Replica models for the blind at Duxford
IBM Watson: The Face of Watson
Preparing Watson for the Jeopardy! stage posed a unique challenge to the team: how to represent a system of 90 servers and hundreds of custom algorithms for the viewing public. IBM, in collaboration with a team of partners, created a representation of this computing system for the viewing audience — from its stage presence to its voice.
Visit ibmwatson.com for more information.
New Murano glass dip-pen test doodle.
Just discovered the glass pen that I forgot I had brought on the island of Murano in Italy, last December. Costing something like £3, and fashioned in a single piece of tobacco coloured glass it has to be my favourite looking dip-pen. I must admit, the guy in the shop must have thought I was a bit strange as I was there for near on half an hour pretending to draw with each pen, however as each was hand-made it was important to pick the one that most comfortable to hold.
Taking the pen for its first doodle felt very good indeed, and although the nib rucks up quite a bit of paper fluff, it does manage to draw beautifully fine details as well as heavy lines. Having not doodled in a while, I’m hoping that this rediscovery will prompt a new era of transitional drawings.
warning sign, Venice
Signage Venice
On a trip to Venice in December, I instantly fell in love with the 1970′s styling of their pedestrian wayfinding signs. There’s something wonderful about the depiction of the car in the sign that encapsulates the essence of Venice to a bygone era.
Police Social History
When we moved into our new house, I discovered this picture in the loft. It’s a great piece of social history, however I have little information about the police unit photographed. Finally I got around to removing the back of the picture to take out the photo from the frame and found that it was taken by ‘A & G Taylors – Photographers to the Queen’ and is print number 141.
The image itself is not in the best condition, as can be seen from the picture above, however I was able to increase the contrast slightly using Photoshop and reduce the discolouration.
From my initial research into the photographers, I have been able to ascertain that A & G Taylors, were one of the largest photographic studios in the UK during the late 19th century and were awarded the title of ‘Photographers to the Queen’ in 1886. Further investigate into the origins of this image, and in particular the constables in the photo and their location will now commence in a Poirot-esque fashion.
New Website development
As with graduation from my Masters comes the dawn of a new era, and with it I will usher in a new website. Up until now I’ve been happy to use the simplicity of Indexhibit, and likewise have become accustomed to using WordPress for blogging; but feel the time has come to move to a new cms framework that can provide an increased level of integration and scalability.
Having explored a few options I have decided to move to Joomla, as I feel it can give me a longevity to expand, learn and develop. Along with the change of cms also comes a refresh of my personal branding, seeing the arrival of a new logo, typography, and colour scheme with #b0e0e2 being the designated focal colour.
