BrainBank: There's an Ant in My Boot Edition

This semi-stop-motion video wasn't exactly what I was expecting when I read "dude builds an art farm in his scanner and scanners it once a week for five years," but it's still pretty cool. I'd totally be inspired to start some sort of multi-year project, except that I'd have had to start it five years ago if I wanted it to actually impress anyone at this important juncture of my life.

Oh well. Ants are awesome, stop-motion is awesome, scanners are awesome, there you go.

BrainBank: Eat Your Heart Out, First Class Edition

Well, this hurt me inside to see, after recently traveling cross-country and back in the Coach class of an airplane. I had about a six-inch wide seat, with a generous four inches of real estate for my legs and the soothing sounds of screaming babies to lull me to sleep.

The Singapore Suite, on board Singapore Air's A380s, is completely cut-off from the rest of the airplane, with a bed and three-foot wide armchair. For good measure there's an integrated 23" television and multimedia center.

Of course, my tickets cost a little over four hundred dollars and the Singapore Suite costs $15,000, so I think I may be sticking to Coach regardless.

BrainBank: What a Waste of Money Edition

So this is a terrible, terrible idea. The University of Florida are spending about half a million dollars developing a motion capture game aimed at tween girls. This is supposed to help girls practice rejecting pressure from guys, which is an admirable goal. However, this is just not going to work for so many reasons.

First of all, in order to play girls need to don an awkward motion capture suit. Secondly, and more importantly, for all of that half a million dollar budget the boys look more like horrific marionette demons from hell.

Well, I guess it's still not finished, so there's time enough to at least improve the models.

... I still don't see how this is supposed to help.

BrainBank: A Nose That Can See is Worth Two That Sniff Edition

Yes, there are a good few ways of letting quadriplegics and other sorts of paralyzed people communicate in this modern day and age, but rarely have we found something so commercially viable as this. The prototype for this device, which measures nasal pressure to allow from anything from controlling a wheelchair joystick to spelling out words, cost a completely affordable $358 to produce.

In comparison, Steven Hawking's eye-tracking system costs upwards of tens of thousands of dollars.

Pretty awesome that something so integral to improving quality-of-life for paralyzed individuals could finally be so commercially viable.

BrainkBank: Invisiblus Infraredus Edition

We have an invisibility cloak, rarin' to go. And by an invisibility cloak, I mean a "cloak" composed of metallic metamaterials, using tiny resonators made of chalcogenide glass arranged in spokes around the object. I only understand how about a quarter of the words in that description work, so I'm just going to go with "it's magic."

Unfortunately, it's not quite ready to go for normal light yet, per se, so we don't quite have Harry Potter's fabled invisibility cloak just yet.

BrainkBank: Mmm Pancakes Edition

At last, our dreams of wacky breakfast-making machines populating every household are about to come to fruition. Well, this isn't incredibly wacky, but it is a machine, so I'd say that's close enough.

On a serious note, though, this is pretty cool. I couldn't flip a pancake without somehow setting it on fire in midair, so this robot can officially do something that a lot of humans can't; and not an inhuman something, mind you, but a something that is domestic and close to our hearts.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: True and False (or: ...)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

It occurs to me that after a couple of days staying up later than I should have and waking up earlier than I would have liked, my creative juices may run somewhat dry. It is at these times that there's nothing to do but throw on some techno music, crank the volume, and force my brain through the wringer on some important issue.

In the interim I have before the combination of Basshunter and exhaustion overloads my brain, I will be divining the answer to a conundrum that has long plagued me: how can I remember to send relatives Thank You notes after birthdays and holidays?

Well, if there's one thing that's easy to do in life it's be contradictory, so I will counter-posit: how can I -not- remember to send relatives Thank You notes?

Well, I could do nothing. Problem solved!

...

No, but seriously though. In reversing the problem I shall reveal a solution.

If I had to define the essence of failure to thank, I would go with "Unwarranted Apathy." I did after all receive gifts of whatever value, a caring gesture on my relatives' parts. While a good gift is given without a thought of remuneration, I can't deny that failing to acknowledge a gift is as rude as my mom's always chided me about.

Scrounging for an analogy, lacking gratitude for a gift is akin to thoughtlessly trashing a pile of unused clothes rather than donating them.

Thankfully, in the age of the internet there lies a way to embrace apathy while simultaneously overcoming it. By setting up a time-delayed email, I can supply myself with the framework of a Thank You at appropriate intervals and distill the process of thanking to a thoughtless thoughtful endeavor.

To the internetmobile!

Closing thoughts on this exercise:

I'm not going to lie, I really disliked this exercise. Jumping from 'creating a paradox' to phrasing a problem as a book title to finding an analogy seemed haphazard to me; certainly not worth releasing an entire new edition of the book to include. I like to write, so the brevity of this post is telling; I'm not sure the creative method really helped me try to solve my problem at all.

A short note about my creative environment:

I wrote this later at night than I should have, so I'm tired and bleary and a little cranky. I'm lying in bed but I can't really get comfortable, and the techno I'm blaring to keep myself awake enough to work is really messing with my concentration. My roommate has the TV on, which is showing Futurama and occasionally distracting me. The room is lit but it's pitch-black outside. I didn't eat a very good dinner, and I haven't kept myself sufficiently hydrated.

BrainBank: Apparently My Name Becomes 'Folly' From the Side Edition

I don't fully understand the technology behind this, but essentially what this web service does is take your name (or any word, or jumble of letters) and create it in three dimensional space using a series of points, which is then rotates all around until it can divine some sort of recognizable word from it. So, for example, 'Bobby' becomes 'Folly', while my friend Girish's name becomes 'Girish' because even Chinese technology cannot fathom his name.

The Engrish on site is pretty amusing, too. I've wasted a good twenty minutes putting in random names of people I know, and chuckling at the words it comes up with for them.

Check it out! http://en.genzu.net/sokumen/

BrainkBank: The Typestache Makes the Man Edition

I feel betrayed that we never investigated the glorious world of typestaches in our Typography class. Clearly, this needs to be added to the curriculum, including an in-depth study of which typestache each dude is best suited for.

Just goes to show, you can get some pretty cool results just from looking at the world from a different perspective. I need to start paying attention to things on occasion.

Chapter Seventeen: Brutethink (or: Hulk Smash Puny Creative Thinking)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

Ladies and gentlemen! Children of all ages! But mostly young adults I guess, since this post will be of particular interest to you. Today I have decided to design my ideal superhero, whom I'm sure you'll see immortalized on the silver screen within the decade.

