better late then never

our group was probably one of the latest to meet up.  we first met up a day before the tutorial for the final assignment, and managed to come up with a story that we could agree with.

we settled on a futuristic theme during the meeting and we quickly got to work.  i came up with a quick concept for the overall setting.

original concept art for unnamed future city

the features of the city includes 

1) higher ground - high tech futuristic architecture with flying cars, domes, etc etc

2) lower slums - older architectures, even slum-like architecture with junk yards and dumps

the setting was inspired by movies (District 9, Batman Begins, Skyline), games (Final Fantasy 7 and 8) and even novels (Dune Series).

When we met up again, I was assigned the role of designing backgrounds.  I was happy to get this role as I was not as good at drawing detailed objects, and better at landscape objects and its details.  i was required to do 4 locations: future city, slums, school, junkyard

city skyline

junkyard

school and classrooms

slums 

Other backgrounds (which reused previous concepts):

night skyline of future city with home background

side view of alley and dark alley (both in slums)

It was pretty fun conceptualizing backgrounds and creating them.  At times, I think I created too much detail to the danger of possibly overshadowing the foreground, but I hope that through coloring and touching up the backgrounds could appear to be less dominant.

somewhere over the rainbow....

assignment 6 was one of the harder assignments.  first of all, i wasn't able to understand the requirements well.  secondly, choosing a set of lyrics/quote that could easy make use of a myriad of typefaces and variations in typography was pretty difficult.

eventually, my playlist for the night made the decision.  i was listening to jason mraz's cover of "somewhere over the rainbow".  with my memories of the original wizard of oz, I decided to use this song for my assignment

someplace where there isn't any trouble
do you suppose there is such a place, Toro
there must be
its not a place you can get to by a boat or a train
its far far away
behind the moon
beyond the rain....
~ Dorothy, before singing the song


This quote sets the mood for the whole song.  Its about being free from troubles and going to someplace far away and relaxing.  With this mood and feeling (something which I was NOT feeling during the time of the assignment), I set out to complete my assignment.

I didn't get much comments again this time around cos time was running out.  Julian just asked me to do more.

the added criteria of allowing for 2 A3 papers would allow me to expand on this assignment.  I would now try to use more different font faces, and add more pictures and actions.  With 2 papers allowed, I would split up two stanzas which I both wanted to use but had problems creating it in one pictures.

in order to communicate my feeling and mood, I wanted it to seem like your troubles started from the chimney and slowly flew into the skies.  I tried to use continuity to direct the flow of reading.

i like the idea, but i don't really like the outcome. will be splitting it into two pages.

i wish it were summer right now

when i started on the assignment, i knew i didn't want to do christmas or new years.  originally i wanted to try to still keep in theme (yes! i actually had a theme), which was the whole running thing.

i actually felt it would be a good chance to experiment with color schemes because of the lack of colors (medal - 1-2 colors, string 3 colors, background 1 color).  but eventually, i found it tame and decided to think of something else.  moreover, i'm quite sad for losing the theme.  i initially wanted to do a running-stalker story for the photo assignment, and blisters & wearing proper footwear for the poster assignment.  i might actually try them for fun! (the list of to-dos from this module is getting longer and longer :S julian wasn't joking when he asked us to get it right the first time)

i like the idea of the whole warmth and cold colors from the presentation, and i wanted to do a piece that could convey temperature and climate.  so i thought of doing a summer greeting card! (cause the school is totally concerned about us enjoying a great summer vacation right? :S)

very first idea. then i decided to apply closure on the right eye

final mock up

color schemes!

i was quite happy to see my work quite well received! (at least for the first 30 minutes I was awake, subsequently i dozed off cos i did it over the night)

without light, warm sun, neon, cool breeze were generated automatically with illustrator's color scheme color wheel function.  after experimenting with those, i found out that i actually disliked the products from it so i stopped and manually chose colors for my 4 remaining pieces

i tried triad, split complementary but i didn't like both.

so most of my work is monochromatic, complementary and analogous.

things i want to experiement with:

1 high contrast piece

1 combination of hot and cold

1 traid

1 split complementary

some notable comments for improvement:

1. the hat looks like hair to several people. perhaps i could add more details?

