It Was The Chad

(of course it was)

New Project: 48in48

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48in48-logo

Earlier this month I participated in an amazing charity event called 48in48. Hosted by two local web agency guys — Jeff Hilimire and Adam Walker — the event gathered about 150 web developers, designers, UXers, and content writers in order to create 48 websites for 48 nonprofits, all in 48 hours.

I just posted a new Project page about the event, so check it out here.

Ready For Soylent

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I did it. I ordered Soylent. It’s scheduled to be delivered in December. I even convinced Karen to give it a try and ordered some for her. 

As I mentioned previously, Soylent is a brand new (not even shipping yet) food replacement… um… thing. The theory behind it is to gather everything a human body needs and ingest just that.

Well, I shouldn’t say “just.” While Soylent’s creators do believe we can live solely on Soylent and water, they are not pitching it as a complete replacement. They expect people to still eat socially, just as they drink socially. (I just love this concept of food being relegated to a social experience or hobby.)

Soylent comes in the form of a powder. Mixed with water, it turns into a smoothie-like drink. I’ve read experiences of beta testers, and they claim Soylent is absolutely filling. Those who went all out and ingested nothing but Soylent (and water) for a week or so said that after a couple days they didn’t even crave regular food. Supposedly, if your body is getting everything it needs, cravings simply don’t happen.

So why am I getting on board the Soylent train? For a number of reasons:

  • Novelty – I love new, big ideas, and it doesn’t get much bigger than replacing something humans have been doing since the dawn of their existence.
  • Health – I believe my current diet is healthier than most Americans, but that doesn’t make it ideal. Soylent will provide all sorts of nutrition that I’m missing now while also cutting down on all the crap that I currently put into my body. I’ve read reports of increased energy, sharper mind, healthier skin, and whiter teeth. I want that. 
  • Time and convenience – Most of my meals are eaten because I’m hungry and need sustenance. They’re eaten hurriedly and often without me even noticing the taste. In these instances, all I’m going for is the fuel, but it takes time to prepare and clean up each of these meals. Soylent is prepared in batches ahead of time. When I’m hungry, I can just start drinking.
  • Money – Currently less than $3 per meal, Soylent is cheaper than old fashioned food. By saving on those meals that I’m not even paying attention to, I can spend more on nice, social meals.
  • Weird looks – I’m not an attention whore, but I can’t wait to see the weird looks people give me when I tell them I don’t eat anymore. 

I’ve purchased a month’s worth of Soylent, so my plan is this: I will go a full week on nothing but Soylent and water. This is mainly to jump in and get the full effect. After that, assuming things go well, I expect to use Soylent for breakfasts and lunches. I’ll probably still join my wife for real-food dinners. 

This all assumes, of course, that I can stand the taste and texture and have no medical issues with the stuff. 

I honestly can’t wait. This is one of the most exciting ideas that I’ve ever heard of, and it could reshape human cultures, economies, and heck, even human evolution.

I’m ready for Soylent.

Learn more at Soylent.me. 

 

If This Then That

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I’ve been playing with If This Then That (ifttt.com), a very cool and easy to use site for automating all sorts of things online. It follows the simple pattern of “if this trigger happens, then do that action.”

For instance, I’ve set it up (and am using this blog post to test) such that every time I post to my blog with a specific tag, IFTT posts the entry to Facebook. I’ve already set it up to post all my Instagrams to Facebook.

I’m curious to see how well this works, especially when I include photos in the blog post like this:

Playing With Lytro

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The Lytro is here, and my company has one!  I’ve been playing around with it for the last few days, and I must admit it’s an interesting toy.

In case you’ve been living under a photography rock, the Lytro is a whole new concept in taking pictures.  Instead of capturing a 2-D plane of light, the Lytro captures “the light field” (I think combining a light field, a black hole, and a popsicle stick is how you make a lightsaber, so this is pretty advanced stuff!).  This allows it to capture 3D images, the end result of which is that you can choose your focus point after snapping the picture rather than before.

It’s easier to just show you.  Click on the photo below to play with the focus.

 

There, you see what I mean?  Isn’t that cool?

The stylings of the Lytro, its interface, and even the box it’s packed in are very reminiscent of Apple (steal from the best!).  The unique shape of the camera is key to making people see it as something truly new.  If it looked like any other point-and-shoot, I don’t think this would get nearly as much attention.  Unfortunately, that shape is a bit awkward both for shooting and for carrying around.

The camera’s interface is quite simple, offering just a few buttons and a touch screen.  Sadly, the screen is much too small, meaning you have to download the images to your computer before you can enjoy them.  Zoom is controlled by rubbing your finger along a ridge on top of the device.  Unfortunately, the zoom control is located right where I naturally want to put my finger, resulting in a lot of accidental zooms.

So, what do you do with the Lytro?  I see three options:

  1. Take normal pictures, knowing that you can be sloppy and fix the focus later.  The workflow would be to shoot, focus, then save to JPG and do whatever you normally do with JPGs.
  2. Take creative depth-of-field pictures, and share them like I’ve done above.  You have to be creative because it’s difficult to put something of interest in both the foreground and background.
  3. Convert the images to full 3-D.  Yes, this is possible, though I don’t have the glasses or 3-D display to confirm this. 

The biggest limiting factor right now is the image quality.  Like early digital cameras, the resolution and clarity just aren’t there yet.  Click Luckie’s butt to see a full-res JPG export.  It’s 1080×1080 (the equivalent of only a 4”x4” print), and you can see that the image is very noisy.

That being said, the Lytro is a fun toy and another creative tool for people to play with.  The technology has a lot of potential, and I’m sure we’ll see this advance quickly.

Though professional photographers may despise it (“Oh great, let’s take even more skill out of shooting!”), the light field camera is the (still somewhat distant) future of photography.

 

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