In order to accomplish this, I am going to use the Brutethink method of creative rumination, which unfortunately does not involve the Hulk smashing things. Instead, I am going to pick a random word, examine this word and everything it connotes, and then force connections back to my original creative obstacle.

I decided to employ the highly scientific method of messaging a number of friends with 'gimme a random word' and choosing the first viable one some surprised friend spit back, which leaves me with: "plethora."

Alright, then, let's examine plethora. What are the aspects of this word?

1. It means "an overabundance of something"
2. It's uncommonly used
3. It can also refer to a depressive condition brought on by excess blood
4. Well that just made me think of depressed vampires, which amused me
5. It stems from the Greek term for "fullness"

Now to force relations between these components of my random word and superhero creation!

1. In the comic book universe, there is certainly an overabundance of super-powered people. This also puts me in mind of a Doppleganger power where the hero could generate additional copies of himself (yes, I'm making a male superhero, I'm not touching the portrayal of women in comic books with a ten foot pole).

2. Well, the most uncommon type of superhero is the completely non-super kind such as Batman, though arguably most "tech" heroes do not have superpowers. Since I've never actually seen a non-super nearly as awesome as Batman I'm going to steer clear of that archetype, leaving me with technologically-assisted.

3. Recently (more-or-less) there has been a trend toward humanizing heroes by giving them character flaws and emotional and social issues, though comic book writers seem to take this too far sometimes and dip into sudden-onset psychosis. There are enough depressive superheroes, so I'm going to take "issue caused by excess blood" and draw the inverse "anemia" from it. Weakness!

4. Well I think a vampiric superhero would be verging on the anti-hero category. I'm going to pull it back a bit and say that energy vampirism is totally on the level, which fits with the tech theme; so, the character could leech from ambient magnetic fields to power his devices, and directly siphon off energy from machines to fuel more impressive things.

5. I see a superhero name in this one. Fullness requires ample food, and one of the definitions of "amplitude" is related to electricity. Bam!

Let's see, that leaves us with the fragile, anemic hero Amplitude, alias Miles Reinhardt. An engineer at a weapons manufacturing company, Miles discovered a way to magnify the strength and agility of an individual by creating what he dubbed "resonant copies," energy-based Dopplegangers centered on their creator. An intricate device housed in an innocuous watch harnesses the power of ambient magnetic fields to generate these copies. The watch can extrude a metallic spike that when embedded into any machine can draw off energy to temporarily supercharge the device and its pilot.

Awesome! Now I just need an artist and a publishing company and I'm set to go.

Closing thoughts on this exercise:

This exercise is a little more unwieldy than most, since there's a pretty big temptation to just go with a word related to your problem instead of something truly random. I think my method of asking a non-informed, confused bystander worked out pretty well though. I'd read that comic.

A short note about my creative environment:

I actually moved from one place to another while writing this, which is a first, so I suppose I get to give both and a comparison. Initially I was working in a friend's room, sitting on his bed and leaning against the wall with a pillow. It was light outside, and some sunlight was streaming through the window. I was sufficiently distracted that I still hadn't made any progress after a few hours, so I went back to my dorm room to work, threw on my noise-isolating headphones and immersed myself in an eclectic Gothic metal, rock, and pop music. It's dark outside by now, though the room light is on and a reading light on my desk as well. My roommate's here, but doing something silently behind me.

BrainBank: The Power of the Galaxy in the Palm of Your Hand Edition

Behold, the power of the internet! Before its invention, if you weren't happy with your cell phone you just used it as a new bludgeoning instrument.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the problem Samsung refers to is that glass phones make terrible beating sticks, whereas the reassuring weight and heft of the Galaxy S will help you fend off zombies with ease.

But seriously though, them Twitters are a pretty effective advertising tool, and it's cool to see companies taking a proactive approach to marketing.

BrainkBank: CST Shuttle, Probably Doesn't Stand For Crazy Science Time Edition

This here is a spaceship. More accurately, it's a poor rendition of a spaceship populated by six terrifying adult male manikins and one terrified small girl manikin. But that's not what I'm here to talk to you about today.

Ladies and gentlemen, here we see a sneak peek into the wondrous world of 2014. Instead of taking a relaxing ocean cruise, families can instead strap themselves into a pile of bolts about as large as their closets and go hurtling through space at terminal velocity on the tip of a rocket.

They can then dock up at the International Space Station for up to seven months of having their bones liquified. Then, they get to parachute down to Earth and spend a fun few years in rehab.

But in all seriousness, cheap space travel by 2014 sounds pretty darn cool to me. Rock on, NASA people. Well actually, this is a private service from Boeing, and I'm pretty sure NASA only has enough funding to make model spaceships right now.

BrainBank: Back to Bionics Edition

Another day, another awesome example of the positive transformative effect evolving bionics technologies are having on mankind.

Today, there's a relatively simple slip-on bionic appendage that this highschool kid with a congenital defect that resulted in a malformed right hand just got. Even something as basic as the set-up he's got here allows for a pretty amazing expansion of his freedoms, if you think about it; typified by the simple act of holding a glass in his left hand and pouring a cup of water with his new bionic accessory.

I couldn't embed the video, but here's a link to the Gawker article with the video: http://tv.gawker.com/5592972/meet-the-courageous-18+year+old-with-a-brand-new-bionic-hand

BrainBank: It's Like That One Story About That Guy Edition

This Porsche used to be a crappy cell phone. Isn't that cool? This guy, over the course of two years of dedicated trading on Craigslist, managed to extremely circuitously trade his way up to a Porsche.

On the other hand, the sheer amount of time spent negotiating all of these trades probably could have been spent pan-handling, or something equally lucrative, so in two years he could have bought a Porsche and a half.

Possibly.

Random Objects

The first twenty objects I get from a random Flickr feed are:

1. Theater seats
2. Flamingo
3. Flowers
4. Tree
5. Graffiti
6. Dog
7. Building
8. Amusement park slide
9. Field
10. Hallway
11. Telephone line
12. Puffin
13. DSLR Camera
14. Jeep
15. Boat
16. Cheesecake
17. Snail
18. Doll
19. Toy firetruck
20. Insect

Novel combination!