2. warm sun is not warm enough.  lacking the range of warm colors i.e. darker orange, yellow, red.  i think i split this into 4, one for each color (orange, yellow and red) and combine them into one warm sun.  the existing one cane be converted into orange

3. sunny is a little dull :(

4. the sunglasses could be improved.  firstly i could add reflective ";" to the sides of the lens, and maybe reduce the transparency (yes, i did actually add a layer of transparent lens colors)

5. the white hat doesnt really make "logical" sense in dawn.  i might move the white hat to without light?

i'm surprisingly pleased with dusk and night. for my final product i'm gonna go with either sunny, day or dusk. although both sunny and day need to become more summery!

thanks for the feedback! this is one of the first assignment i'm more pleased with.

so all in all, i will try to add in 7 more (high contrast, red, yellow, orange, combination of hot and cold, triad, split complementary) and edit 4 (neon, day, sunny, warm sun).

if possible i will add details to the hat and glasses.

stuffed intestines!

I wanted to do something related to eating oily food.  With an initial idea of using artery, I immediately faced the problem of getting an artery.  A quick visit to the market gave me the inspiration to use intestines instead.

Mock Up

Poster Draft (used for critique)

The white stuff is actually corn starch and water, which was a temporary replacement for mayo.

1. Misread the instruction to be MORE than 150 words.  Will change the text

2. I personally feel its not bloody enough.  Although it also takes a little while to actually get what this is.  Will experiment with different backgrounds.

3.  Will try to retake a picture with real mayo instead.  (if I have time)

4. Will also experiement with more layouts concepts from the lecture (e.g. repetition, balance)

The contents of the cover text would be how your intestines have to work harder to digest fats and oils, and that stuffing yourself with fats and oils is just like choking your insides.  Need some effort in picking out the right words and idea

I like the overall outcome of the picture. As did some of my classmate.  But I think the poster could do more work.

lecture 5 classroom exercise

we were supposed to create abstract figures that represent ideas given to us.  i was given hot and rich.  here is my work:

the coins are a little hard to identify but i think the pot helps.  the thermormeter is more straightforward though.

assignment 3 storyboard

As promised.  Do note that the final outcome differed from the storyboard,

my egg-citment wore out :(

this assignment was the first one that i was most pleased with, before going into the critique that is.  it was fun boiling, drawing and decorating the eggs.

Egg-xecuted!

I chose different colored eggs, in order to try to hint segregation.  The story is that the lighter skinned egg was discriminated and bullied by the darker skinned eggs.

Some of my classmates was actually confused with this picture, although I actually think its quite clear.  The hand requires an egg, and is about to take the white egg.  The other idea which I wished to convey as well was that the dark skinned eggs were actually hiding.  So in spite of being bullies, they were really cowards.  This idea is hard to convey, but not completely important.

The white egg seems like he will be cooked, while the darker eggs are watching.  An attempted "foreshadowing" is that the dark eggs are so near the frying pan with eggs, and thus they are the ones who will be cooked.  However, I feel that this is at best a poor attempt, just like the example given in lecture (guy cutting holding knife smacking his lips = foreshadowing of killing/eating.... really???).  Feedback from my classmates is that there seems to be a lack of focus in this picture, cos the message I intended to convey is not really clear.  Suggested improvements would be to change the angle, and to remember to place focus on the white egg.

This is my favourite picture out of my whole series.  The shadow created seems like the white egg is about to meet his demise, and the camera angle helps to exemplify this. This shadow in fact contributes to the twist, because it may seem like it is the wooden spatula.  Even so, some of my classmates felt that the fear effect could be improved by using a different point of view.

