Fixing our social sharing tools - Product Design
source: Medium

Google attempted to solve the binary waterfall problem with the Google Plus “Circles” feature, but they ended up with a targeted sharing platform instead of a great social publishing platform (and maybe that’s what they wanted, as limited as that may be). On Facebook, they make the flood of information more palatable with a system called EdgeRank, which tries to guess which content you’ll “like” more. Twitter doesn’t try to filter anything. Instead, they leave it up to you to curate your feed by following or un-following.

-snip-

What Google should have realized is that the important part about sharing content online is not who you share it with, but who you share it as. We all have various personalities. Mine might be my work personality, my photographer personality, my hometown-highschool personality, my video gamer personality. These interests are bigger than my small group of friends who also share these interests, but it’s really, really hard to express my various interests online without managing a bunch of distinct social networks.

‘We Are Young Performed on Vintage Computer Parts
source: Mashable!

Something to Look Forward To: Outdoor Projects Roundup Best of 2012
source: Apartment Therapy - Chicago

Neat stool
source: Apartment Therapy - Chicago

Magazine Racks: Danish Modern, Teak & Rolling Stands The Wednesday MORNING Scavenger
source: Apartment Therapy - Chicago

Winter Ready: 10 Boot Trays
source: Apartment Therapy - Chicago

2012: The Year of the Home Office Best of 2012
source: Unplggd

Type light 3.2x
source: Linux App Finder - All Applications

Cool.

How to make a website: a tactical guide for marketers
source: Seth\'s Blog

True professionals don't fear amateurs
source: Seth's Blog

Alot of time's Seth is on point. On this, he's just wrong. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Swipe File: First Poster For After Earth And First Poster For Oblivion
source: Bleeding Cool

Lekh Diagram: Easily Create All Types Of Diagrams, Flow Charts, & Mind Maps [iPad]
source: MakeUseOf.com

Hobbit Cartoon
source: Giancarlo Volpe

Funny click through and scroll.

Children bike made from pipes
source: Likecool

Neat.

Newsweek ends its print run with a hashtagged cover
source: Engadget

Interesting.

VarieDrop: Easily Resize Images To Multiple Sizes
source: MakeUseOf.com

Neat app.

Plex desktop app becomes Plex Home Theater, adds AirPlay and HD audio
source: Engadget

I've never had alot of success with this app on either my Roku or iPad... but I suppose I'll try this update.

Natural Girls: Designer Ben Godi's Digital Sculpting Pantograph Production Process
source: SolidSmack.com

Intense.

Defending the First Sale Doctrine
source: Slashdot

Is a digital file a thing?

3D printed, hand-painted miniatures
source: Boing Boing

When you look at the Digital sculpting link above and then when you look at this shop and similar on Shapeways. There is an amazing geeky revolution in printing stuff at home coming.

Classic Mac papertoy or ornament.

CC33: ML Griffin Series by Calbretto
source: thefwoosh.com

Nice custom Warlock. I nice set of late 80s style Yellow and black suited New Mutants is probably the biggest hole in my collection. It'd be really cool if there was a Marvel Legends box set released at some point.

Bold Poker App Turns iPhones Into Playing Cards
source: Mashable!

This is very neat looking. Probably completely unnecessary unless you found yourself trapped somehow in an office conference room for an indeterminate amount of time, due to a tornado or a roofing beam having fallen and baracaded the door. Because of course, real cards are a very cheap and portable entertainment media. But still this is a neat looking app.

How did humans colonize space in Will Smith's After Earth? An Exclusive Look at Peter David's Prequel Story
source: io9

The Spruce Clamp
source: Neatorama

Vool - The Wooden Laptop Stand.
source: Likecool

Neat.

Star Wars Folded Flyers
source: Neatorama

There's probably a free PDF version of this type of stuff, somewhere.

Action Figure Collecting: The End of Days?
source: Action Figure Insider - Best Toy News on the Web!

Forrester report finds US tablet ownership doubled this year
source: Engadget

But which is the sideshow?
source: Seth\'s Blog

Print and Share with Printic
source: The iPhoneography Blog

FreeOCRtoWord converts images to Word editable text with impressive results [Freeware]
source: The Red Ferret Journal

Social media turns into boring old media
source: Boing Boing

Post by Warren Ellis.