1. Graffiti and Tree: make natural murals out of plantlife and florescent dyes
2. Amusement park slide and Flowers: have a slide in a park lined with petals. It would be pretty.
3. Snail and Toy firetruck: Create a steering apparatus for the snail to allow for highly-mobile snails
4. Flamingo and Telephone line: Make genetically-engineered gigantic flamingos and use their legs to replace telephone poles with a natural alternative
5. DSLR Camera and Puffin: Puffin-powered cameras, harnessing the natural grace and agility of the puffin
6. Boat and Cheesecake: A candy boat in a chocolate lake, lined with cheesecake fencing
7. Dog and Insect: Seeing-eye insects for blind dogs
8. Theater seats and Doll: Movie theaters have a special section for kids where the seats have compartments for dolls and stuffed animals
9. Building and Jeep: Repurpose old jeeps into low-income housing
10. Field and Hallway: Plant grass in your hallways to get closer to nature

If I were to incorporate any of these ideas into my novel's story, I would say the most appropriate idea is the first one; I could incorporate some sort of graffiti in nature into the story, something to guide the character or just creep them out. I could also have buildings lashed together out of vehicles, and hallways overgrown with foliage. The other ideas I think are a bit to outlandish to include.

Pick a Fight!

So what are the pros and cons of obeying the rules?

Pros:
- You don't get thrown in jail
- You have a definitive path to follow

Cons:
- You sleepwalk through life, man
- You don't step out of your comfort zone
- Some rules are stupid / dangerous

How about being different?

Pros:
- People will find you more interesting
- You can find solutions others can't by thinking outside the box

Cons:
- If you're different in a "bad" way discrimination could come up
- You can get singled out

I would have thought of more clever ways to segue into the above but I'm sleepy.

JumpStart: What does this have to do with that?

I'm sitting in a coffee shop, minding my own business and drinking some hot chocolate in the middle of summer, when all of a sudden this crazed-looking man with wild eyes runs up to me, shoves a bag into my hands, whispers harshly: "Keep this secret! Keep it safe!" and sprints off. I look inside the bag to behold:

A few minutes later, three harried-looking FBI agents burst into the coffee shop. Luckily, I'd already snapped the bag closed before the bee or the Luchadore could escape, and the agents can't hear the angry buzzing over the general murmur of the surprised patrons. Frustrated, they wander off.

Little did I know that I had just stumbled upon a great adventure. That wildman I mistook for a crazed bum was actually a U.S. senator that had stumbled upon a great and terrible secret, a conspiracy that stretched into such diverse fields as children's toys manufacturers, beekeepers, and actual fields with strawberry plantation owners.

Each of the items in the bag held a key to the piece of the puzzle, a microchip implanted inside of them which, when held together in front of a vault beneath the White House, would unlock evidence on every conspiracy real or imagined the U.S. has ever spawned.

... unfortunately, the bee ate the strawberry and caused a miniature nuclear explosion that took out half of Philadelphia, and I never found out more.

I Choose You, Pikachu

I've gone over this in some previous posts, but just as a refresher, I would like to write a Choose Your Own Adventure story. To this end, I shall be brainstorming on the topic and reflecting upon the great questions of the universe.

Define the Problem

What am I trying to say, and why?

A Choose Your Own Adventure story is, for the uninformed, a novel written in second-person perspective where the reader is presented with choices and turns to a certain page to see how they've affected the narrative.

The genre fell into obscurity after the early 90's, most likely due to the prevalence of videogames, which presented a far more visceral experience for a "player" than the classic Choose Your Adventure. I want to return to the roots of gaming, as it were, with this project.

Who are you talking to, and why?

I suppose this story would be targeted at individuals such as myself who are old enough to remember Choose Your Own Adventure stories; probably not the originals, but certainly the Goosebumps ones at least. I want to stir up some nostalgia, and remind people that you can use that thing called an imagination in conjunction with text to make images in your head.

What can you say that the competition can't?

What competition?

What is your reason for being?

Omniscience.

Restructure Your Problem

1. Make it more global/specific

The Five Whys
- Problem: I want to write a Choose Your Own Adventure story.
1. Why? - I'm interested in the genre.
2. Why? - I enjoyed Choose Your Own novels when I was younger.
3. Why? - The fact that I could be involved with a story and influence its course was awesome.
4. Why? - It was the closest I could get to a videogame experience that leveraged all of my imagination.
5. Why? - There's no code or graphics involved, just traditional text used in a non-traditional way.

Who, What, When, Why, Where, How
Who: Myself as the author and my potential audience of children to young adults.
What: My handy-dandy Word Processor, and also a pen and paper on occasion.
When: Over the course of the next five-odd weeks whenever I have time.
Why: I've been over this already.
Where: My dorm room most likely, or wherever I'm struck by inspiration.
How: I found an old Choose Your Own Adventure book while volunteering at the library and it sparked nostalgia.

2. Separate the parts from the whole

3. Rephrase the problem

Change the Words
I want to write a Choose Your Own Adventure game.
I want the right to a Choose Your Own Adventure game.
A Choose Your Own Adventure game is right.
Choosing to write a game is an adventure.
I am game to write an adventure with many choices.
I choose to game, and write my own adventure.

Create a Word Chain
adventure
quest
road
travel
ground
catacombs
skeletons
scimitars
steel
superhero
law
light
warriors
victory

Make it a positive action statement

The Action: I'm going to write.
The Object: I'm going to reintroduce Choose Your Own Adventures.
The Qualifier: I'm going to go back to the roots of gaming.
The Result: I'm going to create an engaging story.

Switch perspective

Look for polar opposites

Well, this is easy. The opposite of a Choose Your Own is a normal book. If I were to consider my project from the standpoint of a normal novel, it would have a single end and an overarching narrative with recurring characters.

Da Vinci's Multiple Perspectives

My point of view: I would author an engaging Choose Your Own Adventure.
Alternate perspective: Many of the established Choose Your Own Adventures come across as cheesy.
Alternative perspective: The idea is sound, but in the end the choices always wind up being limited which disappoints the reader.

All-inclusive statement: In order to create an engaging adventure, I need to avoid cheesy elements and keep the reader from feeling that they have no true choices in the narrative.

Use questions

Why is it necessary?
It will reignite my interest in writing in a way that still ties into my interest in gaming.

What is unknown?
The plot and exact genre of the adventure.

What do you understand about it?
Choose Your Own Adventures are fun for children but can get frustrating easily.

What do you not understand about it?
I don't yet know how to construct a narrative that doesn't lead into an unwieldy number of forks.

What info do you have? Is it sufficient/redundant?
I've read every adventure story known to man, so that's probably helpful.

Can you draw the problem as a diagram?

o
->
->

What are the boundaries?
Good taste.

Have you seen the problem before? or something similar?
Why yes, I have. It was a series of books of the actual name Choose Your Own Adventure; Goosebumps also did a number of Choose Your Own Adventure stories.

What are the best/worst/predictable scenarios?
I create something awesome/everyone hates it/I create something mediocre that serves as a jumping-off point.

