OK, I went with the sensational headline. But it seems like this whole issue has gone seriously sensational.
If you read this blog, you probably already know about the incident with Hoss Gifford at this year's flashbelt conference, and the subsequent storm on twitter. Hoss gave the keynote address, in much the same way he gives track presentations: he goes for shock value with explicit content. This didn't go over so well in the mid-west. Go figure.
There have been some great blog posts in the wake of the storm. Stacey wrote a particularly good and soul-searching article, in which she proposed some ideas for moving forward. Yeah Stacey!
One idea Stacey listed, was for speakers to submit their slides ahead of time for review. Many of the bigger conferences do this, and it could work well for some of the smaller conferences. But this does result in a corporate feel.
This got me thinking...what if Flash conferences provided guidelines for speakers? The conference organizers could decide if they wanted to allow explicit content with disclaimer warnings, or not at all. Should it be in the keynote?
With these guidelines, speakers would have a clearer idea of the tone the conference is going for, and the sponsors and attendees could make more informed decisions.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Cell Organelles in a Capsule
I'm having way too much fun making these little organelles, for the Maker Faire. The tactile creativity has been rather therapeutic, and I'm feeling better than I have in ages.
I keep getting crazy creative ideas, and I wish I had time to follow through on all of them. Today, I picked up some iron-on transfer paper for the printer. If I have time, I'll print up a bunch of cell diagrams, and decorate the white table cloth we'll use to cover the tables at our booth.
I also picked up some baking/cookie sheets to use as work stations at the booth. Hopefully, this will keep the organelles from rolling away and keep the kids more organized as well :-)
I love the Maker Faire.
I keep getting crazy creative ideas, and I wish I had time to follow through on all of them. Today, I picked up some iron-on transfer paper for the printer. If I have time, I'll print up a bunch of cell diagrams, and decorate the white table cloth we'll use to cover the tables at our booth.
I also picked up some baking/cookie sheets to use as work stations at the booth. Hopefully, this will keep the organelles from rolling away and keep the kids more organized as well :-)
I love the Maker Faire.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Mystic Rose and Whirling Polygons
Lately, in my spare time, I've been having some fun designing math-based images. These started out with Mathematica. I tweaked the code a bit, and exported bitmap files.
I openly confess that I'm not a designer. I just don't have your standard designer skills. But I do know my way around the Flash authoring environment...well enough, at least ;-)
Anyway, I imported the Mathematica generated bitmaps into Flash, and then started playing around. These are some of the results.
I openly confess that I'm not a designer. I just don't have your standard designer skills. But I do know my way around the Flash authoring environment...well enough, at least ;-)
Anyway, I imported the Mathematica generated bitmaps into Flash, and then started playing around. These are some of the results.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Privacy, what a quaint notion.
Privacy. Do you remember that? When you left one website, it didn't follow you and keep tracking your personal online activities. At least, the good sites didn't. Only spyware would do that. And good companies didn't use spyware, right?
Well, either good companies do use spyware, or Google has officially turned bad. With "interest based" advertising, google follows you around as you navigate the web. They say it's to determine what you're interested in. They want to serve up ads to you personally, so you'll click on them, based on what "interest" groups they decide you belong to.
I've been using google adsense on my personal sites, for about a year now, and I have to say that I'm rather frustrated with them. As a publisher, I have almost zero control over what ads show up on my sites. It seems to me they'd get similar or even better results, without violating everyone's privacy, if they'd just give publishers more effective tools for influencing which ads show up on our sites.
At this point, I'm very frustrated with Google. Do I go along with Google's plans to follow you as you browse from site to site, or do I pull down my google ads? I'm not seeing a lot of alternatives out there. If I pull my ads, that still doesn't do you much good. Since I doubt that anyone else is going to pull their ads. Or are they?
It really surprises me that there's been so little buzz about this. Google is saying that I (and all publishers that use Google adsense) need to change my "privacy policy", to reflect their practices. There is something fundamentally wrong about that. Especially since they provide such poor tools for the publisher to customize what ads appear on their sites. Although, the more I blog about Google adsense, the more ads for Google adsense show up on my blogs. It would be nice if they'd serve Adobe ads, when I post about Adobe products.
Well, either good companies do use spyware, or Google has officially turned bad. With "interest based" advertising, google follows you around as you navigate the web. They say it's to determine what you're interested in. They want to serve up ads to you personally, so you'll click on them, based on what "interest" groups they decide you belong to.
I've been using google adsense on my personal sites, for about a year now, and I have to say that I'm rather frustrated with them. As a publisher, I have almost zero control over what ads show up on my sites. It seems to me they'd get similar or even better results, without violating everyone's privacy, if they'd just give publishers more effective tools for influencing which ads show up on our sites.
At this point, I'm very frustrated with Google. Do I go along with Google's plans to follow you as you browse from site to site, or do I pull down my google ads? I'm not seeing a lot of alternatives out there. If I pull my ads, that still doesn't do you much good. Since I doubt that anyone else is going to pull their ads. Or are they?
It really surprises me that there's been so little buzz about this. Google is saying that I (and all publishers that use Google adsense) need to change my "privacy policy", to reflect their practices. There is something fundamentally wrong about that. Especially since they provide such poor tools for the publisher to customize what ads appear on their sites. Although, the more I blog about Google adsense, the more ads for Google adsense show up on my blogs. It would be nice if they'd serve Adobe ads, when I post about Adobe products.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
clay cell model, sliced up into cross sections
The organelle structures come through a little better on this one. I was testing out a new clay here, to see if it could be used with regular model magic. It works ok, but takes a lot longer to dry in the middle of the cell model. I think I'll stick with regular model magic for this project.
Are you on Facebook? Check out the GalaxyGoo page on facebook.
And, of course, the cell project page on the galaxygoo.org website.
Are you on Facebook? Check out the GalaxyGoo page on facebook.
And, of course, the cell project page on the galaxygoo.org website.
cross sections of clay cell
This one turned our really well! I love this project!
The organelle structures on this one are very simplified. But the color patters came out pretty cool.
Are you on Facebook? Check out the GalaxyGoo page on facebook.
And, of course, the cell project page on the galaxygoo.org website.
The organelle structures on this one are very simplified. But the color patters came out pretty cool.
Are you on Facebook? Check out the GalaxyGoo page on facebook.
And, of course, the cell project page on the galaxygoo.org website.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Question: How Does Flash CS4 Color Panel Calculate Hue?
I'm puzzled. For a project, I need to calculate the hue of a color from its rgb values. I've found a few different methods to do this, and coded up two of them. They return consistent results, and agree with online calculators I've found. So far, so good.
But then I opened up the Flash CS4 color panel, to quickly look up colors, and found that it uses different hue values. And I'm wondering why?
When I plug an RGB value like (153, 153, 255) into my code, I get back a Hue value of 240. Those same values in the Flash color panel gives a different value for Hue (160).
This has got my curiosity truly piqued. I was hoping to be able to post an answer, but I haven't had any luck finding one yet.
But then I opened up the Flash CS4 color panel, to quickly look up colors, and found that it uses different hue values. And I'm wondering why?
When I plug an RGB value like (153, 153, 255) into my code, I get back a Hue value of 240. Those same values in the Flash color panel gives a different value for Hue (160).
This has got my curiosity truly piqued. I was hoping to be able to post an answer, but I haven't had any luck finding one yet.
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