Ball Point Pen Paintings by Shane McAdams
I love these paintings by Shane McAdams. Unlike traditional paintings, these are done entirely with ball point pens. Mind = blown, right? All I know is I’d really love to see some process videos.
Robert Hodgin at FITC Toronto
I realized today that I rarely post any of the inspirational talks I come across. I’ve seen Robert Hodgin speak before and it’s always a jaw-dropping experience. I have no idea how he consistently knocks out these amazing projects, many of which are just for fun. His work always makes me want to stop everything and just experiment. I hope you get the same kickstart I did from watching his FITC talk.
Uptime
Lately, I’ve been dipping my toes in the Rails pool. It’s been a bit overwhelming, to say the least, but I’m making some headway. To get the hang of things, I decided to create a dead simple app—no more than half dozen lines.
Since switching to Linode, I noticed a display of the uptime in the admin. Curious, I investigated a bit and found that you can retrieve a UNIX machine’s uptime with a single Bash call, uptime. It returns something like this: 23:12 up 14:04, 5 users, load averages: 1.25 1.40 1.63. Sure, I could break this apart with regex and calculate the uptime myself, but there’s an easier way.
Linux has a separate file located at /proc/uptime that returns two values: uptime in seconds and idle time in seconds. With this, I could determine the number of uptime days no problem. I’ve always loved those accident signs found in factories, so I combined the two and came up with this web app.
If This Then That
If This Then That makes me so excited for the future of the web because it is the future of the web. IFTTT uses the common programming conditional to tie two services together. In the example above, it polls Instagram for new photos by me, then automatically saves them to my Dropbox account. You can currently pick from 35 different “channels,” which include web services like Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr, as well as tools like Date/Time, Phone, and SMS.
I’m in love with the concept because the possibilities are both endless and up to the user. We no longer need to wait for one service to add support for another. We also no longer need a different middleman service for every combination—it’s all in one. So far, IFTTT supports most of the main services, but I’m anxiously awaiting the integration of others, like Gimmebar and maybe even custom URL triggers.
IFTTT is still young, but it has so much promise. Try it out and let me know what you think. I have a really good feeling about this one.
Thumbsaver - duh
I came across the Thumbsaver today and thought, “Duh!” Just like the ergonomic peeler, I can’t believe this wasn’t invented sooner. I’d never admit it around (other?) manly men, but the few times I have hammered a nail, my hit rate wasn’t always 100%. Now, if one were to be seen using a Thumbsaver, manliness might still be in question regardless of accuracy, but it’s still a neat gadget in my book.
via Inspire Me Now
Color Sitemap
Lately, I’ve been playing with alternate ways of navigating the website. After accomplishing simple grid and list views, I decided to stray from conventions and have a little fun. Since the site focuses heavily on color with each page assigned its own scheme, why not navigate by color? Instead of a typical list-based sitemap, I spent today working on a color-based sitemap. It displays every page on the site and auto-updates when I create new pages. Rolling over a swatch displays the corresponding page’s title as well as the swatch’s hex value. This small concept makes me think more about the idea of experimenting on the site itself. What else could I play with?
UD Cycling Classic
Charlie Whitney, an internet-friend-turned-real-life-friend, recently finished the Urbandaddy Cycling Classic installation for the E2NY Music and Arts festival. It takes two racers on modded bikes and projects virtual environments mapped to their speeds. The concept is awesome, the execution is perfect, and it just looks so fun. If I still had birthday parties, I’d want to rent it for my upcoming 25th.
Gimme Bar - save the web
These past few months, I’ve been beta testing Gimme Bar, a new web service by FictiveKin (the same dudes who developed TeuxDeux). This time they’re targeting internet content. At first, Gimme Bar might seem like just another bookmarking service, but instead of linking to the content, it actually saves it. You can save text, images, videos, and even capture an entire webpage.
What I love most about Gimme Bar is that there’s no specific way to use it. At first, I thought I’d make a wishlist for gadgets, but over time, it naturally became a collection of my favorite animated GIFs. There are countless ways you can use Gimme Bar and that’s what excites me about its future.
Gimme Bar is still in beta, but you can sign up without an invite for today only. Jump onboard while you can and try it out for yourself.
LayerVault - simple version control for designers
In my experience, version control is one issue that has always existed in the design world. Since devs are used to obscure commands and “mentally-challenged” user interfaces, typing git add . & git commit -a isn’t a big deal. Designers are different. Save as... is the typical version control method for many, and any attempt to force designers to use p4v might lead to mass suicide.
LayerVault tries to solve this problem by plugging directly into Photoshop. A simple Command + S automatically saves a revision. Then, you can view the file’s history in a timeline interface that shows a clear diff of the changes.
Unfortunately, LayerVault is currently in a closed beta, so I don’t have any invites to hand out, or even one for myself! For now, you can watch the video below, apply for access, and cross your fingers.
Wacom introduces Inkling
Today, Wacom introduced a new device called Inkling. It clips onto your sketchpad, records what you draw, and instantly provides a digital copy of the drawing. It sounds like black magic, but if it actually works, I know first-hand this will be on the wishlist of every illustrator out there. Check out the video below for a closer look.