Here's where i think things start to go awry.  The twist supposed to occur here because instead of being cooked, the egg is painted on.  The egg is actually used as an easter egg.  The few problems include:

1. The painbrush is obscured by the egg, so there is no focus on the paintbrush and its hard to make the association with the previous picture

2. The link between this picture and the previous picture is hard to see.  It may seem like a sudden change.  In fact, due to the way i edited the photo, it seems like this is a darker egg.  Suggested remedies include the use of a common feature to show that this egg is the same egg as the previous egg.  I kinda over looked this when trying to make the egg stand out from the background.

3.  Its hard to tell that this is actually an easter egg.  I hope to resolve this by including a final picture with a little girl eat her breakfast and holding this egg.

This last picture is just showing the darker eggs getting their just deserts, following up on the attempted fore-shadow.  I'm quite fond of the scrambled eggs ... i mean picture as well, although it turned out much darker than I intended.

All in all, I am once again disappointed in my work :(  I found out that had I took the module last year, I would have been one of the many other egg stories.  I'm also a little disappointed that I overlooked the transition confusion from the 4th and 5th pictures.

I shall try to do better in the next assignment.  Though I'm starting to be really worried. :/ 

will upload the storyboard later tonight...

stopwatch

6 levels of abstraction

I chose the stopwatch, which was used in one of my initial drafts for assignment 1.  The stopwatch is a index for coaching, running, training.  My "company" would be a running coach company.

I began with simple sketches of just the stopwatch itself, but realised that the abstraction was minimal...

Hence, for the actual abstraction, I took a picture with a hand and the stopwatch.  Hence, in the abstraction, I was able to abstract away the hand, adding bigger jumps in abstraction level between the different images

Eventually, I chose the 4th design,  The rationale is that I felt that while the hand is gone, the stop watch was still able to connote the meaning.  In the later two levels of abstraction, I felt there was a loss in meaning as it could be easily misintepreted as a clock.

I chose red as the background because the track is red, and i omitted details such as email and address because my "company" is based online.

all in all, i felt that my work was a little too simplistic and i didn't like it.  before the stop watch idea, I had initially started working on track shoes, which was very common, and hard to abstract.  i think for the purpose of the assignment, my work satisfied the requirements, but lacked creativity and artistic flair, a common problem in all my work thus far.

abstract:
stopwatch is an revolutionary online portal that will increase your performance in running.  here at stop watch, we believe that every runner should have the right to maximise their potential and achieve  his/her targets.  stopwatch understands that the lack of knowledge stands as the greatest barrier between a runner and his/her goals.  stopwatch is here to break this barrier.


with the help of top coaches, who have excellent track records of working with runners in Singapore, our training programmes are suited to the asian climate and physiology.  our coaches have devised a customizable training programme which can suit your individual goals and schedule.  other than coming up with training programmes, we would be able to provide advise on injury management, dietary recommendations and any other topics related to running.


other than our online portal, stopwatch also organizes training groups at various location.  we understand that group training is essential in improving performance.  with the personal attention of our experience coaches at various locations accross the island, our training groups provide a different dimension of training to help achieve excellence.


time to return to the drawing block.

with all the blogs out, looking at it really shows of the talents of this batch. which is very worrying :(

my illustrator skills are really poor :(

finally i'm done. julian was right. your skills (or lack thereof) will limit your capacity to communication. here are my final drafts for my first assignment.

design 1 - the runner

i chose this design for its simplicity and unique use of the running man. like one of my classmates said during the critique, this probably will not work for any other name.

the tracing seems very rough, and the color shading is really rather poorly done as well.  although i wanted to convey simplicity, i am thoroughly dissatisfied with the colors.  will look into improving the colors, and the shadows. i dont think i will be adding a background to this piece.

design 2 - knights and dragon

i chose this design because i liked the dragon and knight. i was pretty pleased with the knight and force field, however i do not like the dragon.  i also feel that the castle is lacking detail, all 3 areas i would be improving upon.

however, the most important flaw was obvious when i printed out my work.  the force field becomes rather unobvious, and the old could hardly be made out.  i think i might try to add some effects on the back side of the force field, and make it slightly more obvious.

please give me comments!

