Since we are developers we do need tools to note and draw what we think would solve the problems of this planet.

One way to draw a sequence of actions would be a sequence diagram. There are a nbumber of tools to draw them but now I came across a web service that would allow me to write my sequence diagram in a easy textual representation and then it draws the diagram for me. Great stuff!

Source 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sequence_diagram
Source 2: http://websequencediagrams.com/

It’s been quite a few years (since 2005) when elGono came up with the “Obey the Giant” stuff.

This campaign was subject (not only this campaing…) to a documentation called “BOMB IT The Movie”

“Featuring street artist and top graffiti writers from 5 continents the acclaimed documentary.
Bomb It is the first film to update the story of graffity with a truly international perspective. Each month we will presenting portraits of the artists from around the world in never before seen footage and interviews.”

You can watch the whole documentation online now! For free!

Source 1: http://www.babelgum.com/bombit
Source 2: Obey the GIANT

…if you do have a decent printer and if you haven’t got any graph paper – you could print it yourself.

thx to Kristian.

Source: http://www.incompetech.com/graphpaper/plain/

If sometimes you need to just create your own font… well maybe that’s a bit too much theoretical – but it’s interesting to play with a tool like VOLT. It’s out now in a new Version and I suggest taking a look:

“The Microsoft Visual OpenType Layout Tool provides an easy-to-use graphical user interface to add OpenType layout tables to fonts with TrueType outlines. It is licensed free and can be downloaded from the online community set up for it. The community hosts an active discussion forum, version history information, a wish-list and related downloads. Links to VOLT’s release notes, as well as tips and tutorials are also posted.”

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/VOLT.mspx

Apparently someone had some time to kill:

“The other day I had this idea, what if I were to take all the concepts I write, speak, and consult about and turn them into a concept map. That might help me explain how things like messaging, unit of work, and exception management work together and why. It also shouldn’t be too much work. Or so I thought.

I started out with a blank piece of paper, and this is what happened:”

Source: http://www.udidahan.com/2008/08/04/distributed-systems-concept-map/

It’s a piece of art in a carpark:

“In Melbourne I developed a way-finding-system for the Eureka Tower Carpark while working for Emery Studio. The distored letters on the wall can be read perfectly when standing at the right position. This project won several international design awards.”

Source: http://de-war.de/eurekacarpark.html

The standard nerd knows: physics is fun. Even better: When you play with gravity and friction and water an what-not in a sandbox. Now there are several tools available that allow you to do just that: Play with physics.

The first tool is called “phun” and is Windows and Linux only. It’s a small tool that allows you to draw circles, boxes, springs,… and when you finished: press the “play” button to start the simulation. You can interact all the time with the objects and the simulation by draging and manipulating everything.

There’s even a video available of phun in action:

It’s serious fun…that phun tool… yeah I had to write that, you know?!

The second tool I want to write about is called “Chipmunk” and is available for OS X only. To be fair: this is not a real drawing tool like phun – it’s more or less a game physics engine that cames with several samples in sourcecode that you can play with if you can… You need XCode and some Objective C knowledge.

So now go and play!

Source 1: http://www.acc.umu.se/~emilk/index.html
Source 2: http://wiki.slembcke.net/main/published/Chipmunk

“OLE Coordinate System is trompe-l’oeil interactive software that enables characters to wander along blocks and staircases in impossible ways. While M.C. Escher is famous for his “trick of the eye” works, this piece enables users to create and experience their own Escher-esque worlds. Examples of such animation expressions are: character movements based on a 2D interpretation of attached blocks which are not contiguous in three-dimensional space; falling motions on a single plane, etc. You don’t have to do anything special to create “trick of the eye” images like these. The user just clicks to position the block, staircase or character and change the angle.”

For a better understanding, look at the pictures and the video:

Source: OLE Coordinate System

Source: http://www.xkcd.com/c195.html

PMS GibGirl aka Evil Angela sent this picture of her back over Xbox Live today:

Yes boys and girls, this is an Atari logo tattoed on her back. In fact it’s looking great Find more pictures here.

Source 1: XboxLive
Source 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/evil_angela/

How to draw a car in MS Paint…

“Microsoft has forty seven thousand-odd employees, a huge percentage them very determined to change the world, and often suceeding. And millions of customers with the same idea.

