3 steps 4-ward and back: iPhone’s iOS4.0
June 29, 2010
There may come a day when, codger-like, I querulously decline to upgrade a gadget, fed up to the teeth with all these young whippersnappers who can’t leave well enough alone.
That day has yet to arrive. When Apple’s new iOS 4.0 popped up last week, I eagerly grabbed Gigi-the-iPhone and went for it.
I’m glad I upgraded, but just barely. iOS4 offers some cool things I can mostly take or leave, and it solves a couple of irritating problems but adds others. It also isn’t quite the promised boon, since there’s a fine print problem: The upgrade doesn’t work on all previous iPhones–you need an iPhone 3G or later–and the most-needed feature of all doesn’t work unless you have an iPhone 3GS.
All in all, it’s not a great leap forward as much as a bone thrown to loyal old customers. We get just enough taste of new features to (hopefully) keep us from defecting to Google Droid, while still making us hunger for the sleek new iP4.
License my song…please
June 28, 2010
Ain’t never been a problem that somebody can’t turn into an opportunity. The latest is potentially a boon for musicians and videographers, and possibly the next step in a reeeeeally interesting trend in creative digital rights management, by a Portland-based company called Rumblefish.
What’s interesting is not necessarily the new service they’re proposing, which lets home movie makers legally add popular music to their videos, but its implications for other artists: Would this be a good service for other types of content rights management, too?
Shoeguy
June 27, 2010
“My GOD,” he gasped, “You’re a knock-kneed pronator!”
“Beg pardon?” I asked politely. The way he was looking at my feet kinda reminded me of cat in a tuna store. Or in heat.
“Knock-kneed pronator! In my entire career I’ve only met one other knock-kneed pronator. Wow!”
Tethered
June 25, 2010
When I said I wanted to be tethered, I meant “use my iPhone to connect my laptop to the Internet when I’m out and about.” I did NOT mean tethered as in “chained to AT&T in a weird kind of neverending technological bondage.”
AT&T obviously thought I meant the latter.
Toledo englassed
June 23, 2010
Just a quick note: Corning (the Corning Museum of Glass, in Corning NY), may have wonderful, wonderful glass and videos and research and education and all that…but Toledo’s coming up right behind them, in a smaller and rather more human way.
Toledo, Ohio is more commonly thought of as a steel town, but they have a proud history of industrial glass. Where Corning NY had, well, Corning, Toledo had Libby Glass as one of its oldest industries. Some of the earliest automated glassmaking systems were invented or used there, and about five, six years ago they opened the Glass Pavilion, a Frank Gehry-designed addition devoted to glass.
The museum exhibits show a range of mostly modern glass (if you consider anything after 1600 modern), offers glass classes and residencies, and gives some really nice demos. Their focus is on hotshop, i.e., glass blowing, flameworking and hot casting, not surprising for a public entity that has to attract the public. (Much as I love kilncast glass, I’ll be the first to admit that watching it being made can be every bit as exciting as watching someone pluck an eyebrow).
And they’ve got videos. Glass videos. There’s a 30-minute demonstration of making a fazoletto that’s very nice, and some good process videos of glassmasters like Quariso and Tosa. They’re available on YouTube and iTunes (there’s more stuff on iTunes), and worth a look.
Uhm….wow (and sorry)
June 21, 2010
Yes, folks, even I can reach saturation busyness levels, and the past ten days have pretty much proved it: There has been a NINE-DAY gap between posts on this blog.
I humbly hang my head in shame and beg forgiveness, but really: I have been cross-eyed with busy. In the past two weeks I have:
- Built two new websites, one for me, one for a friend
- Finally got around to completing an online portfolio for my real job (content strategist), the stuff that pays the mortgage around here (you didn’t think I made a living from glass, did you?)
- Completed two rather demanding assignments for clients
- Lost not one but TWO computers (naturally, the ones with all the important stuff) and spent nearly a week in replacing components and restoring backups
- Frantically tried (and failed) to retrieve the database that held the codes for my last THREE HUNDRED pate de verre color samples…and can now look forward to doing them over
- Prepped and gave a lecture on social media and website development on the cheap
- Figured out an alarming crisis with the local glass guild
- Did my thing on the local museum guild council
- Visited Donna and Ed’s absolutely incredible studio, ConfusionArt, for their open house (and naturally spent hours chatting)
- Was invited to include my glasswork in an upcoming coffee table book and had to go find the pieces (now living at other peoples’ houses) for photography
- Developed and printed up a new glass brochure and other collateral to use with architects, designers and the like
- Attended my nephew Morgan’s high school graduation up north (good going, Morgan!)
