Donna, I know.
And speaking of new jobs, I finally got my classroom 90% organized and arranged. I also have a direction, and at least two weeks of lessons planned for video game design, and for computer programming. Now I just have to figure out that pesky PC Mainenance class. And I've only got a week full of evenings left to get it done. Yikes!
that sounds fun sarah. i kind of want to sit in, but i'm pretty sure that would be difficult.
Penny arcade (which is pretty much awesomeness in everything they do) has a couple of recent videos that talk about mechanics in video games i think would be worthwhile to look at. this is applicable to anyone who designs interactive space, so for those that think people interact with architecture this might be worth a look for your too. here's the video
ya, it's a flash game. it is what it is. it won't take long so go ahead and try it before you watch the videos.
this is what i heard about pc maintenance for those that haven't already figured it out on their own: get a good pc with high end everything and put every bit of software you need on it. don't install anything else ever. once you're at a point where you need to do something new with your computer, get a new computer.
speaking of teaching, i have been teaching ESL - well more like volunteering - for the past few months, and last night i managed my way through three hours. a really wonderful experience.
when i think about these asshole conservatives demeaning immigrants, i get overwhelmed with anger, they haven't a clue how difficult it is for non-natives. on top of learning the language, we are also getting them ready for citizenship exams, most americans couldn't pass this test with a cheat sheet.
America got independence in 1776, right? Or was it fourteen hundred and ninety two? Ah, what's it matter, we all know the US of A didn't become awesome until 1845 when Texas joined the Union
That's awesome beta! Coming from a family of immigrants I have a real soft-spot for immigrant issues. I have a friend that volunteers with an Adult Literacy program here and I've been wanting to join her. You're adding fuel to the fire. :-)
totally on board with immigrants as nation builders. almost all my best friends in canada were born outside canada. now i'm expat i appreciate their effort even more. learning a language and starting a career at same time is harsh.
Yes my no-native American Wife is my go to when it comes to spelling. I was telling a client this last week and he told me his wife who is also Brazilian also proof reads what he writes and does both grammer and spelling checks of what he writes. Mr. B speaks several languages and doesn't speak some but has a pretty good indication of what the conversation is about. When we went in for her natualization the only hick up we had was a year when they wanted to say I filed my taxes late when I actually hand not. We had to go back to the IRS and get some special document sent to the Immigration people. She had all the answers to the naturalization test correct. This will be her first Presidential Election, so hopefully she will help us stay the course.
snook, yay for your voting wife! And beta it's wonderful that you're helping people on their path. I love when immigrants become citizens, I've said here before it makes me cry every time I see a naturalization ceremony. Especially now, when I feel so down on this country, to be reminded that for so many people it is so much better for their lives to be here than wherever they came from.
We just need to figure out how to make this exceptionally wealthy country work better for those who don't have a lot of money or access to it. Hopefully we'll start getting better at it, though it will be a long hard fight for progressives to get there.
it's kinda interesting that ayn rand is back in the news with ryan joining the race.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
bit different system though, we don't pick prime minister. still, harper's government makes me think of going home and getting involved in politics, we barely resemble a proper european country at all now. all we got left is gay marriage and universal health care. barely liberal at all, really.
apparently my grad thesis got published in a book that came out last december... I'd submitted to this author for another book (or maybe it's the same book that got re-imagined and re-titled? hard to know at this point) like 3+ years ago. I didn't hear back, didn't hear back, finally posted a comment on their blog about the timeline and when the selections would be made, got a reply that everyone who got in had already been notified, so sorry but my stuff must not have made it if I hadn't heard. OK, it falls off my radar, then yesterday someone posts to my fb page that they were happy to see my work in this new book! WTF. I know I should be more excited about this, but I'm pretty irritated... why couldn't they have told people they were in? Because then they would've had to go to the expense of providing the traditional courtesy copy of the book to the people they're making money off of? I don't really want to go pay money in a store to people who've not exactly been awesome through the process.
This has to be one of the greatest sentences ever written: "The once-dignified portrait now resembles a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic, he says."
