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- July 7, 2006
Who are you most happy around?
July 7, 2006Read moreIt’s Friday, so that means there’s another Friday Question at senia.com! It’s a two-parter: a) Who are you most happy around? b) What is it about being around that person or those people makes you so happy? I am enjoying the “call and response” quality of her question format, which reminds me I can’t deny the preacher blood running through my veins :-) Anyway, check out today’s question if you dare!
- July 6, 2006
3D Blast from the Past: Pixel Artist Jim Sachs
July 6, 2006Read moreA friend of mine was recently on a quest to find a new fish screensaver. While I don’t find screensavers particularly compelling, I suggested that she look for one of them new-fangled 3D fish ones. She uncovered a couple of mediocre screensavers before finding Marine Aquarium. Even I had to admit it was pretty cool.
It’s one of the loveliest fish screen savers I’ve seen, with beautiful color and attention to detail. If I didn’t mind loading down my machine with extraneous software, this would be the screensaver I’d buy.
A Closer Look
I was struck by the level of pixel art in the background graphics; it’s rare to see that level of attention outside the professional video game industry. As I analyzed the graphics technique, I saw an artist’s signature that seemed very familiar…
SACHS
I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it, but a quick Google revealed that it was the mark of Jim Sachs, legendary pixel artist. Older gamers might remember games like Defender of the Crown from Cinemaware, which showcased the Commodore Amiga’s animation and sound supremacy. There was no other computer at the time with the raw multimedia-handling hardware capability, and the color resolution was significantly better than just about anything on the market. When I was in college, visiting an Amiga geek’s dorm room meant seeing the latest Cinemaware release and gaping at it. I was still using an Apple //e at the time: 8-bit processor running at 1MHz, the screen resolution of wet newspaper, and the simplest possible sound hardware: the click. The Amiga was, to my mind, the future of personal computing, handily spanking all comers with raw hardware capability; I still feel a tinge of lust when I look at these circa-1984 specs :-)
Pixel Artistry
In the good ole’ days of the Amiga, Jim Sachs was one of the artists that defined pixel graphics perfection. Even now, looking at collected works online, I’m impressed by what he managed to convey in a mere 32 colors per scanline. The picture above is the one I remember seeing in college (or possibly the red or blue variation of it). If you click the image, you’ll see the pixel-doubled version of it, so you can see the pixel work a little more cleanly.
If you’re used to today’s 16.7 million color displays you might wonder what all the fuss is about, but trust me: Sachs was one of our major inspirations, showing computer graphic artists everywhere what was possible, and giving us a taste of what the future might bring. While a 32 color palette might even seem like a LOT, keep in mind that every shade of color counts; to make a smooth shadow, you could easily blow half of your palette budget for not a lot of impact. It takes a real subtle touch to do it right. If you click the thumbnails below, you can get a sense of just how limited the color palette is; I doubled the size to be a bit more viewable on modern monitor resolution, and inset the actual color palette in the upper left corner):
Note: there are more-famous images have very subtle color work, but the images I found online appear to have been converted from special Amiga video modes (HAM, EHB) that don’t illustrate my point.
I was very curious to find out what Jim Sachs had been up to; I didn’t know that Jim Sachs is also a programmer. His coding experience, combined with his eye for animation and color, is the apparent force behind his very popular acquarium screen saver. I realized somewhat belatedly that this was the screensaver I’d seen everywhere, in computer stores, television—you name it! I have even admired it in passing. The screenshot does not do the animation justice; the motion work is really quite beautiful.
Anyway, I’m glad to see that Sachs still out there inspiring us, and presumably making a good living.
MAIN LINKS
» Jim D. Sachs Artwork » Jim D. Sachs Bio » Pixel Art entry on Wikipedia
- July 6, 2006
Ian Smith’s JoesGoals.Com
July 6, 2006Read moreQuick note: Ian Smith IM’d me yesterday with a link to a new goal tracking tool called Joe’s Goals. What struck me immediately was the way Ian laid out the goals calendar:
It presents a week view, and you can easily add/remove multiple checkboxes very intuitively. What’s especially cool about this is that it’s easy to see where a goal has been accomplished, and where it isn’t; this triggers a completionist impulse in some people. You know, it’s like having to pop every last bubble in a piece of bubble-wrap. If you’re one of those people, you probably would get a kick out of this too.
There are positive and negative goals too. I haven’t yet created an account and tried the tool yet myself, but from the description it sounds like you can assign points of arbitrary value to any of the goals. This could be used as another approach to implementing a Printable CEO-style point tracker, if you want to try an alternative to Geoff Grosenbach’s PCEO-influenced Rough Underbelly task tracking system.