Rebuilding the Web We Lost
source: Gizmodo

The Future According to the Movies [Video]
source: the How-To Geek

State of my thought on Social Media

Twitter is pretty much the casual conversation you'd have in a cubicle filled office. See the game Bob? Did you watch that episode of Walking Dead? Did you see that car pile-up on 131? What about that weather right now? It's really snowing out there.

Facebook is an awkward family get together that just never ends. Here's a photo of my kid. We just got a new car. Jim just started a new job. Let me show you this funny (not really) thing my dad forwarded me.

Neither is very interesting at the moment.

I've never gotten into the Instagram, but I don't think I have much to add to this...

College Humor has pretty much nailed Instagram.

Those are the big three right? As to the rest...

Is Foursquare really a social network? I use it on occasion, but I'm not sure why?

Linked-in? Does this have any real use unless you are looking for a job?

Pinterest? Not sure this is really a social network as much as a massively crowd-sourced lifestyle magazine.

Google+? I like Google+, Noone in my "circles" use it. I check it daily because there are like three people I'm interested in that prefer to post there.

MySpace? I hear this is back, haven't seen the need to check it out yet.

Youtube? Not really a social network. Yeah, I have subscriptions to channels, but Youtube is more like basic cable than a social network.

flickr? Used to be a social network, now it's just a place to stash photos.

Tumblr? Tumblr is just a more open, less focused Pinterest. It's crowd sourced random image sharing.

Am I leaving out anything? Maybe some of the music services? Dunno, everything left seems fairly minor and specific. Most of the rest fall into the sort of niche scatter I rant about in the post below this.

I suppose, email and texting are still a thing, but they are protocols more than networks.

Get attention

I don't think it likely that there is ever going to be another newspaper front page or another 3 network television line-up broadcast situation. There isn't likely to be another "ONE WAY" to get everyone's attention.

There's too many different forms of media now, too many different ways to spend one's time. It does not seem likely that things will coalesce around "ONE WAY" to reach everyone.

If you want to reach everyone going forward, you're going to need to start doing a lot of different things instead of one or two big things. The alternative is to start cutting people loose from your reach.

There's a desire to do the one thing that jumps you straight to 90% instead of the 18 things that get you 5% each. It's easy not to care about the thing that only reaches 5%. But the thing that reaches 90% is already an illusion anyway.

That newspaper isn't being opened. That commercial isn't being watched. And the internet isn't replacing them either. The lights have been flipped on and everyone has scattered.

Christmas

A round up of photos* from this Christmas weekend.

Scooby Dooby Doo!

Jennifer is always joking with me that she is going to get Scooby Sheets for our bedroom. Usually it's her way of joking back at me a bit when I get just a little too ordered and structured with the house decorating (One of the downsides for her for marrying a Designer, I suppose.)

I've actually never seen Scooby Doo sheets for a Queen sized bed (It's been an running joke long enough that I've actually looked a couple times just because I thought it would be funny to actually buy them for her.) But Jennifer's parents did manage to find a really cool Scooby-Doo blanket that they got her for Christmas, and I think it's pretty awesome.

In anycase, I really like the pic above, It may find it's way onto my phone as my new screen wallpaper too.

In brightest day in silly pants

One thing I must remember next year is to choose my morning sleepwear wisely, as they may find their way onto the internet.

While there are several more pictures of me from Christmas morning with crazy bedhead hair etc. This picture that is actually from Saturday as I open a bunch of ebay packages is a better shot :)

A fun thing from the recent Green Lantern movie, is that there has been alot more Green Lantern merchandise in stores. I picked up several of these Green Lantern pants on clearance at Meijer earlier in the year, and I often wear them In brightest day and blackest night.

I've got one more Christmas pants related story. Jennifer's running joke about Christmas presents for the last month has been various takes on "I hope you enjoy your pants." Actually I probably do need some new pants, but as you can see in the post below the iOS controlled Wireless bulbs she got me, among other things, were a little more fun than a pair of pants. But she did pay off the pants punch-line by printing out some tiny paper pants and putting them in a full-sized Kohls box. Those little paper pants also ended up on the Christmas tree. It was very funny, since this punch line was set-up several weeks in advance.

