I need your help. I want to build a well.

Seriously. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of charity:water, but they do great work.

Short version: I’m training for a Half Ironman. I’d love for you to follow along with me while I train. While I’m doing that, I want you to help me build a well. Small donations, big donations, a number of small donations—anything you can help with will make a difference. It’s ambitious, but there are some smart, ambitious, motivated people out there, and we should have their backs.

So please, help me out.

My whole life, I’ve been playing, training, competing—in short, I’m an athlete. As an athlete, water is essential. I’m always drinking water—before, after, and during workouts, as well as throughout the day to stay hydrated. And it’s as simple as walking to the sink, turning on the tap, and filling my glass or water bottle.

Some places and some people, though, aren’t so lucky. Almost a billion people around the world don’t have access to clean water. The task of getting water sometimes takes the entire day, yielding a meager supply of dirty, unsafe water—water that will be stretched across drinking, cooking, and sanitation needs, until it is quickly used up.

Smart, motivated people are working to change that. A properly engineered well for a community can provide clean water for 20 years, breaking down to roughly $1 per person per year. The water is safe, and there is enough for proper sanitation—incidence of disease drops dramatically, especially for children under the age of five, who are the most vulnerable. Women who used to spend their days getting water can attend school, work, or care for their families.

My point: I am going to compete in a Half Ironman in late summer, and I’d like you to follow along with me and help provide clean water at the same time.

My campaign goal of $2500 is ambitious, perhaps overly so, but then, doing a Half Ironman is pretty ambitious too. (For reference, $2500 is half the price of the average water project.) Whatever you choose to give will be greatly appreciated. I’ll be posting updates as I train and compete in some other triathlons, so I hope you’ll follow along throughout the summer.

You can hit my campaign site at http://mycharitywater.org/luptakHalfIronman. I’ll be posting updates at a brand new training blog that I’ve set up at adamluptak.com/training. It’s gonna be a fun summer, so let’s get on it.

Work, mostly. StruckAxiom pulled off a kamikaze mission for PepsiCo—a multitouch installation on a super short timeline. You can read about the project at the StruckAxiom blog.

Also, on a whim, I tweeted a link to the post I did on the LEGO CL!CK site at FITC, an industry conference that’s been on my radar and inspiring me since school. The most I was hoping for was to get the link retweeted, but instead was asked to repost it on the FITC blog and to be a guest blogger for StruckAxiom on the FITC blog.

My first (and so far only—I need to get back on that) original post for FITC was titled “Lessons Learned: Adventures in Multitouch.” It was a pretty heady experience, having my first real post up, but even better was discovering that Lee Brimelow, Platform Evangelist at Adobe, has blogged about it, and highlighted it during his session at FITC Toronto.

Outside of work-related nonsense, I’ve been training. I competed in my first triathlon of the season over Memorial Day Weekend—a sprint triathlon at Rigby Lake. It was a cold, windy, rainy day, and a pretty miserable experience, but I got through it, and have my sights set higher—a Half Ironman at the end of the summer. But more about that later.

So, fingers crossed, you’ll hear from me soon!

Photo by Matthew Field

So the 2010 Winter Olympics start tomorrow, and I’m pretty stoked. The 2010 Olympics in Vancouver – admittedly, I really kind of wish I could go up for it, but oh well. (After all, I never attended any of the events when they were held in Salt Lake City, even though I only lived 3 hours north at the time – I did go see the torch as it came through town, though.) For one thing, they’re in Vancouver – I mean, look at that photo – that’s just ridiculous how cool that is.

The medals, though, are what I wanted to talk about. I love the design of these. The simple, minimal shape, with the subtle Olympic rings in the lower right-hand corner. Further, the shapes etched into the surface are actually the forms of a design in the art style of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest. It is probably an indication of how white I am, but I have been enchanted with Northwest Coastal art for as long as I remember, and I love that the placement of the design on the medal is randomized, so each medal only has a fragment of a larger whole, and no two medals are alike.

Another awesome aspect of the medals is where the raw materials have come from—a portion of the metal (I haven’t done the math, but my friend Rachel thinks it may be more than 50%) is recycled from e-waste. While it’s certainly only a first step towards sustainability, it’s a fairly ambitious first step. (I’d encourage you to check out Rachel’s well-footnoted post on the matter.) I also wanted to share the following NOVA segment about the making of the medals, which inspired me to write this post.

Mad props and humblest thanks to those involved in the creation of these beautiful pieces.

P.S. Be sure to check out The Big Picture albums of the Olympic Torch Relay (both the torch and the relay are works of beauty too)—both the first and second album.

A recent project had me trying to find the distance between a point and a line segment, and a coworker reminded me that the distance from a point to the line can be found from the line perpendicular to the line, which passes through the point. That means figuring out the linear equation that defines the line segment. That’s y=mx+b, if you remember your Algebra days. I was stumped for a little while – stuck on the concept of solving for two variables with Actionscript. Actually, I was stuck on the concept of solving for a single variable in Actionscript, because I was being dumb.