Why is it necessary?
Because I said so.

Think of the problem as:

a living creature. What would it look like? Draw it.
It would look like a hydra. I can't make a badass-looking hydra, so in place of that check this out.

being edible. What would it taste like?
Everlasting gobstoppers.

being the top of something. What is underneath it?
Treasure.

being a color. What color would it be and why?
White, because the essence of a Choose Your Own is free choice, and white represents an unlimited opportunity to create.

being a sound. How would it sound? Loud or quiet?
It would sound like classical music, intricate but with a definitive theme.

being a texture. Describe it.
A rough, gnarled texture with myriad ridges and whorls.

define something beautiful about it.
This adventure should be a pure link between text and the imagination, placing the reader directly into the story in the role of protagonist.

BrainBank: Oh Man This Is What I've Always Dreamed of Edition

Oh man, a portable way to keep my watermelon cool? This is the best thing since sliced bread, or possibly the sliced bread cooler. Naturally this is a Japanese product, since only the Japanese would look at a watermelon and think "this needs an invention dedication to its well-being and preservation."

I wonder what else you could store in a watermelon cooler? The possibilities are endless.

BrainBank: So That's What She's Smiling About Edition

On the left, we see the Mona Lisa. On the right, lasers.

To be more specific, apparently scientists just made a major breakthrough with the Mona Lisa by examining it with a non-invasing X-ray procedure. They discovered that the subtle highlights and shadows were created using a technique known as Sfumato.

In other news, the sky is blue. I mean, we learned this in art history class, this is not actually anything new at all. I think the news is supposed to be that this super-duper triple dog confirmed it, but come on now. The Mona Lisa has particularly intricate layering and amazing detail in said shadows and highlights because Leonardo da Vinci is Leonardo da Vinci. Sfumato was an established technique, he didn't need to do anything crazy with his painting, just use the technique really well.

Tune in next time, when science confirms that ancient Greek statues were originally painted.

Chapter Twenty-Six: Stone Soup (or: I'm Hungry, I Can't Think of Anything Witty)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

Thus far I've pondered a great number of problems relating to my life or obstacles I'd like to overcome, ranging from important to trivial. I haven't really thought about theoretical issues, though; that is, something larger than my life that I would not normally think about. Right now, the only larger problem I'm actively thinking about is global warming, mostly because it is hellishly hot in Philadelphia right now.

My problem is thus: "How can we solve global warming?" I will be following the 'what if' method here, wherein I slap down a number of 'what if' scenarios ranging from the plausible to the absurd and then pick one to further investigate. I take no responsibility if some of these resemble solutions from Futurama, because I can't help but think of those immediately when I consider this global issue.

- What if we dump a giant amount of ice in the ocean each year?
- What if we cover the Earth with a sun-blocking veil?
- What if we alter the Earth's orbit to place it farther from the Sun?
- What if we move to a cooler planet?
- What if we "go green" on a global scale?
- What if we all blow on the ground simultaneously to cool the Earth off?
- What if we pollute the atmosphere enough to block out the Sun?
- What if we wait for nature to balance things out with some sort of cataclysm?
- What if we lock every scientist into a room without air conditioning until they think up a solution?

Looking at this list, the one solution that I think could be built upon is the last one listed, regarding the unfortunate scientists. I would probably clean the 'what if' scenario up a bit, though, to make it more of a contest than an internment.

What are the characteristics of a contest? There's often a screening process for entrants; the winners usually receive some sort of reward; no cheating is allowed; participants are encouraged to find creative solutions.

There is a screening process: Each participating government could put out a call to the nation at large, and select applicants based on practicality of proposed theories, actual demonstrated work, and commitment.

Winners receive a reward: Beyond the obvious Nobel and general good regard of the populace, the first person or persons to develop an effective solution could be rewarded with a professorship and lab at some prestigious university to conduct research of their choice.

No cheating is allowed: Any solution yielding dubious results should be disregarded, rather than continue to sink time and money into it.

Find creative solutions: Opening the field up to anyone with a bright idea would help with this; people should be encouraged to brainstorm inventive solutions, beyond just engineering things to be more environmentally-friendly, etc.

Perhaps these are just stating the obvious, but it wouldn't be a world-wide problem if a single brainstorming session by someone with only passing interest in the subject yielded immediate genius. Better to think of ways to encourage those actually interested to pursue said interest, I think.

Closing thoughts on this exercise:

It seems like most of the problems I think up don't ever line up as neatly as the issues presented in the Thinkertoys book; but, then, they wouldn't be examples if they didn't flow perfectly, I suppose. I feel like I wasted this exercise a bit, but I suppose there's nothing stopping me from trying it with a more personal subject down the line. I did get it done in record time, though.

A short note about my creative environment:

I got out and about and actually decided to do some work in the campus library, for a change. It's late afternoon and I'm hungry, since I've only had a yogurt today. I'm sitting in a comfortable armchair, and it is dead silent as everyone around me is studying something. I have my headphones in and am listening to music on Shuffle. There is a lot of light in the room from myriad lights hanging overhead, as well as large windows letting in daylight.

Chapter Seven: Cherry Split (or: A Good Knight for Creative Thinking)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

I want to make a Flash game. Well, to be more precise, I want to make any number of Flash games, but I tend to lose interest in most of my ideas or just don't think I'm at a level where I can bring them to completion. Hopefully after my current Flash gaming course I will be at such a level, at which point I figure I should develop a nice compendium of ideas. My usual method of waiting for a flash (pardon the pun) of insight as I nod off at 4 AM and frantically scrawling it down before I forget is slow and inconsistent to say the least, so I figure I shall try an actual creative exercise to develop an idea.

So my vague challenge is: "What is a good idea for a Flash game?" If I had to pick the essential two words of this challenge, the phrase would be 'good game'.

From there, I shall follow the splitting methodology in which I split each attribute I create into two more related attributes, ad infinitum, until I think I have enough to combine and work with.

Good
_ Chivalry
__ Medieval
__ Mystical
_ Light
__ Empty
__ Bright

Game
- Lives
__ Rebirth
__ Age
- Time
__ Heal
__ Weaken

The usable attributes that result are: good, chivalry, medieval, mystical, light, empty, bright, lives, rebirth, age, time, heal, and weaken.

So, what sort of concept results from the loose association of these terms? Immediately I am drawn toward the idea of the chivalrous knight protagonist, though this is ground that has been tread and retread before. Knight puts me in mind of night, which reminds me of the day and night cycle in the old Castlevania game where monsters would get stronger when night fell.

