How wonderful the first year of life must be. Everyday you experience something brand new. I wish I had the consciousness to remember what that was like.

There must certainly be some sense of fearfulness and trepidation, or perhaps that’s what the parent is for, that’s an intriguing route to go down, do newborns (I’m thinking beyond just humans) have no sense of fear? It would mean a lot of exploration can be had and enjoyed under watchful eyes.

To tie this into interactive media, I think this is the goal to which I would build, if I ever go into robotics, to give something the enjoyment of a new day would make me very happy. Of course, that’s much easier to do through genetics.

We can already make machines that learn but they seem to lack curiosity and I think this is so inherent in organic life that we lose it in our day-to-day lives. A curious machine, along with the Turing test would be something to reckon with and I’m sure already in the making.

If you had the ability to construct a robot, what would you make it’s main objective or feature?

As a lover of all things open, why is my main workstation still a MacBook?

As far back as I can remember I have dreamt of owning one of those shiny Apple things, the computers that looked like TVs with differently coloured pieces of translucent plastic and the thing my best friend had with a pod on a stalk. They looked strange, exotic and held a mythical status in my mind. Fast forward to my late teens and I now have one and, frankly, have not been disappointed.

Arguably, the world is moving away from the OS of your own computer, increasingly it simply doesn’t matter, the Web is becoming it’s own OS with the like of cloud computing and Web 2.0 services making your choice of browser as pertinent as that of OS (of course there will probably always be those without a choice). But some OSs make it easier than others.

With the introduction of Gwibber installed as default with Ubuntu 10.04, Mark Shuttleworth and his team are showing that this Linux distro is ready for the mainstream and knows where it’s headed. Let’s face it, Linux is traditionally for geeks, who’d have thought an OS built by geeks would be the first to have a feature like Gwibber? Social integration from the outset.

But back to OS X, it’s like Linux but stripped of all the lovely ideals, openness and community (to some extent, Apple users are usually best known for their loyalty, not their helpfulness) instead there is refinement. To me, this is what OS X does so well it’s actually worth trading the others for.

Thinking about Apple, the company draws some parallels with Facebook. They both pioneer and contribute to open source programs (a good list of services Facebook uses) and yet themselves are sometimes seen as abusive of their power and closed; yet they are both hugely successful and ubiquitous. I still think it comes down to this issue of polishedness and usability. The social network open source equivalent of Facebook, diaspora, is currently in development and we’ll see what the team comes up with but I bet usability and a sense of refinement will mar it’s early releases. Admittedly open source projects are improving leaps and bounds but they are still behind. It isn’t long after installing 10.04 that I was reaching into Terminal to get a piece of hardware to work, a process that would quite frankly scare my grandparents and most friends.

Why?

But why is it this way? This is a very good question and I’m going to do my best to discuss three reasons:

1. Money
2. Time
3. Userbase

Money

Money is often a good incentive to work well (although this is not always the case and too much money can have adverse effects; there was research into this but I can’t remember the source). The established companies (maybe I’m being a little optimistic in calling Facebook an ‘established company’) have money to dole out and experience in being a business.

Time

These companies have had time to develop. To develop a company as sophisticated as Apple or as complex as the workings of Facebook is going to take a lot of time. Both started with the basics and worked up but competing companies and services have to go straight into the deep end. I think the next big thing will come from a team of mixed young people with fresh ideas and established professionals.

Willingness of the Userbase

Willingness is a huge factor, both in the company and of the users. The people that make it need to want to make it and this can’t be more true of volunteers for Linux but also for employees of really awesome companies. Remember I started with saying how much I wanted one of those Mac-things? Imagine if you actually got to work for a company like Apple. It’s all about image, and Google does this phenomenally well.
The users are also critical, they need to want to a) use the product b) be involved with it. This is seen in the high quality apps that are used by the users, a somewhat self-reflexive process (but then we go into power relationships and all sorts of other theory and I don’t want to stray into that in this post). I believe apps like Espresso, Papers and Pixelmator would be very different if developed for Linux. Maybe it’s all to do with Objective-C… but again, that’s for a separate article.

Conclusion

Anyhow, this has turned out much longer and complex than I initially expected. But I think what I’m trying to say is the main reason I haven’t installed Ubuntu over 10.6 yet is it’s attention to detail and user-friendliness (and I haven’t even gone into the hardware aspects of the choice). I hope maybe you’ve learnt something over the course of this post or been made aware of something new. Why do you use what you’re using?