lecture exercise

Iconogram - What you see is what you get

pictogram - Isotype representation

cartogram - topographical representation

diagram - charts

Ideagram - representation of concept

logogram - conceptual representation of writing

typogram - typogramical representation

phonogram - representation of phonics

other than the 8 -grams, most of the content from this lecture was from the preclusion modeul NM2101, which is a good revision, but not really too interesting compared to the past lectures :/

The activity at the end of the lecture was another opportunity to practice sketching :)

we were supposed to demonstrate our understanding of icons, index and symbols.

since this is an art module, i chose an artist to be the icon, the paint brush and palette to be the index, and the chinese character "yi" to be the symbolic (wasn't required by julian).

i originally thought that the painting in the first picture could be the index as well, since painting connotes painter some what?

in other news, i'm still a little slow on my assignment 1.  my illustrator is working again finally, but my end product is still less than desirable. more after the break

assignment 1 roughs - part 2

pac man (top left):

if you take a look at the thumbnails, my original idea involved using the corner of the pacman playing field to get the letter J. however, while drawing out the full scale rough i suddenly had the brain wave to include a retro TV and joy stick.  the end result was one that exceeded my initial expectations. although it is pretty simple, it achieves both the aim of the assignment pretty well (i think :P) for the font, i used the pacman font from the game.  although the piece only shows pacman, i wanted to indicated i love retro games.  i wanted to use a retro font within the TV, but the joystick out of the tv might be a little confusing. will also try to implement this piece

game controllers (top right):

this is the generic token piece for this theme.  i couldn't think of anything good for O and N so i just used the wheel controller and the wii mote with nunchuk. initially i wanted to do some flight simulator thing. but first of all thats a lie cos i dont play flight simulation games, secondly i couldn't think of anything for O and N.  all in all a boring piece.  i wanted to do a black and white for this until i accidentally started coloring it.

gun, scope and controllers

before the new pac man, this was my 2nd favourite game piece.  however, its plain background makes it a little boring.  i tried to use the font from "modern warfare".  originally i tried to use empty bullet shells for the N, but then I realized that might be interpreted as I love guns.  however, even with the controller, it seems like a very tame attempt to link it to first person shooter.  i wanted to use the mouse with wire at first, but that would be copying the controller from the pac man piece.

knight and dragon

my favourite piece :)

the dragon was quite challenging, again due to the fact it had many limbs.  in the end, i took away its two hind legs and spread its wings such that it forms the line on the capital J.  originally, the knight did not have a magical force field surrounding him, thus was hard to recognize the O. the background for this piece incorporated a castle and open air.

by coincidence, i realised that Jas' piece is almost the same as me, in that he used both the dragon and the door.  but we used different items for different letters.

I tried to use the medivial font.  if i can find time, i might want to the the dragon breathing fire to spell "my name is", and use medivail font on a banner hanging on the castle for "and i love RPGs".  

please feel free to tear any of these pieces down.  although its not the actual piece of work yet, i would love to hear some feedback/which piece/idea you think its the most suitable.

currently, i would do the running man and the dragon piece (although this one would be hellish to do on illustrator).  i would want to also create the pac man and track with silhouettes to make comparism

some work done, still behind schedule - but a really long entry

the past two weeks have been a horror. murphy's law at its best. however, those are but excuses and i shall strive for improvement.

for a start, before today's critique, i caught up on everything that should have been completed LAST WEEK. to make up for my lateness, i decided to spend more time reflecting on what i'm learnt through this process

(WARNING - LONG POST AHEAD)

Thumbnails:

finally, i came up with adequate ideas to complete the 8 thumbnails required by the assignment. i felt that this was important because idea generation was a necessary part of design and i wanted to force myself to go through it.  moreover, i werent satisfied with my first designs for both themes.  for my 2nd theme, i chose games/game genres.  more on these ideas below.

