A Sci-fi Geek's Guide to Raising Children, Part 3Battlestar Galactica Edition!

I'm a proud father of two: a girl and boy. I'm also a science fiction fan. One thing I've noticed is that there isn't a ton of entertaining and relatable information on raising children for us sci-fi geek dads and dads-to-be. What's a guy to do?

A Sci-fi Geek's Guide to Raising Children is my attempt at addressing that (black) hole. It's a series with personal advice on being a father but in science fiction terms. So to honor the closing of one of the greatest TV science fiction series of all time--here's Part Three: BATTLESTAR GALACTICA Edition (you can also readPart One or Part Two).

This has happened before. And it will happen again. You'll find that you'll be using the same bad jokes your parents used to tell and the same logic in the same arguments you had with them. The important thing to question in these moments is the same thing Lee Adama asked -- is this our chance to break the cycle? That's for you to answer.

And they have a plan. From a very young age, they develop ambitions albeit on a small scale. But it's always important to be cognizant of their ambitions. You'll be able to quickly evaluate when they need your help. Or if you should duck for cover.

Like each Cylon hybrid model, each child has their own unique personality. It's amazing how similar but different kids can be. Some of them love thrills. Others seek attention. But in the end you need to celebrate their differences. Their ability to have their individuality shine above the average metal-head cylon.

Sometimes they have imaginary friends that influence their decisions. It's not usually the manipulative Head Six or Head Baltar that's pushing them. Really, it's a manifestation of what they're really feeling in that moment. An imaginary friend can sometimes be the most useful thing sometimes. It allows a child to verbalize abstract thoughts and emotions they normally can't from a first-person point of view.

One day they'll have to scuttle their connection place they've called home. No, you won't get sucked into a singularity the day they move out. But that day will come and no amount of changes to the house (whether goop in the walls or photos in the hallways) will keep the home together the way it was when they were little children. They'll grow up and change and we'll have to deal with the decision to scuttle this home in favor for another one ourselves.

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Twitter of Oz -- Post #3

The following is Part One in a series documenting the making of The Twitter of Oz -- a modernized retelling of The Wizard of Oz through Twitter. Each of the main characters has their own Twitter feed and will tweet their experiences in real time as they try to get a Brain, a Heart, Courage and a Home.

I'm working on this at Visual Goodness where I'm Creative Manager. These are my notes as the world unfolds on Twitter.

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Summary of the story in the past few days:

Cowardly Lion -- Trying to find self-help solutions. He'll be my comic relief. He even considered at Scientology for a moment.
Dorothy -- Becoming increasingly annoyed at Aunt Em. Saying stuff like, "Who does she think she is? My Mom??!"
Tin Man -- His wife has left him and his mistress won't meet with him. He's utterly depressed. Continues to cite Beatles lyrics. Went out drown his sorrows late last night. Saw a flash of light, found himself along the river. Walked home in a daze. Back out again tonight.
The Wicked Witch -- Failed to kill the man she's been hired to kill last night. Used Incediaria spell. Figures she needs a more powerful spell. Ends up on a researching rampage.
The Wizard -- Suggests @witchwest actually miscast the spell. Ends up giving some guidance on different spells she's considering for the second time around.
Glinda -- Still trying to convince Wicked Witch to not kill the man she's been hired to kill.
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I've created Facebook pages for the witches, Tin Man and Dorothy. If i had more time and more hands, I'd build them out. For now, I'm forwarding the Tweets to their respective Facebook statuses.

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People are starting to follow. One in particular -- raggedj -- has begun actively communicating with Dorothy and the Tin Man. I've started to actively follow him back and build a conversation. Even asked him (as Tin Man) whether he should go and drink again given what happened to him the previous night.

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I revealed more of West and Glinda's backstory together. Back in school (college) West was embarrassed by her skin color, had no confidence with boys. Glinda believed otherwise -- felt that West had more to offer. They went out in Glinda's new car (I uploaded a photo via Tweetie on iPhone). They meet with Boq. Glinda locks West out. West is forced to talk to Boq. They hit it off. It's the start of her life as a self-confident person for the next year.