I laughed out loud today at work when I read the Jesus Monkey story. Luckily noone was around me since everyone who used to sit close by either got laid off, or just left. Sigh.
On the New York Times website they have a story about the botched restoration with a picture then directly below it there is a story about a monkey in Tampa with a picture of the monkey kind of funny.
I think that publication stuff happens quite a lot.
We found ourselves in a thick book on starchitects (which is itself a joke if you know us) completely by accident last year, and apparently we were published somewhere in India though we never saw the final output. lots of same in china. it goes other way too - last week we got a copy of a publication from Uruguay in which we were not included, along with a kind note.
Publication just got too easy and the internet is training us all to be a bit sloppy...
about that painting restoration, i like the new version. lots of jesus pictures around that look like the original, but not many like the old lady has made. not as good as buddy jesus, but it's gotta be up there.
I called the author out on twitter but he never responded. I also get probably half a dozen emails a year from Chinese and Indian publishing companies wanting to use that project, but I never respond to those because I've learned that it's not worth it to put in the time publishing something absolutely everywhere, it's better to keep it top-tier.
Will + rationalist re: publishing would you argue that it is just the way it is now, the new normal? Or should it be different?
Is crediting better than no exposure? Of course it probably also depends on what we mean by publish. If they are just using your images/project from you with no credit vs selecting you to be on a list/showing images of a project by you but that they create?
@Rusty what Donna said. keep your chin up or your head down ...
i am glad for all exposure, myself. it reaffirms my opinion of the world that irony is the only mindset that works.
usually we are credited. just nobody tells us they are using our photos and text, or else just like rationalist describes, we get a request for material and send it off and never hear a bloody word again. sometimes the book changes theme (like that starchitect one).
established magazines do a great job of it all though and i am pretty happy when they hire their own photographers and writers to do the work, cuz then I don't have to, and you know its a thrill to read what someone else thinks of your work when its not in the context of a blog or on arch-daily.
but things are changing real fast even in the last 5 years or so. with dropbox all we need to do is have a folder ready and it takes all of 10 seconds to get printable material out the door. it used to be a pain with ftp sites and sending passwords and all that. the barriers to publishing keep getting thinner and thinner, and the frenzy (panic) for new content keeps growing. i can't tell if sites like archdaily is making it better or worse. there is literally nothing we can't see or read anymore online, so what are books for?
This reminds me of seeing an ad absurdam amount of firms advertise being "published", "internationally recognized" or "awarded". It's like running in a race and everyone gets a blue ribbon for participation.
First came multiple rounds of layoffs, followed by everyone else freaking out and preemptively looking for other opportunities. Best ones found offers and took them. Most of my favorite people are gone. My boss (who hired me) left as well. I have no boss now, and remaining partners are people I've never really spoken to much. Noone talks to me (except lower people). Being a specialist, there is no reason for them to get rid of me, but it's just gosh damn depressing. Gah.
Back to topic; giving credit in architecture is such a silly notion. What, you gonna live off the royalties? The sad truth about us is the moment you stop working is the moment money stops flowing in.
rusty - that's why we need to do what rich people do and live off our investments - you just need a few million from daddy to throw at a bunch of different start-ups - and when one of them becomes the next facebook you cash in when they go public. easy.
LOL!!! Nearly spit out my coffee reading that toaster. Reminds me of "Can't afford college? Just borrow money from your parents" Cuz every parent out there has that kind of cash.
Sorry to here about your co-workers Rusty. We had one working on contract here. He was great and everyone liked him, did great work, knew what he was doing. But his contract came to an end and things have slowed again so yesterday was his last day :'-(
In the meantime they hired someone else directly, that doesn't even the know the difference between the sill and the frame of a window and doesn't seem to know how to use snaps.
that's shitty, rusty. you're totally right about how to make a living in this stupid business. shoulda bin born to rich people instead of farmers. very silly of me.
i'm ashamed to say that i haven't been yet... drive past it all the time...
come to think of it, that might be an excellent activity for this weekend since my parents are coming to town!
toasteroven while Hawthorne seems to me to make it clear with his review that the fault lies in the legal situation/restrictions related to the whole Barnes kerfuffle, certain phrases, sections stand out as fairly negative/critical of the project. Although for lack of graceful attempts by the architects. For instance " the new building suffers from a distinct lack of soul" + "latest example of a creeping gigantism in contemporary museum architecture" or "high-culture, painstaking version of Disneyfication"....