Basically, Microsoft is in the world-changing business. If they ever lose that, they might as well all go home.

I chose the monster image simply because I always thought there is something wonderfully demonic about wanting to change the world. It can be a force for the good, of course, if used wisely. It’s certainly a very loaded part of the human condition, but I suppose that’s what makes it compelling.”

Source: http://www.gapingvoid.com/Moveable_Type/archives/003388.html

Real actresses and actors? What for? They are expensive and difficult to handle. And since the computer generated graphics really pushing things these days…

Oh..just in case you’re wondering:

“This is a rendering of SongHyeKyo, the Korean actress.”

Source: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=39949…

So, you think MS Paint is just nothing worth mentioning? It’s quite remarkable what this artist did in more than 100 hours of work:

“This drawing was done entirely in MS Paint with a Logitech laser mouse. I did not use the copy and paste tool, or the text tool. There was no color sampling or pasting from other images, but I did view some seperate images as reference, as do most artists. ”

it’s 700px x 10.000px in the big version

Source: http://www.ubersite.com/m/84167

When you played and enjoyed the LucasArts Adventure “Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis” then this is great news for you:

“Fountain of Youth is a fan-made adventure game by a team of both Indiana Jones and computer game enthusiasts. A playable demo has been in development and has experienced quite a few delays, but is expected to be available soon – and the design of the full game, (after much revamping) is nearly complete – for development to begin by Fall 2005.

We also hope to send out free DVD-cased editions of the demo and full-game once they are available to anyone who donates enough to cover the shipping. We also hope to create a special boxed edition of the game with a printed manual in the future.”

There is a demo available and the full game is expected soon.

Source: Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth

grab your typewriter and do art! Who would have thought of something like ASCII art being done that early?

Source: http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2006/03/13/ascii-art-1948/

If you ever wanted to know how these great pixel graphics are made or you ever wanted to create some by yourself – take a look at this great tutorial. A ten step guide to pixel-art:

Source: http://www.derekyu.com/extras/pixel01.html

I would like to thank Tim for his awesome work. This gifted guy is working on the final version of the official Technology-Ninja.

Source: Mumblebeast, Tims website

Did you ever search a font? I am searching the correct font several times a week. It’s everytime like this: I’ve got a picture with text in it. And I would like to add some more text to the picture. But this is impossible if you don’t know which font was used in the picture. Then I start the fontbook and compare the font in the picture to my fonts on the computer…this takes time… And now I found the solution for this time problem. It’s called “WhatTheFont?!“. You throw a picture into this search engine and you get font samples and names that are close to your reference font. Priceless!

Source: http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

Ink it baby! As more and more people are using tablet pcs it’s going to get really really – oh well – confusing.

I personally really like the idea of handwritten notes on webpages or especially like in this case in a web forum. BUT only if the information of the handwritten text is also available as machine readable, not to say searchable text. Because the tablet pc incorporates a really great handwriting recognition it wouldn’t be that hard to get that done…

And now take a look at Channel9. They lately added the Ink-Feature to their forum. And it looks great.

Source: http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=57600

it’s quite been a time since I noticed this campaign. And I don’t want to keep it back from you:

“The Obey campaign can be explained as an experiment in Phenamenology. The first aim of Phenomenalogy is to reawaken a sense of wonder about one’s environment. The Obey campaign attempts to stimulate curiosity and bring people to question both the campaign and their relationship with their surroundings. Because people are not used to seeing advertisments or propaganda for which the motive is not obvious, frequent and novel encounters with Obey propaganda provoke thought and possible frustration, nevertheless revitalizing the viewer’s perception and attention to detail.

The Medium is the message.“

elGono told me that there two Icon Sets available…groovy:

click to download

Source 1: http://www.obeygiant.com
Source 2: The Icons

Just found this site. Unbelievable what this guy does with just an etch-a-sketch…

Source: http://www.gvetchedintime.com/set.html

today I had a quite frustrating encounter with something called “policy”…

first: I’m very bad in drawing… but I had to test it… B-)

So by the way: I noticed that the quality of the drawings I made on my PDA are not that bad (as you can see for yourself)… maybe I can copy this guy a little bit.