User:Ssstephen/prototype/20231004

This annotation method is not really very sustainable, it is taking a lot of work. I'll keep trying for a little longer though because its interesting.

I met online with the client mentioned yesterday. Was tempted to annotate here in real time as I talked to them and then remembered I am a human being who cares about other human beings and that would be fucking insane. Still feel a little weird that I am annotating this at all, it is not with their knowledge or consent but I am not mentioning their names or anything so I think it is ok? I may change my mind on this as I'm not sure. Also it is my time and my interactions I am describing. Maybe better to limit it to things that I do, and refer others only when necessary and with their permission. For today I will try to refer to them as little as possible and keep the focus on my actions, values, and motivations. This removes a lot of context though so not an ideal solution. We are prototyping.

I had a meeting earlier on Microsoft Teams with two other participants from the client company. I showed them the PDF I created yesterday and described it's purpose. We discussed at length the aspects of this sample (prototype) that we would like to pursue; graphic design things such as photography, typographic treatments, cover page ideas and use of symbols; and also other elements of the project to be decided at this stage such as text content, tone, overall focus and purpose. I felt that all three of us could express our opinions quite freely, and also the freedom to make suggestions that could be wrong which is important in a creative atmosphere. The document deals with issues of diversity and inclusion which is a very sensitive topic and this can cause people to shut down sometimes which is not helpful, I feel we were all allowed to express opinions, ask questions, and work it out together. Of course we each had our specialties (design, marketing, and DEI officer) which mostly meant less an authoritative position and more an ability to guide in these specialised topics. Not everything is better flattened, specialists and professionals have training and experience. Again I took notes in a .txt file while having the meeting, using Microsoft Notepad. I wore Philips SHB8750NC bluetooth headphones during the video call, as the audio quality is better (is it? or more comfortable?) than my laptop's built in speakers and microphone. I sat in a quiet room for the meeting.

As a result of the meeting I will now make three sample cover pages which they will present to the management board tomorrow. This is because we decided on three more focused thematic and visual directions for the publication. I stopped this work for a while to eat and talk to Jian, do a station skill (a workshop in the university) about feedback in arts education for two hours, eat and talk to Jian and Aglaia, read for my thesis (Geertz, Deep Play). Then I returned to this work, about 4.5 hrs later. I open the document in InDesign 2023 because that's my jam now. I'm going to go to the bathroom before I start properly, gimme one second.

Ok then I got distracted talking to Aglaia. So now it's more like 5hrs since I was at the meeting earlier. It's 16:32 gmt the time zone is a little bit of an advantage that I have. I'll try to do it very quickly though I need to do other things today too. The brief is quite simple, to make one typographic and two photographic covers. I use unsplash.com to find royalty free photography. Is this ethical I dont know. It's now 17:04 gmt and I have emailed the sample covers as a three page PDF with a more in depth (262 words) description of what I see as the pros and cons of each option in the body of the email. It is inevitable that I become a little more invested in this, it is my time and effort going into it so I want it to be good. I also want to resolve it efficiently, no point wasting time.

I close InDesign as I finish writing this commentary. I will check my emails this evening as if they want to review before tomorrow I would like to do it before GRS class at 11 (10 gmt).

And then I saved the prototyping page as an a5 pdf and then I printed it out for class tomorrow.

Now I want to do a little more with the cv2hpgl prototype. I get marcus out, but I'll leave the hp on for this notetaking. slowly transforming slowly spinning. First thing in the python script is using pyserial to read the input. cool works. then I need to output something (anything) to hpgl using chiplotle. I drew a lil square. and then a random zigzag. It works if you plug in the plotter first, then the esp32. it doesnt work if you do it the other way around. the plotter needs to be ttyUSB0.

Ok then loads of messing around with serial input and data types and serial.reset_input_buffer() and weird things like that. and I made the y axis do a sine so were kind of going in circles and its interesting for sure.

Next I want to add the second input and maybe the gae input too.

Its not in real time which is sad. So maybe fix this or maybe find a system that takes it into account (record and print on trigger for example)