Mark Z Art Blog

Maybe not, but the Naval Research Laboratory is developing the technology to turn it into jet fuel. That’s good news for someone who in 2011 consumed nearly 600 million gallons of the stuff.

Scientists and engineers at the NRL have come up with a two step process that converts seawater into liquid hydrocarbons. The process uses a  carbon capture skid to extract the carbon dioxide from the seawater and then converts it into hydrogen gas.

According to AFP, Vice Admiral Cullom said that the Navy is in the midst of “very challenging times” that are prompting decision makers to think outside of the box when it comes to finding new ways to fuel the fleet.

At this time the process is still pretty energy intensive at a two to one ration of energy in to energy out. Scientists expect that within the next ten years they will have perfected the process. The fuel should cost about five dollars a gallon and they hope to power both ships and planes.

With such advances in energy, power and locomotion, who knows, someday I might get to fly my very own Jetson mobile.

See ya next semester!

I was struggling with this one, what to write about? I thought about it, nothing. I put it down then picked it up later and still, nothing. I know, it happens sometimes, right, you draw a blank. And then all of a sudden there I am, in the kitchen, my wife is looking for a little late night snackage and she says to me, with a microwavable-meal-for-one in her hand. “This thing takes almost fifteen minutes to make!” The one in her other hand took only seven. Can you imagine that? Then it hit me, TV Dinners!

The Invention of TV Dinners

Now back in the day, TV dinners came in aluminum trays and you had to heat them in the oven, I know right. (Microwaves, huh? that’s something a tadpole makes.)
And it took awhile to heat them, they were frozen rock solid. I guess some things stay the same, although now a good portion of new age microwavable meals are kept fresh and refrigerated for even faster satisfaction, we can thank modern chemical engineers for that!

The Best Frozen Dinners

http://www.madscientistunion.com/

I suppose what really interested me most about the kitchen scene was the fact that technology changes the way we live at such a hurried pace, we can hardly remember how we did ‘it’ four versions back.

Chief Signoff

Does anyone remember the off air Indian? You know the one that was on the (black and white) TV screen all night, if you were lucky, some people only got fuzz. Well that’s what I’m saying. Oh, and you had to get up to change the channel. Now we can watch TV in our hand, even when we’re visiting friends and relatives. Don’t get me started.

No Phubbing

Alright well, I seem to have strayed from the topic, how often the case. The point is this, when was the last time you hung the laundry out to dry? Oh and by the way, my wife ate a pickle, a timeless classics!

Image Credit: CAP INC.

It’s a Great Time to be a “Maker”!

The Maker Movement is taking the nation by storm. Some have dubbed it the Third Industrial Revolution. Some call it a culture, some call it a movement; call it what you will, it just may be the way of the future.

So just what is this Maker’s Movement thing all about?

According to the wide world of Wikipedia,

“ The maker culture is a contemporary culture or subculture representing a technology-based extension of DIY culture.“

The Maker Movement is all about making stuff!

Image Credit: WIRED Magazine

Limor Freid on the cover of WIRED magazine.
Limor is an avid  maker of stuff, she is also an electrical engineer. She currently runs Adafruit Industries, a company specializing in the manufacture of open source electronic kits and components for the new DIY culture.

The Maker Movement is a new age approach to a time-tested DIY way of doing things. Through the use of modern technology, networked groups of people are coming together with innovative ideas and designs. Live spaces are formed all over the globe for these face to face workshops or ‘Fab Labs’, where designers and artists are able to utilize and share today’s cutting edge equipment.

Maker – A documentary on the Maker Movement – by MURIS
Click the link to check out the trailer
‘Maker’ provides an in-depth look at the Maker Movement and the ecosystems of design and manufacturing in the Internet era.

” Futurists have long predicted a day when people can manufacture most of what they need in the comfort of their own homes.“ – Carl Bass.

Image Credit: Popular Science Magazine

Meet Carl Bass,
the Maker King.

Carl spends every Saturday morning beavering away in his workshop. His smile is warm and his handshake like wood. Carl is also the CEO of AutoDesk. The manufacturer of the most widely used CAD software in the world. Not long ago Carl realized that two powerful forces, online sharing and analog building, were bound to merge into a new way of making things. Bass envisioned a way to bridge the gap between digital design and physical manufacturing.

His company then developed a simplistic modeling program then made it available for free download over the internet.

Jeremy Fish is a member of Adobe’s New Creatives,

check out this YouTube  video to see what he’s been up to lately.

From a digital art perspective, these folks have really got it goin’ on. I like all the new creatives. I spend as much time as I can watching and reading about them. So I guess that makes me a part of this networked, social media sharing, web enhanced maker culture. So have a look see for yourself, I’m going to get to making something!

