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January roundup
(31 Jan 2015 at 23:55) |
Happy 2015, everyone, and time to phone in another last-minute blog post. In two months will be the 15th blogiversary of Tom 7 Radar and I'm not giving up!
In the last post I shared Entire Screen of One Game, a quick weird-concept-game that I made for Ludum Dare (theme: Entire Game on One Screen). This game was by far my most popular ever, actually winning first place for "Innovation" and second for "Theme" (of 2,637 entries!). Aside from all the Twitter buzz, it also ended up in a fairly legit "Game of the Year" list as well as some mainstream media, including, incredibly, the "Must List" in the print Entertainment Weekly. This was a weird one for me, since usually I pour every ounce of energy into the game all weekend, but I did learn something about ways that things like this can take off.
I also started making furniture. This may be a problem. Here is my first piece:
One Nightstand It took a long time but I learned a lot. I worry that I may end up spending the rest of my life hand making everything in my house.
And speaking of arduous projects, current work includes trying to make the FCEUX emulator hack that I built for Learnfun & Playfun into a proper multithreaded library. This has been a crazy amount of work so far&emdash;the software is just so complicated and messy&emdash;but it's getting close. I have some specific stuff in mind, but also this (plus my new secondhand understanding of NES hardware and emulation) will open the door to other crazy NES projects. Watch this space (really, space inserted above this space in the future). |  |
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| I salute you in using-the-same-blogging-service-for-15-years solidarity! |
| Yes! We may be on our way to some kinda record... |
Hey, Nice side table Tom. It looks great, and deftly executed. I also appreciate the boiler room drain cover from November. Recall thinking:
* cool design (+1 outer cutouts upgrade, +1 gamete pun potential)
* bicycle chainring motif-ish
* material? presumably metal? stainless steel?
* how thick?
* how was it cut?
Then of course, one thinks these fun projects, become like seeds cast; a forest grows, and when the canopy meets, somehow you have become Tony Stark..
;) |
You are victim to the enforced standards of old technology. Wood is what they made furniture of before the 1950s. New furniture that outperforms wood can be made of aluminum, fabrics, kevlar, leather, mylar, plastics, steel, titanium.
I've linked your original site on crap art to my blog. |
Harry: Yes, I thought the paisleys looked like dancing gametes too! It's cut from 1/4" stainless steel plate on a waterjet cutter that they have at TechShop. I really love that machine. Obviously the construction is way over the top (and stainless will probably rust anyway because it will be frequently wet and touching the iron pipe below), but that was part of the fun of it. I probably should have tumbled it, but I don't have access to such a machine -- maybe when the finish starts getting crappy I will try. It's funny you'd mention the bicycle chainring since I have a related secret project.
Labann: Not sure if that is a serious comment. :) I'm a fan of modern materials, especially metal (in fact I used glue and screws to join this, since they wouldn't be visible), but grew up in an old converted-barn house and bought one that is also wood-everywhere, so the choice here were was mostly aesthetic, and as an exercise to develop my wood skills. |
| Zoe Quinn, yeah she's legit. |
I would like to thank you for those free fonts, although this is probably the wrong way or place to say that. (I hope you'll excuse me if that's the case, and also excuse the multiple, non-cool gaffes I anticipate making).
I also thank you for the how-to page, and if I ever get the right software, I have a font I'd like to do.
I sought out your pages despite my being aged and emphatically non-techno, because I work in a public library with 0 money to buy fonts, 0 tech help, and frequent need for eye-catching signs, flyers, etc. I enjoy doing the signs, but I'm using OpenOffice, and there isn't much variety to its font offerings that I can discern. Yours, if I can load them successfully, will be a big help.
I think it's delightful that you like to make things (like your One Nightstand; looks quite professional--not as a professional one-night-stand--oh dear, never mind), anyway, should you ever wish to do any programming pro-bono, on behalf of a library, if it's within your area of interest, I will be glad to describe what I wish someone would invent.
Thanks again, DH |
| Let me refer you to Matthias Wandel's woodworking homepage: http://woodgears.ca/index.html |
Ai, yai, YAI! Nice table, but stop at one while you still can. Turn back, my young friend! You've been bitten, nibbled, we might say, by the wood-maker bug. Careful! It's a bit like RH blood factors. What you do after initial exposure is critical to your future sanity, financial viability and social and emotional balance.
If I could tell my younger self something: I'd recommend selling or giving away all your wood working tools and eschewing any maker space or shop that will let you work wood there. Find and get into a 12-step woodworking addiction recovery program and stick with it! Don't risk another exposure. It's a trap.
There is something in wood now-a-days, something the military industrial complex and the Rockerfellow-Rothschilds-Banking-World-Elite Banking GMO families have had jet-chem-trail-sprayed on all forests that produce wood for building and making and working. Something sinister, something irresistible, something addictive. It will twist you. It will grab you and never let go. Beware!
I did not turn back when I could have and now my basement and garage and closets are full of table saws and planes and routers and jigsaws and Japanese handsaws and sanders and chisels and mitre boxes and clamps and drills and oil and stain and too too much beautiful raw pure bare wood stock. And my home and the homes of all my family and friends are adorned, nay, infested! with all the things I cannot stop making and then making better. Oh, my life! And, yet, I do so love the throes and thralls and fetters and lash this craft wields to entice, to compel me to the bench!
Happy making! |
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