Erik Wiener

I write stuff here. I collect stuff at eerierwink. Twitter @erikwiener Berkeley, CA

Click

What I love about designing software is the feeling of the click you get when neatly solving a problem you’ve been puzzling over for days or weeks.

Sometimes it’s a problem that has no bearing on anything the user can see. It’s internal design. But you still lost sleep over it because it just wasn’t right.

That click, for me, feels physically like when a dissonant chord progression resolves finally to a consonant chord at the end of a movement.

Tension released and the world makes sense.

Cyborg Dreams

I used to have anxiety dreams in which I would be trying desperately to run somewhere but my legs just wouldn’t move. It would take extraordinary effort just to get into slow motion.

Lately, however, those dreams have given way to ones in which the powerlessness manifests in my phone. Or my inability to get my phone to do what I need it to do in an emergency.

Last night: in the dream, I suddenly found myself without my phone. But I just had it! Where did it go? Did I drop it? Did someone take it? Tried retracing my steps, couldn’t find it. Aha, I’ll use the Find My Phone app on my wife’s phone and see where it went.

Easier said than done. Where’s that app? Flipping through a dozen home screens on her phone, I can’t find it. Maybe she has a different version. Here, this looks like it might be it. Yes, seems like this is it, but now I have to unfurl some sort of giant telescope-like device in the app to access this app. Getting anxious. Time is running out. Phone is running slow. Is this iOS? Doesn’t seem like it. I’m lost, how do I use this? Every time it seems like I’m getting close to making it work, I’m back at square one. And so it went.

After a few of these dreams over the last year, it’s becoming clear that my phone is now such an integral part of my life that my unconscious mind is treating it in the same way it treats my other body parts, like the legs that won’t run or the hands that won’t grasp or the mind that won’t think.

Creature, welcome to your cyborg dreams.

urhajos:

One of the weirdest collaborations by Aganetha Dyck:

‘First, a clarification; I am not a beekeeper. I rent the colonies of honeybees, bee hives, and apiary space from a qualified beekeeper. All my work with honeybees is overseen by a scientist and is always completed under the direction of a beekeeper. The beekeeper takes care of the bees. I am an artist interested in environmental issues and in inter-species communication, specifically interested in the power of the small. My ongoing research asks questions regarding the ramifications all living beings would experience should honey bees disappear from earth.

….

To begin a collaborative project with the honeybees, I choose a slightly broken object or damaged material from a second hand market place. I choose damaged objects because honeybees are meticulous beings, they continuously mend anything around them and they do pay attention to detail. To encourage the honeybees to communicate, I strategically add wax or honey, propolis or hand-made honeycomb patterns to the objects prior to placing them into their hives. At least I like to think my methods are strategic. The honeybees often think otherwise and respond to what is placed within their hive in ways that make my mind reel.

At times, the honeybees encourage me to add or delete honeycomb after they have worked on an object. As an example, by overextending their honeycomb, the honeybees encourage me to sculpt into this mass of waxed cell construction and return it to them for further consideration.’
via The Jealous Curator