User:Ssstephen/I hope that you're the one. If not, you are the

A record of technical stuff, but I think it would be better to move this and make it more disintegrated.

20231006

perform as in bring about

I think I am about to do some paid work. I am expecting an email from one client, and also received an email (and WhatsApp message) yesterday evening from a second client. I read and responded to the WhatsApp message at 18:17-18:36 (CET), but decided this was too late in the evening to respond to or even open the email. Otherwise my focus gets sucked in, and there are other things I would prefer to get sucked into.

I opened this annotation tab first to start taking notes before the process begins for today. I am on the HP Windows laptop, and I am using the Chrome browser. There are several reasons for this: the HP computer is most familiar and powerful enough to perform the tasks I need. It also has all my work files stored on it and the Adobe software I need (probably just InDesign for today, maybe Illustrator). There are also some reasons I would prefer not to be on this setup and am transitioning away from it: the laptop is physically breaking, for example it currently works better with an external keyboard and mouse. Also I would prefer to use proprietary software/firmware less for political/ethical reasons and a desire to be able to customise and access my software in ways not available in this setup. Also while I'm thinking about the computer I think I'll back it up now that I remember.

Backing up (copying my files to a second location) is a simple enough process when I remember to do it. I have an external hard drive which appears as "Seagate Expansion SCSI Disk Device" when I plug it in via USB 3.0. The properties panel says its capacity is 1.34 TB which seems strange. Oh no hang oh it's because it's partitioned, I guess its 2 TB in total. I open the windows backup settings and press a button to manually "Back up now". Backing up is helpful for my work because: a) laptop hard drives break and b) I make mistakes, and it's very helpful to not have lost too much progress in these situations. I enjoy my work but repeating the same exact tasks twice does not seem very enjoyable, and would (does) feel extremely pointless when it happens. I guess this can give some insight into what it is about my work I enjoy, or see as purposeful: it is the process yes but not purely for it's own sake. There is an end goal maybe, or expectation or discovering, developing or moving somewhere. The repetition of the exact same actions is usually not the point in itself, although I'm sure it occurs a lot in other ways. Something is being produced.

Ok now I'll actually work. It's 12:18 cet and I will now open my emails (Gmail!) in another tab of Chrome. I will also open InDesign as they both take a few moments to load. I have 5 new emails since 18:41 cet yesterday. Or rather 5 that make it through the filters, there are four others that go to junk folders. Of the five, three are from hosting providers for websites I or my clients manage. Two are about billing and one is about a migration the hosting provider has made to a new back end software. I open and glance at each one very briefly. The fourth mail is a Google Ads summary for another client I am working with at the moment. They added me to their Google Analytics account temporarily because I am working on some SEO for their site. The fifth email is the expected one from the client, no actually there are two emails, so I have to read a bit more carefully to get my head in the right gear and make sure I find the task to be performed. Ok they have attached a .docx file with some notes of amendments to be made to a document we are working on. They probably made the document in Microsoft Word, I will open it in Google Docs because that is convenient to do from my Gmail webmail (two clicks and it opens in a new tab). I quickly scan through the document, there are 11 changes to be made this will take about an hour I guess (well without annotation it would). I also find the correct file to be edited, and immediately save a new version of it as this will be significantly different to the last. It is now 12:27 cet and I guess this is when the main task starts. I'll get a glass of water first. Ok also I talked to Thijs and Bernadette for a while now it's 12:36.