Kitty Kristmas

Our cat had a pretty good Christmas too.

He enjoyed everything in his stocking.

And he really enjoyed the wrapping paper.

But what I think he'll really enjoy most is this perfectly sized box to hide in:

Family

Saturday we spent the morning/afternoon with my mother and brother:

And in the evening we spent time with my Dad, too.

It was a busy Saturday. But fun.

Sunday morning/afternoon we spent time with Jennifer's parents and brother:

It was a very nice Christmas visit. Besides my wife being awesome, I'm very fortunate to also really enjoy spending time with my in-laws and brother-in-law. Yeah, people say that sort of thing on blogs and such, but in this case, it actually is true too. It's always a fun visit when we drop over there.

Sadly, this is the second time in a row that my Android tablet has "died" when visiting them. I'm going to blame it on their house having too many Apple gadgets and somehow they must be putting out negative-Android vibes ;)

We're still working on bringing my Android tablet back to life though. May need to reinstall the firmware or something. Haven't been in a big hurry to fix it yet though, we'll see how that works out.

I was also able to see my friend Chris, who is in Michigan all the way from China, Sunday evening. I didn't end up taking any photos while we hung out. But here's a recent picture of him from someone else's facebook.

It's always great to visit with Chris. We talk on the phone fairly frequently, but it's always great, the one or two times a year, that we get to catch-up in person. I wish his parents were closer so that when he is in the States, I could drop by for an hour or two with him each day.

The Precious

We also spent a portion of this Christmas in middle-earth. Jennifer put together "Lego Bag end" Bilbo Baggins (from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies). It was a pretty involved Lego set that she wanted... and as you can see from her pic below it turned out pretty cool:

Also, while we were killing some time Sunday morning after breakfast at Meijer, before we went to Jenn's parents, we ended up picking up Lego Lord of the Rings for Wii for $29.99. We played it a little on Christmas eve, it uses the music and alot of voice acting directly from the movie. It's ok so far. Probably abit more serious then it needs to be, and maybe not as outright fun as Lego Star Wars or Lego Batman but I think we'll tackle it a bit here and there over the course of the winter. Good times.

It's been a very nice, relaxing 4 day break and doing our holiday visiting on Saturday and Sunday really worked out well as it's given us a nice 2 day holiday at home too. It's also cool that we only have 3 days to work this week before the weekend and then a nice New Years break to look forward to as well.

That's all for now. I hope your Christmas was merry. Next up for us? The Doctor Who Christmas Special at 9pm.

*Some of these photos, I took, some Jenn took, some I took from facebook.

iOS controlled gifts

Two other cool techy gifts.

Jennifer got me the Philips Hue lightbulb set. These are wi-fi enabled lightbulbs that you can control from you iOS device from anywhere in the world. They are made up of a combination of LEDs that create pretty much any color your monitor can create in varying levels of brightness.

The box set comes with 3 wireless bulbs and a base station. Set-up was pretty quick and painless. The iOS app let's you individually set the color of each of the bulbs or control them in combination. You can also set up programmed events. Such as having a light turn on or off at a certain time or having a light slowly grow brighter to wake you in the manor of a sunrise etc.

They're very cool bulbs, and it's pretty neat to have such precise control of your lighting.

One other thing. The natural white setting is also very very clean and crisp. Philips has done good with these, novel colors, iOS control and also really clean crisp lighting.

If you're thinking about these, I think even after one day I can already recommend them (I'll probably even buy a couple more.)

Nifty and unexpected gift. :)

Techy gift number two pictured above is an iOS controlled Bluetooth enabled Helicopter that Jennifer's parents got me. Very fun gift, you'd be amazed at the lift force this thing exerts, it's pulls away from your hand pretty strong.

Sadly an early flight, snapped one of it's balance bar rotors, but I've already ordered a replacement for a couple bucks online, and I hope to have this little bird back up in the sky and hopefully terrorizing the cat again soon. Neat gift.