For a game mechanic, there could be a system where the player holds a key to meditate and accelerate time, healing themselves and weakening certain enemies, as well as advancing day into night and vice-versa, which could make enemies more powerful, lull them to sleep, or make them turn to dust as the occasion merits.

A character outside of the normal ebb and flow and time would be a ghost; the game could focus on the vengeful spirit of a knight, dedicating his afterlife to the destruction of an ancient foe that had done him some grievous ill.

Sounds good to me! I shall place "The Inexorable Knight" into my idea bin, pending concept art and execution.

Closing thoughts on this exercise:

I really like this exercise; it's quick to run through and produces a good number of ideas to work off of on any given topic. Also, I'm pretty sure that my teacher said that this methodology was Leonardo da Vinci's primary idea generator, and if so then that certainly explains its efficacy.

A short note about my creative environment:

I typed this up in my dorm room at or around seven in the evening, occasionally taking a break to sort through laundry. I wore noise-canceling headphones and listened to music while I worked, drowning out my roommate's television. There was a sliver of sunlight shining upon my face, combined with the normal lighting of the room.

BrainBank: Deadly Fiber Optics Edition

I don't normally give any weapons outside of a videogame a separate glance, though I know a lot of nerds go ga-ga over them. This, however, definitely caught my eye; it looks exactly like the glass knife from the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, but is actually infinitely cooler.

This knife is actually made from fiber optic glass, using a process called "knapping," an ancient technique for shaping stone into usable tools. In order to have a stable weapon it has to be ground down to a certain level of dullness, but apparently straight-up glass flakes have what is called a monomolecular edge, which is exactly as awesome as it sounds, parting cells so cleanly that the cuts heal with incredible efficiency; they're occasionally used in surgery because of the fast recovery time, but they get really dull really fast.

The more you know!

BrainkBank: Sammich Edition

I take umbrage to this. Bella Swan should not be placed in the same category as the noble sandwich, a foodstuff which has provided nothing but joy for mankind since its inception.

Curse you Twilight, stop making an awesome food look bad by association.

BrainkBank: The Robot Uprising is A-OK Edition

Look at that robot arm, trying to lull us into a false sense of security with it's cheeky gesture of carefree approval. I know what you're up to, robot arm. I bet the rest of your body's sneaking up on me as I speak.

Seriously, though, this is pretty cool. Scientists are about to start testing a new breed of thought-controlled prosthetic on human test subjects, actually opening up their brains to implant the controller devices. This will allow implantees to control their robotic arms with nearly the same efficiency as a natural limb.

In other words, a world with Bionic Commando is on the cusp of reality.

BrainBank: That Is Almost a Lightsaber Edition

I saw this a couple of minutes ago at about twenty to ten, and was instantly intrigued. While the execution looks a bit unwieldy, the concept is undeniably cool. Essentially, for those of you that haven't watched the video yet, this is a pen that reaches into the screen in order to create some interesting 3D drawings.

Also, it totally looks like a lightsaber when fully "extended." In point of fact, rather like the lightsaber butter knife from the Family Guy Star Wars special.

In all seriousness, this seems like it might lead to some very creative applications, which I'm down for. New ways to interact with electronics never go unappreciated (except for the Virtual Boy. That thing was doomed from the get-go).

BrainkBank: Putting the Dragon in Dragonfly Edition

The gadget blog Gizmodo occasionally has "Shooting Challenges," wherein people are asked to go nuts on a specific subject. Apparently the most recent one was insects, which got an incredibly heavy response. This is my favorite, a shot of a dragonfly in the Mojave Desert taken by a Jamie Metzger. The iridescent red and orange coloring of the dragonfly really put me in mind of its mythical namesake, an association I'd never really seen before when out and about.

I might actually have to make good on my desire to get a nice camera purely to go on random photo shoots, if I can get images as stunning as this.

Creativity Hit List

What can I do to increase my creativity?

I can write instead of type.
I can pursue a personal project in my spare time.
I can learn from my failures.

A Formal Internal Complaint

Dear sirs and madams of my internal critics,

      I felt that I must protest the indignities long heaped upon me. To this end, I have penned a letter of remonstration for delivery to you and yours, wherein I shall enumerate the many fashions in which you have dogged me. I can no longer sit idly by as you slather me in your ceaseless inanity.

     To wit, the first and foremost complaint I must lodge concerns the incessant belittling of my most personal pondering. I cannot abide the close-minded rejection of my theories and designs, nor the mean-spirited mutterings regarding my meanderings.

Sincerely,

Me

JumpStart: Funny/Serious

I would have to say that my favorite dramatic movie would be that movie starring Morgan Freeman as the narrator, "The Shawshank Redemption." On the completely opposite end of the spectrum in both subject and medium, the comedic book I enjoy the most is Terry Pratchett's "The Colour of Magic," the first book in the Discworld series.

The Shawshank Redemption - Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years, finding solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency.

The Colour of Magic - [T]his is where it all starts--with the tourist Twoflower and his hapless wizard guide, Rincewind. Pratchett spoofs fantasy clichés--and everything else he can think of--while marshaling a profusion of characters through a madcap adventure.

And now for something completely different!

The Shawshank Redemption - Two imprisoned men bond over a number of years. They team up with a number of wacky sidekicks and turn the prison upside down-- with good-natured pranks! Meanwhile, the poor old Warden can only shake his fist and yell "you rotten kids!".

The Colour of Magic - This poignant coming-of-age tale follows the hapless Twoflower, a man taken far out of his element and subjected to a number of horrific adventures at the behest of his cursedly-unlucky, cowardly guide.

I may have engaged in slight hyperbole for the rewrite of "The Shawshank Redemption," but that is exactly what goes down in "The Colour of Magic." True story.

BrainBank: Phantom Ray? More Like Independence Day Edition

A few minutes ago at half past eight I stumbled upon this image of Britain's new unmanned Phantom Ray stealth aircraft. Now, I respect the millions of hours of engineering that undoubtedly went into this marvel of technology, but darned if it doesn't look like something off the set of the movie Independence Day, cheesy smoke effect and all.

Just goes to show that you can make any weapon of stealthy destruction kid-friendly with a smoke machine and a pink teardrop decoration.