Full Scale Roughs:

I chose to colour all four ideas for 2 reasons.  1. my illustrator died on me while I was doing my actual piece halfway. It was already 3AM, so I didn't want to go into critique empty handed again. 2. i took it as practice (even though i'm already running late ahaha)

running man (top left): 
my personal favourite - because it had is integrated, and i finally was able to make use of the RUNNING MAN! i have conquered my nemesis.  i think the shading/colouring for this picture is pretty important, since the J uses only the hand, while the N requires the hand and the side of the shirt.  the O, represented by the squarish number tag might also be a bit tricky to see.  the jersey colour also needs to be a simple unassuming colour, so as not to draw away attention from the number tag. also, this piece looks completely different with and without colour.

track with silhouette (bottom left):
this is my second favourite piece, being my first decent idea. although i initially felt that it kinda "took the easy way" since it simply arranged items to form the letters, julian said that in this case it had a "competition" theme, which was actually very creative. i would develop both of these to decide which is my final running themed piece probably next weekend.  a concern i immediately had was the amount of detail required to draw 12 men.  instead, i decided to use silhouettes, which are a good contrast to the red track background, and easier and more reasonable to execute based on my skill set.

shoes, stop watch and running starting (top right):
my least favourite piece.  one of my earlier ideas, which i didn't like at all.  involved the simple arrangements of items. however, the track shoes and stop watch were good practice for assignment 2 (which i've already STARTED, suprisingly). also, i tried using the Holland Football Team colours, and found that I really liked it.  The colour scheme is perhaps the only saving grace of this piece, the good contrast between orange and black colour adds life to an otherwise dead piece.

track and field (bottom right):
the last token piece to fill up 4 ideas. i got this idea while running on the track.  in this piece, i tried to make use of the surroundings more, like in the other track piece.  i found the end result too simple.  the old, represented by a discus cage was also not really easy to see.  the N was supposed to be represented by javelins, although I'm not sure if people without prior knowledge would know. i tried to practice a bit of distance/horizon drawing with the track, but its very un-obvious :(

i paid little attention to the fonts in the running theme pieces, so i decided to put a bit more effort in the games pieces.

i will continue the second theme on another post, so that comments (if people read this) can be more well targetted.

i've never hated my own name as much before

a quick intro to my NM2208 friends!

i'm jon lew, from Communications and Media, School of Computing.  i took nm2208 in hope to explore my artistic side, a skill i've tried to hone through the hours of scribbling during lectures in a bid not to fall asleep.  in my free time, i run (a lot), but recently cut down on it cos i tore my knee ligament last year, and am still recovering from the surgery.  i like games, and i hope to make games in the future.

in the past week, i'm so glad that my life ambition was NOT an artist.  i spent hours and hours trying to come up with ways to put my name, and my intended themes together.  running and J didn't like each other. the main problem is that I was too fixated on using the whole silhouette of a runner, hence his 2 other irrelevant limbs and head often cause lots of problems.

the only half past decent idea i came up with for the running theme was to arrange runners and hurdlers for them to spell my name J.

hence, for my first critique, I had almost nothing to show. :(

new beginnings - nm2208

year two has officially begun.

while i thought i would leave this blog to rot, it seems like another module requires it services.

at some point, i actually thought i'd make this a developer blog or maybe even a game review blog.  unfortunately, the summer was spent on CVWO, which i would perhaps talk about in another entry.  as for now, this blog is going to be my nm2208 learning log.

I am looking forward to learning from Dr Julian, my tutors and peers alike in this coming semester.  I believe I'm not very talented in the art department, but I think I have some basics, which is why I took NM2208 in the first place.  I hope to hone these skills and develop them, if ever so slightly, as I believe that they would serve me well in my journey ahead.

The first lecture covered perception.  Dr Julian highlighted how visual communication is not like visual art.  There is no multiple interpretation, instead you want to share a clear message across. He also highlighted that something does not need to be aesthetically pleasing for it to convey the message well.

I think that it is totally possible to achieve the best of both worlds.  Perhaps he was simply trying to comfort those who may not be so aesthetically inclined.  A piece of white paper with the words "Out of Order" covering the coin hole of a vending machine may do the job, but it is an eyesore.  Conversely, a nicely laminated sign, possibly with the company logo and date of maintainance not only looks nice, but conveys much more information too.

