Entered On: Sep 03, 2008 12:47 PM
Last Edited On: Sep 03 2008, 12:47 PM

So I finally decided after years of slacking to finish my degree. I went down to the New Media department at UMaine today and had a meeting with Owen Smith, the head of the department, hoping to get some advice on where to start. Unless I completely misinterpreted our conversation, it sounds like with a little footwork, I'm in!

He was willing to let me start immediately despite classes already having started, if I was able to secure financial aid and find some classes that weren't full already. Not only that, but my portfolio of work over the past few years might be enough to get me through the "portfolio acceptance" aspect of the program that first-year students would typically go through.

On top of everything else, I was considering wiping my academic slate clean and having my student records wiped by the University. He recommended keeping the 43 credit hours I had previously accrued back in 1999, despite a pretty lackluster GPA (and by lackluster I mean absolutely awful), as it would save me about 3 semesters of work (and a boatload of cash).

So. Off to the mall I go. I need me some Trapper Keepers and crayons.

Entered On: Mar 09, 2008 1:14 PM
Last Edited On: Mar 09 2008, 1:14 PM

Entered On: Oct 26, 2007 2:16 PM
Last Edited On: Oct 26 2007, 2:16 PM

Entered On: Jul 19, 2007 6:19 PM
Last Edited On: Jul 19 2007, 6:19 PM

Entered On: Jul 10, 2007 11:45 AM
Last Edited On: Jul 10 2007, 11:45 AM

The new site's finally done and totally tableless. Also completely hand-coded and built on php includes - no more awful Dreamweaver templates. There's still some work to be done on the Portfolio section. And by some work, I mean the entire thing.

Edit: Portfolio's done!

Entered On: May 08, 2007 1:57 AM
Last Edited On: May 08 2007, 1:57 AM

52 16 8D 03 A3 29 07 B0 D9 D3 FC C7 C6 F4 99 B2

It is nobody else's but my own.

As is the following visual representation of said number:



And the following sound recording of said number:

Link to MP3

And lastly, the following color pattern matching said number:

Entered On: Dec 01, 2006 6:32 PM
Last Edited On: Dec 01 2006, 6:33 PM

Here it is, the beta version of ArtLibs. For all you art students out there whose craft just isn't understood.

Enjoy.

It's still a work in progress, so keep checking back from time to time.

Entered On: Nov 30, 2006 12:22 AM
Last Edited On: Nov 30 2006, 8:15 AM

Because they should have.

Entered On: Oct 18, 2006 1:31 PM
Last Edited On: Oct 18 2006, 1:31 PM

...to my awesomeness.

Entered On: Sep 24, 2006 11:38 PM
Last Edited On: Sep 29 2006, 3:52 PM

I made these quite some time ago, but I just discovered that all of my favorite guitar tab websites have been shut down by the RIAA, so here is my series of remixed propaganda posters featuring Der Musikkaisers. Feel free to spread the love.

Entered On: Aug 24, 2006 10:43 AM
Last Edited On: Aug 24 2006, 8:52 PM

Dig.

(Click in the window and then use W, S, A, and D to move; space button to shoot; and mouse to aim).

Entered On: Aug 16, 2006 2:58 PM
Last Edited On: Aug 16 2006, 2:58 PM

I just stumbled across this on BoingBoing.

I grew up in Turner. The "wolf-creature" was a source of childhood nightmares for many, and now it's dead. At first I thought, "Holy crap! Turner's in the news!" And then I realized that the one "legend" Turner had is now gone. Sad.

Rest in Peace, little scary wolf-thing. We'll miss you.

Entered On: Jul 20, 2006 8:13 AM
Last Edited On: Jul 20 2006, 8:23 AM

There's a job opening at ZeStuff.com for a freelance web/graphic designer. I'm going to send in my resume, seems like it'd be a fun gig. I haven't really had many chances to design for commerce-heavy websites, and it's one aspect of design I've always wanted to delve into a bit more.

Delve is a funny word.

...Delve.

Hee.

Anyway, I always feel as though it's a bit of a hopeless endeavor to apply for these jobs that get posted on wildly popular websites. I mean, there are what, three gazillion web designers wandering around out there in search of work? And at least 99% of them read ctrl+alt+del, so now we're looking at 2.97 gazillion people I'd be competing with for this job. And there's a damned good chance that at least one of those 2.97 gazillion designers is just a teensy bit better than me. And honestly, I don't like those odds one bit. That's a 1-in-2.97-gazillion chance I'll get hired, for those poorly-versed in the mathematic sciences.

But I keep trying anyway.

Entered On: Jun 13, 2006 1:52 PM
Last Edited On: Jun 13 2006, 1:52 PM

That's right. I made a web app to help me lose weight. Is that the height of geekery or what?

