Some Random Dude

Some Random Dude is a blog by P.J. Onori that covers design & technology in the broadest sense possible.

Archive for July, 2007

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NPR’s "The Art of Eric Carle"

I recently came across a segment on NPR where they interviewed Eric Carle, the famous children’s book designer. Carle became well known for his style of using colored paper to piece together colorful and elaborate illustrations. Various techniques are used to create vastly different looks – the work is quite amazing.

In a time where many of us (including myself) use computers as the sole device for creative production, I find it very grounding to see how much can be done off a computer that would be unbelievably time-consuming to produce on a computer. Perhaps now is the time to ditch your desktop/laptop for just a few minutes (I know, it’s scary) to play with some pencils and/or crayons. Who knows, it might even be more fun than the carpal-tunnel-producing, eye-strain-creating fun box known as your computer.

GOOD Magazine Presents: Internet Porn

Leave it to GOOD Magazine to come up with something that wreaks of this much awesomeness. We all know internet porn accounts for quite a bit of the traffic on the web, but never have the bare facts been revealed in such a provocative manner. This video is semi-suitable for work, depending on your job and its atmosphere. If you are Pat Robertson’s receptionist, I would suggest not viewing this video at the office.

If you dig that video, I can tell you from experience that GOOD has a whole lot more of that goodness in their magazine. I would normally suggest going over and buying a subscription, but I have an even better idea – get it for free. I am giving a free subscription to GOOD to the top commenter every month. You can be just like Kellie and have your own year-long subscription to GOOD just by dropping some comments. Don’t forget, comments here also spread some love as well.

Papervision 3d Public Beta Announced

After all the hype and excitement, another big benchmark has been achieved for the open source 3d Actionscript library, Papervision 3d. Papervision is now in public beta and it is well worth playing with this library if you have not yet done so.

I have done some work with the library months ago, however it was understandably hard to work with from time to time. I cannot think of a more ambitious Actionscript project around – this project’s potential knows no ceiling. There are still some very pragmatic issues that cause concern such as performance and initialization times. Still, used correctly, this library literally opens up a whole new dimension for Actionscripters.

Unfortunately, I cannot show the Papervision work that I have previously done due to privacy agreements. However, I plan to get my hands dirty with this code again in the near future – I will no doubt post my results.

Write Articles, Not Blog Postings (Sometimes)

I just read a very good article by Jakob Nielsen on proper writing for weblogs. His opinion is that blogs (most notably, business blogs) should focus more on in-depth articles rather than short, post-lets. I think Mr. Nielsen’s advice is absolutely correct for a large number of business bloggers out there – but I hesitate to agree it is the best format for all business blogs. I genuinely respect Nielsen’s research on the subject, but a few thoughts from my experience have led me to the opinions mentioned below.
Read On…