, New Orleans, Niagara Falls, San Francisco and Washington DC. I also added a second plane, an F4, which is faster than the B25 Bomber, so that you can get across the Grand Canyon without having to fly very slowly. I've got a few other planes i want to make, like a cessna, a slower plane for smaller maps; a stealth bomber, cause who doesn't want to fly a stealth bomber?; and a harrier, because i've always thought harriers were cool. I also want to make a few more maps: NYC, the mississippi delta perhaps... maybe one or two more smaller tourist destination types, like DC and Niagara...

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frontline online

Monday, May 16, 2005


(Click here)

One of the best shows on PBS is also available to be seen, in its entirety (for most shows from the last 3 years) online.

They have been creating companion sites for all of their shows for years now and they've always been high quality websites. I expect no less from the videos they've posted.

If only other television producers had the PBS mindset.

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tom friedman

Thursday, May 12, 2005

I started this post on 4/13 and haven't managed to finish it still. I don't want to just throw a bunch of images out there and say "here," i'd figure i should at least try to articulate what it is about Friedman's work that i like, but i don't want to turn it into a full blown essay. His work isn't so easy to explain, in part because it is somewhat aesthetically and artistically questionable. (i may not have done a good job of displaying the questionable side of his work here...)

In searching for images of his work, i found this essay by "Columbine" describing why he doesn't consider Tom's works art, but ironically, over the course of his describing the work (to prove his point), i still find it all quite interesting.

One important test, I believe, is that (although I have chosen to show you some of these pieces to illustrate their visual wow-factor) you do not need to actually see any of them to get their one joke. It's all in the description.
It is a valid point that Friedman's work has this somewhat shallow "wow" factor, but really, the wow factor plays a pretty big role in marketing in our capitalist society. But i think that seeing the art does lend more legitimacy to it because they're often very big WOWs. It's not just the fact that he threw a bunch of pick-up-stix on the ground and replicated the random pattern in mirror image by hand... It's the preciseness and the magnitude of the pattern that he is duplicating that you need to see to appreciate.

How do you crumple two pieces of paper exactly the same way?

I personally find a lot of his work visually striking, but what's more than what it looks like are the processes involved. Many of the descriptions of the pieces aren't so much jokes with punchlines as they are descriptions of the creative process involved in making the piece. And sometimes his creative processes are pretty funny, at least unbelievable in an "i can't believe he spent that much time doing that."


I didn't get exact names for most of these, so i'll do what i can:


hot balls - composed of balls stolen by the artist over a 6 month time span



cardboard box covered in styrofoam balls



suicide - construction paper



pieces of #2 pencils cut up and glued together end-to-end







splat! (i love this one)



who knows... construction paper



box, made of wood... it's like 7' tall



two pieces of paper crumpled exactly the same



colored pencil lines



5 cheerios boxes cut into tiny pieces and reassembled to make one big box







paper...



toothpick starburst


Tom Friedman (Book 1)

Tom Friedman (2 Volume Set, Slipcase; Italian & English)

Minisite from PBS's Egg - The Arts Show

Fondazione Prada click Exhibitions > Archive > 2002 (flash interface)

A bunch of images on Wired

a nice gallery of mostly newer pieces this site is in frames, click Tom Friedman in the left nav

posted by j. Permanent Link 2 comments

flying!

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

fly over new orleans!



about 2 weeks ago i was talking to my friend adny about google's satelite view maps when i had this idea... it was a goofy idea, but none-the-less... i thought it'd be cool to "fly" over the maps by replacing the cursor with an image of an airplane. there were too many complications in trying to do it with javascript and frames or some other such goofiness. seeing as flash is my tool of choice lately anyway, i decided to just use that.

first thing i did, naturally, was look for a shortcut in making the airplane rotate and follow the mouse, and i found just that here, by Jamie Keipert. (actionscripts.org is a great flash tute site...) i made the airplane and attached the script to it to make it follow the mouse and all, then started taking screenshots to make the map. the map of new orleans is almost 3400 pixels square, and even at low quality takes a while to load. i want to do more (or bigger) maps, but that's a lot of bandwidth and patience. i'm going to add a few maps and am open to suggestions on desinations.

anyone who's interested in making a map is welcome to contribute, as well. fwiw, i took the screenshots for the new orleans map at the third-highest zoom setting. i was considering doing something where you could just add a url into a textfield and fly over your own images, but i have a feeling it'd just wind up being abused. instead, send URLs to jpgs and i'll add them in when i do the loadMovie function for map switching.

the hardest part was getting the land to move somewhat convincingly. everything has a tendency to default to a 45 degree angles at low speeds, but it was a compromise between that or having the map just stop moving when the plane and mouse touched. moving fast, though, i think the motion is really smooth and nice, even on my 400MHz laptop.

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hifi mix, broken down

Friday, May 06, 2005

1. The Go! Team - The Power Is On

Fun doesn't get much more fun. It's like Tigre and Bunny join the A-Team.


2. LCD Soundsystem - Tribulations

The best song, i think, on one of the best albums so far this year. It's like the one album on Pitchfork's 2005 Best New Music list that belongs there.


