Posts from January, 2009

Mac Command Line Utility

This is an open request to the Cocoa development community. I use the command line frequently from day-to-day because it affords me much greater power and flexability than the simple mouse-driven “Finder” application. Unfortunately it’s ugly, and difficult to learn/remember. I’d love to see an application that could make keyboard-driven computing mainstream in the modern age. Who says a “command line” is the only way to view keyboard-driven interfaces? more »

Branding 101

“Brand n. & v. • n. … • v. … 3 impress unforgettably on one’s mind.” – The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus, 1996 American Edition

If you were in Thailand and were offered one of the mysterious drinks at right, what would you expect? Surely the can would not actually be very mysterious at all, in fact you’d probably know exactly what’s inside it, without knowing a single thing about the Thai language. No matter where you are in the world, chances are you’ll know a Coke when you see one.

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Oh, sh*. It’s on now.

Cut&Paste Digital Design Tournament 2007 from Cut&Paste on Vimeo.

Basically this is like the Iron Chef for 3D design. You’d better believe I’ll be prepping for the Boston competition. I’ll be pumpin’ iron, eating my wheaties, juicin’… all that stuff. Get ready to ROCK. (I highly recommend the video).

Make magazine

Make magazine is the key to lasting happiness. If you don’t subscribe, DO SO IMMEDIATELY.

3-Axis Arduino

A special thanks to all those who supported my new obsession materially and/or emotionally over the last few weeks. I’ve now officially gotten three stepper motors to run independently from a single Arduino board, using Brian Schmalz’s fantastic “Easy Driver” stepper motor controller (Brian was even kind enough to help me out via email), built on the basis of this handy tutorial from Daniel Thompson.

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Reductive problem solving

There is a tendency in the tech world to use layers of technology to constantly “improve” our products, leading us constantly into new and uncharted technological territory. This approach, like many things, works fine at first, but can quickly become problematic. This form of “innovation” is easy to do, and incredibly pervasive in the design culture as I write this, despite the fact that it leads to utter nonsense. more »