I've attached my work for the exercise from the first lecture.  I tried to follow the time limit strictly, hence the bottom half became very simplistic.  I thought of doing another one, but decided to spend my time instead on the fist assignment, seeing how it is actually very similar.

P.S. I'm absolutely disgusted suprised at the number of macbooks in the NM2208 lecture :P

full circle

as wonderful as cs3216 is, i personally can't claim that it has had a revolutionary life-changing impact on me.  i can't claim any credit for this though.  great as prof ben is, so were my past teachers.  i have been blessed with great teachers in my primary school and secondary school (not JC) days.  moreover, i don't want to overemphasize the impact on cs3216 because i really don't think this should be the end or peak of my experiences in universities, seeing how i'm still in year 1.

that is not to say i've learnt nothing.  through the module, prof ben has encouraged many mindset changes, reinforced past lessons, and provided food for thought and call to actions for the future.  i find it hard to narrow down X things i've learn without repeating what has been said time and time again by prof ben, my classmates or my other blog posts, so i decided to share some key thoughts i had over the past sem.  its going to be a little messy.

if there was an award for least number of meetings during cs3216, it'll probably be me.  I had 2 meetings for Who is the Monkey? and Facebook Seminar each, and 3 meetings for Drag and Drop Search and Prince of Persia each.  since i don't have to stay behind after every lesson to be in a meeting, i've had plenty of time to be a kay-poh (busybody). thanks to my tolerant classmates, i've been allowed to shamelessly plant myself in their meetings.

being the guest members leaves me with no real stakehold on any issue.  it was then interesting to observe the tendencies that different people have on view points and arguments.  not that you can't do this during your own meetings, but believe me, its different when its not your project.  like the saying goes, 旁观者清.  i can almost definitively say that i've learnt just as much from being a kay-poh as from my own nightless hours.

so one of my first thoughts on working in a group is to say less, listen first, then think more.  of course, this is not a one size for all solution.  someone people think and listen too much, but don't say anything.  but generally, I think the above works for team leaders (who generally are more out-spoken and opiniated).  possibly.

i forgot where i heard/read this from - you have two ears, but only one mouth.  what you can say and what you can hear is inversely related.  the more you want to say, the more you'll not be able to get new insights.  not speaking is not enough, because you need to listen.  if you're too full of your own thoughts, even if you say nothing, you won't absorb anything from others.  and let's face it, nobody likes not being listened to. so it'll be nice to let your team mates know that you're listening.  incidentally, my brother just came back from his MAS scholarship interview, and was told that he should have thought more before speaking. so there.

when opportunities are offered to you, you jolly well grab it, cos its not gonna wait for you.  eldwin wrote kind words about me.  the truth is, i've seen too many opportunities fly past me through the years.  this lesson was taught to me quite a long time ago, just not followed for just as long a time.  in fact, i was almost about to do the same in this module, had it not been the timely encouragement/reminder of Reuben.  And it wasn't some long speech.  It was just a simple "Just go speak to him la. Go, now."  After that, the "grab opportunity" switch was kinda flipped.  So yup, I can't take credit for this really. Thanks, Reuben.  in general, university is a great time for such opportunities.  more so in cs3216, where effort has been made to bring these people to us.

Which brings me to my next point.  There's actually a lot you can learn from each other.  The class is not short of people who are talented in their own right.  Interacting with each other, you get to know each others experiences, successes, and even failures.  (Flame Shield Up) Its even easier to learn from others' mistakes than your own.  Why?  Because often, you tend to be slightly blind towards your own shortcomings.  When you look at others, you'll be slightly more open.  You'll keep in mind that you won't make that mistake.  Right?