Hey look, it's Ch'p

Probably the coolest Christmas present this year are these two cross-stitch "ornaments" that Jennifer made for me. The lower one in the picture above is Ch'p, he is the Green Lantern of the planet H'lven which is populated by an alien race that look like Earth squirrel's/chipmunks.

He's always been one of my favorite Green Lanterns. And this Cross-Stitch of him is pretty amazing. Even more amazing in that Jennifer was able to actually make these without me knowing at all, stealing moments here and there to finish them.

These will definitely be some of my favorite ornaments to hang on the tree in years to come and they will also have a place on my Green Lantern shelf year round.

Want to see how cool Ch'p is? He recently appeared briefly in the Green Lantern Animated cartoon. Check out the clip below. It should start automatically when you click it, but if not, view it at the 2:40 min/sec mark.

Really great gift and a great surprize, and my favorite thing this Christmas.

Photo above is awesome, but it's even cooler in person, awesome shading and detail.

Update: cross stitch pattern and more on Jennifer's blog

Agent Orange

I've been on quite the action figure eBay bender the last month and a half. Pictures to come eventually.

One figure that I got yesterday though, I was especially excited about. Larfleeze the Orange Lantern. Orange is the color of greed in the lantern universe, and Larfleeze is a Gollum type character/origin of sorts, so it was extra cool that the figure arrived on Christmas Eve (the season of giving or getting, depending on how you look at it.).

The DC Direct version of this figure is going for $90 to $120 on eBay right now, so it was pretty cool that this DC Classics version has become available as a much more afordable low $20 range.

With the aquisition of Larfleeze, My "Skittle Corps" of Green Lanterns is finaly complete. At some point, I'll have to dig the other Lantern colors out of their boxes and do a full spectrum photo.

Good stuff.

New things

Mp3s didn't replace the CD.

Streaming didn't replace Mp3s.

With each new thing, our relationship to the content or the experience that is packaged by the thing, changes.

If you are happy with your relationship with the previous technology or the outcome of the previous methods. If that technology and those methods meet your needs, you have no reason to change your relationship to them.

If you are not satisfied with the previous methods and technology, or if the previous methods and technology are not habit already and are new to you anyway, as is often the case with youth, then that unsatisfied person without established habits may be open to new technology and new methods.

Satisfied needs do not motivate.

Random Non-Sequiters

I saw an article on Coding being key to 21st century literacy that sparked me to write a long winded ranting rebuttle post.

I ended up not posting the rant. When I read it, it seemed to get a little unnecessarily angry and bitter sounding toward the end, so I've archived it for the time being, maybe to revisit later.

As you can see below, I did a little bit of link blogging this weekend. Nothing to exciting below though. Quiets on the internets lately it seems.

Besides the coding literacy rant I withheld for the time being, I've also been thinking alot lately about labor, corporations, loyalty, age and youth lately. I don't have much to rant on that topic at the moment, but I've been thinking about issues wrapped in that topic space.

I'm always thinking about tech of course, but lately I've been feeling very satiated by the current tech available. What's the saying? Good, fast, or cheap, pick two? Feels lately that if you have a modest income, you can still afford all three when it comes to tech lately, doesn't it?

I've been knocking some pretty obscure figures off my toy-want list lately (the ebay app on iPad really is too convienent.) I have a backlog of blog pics from those aquisitions to take soon.

Jennifer made a pepermint buttercream cookie filling for some double chocolate cookies this weekend with our new food processor. Rich stuff. Tasty.

Updated my chalkboard door that's outside the office, today. I find that I add and erase things from it here and there every few days, but about once a month I go through and update the calendar portion and do a major redraw. All kinds of technology available, but this 7foot tall blackboard has been one of the more entertaining low tech things of late. It's been fairly useful too, as it's out of the way but yet still in a high traffic area for me personally as I walk by it many times a day.

No Daily Show and No Colbert for the next 3 weeks. There is the Doctor Who Christmas special introducing the new companion in another week though. We'll probably work through a few drama series that have been piling up on the DVR though over the next few weeks.

How about this weather? Crisp, but not very cold. The weather outside surely isn't "frightful" as the song says, yet.

Anyway. Nice but quiet weekend.

