Just My Imagination

Here's a service that adds value: bringing information from one world to another, where knowing how to get the information FROM one world and TO the other requires time, knowledge, experience, or resources, such that it would not be easily doable by most of the population in both worlds.

My computer's desktop gets messy fast, it seems to be where I save everything.

Every now and then I will strive to get organized and create a file hierarchy with the "a place for everything" philosophy.

Unfortunately, it's harder to get things in their places when I have to navigate through three or more levels of folders each time I want to save or open something. It's not the number of clicks, it's the memory access time (mine, not the computer's!) to remember the name of where I kept something that is painful.

My solution to this in the physical world (the way I organize my room) is to keep everything in drawers, pockets, and boxes with open tops to make it as quick as possible to put something back where it needs to go. Avoid any kind of boxes-within-boxes that make me have to stop and think and manually open each one and close it again and put it away. I also have this great shelving unit (IKEA Expedit) with open cubes that make it possible to access things from both sides.

Is this metaphor even applicable? What is the digital equivalent of accessing something fast from any "side" and of having "open boxes" in which to place things?

My current approach, which I'm not yet fully happy with, is ordering directory hierarchies so that most often accessed locations are the easiest to access. For instance, courses are organized like this:
Courses -> Current Course 1, Current Course 2, Current Course n, "Older than Fall 2009"
The "Older than Fall 2009" folder holds: Course 1, Course 2, Course 3, "Older than Spring 2009"
etc.
Things still end up on the desktop.

Another idea is that I know I have a very spatial memory--that's why the boxes in my room work, I remember where they are and can reach for them without thinking. There's this (information science?) idea of names or IDs being fixed, while the labeled thing can move around freely in space. What if relative locations were fixed and names didn't matter? If I could think of a way to keep files in locations I associated with their contents, that would help significantly. My desktop could be a world map with dots where the files were. I could zoom in, and as I zoomed in I would be able to, say, zoom into a building where I had a class and all the notes and papers from that class would be sitting on a photo of the classroom. (I tend to remember where I had a class and where I sat better even than who the teacher was).

Combine geotagging of photos and documents (computer with GPS remembers where a document was written) and a little user guidance and this could be generated partly automatically.

Hmm. I could probably write this, but it wouldn't be reflected in the save file dialog from applications, which are fairly text-based and a significant part of the clutter problem. I still like it! It could even be an "augmented reality" application on a mobile phone: as you walk into a space, your related documents and files and emails are floating around there.

I cut things out of foam core to get my head around them enough to put them in Sketchup.
I draw things in Sketchup to get my head around them enough to make them into 2D laser cut files.

I feel like I'm playing with legos, just a little bit more abstractly. No point to this post, just that these programs are super awesome.

It is strange to me that there are many digital picture frames that cost more than some laptops.

Curses! I thought I was very clever this morning for describing DIYers/Makers as "citizen engineers" (as opposed to the citizen scientist movement). The name turns out to be all over the place.

Here are my favorite sneaky travel habits. I forget how useful they are because they're so simple and I do them without thinking now, but they are pretty darn helpful.

-Print a 1-page street map with the place you are staying marked, and including the surrounding neighborhood. Print another page of driving directions from the airport to where you're staying. Doesn't matter if you're not actually driving or not taking that route, having both on the map helps give you a general idea of where you are. So far this has worked super well for me. When arriving at a new place I tend to just get on a bus headed the direction I'm going and see what happens. Most of the time this works and is a great adventure. I get lost sometimes (embarrassingly enough, the last time I can remember was in San Francisco ie. across a bridge from where I grew up) but it's a reasonable tradeoff in my opinion. When I went up to Seattle a couple weeks ago, taking the bus rather than a taxi led me to discover one of the best lunches I've had in my entire life. It was just a tucked-away cafe near the Bellingham transit station but the food was astounding. I think this was it.

-If staying at a youth hostel (only because I do this a lot), bring a shower mat/floor towel. You can grab a super cheap one at IKEA. Totally beats hopping around on one foot on a wet tile floor while you try to dry your feet and get socks on, or drying your feet on the same soggy towel countless other visitors have dried theirs on. Completely worth the small space it takes up in your luggage. Also: flip flops, a lock, and a laundry bag. But those are more obvious.

On another note, I just came back from CHI (Computer-Human Interaction) 2009. It's funny, these conferences and events that are all about the things I'm most excited about and full of people who are also excited about those things are awesome, but completely burn me out on the subjects for a couple days. I felt the same about Maker Faire last year: I was incredibly thrilled to go and to be there and to see everything, but after a couple days I really was done. Now that I'm back and have slept for a couple of days I am back to being stoked that I went and ready for more work.

Life is full of small and lovely pleasures. I am eating tomatoes with sesame-ginger dressing, and the sesame seeds blend in perfectly with the tomato seeds.

I'm the treasurer/fundraiser/inventor of fun ways to spend money/graphic designer for my university's Linux User Group. I just had some hats made for this semester's "Installfest" and I think they came out pretty well. :)
I really want to learn how to use an embroidery machine.

No "reed" per se, just magnets, but it works nicely.
Actual prototype currently inaccessible, will put a picture up when I get home.

Here is the only picture I took in Seattle (well, Redmond rather):

Snow! :)

Stumbled across this by accident, not sure how new it is but it is AWESOME. Beautifully simple idea for surveys/forms that cuts out all the middle layers. It lets you make a form for people to fill out and puts the collected data right into a Google spreadsheet.

Like this.

You can even fill it out right in your email.

Yo.

I'm using the Skype4Java API to write a Java program that talks to my Arduino board and controls Skype accordingly. Will explain why as soon as I have pictures to post.

This:
com.skype.NotAttachedException

means you need to sign into Skype.

*phew.*

How can you make a simple circuit that turns something on when a switch is open, and off when the switch is closed?

Like this!



Diagramming took a few tries:


But I got it in the end, sort of:




Now, how do you make one that doesn't drain the battery the whole time?

There's a lot I miss about the Bay Area. But here are some things I like here in Tempe, AZ.

Rent is reasonable!

Cheap and interesting fabric at Fabric by the Pound.

Places to go mountain biking that I need to check out.

Tempe Yarn and Fiber.

Getting great seats at hockey games at the student discount (last time we were in the first row, up against the glass for 20 bucks!)

Foldable! I'll make a tutorial soon.

Time for Tea! Clock
Instruction Guide

Note: This is not exactly an instructable, it's an installation guide for a birthday gift I made. Thought I'd repost it here. The center tin (see pictures further down) is a working clock with one hand that points to a particular tin of tea appropriate for that time of day.


Step 1: Assemble components.
Includes: 6 metal tins, 1 clock tin, and 7 felt magnets.

If you cannot find the magnets, they are probably in the tin all the other tins are sticking to!


Step 2: Add tea
Add tea of your choice to each tin (not the clock one!). Recommend washing tins first.


Step 3: Grab pile of magnets.


Step 4: Place clock magnet on fridge.


Step 5: Place remaining clock numeral magnets on fridge.


Step 6: Place tea tins on magnets.


Step 7: Place clock tin on center magnet. Rotate tin to set clock to correct hour, if you care about that sort of thing.


Step 8: Identify tea according to time of day.


Step 9: Enjoy a nice cuppa.


Step 10: To replace battery (one AA), carefully wiggle open clock tin.

No the tiny pots of nutella have nothing to do with anything. Sadly.