I love my friends Carrie and Lisa who gave me the best birthday ever!
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A fully self indulgant view of my internal dialog - more than you ever wanted to hear
- Rambling about 3D Art from 2D images
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My friend Jenny Markowitz turned me on to this incredible techy sidewalk artist: Julian Beever. It looks like all he uses is chalk on pavement, but if you look at this art from exactly the right angle, and the exact right spot, then his art appears 3D. Check out the link for more photos:
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/
This is quite clever, and it's kind of nerdy, but it doesn't hurt that is art is interesting in itself without the gimmick.
This reminds me of the Stereogram craze of the early 90’s, where computer generated pictures sometimes called “magic eye” would pop into three dimensions if focused just right on them. It was really cool to me, because I was looking at an image that was purely depth, there was no color or contrast making up the image. In fact, in most cases, the color itself was noise acted like a transparent screen that you look through to see the true image behind it. If you have never seen one it is hard to imagine what that looks like.
Back in the early 90’s one of the smartest guys I have ever work with, Mike Bielinski, saw a stereogram in a newsletter or manual or something, and being an entrepreneur from the heart, immediately proceeded to create his own software for making them, and then he also sold posters. It was fun figuring out the technique and then an efficient algorithm for generating them. I think he did quite well for the short time while the craze was going on. He talked me into making software for the Mac which didn’t sell as well as his PC software, and that was pretty much my taste of entrepreneurship.
I had friends and lovers who just couldn’t see the damn things, not matter how hard they tried. Some of them thought that I was lying and that this was some sort of emperor’s new clothes trick. My friend Deanne found God when she finally could see one; she said it was a spiritual moment. I wouldn’t go that far, although it was very cool. But a person could get a headache trying to see one of those things.
Anyway, this Julian Beever artist has done an incredible job figuring out how to get perspective art on a side walk. I wonder if he can only do this with a sidewalk composed of square blocks. He probably needs a regular grid to help with plotting – but even with that help this must be super hard. I wonder how he prepares and executes this – it’s a nice technical challenge.
To see just how cool it really is, look at this image when viewed from the wrong position:
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/wrongview.htm
and when viewed from the correct position:
http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/missuk-cutting.htm
If you're not amazed then I pity your souless existence.
By the way, Mike and I both have our names on an expired patent (Patent Number 5123089) which I guess is my claim to immortality, if patents never die.
Friday April 14, 2006 - 02:29am (PDT) Permanent Link - Why is Prosper.com so Addicting
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So lately I have been into this site called www.Prosper.com. Here is how it works - strangers ask me for money and I loan it to them, and I don’t know who they are. What could be better? For some weird reason, when I explain it to my friends and coworkers, they act like I am crazy. They just smile that smug smile (Ethan you know who you are) and gently shake their heads.
The sad thing is not the obvious - that I will NEVER get any money back - the sad thing is that I can't stop going to this site and lending money to strangers. Every morning for a few minutes I check out my loans, check out the prosper group, and then I go to work. Then when I get home I do the same thing before I go to bed. I would probably check out the site during lunch, but I usually am working during lunch, so no time for that sort of thing.
The site is pretty amazing - people put pictures of themselves up and tell you all about themselves; how they have 3 jobs, but they got run over by a car, and now they can't buy their daughter a miniature pony for her 16th birthday – so please, just $25K to get through the next month, thank you Jesus. And what do I do? I "bid" on the privilege to give them money. I may not even win the bid, or I get out-bid and someone loans them the money at a better rate, and that makes me grind my teeth and I just can't stop loaning more money. Maybe the guy who saw a depressing movie and got so down that he maxed out all of his credit cards will take my money. And it’s not just me, there are a bunch 0f lenders doing this and some of us have a yahoo group and we message each other and none of us can stop. It's sick!
I suppose I could find time to hang out with my friends who wonder why I have deserted them and never return their phone calls or emails, but all of these strangers on Prosper need me so much more. And I never have to talk to them, so here I am helping out all of these people and I don't have to deal with any of them. Could life be any sweeter?
I'll know in about 1 year if this whole exercise was insane. The loans are for 3 years, and I figure after about 1 year I'll have a good idea if people are really going to pay them back. Unfortunately, the Prosper web site won't let us hunt down the borrowers and make their life miserable if they don't pay the money back, although there are the normal repercussions for not paying off a loan which gives me some protection.
Plus, if this works, the interest rates are sweet. While people make loans at all sorts of ranges, I have been trying to stay in the 18%-24% range. If this works that is not a bad investment, and if it fails I am not loaning so much money that my life savings will be in jeopardy.
You know me, I wouldn’t do anything THAT stupid. Ask me about Prosper in 2007.
Friday April 14, 2006 - 12:41am (PDT) Permanent Link | 1 Comment
