Outdoor Viewability- x200t Superbright Outdoor vs. Motion j3400

My x200t is finally back from the repair depot!! Yeah!! I now have a keyboard to type posts and a functioning computer to do art. In the mean time, I decided to pick something else up (the Motion j3400), as I wasn't sure when the x200t was going to return home. The j3400 is suppossed to be the king of Outdoor Viewing for computers. My verdict?

It's very very good, but I'm not sure it's better than the x200t. Just different. Below, I have a long assortment of pics, going over them comparatively. In a gist, the x200t is more reflective, but it's brighter, and it has its own AR coating that reduces the strength of the reflections. The j3400 is a bit less bright, and has it's own AR coating that stops reflections in the their tracks before they even really begin, but, as a trade off, gives you this sparkly "sheen" that reduces color clarity. They're both very good, but as the x200t is slightly more powerful, has better battery life, and comes with a keyboard for the same weight as the j3400, I'll probably be keeping it, since it'll be serving as my main, all around computer.

Now, on to the pics-
x200t with the 8cell battery and j3400 in the shade outside--

x200t with 4 cell battery, comparison to j3400--

Partial shade--

Over the shoulder direct sunlight on the x200t-

Over the shoulder direct sunlight on the j3400-

A comparison of the thickness of the two computers-

Digital Painting -The Butterfly, and Oberon

 I started the first painting is from earlier this morning, and the second from earlier this week.  I did the work in paint tool SAI.  Working on the contrast and getting good texture—for example, in the clothing, in the skin, and particularly on the wings of the butterfly.  Just did it for fun—no real purpose in mind.

Poetry- "Looking Through a Half-Eaten Persimmon"

Looking Through a Half-Eaten Persimmon


Bluejays are eating fruit.
                                    My fruit.
They like to peck at the skin
until they reveal
     the rich
     red meat.
Here now I peek inside the hollow, where they’ve forgotten a seed.
Long and narrow, it’s the brown
     of old bruises and Valentine chocolates.
It’s still wet, with a caul. They don’t leave much
for the likes of you and me. The skin
is thin, barely a device for holding food, but look,
through the remains— a gift—
ignition.


11/18, 11/23/11

When will mobile pen computing really catch on?

I wrote this in a post today and thought I'd bring it into the blog. Since I'm doing a lot of art on the computer this new batch of slates and IPad competitors is very interesting to me. Unfortunately, I don't find them really functional yet. Here's my thoughts on the subject:

It took the IPad to get tablets to catch on. Now everyone is producing them, but there's still not much you can really run on them. I imagine Win8 might change that, but then we'll still have to wait for programs to become Win8 ARM compatible. So if 8 comes out next year, I imagine tech will follow shortly after or in conjunction with it, and then we'll have to wait another year or two for software to follow. As it is, there's not much need for a pen on these new slates because you can't do much with it yet. Just look at the Samsung Note- its got a Wacom digitizer on what is essentially an Android phone, but pressure sensitive apps aren't available. That sure makes it less functional. We have a platform but nothing to run on it.

Look at how long it took software to catch up to dual core processors! The truth is that, for many programs, an older core2duo is far more useful and powerful now than it was 3 or 4 years ago because so many more programs are becoming multicore and 64- bit compatible. I can only say that, as an example, Artrage is much faster now with its recent multicore update just because of that. Same computer as before, just software thats better able to take advantage of its specs.

Perhaps the new 32 nm cpus will help battery life enough that we wont have to wait for ARM-versions of Windows programs to be developed, because new "mobile" Intel tech will catch up to the older windows 7 software. That would be nice. Otherwise, I think seeing real, productive, business focused slate computing more commonly used is another 3 years out or more, IMO, if its running on an ARM computer. Tech first, OS second, software third. Then we have a need for a pen on these newer slates. Of course, the IPad has tech and OS, but it doesn't seem to want to produce pen-focused programs as an option, so that sort of nips it in the bud.

The reason I think ARM computers are so important is that they're clearly reducing the price point for new slate purchases for everyone, even current tablet pc users. Until your average Joe can get a real ultravertible or functional slate for under $500 I just don't think we're really going to see them around all that much. Once the tech is there (even relatively underpowered tech), at the right price point, I think the floodgates will open. Until then, I think tablet pcs are still going to be a very niche product. Current tablet pcs do just about everything I want them to do, but they're too expensive, too buggy and non-user friendly (hello Wacom drivers and Win7 desktop setup!), and too heavy for your average user.

I did National Picture Book Idea Month!

