Virtual Reality: Oculus Rift vs. CastAR

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While gamers eagerly await the release of Oculus Rift in July (you can preorder Oculus Rift DK2, a developer kit, now), problems have been identified with its use.  Wagner James Au at New World Notes asks "Does Virtual Reality Literally Make Most Women Sick?."  His article was based on another one "Is the Oculus Rift sexist?"

According to Livescience "Men and Women Really Do See the World Differently." The report is based on research by Israel Abramov and others.

Today I'm looking at two candidates for VR (virtual reality)/AR (augmented reality) wearable consumer devices--Oculus Rift and CastAR.  (There are others, such as Sony's CES2014.)  From what I can gather Oculus Rift projects the images onto your eyes, while CastAR projects the images onto a screen in front of your eyes.  Both are headsets. And both projects were presented on Kickstarter (and have been funded).

Here's the trailer for Oculus Rift:

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And here's a video that explains the CastAR technology and contains elements of the Kickstarter video:

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There's a much longer video about CastAR featuring developer Jeri Ellsworth that has some interesting details about how the project got started. You can also preorder the CastAR.

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-- Marge

Cartoons: Net what?

Frankly, I gave up on net neutrality years ago. In this polarized world increasingly ruled by greed, both corporate and individual, and big-money power, a delicate thing like neutrality doesn't have much of a chance. Of course this is just my point of view. For a survey of what's happening in net neutrality, take a look at the Huffington Post section on the topic.  CNN recently reported in "New chapter begins in net neutrality fight:"

The Federal Communications Commission faced a big setback on this front in January, when a court struck down its "Open Internet" rules. The FCC had barred ISPs from blocking or "unreasonably discriminating" against Web content, but Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) successfully challenged the regulations on the grounds that the so-called "net neutrality" rules had overstepped the commission's legal authority.

Interesting that this was reported in CNN's money section.

Here's how some leading editorial cartoonists view the topic.

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John Cole, Cagle

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Nate Beeler, Cagle

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Milt Priggee, The Week

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--Marge

DIY: Hardened fabric sculpture

What I had in mind when I started this post was sculpture that features flowing, stiffened fabric.  After visiting many webpages and gathering enough URLs for two related posts, I came across the correct term for finding what I was looking for--hardened fabric sculpture.  Time and conditions permitting, I'll be able to work with this technique this summer.

In the meantime, gathering information is the order of the day.  Here are some images of what's in mind.

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Robyn, "Bedouin-Nomad," VivyGirl Designs

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Terry Kruse, "Ricki," Terrys art

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Tracey Evans, Wall Plaque, Folksy

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Some products used to harden the fabrics are Paverpol and Fa-Brick.  A note on the Paverpol site says:

IMPORTANT: DO NOT pour Paverpol down your drain – keep a bucket of water at your workstation and rinse hands and brushes frequently. While Paverpol is water-based and non-toxic, it is made to cure rock-hard, and you don’t want it stuck in your plumbing. Periodically clean the bucket; let the material in the water settled, pour off the water into flower garden, etc. The solids that have collected at the bottom of the bucket can be disposed of in any trash receptacle.

Other substances can be used to harden fabric, such as starch, wood glue, and epoxy resin.  But I recommend using one of the commercial products because they are weather-resistant, can be installed outdoors, and are non-toxic.  No mention of UV-resistance.

The video below shows how to use a fabric hardener.  Be aware that she's using very small pieces of fabric and her method is not very economical.  Seems to me the excess hardener should be scraped off.  Also, the Helmar product is a glue and mainly used for crafts.

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As you can see, the process is pretty messy.

If you're planning on creating free-standing sculptures, an armature is a good idea. You can buy them ready-made or construct your own (video below).  Note that he's using metal pipe.  If what you're hanging on the armature is fairly light (fabric usually is), PVC pipe should work. No promises, though.  There are two things to keep in mind: if the armature fails, the work sags or even collapses and the final weight of the piece (metal is heavier than PVC).  Seems like some experimentation may be needed.

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-- Marge

Requiem for a world gone dark

EverQuest Next Landmark has gone dark.  While its darkness was planned, it's still dark.  Right now the alpha version is being wiped (read destroyed), to be replaced with the closed beta version.  When closed beta opens on Wednesday, the 26th, everyone will start from square one, placing new claims and gathering resources for building.  For some, rebuilding.

This may seem trivial to non-builders, but--as I learned on my last day of building there--it's not trivial to know that your work will soon be completely gone.  Oh, the developers have promised that they will template each player's builds; they also warned that the templating may not work well.

For now, here's remembering what we did.

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Over time tools and materials evolved greatly.  Here's a later build:

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Sprocks, Landmark Alpha build, Landmark Forum

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And we all learned new methods--

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Waiting for Wednesday and the next chapter....