The Path to Enlightenment (or: A Lantern Limerick)

I went outside to find something interesting to study, and after fruitless searching around Drexel's campus decided that I was going to find far more interesting subjects in the University of Pennsylvania's domain. No sooner had I stepped foot down the path then something caught my eye: a pair of old metal lanterns with mysteriously opaque glass. I studied the lantern on the left for a good few minutes, and came up with the following twenty observations, which I present to you in no particular order of importance:

1. Black and white
2. Metal
3. Matte
3. Frosted glass
4. Pointed top
5. Ornate
6. One of a pair
7. Bolted to a brick building
8. Dark and inert
9. Resembles a knight's shield
10. Squared-off, not rounded
11. Covered in condensation
12. No bulb inside of it
13. Electrically-powered
14. Flanking a doorway
15. Hung at head height
16. Weathered-looking
17. Bolts are rusted
18. Hatch on the bottom
19. Home to a caterpillar
20. Grass caught in the hinge

From these observations, I have composed a poem involving the dark lantern and its wriggling denizen, entitled:

The Caterpillar's Prison

A caterpillar went on his way

And nary a goodbye did he say

To the friends left behind

As he wriggled and climbed

Into darkness, trapped to this day

You may have noticed that the above list is suspiciously similar to one I made the other day about a hapless Drexel tree, and you would be absolutely correct. The difference between the two subjects is that I had all the time and leisure in the world to consciously select my subject this time around, whereas previously I was working under a time constraint. Given said time, I chose the lantern because I was intrigued by the dichotomy between the essential purpose of a lantern as a light-giver and the state in which I stumbled upon these dimmed devices.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Chilling Out (or: Chillaxin' and Maxin' All Cool Up In "The Room")

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

Generally, I do not have any issue with "chilling out" in a normal situation. In a high-stress situation, however, such as crunch-time the night before the project, I find myself anything but chill.

Therefore, for this exercise I am going to endeavor to remain perfectly calm in one of the most stressful situations imaginable: watching The Room, one of the worst movies ever made.

The four basic parameters for relaxation are a quiet environment, a specific mental technique, a passive attitude, and a comfortable position.

Since I'm watching this in a room filled with about seven other people I can't really say I have the quiet environment bit available, but three out of four isn't bad. I'm quite comfortable in a wooden rocking-chair, and I have already emptied my mind in preparation for the aneurysm-inducing awfulness of this movie.

As for my relaxation technique, I am going to focus on breathing deeply and paying particular attention to said breathing.

BrainBank: The Univac is Awesome Edition

Look at that! I just found this at about 5:30; it is a conversation with the Univac, one of the first computers ever built.

Apparently some fellow named Scott Loyd and his wife Nancy had this conversation with Univac and keep the printout all these years, just recently bringing it to the attention of the site Boing Boing.

It's crazy to think about the ridiculous amount of engineering and the incredible expanses of vacuum tubes and other such old-timey things that made up the Univac, all to enable it to spit out numbers and Zodiac predictions.

Chapter Nine: SCAMPER (or: SECARMP Technically Because I Did It A Bit Out of Order and Enjoy Anagrams)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

My ultimate goal in this class is, as far as I am currently concerned, writing or at least establishing the framework for a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. Having determined this, I figure that it would be wise to use some of these exercises to give me some direction on this task.

The challenge I'm going to examine today is: "How should I build the framework for my story?" To determine this, I shall apply the SCAMPER checklist to this conundrum. I have a few pages of a sample Choose Your Own Adventure story I wrote a couple of years ago, that I am going to expand upon.

BrainBank: Hard-Core Cartography Edition

I came across this map of The University of Warwick's campus at about ten to five. If it looks kind of old-timey, that's because it was indeed drawn up manually-- and of course, by manually I mean this was accomplished with a lone cartographer, Jeremy Wood, traversing all 238 miles of this campus on foot as a GPS satellite recorded every step that he took for transcription.

Practical? No. Awesome and an example of extreme dedication to one's craft? Totally.

The entire thing apparently took about 17 days of carefully-planned wandering to complete, and lest you think Jeremy forgot to add a personal touch to his map, behold:

BrainBank: Caterpillar? More Like Caterkillar Edition

Man this is terrifying. I'm pretty sure it's a garden-variety caterpillar, but it could not possibly look more evil in this shot if it had a white cat in its lap and a metal claw for a hand.

I saw this a few minutes ago at about a quarter after six and thought "and here we're worried about cockroaches." If any bug is planning world domination, it would be this caterpillar.

Just look at it steepling it little pincers together. If I woke up to see that looming over me I would sob and pull my covers over my head, certain that I was doomed.

BrainBank: More Cyanide Than Happiness Edition

I saw this floating around the internet a few minutes ago at about 10:30, and immediately identified with the unknown protagonist's plight.

Granted, I've never seen Battlestar Galactica, or saved a girl with a pony-tail from a traumatic fall, but nonetheless.

On the other hand, even I know that you have to stop when you're ahead. I mean, everyone peaks at being a Jedi.

BrainBank: Eye See You Edition

Behold! What you see is not an illusion. That is actually a giant eyeball stuck smack-daub in the middle of Chicago by, who else, an artist. Specifically an artist named Tony Tassett, whose creatively-named "EYE" is over three stories tall and constructed with 9000 pounds of fiberglass and 9000 pounds of steel.

Since Tony was apparently also the eyeball model for this, er, eyeball model, I can only assume that he's forewarning the world of his eventual role as all-seeing all-knowing dictator.

Now that sort of dastardly confidence is inspiring.

BrainBank: That's Not True... That's Impossible! Edition

This is a power strip. That is water-proof. Try to wrap your mind around that, I dare you. You can place it in your shower, and then plug your hair dryer into it, and you won't die. Unless God decides to shoot a lightning bolt at your face for your presumption.

I found this about four minutes ago at a quarter to eleven, and by God it's changed my perception on the world. What else could we make water-proof, in the direct defiance of logic and common decency?

My vote's for toasters.

Steven Seagal in: Steve Seagal's "Born to Photo-sin-thesis" Starring Steven Seagal

What are ten facts about the tree outside that I forgot to take a picture of? Well, since you asked:

1. Short, relatively speaking
2. Gnarled
3. Brown
4. Green
5. Convenient place to lean a bike
6. Leans to the side
7. Amputee (missing a branch)
8. Landing place for birds
9. Blocks the sun
10. Ridged (bark isn't smooth)
11. Tough (it can grow in this environment)
12. Tapers (gets narrower toward the top)
13. Smells like smoke, from all the cigarettes scattered around it
14. Leaves are grouped in clusters
15. Flat, pointed leaves
16. Rooted to the ground
17. Surrounded by a rusty metal grate
18. Growing (possibly dying)
19. Emitting oxygen
20. Plant

How does this relate to a potential Steven Seagal movie? Watch and be amazed.