One does not simply just watch
The Lord of the Rings trilogy

In anticipation of The Hobbit premiering this weekend, Jennifer and I spent most of last week watching the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Although I watched the first movie in the theater. I never went to see the the other 2 in theater, and I've never actually made it completely through the 2nd or 3rd films on DVD or cable before either. Jennifer has the Extended DVDs and each movie is 2 discs long, so we watched one disc a day for 6 days. This trilogy is easily the equivilent of 6 movies in length too.

So much walking. So very much walking. Middle Earth doesn't seem very big, it seems easy enough to cross when the characters need to, but boy does it take them a long time to get to where they eventually need to go.

I did enjoy the movies more than I did originally. Most likely because Jennifer's love of fantasy is probably slowly rubbing off on me, seeping into my brain and I'm becoming more familiar with it. Recent series like: Game of Thrones have probably helped me adjust to the genre as well.

Having now watched the full extended series of The Lord of the Rings, I can't say that it was terrible. I'm pretty sure I would have hated them in the movie theater though. Without being able to break these films in half and watch a half a film a day, it certainly would have been too much, for me.

Watching the film's in halves works well though, as these films have no real 3 act type structure, and they really come across as a beautifully produced large budgeted modern day premiere meandering TV series season and as such are well suited to binging on in the same way one would work through a season DVD set of some popular tv series.

We had planned to watch The Hobbit this weekend, but after looking at the 2 hour and 46 min run time of that film, we decided against it, for this weekend at least. We'll most likely see it one of our days off over the upcoming holiday period. Too bad you can't buy a half ticket. I'd love to watch 90min on a Friday and then the another 90 minutes on a Saturday.

Authors@Google Talk with Eric Schmidt and Stephen Colbert
source: YouTube :: Videos by AtGoogleTalks

Schmidt is a terrible interviewer, but this is still an entertaining hour with Colbert.

Industrialism and the death of agency
source: Seth's Blog

Agency is the ability to make a decision, and to be responsible for the decision you make.

Since there have been armies, society has made an exception for soldiers. A soldier following orders is not a murderer, as he doesn't have agency--society doesn't generally want its soldiers questioning orders from our generals.

But the industrial age has taken this absolution to ever-higher heights. Every worker in every job is given a pass, because he's just doing his job. The cigarette marketer or the foreman in the low-wage sweatshop... they're just doing their jobs.

This free pass is something that makes the industrial economy so attractive to many people. They've been raised to want someone else to be responsible for the what and the how, and they'd just like a job, thanks very much.

As the industrial company sputters and fades, there's a fork in the road. In one direction lies the opportunity to regain agency, to take responsibility for ever more of our actions and their effects. In the other direction is the race to the bottom, and the dehumanizing process of more compliance, a cog in an uncaring system.

One Ring
source: Neatorama

Cute.

Christmas Sweatz
source: Neatorama

Ha.

Fun Site Gives You Random Images of Anything at Any Size You Want
source: Gizmodo

Cool.

What today's Web can learn from the Web of the early 2000s
source: Boing Boing

The web is old enough now that there is a generation that can talk about it starting the phrase "Back in my day...". This is a very very well done article in that mold. I myself, like alot much of the new social and mobile stuff, but I do have to admit that I too often reminisce fondly thinking of the web we lost.

Watch NASA scientists rap and dance about their careers Gangnam Style
source: io9

Apparently this and a remote control car on Mars is what is left of our Space Program. Way to go Humanity.

Youll Go Peanuts for the Charlie Brown School of Dance
source: Mashable!

Cute.

Free Printable Wrapping Paper for Classic Video Game Lovers
source: Unplggd

Publishers Weekly "stars" my upcoming 'Present Shock'
source: Rushkoff Blog

Ironicly this book about "Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now" is only available for preorder and will not be out for 4 more months.

Honest
source: xkcd.com

Twitter users, you're doing it wrong

I follow the Executive Producer of the Green Lantern Animated Cartoon. Generally he's a very entertaining and informative account to follow.

Since the show was abruptly put on hiatus, he's been live tweeting a fake made up episode every Saturday during the show's usual time slot.

But why?

I think the fake episode for the fans is very nice of him to do, and generally it's an amusing little tale, but why do it 140 characters at a time for a 30 minute continual stream of posts in twitter?

