Monday, August 31, 2009

aM Laboratory sinewave synthesizer

This cute site (yes, I find it cute) is unlike other synthesizers, wherein you put in dots to make a simple picture, but the dots sends off wave sounds.

Here is something I made:



According to the site, there is a way to save your synthesized picture, but I can't seem to make it here.

Maybe you'll have better luck than me xD

Friday, August 28, 2009

Spin the Web: Web Development



Get ready to spin up a kick-ass website for yourself or your org!

On August 29, learn about the current standards and trends in designing a web site during the Web Design Basics lecture. Then on September 5, get to know the Groovy and Grails framework, the latest and hottest in web programming. And on September 12, improve the efficiency and ease-of-use of your website through a talk on Web Usability.


All lectures will be held from 1PM to 5PM at the Lecture Hall, Alumni Engineers Centennial Hall (across NIGS). Admission is free. For questions/whatnot, contact Rose Ann (0926 670 9286).


This series is brought to you by the Association for Computing Machinery – UP Student Chapter and Orange and Bronze Software Labs, Ltd.

Source

Thursday, August 27, 2009

"These are a few of my favorite things..."

I'm always attracted to designs that save space, ecofriendly, recycled, and sustainable.

So it's not surprising that I find these chairs cool and attractive.

African designer Ousmane M'Baye Exhibition at Viaduc des Arts

Source

Flux Chairs by Douwe Jacobs



Yes, that's paper. And yes, it's foldable xD

Source

The Drops Chair by Camilla Hounsell Halvorsen

Camilla Hounsell is a design student at Norway's Oslo National Academy of the Arts. This chair consists of stainless steel legs and an inner tube covered with recycled upholstery material.



All of a sudden, this reminds me of a chair made out of katsya (Or the basahan the kids in the streets sell. Hmmm...a carpet design like that is not a bad idea)

Mold Chairs by Anders Johnsson and Petter Thorne

A couple of designers from Stockholm did these creative chairs recycled from wood veneer.




I like the second one. It has this "capiz" effect going on.

~~~~~~~~~~

I also like designs that are cool and has this all-in-one theme in furniture.

Stone Designs' The RS Life Collection is full of simple designs, basic materials, with colorful touches.

I like these cabinets:


Okay, so that cabinet doesn't have that all-in-one feature. But this does:




~~~~~~~~~

And wood. I like wood, or wood effects.


Hold Cabinets and Up Coffee Table by Gauthier Poulain (Now imagine that they are refrigerators...)


Velice Lounge by DesignKoalition

and this one looks like the one two pictures up.


