Tom Hapgood

The parents checked the domain name before choosing the baby’s name…

Many parents now get domain names for kids too young to type
NEW YORK (AP) — Besides leaving the hospital with a birth certificate and a clean bill of health, baby Mila Belle Howells got something she won’t likely use herself for several years: her very own Internet domain name.
More

Oh, I just thought of a great practical joke if your friend is about to have a baby…

Virtual Architects to Speak at Sim-U Conference

Another article on the upcoming SimU 2007 conference here at UA. Did we mention we’ll be giving away three free Wii video game systems?

Design quotes

Great design quotes, such as

“Design is so critical it should be on the agenda of every meeting in every single department.”
—Tom Peters, 2003

See the quotes here.

Follow the Flickr “Tell a story in 5 frames” entries

The students of my Elements of Animation class have submitted their first pre-project, the flickr “Tell a story in 5 frames” contest on visual storytelling. Entrants are asked to submit a visual story in five photographs and the monthly winner is posted in the official Group Pool. Let’s wish them luck! Here they are:

Jessica Ramirez “Cupcakes”
Gina Waits “The Car Wash”
Jason Reid “Lara’s Wedding”
Josh Daugherty “Payback”
Matt Campbell “Cereal Wars”
Vivi Chase “Game Over”
Kirsten Caldwell “table the kitten”
Matt Meers “The Sculptor”
Dusty Zelk “Game Day”
Napoleon Dezaldivar “False alarm at the dentist’s office”
Lisa Leamons “Shadow Dragon Prophecy”
Trey Fairchild “peanut butter and jelly sandwich”

Giving away three Wii systems

Want a Wii? Come to the SimU 2007 conference on Sept 7th here on the University of Arkansas campus. We’ll be giving away three Nintendo Wii game consoles, each valued at $250. Register at the secure site and you will be entered into the drawings that will be held throughout the day. You must be present to win.

A good student is…

“Oftentimes the thing that makes the difference between a good student and a poor one, a good learner or a bored human being, is just a little curiosity. If you have it, cultivate it, feed it. Never let it go. If you do not have it — get it. Wonder, watch, ask questions, be alive. It’s just that simple.” — Marjorie Pay Hinckley

Difference between typefaces and fonts?

We’ve been discussing this in classes, and while typeface and font are used synonymously these days, there is or was a difference between typefaces and fonts. Here’s a great explanation on wikipedia.

BlueInGreen technical animation

This is a client-driven technical animation I completed recently in Flash, uploaded to blip.tv as a swf to see what blip.tv could do with a swf. Apparently, it can’t convert swfs to flvs, as it gave me an error. It’s running realllly slooowwwly right now and doesn’t give any sort of download progress.

Click To Play

Matt Meers’ Fire Sculpture

Matt Meers, a sculpture student at the University of Arkansas Art Department, recently completed this sculpture that utilizes fire and heat to “animate” the upper section and had his group critique up at my house. His professor on this project was Assistant Professor Bethany Springer.

Click To Play

Facebook and Alcohol at UA

So I finally spent some more time updating my “self” in Facebook so I can keep up with the skinny on social networking and trying to find a use for it this specific web app. First of all, I found my old high school group in there, some people here at UA who get together and speak Italian, and a few other groups that I joined.

Most of the groups around here seem to have at most a few dozen members, but one group really stood out as having more members. 912 members in fact, and it’s the “Alcohol Lovers” group. Not being an alcohol drinker, I didn’t join, but did devote seconds of my time to reading the fascinating posts on the wall (”I was born to love alcohol.”). The photos are also worth viewing…

So thanks to the “Alcohol Lovers” group for a little diversion.