One of the often overlooked problems with our dwindling oil future is plastic. As we continue to burn oil in our engines we are using a valuable resource that could be used for durable plastic goods. When the oil runs out, or becomes extremely rare and expensive, how will we manufacture plastics? We rely heavily on plastics for all our products; electronics, transportation, medical technologies, construction, and housing. There are few things today that do not rely on plastics and polymers.
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Blog
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Forget Gasoline…What about Plastic?
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Using Statistics to Lie
It’s amazing to me how many times I read an article and end up disagreeing with the conclusion. Not because I don’t like the results, but I don’t like how they arrived at the conclusion. For example I read an article stating that California leads the nation in motorcycle theft rates.
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Adobe Captivate V2 and V3 Review
Getting back to design and development topics I thought it would be valuable to offer my insight on this product. Being a courseware developer over the last 11 years or so, I’ve worked with a lot of tools. For most courses developing in either HTML, or Flash or a combination of both is my preferred method. It offers a vast amount of control and creativity. These methods do require a higher level of skill in web development, animation, and scripting but the results are well worth the cost. On the other hand Adobe Captivate offers some flexibility and a relatively easy learning curve for developers, and instructional designers and can result in a very professional result. Here’s my take the good, the bad, and the ugly.
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How to buy a bicycle
As a follow up to the article on cheap carbon frames I wanted to make a few additional points about bicycle quality that are less specific than one frame material. To begin, I think that everyone should ride bicycles. Bicycles provide low impact healthy exercise that is fun for all ages, and even more fun to do as a group. To get started you need to have a bicycle. If you already have one, or need to get one, here are some simple rules to follow when looking for a good bike.
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“Cheap” Carbon Frames
While I was working in the industry many customers asked, “Is X a good brand”. Most people don’t realize that the average $500 mountain bike is made in one of three factories. Giant, in Taiwan, is the largest manufacturer of bikes in the world, and make many of the bicycles you find under other companies names. Remember that these are bicycle shop bicycles, not department store bikes! With that in mind consider that only a few really exotic bikes (expensive), hand built steel, and custom frames being made in Europe and the United States, everything else is made in China (low end) and Taiwan (everything else).
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Silly Lawyer, what are you thinking?
According to John W. Dozier, Jr., the “Super Lawyer”, viewing his site’s HTML source, as in, “right-click – view page source” is illegal. They are trying to claim that viewing their page source is a copyright violation. Additionally they have an End User License Agreement, EULA prohibiting this behavior, as well as forbidding links to their site.Now the interesting thing is that the code for the home page, as an example, is really poorly built. They still use tables for layout, and the JavaScript is embedded in the header. Worse still they are an internet law firm.
There are a few things that strike me as ludicrous from a developer’s standpoint. (more…)
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Everyone can do their part
Finally an excuse to rant about an environmental issue. Blog Action Day has asked that bloggers around the world call attention to the global issue that affects everyone, the environment. Here’s the details:
Publish a post on their blog which relates to an issue of their own choice pertaining to the environment.For example: A blog about money might write about how to save around the home by using environmentally friendly ideas. Similarly a blog about politics might examine what weight environmental policy holds in the political arena.So here’s my take on what designers everywhere can do to help. (more…)
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Motorcycle Safety Gear
I am constantly surprised by the attire that I see fellow motorcyclists riding around in. Early on I had a very strong opinion that more protection is better than less. As a longtime bicyclist I was well aware of the results of laying down a bicycle on the road, and these crashes didn’t even involve cars, 350lbs motorcycles, or speeds over 50 MPH. Let me illustrate why I think protection for motorcyclists is highly underrated.
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More subtle changes
I’ve add an RSS feed link in my main navigation, and tweaked my Google Analytics a bit.
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The value of critiques
One of the most valuable aspects of a classroom environment, or working as a team, is the peer review and critique process. When each designer uses their personal experience to interpret the subject they bring a potentially unique view or technique to resolve the design problem. Each designer bring solutions that the other designers may not have considered. As a team reviewing these unique solutions each designer can draw on the experience and take away a much broader perspective on design. (more…)