Book review: How to Sketch

How to Sketch: A Beginner’s Guide to Sketching Techniques, Including Step By Step Exercises, Tips and Tricks by Liron Yanconsky

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book review: How to Sketch

This book does a good job in covering all the basics when it comes to learning how to sketch. Author Liron Yanconsky brings an amiable style to the subject as he introduces everything a new artist will need to know and need to have. Starting with the correct mindset, he covers some core concerns and requirements, such as accepting and embracing imperfection (you’re learning to sketch, after all), and the essential quality of being curious and seeking variety in what you sketch. He moves on to suggested materials, some basic techniques on how to use your eyes and even how to hold a pencil.

From there, he covers more specific aspects of sketching, including:

  • Perspective
  • Light and shadow
  • Tones and Textures

The final part of the book consists of working from included photos to produce full sketches of people, landscapes and more.

I suspect that at least some may become discouraged as they try to replicate the excellent results Yanconsky shows for each exercise. At times the sophistication required to accurately capture the scenes feels a bit like those old “Learn to Draw” ads that went from a few scrawled lines in the first panel to lavishly illustrated drawings in the fourth panel. Yanconsky addresses this in a way, urging the new artist to focus on sections, to build a sketch piece by piece when there is a lot to draw. His enthusiasm for the topic certainly helps.

As someone who can draw but not really draw well, I found the first half of the book, with its straightforward lessons on the aspects of sketching, to be quite helpful. While I may never been a sketching whiz, this book has helped me in ways that my own bumbling around wouldn’t have.

Recommended.

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Book review: The Dream Interpretation Handbook

The Dream Interpretation Handbook: A Guide and Dictionary to Unlock the Meanings of Your Dreams by Karen Frazier

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This was a bargain purchase, using my two criteria for such:

1. Is the book on sale?
2. Is the subject interesting to me?

If the answer is yes, I buy and take my chances if I am not familiar with the author.

I came away disappointed here, for a few reasons. While the book is competently written and is logically divided into two parts, the first being some background and historical analysis of dreams, and the second being a dictionary that defines possible meanings to specific dream events/objects, it ends up having a little too much woo in it and also comes across as a bit facile.

As an example, it’s stated that if you dream about aliens, you may be feeling alienated. I mean, really? Many of the scenarios fit into this kind of literal interpretation, which may make “sense” but also doesn’t require an entire book to illustrate.

In the end I just wanted more and maybe that’s not realistic when it comes to dream interpretation. The author emphasizes repeatedly that you may want to check your personal frame of reference before seeking more universal symbols/meanings to your dreams. This makes sense, but it even further diminishes the value of offering dream interpretation. And a lot of it just comes down to “you may be anxious about [thing]”, unless it’s a dream in which you are flying, one of the apparently few positive dream experiences anyone has.

I have not read other books on dreaming, so I don’t know if this work is representative of the overall body of dream interpretation, and to give author Karen Frazier credit, she provides a decent list of other sources to check out.

Still, I didn’t feel like I got much out of this and can’t really recommend it.

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Book review: Ruined By Design

Ruined by Design: How Designers Destroyed the World, and What We Can Do to Fix It by Mike Monteiro

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mike Monteiro is angry, angry at design, angry at designers he feels are complicit in the design that has ruined things, but he is especially angry at Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg for their leadership at Twitter and Facebook, respectively.

In recent months (July 2020 as I write this; the book was published in 2019) both social media platforms have taken a few steps to enforce what rules or standards they may have, notably when it comes to the content that Trump posts, but I suspect these minor actions would do nothing to curb Monteiro’s ire—and it really shouldn’t, if you buy in even a little to his central premise.

That premise, presented with enthusiastically crude language, is pretty straightforward: Designers have aided and abetted social media platforms into becoming wretched hives of scum and villainy, by simply doing the work asked of them without questioning it, by never objecting, by never “becoming the change.”

