Neophilia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neophilia is defined as a love of novelty and new things. A neophile is an individual who is unusually accepting of new things and excited by novelty.
Someone asked me the other day if I had ever owned a Mac. I prompted .”No, but I wish.” However, it hit me, I started on a Mac! The Apple IIGS to be exact. Look at it all it’s glory. It’s amazing to me even back then they were well designed. The keyboard was the width of the keys with pig-tailed ps/2 cord. Amazing how even then ~1989 Apple knew how to design an elegant computer. No clutter, just simple moves. I spent hours making images in paint or cards with Printshop. I also had ClarisWorks and a primitive version of Microsoft Office. I miss the computer, i wonder if it’s in my attic…humm.
Ever need something to do many tasks that a computer cannot do? Amazon started Mechanical Turk a sort of job system to divvy out odd-jobs to people for small change. It’s interesting, it would take a long time to make any money, but check out how people have been using it. This job was to create a sheep in flash facing left. They’ve created about 10,000 sheep so far, so someone is using it.
For the duration of this summer, I will be posting about my internship here in Omaha, NE. I am working with Randy Brown Architects design/build program and am assigned to the McKinley Project (a residential addition.) The ten interns spent the first 2 weeks drawing, modeling, and designing different areas of the project. I and another student are to design the staircase/bar (ascending 20 ft.) to connect most of the house together. After our challenging design began to take shape, reality started to strike. However, since most of the modeling was done in Sketchup, the ability to move from massing to construction documents was very fluid. I am not usually a big fan or using Sketchup for design, but the ability to draw very quickly and use dimensioned lumber/steel was extremely handy. The Sketchup model was all to scale and with dimensioned lumber provided by Sketchup, we were able to bring life to the form and create a feasible structure. The model then was sectioned and put into CAD and within less than a day, we had all dimensioned construction documents to build the project. Next part, building the stairs.
The idea behind the stair idea was to create a fluid flowing wall that bends and breaks and becomes more than just a staircase. The wall inhabits the stairs, it houses the pedestrians, it provides seating and bookshelves for moments upon the assent/decent. The viewer transverses the stairs entering the wall, breaks free, pierces again, then emerges from the wall. The wall continues upward to become the shroud to enclose the upstairs bar. The “wall†has a life of many responsibilities, not just one to be touched or dry walled.
It seems like every program has a calendar. Outlook, Myspace, Windows, Hotmail…but I’ve finally found a Calendar that works the way it should. Google Calendar is online, so it can be accessed from anywhere. Beside that great feature, you can view other Google Cal. users calendars. For you UNL students, they post their academic calendar online! It will even text your phone when you have an appointment. I have my calendar set up, so add me if you get it. Not like I have anything important to put in my caldendar, but wow what a great piece of software.
Hard to believe, but i will be back home in about 2 1/2 weeks. I’ve confirmed my flight and should be arriving around 10:00pm on Monday, April 17th. Starting to think of leaving is surprisingly odd. Perhaps I’ve been here just long enough to get into common routines and well, feel like home. Of course I am excited to get back and see all of you, it’s just interesting to think, how long does it take for someone to get attached to a place and feel comfortable? I’ll put up some pictures of my trip to Bath, Manchester, and Cambridge.
St. Patrick’s Day!
St. Patrick’s Day! Since I am Irish, It was an absolute must that I and my class celebrate St. Patty’s Day. What I found in London is that a lot of people do not. Not to worry, we found a great Irish Pub and had a few pints of Guinness. It’s interesting though, because on the one day (St. Patrick’s Day) in an Irish Pub (O’Neil’s) they only played one, yes ONE, Irish song! No songs about Tipperary, or Irish Eye’s are Smiling, or All for my beer and tobacco. Nope, just mainstream dance music. So I’m sure I should have gone back to Dublin to celebrate, because the amount of green in London was lacking.
I got a chance to visit a little place in London, (surprisingly close to my hostel) called Little Venice. And to live up to the title, it was a small version of Venice. Take a look at the photos and see for your self, it really doesn’t look like London! So I’ve found pockets of London that are stunning, and some that I wouldn’t be in after nightfall.
I have a 4 day vacation coming up and my plans are to go to Manchester, Cambridge, and Bath. Also, I plan on seeing Mozart’s Requiem at a local Cathedral also. In Cambridge is where the King Collage Choir performs and are world renowned. They are known for Adagio for Strings from Platoon, Clockwork Orange, Amélie, and others.
The small town of Shere. This is the setting for our next project. Assignment: to survey the city and turn in facts about the people and circulation. The small town (about the size of a small Nebraska town) is a small medieval town with remnants of old thatch houses and peaceful brooks. When we arrived, however, the small town of Shere was temporarily transformed into a Hollywood movie set. The movie is, or should be, titled “Holiday†starring Cameron Diaz, Jack Black, Kate Windslet, and Jude Law. Amazingly enough, the security was pretty lax around the town so we were able to move about freely thru the set. Because of the torrential rain that day, we camped out at the only pub in town – The White Horse. This was directly across from the set, so of coarse we kept an eye out for famous movie stars while enjoying our pub food. Although I am not particularly interested in movie stars, having Cameron Diaz walk into the pub with a small entourage of people was kind of surreal. She looked just like she did in the movies and seemed to be happy to see us students there. So there is my first celebrity encounter. And sorry ladies, no sign of Jude.
DandyID
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