Zwickau

Found split-flap display with single-board computer

Turns out that split-flap displays, like this one from an East German train station, can only move on direction.

Every day that I push code to a repository on Github, it iterates one more destination. But every time I don’t, it has to spin all the way back to the previous one. By missing a day of creative work, I’m only falling behind a little, but it never feels that way.

The Dream of the Nineties

Salivating at the last decade of easy living

In reading Amanda Palmer’s The Art of Asking, I was struck by a tiny detail about her time in Boston as a statue artist that made me feel a deep sense of despair familiar to many millennials.

It’s simple, really. It’s that she worked as a statue artist and was able to pay her bills. Y’know those ones who wear makeup, dress like the Statue of Liberty or the like, and stand stock still? Occasionally, she’d have a shift or two at a coffee shop, and she lived in a communal house, but still. She paid her own way to live in Boston by busking as a statue artist.

I’ve busked. A lot. I make $100 on a good day, and at least $50 on a bad one. But as best I could figure, if I went full-time on busking, I’d be able to make about $1500 a month. That would pay for my rent and my car insurance and a box of atulfo mangos; nothing more. My rent is very, very reasonable for a 1-bedroom in Vancouver. Maybe I could find a roommate situation and also be able to afford many more groceries?

Lean Art

Making a Minimum Viable Expression

I’ve spent the last couple years struggling with whether or not I should be building startups. I was pretty deep in that community, and even though I think I won’t try to start one again, a few really helpful principles from that world still rattle around in my head, and affect the things I build as an artist.

lets ride

A skateboarding twitter bot from 2003

The millennium is new, and your shoes are held together with tape. The skate spots are loud with the sounds of urethane on concrete. @skaaaaaaaate asks you to come along, bring your deck, and kickflip a sick three set.

burned a new cd with tons of system of a down https://t.co/wOMz462REU

— lets ride (@skaaaaaaaate) January 25, 2018

haaaay Willie stuck a frontside flip on a four set 🤟

— lets ride (@skaaaaaaaate) January 25, 2018

If you grew up in Regina, you might recognize a place or a name or two:

cruising to the blue tit 👟

— lets ride (@skaaaaaaaate) January 25, 2018

Follow @skaaaaaaaate on Twitter, or check out the source code on Cheap Bots Done Quick.

Journeying

In search of transformative value

I realized the other day that people don’t often undertake quests anymore. The hobbits holding the One Ring had to go on a quest to drop it in a volcano; modern problems, by contrast, don’t seem to have singular solutions that would make questing useful.

And then I found this helpful piece of thought on the topic:

* A Quest is trip to accomplish a Task.
* An Adventure is a trip without a destination.
* A Journey is when the trip is more important than the destination.