In the introduction, Monteiro lays out his take on the world in general and social media in particular:

“We designed the combustion engine that led to global warming (climate change deniers can just stop reading right now). We designed the guns that kill school children. We designed shitty interfaces to protect our private information. We designed the religions that pitted us against one another. We designed social networks without any way of dealing with abuse or harassment. We designed a financial incentives system that would lead Mark Zuckerberg to assert what’s good for the world isn’t necessarily good for Facebook; and lead Jack Dorsey to believe engagement was a more important metric than safety. Either by action or inaction, through fault or ignorance, we have designed the world to behave exactly as it’s behaving right now. These are our chickens coming home to roost.

The world is on its way to ruin and it’s happening by design.”

From here, Monteiro splits his effort between listing the many crimes committed by design (both literal and figurative—a go to example is the engineer at Volkswagen who was “just doing his job” when he programmed the software that would fake diesel emission test results—and went to prison for his efforts after the scandal broke) and offering possible solutions, with a mix of hope and humility. He doesn’t claim to have all of the answers, but he’s willing to put stuff out there, if only to get conversations started.

Framing design as a political act, Monteiro agitates for change from within (unless you work at Twitter or Uber, he advocates outright quitting those two companies), for designers to question decisions that will lead to bad design or worse, deliberately deceitful or malicious design, to find and work on diverse teams, to use the role of designer to stand up against dark patterns, ethically questionable decisions on handling data and so on.

Monteiro is a UX designer with over 20 years of experience and beings immense passion to Ruined By Design. It’s obvious he deeply cares about design and how it has changed the world for the worse. He admits he may lack precision in language—citing his use of “nickel words”—but his ideas are clearly presented, and argued in extensive detail. It’s hard not to root for what he calls for.

The book is aimed directly at designers and though Monteiro uses a broad brush to indicate just who might qualify as a designer, I am not part of this audience. The closest I get to design is choosing a font for the body text on my blog and I am assuming that I am not making the world an actively worse place by choosing Roboto Slab over Helvetica. But even though this book is not aimed at me, the arguments are so compelling and accessible, and apply to so much of what I interact with on a daily basis—that so many of us interact with on a daily basis—that I find myself recommending it unreservedly.

There is a lot to chew on here, and Mike Monteiro does an excellent job in both illustrating the problems design has caused, and the possible solutions that may mediate the damage done.

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Exciting heel update #2

It’s been four days since Tuesday’s heel tragedy. The good news is I can still walk and perhaps even walk and chew gum at the same time.

The bad news is my heel is still sore. Is it as sore? No. But it’s still sore, and it peeves me and continues to mystify me. But I went for a walk with Nic through Mundy Park today to take a bird picture (yes, we only saw a single bird. Well, actually, only one specifically in a tree. There was also a duck in the water.) and while my heel was starting to feel a little more sore toward the end, I got through the excursion without limping, curling up in a ball or demanding that Nic carry me out, and it is no worse for the trip out now, later in the evening and having been off it for awhile.

I was originally thinking I could run maybe as soon as this Monday (two days hence) but now it seem the end of next week is probably more realistic. Oh well.

Stay tuned as I suspect there are more heel updates to come. Woo.

Heel update: First and hopefully last in a limited series

When I went to bed last night I was sad because my left heel was still pretty sore from whatever mysterious thing happened to make it sore. I mean, I walked 19 km in just under three hours, but the right heel didn’t seem to mind, and I can’t recall the last time either heel objected to a walk so forcefully.

I regret to inform the six bots scraping this site that my left heel is still sore.

However, it is definitely improved over last night, so I am cautiously optimistic that I will not spend the bulk of my vacation hobbling around like an old war vet or a young protester after interaction with those supposedly there to protect and serve.

That said, I only walked to the store to get a few needed items, then another four blocks to meet my exercise goal for the day. The urge to walk more was approximately nil, which makes me sad, because I walk all over the place.

Tomorrow: Probably another update, hopefully the last.

As for vacation, the heel preoccupied my mind and body, so other than the store, I did a whole lot of nothing. I feel mildly guilty about this, so here’s a haiku about my vacation to make me feel like I did something:

Vacation

Take it to relax
But oh yeah the pandemic
Afraid to go out

Hmm, that wasn’t especially cheerful, was it? Or not cheerful at all. Maybe tomorrow, with the heel back to somewhat normalish, I will be more inspired to think in positive terms.