Well, as some of you may well know, this last month I did the NaPiBoIdMo, the national picture book idea month, in which you have to try and create 30 picture book ideas in a month. This was actually quite difficult and fun! It’s very helpful to have a wife that can help generate ideas for you.  In the end, I got over thirty ideas for the month. Of course, for me the most difficult thing is often taking ideas and truly drafting them in to the beginnings of a story. What was nice, was that when you signed up for the challenge you also subscribed to a blog where they had guessed writers for each day of the month. So many of their posts are also hopeful and inspirational! In addition, for the first 10 days after the end of the contest there were more blog posts about what to do with the ideas that you made. As always, the big challenge is to actually do something on your own without having someone else cajole you into action.

Of course, one expects to make 30 ideas (or at least I did!), so that’s not much of a surprise. However, it’s probably all of the extra things that I’ve not expect to receive that made the experience so interesting and fun. Probably the most surprising thing was that there was a clear benefit to thinking about a subject each and every day. Duh! Like most things in life, the more you work on a subject or think about it the more in tune you become with it. I began to see all kinds of picture book ideas everywhere. That was cool, and unexpected. It was also nice to get to read a blog post written by a professional every day on the subject of picture books. It definitely makes you feel like you’re part of a community of like minded people, and that the possibility (or even likelihood!) of getting published is actually achievable. They even had special posts from previous participants who had gone on to you as one of their ideas generated in a previous year’s challenge.

I also have to say that letting others know I was participating in the event helped make the fact that I am writing picture books seem very real—it was as if I was now responsible to others in order to live up to my own image of myself. Ha! It reminds me a little bit of the experience I’ve been having with Tasha, where she wants to wish on a star every night. When we begin to wish on the same thing each and every night, we begin to believe that it just might become real, because you begin to really make.

Anyways, I mostly want to let others, who might considering doing this challenge, know that it’s a lot of fun and well worth your time. I am definitely looking forward to the picture book marathon challenge that comes in February or March, where you’re supposed to write a draft of a picture book each day for a month straight. I figure there’s no better way to move forward than to just gets down to it… And get all those crappy picture book ideas out of the way early in the game! : P

P.S.
Hey, btw, want to know something cool? I dictated this entire post to my computer. How easy was it? LOL. Eh,it's a work in progress. But it was fun to try out!

Chasing Chickens Illustrations

I've been working on some new kid's book ideas. One of them is "Chasing Chickens". These are two rough sketches for that. Both done in Paint Tool Sai . The line work for the second was done in SBP. Chickens are fun! :)

Poetry- "A Mattress Lies Half-Buried in the Field"

First, the poem-

A Mattress Lies Half-Buried in the Field



It is the forgotten pieces that will teach us,
the derelict
and abandoned.
The garbage. Failure.
It is from weeds crushed underfoot, and from rust that we will draw our dreams.

For there is a kind of joy
that can rise
even from sorrow,
when you have let go and been
unacquainted with truth.

And this thing, here,
in front of me—
it is not a mattress, mildew, it is not
forgetfulness. It is not old— it is dead. It is
a companion, an angel, a still forgotten wish.

And you might think, having said that,
that this will be
the sort of poem that ought to end with lines like
“This is not the smell of death,
but of harvest.”

But it won’t.

For this is the smell of death.
And this is the smell of harvest.



November 18 and 19th, 2011


Now, thoughts.

I'm coming out of the Thanksgiving fog. Kat's off in D.C. for a few days, and Tasha is at her grandmas. Thus, 3 blog posts in one night! :D

Recently, I happened to have the opportunity to listen to Mary Oliver on NPR. She spoke and read for an hour at SF City Arts and Lectures. This was a wonderful thing to listen to. I've always been a passing fan of Oliver's work, but I just loved this reading. I was ready, I think.

I haven't really written poetry regularly in atleast 2 years. I wrote a few last fall/winter for my manuscript, "The Seed". But even before that, I'd not written much of anything for atleast another year. The joy had just sort of seeped out of it. I hadn't gotten much pleasure out of getting work published in magazines; I felt very isolated; there wasn't a great deal of joy in my work; and poets never seemed the types who would want to open up and share their work with you/actually connect. It had been a lonely, hermetic experience. That was part of why I let it go and started working on the children's lit. Anything that makes you laugh outloud while creating it is something you should be doing more of. And that's what I've been getting from writing and drawing.

Whatever the case, these poems came to me, and it's been a pleasure. I have a few more, and should be posting them over the next few days or so.