63Biscuit

I'd like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all of you who have collected, commented, and faved some of my work in the last few weeks.  I'd much prefer to leave you direct comments and appreciation, but alas, pressures of work, getting a house ready for rent, and continuing graduate work mean that I am limited to posting work and only looking around a little bit.  A long way to say: I can't get to all the messages personally.  Please understand I still appreciate your interest!

So, again, thanks for your interest.  I've got some more coming that I hope you'll also find intriguing!

Got to a "real" car show tonight, and got to use my DSLR (Canon Rebel t3i, should you care) for the first time.  Wow.  Sometimes, it helps to have practiced, thought, and/or played around with something...in my case a lot.  I knew, in a tertiary way, what a DSLR *could* do, but this shoot felt like the first time that I was actually able to use the tool and tell a much more compelling "story" with the shots than I ever could with a Point and Shoot (which I loved, BTW).  Granted, a big dose of golden hour sunlight helped a bit...but I compared many of the shots taken tonight vs. those from even a year ago, and there's a whole world of difference.  

So now back to you: what's your biggest paradigm shift?

A big part of what I'm working on in Learning Technologies (LT) involves design and aesthetics.  As Don Norman put it, "we use more, and find it to work better, that which we find beautiful."  I couldn't agree more - and once you start paying attention to it, there's a LOT of "bad" design out there.  It might be functional, but it might be crudely built, or have an issue or two that drive you mad.  In car terms, I think this is reflective of the difference between a kustom and a hot rod.  Kustoms are all about aesthetics, even if it's a mild kustom like my Biscayne; speed and function are frequently secondary considerations here.  Hot rods are the converse; they are built to go fast at the expense of other things, which can include aesthetics (although one could argue that there is such a thing as a hot rod aesthetic, it's not the primary reason for the modifications IMO).  I'm not saying hot rods aren't nice to look at, or that kustoms are slow.  Rather, I'm focusing on primary intents with the builder.

That's true in LT as well.  Apple might be the closest thing to a kustom - they have a lot of focus on the aesthetics, usability, and convenience of an item; sometime they build an analagous-to Roth-car and do something really, really wild that no one else thought of, and may not even "get".  So where the hell am I going with all this, aside from possibly starting a flame war between the Windows and Mac crowds?

My Truth is, I'm not at a final destination yet.  I'm so early in this journey towards designing new, relevant, educational material that I've only just begun to acknowledge what I don't know yet.  I'm doing this on DA because a simple blog won't capture a lot of what I'll want to talk about - it's easier to discuss aesthetics when you can collectively look at a picture and get the visual channel working to.

Soooo excited for Back to the 50's this weekend.  For those not in the know, it's the biggest show in the upper midwest - by far - usually over 10,000 cars all 1964 and older.  Always great cars (and lots of not-so-great cars too!).  I gotta get Biscuit all detailed, but he's running well.  Two friends haven't been so lucky - Matt's '62 Tbird is *probably* drivable, but not road tested (and he's working all weekend) and Alex's '54 Willys pickup may need some major carb work to get driveable...we'll see.

Stay tuned kids...gonna be a lot of shots posted in the next 96 hours.