Yesterday, I sketched a chair I found at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art’s “The Art of Seating” exhibit. I had a spare hour, and threw together this Blender 3D model, and let the simulation render overnight. I only sketched it from one angle, so it’s fair to say this rendering is inspired by the…
After my daughter’s theater workshop, I took her up the street for a leisurely tour of the Westmoreland Museum of American Art‘s current exhibit, “The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design.” Most chairs encountered throughout the day define themselves fairly simply – a place at the family table, a comfortable spot with a…
There are of course emotional consequences for becoming married. Lines 1167-1172: if( age >= 0.85 ) { dieSpouse(); } if( age >= 0.95 ) { diePlayer(); } This is the most famous, emotionally manipulative part of Passage. Those six lines are basically the reason we study this game at all. —Poking around in Passage |…
A thoughtful blog entry from a student in my “Media and Culture” class. When I clicked on the link to “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore,” despite the interesting title, I was expecting something very academic. But what I found was something so moving that inspired great emotion in me. I guess that I…
We finished the game over the weekend. Delightful. via My daughter likes Machinarium. – YouTube. Similar:Where No One Has Gone Before (TNG Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 5) Wes's warp-drive guru help…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….CultureGo not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.First runner-up for the girl’s Halloween…AestheticsStage…
I was happy to see this review of a great film I used a few weeks ago in my “Video Game Culture and Theory” class. The first five minutes of Get Lamp alone are worth watching for those who may have tinkered around on a MUD at some point, but know little about the origins…
In my mind, the house is clapboard, with a black, precisely shingled roof and shutters in a bit of disrepair. The sky is always an intangible, faded blue, and the forest surrounding the clearing is dark green. In other words, it’s always summer — and hot, since I imagine the house surrounded by long, tan,…
You may also notice the offer, at right, for a special pair of glasses glasses. Order them—or, if you have them already, remove them from their plastic casing and put them on; you will notice that when viewed through these glasses, the doubly printed words appear to leapleap off the screen screen. At first, the effect may be…
Lego, I understand that girls have been telling you they want more stuff for girls. I have been looking for more good stuff for girls myself. But I have not been looking for yet another arena where boys and girls are shown that their interests and activities can never mix. The beauty of Lego was…
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What started out as random green cubes turned into some kind of shrubbery. I spent too much time fiddling with the bushes. They’re good enough. I’ve cleaned up the Griffin’s eyes, and added some camera motion so we zoom in on his face. His wings waggled back and forth too much last time, so I…
According to a color-picking test at synesthete.org, these are the colors my daughter perceives when she sees or thinks about letters and numbers. As you can see, each time the test flashed a random letter or number, she didn’t always adjust the sliders to find the exact same colors. For one item (I forget which)…
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My daughter saw the Nyan Cat video, and then opened a rock-painting gift from a secret Santa. The result was inevitable. Similar:Mesmerizing Video of a Printer Terminal Running "Adventure" on a PDP-11/45After spending several days clicking but…AcademiaYellow Journalism Did Not Cause the Spanish-American War (Role of Sensationalized Headlin… When a correspondent sent to Cuba to…
Okay, that’s enough work for one evening. I added a skeleton I had already created for another project, and I added new rigging for his wings and tail. I still need to add the fancy stuff, like having the eyes follow a target, having the limbs move automatically to follow the placement of the feet…
After another couple of hours of work, I’ve added the Griffin logo and a tail (trust me — it’s there). I’ve improved the lighting, and added some very subtle ambient occlusion (the inside of his beak and the inside of his eyes are shaded more realistically). I could probably do a better job differentiating such…
Holy ray-tracing, Batman, it’s a Blender 3D update! I have not had the chance to try out Blender 2.61, which features an ocean simulator, motion-tracking, and real-time ray-tracing. blender.org – Blender 2.61. Similar:Coding Sucks: Why a Job in Programming Is Absolute HellI enjoyed the essay, but the truths it i…CultureCode? Not So MuchI teach my…
To celebrate yesterday’s on-time submission of final grades, I spent part of last night and much of today working on this Blender 3D model of our school mascot, the Griffin. Similar:No one’s ready for this: Our basic assumptions about photos capturing reality are about to… Everyone who is reading this article…Cyberculture'Fontgate': Microsoft, Wikipedia and…
“We take pictures of the clothes on a doll that stands in the shop, and then create the human appearance with a program on [a] computer,” he said. —Clothing Giant H&M Defends ‘Perfect’ Virtual Models – ABC News. Similar:I didn't exactly set out to achieve this goal, but it's not hard to do the minimum…
Kodak Brownie and Instamatic cameras were once staples of family vacations and holidays — remember the “open me first” Christmas ad campaigns? But it may not be long before a generation of Americans grows up without ever having laid hands on a Kodak product. That’s a huge comedown for a brand that was once as…