This one’s a bit painful for me to watch, for a few reasons.
First, my talk had a lot of time-based elements (audio and video), which meant I really needed my 45 minutes, but I started late, and I was the last talk of the day, so I had very little wiggle room. In the future, I’ll definitely insist on speaking earlier if this is the case. I’m a fast talker anyway, but it sounds like I’m trying to break a vocal cord land speed record to get the event wrapped up on time.
Secondly, every piece of technology that could fail did fail in the course of the talk, including the projection screen, audio playback, microphone and presentation wand. I’d never attempted a talk that relied so heavily on tech, and I doubt I’ll do so again for a long while. There are way too many unknown variables, any of which can completely derail your message if it goes awry.
Lastly, I packed way too much into a single talk. I neglected the fact that I’ve spent the last decade thinking about the convergence of my varying interests, and it’s unfair to expect an audience to catch up in under an hour. Attendees who talked to me afterwards tended to gravitate toward one portion of the talk or another, which tells me I would have been more successful if I had exercised a bit more restraint.
Problems aside, I still believe in the ease and control scale I proposed, and that idea is probably presented better here than in the presentation materials alone.
Watch the recording on blip.tv
I had a blast speaking at this year’s CyborgCamp Portland. Many thanks to those who attended or tuned in to the livestream!
My slides are available, appropriately enough, on Slideshare.
Most of the videos I showed are available on YouTube. I’ve created a playlist for your convenience. Please note that some of the videos have strong language that I censored for my presentation. This playlist does not include the Eric Schmidt interview (viewable here), the Objectified clip (watch it on Netflix or buy it), the Human Giant sketch (it’s from season one), or Radiohead’s Idioteque performance on Saturday Night Live (because NBC kind of hates the internet).
This is arguably the most ambitious topic I’ve ever tackled. If you have any reactions, comments or criticism, please let me know in the comments or on Twitter!
This Saturday’s going to be awesome! Why? CyborgCamp’s back, that’s why!
The main event happens this Saturday from 9am-6pm, though there’s a pre-party Friday evening and a hackathon on Sunday if you just can’t get enough man-meets-machine goodness.
I’ll be presenting in the afternoon. My talk is called “The Uncanny Valley of Interaction Design.” If you’re a fan of robots, animation, comics, film, music or web apps, you won’t be disappointed. This is also my first presentation with video and (time permitting) an audience-driven Twitter experiment.
More information and tickets (which are a steal at $10) are available from the CyborgCamp Portland site. Will you be there?
Update: Tickets are now sold out! Be sure to tune in to the livestream on Saturday. My presentation starts at 4:15pm (PST).
I’m so wicked proud to announce that Fragments (the comic anthology I’ve been organizing to benefit the amazing charity, Save the Children) is finally available for purchase! If you like comics, or if you just like doing something awesome for a good cause, you should purchase a copy.
The book features awesome comics by Tram Ngo, Kristen Bailey, Pav Kovacic, Theodore Taylor and many more. The cover was illustrated by Tony Papesh, with a logo by Marc Roman. It’s thanks to all the contributors that this book exists.
The Fragments web site is the first time I’ve published a site written in HTML5 with liberal use of CSS3. Safari 5 users should notice a cool three-dimensional transform on the cover, accomplished via some CSS Transforms and a bit of JavaScript.
If you don’t have Safari, you can see the effect in this screencast:
A special thanks to everyone who has supported the project by tuning into its progress via Facebook or Twitter. Please continue spreading the word; with your help, this project will be a resounding success.
My girlfriend’s sister and brother-in-law have a sweet, quirky bulldog named Bud (technically Bud, Jr., after his papa’s nickname). Like my parents’ dog, Suzie, I’ve found myself doodling him incessantly. There’s just something so endearing about dogs with hopelessly distinctive personalities.
Two Christmases ago, I decided to make Bud’s owners, Lyndsey and Keith, matching t-shirts celebrating their pride and joy. Using a reference photo, I thought a thick-lined, vector representation might be most amusing.
The shirts came in on time, but ended up being a pinch too small due to American Apparel’s sizing strangeness. Nevertheless, they elicited the laughter I was hoping for, so all was not lost.
Later, I helped Lyndsey re-purpose the artwork for their first human child’s room, but in a ginchy new infant-Warhol color scheme.
Animals are way more fun to caricature than people. Dogs and cats are intellectually incapable of comprehending abstracted images of themselves, which means they can’t complain about or take offense to them (which is why I avoid caricaturing friends and family).
