Vote for David Gillette!

My friend David Gillette, a talented artist and animator, has been nominated for a 2008 Yahoo! Video Award. Cast your vote for him here.

Music Makes Silence More Alive

A powerful look at music and the role it can play as people transition from life to death (music thanatology). Well worth your time to listen. It's the third chapter of four in this NPR radio program.

Dalton, Murdoc and, Most Importantly, MacGyver

Um, yes.

Sony Misinformation Campaign

I went to the Sony Style Retail Store in University Village (here) and the following interaction took place:

Salesguy: Hi sir, are you looking for a new laptop?
Me: yep.
Salesguy: These models here have the Core 2 Duo.
Me: what does that mean?
Salesguy: It means they have two hard drives so they can write files twice as fast.
Me: really?
Salesguy: Yah, it's sort of like having two brains.

Hrm, I think even my father knows the difference between a hard drive and a processor. Note that Sony laptops easily run upwards of three grand. You would think for that amount of money, the sales people would be educated about their product.

Oh and no, the laptops I was looking at did not have two hard drives (just the Core 2 Duo). And, yes, the last thing he said was somewhat accurate, but only if he was referring to the processor.

Scooter Style

If you pause the video at 11 seconds in, you can see Toomim.

Snowy Seattle

Once or twice a year it snows in Seattle; I woke up to fresh snow this morning. Here are a few pics from the bus stop by my house.

Moon Reached, Now On To Mars

My best of 2007 music mix is entitled Moon Reached, Now On To Mars (album cover pictured below).

The album cover was created in Adobe Photoshop 6.0 and is essentially a composition of three separate photographs I took plus an image I found on flickr (here). I spent more time on the idea than on the implementation, thus the baby and polar bear definitely "stick out" more than I'd like. In other words, they don't fit seamlessly into the picture. This is mainly because of lighting and edge blur issues.

The background is a picture of the North Cascades that Danyel Fisher and I took while on a hike of Mount Dickerman in late September 2006.


The first thing I did to the original image was to transform it from a 4:3 aspect ratio to a 1:1 aspect ratio. I did this by rescaling the blue sky. Increasing the sky's size also had the result of changing the viewer's perspective slightly by moving the horizon line to roughly the middle of the photo. Thus, it appears (to me anyway) to give the image more visual depth.


The second thing I did to the background was add an additional translucency layer with a blue hue and a "Linear Burn" effect. This was to create a dusk-like effect in the image as I wanted it to appear later in the day.


The polar bear shot was taken at the Como Zoo in Minnesota in October 2006. We were there celebrating my niece's first birthday (see this link). I didn't want to spend much time on this project, so I quickly used a combination of the "Magic Wand Tool" set to a variety of tolerances and the Eraser to cut out the polar bear from its surroundings. I resized the bear, darkened it slightly, and applied a little motion blur after adding it as a layer on top of the background.

The pink baby riding the polar bear is actually my niece. This photo was taken the same day as the polar bear photo at the Como Zoo. Once again, I used the Magic Wand Tool and the Eraser to cut the desired object from the image. I rotated the baby, increased the blue and green hue, and applied a motion blur after adding it as a layer on top of the polar bear. Both the polar bear and the baby are on top of the blue "dusk" layer.


Finally, the moon was extracted from its original image, resized, and placed behind the blue "dusk" layer. Then text was added to complete the album cover.

And, finally, the finished product:

The back of the album was generated, in part, by iTunes. I simply overlaid the track names and my favorite albums releases on top.

Christmas 2007

This year it snowed on Christmas (just over an inch I believe), which made for the perfect holiday atmosphere. The Star and Tribune ran a little infographic about the probability of a white Christmas in Minnesota. Note that certain areas of Northern Minnesota are guaranteed a white Christmas.

Annual chance of a white Christmas in Minnesota, based on historic records from 1899 through 2005. Sources: University of Minnesota, Minnesota DNR, NOAA. Graphic by Billy Steve Clayton.

Sledding

The snowy weather inspired a group of us to go outside and sled in the backyard.

Bro-in-law and niece.

The outlier: knee-first sledding!

My sister tearing up the snow.

My father.

My aunt.

Don't fall off the sled as deep snow awaits.

Christmas Morning (Stockings and Presents)

My niece received a little gorilla in her stocking;
she's attempting to imitate it here.

My niece gave me a storybook of my life (2005-2007) made with Shutterfly.

I gave my niece a princess crown.

The next gift my niece opened was a princess dress.
She is actually airborne here jumping for joy.

The full princess costume.