I start at the end of the edit notes because this client refers to page numbers, working backwards prevents the page numbers I'm focusing on from shifting too much as I work. Flying through it, great. Several of the edits just involve deleting pages and replacing images. Two of the images I need to get from twitter shich involves converting .jfif to .jpeg file format. I have software that can do it locally on my computer, but it is easier to convert with a web based service. I search for "jfif to" and it autocompletes, and succests I use https://convertio.co/jfif-jpg/ I have probably used this exact service before it looks vaguely familiar, but there are many similar tools. This one is handy because it allowed me to upload both files at once and batch convert. Saves a few seconds that I can spend doing something more fun like nothing or eating or crying. I download the files and use Windows Explorer to move them to the project directory. I open two explorer windows (well the project folder was already open) and I drag and drop from one (the "Downloads" folder they automatically download to) to the other. Drag and drom means using the mouse to "move" the items across the screen, which causes them to be moved in the file directory. I use a similar drag and drop technique to placeor "link") the images in the InDesign document. I rescale and reposition them using the modifier keys on the keyboard. Shift to lock aspect ratio. Alt to set the scaling origin to the center point. I also use the arrow keys to move the image by a fixed increment (which I nearly always set to 5mm).

The next edit is a littl emore complicated and involves drawing a graphic. I open Adobe Illustrator, I actually only noticed I opened it after it happened. I am taking some flag graphics from a file to add them to the image. It's funny that even with this annotation method some actions are happening less consciously, I wonder do I need to becom emore aware somehow. Yes of course, always.

I use some keyboard shortcuts to change clipping paths, groups and layers. This is repetitive but for a purpose. It happens fairly quickly. I use a vector effect called "Flag" because I'm making cute 'lil wavey flags. Fun. I applly the effect from a drop down menu, then a dialogue box opens where I make some more specific adjustments to the effect. It has a preview mode which makes the adjusting much easier. The software also "remembers" the effect as an "appearance", so I can change it again later losslessly. Ok that edit took a little longer, all good now though. Six more to do and it's now 13:04 cet. I'll take a break for a minute and get some water. I check my phone which is on a different table, theres a mesage from my dad on WhatsApp I message him back. I look out the window. I look at my emails. I eat a biscuit.

I download an icon from the internet. I tweak it in Illustrator to make a graphic for one of the pages. I notice the backup is done so I unplug the hard drive. This one is taking a little longer too, maybe I'm slightly distracted. The next edit involved opening another InDesign document, exporting two PDFs, and replacing those files within this one. And also sending an email, so a little distracting from the main work flow. The email was to an employee with the client company who deals with anaging their online resources, amonst other things. I sent her the two updated PDFs as they will need to be added to the website, and I will need the updated URLs back from her. Although these are tasks I could do it makes sense for her to do it because all the website updates can be more easily manbaged when they pass through one person. She has a good overview of what is there, and thus is able to take care of the site and manage it. This also means she takes more responsibility upon herself. There is not much need technically for this convention but socially (or in relation to the people working on the project) it makes a lot more sense in this situation.

The language of the last edit confuses me a little. Then I realise it is just a typo, and I can make the change needed. Ok the edits are done. If there had been more of them I would double check the notes, but I'm tired today and I think it'll be fine. I write a quick email and finish writing these notes. I'm a bit tired and emotional today so im glad it's finished. It's 13:45 cet.

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)

20231003

performance upgrade

Prototype implies maybe that something will go wrong, something is going wrong, this shit could be better? Is this optimism or despair?

An old client got in touch last week who I worked with three years ago and previously on an annual project. Last year I was trying to make time for xpub so I turned the work down. This year I need money and am less afraid.

We spoke last week on Microsoft Teams to catch up, he's a kind guy, was telling me about his family and hobbies, nice to be in touch with him again. He also told me about struggles they had with the replacement they got for me last year, and showed me how the project went while I was off it. It seemed fine. The project involves the publication of data on salary levels in Ireland, from the point of view of a recruitment agency. He is keen to take it in a more socially conscious direction this year which is exciting but ultimately the publication is a promotional piece for this private company so potentially problematic. The company has a DEI officer (diversity, equity and inclusion) so he suggested they become involved also.