Nest Armchair by Autoban

~~~~~~~~~~

And these are just too cool to pass up:


Verwoben (Interwoven) Shelves by Marco dos Santos Pina




Pottery Barn Smart Technology Daily System for the Design Lover Geek

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

An Art of Irony

Yuken Teruya is an artist who recently used paperbag trash into amazing diorama art.



There are just too much paperbag trash out there that it can now be used as a medium.

Source

Having a Pot Belly is fashionable

THIS summer the unvarying male uniform in the precincts of Brooklyn cool has been a pair of shorts cut at knickers length, a V-neck Hanes T-shirt, a pair of generic slip-on sneakers and a straw fedora. Add a leather cuff bracelet if the coolster is gay.

In truth this get-up was pretty much the unvarying male uniform last summer also, but this year an unexpected element has been added to the look, and that is a burgeoning potbelly one might term the Ralph Kramden.

Too pronounced to be blamed on the slouchy cut of a T-shirt, too modest in size to be termed a proper beer gut, developed too young to come under the heading of a paunch, the Ralph Kramden is everywhere to be seen lately, or at least it is in the vicinity of the Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene, the McCarren Park Greenmarket and pretty much any place one is apt to encounter fans of Grizzly Bear.

What the trucker cap and wallet chain were to hipsters of a moment ago, the Kramden is to what my colleague Mike Albo refers to as the “coolios” of now. Leading with a belly is a male privilege of long standing, of course, a symbol of prosperity in most cultures and of freedom from anxieties about body image that have plagued women since Eve.

Until recently, men were under no particular obligation to exhibit bulging deltoids and shredded abdominals; that all changed, said David Zinczenko, the editor of Men’s Health, when women moved into the work force in numbers. “The only ripples Ralph Kramden” and successors like Mike Brady of “The Brady Bunch” had to demonstrate were in their billfolds, said Mr. Zinczenko, himself a dogged crusader in the battle of the muffin top. “But that traditional male role has changed.”

As women have come to outnumber men in the workplace, it becomes more important than ever for guys to armor themselves, Mr. Zinczenko said, with the “complete package of financial and physical,” to billboard their abilities as survivors of the cultural and economic wilds.



This makes sense, in a way, but how does one account for the new prevalence of Ralph Kramdens? Have men given in or given up? Are they finished with asserting the privileges that have always accrued to men. Or is the Ralph Kramden Barack Obama’s fault?

Hipsters, by nature contrarian, according to Dan Peres, the editor of Details, may be reacting in opposition to a president who is not only, as the press relentlessly reminds us, So Darn Smart, but also hits the gym every morning, has a conspicuously flat belly and, when not rescuing the economy or sparring with Kim Jong-il, shoots hoops.

“If we had a slob in the White House, all the hipsters would turn into some walking Chippendales calendar,” Mr. Peres said. Instead, the streets of Williamsburg are crowded with men who are, as he noted, “proudly rocking a gut.” Mr. Peres’s magazine has a term for these people: the new “poor-geoisie.” But the people lining up for $13 lobster rolls at the Brooklyn Flea last weekend hardly looked as if they were worried about making the rent.

“I sort of think the six-pack abs obsession got so prissy it stopped being masculine,” is how Aaron Hicklin, the editor of Out, explains the emergence of the Ralph Kramden. What once seemed young and hot, for gay and straight men alike, now seems passé. Like manscaping, spray-on tans and other metrosexual affectations, having a belly one can bounce quarters off suggests that you may have too much time on your hands.

“It’s not cool to be seen spending so much time fussing around about your body,” Mr. Hicklin said.

And so guys can happily and guiltlessly go to seed.

Women have almost never gotten a pass on the need to maintain their bodies, while men always have, said Robert Morea, a personal fitness trainer. (Full disclosure: my own.) It would be too much, he added, to suggest that “potbellies are suddenly O.K.,” but as lean muscle and functionality become the new gym mantras, hypertrophied He-Men with grapefruit biceps and blister-pack abs have come to resemble specimens from a diorama of “A Vanished World.”

“When do you ever see that guy, anyway?” Mr. Morea asked, referring to those legendary Men’s Health cover models, with their rippling torsos and famished smiles. “The only time you really see that guy, he’s standing in front of an Abercrombie & Fitch store.” Perhaps, he suggested, there is really only one of them. “It’s the same guy. They just move him around.”

The New York Times

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

The Story of Oxygen

This amazing video is made as a thesis product of Christopher Hendryx studying in Ringling College of Art + Design. The video is about the story of Oxygen (the element) and how it interacts with other elements in a schoolyard setting.