Christmas Eve 2007 Photobooth

Photobooth makes for pure awesome fun.

My two cousins and I.

My two cousins and my bro-in-law.

Niece and sister looking crazy! Thanks Photobooth.

My cousin making sure to represent his braces.

The Mirror.

The Day Before Christmas 2007

In the morning, my family and I went to the Macy's annual holiday auditorium display, now in its 45th year. A team of 40 local theatrical artists created 16 vignettes depicting the story of the Nutcracker through mechanical puppets, sculptures, and hand crafted scenery. Although I have seen the ballet in the past (in the Kodak Theatre in LA no less), I had forgotten how whimsical and violent this story can be. For example, the Nutcracker must battle a legion of killer rats with only the help of some toy soldiers and children (see below).

Afterwards, we took our first professionally captured family picture with Santa (given that my parent's house has no scanner, I'm afraid this is a picture of a picture).

Uncle's House for the Eve

Per family tradition, we spent Christmas Eve at my uncle's house in Minneapolis. Here are some pictorial highlights.

Scrabble on Christmas

Christmas Eve ended like it usually does, with a game. We typically play party-games like Cranium, Trivial Pursuit, etc. This year, however, we played Team Scrabble. Fortunately, I was paired up with my wordsmith cousin and we had no trouble disposing of the competition.

Whiteout Conditions in Twin Cities

The Twin Cities received about six inches of snow today on top of
the two inches it snowed yesterday. Both Minneapolis and
St. Paul declared snow emergencies. (Photo credit: Jeremy Portje, AP)

My parent's backyard as viewed from their kitchen window.

Looking back at my parent's house from their backyard.

My dad and I on a short hike through the forest on my parent's property.

The northwest side of my parent's house.

The high winds brought about whiteout conditions. There is about fourteen inches of snow accumulation in the Twin Cities.

Sweetest Kiss Ever

Note the early pucker approach... I may incorporate that into my own skill set.

Cornell is Gorges

I was in Cornell giving a talk on The Mobile Phone as a (Massive) Data Collection Platform (slide deck here, 63.1 MB PowerPoint file).

Traveling to Ithaca, NY from Seattle, WA took me approximately 36 hours, though it was worth the wait (Ithaca is gorges, of course). I had a two-layover flight: from Seattle to Cincinnati, from Cincinnati to Detroit, and then finally Detroit to Ithaca. It's the second layover that ruined me. NWA indiscriminately bumped eight passengers off the flight from Detroit based purely on their ticket price (fine, understandable, it's the economy of seats). As a bargain shopper, I proudly had the cheapest ticket (thanks Expedia!). However, being bumped meant a night in a shoddy Detroit hotel (are there any others?) where I was promised but did not receive deodorant, toothbrush, and all other bathroom necessities. However, they did get me toothpaste... oh and a free round trip ticket on NWA (which would only be indicative of times to come).

On my way back from Ithaca, I had a slightly more streamlined flightplan: Ithaca to Detroit and from Detroit to Seattle. My departing flight out of Ithaca was supposed to leave around 6:30AM. I arrived with a fellow graduate student, who just happened to be taking the same flight out and had thus driven us both to the airport. While checking in, I observed the person to our direct left arguing with the ticket agent--it appeared she had just been bumped from our flight. I immediately thought, "uh, oh, not again." Sure enough, my colleague and I were both bumped off this flight as well (yep, another free round trip ticket on NWA). This time, however, I was a seasoned bumpee and thus I negotiated for a first class ticket to Seattle and a free breakfast (on top of the round trip voucher). The only downside was that the departing flight took out of Syracuse instead of Ithaca. We took a one hour cab ride on NWA's dime to Syracuse where I was met with an accusatory stare and some deriding comments from an NWA ticket agent who asked me why I wasn't checking in 45 minutes before my departure. I was too sick and tired to argue.

Needless to say, this was the worst air travel I have ever experienced. Thanks NWA! I should note, though, that the two round trip ticket vouchers paired with the first class ticket back to Seattle definitely mitigated my troubles (as it was meant to) though I can say I would have much preferred to achieve my original flight plan in both directions.

Touring Campus
Given my flight debacle, I didn't have as much time to tour Cornell and the surrounding area. Jofish was kind enough to quickly walk me around on the night of my arrival. The next three pictures were taken from the sixth floor of the Johnson Museum building. The fourth one is a photograph I snapped while walking around campus before my talk.

Information Science Building
Hanging Out After TalkFirst Class Return Flight

First class food. Salad with fresh vegetables, a warm roll,
fresh fruit, white wine and a Dove chocolate ice cream bar.

yum!