Phillip did you have a chance to go over the weekend with family? What do you think?
hawthorne is not impartial on the matter... he appears in the movie "the art of the steal" as one of the blowhards decrying the move as the greatest artistic crime of the century...
i was hoping to maybe go this coming weekend, but then i realized there is a giant music festival on the parkway this weekend, so i'll probably be keeping my distance from that part of town...
still struggling with corten steel 1/8" tolerance might be a problem when you talking about 500 pound sheet of steel fitting into place. Ya for all those who knows and want to knows 16 GA steel if for Babies... 3/16 in A588 plate steel comes in big ashe sheets....but you have to find some one to break it and well in long lengths it does become a
Thread Central
Donna, I know. And speaking of new jobs, I finally got my classroom 90% organized and arranged. I also have a direction, and at least two weeks of lessons planned for video game design, and for computer programming. Now I just have to figure out that pesky PC Mainenance class. And I've only got a week full of evenings left to get it done. Yikes!
that sounds fun sarah. i kind of want to sit in, but i'm pretty sure that would be difficult.
Penny arcade (which is pretty much awesomeness in everything they do) has a couple of recent videos that talk about mechanics in video games i think would be worthwhile to look at. this is applicable to anyone who designs interactive space, so for those that think people interact with architecture this might be worth a look for your too. here's the video
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/mechanics-as-metaphor-part-1
and you have to play this game before you listen to what they say about it
http://www.necessarygames.com/my-games/loneliness/flash
ya, it's a flash game. it is what it is. it won't take long so go ahead and try it before you watch the videos.
this is what i heard about pc maintenance for those that haven't already figured it out on their own: get a good pc with high end everything and put every bit of software you need on it. don't install anything else ever. once you're at a point where you need to do something new with your computer, get a new computer.
speaking of teaching, i have been teaching ESL - well more like volunteering - for the past few months, and last night i managed my way through three hours. a really wonderful experience.
when i think about these asshole conservatives demeaning immigrants, i get overwhelmed with anger, they haven't a clue how difficult it is for non-natives. on top of learning the language, we are also getting them ready for citizenship exams, most americans couldn't pass this test with a cheat sheet.
America got independence in 1776, right? Or was it fourteen hundred and ninety two? Ah, what's it matter, we all know the US of A didn't become awesome until 1845 when Texas joined the Union
That's awesome beta! Coming from a family of immigrants I have a real soft-spot for immigrant issues. I have a friend that volunteers with an Adult Literacy program here and I've been wanting to join her. You're adding fuel to the fire. :-)
totally on board with immigrants as nation builders. almost all my best friends in canada were born outside canada. now i'm expat i appreciate their effort even more. learning a language and starting a career at same time is harsh.
Yes my no-native American Wife is my go to when it comes to spelling. I was telling a client this last week and he told me his wife who is also Brazilian also proof reads what he writes and does both grammer and spelling checks of what he writes. Mr. B speaks several languages and doesn't speak some but has a pretty good indication of what the conversation is about. When we went in for her natualization the only hick up we had was a year when they wanted to say I filed my taxes late when I actually hand not. We had to go back to the IRS and get some special document sent to the Immigration people. She had all the answers to the naturalization test correct. This will be her first Presidential Election, so hopefully she will help us stay the course.
snook, yay for your voting wife! And beta it's wonderful that you're helping people on their path. I love when immigrants become citizens, I've said here before it makes me cry every time I see a naturalization ceremony. Especially now, when I feel so down on this country, to be reminded that for so many people it is so much better for their lives to be here than wherever they came from.
We just need to figure out how to make this exceptionally wealthy country work better for those who don't have a lot of money or access to it. Hopefully we'll start getting better at it, though it will be a long hard fight for progressives to get there.
dude; 'does both grammer and spelling checks'
sounds like a full time job for poor wife.
