There are several items not included here. For this to be a full cost breakdown I’d need to compute the cost of spices I used: Herbes De Provence and Cheyenne Pepper; and the cost of the rice that I used to, but already head. The total meal actually cost me nearly double that, but I only ate half, so I have some left over for tomorrow.

Sadly, no pictures.

Here is the Panda:

and here is the sketch file used to make it:
Panda.sketch

This photo was taken with a Nikon D300s (Aaron’s) and my 17-55 DX F2.8 Lens.

I’ve started biking to work. I carry a lot of stuff, sometimes including gear for swimming, running, working, and rock climbing. With my car, I just stick this stuff in the back, easy. On the bike, not so easy.

Solution: Big Nova

I asked my parents for a new Timbuk2 for my birthday. In the end I got a custom designed XL Messenger bag I’ve dubbed “Big Nova”, because of it’s color closeness to the Villanova colors. Most of my friends tease me for the size of the bag but I love having all the room to pack all my gear. Here’s a picture:

Lessons

Along with any design or creation project there are a couple of lessons to learn:

• XL might be a little too large. In retrospect I probably could have gotten away with a large. Having the extra space is nice, but I don’t think I’ve used it yet.
• The build quality of this bag is good, but it’s not as good as my old Timbuk2 D-Lux messenger. The ballistic nylon is the same, and the shinny center fabric are fine, but the trimmings like the inside pocket and the straps feel lighter and cheaper. It might just be improved construction, but they feel less sturdy.

I made a website for the test. It is the easiest way to share it with people. It does not require any log in and students can get to it from anywhere.

Here’s a screenshot (the site is still being worked on):

Here are a couple of things I’ve learned from this project:

• When making a video, look at the camera (this is obvious, but I didn’t do it)
• It is possible and easy to cover up the iPhone’s mic, be careful when filming
• It appears background SVGs don’t work on Firefox (really?)
• RGBA is your friend. The last parameter is a decimal
• For some reason Arial Black looks “chunky” on my site. It works well elsewhere, I’m still investigating this
• There are no real good fitness videos on youtube, or if there are, they are impossible to find

The process was simple. I created a mock in Sketch using the Futura Font for the “Z”. I then brought the image into Icon Composer, and exported it as an ICO. I modified the functions.php for the theme to include a function for rendering the link tag in the wp_head, and that should be it. It’s not appearing for me yet, but I assuming it’s a cache issue for now.

We live in a world dominated by consumption. The fundamental model of our world is capitalism. Consumption of products created by others. Even now as I’m typing this, I’m a consumer. This machine was not built by me. The software I’m using I didn’t write. The keys I’m bombarding with my fingers have a cost associated with them. The coffee that I’m sipping on was purchased just down the street. All of these are things that were made by others and delivered to my hands usually at the cost of some currency.

I’m tired of just being a consumer. It’s simple, perhaps a bit arrogant, but I’m too smart to spend all of my time consuming others’ products. What I produce to world is created through my day job, these products are the general design of others. As such, they lack both my personal mark and label.

As someone capable of creation, I demand more from myself.

This deserves a little bit of explanation. I found out that one of my friends started working for Duarte. I fell in love with their logo:

One of the creative projects I have coming up is designing a new favicon for this site. This seems like as good a start as any. I have a couple of ideas going forward, but this sketch was the start. It was made with Paper for the iPad.

The other day I was watching this video of Kate Bingaman at Creative Mornings Portland, and was inspired to start creating projects with rules. Rules, or constraints, help us focus on our work. No constraints means no work. I’d never finish a design or piece of code if I didn’t have time constraints. This lead me to the Make Something Manifesto idea.

Make Something Manifesto

Constraints

1. Create something new everyday
2. Share it with world by posting it online

That’s it. Nice and simple. The only requirement of making something is that it is postable. I could make a new batch of chocolate cookies, and as long as I post a few pictures and a review (maybe a recipe if it was a success), it would count as an item towards the manifesto.

Of course there will be days without internet, or creative urge. These days will need to be made up for on the next available connected day. I should end up with no less than 365 new items a year.

Today, I’m making this blog post, tomorrow who knows.