3. Elbow - Fallen Angel

Elbow is a bit on the commercial-sounding side, i think, with this Peter Gabriel thing going on. There's not a whole lot that's unique about it; in some places their techniques seem a little predictable, but it's pretty cleanly produced and tight and interesting, so... there.


4. Broken Social Scene - Stars and Sons

i'm not exactly sure what it was that i thought broken social scene was, but for a while i avoided them... you know, somehow in my mind they got lumped in with the Trail of Dead, which, goofy as it may be, i pretty much avoided because of their name. you gotta figure that the name you attach to yourself is at least in some part a reflection of your philosophy. tangent.

turned out, though, that i like broken social scene quite a bit. when the handclaps in the song start you can't help but feel compelled to clap along, even if you feel like an idiot doing it and only last for about 6 claps or so.


5. A.C. Newman - Most Of Us Prizefighters

I don't like the New Pornographers (naming philosophy applies to them too...), but A.C.Newman has this sort of Shins sound: intelligent guitar pop music.


6. Spoon - The Delicate Place

the world is going to be a happy place when Gimme Fiction comes out (soon!). i've been waiting for a new spoon album for a long time, it seems like, and they don't let down like... BECK DID.

this is track 5 on the album and when the drums come in, you know that this is a spoon album.


7. Interpol - Not Even Jail

i don't think it's safe to say that Interpol can do no wrong... some of the songs on Antics start kinda weak, though they all manage to really get going at some point. as my friend ryan likes to point out, they have lines like "Make money like fred astaire" that kinda detract from the album cause it's just sorta... dumb. but they're still interpol. and interpol is still good.


8. The Arcade Fire - Wake Up

it's all been covered by now. the arcade fire are awesome. they're going to collapse in on their arty-ness, i think, one day, but they're like everything that was good about late 80s music, now.


9. Beck - Missing

one of the better songs from a mostly weak and disappointing album. come through for us next time?


10. M. Ward - Hifi

this album is pretty much right up my alley lately, combining this mellow jazz/blues sound with a more modern pop sound that's also produced really well. some of it gets tom waits-ish, but a good way, not in an over-done way like YOU DID, MODEST MOUSE.


11. Sly & the Family Stone - In Time

i'd always grouped Sly & them in with K.C. & the Sunshine dorks, but mistakenly so. This song could've been a bit shorter where making a mix is concerned, but it's some pretty decent 70s funk. And what's funkier than the 70s?


12. The Meters - Sing A Simple Song

When the meters come on, it's like the sky has just opened up. The Meters are funkier than the 70s. I put this song in here for your benefit more than mine cause you need to understand how awesome the Meters are.


13. rebirth brass band - New Orleans Music

It's hard to find a song from Rebirth that's not 9 minutes long, but this is one that's good and short and representative of who they are, as well as who New Orleans is. Rebirth and New Birth Brass Band both heavily inspired my last few songs one of which follows:


14. sophrosyne - esplanade

it's my habit to put my newest song on my newest mix tape, so here it is. forgive me if it's a bit gratuitous. that being said, i thought it tied up the mix pretty well, bringing the jazz side back around to the electronic side.

i still don't think i'm satisfied with the post-production on this song. it's too clean sounding... making it tinny, like it's come out of a computer. maybe i should use the mix straight out of cubase and not run it through soundforge at all after. hmm...

http://www.j-ink.com/hifi.zip

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living with the art$

Wednesday, May 04, 2005



i've been trying to articulate, for the last few days, my disappointment at the cost of the art museum. It's not a matter of not wanting to pay, or being able to pay, or even being willing. But it seems to me that the cost to see art is prohibitively expensive for the more marginalized portions of our society, all the people who aren't fortunate enough to be a part of america's middle class culture.

but what are the alternatives? Art is expensive, architecture is expensive... Granted, many art collections belong to private collectors and many museum buildings are funded by private donors. Still art is a business like anything else. But i think of it like i think of libraries. Literature is free. Not for the taking, but for the borrowing. Why isn't art more accessible in our society? i suppose the only real alternative to further private donorship is government programs, and i think it's pretty safe to assume that that's not going to happen anytime soon.

i think the thing for me is that, being from new orleans, i became accustomed to being surrounded by art and a culture that appreciated it and thrived off of it. nola is full of galleries, artists, musicians, etc. I'd like to see that same kind of dispersement of creativity around me and it's disappointing that it's not there, not part of our collective priorities.

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going to the desert

Monday, May 02, 2005



i bought tickets to go visit my brother and his family in Patagonia, AZ in june. Patagonia is at an elevation of about 5000 feet, i believe, so it's not going to be as ridiculously hot as tucson and phoenix, but i'm sure it'll still be pretty hot.

i'm trying to find some things that we can do at higher elevations that will be a little cooler and perhaps have some things like... trees.

i've found the Mogollon Rim, which looks like it could be pretty interesting, and Payson, AZ, a small town near the Tonto Natural Bridge State Park that i think it's supposed to be cool and green, but perhaps a bit too touristy? who cares, really. vacation == tourism; i was thinking about going to see Montezuma Castle too. (i've always wanted to see pueblos.)

i want to see some of this:



any recommendations?

posted by j. Permanent Link 2 comments