Today I will prepare some sample pages for how the new report could look. My plan is to use the InDesign document from 2021 as a starting point, as it will make it easier for me to adhere to the brand guidelines and a lot of the work is already done in terms of typography, grids, colours, that can be reused. How long will this transition take from Adobe to other tools? Do I plan to reach an end point? Maybe, I at least would still like to phase out old practices more than I currently have. However the existing workflows and processes are efficient which in this situation is super useful. I don't want to spend more time on this than necessary.

I open the document and save it in a newly created folder for the 2024 version of the publication. I also open a .txt file I made during our video call with some notes on the new version. The notes mostly detail how the company would like to have a social impact, be honest, authentic and trustworthy, and celebrate positive changes that have happened in the workforce recently. Are these appropriate aims for a company? Yes I think so, although they have to be woven into the profit motive to be allowed, it is still a positive that a company has these goals and I hope they can have a helpful impact by pursuing them. I am also driven by $$$ in this situation (it's my job) and I also hope that we can have a positive rather than negative effect on the world while doing it. Note for future prototypes, how to improve this balance, how to increase awareness of whether the effect is in fact helpful.

I'll start by deleting most the pages in the document, because I only need a few sample spreads for today. There is a separation between the content and the form, which is helpful, because the content doesnt exist yet. Neither does the form I suppose. Based on our conversations at the moment, I will develop some visual approaches to the document, and the client will create the text content and decide what data to gather. The process is less linear than it appears. Ok the annotation is really distracting from the work I wonder if I need to change the balance a little.

I go to the clients website and socials to see it their brand has changed in the past years (usually more reliable than a formal brand guidelines document). Its pretty much the same. They have been active with their social impact campaign which is reassuring. I notice they have some mentions in particular about equality, which I will use in the visual approach. I'll make the text and figures bolder and bigger. Impactful? Yes I guess so, its part of the language.

I mess around with typesizes and colours for a while. I make a big fuck-off equals sign for the front cover. It doesnt have to be super involved. What does it mean to furnish a business with these symbols? What am I allowing or creating? They have some photography of awareness campaigns and environmental restoration actions they perform, I'll include them in the sample pages.

Then I talk to xpub2 and michael about our work for a while. Then I do therapy for a while. Then Simon is here and then I go for a walk. This all takes about four hours and now I'm back at my laptop no wait this is not entirely true. I used the laptop to take notes while talking to michael, and I used it to video call therapy. But my focus is back to note taking and I guess the work from earlier. I have to talk to them tomorrow morning so would be good to finish it this evening. Ideally in the next hour or so (its 18:17) so I can send it to them (like before 18:00 gmt so they can see it in work hours). It's not really very considerate to send someone a work email at 18:00 I think, but its kind of accepted practice. I think I would prefer not to engage in it.

The InDesign 2023 thing is getting annoying, this time I had to specifically find the 2022 InDesign.exe file I wanted to open the .indd with, because it was auto opening with 2023. Maybe I'll uninstall the new version. Fuck it still opened in the new version, maybe I'll just use it its getting too complicated not to.

I download a free svg of the world map from https://simplemaps.com/resources/svg-world . Is it ethical or legal to use this in a commercial project. It's a Robinson projection. I don't have time to worry about the political implications of using a specific projection. My computer wants to open it automatically in Inkscape, but I need to do it in Illustrator so I can copy paste to InDesign. The transition is harder than the source or the destination.

I go back to their socials to find placeholder images. I'm getting a little bored I'll send it to him soon. Ok found a couple of new images. Meh it looks ok, I'll send it to him and we can talk in the morning. I export a pdf and now I'll draft a quick email. It's also a question of how happy I want to be at this stage of a project like this. Its too much expectation for it to be great. It's also too early to invest so much time into it, and energy of other sorts. Is it ever appropriate to invest the amount of emotional energy into work like this that one would be "proud" of it? How proud do I want to be? Why?