A long walk to a sore heel

UPDATE, April 4, 2021: The injury took a long time to improve and then, after mostly disappearing, came suddenly back worse than before in December. My doctor identified it as plantar fasciitis. As of this update, the foot is much improved, but still not 100%. This is what you call a long term injury.

Today the weather was warm and sunny (after an initial forecast of mostly cloudy) and I couldn’t just sit inside while it was summer all over the place outside.

So, I went for a walk around Burnaby Lake, wearing my running stuff in case I started feeling extra zesty (more on this in a bit).

I felt pretty good heading out and indeed, my walking pace was a bit better than in recent months. That continued as I hit the 5K mark midway around the lake, still brimming with energy and feeling fine. I even started running off and on along the Southshore Trail.

The resurfacing of the Cottonwood Trail is coming along nicely and the notion that it will take until September to complete seems silly, as they are probably more than half done already (and were diligently working away when I walked through this afternoon). It will be spiffy for running when complete as this trail section has about a hundred billion exposed tree roots waiting for me and my feet.

There were more people out than perhaps expected, but it is summer and it was very nice out, with a breeze providing just enough cooling to keep it from feeling hot (it’s not really hot, but weather the last few weeks has been a little cooler than seasonal, so even 24C feels a bit toasty when you’re out in the sun).

I finished the loop just before 3 p.m. and as I exited the lake trail and crossed over to the river trail and the return home, I was still peppy. The peppiness finally began to fade around the 16 km mark, when my right hip began to feel a bit tweaked. It wasn’t bad and didn’t really slow me down. In fact, after a few minutes it worked itself and I continued to steam along. But then my left heel started to hurt. Weird.

It continued to hurt the remaining two km or so on the remainder of the walk and as I type this at 10:23 p.m., it is still sore. The right heel is fine.

I have no explanation for this, just guesses and crackpot theories:

  • The few minutes the right hip hurt, I overcompensated in favoring my left side, making my apparently brittle left heel very sore
  • The orthotic in my left shoe is sufficiently worn in the heel that it reached a breaking point where it started hurting instead of helping
  • aliens
  • previously unknown injury suddenly surfacing (aliens?)
  • karma, somehow (also the name of my next album)

It may be fine or better(ish) by morning, but it’s a sore note for what was otherwise a fine afternoon out. I was even delighted by unexpected wildlife, watching a crane hunt food and a turtle laying out on a log enjoying the sun.

Here’s a few photos before the hobbling started.

Just starting out, I thought this field of what is really just weeds looked interesting, but it didn’t turn out quite as I had expected. This field had previously been kept cut and served as a small park area. I’m not sure why it was decided to let it grow wild.

The classic shot of the lake from the bridge at Deer Lake Brook. I managed to tilt the view slightly, but was too lazy to fix it. Just pretend the earth was rotating too fast for me to compensate.

From the point just before the Cottonwood Trail, looking west.

The heron snatching a snack:

Close-up of heron from the shot above.

You know it’s vacation when the fire department arrives

My annual summer vacation began yesterday (technically it begins tomorrow, but I prefer a holistic view of vacation, which is a fancy way of saying I count every day off as part of the vacation, including weekends I would normally be off anyway). Yesterday I cleaned the toilets, went grocery shopping and did a workout on the treadmill. It didn’t feel very vacation-y.

Today I did the dishes, vacuumed the condo, and did a few other chores. This also did not feel very vacation-y. Finally, the evening arrived and with it, quiet time on the computer, where I could relax and read all about the horrible things happening everywhere.

It was then that the fire alarm in the building went off. I didn’t have to read about horrible things at all, I was now living it.

The condo has two alarms inside–one in each bedroom. This means when I am at the computer, one of the alarms is about a meter from my head.

They are very loud.

We silenced both with the “please don’t permanently damage my hearing” buttons and headed out. The hallways alarms are, if anything, even louder. One is right outside our suite door. Jeff went to investigate the source of the alarm, which is not something I would personally do myself, but different strokes and all that. I went outside to gather (while physically distancing, of course) with my neighbors while the firefighters investigated.