Wrong. Interestingly, you may possibly go one full circle and then make the same mistake yourself.  So the real point here is that, you really can't be too stubborn towards yourself, and you have to be ready to fail quick and fail fast.  If anything, this is THE lesson I've learnt.  Its weird, because it goes against everything that we've learnt in school, academically at least.  the interesting thing about failing yourself is that you will have felt the pain for yourself. the pain could by you not listening, or simply because its something new that will be added unto your experience.  for the former no matter how many times people give you a certain advice, it may fall on deaf ears until you see it for yourself.  for the latter, in the world of evolving platforms, things are extremely dynamic, and you pretty much figure out what works and what doesnt along the way.

Before i start rambling, I'm going to end off after sharing a few additional random thoughts.

i've come a full circle from my first post, and i'll first like to use this picture again.

the more you know, the more you know you don't know.

having dabbled in education and coaching, when i actually look through the whole semester, you really can't help but notice the effort and careful thought put into designing the module such that it achieves it aims.  from requirements such as blogging, reports, pitching, to getting external speakers and even classmates to come to the module to help broaden the perspectives of the students.

i suddenly recalled what one of my teachers sent the class in an email.

life's full of adversities.  we keep thinking of when things will get better, but the fact is there is no better time to be happy than now, because life is a journey, not a destination.

i means its great that everyone is on a high now. but its really more important what happens after this module has ended.  my greatest wish for all my classmates (and myself) is that when NUS, life or work returns to the drone it was before CS3216, we remember that all CS3216 did was to show us what we were capable of if we put our mind, heart and soul into chasing our dreams.  the profs, classmates, and environment shouldn't matter.  i believe all my classmates are capable of this.  i hope to be able to do so too :)

and on that note, i'd like to thank prof ben for staying so late all the time, putting us in front of his own children and wife, our tutors who have been working so hard being the scenes to ensure everything has ran smoothly, my group mates who have endured my incapabilities, and my classmates who've put up with my flame wars :P

the end......or not ;)

perceptions

upon discussion with some of my classmates after the peer review session, something (actually something really obvious) dawned upon me.  that 7 minutes you have up there convey different messages to different people.

it may seem stupid that i'm saying this, but consider this: some groups have coding gurus. some groups don't.  some groups (you know) have been putting in a lot of effort. some groups have put in just as much, if not more effort, but you're not aware of that fact.  some groups you just don't like.  some groups are made up of your best pals.

as a result, everyone's rating of you would really differ based on their perception. to people you know, that 7 minutes probably won't matter as much because you have a lot of background knowledge.

unfortunately, when we go out there to pitch to the prof's next week, we're not going to have any background knowledge from the profs.  they are just going to judge you there base on what you have.  some of our classmates are clearly much better and showing of the true value of their apps, and its a good learning point.

so at the end of the day, even though this mark doesn't matter to you - it really is an indication of what others perceive of your work - based on what they know before hand, and what they managed to get out of the 7 minutes.  therefore, even if you're super in love with your application, and think that your idea is damn fantastic - and the feedback comes back to be otherwise, it'll probably be a good reflection.

how to judge effort?

how to judge who put in more effort?

mythbusters and privacy

I shared this video during my 1105 presentation on security and privacy.


strange thing about people is that while they complain a lot about privacy, they want convenience, they want to establish an identity on the internet.  yet these 2 actions often contradict privacy.  


i look at some of the stuff the kids i taught and my friends post on online, i have nothing to say.  i think most people (especially singaporeans) really have no idea on how easy it is for future employers to dig up their information on facebook.  even though the security groups feature have been up around, most people's photos can still be easily stalked.  


i'm pretty worried for the little ones actually, they are not going to learn the ill-effects of not cherishing their own privacy until they suffer from it.  too bad.

and the nominees are...

most inspirational: tong yee from the thought collective


its extremely comforting to see that in this harsh world of start ups, there are still entreprenuers who stick hard and fast to their beliefs and visions, without comprimise, even in the face of a greater dollar.  other than hardwork, its nothing short of god's grace that they managed to do well even when turning down the obvious route to riches just to strongly (albeit a little naively) hold fast to doing the right thing.  how often do you hear a successful person who tells you "we don't do this (which isn't even something wrong) because we don't believe in it".  its like intentionally adding barriers to yourself.  as if the road of an entreprenuer isn't rough enough.