Oxygen from Christopher Hendryx on Vimeo.



For more, visit Particle Art.

Source

This is a witty light



Why? Because this lamp is designed like an eraser:





See?

Steffen Kehrle and Julia Landsield are the talented brains behind the Erasing Darkness lighting system. Designed for Moree, the light of the Erasing Darkness was apparently too bright, hence why the duo decided to literally block it somehow. The idea was brought to reality by covering the object that was replicating the look of a push-out eraser with a paper cover that not only adds to the chic factor it also adds a nice shade around. It comes with energy saving bulbs that deliver great light, as for the paper thing, you shouldn’t be too worried as the system is actually crafted from aluminum.

Source

Monday, August 24, 2009

Book cases made out of...books?





I have a question: If you're a book-lover, would you use the books as shelves? If not (combined with a shiver), you can probably make them out of blocks, paint them over. Or print out a sticker, then stick on the wooden block.

This would be the most practical way if you want to make book-shelf-themed sofas (look picture above). The frying pan is a nice touch though.

Note: I finally figured out how to put pictures, and links using the office computer. Yay~ I can now do regular posts (which is good because my backlog list is starting to piling up).

Source: Dornob.com

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Erratum and some updates

On my last entry about the open forum held in UP, I captioned some items from Seedsop's blog:

"He [GM Zyn] made it a point to say that "cosplay is a hobby, if you get paid to do it then you're not a cosplayer but a model."

Instead of GM Zyn, it's supposed to be Robert Wong. I'm going to make a change once I get home (because of this computer's limitations. Explanation further along this entry). Thanks to Seedsop for the correction.

Moving on...

I finally figured out how to adjust the pictures width so that it will fit on the layout. Before, the picture looks like it was chopped unceremoniously on its right side.

All the pictures have been edited to fit the layout.

Second, the reason why I'm not posting as much as I'm supposed to be. Office computer refused to open blogger.com for reasons too technical for this entry (and for my understanding), and the home pc is well...weird.

But I already made a list of idea topics that you may be interested in, so I'll be posting some of them this week.

Thank you.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

First Philippine Cosplay Mini Summit and Open Forum

Held last August 15, 2009, a Saturday, in UP ITTC. Here are some excerpts from Seedsop's reaction blog about the forum:

"The open forum was an opportunity for the government to have a better understanding of what cosplay is and what it is all about. This was perhaps in a way for our community and the subculture in general to let our government have a glimpse of what we are like in the midst of continuous negative sentiment from various government officials.

"He [Robert Wong] made it a point to say that "cosplay is a hobby, if you get paid to do it then you're not a cosplayer but a model.

"I [Seedsop] see it as well as an art form as well and a way to express oneself and a reflection of one's creativity as well. But I have to disagree with him in saying that people getting paid to cosplay are not cosplayers anymore but are models. Just because a cosplayer was paid for his services, does not necessarily make him or her less of a cosplayer. In fact there are cosplayers here that have been asked to do appearances and were paid either in kind or in some small monetary value. Are they considered models already? How about cosplay cafes? There are employees there that are actual cosplayers but get paid to dress up as a maid, butler or some other character. Does that make them less of a cosplayer, too?

"As I [Seedsop] continued to listen to the government point persons, I noticed a consistency in their answers. They showed a certain interest as this was unfamiliar territory but would give vague answers and did not promise anything but research about it more. Typical of the government, really but I can also see why. Here's a bunch of people who have only heard about cosplay just recently and don't know about our subculture. You can't expect us to make changes when we don't know what changes are needed. Just like Commissioner Ibrahim asked, "How can we help you?"

Seedsop also pointed some possible advantages of cosplay here in the Philippines: one, it could be a venue for trade and commerce since conventions showcases shops selling knick-knacks imported and locally made; second, "cosplay could also be promoted as an form of art and expression of our culture."

Cosplay in the Philippines and a possible government support has too many sides to react as of the moment. There is also the question of the definition of cosplay in relation to the Philippine setting, and it's probable impact and contribution locally.

What do you think of cosplay as an art-form? Would the government CAN help this budding endeavor of today's youth?

Note: Edited

