Researchers in Japan have been able to reconstruct images from neural patterns when showing subjects a series of test images. This is such crazy stuff.
Not many years ago we began to see stories about monkeys and humans controlling computers or robotic machinery with special equipment monitoring their brainwaves, and now this. It’s remarkable. Whether you find it disconcerting or not, it’s pretty amazing.
IGN DS has just posted a trailer, some screenshots, and an interview about Scribblenauts.
I’m really excited about this game, and I think a ton of people are really going to like the idea. You should check it out and let me know what you think.
The machine creating water out of thin air from CNN.com:
“…a novel electricity-powered machine that draws moisture from the air and purifies it into clean drinkable water.”
This is just a dehumidifier. My parents have one in their basement. It takes moisture out of the air and puts distilled water into a container. Not to sure why this is the first time anyone had thought to use this in places without good drinking water.
Taking a break from working late tonight, I went to McDonald’s to get some quick dinner. While at the drive thru I took this picture with my iPhone. I’m not entirely convinced that the sign above the fire extinguisher is necessary.
Google images is now hosting millions of photos from the LIFE magazine archives. There are photos that go far into the past, even some of the earliest photos from before 1800. Anyways, this is quite a cool resource to check out some photos from a long time ago. I haven’t taken many pictures since the last ones I have posted, but we should have our new house “presentable” soon. I’ll be taking some pictures around the house, and I will probably take a bunch on Thanksgiving. Soon enough I will be able to share those with you.
I’m excited that Jerry, Sam, and two more of their friends from school are coming out to visit around the second weekend of December. We are going to do some fun things while they’re out here, so I should have some new stories to share when they come.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving if you don’t hear from me again this week.
We all like Red Robin. Face it, their burgers are delicious. It’s that place we eat when we can’t agree on anything. I just got a link to Men’s Health magazine with some enlightening information:
An A.1. Peppercorn Burger has 1,440 calories and 97 grams of fat, more than you would find in 32 strips of bacon! Add onion rings to that and you’ve just crossed the calamitous 2,000-calorie barrier, more than most people should eat in an entire day.
Maybe we need to start looking for a better fallback restaurant. I don’t even think a boca patty can save you from that caloric onslaught.
Meet the interrobang‽ It’s a lesser known of the typographical characters. I think it needs to come into more common use. I’ve often found myself wanting to write one, but not knowing the character existed, defaulting to the boring question mark.
I posted a bunch of photos tonight. I crossed the 4000 photo mark on flickr, and went well beyond it. There are two costume parties, a pumpkin patch trip, and a commissioning service. Check ’em out.
November will be a busy month. I’ll be moving soon, and we have a lot to get done at work before December.
People have been saying more and more how much they like my pictures. Often, their first question is what kind of camera I have. I could prove the camera is of little importance by showing you some of the pictures that have come out after I hand my camera over to a friend for a while. Fact is, with a little effort most people could be taking radically better pictures with their current point-and-shoot camera. Here are just a few hints that will see you taking much better pictures.
This is a simple compositional rule that is very well known among photographers. We don’t know all the “science” behind it, but for some reason pictures are a lot more interesting to human viewers when the focal point or subject is at the intersection of thirds of the picture. Many cameras allow you to turn on a “grid” so you can visualize this while you shoot. Stop centering all those images. Granted this rule can and must be broken at times, but in general this will show a huge improvement in your photography.
The cheap flashes on most cameras cause all sorts of problems. Red-eyes, shiny highlights on glasses or oily skin, strange shadows around the edges of your subjects, etc. Try to avoid using your cameras flash when you can. If it’s just plain too dark, there isn’t much you can do to avoid it. But go out of your way to take pictures when and where there is plenty of light available. Your pictures will look more natural, and that’s good.
The camera needs to allow light to enter the lens and “expose” the picture. Since there is usually not an infinite amount of light available this exposure takes time. If your camera or your subjects are moving during this time the picture will be blurry from the motion. Be sure to hold your camera steady when shooting. If at all possible set your camera down on a table, or brace it against a hand rail or a wall. If that isn’t possible just hold still, and try to take the picture on an exhale.
Your subject is what’s important, but if your background is full of stuff it will distract people from looking at what you really want them to be focused on. The more simple the background the better. For instance if you are taking a picture of your friend downtown make sure there isn’t a telephone pole sticking out of his head.
These are really just a few tips, but I can honestly say they have improved my photography a lot. I still have problems following my own advice with some of these
occasionally, but getting these things into your head while taking pictures will make your photography better fast.
I’ve noticed over the last decade or so that videos played in quicktime are often (if not always) washed out and a little desaturated. If you’re watching a long video you could get a much crisper image spending just a few seconds with the A/V controls beforehand. Just go to Windows->Show A/V Controls (on a Windows machine). The two suggestions I would give are to bump up the Contrast and Color sliders ever so slightly. You should adjust the contrast setting on a frame of video with a good amount of black, and you should adjust the color setting on a frame with, go figure, lots of color. Have fun.
P.S. The same is true for video in iTunes.