Adobe New Creatives

Image Credit: Adobe website

END OF POST

Image Credit: Commercial Integrators

By the end of the year, the number of internet connected device will soon exceed the global population. The demand for online information continues to grow exponentially as the number of tablets and mobile devices continues to sky-rocket. It’s become easy to find out things about other people, and it’s getting a whole lot easier to find out about you.
Until recently, most of our interaction was done face to face, or over the phone. Now people meet online. Who do they see when they encounter your digital persona, is it the real you, or a fictional semblance of some alter ego that you’ve created?

Here is a video from online entrepreneur Nathalie Lussier about the importance of presenting your 3-D self through your digital personality.

Check out her website for some really good tips on how to prosper from your online presence. http://nathalielussier.com/blog/social-media/online-persona

What exactly is a digital persona anyway?

One definition describes it like this; “A digital personality or ‘pesona’ is a term used to describe the idea of an online personal electronic identity. It is the you that others see when they come across the digital footprints you leave behind. Others can add to or take away from your digital persona just as they can in real time by commenting on or about you. Quite often in today’s world, your digital person makes a first impression for you. It’s the first thing someone sees when they look for or stumble upon you in an electronic environment.”

Remember, nothing on the web is private. According to an article from Washburn University, a carefully constructed online persona can be damaged by inappropriate posts, comments or videos posted on the web. If you are about to begin your career or perhaps considering a change in employment, make sure you review your online personality from an employer’s point of view. Search yourself!

So what does your digital persona say about you?

“Over two and a half billion people use the Internet every day,” said Theodore Iacobuzio, Vice President of MasterCard’s Global Insights group. “This research shows that regardless of who they are and where they live, they all share something in common when it comes to how they act and behave online –these five unique global personality types. A study done by MasterCard concludes that there are five distinct global online personalities; Open Sharers, Simply Interactors, Solely Shoppers, Passive Users and Proactive Protectors. And that these personas are spread evenly throughout the population with little regard to regional or demographic boundaries.
So take the time to build your online persona with integrity from the ground up, who knows, your future employer just may be reading about you now.

Websites referenced:
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/37423.wss
http://nathalielussier.com/blog/social-media/online-persona
http://www.boingo.com/blog/2012/05/whats-your-digital-personality-ibm-says-to-focus-on-digital-behavior-not-aged-based-demos/
http://www.commercialintegrator.com/article/why_your_company_needs_a_digital_personality
http://humantouchanddigitalpersonality.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/sloan_presentation.jpg
http://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/whats-your-digital-dna-mastercard-study-reveals-five-global-online-personas/

For our fourth and final alignment exercise, we will create this post with an image alignment set to none. I’m going to randomly place this image right bout here, and note, the image is titled NOTA which stands for None Of The Above, of course, this is the top post for this exercise so in actuality it should be NOTB, but whatever, right? Here comes the Ipsum! Sed at commodo arcu. Morbi mattis nec arcu quis posuere. Vestibulum ac lorem leo. Integer pretium gravida pulvinar. Donec pretium mauris est, a egestas tellus condimentum ac. Mauris id nisi eu turpis fringilla rutrum. Maecenas vitae luctus lectus. Nam quis nibh et purus volutpat suscipit ac ac nibh. Sed in malesuada dui. Vivamus quis nibh bibendum erat molestie pellentesque. Ut sagittis ultrices enim, nec interdum lectus ornare vitae. Donec nisi lorem, sagittis sed pretium quis, feugiat quis ante. Praesent porta odio vitae dui venenatis, non adipiscing quam consequat. Ut bibendum, urna a iaculis interdum, mauris nisl lacinia quam, nec tincidunt felis purus ac quam. Pellentesque iaculis risus est, sit amet pretium est iaculis sed.

Curabitur tempus, diam in dictum rutrum, eros arcu imperdiet nibh, nec auctor velit eros nec lectus. Morbi faucibus eu elit in tincidunt. Duis in sagittis diam. Vestibulum in dapibus enim. Integer sodales dui felis, et dictum arcu porttitor nec. Ut varius congue sodales. Maecenas rutrum fringilla sodales. Morbi semper porta ullamcorper. Aliquam semper turpis augue, vel tempor mi fringilla ac. Cras eget tincidunt orci, a hendrerit orci. Phasellus nulla quam, ultrices ac scelerisque ac, rutrum vel dui.

