I am launching my own initiative called the Rural Design Collective - RDC, for short - It is a mentoring program with a local focus designed to help motivated people begin a career on the Internet. It is just in the planning stages, and it will take awhile to flesh out because I will be doing it in tandem with my other projects (which helped shape it - more on that later), but you can watch this space for details.
Not long ago in my web travels, I was searching for a sheet of handwriting paper - the kind kids use to practice penmanship and cursive writing on - and to my surprise I could not find a single blank sheet to download and print-on-demand. I found a lot of practice sheets that were part of elaborate lesson plans and loads of flashy "learning" games - but all I wanted was the DIY sheet (I should have made it myself, but I was in a hurry that particular day). Lo and behold, I took five minutes out of my day today to create what might possibly be the most useful - and usable - page on the Internet. Without further ado, here it is saved as a PDF - guaranteed to work in any browser - and an open source .ai version to boot.
It has been a great year. I have been doing meaningful work, and to top it off - I spent the past couple of months as the Internet Archive Bookmobilist. It was a fun experience which helped me become much more involved in my local community. I also published my first public domain books! Both are based on projects with my son - the first is the The Amazing Sixes Solar-Powered Pumpkin People and the second is the The Head Start Critter Construction Book. It is quite liberating to design, produce, bind and distribute your own book on location (especially when you use a gasoline-powered generator!).
I have been working on several interesting projects - one just went live: 24-7 - a DIY Video Summit, a conference exploring the transformation of dynamic visual media. Through this project, I discovered many contemporary video artists (which rekindled my interest in some of my long-time personal favs), and collaborated remotely with some very talented people. In other news, I am excited to be a part of Open Library, which involves another amazing group of people, and gives me an opportunity to work with the Internet Archive (which, for me, is cool beyond words). And speaking of cool beyond words, there are some new things underway at Point B Studio that are keeping me busy ... one thing is for certain: life is interesting!
The Memory Palace Project was chosen as an Official Honoree in this year's Webby Awards in the NetArt category. I was thrilled by the news - and have been fortunate to work with a great group of photographers who were interested in doing something new and different (of course, now that Google just released My Maps, you can create your own map, too!). Development continues on eSPG v2.0 as a result of that work, although progress has been slow due to a very exciting project(s) that I have been invited to participate in.
When I was a kid, my Aunt Arlene used to make the most delectable (and beautiful) heart sugar cookies and personalize them for every kid in my class by writing their name in icing on each one. It was definitely different from the store-bought Valentines that most kids gave out, and it made me feel so cool. I don't quite have the culinary knack as my aunt does, but I do possess the desire to do something unique. So, my son, Nate, and I created our own valentines using Avery sticker labels, the World Wide Web, and our imagination. More ...