- Spent a day with my favorite glass photographer, Paul Foster, photographing a bunch of new glass things for the sculpture site, the brochure and the book
- Juried a show
- Assisted in setting up a sculpture exhibit a few towns over and then spend the rest of the day in lovely McMinnville with–speaking of fabulous studio spaces–my friend Jerry (prolly the only glass artist I know with an RV-sized forklift)
- Completely redesigned and rebuilt my art booth and used it for the first time in a show last Thursday night
- Got cordoned off by police for three hours after the show (they were investigating a murder-suicide* and my keen navigational sense drove me right into the middle of it)
- Had a lovely Father’s Day with my dad (and the rest of the local family members)
Normally the blog continues, regardless; I maintain a queue of 4-5 articles scheduled for publication for just such emergencies. For various reasons, though, the queue ran out. I’ve got stuff in the pipeline, but honestly? I probably won’t finish it until later this week. So deepest apologies.
In the meantime, I appreciate the posted and private “Where the heck did you go” missives. There were some heartfelt pleas in there, I can tell you. This was probably my favorite, but I’m always a sucker for verse (as promised, I’m not telling who wrote this, but you know who you are):
O Cynthia, O Cynthia.
Wherefore art thou, Cynthia?
Deny thy mojito and refuse thy studio
Or if thou wilt not, be but updating thy blog
And I’ll no longer be a poetess.What’s in a blog? That which I call a post
By any other would have come by now;
So Cynthia would post, were she not off on a bender
Retain thy dear sweet blogging habits
and for thy pains, which are such a part of me
Thy fans happily refraineth from violence.
Uhm…..me thinkest I getteth the message and henceforth shall endeavoreth to posteth on scheduleth.
Promiseth.
————————
*I call it murder-suicide because the guy apparently stabbed a lady to death in a Chinese restaurant, then lunged at a policeman with a knife. I don’t know what the police are calling it, but you can read about it here. Very sad and rather frightening.
The heck with it. Let’s play! (Part 2: Zen gardens)
June 12, 2010
(BTW, you folks know that you can click on one of the images in these posts to bring up a slideshow with more info about what’s pictured, right?)
Most of us get into the art business because we love it…but it’s possible to love it to death. You can get so serious and self-critical about your art that you maybe forget why you’re doing it: Because it’s so much fun. I realized last weekend that I was headed that way, fast. [Read more]
Once, several times
June 10, 2010
Once is a lovely, lovely little film.
Yeah, I may be the last human on the planet to see it (it’s three years old, after all), but I was thoroughly charmed by both the movie and the music. And I think what charmed me the most was the actionless plot and an unsatisfying ending.
Because isn’t that the way it happens in life?
Shake shake shake
June 9, 2010
Shake shake shake. Shake your boooty…I purely hated that song. Of course, any band that has the word “sunshine” in its name ought to be shot anyway, but that’s not what I’m talking about here:
Forget “gestures.” My favorite new techno-thing is the “shake.”
First noticed it awhile back; enter the wrong password on a Mac and the log-in will literally shake its head, or rather, its container. It’s kinda cute; I started mis-entering passwords just to watch it. (Not always a good idea; wound up locked out of one and had to call tech support to reset).
The heck with it! Let’s play! (Part 1: “Glass quilt” samplers)
June 8, 2010
Ever had one of those days where there’s all kindsa work you OUGHTA be doing, but your inner child says “The heck with it. Let’s play?”
That was me last weekend. I finally carved out a whole glorious 48 hours to make art. Excellent time to shovel out the studio, fire a bunch of pate de verre test tiles, mix up a couple of custom billets, redefine some investment facecoats, repair the broken head of the gigantic nude on my sculpture stand so I can get her silicone finished, burn off the new kilnshelf, develop a billet stack order for the recast of Repose, work through a hotcast sequence for Totem II and line up a hotshop to do it in, design that lighted steel stand for Riverflow’s next appearance, pour a couple of wax sheets…
The heck with it. Let’s PLAY!