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

How Eiffel Tower is built.

I was browsing through some image sites, and I discovered this (and I'm happy that they included building plans on the pictures).

Click here

Either it's an eyesore or a symbol of France, we could all agree that Eiffel Tower had made its mark all over the world.

Enjoy!

Monday, August 17, 2009

Wall Graphics



Wall graphics are mostly printed on a vinyl sticker and mounted directly to the wall or through a PVC foam board. Inks are normally mild solvent for higher resolution prints and less unwanted odors. Some are sprayed with a liquid based coating for protection while others are laminated using thin clear plastic sticker.

Advantages:
a. Perfect for people who love personalizing their spaces on a regular basis; or live in an apartment but doesn't want to go through the hassle of redecorating
b. Perfect for offices to give a creative touch.
c. Giving shops or stalls a creative pop.

With all the options to choose from, what would be the cheapest way of having a wall mural? Here’s a list to consider:

Graphics – since we are talking about wall, then we’d probably be imagining a relatively big space. Big space would require a reasonably big resolution to get better looking graphics. Ask for an experienced graphic artist to do the design for you so as to maximize the effectiveness of your wall graphics. In designing, don’t forget to consider tables or modules that would cover the graphics when installed.

Surface Finish – if your walls are roughly painted, your service provider will recommend to install the sticker on a PVC foam board before installing to your wall. A good shiny surface will do away with additional cost.

Coating – if the wall to be installed is exposed to heavy traffic, a plastic lamination is suggested to protect the graphics. For light to moderate traffic areas, your graphics can last with just a sprayed topcoat.

Inkjet process – there are a lot of ways to print wall graphics and the cheapest would be a solvent based inkjet printing. Solvent-based are typically used for outdoor or a relatively far distance viewing while mild-solvent give you a higher resolution printing or sharper looking images but a little bit expensive than the regular solvent-based printing. If your graphics wouldn’t demand details, ask for a regular solvent-based printing.

Installation – do not attempt to install it yourself if size is more than 10 square feet. Otherwise you’ll end up ordering another one. Let the experienced installer do their thing. Anyway, if they damage it, they’ll replace it without any charge.

I think it is locally available, but I don't know which stores offer this. It's an interesting idea, especially if you like to have a touch of creativity in your room.






Sources:

Springwise.com
Graphicstar
Freshome

Friday, August 14, 2009

Amazing treehouses~



If I am destined to have a house, the one with a backyard, I would love to have trees on em. And, killing two birds with one stone, have a tree house too. I prefer not too big, just cozy and sturdy enough. One good thing about treehouses is that they're bound to be cool under the shade.

Here are some awesomely designed treehouses. Enjoy!





Source here for more pictures.

Paint Tool SAI Mai trial colored pic DONE!

Two things I'm ecstatic about this program:

1. You can blend colors!

2. The Water Tool.

Depends on how hard you press your pen on the tablet, it will give you different weights of that color. Also, when you apply a color on or right next to a different color on the same layer, it looked like the colors blending.

When it comes to coloring, I prefer the BRUSH TOOL. But if I want some details (like the lines on the broom bristles), or defining a dark shade, like, let's say a crease on clothing, I use the PEN TOOL. The Brush tool allows you to blend the colors nicely, like you're painting on a canvass.

Second, the Water tool. Well, it blends two colors together. Kind of. I'm not sure yet as to how it works (and why I saw too late that there are other Water tools), but I used it to smoothen two different colors together.

Therefore, the drawing.

This character I did when I was still studying in Miriam College. A character from a manga I was trying to finish--until I wasn't able to start on Volume 3. Her name is Mai Halesport.

Enjoy~!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

And so I commenceth

Hm. I wonder if I used that right. You know, the word "commenceth."

Anyway, sometime before, a friend introduced me to Paint Tool Sai and at first I wasn't sure what to do with it. I was pretty homey with Adobe Photoshop, and it was that time where I don't have time at all.

But today, I had a go with it--and it was fantastic!

First of all, it was light weight, and the version I got was the portable one (and I'm a fan of portables). I was only able to play around with the pen tool because I didn't have enough time to color it. Don't worry. That is my next agenda.

Here is something I drew using the pen tool of the program (pardon me if it's a little too big).

I still haven't adjusted to its layout, but I think I did okay with this one. We'll see how this one turn out.