Why not just post the whole thing on a blog? And link to that blog on twitter.

I very much get annoyed when people throw out the 140 char limit concept and decide for either good or ill that they are going to "take over my feed" with their rants or tales of whoa or their long form stories that would be better suited based on their length to live on a web page instead of a twitter stream.

Occasionally live streaming an event with posts every few minutes is one thing... but just hitting send, 140chars, send, 140chars, send, 140chars as a continual stream... man, that's just rude to assume that I want to have your avatar take over and dominate my feed in a never ending stream of posts better suited for other media.

Fire off a few tweets in a row on occasion, sure. But setting you account to continuous autofire? Not necessary, take it to a blog.

Industrialists vs. the rest of us
source: Seth\'s Blog

Industrialists work to take working systems and polish them, insulate them from risk, maximize productivity and extract the maximum amount of profit. Much of society's wealth is due to the relentless march of productivity created by single-minded industrialists, particularly those that turned nascent industries (as Henry Ford did with cars) into efficient engines of profit.

Industrialists don't mind government regulations if they write them, don't particularly like competition or creativity or change. They are maximizers of the existing status quo.

Honest Trailers points out the horrible danger of actually thinking about Dark Knight Rises
source: io9

Funny. True.

The Universal Arts of Graphic Design
source: swissmiss

Nice Video about Graphic Design. Pretentious. But then, that's alot of what Graphic Design is too.

Verizon Wants to Watch and Listen to Your Life While You Watch TV
source: Gizmodo

Creepy stuff.

Amazon Offers All-You-Can-Eat Digital Comics For Kids From Marvel And DC
source: Bleeding Cool

Comics Netflix-style. Interesting.

How to draw Space Invaders-style characters
source: Boing Boing

Pixel Dude iOS app, for drawing pixel based images.

Translating plutocrat economic campaign-speak into plain English
source: Boing Boing

Why Facebook Just Turned Your Subscribers Into ‘Followers
source: Mashable!

My guess is, that they actually want to sell subscriptions at some point.

Completely Redesigned Zite Magazine iOS App Adds Tons More Categories [Updates]
source: MakeUseOf.com

Very nice redesign, although I don't really care for the new Owl icon.

The Portabee 3D Printer
source: Fabbaloo Blog

Unassembled $499. Assembled $689.

Onda's V972 tablet packs Jelly Bean and a Retina-like display for $240
source: Engadget

Cool.

Quickly and Automatically Restart a Windows Program When it Crashes
source: the How-To Geek

Interesting.

Kevin Smith Promises Clerks III As A Movie, Hit Somebody As A Six-Part TV Show
source: Bleeding Cool

I don't think I have much interest at all in a Clerks III at this point. Clerks was in 1994. Clerks II was in 2006. It was interesting to check back in on those characters 12 years later. But checking in again only another 7 years or so later? Meh. He should wait another 7 to 10 years I think.

The War on Superman's Underpants
source: io9

An important topic I've been talking about since 2005.

Santa Hat Cheesecake
source: Neatorama

Tasty looking.

DC Comics Month-to-Month Sales: October 2012
source: THE BEAT

Niche, Niche, Niche.

Google Now Is Coming Soon To A Desktop Near You
source: Gizmodo

Cool.

The Power of OutrospectionA Way of Life, A Force for Social Change Explained with Animation
source: Open Culture

Paul Krugman's Favorite Fiction: Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy Dramatized for Radio (1973)
source: Open Culture

How Much Money Do Digital Comics Earn For Their Creators?
source: Blog@Newsarama

How to Plan Your Freelancing Design Income
source: BittBox

[UPDATE] Youtube Downloader HD v2.9.6
source: The Portable Freeware Collection

Useful.

[UPDATE] Video to Video v2.8.1.81
source: The Portable Freeware Collection

Nice looking app.

Cardboard Star Destroyer
source: Neatorama

Very cool. Click through to see the painted finished toy.

Zombiewood Review: Twin Stick Shooter With Lots of Hollywood Irony (Video)
source: Tablet News

Looks like a fun game.