My last term as a fresher saw my group’s collaborative project, Puppet Love, come into fruition. Four of our group presented in front of the whole year of TV, Scriptwriters and IMPs, thankfully I was ‘the website guy’ who just had to push the buttons and make sure everything on-screen happened smoothly (it’s amazing how, even behind a monitor, you suddenly become unable to type or navigate properly).


I find it humbling to look back on my work and see how far I’ve come and how much I’ve learnt. Before the start of this year I had only heard of PHP and Javascript and apart from some copy and paste things, I would not have known where to start coding from scratch. Now I can read PHP, Javascript, Actionscript and am pretty confident at using them to do what I want them to, there’s always trial and error but I feel much more like a web developer and less of an HTML typer. I can’t wait for the next year to begin to learn even more and work with more peopel!


So there we have it folks, the end of the first year. Please do check out my work and see what I achieved with my fellow IMPs, Frank Clark and Lauren Orlowski, they were both wonderful to work with. Happy surfing.

It’s been far too long since I last updated this blog.


Since the last entry I’ve completed my animation and started a new project, a collaboration with two other courses, TV and scriptwriting students. Without giving too much away we’re doing a romantic contemporary drama set in a factory with the theme of equality at it’s core. Being an IMP I’m part of the team designing the site and all other online content but also turned up to the shoots because I really quite enjoy seeing how it all works.


Today was also our last day of filming and Monday sees the start of the edit and tomorrow sees the real beginning of the site I hope. We still have the small problem of needing to come up with a name which seems to be much harder than it should be but until we have that we can’t get a domain name and title on the site which is a shame because I’m quite looking forward to getting it and uploading it all for the first time.


Anyhoo, if you want to know more give me a comment!

The animation should be done by the end of today. You can either view it by following the link on the homepage or by visiting its page directly. Let me know what you think of it, either via a comment here or using the little message me thing on the site. If you experience any bugs please let me know and I’ll iron them out. Also, any improvements you can think of can be implemented too =)

Edit: Ok, so I thought I was almost done and all I’d have to do is 500 words over the weekend, I’d even have time to put into practice the improvements I’ve got lined up for the portfolio! Alas, no. I have to remake the site in Flash (who makes Flash sites anymore?) And provide 4-5 pages of R&D. Great. There goes the relaxing weekend.

I’d like your opinions on these two scenes I’ve made for my animation so far.

They were made by tracing over images in Illustrator and then scaling them up, added the different textures (to the park one) and yeah… I think they both have a nice effect but they’re both very ‘busy’. I’d be most appreciative if any of you have tips for toning it down! Let me know what you think and I’ll change them accordingly =).


I like the idea of the big colours and textures, I think that will engage children but then characters on top of that will simply get lost.


So there we go. Oh, I got another first for my essay on GOB =).

I am finally ready for the day at 10.30, despite setting my alarm for 8.30!


Anyway, over the last couple of days I have already drawn a rough idea for 7 characters for my animation, most of which will appear in the background with the exception of the two main characters. I also already have an idea of their style but I’ll post about that later today.


Here’s my first Character Sheet for the character tentatively known as CJ.

And the style, a homage to Amanita Design.

Key Motions

Kneeling

Waving

Walk Cycle

Animated Walking

Static
Static Walking


Tweened
Tweened Walking

I believe we should be conscious that every statement and most sentences we utter has the phrase ‘I believe’ invisibly appended to the front. With that, I’ll continue. Edit: Ryan North made a brilliant, comical example of this that appeared like a day after I posted and highlights what I’m trying to get at.

I believe we live in a world full of distractions. I had the privilege of sitting at the back row in my lecture today and every laptop in the lecture theatre visited Facebook at least once. Instead of reading (for leisure, in the pursuit of knowledge, both) I watched a film after dinner. Now that the film has ended it would be the perfect time to sit down and read, I’ve been trying to get through the mock-epic(?) novel Independent People by Haldór Laxness for months now and I’m barely half way through. I enjoy books but I’m a poor reader. Instead I spend hours perusing reddit and Facebook, but why?

I suppose the main reason is convenience, it’s so much easier to sit in front of a screen, very much passively, slowly taking in whatever is being fed to me by the Top News stream or Recent Activity feed. Because these do not move at my own pace perhaps that is why it spurs me on? And it’s got me thinking, would a device like the Amazon Kindle or iPad change this? It adds the convenience factor and both devices promise to offer easy readability (although I find the arc90 readability bookmarklet does a marvellous job on making things on the web easier to read).