If you were at all curious about how ridiculous videogame advertising can get, they just put up some ads for our new game. This is from ds.ign.com, it’s their front page overflowing with promos for our game. Over 51% of the entire screen is just graphical advertising for the game.
Our first review score has been posted for Lock’s Quest. IGN gave us a 8.6 and an Editor’s Choice Award! IGN gave us a 7.9 for Drawn to Life, so this is quite a step up. We’re excited to see other review scores start to pop up. We’re anticipating Lock’s Quest being really successful. We also, have a website open for the game. Woohoo, game number 2!
If you get a chance to try out the new Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos, pass. It’s kind of like eating tortilla chips soaked in soy sauce with an after taste of vinegar… not entirely pleasing.
Gamasutra, the top name in videogame development news, just released their list of 2008’s top 20 breakthrough developers. Our company made number 2! This is some serious recognition. You can check out the page about us here. Wow.
The E3 videogame media show is going on this week, and a video has just been posted of our game. It’s still a little surreal to see stuff like this of a product you’ve worked on, but we’re definitely excited to see it released in a few months.
I finally got my awesome friend Andrew to start posting some of his pictures on flickr. He was taking some on the 4th of July. Here is one he shot of me watching the fireworks show. Just thought I’d like to share it.
Capcom recently announced that they are making a new old Mega Man game. What that means is they are making a game to come out as a download for the Wii which will be actually more comparable to the games that came out in the NES series. This is a really cool idea, and I know that I speak for the geeks of the world that we would like to see a trend of new old school games. There is an article about it here if you have any interest in this.
I posted about 210 pictures to my flickr account Tuesday night. So if you haven’t yet, check them out.
We got some rain yesterday and today, and some pretty lightning last night (which as you can see here, is not very frequent in these parts). It was good. We needed a cool down.
Have a good fourth tomorrow!
I have recently found out that I think everything bagels (that is, bagels with everything) are amazing. Pretty much they’re one of my favorite things to eat right now. I’m done working on our game, and I’m excited to start on something else in the next few weeks. They also announced the new iPhone yesterday. It’s coming out in July at the new low price of $199! Pretty sweet if you ask me. Have a great week!
I recently ordered Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac which finally came out, and it arrived Monday night. I’ve been having fun with it. I used to use ‘stray’ copies of real Photoshop up through the original CS back when I had less scruples. To be honest, there is nothing significant missing from Elements that makes me wish I had the full version. In fact, some of the quick retouching things I like to do have been made even faster. And I only paid $79 on Amazon versus the $624 that they charge for Photoshop CS3. The cool newer tools, most significant of which is the quick select tool, still seem to have made the cut. It even comes with a camera RAW tool for working with photos from high-end digital cameras. Sorry for the commercial, but this is just good software cheap. It deserves to get bought.
Given that I have photoshop now, there is a renewed interest in photos. I have uploaded a few new ones. Most of what I’ve done with photoshop is color adjustments for photos taken in weird lighting conditions. But one cool shot is a big panorama I took outside my office at work. Photoshop stiched together 5 different photographs positioning, skewing, and sizing them automatically to mesh together properly. It is a pretty excellent result.
Now for that new Nikon D80 I want… come on stimulus check. Er, maybe I should pay off loans (sigh).
It’s been quite a while, but our game was finally announced. There is an official THQ press release here. Also, IGN DS got a quick hands and wrote some very positive impressions. We’re excited.
Have you forgotten to do your taxes? I have. Just a reminder. Also, although I still can’t say anything about what we’re making at work an interesting story came up on the internets today.
Hey there. It’s been a while. Some people have asked.. yes, I’m still running. Many of my muscles are completely different shapes then they have been for the last 10 years. I finally got actual running shoes though, Asics, they’re nice. We might be finishing up some game soon at work. Sorry about how vague that is. I have certain contractual obligations. As soon as there is any info I can tell you about, I will. I put up a handful of random pictures on flickr from the last few weeks if that’s of any interest to you. Be blessed. Peace.
I finally gave in.. to exercise. I’ve started running every morning (weekdays). Before you get too impressed, I wanted to start small. So I’m only running 10 minutes every morning, but it has already been making a difference. I’ve noticed a little more energy throughout the day, but more than anything it seems to have increased my motivation to do get other things done as well. It has definitely been worth the minimal time and effort.
If you, as I, have also been a lazy slob, and put off exercising, stop it. Don’t try to do something overboard. Trust me, you’re much better off exercising 10 minutes a day for the rest of your life than trying to start up some ridiculous exercise routine for two weeks at the beginning of each year, and giving up because it’s too hard. Just do it. (This blog and its author have no affiliation with Nike, Inc.)
Way to go Lawrence and Tiffany! I just spent the last few days in Wichita Kansas to celebrate with my old friend Lawrence and my new friend Tiffany as they were married this last Saturday. Quite a few of my great friends from high school and even well back into my childhood were there. It was a great time visiting and reacquainting. I’m now back in Chicago and will be headed home to Seattle on Sunday morning.