DC Comics grapples with release times as it expands digital reach
source: Robot 6 @ Comic Book Resources - Covering Comic Book News and Entertainment

DC now releases in digital, hours before they are available in stores. Interesting marker. Now if they'd just start releasing digital books for 99¢ so that they were cheap enough that regular non-collectors would buy them.

Subcompact publishing
source: Boing Boing

Good article on iPad/tablet publishing.

Why collecting toys is like a heroin addiction
source: io9

Wevther


Clothing recommendations based on your weather. Novel.

A Desk For Those of Us Who Love to Work in Privacy
source: Unplggd

Neat.

Google adds spreadsheet editing to Drive mobile app
source: Engadget

This was something that I was really excited about, last week.

IRON MAN / WAR MACHINE Foam Costumes and MANY More! - PEPAKURA
source: Instructables

This is an incredible series of tutorial videos. Very well produced, very informative. The last video on the page has a great method for building a full-sized mannequin too.

Affordable Stand Up Desk
source: Instructables: exploring - featured

Nice simple design.

Paper Brush Pot
source: Instructables: exploring - featured

Nice simple idea.

Hands Free Photography with a Smart Phone
source: Instructables: exploring - featured

Cool and simple idea.

Internet Explorer 10 Ad Is Brutally Honest [VIDEO]
source: Mashable!

Amusing. What passes for sincerity from a company.

Etsy for iPad: The Homemade Hipster Haven Goes Tablet
source: Gizmodo

Cool.

Making Advertising Work In A Responsive World
source: Smashing Magazine Feed

Interesting thoughts.

Nate Silver's Google Talk: Like Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock, For Nerds
source: Gizmodo

Windows Sales Down 21% Since Windows 8 Launch
source: Mashable!

Windows has been a mature platform for awhile. People aren't clomoring for updates to their desktop OS.

Sara's Revamped Speakers Renew a Love of Records
source: Unplggd

Nice simple speaker stand design.

Herman Miller Collection
source: Gizmodo

Neat concept of a chair with a built-in side table.

This Calvin and Hobbes Search Engine Just Made the World a Much Better Place
source: Gizmodo

Very cool.

Wasting your Time
source: swissmiss

Idealistic. But interesting.

Advent Calendar
source: swissmiss

Neat idea.

Wooden Bike Hook
source: swissmiss

Simple.

Plank
source: swissmiss

Clean.

Top Ten Rules of Space Opera
source: io9

Not a bad list actually.

Star Trek Communications Panel

On Black Friday I grabbed a good deal on Thinkgeek's Star Trek Communication Panel. It's a delightful piece of kitch. It has a motion detector on it that whenever you walk by it, it makes the Star Trek door wooshing noise. You can also press the white button and it makes the communication whistle and if you flip the switch you can set off the red alert light and klaxon.

In any case, I've been very entertained by it. I mounted it on the wall right outside our office and every time we walk in and out of the computer room there's a satisfying "whoosh whoosh".

Adam and Comfort

We had Adam and Comfort out this weekend. They joined us at the tail end of our Saturday afternoon with Jeff and Dan.

Comfort's birthday was just a couple days before so we had a birthday pie that Jennifer had made. We didn't have any party hats so I had Comfort wear a painters mask while we sang happy birthday (That counts right? It has an elastic strap)

I already posted about the excellent iPad sketch that Adam played around with on Saturday.

For the most part we hung out, watched internet videos and bad tv shows. Took walks. And had a fantastic time.



Sunday afternoon we +2'd our gathering and we watched the Rifftrax of Twilight's Breaking Dawn Pt. 1. What an awful non-movie, but it's an excellent Rifftrax experience. Taco bar, scratch brownies and ice cream, good times.

Grand Rapids Toy Show

Grand Rapids Toy and Comic Expo.

Raina

Above is a sketch, of Raina from Rainbow in the Dark, that Adam Withers did in Procreate on my iPad with a Jot Stylus while he was over this weekend. It's even more fantastic when you consider that he's never really much used this program on an iPad before.

It was alot of fun watching him do the sketch.

December

It's December. Busy, busy weekend. Lots of our favorite people's over yesterday and today. Pics and blogging later, but for now her's a picture of a couple squirrels waiting for breakfast.