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I've begun mentioning spells:
- "Incendiaria" is a powerful fireball spell.
- "Elephanteum Rage" summons freaked out Elephants to trample on command
- "Lightning Strikes" Lightning bolts
- "Hornet Hordes" summons a swarm of hornets to attack
- "Flight of Daggers" sends a column of daggers at a target

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NOW LIVE!!! thetwitterofoz.com and twitterofoz.com. The both lead to http://www.visualgoodness.com/twitterOz

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The Twitter of Oz - Behind the Scenes Post #2

The following is Part One in a series documenting the making of The Twitter of Oz -- a modernized retelling of The Wizard of Oz through Twitter. Each of the main characters has their own Twitter feed and will tweet their experiences in real time as they try to get a Brain, a Heart, Courage and a Home.

I'm working on this at Visual Goodness where I'm Creative Manager. These are my notes as the world unfolds on Twitter.

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If you want to communicate with youth using Twitter, don't use Twitter by itself. Hook your Twitter feed up to everything: Facebook, web sites, mobile apps. Kids don't know what Twitter is yet. They might not ever know. For this target audience, Twitter is best served to function as a CMS.

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The single Twitter of Oz page is up. More changes coming soon.

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I learned the hard way that Twitter limits the rate of API calls from a single set of credentials (i.e. a single IP address) to 70 an hour. I've read elsewhere that the number is as high as 90. Some places cite blocking people for up to 24 hours. So, here's a tip: When developing a 3rd party API that's pulling Twitter feeds, use dummy content for most of your testing. Only connect to the live feeds when necessary.

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I might eventually open up Facebook pages for each of the characters. This goes back to the idea that youth doesn't know what Twitter is, but they know Facebook. I told my 19-year-old cousin Michelle that she was one of the ongoing inspirations for Dorothy. She wants to follow Dorothy now, but doesn't know how. It would be too much of a hassle for her to open up a Twitter account and have her visit Twitter every day. I suppose she could sign up at Twitter then use the Twitter Facebook app to follow Dorothy. But, really it's just easier for Michelle to befriend Dorothy and see her updates on her wall.

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I gave the Wicked Witch a name: Maggie Gregory. It's an homage to Gregory Maguire, the author of Wicked who named his Wicked Witch Elfaba as an homage to Frank L. Baum who wrote the original Wizard of Oz.

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I've played around with contacting Gregory Maguire. Might still do it.

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Right now in the story, the Witch has just been hired by a woman kill her cheating husband. The Wicked Witch comes home and is a bit troubled by the request. Her boss/lover (the Wizard) encourages her to carry out the request. "It's a paying gig."

Also, today was Glinda's bday. It's a convenient way to talk about Lion's origins (she originally got Lion as a gift, but quickly forgot about him when the next shiny thing came along)

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Tomorrow is the first time I'll publicly talk about the project -- at AKQA.

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The Twitter of Oz - Behind the Scenes Post #1

The following is Part One in a series documenting the making of The Twitter of Oz -- a modernized retelling of The Wizard of Oz through Twitter. Each of the main characters has their own Twitter feed and will tweet their experiences in real time as they try to get a Brain, a Heart, Courage and a Home.

I'm working on this at Visual Goodness where I'm Creative Manager. These are my notes as the world unfolds on Twitter.

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Publishing Setup:
- Multiple Twitter accounts
- Managed through a single Hootsuite account
- Tweets written ahead of time with scheduled pub dates & times

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All of the characters' first tweets begin with a statement of love:

Dorothy "i luv toto, but i hate kansas"
Wiicked Witch of the West "I'm in love!!"
Tin Man "The song says it all "I give her all my love That's all I do And if you saw my love You'd love her too I love her""
The Wizard "I am in love."
Glinda the Good Witch (of the North) "<3 my laptop <3 http://ow.ly/Iqn"
The Cowardly Lion Tweet #1 -- "I love to scare the crap out of the squirrels in the morning." Tweet #2 -- "Okay, maybe not squirrels. Chipmunks, maybe. Or maybe ants. But they don't scare very easy either. Or at least they don't show it."

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I decided to make the Wizard not Tweet on Sunday for a couple reasons. Less work. Also supports his conservative views.

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The TinMan is still human when we start. He's married. He's in love with another woman. He quotes Beatles' lyrics.