Then, last weekend, laying in bed, I cracked it. Didn’t get around to writing the code until Monday. I wrote a LinearEquation class – capable of being given two points, a point and a slope (m), a point and a y-intercept (b), or a slope and a y-intercept – and builds a linear equation from it, in a manner of speaking – you can give it an x value, and it will return the y value. You can give it a y value, and it will give you the x. You can get the y-intercept, the slope, or the inverse of the slope – which will be the slope of a line perpendicular to that one.

Most importantly, the LinearEquation class has a static function – following the model of Point.distance() – LinearEquation.intersection(). It takes two LinearEquations as params, and returns the point where they intersect.

So we create a line and a point – then we get the inverse slope of the line, and pass that along with the point in to get another line. Then we get the intersection of the two, and voila, we’ve the line segment that is the distance from the point and the line.

Unless of course, that intersection is outside of the first line segment – that’s why LinearEquation gets extended by another class, LineSegment. But I’m not going to tell you all my secrets all at once.

So check out the demo I’ve set up. [ Line Segment / Linear Equation AS3 demo ]

And the practical applications for this? Not really sure yet, but there have to be quite a few. Just to name one or two, perhaps making line-segment checkpoints in a racing game, or part of an AI system where an enemy is shooting at you.

Maybe I’ll share the source sometime soon – if so, you can look for it here.

We interrupt your regular non-existent programming for a bit of news – the LEGO CL!CK site (legoclick.com) that I’ve been working on at StruckAxiom was today’s FWA Site of the Day. Of course, LEGO is a sweet brand to work on, and the whole creative team – which included Jon, Jeff, Matt, Anson, as well as myself – was awesome to work with, as usual, and they all rocked it out (again, as usual).

While we’re at it, I’d like to direct you to the Deconstruck blog, where I wrote a behind-the-scenes post about one of the most popular features of the site – exploding block walls. There are code samples and explanatory goodness, so go check it out!

Now, creativity and credit are no small things to me, but I think this may be a case of people wanting to be outraged about something – not unlike the people complaining about the use of the music in such an awfully commercial way. Perhaps it is a case of “pure art” vs. commercialism – perhaps some object to Sagmeister’s “pure” concept being the inspiration for an ad peddling vodka – but in general I find this to be a waste of time, discussions of art vs. commercialism, “selling out,” etc.

We all find inspiration in great work, and Sagmeister’s original type experiments were great. Something I’ve seen before – and have certainly been guilty of myself – is trying to emulate your inspiration but falling short. This isn’t that, though. They took the same idea – making a statement – literally – through creating type from surroundings. However, where Sagmeister executed his vision with still photography, the Absolut spot is video throughout, which gives it a distinctly different feel. I also think the shots of artists crafting the words are particularly powerful. Overall, I feel like the Absolut spot has a bit more ‘polish.’

I mean no disrespect to Stefan Sagmeister – in fact, I think his work is amazing. By way of illustration, it’s like the difference between the initial groundbreaking work of developers on multitouch display tables and the later, more polished versions, like the Microsoft Surface. I don’t believe that the creators of the Absolut spot were stealing from Sagmeister. It is merely my opinion, but I feel that by executing well and bringing new touches to the table, they have seen further by standing on the shoulders of a giant.

Back in school, my friend Mike shared a DVD with me that he’d borrowed from somebody – Battlestar Galactica. I watched the miniseries that began the show, but never got further – at least, not until New Year’s Eve of this past year. This lead to Chantelle and I devouring the series over the course of nine months.

If you’ve never seen it, you totally should check it out – all the seasons are now out on DVD.

If you love science fiction, it is science fiction in top form. If you’re turned off by science fiction… you should give it a shot anyway, because it’s really good science fiction, so it’s about more than space ships and robots.

The story starts with profound human tragedy – the destruction of the vast majority of humanity – and follows the remnants of the human race as they try to evade their attackers and find a new home. It’s a story about people finding a way to go on when they’ve lost everything.

So why should you check it out? The writing and acting is awesome – the whole ensemble cast is amazing. It’s intense, and sometimes incredibly challenging. Not only are there space battles and insurrections, there are also meditations on faith, political order, occupation and terrorism, forgiveness, and ultimately the nature of humanity.

I don’t want to say too much else for fear of straying into spoiler territory. However, when one series can attract loyal followers from many ages and backgrounds, spawn discussion at the United Nations, win prestigious awards, and be recommended to the host of a radio program on religion and ethics by a Muslim scholar – it might just be worth checking out. I recommend that you do.

(Bonus: The Night Battlestar Galactica Took Over The U.N. – more detailed article, but caution – spoilers!)

