Category Archives: Opinion

A while back, I mentioned that I was working on a Flash animation about a corkscrew for Methods of Motion. Not too long thereafter, I finished the animation, but had neglected to post it here until now. It’s called Open. … Continue reading →

Our first assignment in Mechanisms and Things That Move earlier this semester was to build a Rube Goldberg device that cracked an egg using no fewer than 5 energy transfers. The majority of the egg and no more than half … Continue reading →

For my fourth and final 4-in-4 project, I built something I’ve been planning to make for a long time. A number of years ago, I got this image stuck in my head of what the world would look like if … Continue reading →

For day 3 of the 4-in-4, I made a Blender model of an Atari cartridge, specifically, “ET: The Extra-Terrestrial” from 1983. This model is the first step on a large project I’m undertaking: a diorama depicting a hoard of millions … Continue reading →

Yesterday, for the second day of the 4-in-4, I made a semi-randomly generated 8-bit song. Way back during orientation week, a few of us were talking about music, as you do when you’re just getting to know a new group … Continue reading →

Yesterday, for the first day of the ITP 4-in-4, I organized a trip up to the Retro Arcade Museum in Beacon, NY. The museum is filled with arcade cabinets from the 60s and 70s, most of which are electromechanical rather … Continue reading →

What is randomness? There are many types of randomness, but for my money they can be divided into two broad categories, which I’ll call ‘stochastic’ and ‘orthogonally causal’. By stochastic randomness, I mean to indicate the traditional connotation of randomness … Continue reading →

I recently finished reading You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier. The book is the latest in a series of prominent polemics decrying the effect of the internet on everything from pop culture to basic human cognition. Because I … Continue reading →

Ever since seeing Man On Wire last year, a brilliant documentary about Philippe Petit, a french high wire artists who tightrope walked between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974, I’ve been fascinated with the idea of balance. … Continue reading →

This blog’s date of birth is somewhat lost to the mysteries of time and blog engine migration, but the most likely candidates are December 13th, 2004 and February 9th, 2005. The former is supported by the existence of this post … Continue reading →