 -- Marge

Cartoons: Crimea and winter

There's a lot of news about Putin annexing Crimea, and sanctions against it, and who-did-what-and-why.  Even Sergei Khrushchev, son of Nikita Khrushchev, is weighing in--he's writing a series of articles titled "Crimea: Whose land is this?" Note that it's published by Aljazeera (link resolves to the American edition) and that he clearly has a chip on his shoulder for the U.S.:

In Washington DC, the best minds of the Obama administration were feverishly thinking how else to make it more difficult for the recalcitrant citizens of Crimea. They will definitely think of something since they have a lot of experience in doing so. After all, Iraqis, Iranians, Syrians, Libyans and the Lebanese have long stopped celebrating.

Here's what some of the political cartoonists are saying.

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Jimmy Margulies, USA Today

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Walt Handelsman, US News

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Steve Sack, The Week

Meanwhile, on the winter front--

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Bob Englehart, The Week

-- Marge

DIY: Design your own home

Even though you think you may never be able to build your own home, things can change. And designing your perfect home is an excellent way to visualize being in a home of your own design and to figure out what you really like and want in a home.  You may want to check prices on some of the features you select--there's a delicate balance between visualizing and dreaming.

There are some excellent ways to plan a home available online.  Autodesk's Homestyler is 3D mock-up app with near-reality visual results.

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Autodesk, sample kitchen, Homestyler

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Plan 3D offers many design options, including decks and landscaping, and costs 2.95/month for a yearly subscription.

If you'd rather have someone else do the work, one of the contractors offering custom, aka 'luxury', homes is Toll Brothers.  They have models in a number of states.  Your part of the design process is selecting a basic design and adding options.

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Toll Brothers, Santa Fe model, Pembroke, NV

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My choice for a basic home design is a dome home.  There are many advantages to a dome home, such as energy efficiency; earthquake, tornado and hurricane resistance; and--over the long haul--economy. The article on Monolithic domes at Wikipedia gives a good overview of the issues you may encounter in building a dome home.  David South at Monolithic.org discusses the "True Cost of a Dome Home."  Here's a cutaway of dome construction:

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Monolithic dome, medium cutaway, Monolithic

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A dome home constructed in Pensacola has survived a number of hurricanes since it was built.

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Pensacola Beach, Florida, after Hurricane Dennis in 2005, Wikipedia

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Google Sketchup is a good way to design a dome home and it's free. Here's a link to download it. Applications for designing geodesic domes in 3D are listed at Domerama.  Some are open source.

-- Marge

Art: The licked finish, the wild beasts, and the cubists in room 41

In 1901 French artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau finished this painting:

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William Adolphe Bouguereau, "Rêve-de-printemps" Wikimedia Commons

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Bouguereau was a well-respected, successful artist, and lifetime member of L'Académie française. Quoting from Wikipedia --

 ...To many, he epitomized taste and refinement, and a respect for tradition. To others, he was a competent technician stuck in the past. Degas and his associates used the term "Bouguereauté" in a derogatory manner to describe any artistic style reliant on "slick and artificial surfaces", also known as a licked finish. In an 1872 letter, Degas wrote that he strove to emulate Bouguereau’s ordered and productive working style, although with Degas' famous trenchant wit, and the aesthetic tendencies of the Impressionists, it is possible the statement was meant to be ironic.

Also in 1901, 71 paintings by Vincent Van Gogh were shown at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in Paris.  According to History.com, "In his lifetime, he had sold only one painting."  That painting was "The Red Vineyard."

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Van Gogh, The Red Vineyards," Wikimedia Commons

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By 1904, beginning with les Fauves (the wild beasts), representational art began to lose its hold on the art world.  Les Fauves were

a loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. While Fauvism as a style began around 1900 and continued beyond 1910, the movement as such lasted only a few years, 1904–1908, and had three exhibitions. The leaders of the movement were Henri Matisse and André Derain.

In 1907 a "Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d'Automne greatly affected the avant-garde artists of Paris, resulting in the advent of Cubism" (Wikipedia). This style by Cezanne was of particular interest of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.

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Paul Cezanne, "Bibemus Quarry, Wikimedia Commons

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In room 41 of the Autumn Salon of 1911, Picasso and Braque introduced cubism and the break from representational art was made.

[Cubism] abandoned perspective, which artists had used to order space since the Renaissance. And it turned away from the realistic modeling of figures and towards a system of representing bodies in space that employed small, tilted planes, set in a shallow space (The Art Story)."

Here is a familiar work of Picasso's showing analytic cubism and painted about the same time:

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Pablo Picasso, "Woman Playing Guitar," Wikimedia Commons

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For good information on art and art movements, take a look at The Art Story.

-- Marge

Cartoons: Republicans, the Koch brothers, and hope

It's pretty clear that the Republicans have no real concept of what's on the minds of the majority of Americans.

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Dan Wasserman, US News

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What's on the minds of the Koch brothers is pretty clear:  control.

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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Jeff Danziger, Huffington Post

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Matt Wuerker, about.com

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Meanwhile hope for a balanced and responsive political system dies.

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Paul Combs, US News

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And on the horizon there's this:  "The CIA likes to write its own rules, but spying on Congress crosses a new line."