Only 2 years or so until I'm a real Murican and can vote against my own interests.
it's kinda interesting that ayn rand is back in the news with ryan joining the race.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
- John Rogers
hah, that's nice. totally true too. evidence is abundant.
Only 2 years or so until I'm a real Murican and can vote against my own interests.
uh - Jabba the Ford?
Canadians are also pretty good at voting against their own interests.
bit different system though, we don't pick prime minister. still, harper's government makes me think of going home and getting involved in politics, we barely resemble a proper european country at all now. all we got left is gay marriage and universal health care. barely liberal at all, really.
apparently my grad thesis got published in a book that came out last december... I'd submitted to this author for another book (or maybe it's the same book that got re-imagined and re-titled? hard to know at this point) like 3+ years ago. I didn't hear back, didn't hear back, finally posted a comment on their blog about the timeline and when the selections would be made, got a reply that everyone who got in had already been notified, so sorry but my stuff must not have made it if I hadn't heard. OK, it falls off my radar, then yesterday someone posts to my fb page that they were happy to see my work in this new book! WTF. I know I should be more excited about this, but I'm pretty irritated... why couldn't they have told people they were in? Because then they would've had to go to the expense of providing the traditional courtesy copy of the book to the people they're making money off of? I don't really want to go pay money in a store to people who've not exactly been awesome through the process.
sounds like you need to put it up on scribd!
this is why you hire a professional.
eh. it's just jesus, nothing to see there.
This has to be one of the greatest sentences ever written: "The once-dignified portrait now resembles a crayon sketch of a very hairy monkey in an ill-fitting tunic, he says."
I laughed out loud today at work when I read the Jesus Monkey story. Luckily noone was around me since everyone who used to sit close by either got laid off, or just left. Sigh.
Toasteroven
the word Botched doesn't even begin to describe that mistake
On the New York Times website they have a story about the botched restoration with a picture then directly below it there is a story about a monkey in Tampa with a picture of the monkey kind of funny.
Uh oh, Rusty, I don't like the sound of that. The big city can be cruel, hang in there.
rationalist I'm also sorry to hear about your article fiasco. Any update, did you call them on it?
I think that publication stuff happens quite a lot.
We found ourselves in a thick book on starchitects (which is itself a joke if you know us) completely by accident last year, and apparently we were published somewhere in India though we never saw the final output. lots of same in china. it goes other way too - last week we got a copy of a publication from Uruguay in which we were not included, along with a kind note.
Publication just got too easy and the internet is training us all to be a bit sloppy...
about that painting restoration, i like the new version. lots of jesus pictures around that look like the original, but not many like the old lady has made. not as good as buddy jesus, but it's gotta be up there.
I called the author out on twitter but he never responded. I also get probably half a dozen emails a year from Chinese and Indian publishing companies wanting to use that project, but I never respond to those because I've learned that it's not worth it to put in the time publishing something absolutely everywhere, it's better to keep it top-tier.
Will + rationalist re: publishing would you argue that it is just the way it is now, the new normal? Or should it be different?
Is crediting better than no exposure? Of course it probably also depends on what we mean by publish. If they are just using your images/project from you with no credit vs selecting you to be on a list/showing images of a project by you but that they create?
@Rusty what Donna said. keep your chin up or your head down ...
i am glad for all exposure, myself. it reaffirms my opinion of the world that irony is the only mindset that works.
usually we are credited. just nobody tells us they are using our photos and text, or else just like rationalist describes, we get a request for material and send it off and never hear a bloody word again. sometimes the book changes theme (like that starchitect one).
established magazines do a great job of it all though and i am pretty happy when they hire their own photographers and writers to do the work, cuz then I don't have to, and you know its a thrill to read what someone else thinks of your work when its not in the context of a blog or on arch-daily.
but things are changing real fast even in the last 5 years or so. with dropbox all we need to do is have a folder ready and it takes all of 10 seconds to get printable material out the door. it used to be a pain with ftp sites and sending passwords and all that. the barriers to publishing keep getting thinner and thinner, and the frenzy (panic) for new content keeps growing. i can't tell if sites like archdaily is making it better or worse. there is literally nothing we can't see or read anymore online, so what are books for?
