Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Here is some found poetry I generated

Preface"
Preface: O 
Preface: O
 {
 ;
 Preface: I am ;
 { 
Preface" 
Preface: I am leae
 {
 { 
Preface: O 
Preface: O
{
 Pr
 Pe
 Preface: I aml
 : 
Preface: O 
Preface: I am learning to tu 
Preface: I am learning to tup
 PrefaceL 
Pteface: I amm 
Preface: I am ; 
Pred
 Preface: I am
 ;
 Predac 
Prefacd a
 Preface: I am ;ea
 { 
:
 { 
PJ
 Preface: I am learninf
 Preface: I am ; 
Preface: I am learning to tu
 PrefaceL
 { 
Preface: O 
Preface: I am ;ear
 ap
 { 
Preface: O
 { 
PJ 
Pe
 Preface: I am learning to type. 
And use mu 
And use my ;ef
And use my left sji 
And use myleft shifrk 
Anf 
And i 
And use my left shift key.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Typing in Japanese

Japanese people can all read roman letters, butthe romanization systems for showing Japanese words are a bit cumbersome and so students learn hiragana, the syllabary, as soon as they get started studying. So I have been able to write in hiragana for years of course, without learning to type. After a year's worth of false starts, I learned to type in Japanese in an afternoon.
Here is all I actually had to do:
1.Activate the Windows Japanese Input mode
      This step is really easy to find out how to do. Control Panel ->Region and Language -> Keyboards and Languages -> Change Keyboards -> Add -> Japanese -> Apply, and then in the task bar switch between EN and JP at will.
2. Label the keyboard
       I just pressed every key and wrote down what it rendered.
3. type the gojuon/syllabary in order
      Realize the keyboard is not actually a confusing mess of characters.
So here is the gojuon, which is the alphabet analogue. It's arranged by vowels across and consonants down. 

Here is how it applies to the qwerty keyboard. It is mostly clusters with a bunch of outliers, I do not know why. Also, just a note if you are reading this and fairly detail oriented but haven't studied japanese: chi and tsu are in the t category, shi is in the s category, and fu is in the h category. I don't know the reason for most of those, but fu is because the japanese h is like an h/f hybrid. 
My two workarounds before I learned to type yesterday were to use my phone, or type in English into google translate and then copy/paste. The phone keypad is actually perfect for the gojuon. It works like the T9 system in English. Multiple taps take you across the columns of the gojuon, and there is one key per row. 

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

Micro Landscapes and Personal Gallery

This is my new, tiny series. It is made by framing scraps of acrylic paint peeled from my palette. 

 I think gluing them to bails for necklaces and waterproofing them with resin is the way to go if I want anyone else to wear them. For myself, I had fun experimenting with attaching them with spirit gum. I probably wouldn't wear this out because in my experience people can't really be cool about things like that. I would just hear, "What's that?" as many times as there are people.

Friday, July 5, 2013

Alameda Towne Centre bronze sculpture

The shopping center in my hometown got a ton of nice art with its last redevelopment. This is my favorite piece. It's a mandala sort of wheel made of animals and fruits and things. I usually wouldn't post such an unsuccessful photo but I have honestly spent hours googling:
 "Alameda Towne Centre bronze sculpture"
"alameda town center bronze sculpture"
"southshore redevelopment public art"
"south shore redevelopment public art"
"alameda town center metal sculpture"
"public artists alameda towne centre"
trying to find a picture of it. So now here it is. I still don't know the artist's name.