Sawyer Paul's Blog, page 79
January 8, 2013
Chrome in Windows 8
At first, I thought it was a bug. When I launched Chrome in Windows 8, it would sometimes go full-screen. I don't mean full-screen like the tabs disappear; I mean full-screen like a native Windows 8 app, with all the benefits and restrictions of one. Attachments used the metro file browser, audio only played when the window was featured, etc., But it only launched like this sometimes; other times it launched normally, like a regular old panelled window.
While I still haven't figured out why it went one way or the other on its own, I've at least figured out how to control it. In the hamburger menu, there's a new option if you're on Windows 8: Relaunch Chrome in Windows 8 Mode. Click that, and Chrome will close. Open it and it'll become a full-screen, Windows 8-style app.
I find I generally prefer it in full-screen mode, along with all the other metro apps. But since Rdio doesn't have a dedicated Windows 8 app yes, I still have to use it in the old style much of the time.
I'm making these screenshots using Windows' Fn+Win+PrtSc keyboard combo. It's very helpful. Something cool I didn't realize until I ran into it was that if you're running two monitors at once, the screen capture technique will create a single jpeg of both screens together, like so:
What's interesting is that the dual-screenshot is a whopping 4mb, while the single screenshot is only 1.2mb. I wonder why?
January 2, 2013
Orange Bristles
More experimentation with Image tracing.
Here's the original, from The Fly Monk
And here's a few zoomed in shots, since this process really only pops when you scale to 2000%.
December 31, 2012
Republican weakness
This is the first article for International Object, a blog I recently pivoted to cover politics, combat, and theatrics.
December 30, 2012
Superstar Inferno
Sometimes ideas come out of tweets.
Now, I'm really not sure how I came to this version of Graham. Here's the image I began with. For people who don't know (let's say all of you), Superstar Billy Graham was a wrestler in the 70s. He was a ridiculous person and very entertaining.
Anyways, I threw this picture into Illustrator and played around for an hour (or 4) and got this. I think it's really cool, but I a) don't know why I made the decisions I made, and b) have no idea how to replicate it. So I'm a bad scientist.
It's weird enough looking at full size, but even stranger close up. Here's a few screenshots.
Every now and then I make a thing where I'm not even sure I like it, and this is definitely one of them. It's just so off from what I usually do, but also way more intricate and detailed. It also seems totally inevitable that if I were to try this approach with any other image it wouldn't work, and I'd just get splotches of ugly vectors instead of this strangely radiant figure. But maybe that's the magic of wrestling in the 70s.
December 27, 2012
Telephone
8 versions. I don't have a favourite.
#block-f8eb3afcacc3335c420d .sqs-gallery-block-grid { margin-right: -2px; }
#block-f8eb3afcacc3335c420d .sqs-gallery-block-grid .sqs-gallery-design-grid-slide .margin-wrapper { margin-right: 2px; margin-bottom: 2px; }
December 18, 2012
December 17, 2012
A Record Year for Rainfall - new first few paragraphs
I recently decided to start the book in a completely different time in the overall story. I think it'll end up making a lot more sense by the end.
Bret Fould felt a pull. His face close to the ground, breathing in a resemblance of earth, he shifted his weight slightly and reached back. Laying face-down, his torso beyond the gate, he couldn't quite grasp exactly where the steel mesh grabbed his jacket. He inched backward, hoping it would break free, but the cage held. He crawled back, letting his jacket unfurl over his head. He swore and pulled his arms out through the sleeves. The fence held the jacket now. Bret was bare armed.
He inspected the point where the jacket got caught, and with little effort unlinked them. He patted the jacket down, and felt the chill on his arms. The desert was cold at night. That a city surrounded him didn't help.
Bret decided to wait a minute before attempting the fence again. He checked his camera for dust. He looked around for guards. He took the piece of paper out from his pocket. He was here, trying to break into a private motel, because of a hunch and a breach of privacy.
It was Bret's job to get pictures of famous people doing infamous things.
December 15, 2012
December 10, 2012
f.lux: software to make your life better
If you work primarily with text, there's simply no reason to have your computer screen shine bright white at your face all day. Eye strain stinks. Enter F.lux.
It's an app that's so cleverly thought through that I figured it was Mac-only. Turns out it runs on Windows and Linux. F.lux changes your screen brightness and hugh based on the sun. Is it bright and white out? Then so is your screen. Are you writing at 6 in the morning in pitch blackness like I am? Your screen will be a lovely and calm deep pink, causing far, far less strain.
It's also free, and uses up almost no system resources.
