Lazyweb Request: What the heck is this thing called??!?!

Update: Thanks a bunch to Betsy Weber for solving this ever-so perplexing problem I had. As it turns out this shape is called a hypotrochoid (and the tool used to create it is a Spirograph™.

Well, well. My first official LazyWeb-addressed post. Don’t I feel special…

I’m trying to simulate electrons orbiting around the nucleus of an atom. I remembered this stencil I got many years ago that draws shapes comparable to what I want the orbit path to look like. Now I need to find out if there’s an existing programmatical function out there on the Internets to replicate an object moving in this shape. But in order to do that, I need to find out what the heck this thing is called. I’ve searched for at least an hour online trying to think of possible names this shape might be called—ellipsogram, septellipse, gyrogram, parabolic septagram, hyperbolic septagram, etc. — and haven’t found anything even remotely close. The closest thing I could find that may or may not be on the right track is Euclidean Geometry (found by way of parabolic geometry), though I wouldn’t know, as advanced mathematics is far beyond by comprehension — I didn’t take Calculus or Finite Math in high school and haven’t had any formal education on the subject since.

If I had to guess, I’d say the name for it begins with ‘gyro-’ (which means rotation in Greek), and it might have ‘hepta’ or ‘septa’ in the name too, to indicate the seven cusps it has, although this is complete speculation.

This shape appears to be made up of 7 identical parabolas (though technically I’m not sure if you could call them that because they start curving inwards at a certain point, and typically parabolas don’t do that).

Anyone have any idea what this seven-“pointed” flower/star-like shape are called? I’m sure there’re plenty of other people who know a lot more than me when it comes to this stuff, and have even formally studied it in University at one point or another.

Technorati Tags: lazyweb, geometry, shapes, math, what is this called?

Imperfect

Things don't have to be perfect the first time around. They just have to be good enough at first, and then they can be improved in the next iteration.

This is not an easy concept to grasp for perfectionists like me. I had to learn the hard way. Many a time I've been faced with the situation that my deadline was too close and I knew I wasn't going to finish it in time, so instead of submitting what I had done at that point (or explain how I needed more time), I'd rather not submit anything at all and continue working on it until I get it done, and by that time it would've been too late for my work to be accepted.

But I'm slowly learning to accept that it's okay to be imperfect. Not everything I do is going in a museum for everyone to see (although I often treat it that way). Things can always be made better, and being imperfect really isn't as bad as it once seemed.

Technorati Tags: Things I Learned, Life Lessons

Interesting Similarities

Today I decided to check out Google Maps Street View, which is an awesome new service just recently released by Google. It's almost like having a virtual tour of anywhere in the world! Check out the video below:

Interestingly, that first shot of Ryan Germick immediately reminded me of Dmitry Buterin during his DemoCamp8 presentation. (I unfortunately missed the demos, but I did catch the after-party that evening.)

It's because of the neon polyester, isn't it?

Technorati Tags: google map street view, dmitry buterin, democamp, similarities

A tribute to mesh

Mesh is a mere six three two one hour 5 minutes away (yes, I'm late. Grr last-minute client calls), and I'm really excited to see what new and exciting things I'll get to experience and what people I'll get to meet.

However, before I go on about the razzle and dazzle of what is to come over the next couple days, I'd like to take a step back and reflect what has happened over the past year.

Let's start at the beginning. Or rather, before the beginning. I first came across Rob Hyndman's blog via his Digg article that had gained a good deal of notoriety and controversy that day. Whilst browsing his site, I had found a little announcement about an up-and-coming Toronto "Web 2.0" conference, and being web "2.0" junkie that I am, I immediately subscribed to his blog so that I could get more details on the matter when they became available.

Because of mesh, I got a chance to meet with a whole bunch of people who I otherwise would not have met, and I'm quite glad I did, as many of these people have come to be my friends who I see on a regular basis at Torcamp events.

One of them was Sacha Chua, the most exuberant and enthusiastic person I've ever met. We kept running into each other at the conference, and it was a good thing we did. She graciously introduced me to the wonderful world of Moleskines. I think I might've got a bit carried a way with my conversation note-taking (à la Sacha) though, as some people might've found it a bit odd (and perhaps uncomfortable) to be documented as they were speaking in conversation, but I was Moleskine-happy that day and wasn't really paying too much attention to that.

I met Joey deVilla, the infamous "Accordion Guy", during Amber's How and Why To Podcast workshop (check out Amber's slides , mixed in with some videocast). Coincidentally, I caught his appearance on MTV the previous week. It was an amazing to meet a local celebrity like Joey for the first time. I was quite excited to get to meet him, and he's a really great guy. He even stopped to pose for a photo-op for me!

Many thanks as well to Pete Mosely, for organizing mush: among the people there were Stowe, Brent, Joey, Wendy, Leigh, and some more people who I can't seem to remember at this moment (my apologies) [I took some mush-y photos, too]. This year, it seems mush seems to be taking the form of a Facebook group.

There are countless others whom I can barely begin to name, so I apologize if I didn't mention you explicitly, but you know who you are, are I thank you all the same.