Now, when I was little, I used to draw all the time. I mean, I know lots of kids are constantly drawing, but I kept at it a while. The drives to swim meets were interminably long to a child of 2nd or 3rd grade, so I would spend long portions of the rides drawing. I don’t know if I would go so far as to say I was good – I mean, I was a little kid, so short of being an illustrative prodigy, I’m not sure what passes for good, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

At some point, though, I just stopped drawing. Not really sure why, but I did. I took an art class in junior high, but I’m certainly not proud of any of the drawings I did in that class – I did a very nice pen & ink, and a passable scratchboard piece, but not so much with the drawing.

So I didn’t give much thought to drawing until I became interested in RIT, and I needed to submit a portfolio that would include 5 drawings. This was pretty terrifying for someone who hadn’t drawn much in recent years, and I think even then I was a bit naive about the level of competition I would have from people who could actually, you know – draw.

I got in to RIT, obviously – the admissions department recommended that I consider the IT program rather than design, but I knew where I wanted to be. Drawing class was an eye-opening experience, however – my first few critiques were painfully bad, and I had to labor long and hard over drawing projects that others would breeze through, getting better results in a fraction of the time. Just when I was starting to get the hang of something, it would seem, we’d be on to something different that would leave me scrambling.

And now, it’s a point of some embarrassment that I never really draw. I’m sure that with practice, I could be okay, but I just don’t. Being in a creative industry, I feel like I should doodle in my notebook at work, but I’ve never really gotten the hang of doodling – I just can’t think of anything to doodle. Which isn’t the point, I know, but that’s how I seem to work.

This brings me to what I actually meant to post about – people who are way more talented than I am.

Shootout Showdown by kheelan

A while back, my friend Jon shared a link to Abduzeedo, an art & design roundup blog. It’s always interesting, though I don’t always agree about how great some of the things he posts are. I’ve found that a lot of the stuff he posts are coming from deviantART.

The Trench by michaelkutsche

Back in the day, back before I went to RIT, or got a full-time job, some friends talked me into joining deviantART. I wound up posting mostly photos – I don’t know that I ever was really considering photography as a career path, but I suppose I fancied myself an amatuer photographer. (Looking back on it, even after a few years of design experience, I take fairly average photos.)

Once I got to RIT though, I stopped spending time on dA. It’s pretty common, I think, to hate on dA, so I won’t do that here.

Pirate Redo by bongoshock

When it comes down to it, there are some insanely talented people on deviantART. And by just visiting Abduzeedo, you just get exposed to people who are awesome.

The City by kerembeyit

Is a lot of it sort of nerdy? A lot of fantasy and scifi illustrations? Yes. But I’m okay with that, being a bit of a nerd myself.

The Kid’s Last Heist by imaginism

So, after all that jabbering, I just hope you enjoy some of the stuff I’ve posted up here, and maybe check out Abduzeedo if you want. Or not. Do what you want.

Into The Unknown by kerembeyit

So, tonight I wanted to watch a quick talk while I ate, before turning my attention to a project that needs very badly to be finished, lest I fall so far behind that the universe collapses. What I watched was, not only hilarious at moments, but the most interesting discussion of creativity that I’ve heard in a long time, if not ever. I hope you watch and enjoy.

If you’ve spoken to me during the past few weeks, I’ve no doubt told you about the project I’m on at work. That’s not what this post is about, however. For the project I’ve been on, we used the AS3 port of Box2D to manage our collision and physics. As I was working through figuring out how to use Box2D, I was checking out the demo file, and one of the demonstrations had this spidery walking machine, labeled as a “Theo Jansen Walker.” Of course, I couldn’t contain my curiousity, so to Google I went…>

Turns out that Theo Jansen is, quite simply, an evil genius. This guy is just throwing down some incredible stuff. It started, it seems, 21 years ago – Theo Jansen wrote a computer program that created virtual 4-legged walking machines that would race each other, and then emulate the winner, evolving towards increasingly faster machines. As a programmer, that is a cool enough concept for me, but he wasn’t satisfied – he decided to take the concept analog.

So he’s been building these multi-legged walking machines out of plastic tubing and cable ties. Let’s pause for a moment – he builds multi-legged machines. That walk. They capture the power of the wind, and they walk. How. Cool. Is. That.

STRANDBEESTEN from Alexander Schlichter on Vimeo.

And he keeps them evolving. He tries variations, and when something works, he takes that “dominant” gene and puts it into other machines. His ‘beach animals’ have even started to sprout wings, store compressed air into bottles for later use, or hammer themselves into the sand to ride out storms.

The cynic in me rolls my eyes a little at Mr. Jansen’s hope that someday his machines will be able to self-evolve, and that he’ll be able to turn them loose on the beach to live their own lives. But then again, with the strides he appears to be making, maybe he will be able to pull it off, at least a partial – beasts that can react to their surroundings well enough to go around obstacles and hardy enough to survive on their own. It’d really be quite something to see these things just crusing on a beach somewhere.

So check it out – it’s awesome. Not only is it awesome on a technical level, I really love the aesthetic of his beach animals.