"Steven Seagal stars in the action epic adventure of the century. Called the best buddy cop movie of all time by every critic that has never seen a buddy cop movie, 'Born to Photo-sin-thesis' pairs veteran cop Steven Seagal-- a hard-boiled detective with a heart of gold that doesn't play by the rules-- with the most unlikely of partners: a tree. Together with his stationary companion, Steven Seagal engages in all of the Steven Seagal-style chases, explosions, and kung-fu that you've come to expect, except all in one location. Because Steven Seagal never leaves a partner behind.

Your heart will leap into your mouth and knock out all of your teeth from the sheer force of Steve Seagal, then settle gently down to the pit of your bowels in sadness. In a surprise twist, the last four-eighths of the movie deals with the tree's heartbreaking story of revenge and betrayal, as it comes to terms with the loss of a limb in this coming-of-age dramatic masterpiece."

JumpStart: It's Like... Um... I Mean...

It's easy to define my favorite smell. The scent of freshly-baked chocolate-chip cookies has few parallels in this world, rivaled only by the taste of freshly-baked chocolate-chip cookies. I could wax philosophic on the topic of cookies for days, describing every moment of sheer unadulterated delight associated with the molten chocolate and crumbling cookie, but then I'd probably make myself so hungry I'd run out of cookies.

Chapter Five: False Faces (or: There Isn't an App For That)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

I was pondering the potential problems I currently face and couldn't really find any I felt like pontificating upon at the moment. Therefore I am going to examine a theoretical challenge, which I have mulled over on occasion: "What sort of application would I create for the iPhone marketplace?"

There are a few presuppositions I would make about an iPhone application. An application has to appeal to a wide audience; it has to have a unique function; and it has to be self-contained.

If I reverse the basic framework of my application, I can explore less conventional methods of solving this challenge. Reversing each of these assumptions yields: an application does not have to appeal to a wide audience; it does not have to have a unique function; and it does not have to be self-contained.

So what sort of application fits within these reversed parameters? For the first assumption, my application could be specifically designed to appeal to a particular subset of users, or could fall under the "experimental" label where it is not designed for any particular audience at all. What sort of experimental application would not by default emphasize a unique selling point? To determine that, I'll first examine what an application not being self-contained could mean.

Increasingly, computer applications are being connected to external services like Facebook and Twitter. Mobile applications are starting to follow suit, meaning that a simple Facebook integration wouldn't be enough to differentiate my application. I thought about this, considering an application that leveraged email in some way to communicate data, but ultimately decided the best and simplest way to do this would be the application connecting to the same application.

Right now I have an experimental application that works by connecting to other users of the same application, that does not use a completely original paradigm. I thought about what sort of experiences I could re-badge that would benefit from user-to-user connection, and, ironically enough, the first thing that came to mind was a brainstorming application. There are already applications that connect random users for short conversations; the trick is in the delivery.

In my theoretical application, which I have creatively dubbed "Community Brainstorming" for now, users will pen the beginning of an idea and send it randomly to another user, who will expand upon this idea and pass it along to another user. Users can track the progress of their idea as it is randomly expanded upon, and receive idea lists of others to add their own comments to. Idea chains will be ended after a certain number of responses, or whenever the user decides to manually terminate them. There will be profanity filters to compensate for inevitable trolling, and users can manually flag offensive links in their idea chain.

Excellent! Just like that I have a quality application which will surely make me millions of "Free," because I can't imagine releasing an application like that for any higher price (unless it takes off and becomes the Next Big Thing, of course, at which point I would cash in immediately).

Now I just need to get my developer's license, and find a Mac to program my application, and figure out how to program applications for the iPhone. Should be simple enough.




Closing thoughts on this exercise:

I was pretty skeptical about this one, mostly because I couldn't really think of anything that seemed suited for this sort of examination, but I think it actually turned out alright. I arrived at a conclusion I was happy at, anyway, even if it did take quite a lot of rumination.

A short note about my creative environment:

I typed this over the course of an hour and a half or so, starting at about eight o'clock, while sprawled in my bed under the comforter (it'd a little chilly in the room). It's too late at night for any sort of sunlight, so all of my light is coming from the bright room light that shines directly at my bed. My roommate has his TV on, and is clicking away at some sort of game, occasionally making some sort of comment to his teammates through his headset.

My Creative Biography (or: Technically This is a Creative Autobiography, Because I'm Writing It About Myself)

If asked to write a creative autobiography on the fly, it would very likely consist of nonsensical rambling as I'd have no idea where to start or how to structure the piece. Luckily, I have here a list of questions that provide just such a structure for my rambling.

What was the first creative moment you remember?

Well, I can't say I actually remember the first creative moment I remember, at least not off the top of my head. But the first creative moment I remember that I can remember is actually directly related to my field. I built a laughably intricate underground water ride in Rollercoaster Tycoon, probably riddling my park with thousands of structural instabilities in my quest for the creation of the most insane ride ever.

I definitely played games before Rollercoaster Tycoon, but certainly none that provided any sort of creative license. Even today I occasionally reinstall the classic original and construct a wacky theme park out of the thousands of permutations in locations and rides, aided by the ability to actually construct certain rides like the titular rollercoasters and water rides from scratch.

Did anyone see it?

I showed my friends from Sunday school, as we had an informal contest of sorts to who could create the zaniest situations in the game.

What was your best idea?

BrainBank: Heavy is Credit to Team Edition

See that, to the left? Not the tank, or the airplane, the strange tapered monolith that looks almost like a giant bullet. Well, those aren't scale models next to a bullet. No, that is actually a giant bullet, made for the largest gun ever fired in combat: Germany's "Heavy Gustav."

Some quick statistics: each round for the Gustav was 11 feet long and almost 3 feet wide, and could be fired 21 miles from the Gustav. However, they also took a staggering half an hour to load, in addition to the 250 soldiers needed to get the gun assembled and the 2,500 men needed to lay down the rails that allowed the 150 feet-long 2.7 million pound gun to actually be moved around.

If this thing isn't compensating for something, I don't know what is. On the other hand, I totally want to see this added to Team Fortress 2 as a weapon for the Heavy.

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Book of the Dead (or: "rw nw prt m hrw." Because Apparently the Ancient Egyptians Weren't Fans of Vowels)

Based on an exercise outlined in the book "Thinkertoys"

One of the obstacles I face as a Digital Media student and nascent professional is that of recognition. I can produce interesting work in my classes, but I need to be able to get my work out there for the world at large to view. Thankfully, in this modern day and age we have a collection of tubes known collectively as "The Internet" that exist for just such a purpose.