i must say i disagree with tong yee's point that sports do not teach skills that are transferable to the real world.  sure, there are no hard skills, but there are soft skills aplenty.  values such as tenacity, determination, discipline, teamwork are much better experienced in sports as opposed to the "nerdy" CCA.  on the other hand, i think shelfing books, setting up visualisers, sitting in an aircon room can't achieve these as well.


i also have another question/issue - isn't it a tad too dangerous for an organization to be built around one person?  i mean (god forbids) that person gets into an accident, then the company is going to disappear? shouldn't there always be transition of leadership, planning for worse case scenario? maybe not.


i'm a little acquainted with the whole NE framework and the problem with teachers, so I must say that its extremely gratifying to know that there are teachers who are out there willing to try to change the system.  it is worth noting that in a lot of the independent schools which control their hiring, there are many teachers who are equally inspirational and are interested in trying to shape mindsets.  even in the moe, there are good teachers who want to shape their kids beyond the textbook.  unfortunately, there are (possibly more) teachers who really don't give a crap.


on a slightly related note about mindsets,

Get fit, get a bonus
Some firms rewarding workers for keeping fit, recycling, charity work

i think this is ridiculous.  why do you need KPIs to make people care about their own health and the world around them :S is this asymptomatic of our education system? no KPI = don't do? its like compulsory CIP hours all over again :S

respect/adversity award: Chin Leng from SingaporeBrides.com


(i think) for many singaporeans, the story normally ends at the abyss.  being adverse to adversity and change is really not going to help our case.  can we really have a high adversity quotient in a country that has enjoyed many years great economic success with a government that has done a stellar job in deploying infrastructure?  how can we deal with upset, failure and rejection?


i'm quite a suck for "against all odds" stories.  Chin Leng may not be the coolest, most eloquent, smartest person around, but he's mighty resilient.  and that deserves respect (even Hoong An used him as inspiration).


persuasionFAIL award: Hoong An from HungryGoWhere


prof ben tried something similar for cs1101s.  he tried to tell us why we SHOULD not do it.  he got seniors to tell us why we should not do it as well. in the end, only 2 (i think) people got off the "speeding bullet train".  to any aspiring entreprenuer, i think instead of dissuading them, i'm pretty sure that he reinforced their beliefs.  well, most of the time, like Chin Leng said, the brashness of youth allows such advice to be turned into challenges, channeled into the desire to break the mould.


bottomline: i don't think negative persuasion works :P in fact, i think it beckons people to take up the challenge. especially in a class like 3216.


i like his pragmatic approach.  if (and a very big one at that) one day, i become an entreprenuer, i would choose his & leslie's route.  i think its important to stock up your resources before you embark on a journey.  yea, sure, you could bulldoze your way through, but you'll probably going to need a lot more intelligence & resilience.  pragmatism oozes from Hoong An actually, if you were like me and were kaypohing around after class, you would be able to see that from all the suggestions and advice he gave.


i-ran-out-of-awards: Ash from Interactive SG
unsurprisingly, Ash was flooded by the most people after the presentation. what impressed me immediately was how he offered everyone who brought an idea to him with a opportunity to go down to his office to pitch to him!  opportunities have to be taken when given.  in that LT last night, was opportunity to speak with 6 people prof ben considered successful.  i think more of us should cherish these opportunities.


one of the highlights of the night was when ash displayed the title of his slide right after prof ben said "there is no formula to success".  irony WIN.


other than that, a lot of what Ash said is rather consistent with what 3216 has been trying to tell us.  that's cos Ash works in the online space, where the rules of engagement are different.


my personal favorite: Leslie from Redsport


cos i like sports and its about sports. plus i've already talked about redsport the other time :P i'm pretty excited to see how redsport grows with our local sports scene which is progressing at (sadly) a glacial speed.


recurring themes from the night

1) success = pain