The alarms continued to screech, as they do.

The first of three trucks to arrive. The others did not put their lights on, alas.

Jeff ascertained that the alarm was pulled by a suite on the second floor, way down the other end of the building, safely past the fire doors. It looks like what happened was:

  • someone attempted to cook something on the stove
  • this attempt was unsuccessful, resulting in things getting burnt
  • the odor of this cooking cock-up was sufficient to get into the hallway
  • someone panicked (?) over the smell of smoke and pulled the alarm

After about 20 minutes or so, they took one of those industrial fans in, apparently to blow the offending smoke out of the suite and into the night. One of the firefighters advised us to maintain distance as we filed back in. Everyone pretty much ignored this. Pandemic fatigue. Which will probably extend the pandemic.

Speaking of night, at least it was clear and mild out. This would have been worse–and more ironic–in the rain.

Anyway, that wraps up the second day of my vacation. I have a short list for Day 3:

  • No chores
  • Nore fires or false alarms
  • Brownies

Treadmill workout: No rest

I was thinking about maybe going for a run today, but then it started to rain and my enthusiasm for the idea washed away. But I started feeling guilty about not exercising, even though it is the first day of my vacation.

The result is below, another treadmill workout. Stats are pretty close to the previous workout. The 30 minutes seems to go by quicker now and as a special bonus today I came up with an idea for a short Super Spud comic while on the treadmill.

Stats (BPM was down, despite pace being a bit better. As the kids say, sweet):

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10

Pace: 9:19/km (9:22 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30:03)
Distance: 3.22 km (3.20 km)
Calories burned: 293 (318)
BPM: 140 (146)

Treadmill workout: End of the week

The end of the week and I was a bit slower on the treadmill after a week of doing stuff like working out on treadmills.

Nothing extraordinary in the stats, so here they are:

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10

Pace: 9:22/km (9:19 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30:05)
Distance: 3.20 km (3.22 km)
Calories burned: 318 (326)
BPM: 146 (146)

Bad design: The iPhone camera shutter sound

I accidentally turned off live photos on my iPhone 8 the other day when fiddling around with some settings in the camera app. I discovered I had done this when I took a picture while on an early evening stroll tonight and heard that horrible fake shutter sound go off after snapping a photo of a flower.

I checked the photo in the Photos app, and sure enough, it looked like live photos was turned off. For those not familiar, live photos basically starts recording a short video snippet just before, during and after taking a photo. These snippets can be treated like animated GIFs, or you can grab a still from the stream if your main/actual photo didn’t turn out the way you liked. I actually used this once for a selfie where the main photo had my eyebrows up and the frame just before had them down–and looked better.

But the main perk in having live photos is it kills the phony shutter sound that otherwise plays when you take a picture.

Now, I get why Apple added the sound. Back in the early days of iOS Apple design traded heavily on skeuomorphism, and this is the audio equivalent of that. What happens when you click to take a picture with a camera? You hear the shutter activate! Ergo, simulating this sound will reassure the user that the phone captured the photo and remind them that their expensive slab of glass is also a camera.

Except the sound is so meticulously loud and overdone it feels like the phone is mocking me. Every time I snap a photo it feels like the phone is announcing to everyone within hearing distance, “Hey! Taking a photo here! Did you hear that? You know what it is? Photo-taking! Yep, right here. Hope we’re not disturbing you! Photo in progress, lol!” I don’t really have a need to discreetly take photos–I’m not a private detective chasing down philanderers–but I don’t have any need or desire to draw attention to taking a simple picture, either. It’s obnoxious and unnecessary.

Currently there are two workarounds:

  • mute the audio on the phone
  • enable live photos

If you don’t care about any audio on your phone, the first workaround works. If you like live photos, the second workaround is fine.

But there shouldn’t be any need for workarounds. The shutter sound shouldn’t exist at all.

But I’m willing to compromise. Apple could offer an option in the Camera app settings: Enable shutter sound Y/N.

Anything else is bad design.