Of course, it isn't quite so simple as just pressing a button and having a fully-formed attention-grabbing site instantly appear at the top of the list on a Google search for "awesome." Luckily, in this modern day and age we've exhumed much of the wisdom of the ancients to guide us into the future. Especially when we don't understand a word of this wisdom. To this end, I have chosen a passage from the Egyptian Book of the Dead to translate, hoping to unearth a prophecy directly correlated to my problem.

Pictured: The Farmer's Almanac, circa 1650 BC

To be specific, my problem is (ripping off my own eloquent prose from a previous post): "I need to establish a corner of the web for myself and optimally build it enough relevance to show up on peoples' radar."

Alright! Time to start my American-style translation, where I look at the pictures and attribute them to whatever makes the most sense in my head (this is a similar technique to speaking slowly and loudly in English when in foreign countries in the belief that this makes you understandable).

A Google search informed me that whether one reads hieroglyphics left to right or right to left is dependent on the direction the animals are facing. Already we're off to a good start, as my animals are facing to the left here which means I can read this left to right. And what's more auspicious of a start than a star? I can clearly extrapolate from this that the ancient Egyptians refer to my rising star in the world; though based on the tiny man with the humbly up-stretched arm beside the star I shall infer that my methods must be tempered by modesty, a sentiment with which I concur.

The glyphs following these two are far less immediately identifiable, which caused my eye to wander across the paragraph. Immediately I noted that persistence of a semi-circular platform upon which a few smaller symbols or birds were perched. The best analogy this sparked is: I should identify the platform with which to deliver my varied content.

Now, I currently have an ad-hoc portfolio site of sorts set up with the free service flavors.me, which makes it extremely easy to plug various services in (like this very blog) and construct a simple personal site without any code. I've debated as to whether or not this is sufficient.

Luckily, the Book of the Dead seems to have an opinion on the matter. There is a recurrence of a symbol that looks somewhat like an inverted 'L', which is very probably a snake. Three instances of this symbol coil around small sigils, while the fourth points to what appears to be a cross. As it currently stands, my portfolio site is sort of a crossroads, where all of my content approaches from different directions and jumbles together at the middle, with only pseudo-integration. In order to most effectively display my work, I need to encapsulate it within a single site that coils around all of my content.

Upon closer examination of the passage, there is one symbol that stands at a jarring contrast to the others and thus seems significant. Viewing the hieroglyphics as a whole with an unfocused eye caused the single framed image to jump out at me. The frame implies structure, or a guiding influence; based on my previous web endeavors, I don't think that building a site from the ground up would be any better for me than using a flavors.me site. So, I think the best thing to do would be to use an existing structure, but at least centralize all of my content on said structure.

The squiggly lines peppered throughout the passage remind me of the placeholders I use for any text or words in rough thumbnails; I've heard good things about Wordpress, so that's the first thing that comes to mind off of that association. Therefore, it appears I have a new avenue to investigation in regards to my web relevancy!

Thank you, ancient Egyptians. Don't think that this makes up for the generations of slavery, though. That wasn't cool.

Closing thoughts on this exercise:

I rather enjoyed this exercise, as it encouraged me to make wild conclusions about tiny pictures I don't actually understand, and there's nothing I enjoy more than wild conclusions. Actually, I used to play a computer game when I was younger, some semi-educational game that was focused around Ancient Egypt; I have no idea what game it was, but I loved it to death. I suspect, however, that the designers had no idea whatsoever how to translate hieroglyphs, and were just making it up as they go along. Hey, if it worked for them, works for me.

A short note about my creative environment:

I'm sitting on my dorm room's couch at the moment, which I've been doing since about 4:20. There's a nice amount of sunlight streaming in through the opened blinds. The couch isn't very comfortable, but it's better then the strange rocking-desk-chair-hybrids that sit at our desks in Canaris. It's pretty cool in here despite the oppressive heat outside, temperature control units being the best invention since that circular thing that lets carts move about. I'm listening to music on my terrible iPod earbuds for some reason instead of my nice stereo gaming headphones; sheer volume is drowning out any noise my roommate might be making in the room behind me.

BrainkBank: I've Got Goosebumps in the Month of July Edition

Anyone remember those Goosebumps books about the super-realistic looking creepy masks that "became" you once you put them on? Like, a girl puts on a mask of a scary old lady and can't take it off again, and starts getting all arthritic and nasty. This is like that, but with a "Handsome Guy." Naturally the company that sells these monstrosities mainly does monsters and scary old ladies, because they've read up on their Goosebumps.

On the plus side, once they perfect this technology everyone can be like their idol, Tom Cruise, in Mission Impossible II (that movie following that other movie where everyone and their grandmother had photo-realistic masks they kept fooling people with and then peeling off).

On a more positive and inspiring note, this would probably be a great supplement to those unfortunate individuals who have their faces mangled through accidents, etc. If the Phantom of the Opera could slip on a fresh new face and get on with his life that would have been a far shorter but much more uplifting story.

BrainkBank: I Buy Magic Edition

Well how about that! I just found out at about six o'clock that the company iBuyPower, a boutique similar to the Alienware of old that sells monstrously powerful gaming laptops and desktops, has actually taken some steps to leverage the capabilities of their new line of multi-touch enabled laptops.

They've made available for free a propriety bit of software that automagically makes games previously incapable of reading multitouch gestures work pretty well with them, with various gestures taking the place of panning, button functions, etc.

Questionably useful? Perhaps. Unquestionably cool? Most definitely. I'm most impressed at a high-end hardware company out-of-the-blue laying down software that actually makes their questionably-included expensive technology seem useful for the purpose of the gaming machine. Props to iBuyPower. Check it out:

BrainkBank: It Prints Money Edition

I came across this about five minutes ago when it was posted at a quarter after three, and... bahahahaha these are the new 100 dollar bills? Really? I know there's all sorts of security features at work here, but come on. This looks like Monopoly money.

I cannot wait to see a gangster movie where they pull a briefcase out, open it, and it's full of this stuff. And try to treat the scene seriously.

Okay, granted, I rarely if ever am actually in possession of a 100 dollar bill, so this shouldn't really affect me. But hey, this inspires me to make lots of cash so I can carry this ridiculous currency around.

BrainkBank: Oh Lord Why Edition

I saw this a couple of minutes ago at about 8 o'clock. This is wrong on so many levels. Whoever conceived of this pairing should be as ashamed of their innovation.

That said, I wonder what other hideously annoying objects could be fused together to create something entirely unholy? My money's on Chinese finger traps and that guy that follows Adam Sandler around in all of his movies.