Our third alignment option will be ‘centered’. Let’s have a look see on how this is going to turnout. Oh and I might mention, that this CMS does not work very well. It does not set the image where I select, if I try to use the thumbnail option, it creates a link. I have to manually set the width and height attributes, all kinds of silly stuff. Here is a fine example. I am going to set the insertion point for my centered image right here. Nam placerat ullamcorper magna quis fermentum. Praesent quis sapien ac risus dignissim sollicitudin. Morbi sed neque tempor, ultrices lacus quis, volutpat augue. Donec nec vehicula ipsum, ac bibendum enim. Nulla facilisis blandit condimentum. Vivamus et tincidunt orci. Ut pharetra fringilla magna, a porta quam consectetur at. Vivamus erat justo, convallis et vehicula sed, luctus imperdiet libero. Donec fermentum sollicitudin enim non fermentum. Sed et justo quis turpis vehicula sagittis at vitae mi. Vivamus ornare enim erat, et condimentum ante dignissim at. Cras consectetur feugiat elit id interdum. Maecenas faucibus pharetra est, ut porttitor nisl cursus eget. Morbi non odio non lectus feugiat dictum. Nam ac sagittis sapien. Quisque placerat sapien nec quam congue, ut volutpat ante pulvinar. Nam in viverra diam. Aliquam tincidunt leo sed nibh placerat eleifend. Maecenas faucibus ipsum tortor, mollis commodo diam lobortis a.

Okay now let’s go for the align right portion of this exercise, again, we’ll be filling in with Ipsum. Aliquam sed fringilla metus. Suspendisse auctor nisi nec nunc dignissim, a convallis purus vulputate. Nullam non mi ut tellus consequat scelerisque quis vel enim. Integer mauris felis, suscipit quis consequat sed, tempus a mauris. Donec bibendum eros neque, et consectetur magna facilisis non. Duis suscipit tortor ante, eget tincidunt diam laoreet eu. Cras eu egestas tortor.

Nulla a leo ligula. Nulla nibh quam, accumsan eu ipsum ut, tristique pharetra quam. Quisque id elementum mauris, vel luctus metus. Quisque gravida aliquam purus, sed convallis quam viverra in. Ut ligula ligula, fermentum sed purus tincidunt, egestas consectetur massa. Curabitur aliquet luctus libero. Curabitur malesuada in nunc sed posuere. In convallis elit arcu, eu hendrerit velit placerat id. Fusce eros nibh, sollicitudin quis aliquet in, ultrices vel diam. Morbi mattis nibh dolor. Vestibulum scelerisque tellus id elementum rutrum. Morbi faucibus, elit quis aliquam tincidunt, turpis erat dictum nibh, at mattis lectus sapien eget mi. Maecenas pharetra est a enim iaculis ullamcorper.

We will start this exercise with an image aligned to the left. Then add some Ipsum. So this my left image, cool huh? Now how about that Ipsum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum sollicitudin odio ut mi dapibus, eget bibendum lacus sodales. Sed non nisi a orci dapibus pharetra sit amet non eros. Mauris quis leo et elit scelerisque adipiscing. Nullam tempus pellentesque nibh nec feugiat. Cras ut orci gravida, condimentum urna at, venenatis dolor.

Integer rutrum tincidunt tortor, id convallis orci condimentum gravida. Nulla accumsan aliquam velit at tempus. Vivamus vitae nisi nunc. Morbi a ligula arcu. Aenean sodales dolor ut hendrerit placerat. Sed vitae laoreet mauris. Proin est nulla, auctor quis pretium a, consequat a magna. Vestibulum molestie interdum suscipit. Pellentesque malesuada lobortis libero. Proin eget ultricies felis. Vivamus bibendum ut diam a semper.

Here are my top five web design and digital art blogs for this month. Each blog is interesting and informative. Let’s start with a couple of general web design blogs and then home in a little on digital art sites, we’ll finish up with some rip-snorting hard core graphics.

#1. noupe.com

noupe.com gets this month’s best of show award. The blog sports some awesome graphics work. The layout is aesthetically pleasing and the navigation is quite intuitive. The site is well categorized with offerings for designers and digital artists alike. I’ll be spending a bit of time here! This site would get a gold star and a smiley face if it loaded a little faster the first time.

#2. INSPIRED MAG

This blog is inspirational! Again it’s geared for web designers with a slight lean toward blogging. Something we should all know more about. I like the simple yet elegant design of this blog, it’s content rocks as well. What I don’t like, is those big ads taking up most of the real estate on the top block, better get used to it, huh.

#3. DESIGN BLENDER

It takes a little digging to get to the goods on this blogs, but I believe it is time well spent.The articles you’ll find here are by and far tailored for the more spirited of those among us, the entrepreneurs. If that sort of thing rings any of your bells, then this blog is right up your alley. I found the overall design to be fresh and professional. It’s easy to get around once you explore the layout. Although the site claims to be a newsletter, it is in fact a blog.

#4 DEKE McCLELLAND

I have been seeing a lot of this guy lately, heck my wife is getting jealous! Really though, Deke is one of my favorite gurus. You have to check out his videos on lynda.com, anything and everything you want to know about the Adobe creative suite, Deke’s the man to see. You can watch quite a few of them right here on his blog, check out the rest of his website while your there. If you are into Photoshop or Illustrator, you won’t want to miss it.