He makes a reference "Norwegian Wood" (2009.03.07 - SAT 7p). The song was originally inspired by John Lennon's extramarital affairs. John Lennon said he felt like Cynthia had tricked him into marrying him. He said:

"Norwegian Wood" is my song completely. It was about an affair I was having. I was very careful and paranoid because I didn't want my wife, Cyn, to know that there really was something going on outside of the household. I'd always had some kind of affairs going on, so I was trying to be sophisticated in writing about an affair ... but in such a smoke-screen way that you couldn't tell. But I can't remember any specific woman it had to do with.

As you'll soon see, Tin Man's Twitter feed will quickly become his own "Norwegian Wood"

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I checked the weather in Kansas on Dorothy's first day of tweeting. Coincidentally it was a day of light rain. She complains that she either wants it to outright rain or be bone dry. She hates meek weather. Coincidental foreshadowing.

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I'm trying to give each character a style of writing -- or typing at least.

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Dorothy is a composite of my wife's younger cousins: Jenn, Melissa, Michelle, Andrea, Angela and Kim with a sprinkling of a few my own family members: Mel, Lisa and Jackie. Their tone of voice, concerns and values will be the key to me sounding like a young woman longing for a place she sometimes thinks she hates most: Home.

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I'm currently working on getting all of the Twitter feeds onto a single page. Hopefully it'll be up tomorrow? Ha!

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The Scarecrow will be the last character to go live. In the original book he was only one day old when Dorothy found him.

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Interactive Spring Cleaning

For many of you, the Internet has become an absolute integral part of your daily life. Here's a quick list of things I recommend for all regular Internet users:

New Passwords
From bank sites to social media sites, it's a good idea to change the passwords to these sites at least once a year. They define your identity on a financial, technical and personal level. If you can, keep separate passwords for each of your sites. If not, at least keep different passwords for your financial and personal sites.

If you're on a Mac, you can use 1Password to track all of your passwords. To check the strength of your passwords, you can use a site like Microsoft's password strength checker or Password Meter.

Update Profiles
Okay, enough with "the sky is falling" attitude. Now's a good time to update your personal and professional information from LinkedIn to Flickr to Facebook. With the economy the way it is, it's good to keep your public ID as updated as possible. Update your skills, update your goals, reach out and network. New people will need to know who you are now, not who you were a year ago.

Delete Unneeded Cookies
WARNING: Geek Content Go into your preferred browser and clear those cookies you don't need. Personally, I clear all of my cookies. That way I start from zero and rebuild a useful cookie library.

Organize Your Bookmarks
Just as you do with the cookies, go into your preferred browser and clear those bookmarks you haven't had a use for in months. At the very least organize them into folders.

Remove Friends
Remove your link to those Facebook connections you really don't pay much attention to. It will help reduce the information overload. Like Clay Shirky said, "It's not information overload. It's filter failure."

Remove Unnecessary Email Alerts
Transit delay email alerts are the bane of my inbox existence. They were supposed to useful, but ended up cluttering my email even more. So I stopped them. If you have the same kind of problem, execute the same solution.

Look for better aggregators
Look for one-stop-shopping tools that bring multiple online accounts together. If you have multiple chat accounts, consider using Beebo. If you have multiple Twitter accounts, HootSuite.

There's a great article on managing multiple profiles over at Mashable.com.

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A Sci-fi Geek's Guide to Raising Children, Part 2

I'm a proud father of two: a girl and boy. I'm also a science fiction fan. One thing I've noticed is that there isn't a ton of entertaining and relatable information on raising children for us sci-fi geek dads and dads-to-be. What's a guy to do?

A Sci-fi Geek's Guide to Raising Children is my attempt at addressing that (black) hole. It's a series with personal advice on being a father but in science fiction terms. So, here's Part Two (you can read Part One, too).

Parents Really Do Have Super Powers. explained via comic superheroes of the past
You may not believe this, but parents have real-life super powers. These are actual and working super powers that all parents have at different levels.

The Healing Factor
When your child gets a minor bump or scratch and they have tears streaming down their cheeks, it's amazing what a few kind words and a kiss on the boo boo can do. Usually the super power is executed in the following way...