But seriously, I read this article by Jeremy Zawodny the other day and I figured, "If he can do it, why can't I?" And being a huge geek, I decided to program a little php/mysql app to keep track of my weight and daily caloric intake. I figured it'd be easier to track calories if I was able to enter the data while I was at work (where breakfast and lunch are eaten) as well as at home.

So here it is, the LemonHouse Productions Weight Management System (catchy name, ain't it?) It's open to the public, so if you'd like to use it, feel free. And, of course, much thanks to Jeremy for the idea.

Entered On: Jun 01, 2006 12:55 PM
Last Edited On: Jun 01 2006, 12:55 PM

Just found a big ol' problem with my blog, concerning the new month rolling around and me not posting anything yet. You won't be able to see it now that I've posted, so ha! Let's just pretend everything's working correctly and get on with our lives, mmk?

Entered On: May 23, 2006 9:52 AM
Last Edited On: May 23 2006, 9:52 AM

I've been throwing a fit the past few days. For some unknown reason, Google's classic layout has been completely altered on my home computer. The "Web, Images, Groups, News, Froogle" links are no longer at the top - they've been moved to the left side of the page with a pale blue background. The sponsored links - rather than appearing on the right side of the page - are now at the very bottom. It's been a very confusing week.

Now Alex sends me this. Apparently I'm one of the chosen. Yay for me.

Entered On: May 20, 2006 2:14 PM
Last Edited On: May 20 2006, 2:17 PM

So Alex and I were watching the time-lapse webcam recordings of the Grand Opening of the new Apple Store in New York when this kid suddenly pops up, holding a sign that says, "WILL YOU MARRY ME?"

Just go here and click on the "5:00" link. It's right before the end of the clip.

How friggin' cute is that? Of course they're probably going to breed and create more crazy Mac fanatics, but you can't euthanize all the babies born to Mac-using couples, can you? There just aren't enough hours in a day.

Edit: The sign(s) actually said, "Uschi Lang," "I Love You," and "Will You Marry Me?" respectively.

Entered On: May 19, 2006 2:31 PM
Last Edited On: May 19 2006, 2:31 PM

There's a rant over at Donny's Blog poking fun at the RIAA's ridiculously-high "cost per copyright infringment" figures. The gist of it says that if one infringement=$150,000 and there are approximately 76,272,931 infringements taking place per month, then the RIAA is actually losing $11,440,939,650,000.00 (that's 11 trillion, for those of you too lazy to count) per month. That's 40x more than the total cost of the war in Iraq. Per month.

Now, obviously, this is a work of satire, meant to make the RIAA look like the greedy little piggies that they are. But it got me thinking... what are the artists whom the RIAA controls truly losing due to piracy? Unfortunately, no one really seems to have a good estimate of the number of illegally-downloaded songs for 2005. I've seen estimates ranging from Donny's modest 952 Million per year to the 480 BILLION per year figure put out by a group of ISPs and their upstream providers. I've decided to use the RIAA's figures:

Loss for the year 2005 due to piracy: $4,200,000,000.00
Average profit per online sale: $0.66
Average sale price per song: $1.00

Dividing total loss by average profit per song - then multiplied by average sale price per song - shows us that there were 6.4 Billion songs downloaded illegally last year.

As for the RIAA's beloved recording artists, they're only receiving a paltry 10-14 cents per legally-downloaded song.

So, going by these figures:

• 6,400,000,000 illegal downloads per year


• $0.12 per downloaded song (on average)

We see that RIAA-represented artists as a whole are losing a whopping $768,000,000.00 each year. You might be thinking, "Well, just how many artists are actually signed to RIAA-affiliated labels?" Good question. Unfortunately, I haven't the slightest idea. If you do, let me know. I do know, however, that there are 1,633 labels under the RIAA's iron umbrella. This means each label is losing approximately $470,000.00 per year. Ouch.

But wait, statistics show that the BIG 4 record labels account for more than 85% of all music sales made in a year. It would only make sense that those same labels are bearing 85% of the loss due to piracy, right? Meaning each of the big companies - Universal, Sony/BMG, EMI, and Warner Brothers - lost $130,560,000.00 last year, while the other 1,629 RIAA-led labels only lost $70,718.00 each. Much more reasonable. Of course, for a smaller label, that kind of loss can be devastating.

But what about other sources of income for artists and labels? Ticket sales rose to a record $3.1 Billion last year (up from $2.8 Billion in 2004). Depending on the artist and the venue, they can receive anywhere from 50% to 90% of the ticket price. That's $1.5 Billion to $2.8 Billion in profit. And then there's the merchandise - artists average $10 per concertgoer per show on merchandise alone. With 36.1 Million tickets being purchased in 2005, that means $361,000,000.00 was paid to the artists. And directly to the artists, I might add. The RIAA typically has no hand in concerts and tours.