Oopsi I got distracted by my volition and exported spreads instead of pages. Exporting again, I'll save on top of the same file. I care so much less about PDF exports when they are not going to print, it's part of my training. If this was a PDF for print it would be such a different experience, maybe I'll write about it here at some stage.

Hi folks, 

A few sample pages here so we have something to look at as we talk tomorrow.

Trying to keep it similar to what we have had in the past but with a very different approach to photography, as well as some strong typographic pages where we can (maybe) make some big statements. Also all using sample text for the moment but if you wish we could tweak this for showing to management on Thursday, to give them an idea of where were planning to go. For example even a contents page could be interesting.

All up for discussion of course, looking forward to chatting about it tomorrow!
Stephen

The words I use in this context have different meanings to other contexts. "interesting", "an idea","a very different approach", "strong", "looking forward to". It's not lying but it's certainly a specific interpretation of the words. I sent the email at 18:54 (17:54 gmt).

It's got a picture of a bombax tree on the front, I like it.

20231002

As well as making connections I want to examine ones that are already there, and examine my own practices as they exists generally.

Simultaneous and consecutive interpreting: what are you doing here stephen? Documenting old and new things that I am doing and how they connect.

What does it mean to perform?

per- 
word-forming element common in words of French and Latin origin, meaning primarily "through," thus also "throughout; thoroughly; entirely, utterly," from Latin preposition per (see per (prep)).

The verb was used with wider senses in Middle English than now, including "to make, construct; produce, bring about;" also "come true" (of dreams), and to performen muche time was "to live long." Related: Performed; performing; performable.

How can a performance be open in the same way as an object can, to refuse to be finished?

now I try to connect the pen plotter to marcus

today I think I will learn how to use debian some more.

What is the difference between "su" and "su -"? Something to do with $PATH. Something to do with directories.

Its a little confusing switching between two laptops. The manual for DraftPro DXL plotter reminds us to use the hpgl IN command.

And first the tty needs to be configured: "9600 baud, no parity, 8 data bits, one stop bit, and continuous error checking." on page 7-7 of the manual.

stty 9600 parodd parenb ixon ixoff -F /dev/ttyUSB0

Then you can send it hpgl files or directly send commands with echo.

cat file.hpgl > /dev/ttyUSB0

echo "IN; SP1; PU0,0;PD0,100;PA100,0;SP0;" > /dev/ttyUSB0

Also its not important for the cv2hpgl module, but I want to test sending text to the plotter.

I'm using chiplotle now again and I think it might be helping with buffering, not sure.

chiplotle> plotter.write_file('myfile.hpgl')

So editing the hpgl file and running this from another terminal window (in the venv).

I think I will switch to using a python script with chiplotle imported into it. then the python script can take inputs from the esp and send them back out the other side as hpgl.

20230925

As the breeze kindles the fire hold me near, ooooh breeze in the air.

Set up a table. Plug in speakers. Electricity. Desk. Install Debian on Macbook Air. His name is now marcus he is my new friend. Install Arduino on marcus. try to set up nano. no. try to set up esp32 WROOM dev kit. yes. needed a python upgrade first. debian is unfamiliar but nice to try it. the tape on the screen was maybe too much. the tape on the desk will also be too much. structure. build it up and then destroy it all again. againtropy. breadcube is sick. something with the hard drive. grub. its better :)

go to /etc/apt/sources.list and change all the bullseye to bookworm.

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

its more better.

esp32. check the pinout to find an analog in. GPIO36 works, its marked SVP on the board. SensVP on the pinout, i dont know what that means. connected it to a 3.5mm jack. loaded an "AnalogRead" example sketch. it seems to be reading something, cool.

break it down. think about it. work it out. think about it.

voltage divider.

in python use pyserial. import serial. look up docs. interpret the data. sensor = serial.open(dev/ttyusb0) or something like this. make a while loop where you read the serial. use an fft library to interpret it.

find notes from last year on how to send stuff from python to pen plotter.

badabingbadaboom.