1 - Ask where it hurts. Once you get a clear definition of the location, determine whether the wound is beyond your powers (i.e. figure out quickly if the kid needs to go to the ER.)
2 - Ask for permission to kiss the wound. Once you receive permission, go ahead and kiss the wound.
3 - Ask if the boo boo feels better. If the child says yes, your super powers have taken immediate effect. If the child says no, return to step 1.

It's amazing how powerful this super power really is.

The Calming Effect
Is a friend of family member having trouble soothing a crying infant? Take the child in your own arms and sooth him with what you feel the child needs (i.e. a different position, a pacifier, a few soothing words.) Voila! You have a formerly inconsolable child now calm and relaxed. Call it instinct or call it a super power. It works.

Mom Hands
C'mon. Tell me this isn't real. I haven't the faintest idea how neither my mom nor my wife feel the searing heat when they pull that hot plate out of the oven. Or maybe they do, but their super power is really to withstand pain.

The Stranger Shield
Your child knows you have this power before you do: hiding behind mom or dad effectively makes the child invisible to strangers and unwanted family members. Sometimes the stranger will say, "I can see you!", but no, to the child the stranger really can't. (This is a derivative of the short-lasting Peek-a-boo super power where an infant is amazed at how you can magically teleport from in front of their face to behind your hands and back again.)

Telepathy
Okay, I'm cheating on this one. But really, as a parent you find yourself able to read your child's mind rather painlessly. (Although I've heard this power fades quickly as the child enters their teen-age years.)

A Child's Personality Will Morph Like Multiple Dr. Who's explained via (Who else?) Dr. Who
A wonderful aspect of raising children is watching them form their own personalities. You see the result of your influence, your family's influence and the environment's influence (Please, no nature v. nurture emails). But as they grow, so does their sphere of influence: they begin to go to school, they make new friends, there are new people teaching them. Most importantly, their communication skills augment by leaps and bounds. All of a sudden they become a completely self-reliant organism. You realize you've only gotten the ball rolling. This kid's got a personality engine of her own. Just like Dr. Who, there seems to be a new person who has the same memories, feelings and core personality -- but they're obviously different. You compare one personality/Dr. Who to the next.

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Is It Time for Return of the Jack-of-All-Trades Graphic Designer?

As Adam Savage joyfully pointed out, the full phrase is "Jack of all trades, master of none though often better than a master of one." With the economy's downturn and little hope for a quick turnaround, commercial artists everywhere are wondering how they can survive in an industry whose budgets are chopped first. The safest position might very well be where many designers my age were about 13 years ago -- the highly-valuable designer who can do everything.

From print design & production, to interactive design and coding, that single talent may prove to be small and medium companies' golden fleece. The reason is obvious: more design and production from a single talent.

I'm 34 Years Old
For the past 6-7 years, the industry shifted away from this media-ambidextrous artist. The Jack of all Trades had to specialize or die off: design? IA? animation? coding? video? Some felt invigorated. Most would say they missed the other skill sets. I fit that description. Now is there is opportunity to return to those roots and seek shelter in the comfort of being able to work across media. This time, we're armed with a key intangible: experience.

I've been approached for more and more work lately -- and of varied type of projects. From sites to photography to blog set up to brochures. Sadly, I've been too busy with the full time job as Creative Director at Visual Goodness to reap the rewards of freelance. However, the demand is there.

Companies are down-shifting to smaller operations for their creative work. The key will be how well the well-rounded designer can leverage their expertise and intelligently manage the work into a consistent workflow.

I know a few creatives who have recently chosen to go for this brass ring. Those creatives range from former production artists to former Creative Directors. The one thing that was common among them is their respective wide range of talents. I wish them the best of luck.

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A Sci-fi Geek's Guide to Raising Children, Part 1

I'm a proud father of two: a girl and boy. I'm also a science fiction fan. One thing I've noticed is that there isn't a ton of entertaining and relatable information on raising children for us sci-fi geek dads and dads-to-be. What's a guy to do?

A Sci-fi Geek's Guide to Raising Children is my attempt at addressing that (black) hole. It will be a series with personal advice on being a father but in science fiction terms. So let's take the ship out of orbit and go where most men have already gone before.