-- Marge

DIY: paper clay and paper in clay

A while back I tried working with paper clay, but it didn't hold my attention.  Pushing and prodding, squeezing and flattening, and smoothing to get the desired form are not my preferred activities.  (Sculpture by carving and reduction is more to my taste.)

That aside, the advantages to paper clay are several:  it's light, doesn't require firing, and doesn't crack when it dries.  However, you're limited to small pieces. The material I worked with was Creative Paperclay, which comes in small blocks about the size of a paperback novel.  The Papier Mache Resource discusses the differences between paper clay and papier mâché. To make your own paper clay, take a look at the Siegs' blog post at Dahlhart Lane.

Another term for paper clay is fiber clay and this is where the material gets more interesting.  If you add paper fiber to ceramic clay, the clay becomes easier to work.  A number of artists who work in ceramics have described their work processes and how fiber in the clay helps, such as Graham Hay at the PaperClay Information Site and the proprietors of Lakeside Pottery.  There's a good description of the trials and tribulations of working with ceramics at the Magic of Paper Clay; the site also offers solutions.

With paper-infused clay, you can make any just about anything ceramic, just easier.  Here are some samples of artists' work.

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Elizabeth, "Nest2010," CeramicsSculptor

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Graham Hay, Paper over Ceramic (paperclay), GrahamHay

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Linda Mau, "Teapot," lmau

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While looking for images showing paper clay sculptures, I came across the work of José Suris The Fourth.  He uses paper clay clay in his pieces, but most evident is his handling of paper.  Take a look.

-- Marge

What was that again?

Warning: this post wanders across the gamut of language and grammar.

We use language everyday, often to communicate something to someone.  Yet relatively few treat the language they use as a skill to be developed, honed, and sharpened.  Then there's texting and internet speak vs. writing.  (To look up grammar questions, I like Grammar Girl.)

Why is grammar important?  Without it you can get this:

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unhealthy, Grammar Fails #5, Meme Center

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unhealthy, Grammar Fails #3, Meme Center

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readingisfun, Grammar, Meme Center

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Oh, and don't forget globalization (channel is Smoukahontas Official) ... 

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In closing, here's an interesting discussion: What Will Globalization Do to Languages?

 -- Marge

Cartoons: Obama, Putin...and Lindsay Graham

The cartoons below refer to the unrest in Ukraine.  Here's some background from CNN: "20 questions: What's behind Ukraine's political crisis?. "  BBC News has a page--"As it happened: Pressure on Russia"--that gives a blow-by-blow account in the Reports column (some reports were tweeted).

Meanwhile talented editorial cartoonists give the real scoop on these recent happenings.

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Tom Stiglich, US News

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Steve Breen, US News

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Dana Summers, US News

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Dan Wasserman, US News

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Mike Luckovich, The Week

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-- Marge

DIY: Recycle fashion

In January my local art gallery, IGCA (International Gallery of Contemporary Art), presented its yearly contemporary art/fashion show, called Object Runway.  Most of the entries in the show are made from recycled materials.  Everyone has a lot of fun at the show and the gallery exhibit that follows is quite popular.  Here's a pic of one of the entries (I hear the piece weighs 50 pounds):

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Beth Daly Gamble wears a piece by Sheila Wyne made of 10,000 translucent drinking straws during the International Gallery of Contemporary Art’s 5th annual art fashion show Object Runway on Friday, January 23, 2014 at the Bear Tooth Theatre. BOB HALLINEN — Anchorage Daily News

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As a do-it-yourself project, making clothing from recycled and found materials is only limited by your imagination and an eye for what may be usable.  Seems to me the only rules are that the piece be wearable--the model/wearer can move in it--and sturdy enough not to fall off.  Modesty may or may not be a consideration.  To me the best pieces flow or move in an appealing way with the wearer.

For inspiration here are two articles. One approaches the term recycle from the angle of re-purposing old fabrics with the idea of making a usable garment.

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Rachel Wright, Green Diary

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The other approaches recycle with the idea of making a visual statement--and something possibly wearable--from found materials.

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Robin Barcus Slonina, "States of Dress," Brit+Co

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In closing here's an interesting story from Wisconsin about one teen's prom dress, made from candy wrappers:

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-- Marge

Art: We consume

This statement by artist Brendan O'Connell caught my attention the other day:

...consumerism isn't a bad word. To consume is human, something to which brands are incidental. "Buying a piece of art is a form of consumption. Looking at a piece of art is a form of consumption. Me walking into a grocery store and taking pictures is a form of consumption," he says. "There's that aspect of the zest of being alive. In order to be vibrant, you have to take things in."

Read more: Brand Name Painter - TIME (subscription required)

A fair amount of O'Connell's work is what he sees in Walmart:

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Brendan O'Connell, "Walmart Paintings: QuakerOats"

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About the same time I came across this video, "Food Chain," extracted from the film Samsara by members of the cast--Lisa Gerrard and Marcello De Francisci.

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Here are some other shots from the Samsara film.

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Samsara, Miami.com

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Samsara, FEELguide.com

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So, what do you think.  Do we consume?  Where does appreciation fit in?

 -- Marge