If I were to suggest one design tweak, it would be to also add a light tint to the background of a box when a goal has been checked, which might add to that feeling of completing a set. It may not be necessary for the negative goals (I’d personally want to reserve the completionist effect for the positive sense of accomplishment). Other than that, it looks pretty useful and cool as-is.
- July 5, 2006
Cat Dentistry
July 5, 2006Read moreI just dropped Kat off at the Animal Hospital for what I thought was just a dental cleaning, but apparently he has very bad gingivitis and needs to have 4 teeth extracted. FOUR TEETH! I feel awful. Then I’ll have to give him anti-bacterial pills afterwards, which neither of us are looking forward to. The doctor’s assistant just called and said that they want to run a test for feline leukemia to see if his immune system has been compromised, as he’s a young cat and shouldn’t have such bad teeth at his age. And that’s all I know. It is going to be a long day. Kate, on the other hand, is just fine.
On a side note, this is the first time that someone directly under my care is underdoing a serious diagnostic and surgical procedure, and I can’t help but notice that the feeling is a little different than when it’s for someone else who can take care of themselves. So this is quite probably one of those empathy-building moments that marks the continued transition from happy-go-lucky kid to responsible adult. In these cases, there really isn’t any question about what to do when it comes to the well-being of the people and pets that are close to you. Up to now, I’d had the implicit assumption that everyone was pretty much taking care of themselves, cats included. That really isn’t necessarily the case, I’m now realizing…a very strange sensation, and new. It is also somehow very clarifying.
- July 5, 2006
Recreating Childhood Lunch Memories
July 5, 2006Read more
This July 4th my sister and I attemped to recreate bien dang, which is a kind of ready-made boxed lunch that we used to get in Taiwan. My sister and I remember it from road trips; there was a particular rest station between Taipei and Kaoshiung that had pork chop boxed lunches that I liked. The box included interesting vegetables, eggs, and pickles, but it was the pork chop that I really looked forward to most. The photo above is our best approximation of a real bien dang.
I’ve been trying to recreate the chinese porkchop recipe based on experimentation, and I think I almost have the seasoning correct. However, there are a lot of variations in the recipe. One of my buddies shares a similar passion for pai-gu fan (pork chop rice, I think it means). And then there’s this example that my sis found on Bribe Me With a Muffin; as a bonus, this blog yielded tons of Boston-area foodie information and clued me in to a firm called Design Continuum (they apparently did some work on the $100 laptop UI)…but I digress.
Our bien dang re-creation has a ways to go before we really nail it–they were a bit dry, and I didn’t season the pork chops enough–however, we have made significant progress: you can read more on our documented Flickr photoset. Sis and I will likely plan a trip down to the Taiwan Cafe in Chinatown to recalibrate our taste buds; there are also several more Taiwanese restaurants that I want to visit. Yay!
We also went strawberry picking for the first time. I had no idea how awesome fresh strawberries were; as kids in rural New Jersey, my sis and I would sometimes come across wild strawberries in the field behind our house in Perrineville. Usually they were scrawny things with bugs inside, picked over by birds and rabbits. Not very appetizing, plus we were too small to know what a ripe berry looked like…we picked them all indiscriminately! Anyway, commercial strawberries are much more interesting…check out the strawberry picking photoset for a peek. We bought some baking soda biscuits and made strawberry shortcake; this was something I don’t think we had growing up, so it was good to be introduced to something new. I asked the kids manning the strawberry picking booth how to make the stuff, and they were somewhat surprised that I had to ask how to do it.
To round out the July 4th Weekend, we also decided to make S’mores. I’d never had one, but I wanted to toast marshmallows so we got the stuff: marshmallows, sticks, Hershey’s Chocolate, and Graham Crackers. Now, I’m not a fan of Hershey’s Chocolate (it’s mostly sugary and without character), but I had to establish the baseline for future comparison. The picture shows one exceptionally well-charred marshmallow that, despite its ghastly appearance, smelled quite wonderful My sister’s boyfriend got to eat it; I got to take the picture.
Speaking of death and chocolate, sis and I were at the Mall and stopped by the Lindt chocolate store. They had (gasp) 99% Cocoa Chocolate Bars. I like the 70% and find the 85% rather harsh, but despite that I had to buy a bar. I haven’t tried it yet; I probably will buy a few more bars of this first “just in case”. I expect that the tasting experience will similar to licking a piece of charcoal, or it might be like ingesting the ashes from a very fine cigar. Yes, I really am looking forward to this.
We also consumed a fair amount of Pocky and fancy I-Mei Cookies, but that’s a post for another day.