What is the point of living in a distracted society? It seems to make sense from a work ethic, keep working and make money; keep consuming and keep buying. I believe we’ve tried this for a while and it’s failed. They say in (post)modern times we live in a (post)consumerist society, (the post I suppose would mean that we’re well aware of this?) but surely we always have? Consumerism has had such a large effect on me I can’t really imagine any other way. Anyway, this is about distractions but this in itself is a good point. How are we meant to think of such things when we’ve got friends, happiness and such so nearby?

I am sure I am oversimplifying it, all the great thinkers had distractions; some shut these distractions out better than others. It just seems to be amplified and quicker now with the www. I heard a really great quote in episode 1 of the BBC documentary ‘The Virtual Revolution’ currently on iPlayer,  Lee Seigel says, “Like all technology, the internet is not a cure for human nature, it’s an amplification of human nature, both the good and the bad.” The distractions become amplified online.

What are your views? Am I isolated in my thinking, do I make sense? Do you agree or disagree? It would be nice to know.

Already I’ve reached Phase 3 of the first year of the course and the time seems to have gone so quickly. I’ve just handed-in the previous essay and the site hand-in is Wednesday (not feeling too confident about either of those) but with the kick start of a new term I’m hoping for the best. So some reflections on what’s happened with working in my first proper group on this course.

Well for me it’s been quite stressful, after some group meetings James gave us roles and we all agreed that he should be project manager (organised, reliable, confident – all good qualities for the position). Since then it has taken a while for us to get much work done, there has been a lot of planning but not much doing. Because of this I broke out of my own roles as image/ graphics/ producer and started on the site. With hindsight I should probably have done this from the beginning but I’m glad I started because the team member that was supposed to do the site still has not contributed any work to the project.

Sorting out the navigational content and site map was surprisingly hard. A lot of sites these days are quite ‘flat’ everything can be accessed from the front page (BBC is an exemplar of this). We wanted ours to be similar but a lot of issues came up from that, how do we implement profile pages? Should we have extra pages? The latest example of which is showcasing the video, we did have the idea of putting the video you clicked on in the middle left of the page with a featured video on the right and a video carousel at the bottom but even when roughly making this it was clear it was too complicated and too many video thumbnails. Currently we’re going for something like the BBC’s YouTube channel with small thumbnails on the right in its own box.

A few other issues I think is just the number of people in our group, six is quite a large number to all give meaningful jobs to. Yet some have ended up working a fair amount more than others, I think this is to do with group dynamics and perceived roles. I think I always seem to believe I have to do much more than I actually do but only it seems to pick up what others don’t do. I was also a fairly active member in the conception process. Coming up with the initial idea of a music review site, the name and the current logo, of course the others helped shape it and it would be silly to think that I could do it all by myself so thank you to all.

I’ll leave it there for now. =)

I figured the About Me page is pretty one-dimensional, after all, it’s only meant to showcase what I am in terms of the web and the rest I display elsewhere in tidbits.

As you can probably tell by my headers on each page I’m pretty into the natural world. I don’t think we should forget it with our ever increasing dependency and pervasion on/ of the Internet. Part of the reason I chose Dreamhost was because they’re carbon neutral and I think that’s an important step in today’s businesses, if you can, there’s no reason not to do something like that.

I’m also a huge fan of music, I guess chilled electronica is my game but I love so much more. Anything that has soul and talent. You can go to my Last.fm page, I guess that has the most detailed stuff on what I’ve been listening to better than I can try and say. I love going to concerts unfortunately I haven’t found any good places or people to see in Poole/ Bournemouth yet so if anyone has any suggestions based on my likings do get in touch!

I’ve just been reading some of Understanding Foucault (finally) and it seems pretty cool. Kind of what I was trying to get across last night – or at least that’s how I read it. Am glad I did Philosophy and Ethics for (almost) A level as quite a lot of those ideas come out in these figures.

A big part of me is my beautiful fiancée, Julia. We’ve done nearly together the past two and a bit years, Iceland, Cyprus, car journeys, living together, living apart and being in love. I can’t really express how much she means to me. I was reading an interview with Umberto Eco and he said everything comes down to lists. Lists are the sign of a more advanced society, more then just the descriptive, all the characteristics that try to make up that thing. I guess it’s a step towards trying to show the complexity of even the simpler things.

Maybe you’ve learnt a bit more about me, perhaps not. I haven’t done much better at understanding myself tbh =).