One really important person who I owe an enormous debt of gratitude is David Crow. Thanks to David, from whom I learned about BarCamps and DemoCamps (I originally wanted to attend BarCampTdot that took place the weekend before mesh, but I was already booked that weekend. If only I had found out earlier). I attended my first DemoCamp two weeks following mesh (kudos to Matthew Burpee for his kindness to me that day), and had a great time.

I would love to go on about these things, but it's already 6 7 9AM the day of, so I've got to try and cram in at least an hour of sleep (on the bus) before the conference. More to come in the future (and the update will be coming, too). To those of you who are coming out, see you at mesh [A quick sidenote: As I noted before, I'm quite glad to see that the "2.0" has been dropped from the conference's name this year (be it for legal reasons or otherwise). The web was never meant to be a versioned medium.].

So thanks again to Mathew, Mark, Mike, Stuart, and Rob for putting this all together and making this all possible! Without them I wouldn't have been privileged to know half the people I know today. See you there!

Technorati Tags: mesh06, mesh07, thank+you

No More Starburst

I've finally gotten rid of that retched-looking orange starburst that used to be on the top-left corner of this blog. I hated its look from the beginning, but at time I thought I could live with it as it was only supposed to be temporary, but because of certain delays and restrictions (*ahem*) I wasn't able to get my new site up (that, aside from me continuing to procrastinate on this. But I've recently signed up for a new hosting plan with a great web host, and I've resumed working on a new site interface (at second glance, the once I previously designed wasn't really what I wanted it to be like), so we should be starting to see some gradually improvements over the coming weeks (I've still got client work as well to deal with during this time period, so it's not like I've got nothing else to work on).

I've also been thinking about reworking my logo. Right now, this is my current logo, which originally spawned off from the title of this blog, .newmediarts | ::, which I truncated to .n|::, and then I played around a bit and attempted to abstract its shape & form (which gives the current result).

But the more I focus on the site, the more I notice how my logo doesn't quite represent what I want it to. It's not necessarily a bad-looking logo, but I can't help but feel there's something about it that's missing / lacking in it. Perhaps a human factor (as I pondered on twitter earlier)? After all, HCI & usability are among my many skills/interests that I'm really passionate about. (Sidenote: For those of you who don't know, Don Norman's coming to Toronto June 11—I highly recommend you go if you can make it.) Anyways, I'll see what becomes of this when I do some more work on it this weekend. Right now I need some sleep.

No, I'm not dead

Despite my blog inactivity for the past couple months, I am still alive and kicking. These past couple weeks have been hectic, but I promise to provide a more detailed report in the next couple days when things get easier to manage.

If you're impatient, you can always follow me on the Twitter (I've grown quite proficient at it. so proficient, in fact, that David Crow went so far as to call me a "twitter whore"—now Scoble's requesting it be on a t-shirt) or, if you prefer things of a more (or equally) random nature, there's this tumblog thing I started a few days ago. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: updates

Underestimating

After several months (just over a year, actually) of text messaging on my old Motorola V551, I've finally realized today that I've been miscounting the number of characters I'm able to send. In the 'create message' UI, there's a counter that shows how many more characters I'm able to type before reaching my limit. Good feature, except for some reason it starts counting down from 450 instead of the standard 160 we've all come to know and love (and hate, too, at times), and I don't think I'm able to change it.

Some time ago stuck it in my head that in order to stay below my 160 character limit, I shouldn't let the counter go below 340. This, as you (and I, regrettably) should know, is only 110 characters, restricting my content limit 50 characters short of its maximum length. Simple mistake: subtract the 100, but then subtracted the 60 from 400 instead of 350 (because I like thinking in terms of easy, rounded numbers). But this restriction hasn't really been too burdensome. In fact, it's helped improve my writing in many ways. Just because the space there, doesn't mean you have to use all of up. Why not make wiser use of those 160 units instead of filling it up with bagatelle

I find it gets my cerebellar juices flowing, try to condense my message to accommodate the shorter, making sentences sound better (I'm a bit of a spelling / grammar nut. And an major etymology geek. (I guess I almost qualify as a philologist, no?) So playing with words is fun for me). I often find myself expanding my sentences by cramming more words into them than need be, but I've found that the shorter they are, the better. They're more concise, and much more usable, especially since people don't really "read" text on the web, but rather skim. Less is more. It's amazing how much unnecessary, jargony crap can be taken out. Reading over and revising your text once you're done really helps improve quality, I find. Brushing up on my Elements of Style couldn't hurt, either ;).

Helpful software

Word Counter is a handy little app (essentially TextEdit with a counter, plus a few bonus features), and combined with BluePhoneElite to send SMS messages from my Mac via my cell phone using Bluetooth (almost as if it were like an IM client), I find it to be a godsend, especially when I'm trying to stay below that accursed 160-character limit. One small quirk I have in Word Counter though is that when I change my refresh rate preferences to "-1" (so that the counter updates instantly), it doesn't save my preferences after I've quit the application. But other that that, it's excellent.

*Note: I am aware that this post is this exact opposite of what I've been discussing, but I'm just using this as a place to put down my ideas, and I like getting as much out of my head and onto paper (well, sort of) as possible :).

Technorati Tags: sms, text messaging, writing