The artist statement for Lynn Cazabon, visual arts, and Neal McDonald’s, visual arts, multimedia project, Junkspace, 2012, will appear in the Vol 46. No 5 issue of Leonardo — Transactions.

Leonardo is a peer-reviewed academic journal published by the MIT Press covering the application of contemporary science and technology to the arts and music.

http://www.leonardo.info/transactions.html

Junkspace “is a time and location sensitive video installation and corresponding iOS App that superimposes two forms of waste, one earth—bound (electronic waste) and the other celestial (orbital debris).” Learn more, or download the app at the installation’s website.

It is with mixed emotions I am writing to announce that Patrick Simon, Business Analyst/Developer in DoIT’s Business Systems Group, will be leaving UMBC to become a consultant with Accenture. His last day on campus will be Thursday, August 15^th. 

Patrick has been with UMBC since 1998, starting as a student employee and then hired full-time as a programmer to assist with the Student Information Legacy system and Y2k efforts. In 2003 Patrick joined the BSG technical team supporting the PeopleSoft Finance system. After a very successful three-year tour he took his new skills and moved over to the technical team focused on the implementation for the PeopleSoft Student Administration system.

Patrick has been instrumental in the success of many projects at UMBC. Some recent projects include an automated process for Admissions Posting Decision, which he co-presented at the most recent Regional PeopleSoft Users Group in June 2013, Online Transcript Request system from AVOW, and web-based front-end solutions for UMBC’s Request Tracker (RT) system.

Patrick is another DoIT staff member with a UMBC success story. While working full-time he completed his Bachelors in Information Systems, got married and now has four beautiful daughters, and somehow managed to achieve an MBA from University of Maryland University College in 2011.

I have truly enjoyed watching him grow into the professional he has become. Please join me in congratulating Patrick on his past and future successes.

Sincerely,

Joe Kirby

Asst. VP, Business Systems Group

Division of Information Technology

Starting with Google Glass, wearable technology could usher in a new era of security weaknesses, researchers say.

Internet-connected devices are ripe for hacking—and it seems that wearable gadgets like Google’s forthcoming head-mounted computer, Glass, are no exception.

When learning how to code, design or ship anything of note, it quickly becomes apparent that there are a thousand different ways to get to the same end product. No designer uses Photoshop in the exact same way and most developers have different frameworks, environments and strategies to solve the challenges at hand.

Many times we get the feeling that we’re doing it all wrong. We may even have some of our peers tell us the same thing. They might have a superior understanding of CSS Preprocessors or where the latest JavaScript library was first invented, but an underlying truth still prevails: they haven’t shipped a thing.

While it is important to stay up on current technology, it should never take more time than actually building something. Chances are you’re doing it wrong and that’s perfectly okay. In fact, I would encourage you to do more things the wrong way. Doing more things that are imperfect can be liberating.

Imperfections

Perfection can be off-putting, boring and sterile. You know what I miss the most in the newer music that I listen to? The imperfections. Studio engineers and musicians are now expected to use computers to attain a perfect, inhuman level of precision. That perfection leaves music feeling robotic or plastic. There’s no groove, no swing. Our designs, programs and art should have a human groove too.

Let’s not focus on perfection so much. Let’s get it out there. Let’s let it be real. Let’s let it be human. Let’s let it be vulnerable.

Vulnerability

I challenge you, my dear reader, to build something right now. Record the entire thing, as ugly as it may be, and put it out there for public flogging. I would dare say that you will still be alive and that the only people that will criticize what you’ve done are the same people with two thousand ideas that remain twenty percent complete.

The other people that criticize you are the ones that are pulling for you. We should be ecstatic that we work in an industry that cares about giving back as much as ours does. Most industries are overly-competitive and would never help out their peers.

Being vulnerable means that you’ve shipped, and it also just happens to be the best way for us to learn. Show your scars and pull up your dress. We’re all rocking the same goods. We’re all scared but the people we admire have decided that their art is more important than their feelings.

Technology is the Vehicle, Not the Destination

We can get caught up in the technology without “seeing” our art objectively. We worry about Sass, Bootstrap, Backbone, Node, and Compass, or even worse, we take up valuable time learning them just enough to be on top of the industry. It’s not about the technology. Technology exists to make the creation of art easier. It’s not designed to be a constant distraction and deflector of real work getting done.

Delivering

Musicians, artists, writers, all go about their art differently. They all use different tools, have different strategies, and deliver their work in different ways. “Different ways” means nothing. “Deliver” is all that matters. At the end of the day if you’re not delivering something you’ve got nothing out there.

Even if you’re doing it wrong, you’re still doing it. That alone sets you apart. Shipping is all that matters.

The post You’re Doing It All Wrong appeared first on Treehouse Blog.

A touch screen that reads fingerprints could make the technology more useful.

Tabletop computers have not exactly taken the world by storm, as some predicted they would. While a few have appeared in shops, bars, and hotels, it’s not hard to understand why devices that until recently cost more than $8,000 have failed to gain wider adoption.