This reminds me of seeing an ad absurdam amount of firms advertise being "published", "internationally recognized" or "awarded". It's like running in a race and everyone gets a blue ribbon for participation.
thanks Donna and Nam!
First came multiple rounds of layoffs, followed by everyone else freaking out and preemptively looking for other opportunities. Best ones found offers and took them. Most of my favorite people are gone. My boss (who hired me) left as well. I have no boss now, and remaining partners are people I've never really spoken to much. Noone talks to me (except lower people). Being a specialist, there is no reason for them to get rid of me, but it's just gosh damn depressing. Gah.
Back to topic; giving credit in architecture is such a silly notion. What, you gonna live off the royalties? The sad truth about us is the moment you stop working is the moment money stops flowing in.
Work yourself to death! do it!
rusty - that's why we need to do what rich people do and live off our investments - you just need a few million from daddy to throw at a bunch of different start-ups - and when one of them becomes the next facebook you cash in when they go public. easy.
LOL!!! Nearly spit out my coffee reading that toaster. Reminds me of "Can't afford college? Just borrow money from your parents" Cuz every parent out there has that kind of cash.
Sorry to here about your co-workers Rusty. We had one working on contract here. He was great and everyone liked him, did great work, knew what he was doing. But his contract came to an end and things have slowed again so yesterday was his last day :'-(
In the meantime they hired someone else directly, that doesn't even the know the difference between the sill and the frame of a window and doesn't seem to know how to use snaps.
Did you guys see this:
I LOL'd and LOL'd.
Donna wins the internets
lol donna.
that's shitty, rusty. you're totally right about how to make a living in this stupid business. shoulda bin born to rich people instead of farmers. very silly of me.
Please excuse my ignorance, but who is that a picture of Donna? It's really hard to tell
melt - see my post above.
^-- he means the post that linked to this article, not the snarky post about living off investment income.
I can't stop. I love this story so much!
Thanks toaster and curtkram. That's horrible. Definitely hire a professional
has anyone been to the new barnes? - it's lovely.
i'm ashamed to say that i haven't been yet... drive past it all the time... come to think of it, that might be an excellent activity for this weekend since my parents are coming to town!
Man that WHOLE guy is tiresome.
I just finished reading The Night Circus, and it was a lovely story I wanted to never end. It has a pretty good architect character, too.
toasteroven while Hawthorne seems to me to make it clear with his review that the fault lies in the legal situation/restrictions related to the whole Barnes kerfuffle, certain phrases, sections stand out as fairly negative/critical of the project. Although for lack of graceful attempts by the architects. For instance " the new building suffers from a distinct lack of soul" + "latest example of a creeping gigantism in contemporary museum architecture" or "high-culture, painstaking version of Disneyfication"....
Phillip did you have a chance to go over the weekend with family? What do you think?
hawthorne is not impartial on the matter... he appears in the movie "the art of the steal" as one of the blowhards decrying the move as the greatest artistic crime of the century... i was hoping to maybe go this coming weekend, but then i realized there is a giant music festival on the parkway this weekend, so i'll probably be keeping my distance from that part of town...
Friday afternoon rally cheer:
I'm an architect. Fuck, yeah.
Oh, BTW everyone, tammuz is noctilucent. I just figured that out yesterday while looking for threads on good examples of pre-cast concrete.
bubble. bubble.... GULP! (ripple) (ripple) (ripple)
coming up for air feels good.
still struggling with corten steel 1/8" tolerance might be a problem when you talking about 500 pound sheet of steel fitting into place. Ya for all those who knows and want to knows 16 GA steel if for Babies... 3/16 in A588 plate steel comes in big ashe sheets....but you have to find some one to break it and well in long lengths it does become a
Snook, I hope you weren't crushed by your corten. Seeing that you didn't finish your sentence, I'm a bit worried.
bump... tc was almost off the first page... maybe everyone was crushed by snook's corten...
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