Again, these figures mean nothing without an accurate count of artists under the RIAA's fist, but compare the loss due to piracy per small label ($70,718) and the gain due to increased concert sales per label ($184,162), and you'll see that the "huge loss" being claimed by the RIAA really isn't that severe. Considering the 400% increase in online music sales from the year before, and the huge increase in ticket sales, it looks to me like the RIAA really isn't suffering as much as they'd like us to believe they are.

So take that, RIAA! I'm just as good at making up numbers as you are!

Entered On: May 18, 2006 3:50 PM
Last Edited On: May 18 2006, 3:50 PM

One more test to see if my RSS generator works. Get it? Bloggerade? LemonHouse/Lemonade/Bloggerade?

I'm so clever it hurts sometimes.

Entered On: May 11, 2006 12:08 PM
Last Edited On: May 17 2006, 8:24 PM

I've added an RSS Feed generator to my blog. I think it works. Maybe.

Edit: It does, in fact, work. Just subscribed to myself in Bloglines. Now I can read me everyday. Callooh Callay.

Edit: Oop. Scratch that. I thought it worked. I thought wrong.

Edit: Looks like I'm going to have to re-do my little RSS feed generator. I was initially trying to write to an xml file, but I found out I could use a php file that outputs xml as the feed. Makes my life a little easier.

Edit: Alright, it's fixed for real this time. Valid and everything. Thanks Jerome!

Entered On: Apr 21, 2006 11:12 AM
Last Edited On: May 12 2006, 3:52 PM

Dell Home & Home Office is having a sale right now on their UltraSharp 19" Flat Panels. Only $219 with this coupon code: P56JCWM80XVWCD

I just ordered me one. Might order me another if'n I get the itchin' to. I hear tell they're being manufactured with new Samsung 5ms panels rather than the old crappy 16ms panels Dell used to use.

I would've rather had a widescreen 20 or 21", but for $219, I can't complain.

Edit: This monitor rocks. I ended up getting one with the Samsung panel, and it's loverly. Ridiculously bright (I had to drop the brightness to 0 and fiddle with the gamma a bit), but there's no color-degradation around the outside edges like with most LCDs. No gradient banding, no ghosting, no overly-pixellated fonts, no annoying scanlines.

I actually have the non-Ultrasharp version of this monitor at work, and the difference is instantly noticeable. I'll be buying another soon, I think.

Edit: This monitor sucks. After a week of constant use, I began to notice horrible banding issues when dealing with gradients. Apparently those "sweet" Samsung panels are only 6-bit instead of 8-bit. And the brightness is ridiculous. I borrowed a colorimeter from my neighbor, who happens to be a professional photog, and attempted to calibrate the color, maybe tone down the glaring white levels. Once the calibration finished and I clicked "Apply," the monitor began to scream as every pixel was bombarded with pure, unyielding white. This is what I looked like moments later:



I'm sending it back and getting something that doesn't suck. I guess I got what I paid for.

Entered On: May 05, 2006 7:41 PM
Last Edited On: May 05 2006, 7:41 PM

Entered On: Apr 27, 2006 9:54 AM
Last Edited On: Apr 27 2006, 9:54 AM

So Slashdot is having a web redesign contest. I offered up a design yesterday, which was almost immediately shot down. Can't blame Mr. Malda, I threw it together in about 20 minutes (and let's be honest, I'm not nearly good enough to redesign Slashdot), but I might try out a few more designs anyway. It'll be interesting to see which design wins.

Entered On: Apr 17, 2006 8:28 PM
Last Edited On: Apr 18 2006, 9:11 AM

The Glenmary Research Center recently released a series of maps illustrating the percentage by county of various religious groups across the U.S. The study purely focused on Islam, Judaism, and Christian sects, however. I felt that an increasingly large percentage of the population was left unrepresented, so I performed my own study and drew up the following map illustrating the percentage by county of followers of The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster:



All Hail His Noodly Appendage!

Story originally posted to The People's Regime on 04-16-06. BoingBoing ran it too.

Entered On: Apr 13, 2006 10:22 PM
Last Edited On: Apr 17 2006, 8:52 AM

It's simple and it's silly but it's mine, dammit. And it took less time to code than it would have to have installed Wordpress and attempted to style it to look like the rest of my site.

Now all I have to do is drop some css on it to make it look shiny and I'm done. Basic functionality is good enough for now.

Edit: I've added an archive system to the blog that will track the month an entry is added/edited, and display the corresponding link to the right so you can view all the entries from a specific month.

So after my first entry in May, you should see both a "May 2006" link and an "April 2006" link to the right. Not terribly exciting, I know, but I'm not the best programmer so it's exciting to me that it actually works.

Now I need to figure out some sort of comment system.
Edit: Comment system is finished!