The First Day of School explained via the Large Hadron Collider
The first day of school is like flipping on the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). Often the drama surrounding the event is much larger than the event itself. The child usually settles in within five to ten minutes after you leave. But you can rest assured: great and wonderful things will be discovered as a result.

Dressing Your Daughter explained via Ghostbusters
Mixing Princess Characters in an outfit can be like crossing particle streams. Don't try it unless you know what you're doing.

Preschool Levels explained via Star Wars
Preschool has two levels: nursery school and pre-k. Hell, mixing up the two is like mixing up a Jedi Youngling with a Jedi Padawan. Geez.

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Unbelievable Fireworks Photography Tip

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This is NOT an original technique. However, I DID take these pictures of Labor Day Fireworks in my town. You can also see them on Flickr. Now to the good stuff.

How Did I Do It?
I had my camera on a tripod. I set my ISO down to 100, my aperture to f/9.0 (though I switched it up a little here and there during the show but not far off) and my shutter speed up to 1 second (again, I switched up here and there during the show.)

Now here's the key: set your lens to MANUAL focus. Furthermore, set your focus to the closest range possible. In other words, if you were to photograph the fireworks, they would be blurry as hell. This will create the billowing effect.

The trick is to snap the photo right before the fireworks burst happens. Over the course of the exposure, turn your focus ring all the way to infinity. In other words, if you were to photograph the fireworks on infinity, they would be crisp and sharp.


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What's Happening?
As the burst is captured from blurry to sharp, the camera's sensor picks up a trail of light that goes from fat to thin.. So, early in the exposure, the burst's lights are billowy and large. Toward the end, they're small and sharp. The time elapse in between captures the color and full shape of the streaking light.

The Flickr post from which I learned this technique actually calls for you to use a wireless remote to snap the shot and focus. I don't have that luxury. The funny thing is, it contributed to some unique tentacle-like structures.

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VIEW LARGER | FLICKR LINK

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Adam Savage and Fascination with the Dodo

I have this obsession with people's processes. It's my personal belief that art can be defined as the end product of a series of decisions. The person who makes those decisions is the artist. The decisions along the way are the creative process.

Everyone's creative process is different and the reasons are as numerous as there are people in the world. That's what makes art such a personal expression. And when you mix unique decisions with extraordinary thought and technique, then you have a master artist.

Adam Savage of Mythbusters is a master artist. If you have a free hour, I encourage you to watch all 12 parts of his speech at The Last Hope conference this past July in New York City. He talks about his obsessive nature and answers questions for 40 minutes.

He goes into his obsessive nature and how it drives his process of creating things. (He has a portable hand-held laser scanner that fits into a suitcase for Pete's sake.) Furthermore, in the Q&A he addresses requests to bust the WTC melting steel "myth"; a threat from American Express, Visa, Discover, et al to NOT explore the hackability of RFID technology (Part 10), and some equally AMAZING and hilarious slow motion footage from the episode about methods of sobering up.

Oh, one more thing. He reminds the crowd of the full phrase of a famous saying: Jack of all trades, master of none, though often better than a master of one.

Part 1 of 12
Part 2 of 12
Part 3 of 12
Part 4 of 12
Part 5 of 12
Part 6 of 12 (I'm dying for him to do the Monster Cable vs. Wire Hanger myth.)
Part 7 of 12 (He has a great quote. Someone had denigrated the quality of 3D/CGI space ships in film and thanked him for his work on creating hand-made models for film. His response, "By the way with the CG vs. models while I totally agree do remember that there are a whole bunch of people out there who spent, you know, 25 years building models. And you're seeing the results of all their work. Whereas, the whole CG industry isn't 25 years old yet. And I really do see, because I have a lot of friends at Industrial Light and Magic that moved from models into building virtual models. That the quality of model making that's coming out of the virtual world is increasing rapidly as people get past the learning curve. And of course we all know that where the rubber will meet the road in the next 10 years both in CG and rapid prototyping is in the interface, is in people's ability to feel like they're really interfacing with the virtual object.")
Part 8 of 12
Part 9 of 12
Part 10 of 12
Part 11 of 12
Part 12 of 12

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