http://mschindler.com life, politics, art, culture, and me, me, me! Sun, 31 Aug 2008 04:06:27 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 Somebody recently shared with me an article from Fast Company magazine about a winery that's replaced their traditional glass bottles with more forward-thinking recyclable carton packages. The resultant environmental affect claims to produce a carbon footprint ten times smaller than traditional glass bottles once the savings for weight, shipping, ... http://mschindler.com/2008/06/11/thinking-outside-the-bottle/ Pregnant Lady: I'm gonna make cupcakes tonight. Me: Oh, yeah? For what? Pregnant Lady: For my mouth. Is that a good enough answer for you? Me (absorbing howls of laughter): That's going on my website. Your name's going to be "Pregnant Lady." http://mschindler.com/2008/05/12/cupcakes-for-cuttles/ Mike Schindler Curtains 1995 Ink on Died Canvas 78¼ x 51½ inches Thirteen years later, I still consider this piece to be one of the most significant breakthroughs of my early artistic development. It was made ... http://mschindler.com/2008/03/24/curtains/ The powerful and moving story of Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke reminds me why I tend to be so personally interested in the mechanics of the human brain, sometimes taking great lengths to apply that interest into my own discipline. In 1983 my grandfather suffered a debilitating stroke which rendered ... http://mschindler.com/2008/03/14/the-impossible-dream/ Given the semantic nature of the argument, I've tried to avoid splitting this hair. But I'm started to see an important distinction between two very similar words which are often used to describe a user's potential behavioral motivation--desire and intent. While these two words appear to have the ... http://mschindler.com/2008/03/11/desire-vs-intent/ The patent for this invention takes 65 paragraphs to explain a design that's utterly, if not painfully, obvious in hindsight--the square taco. The self-standing taco shell makes it easier to prepare multiple tacos at the same time. This advantage is especially desirable in fast food, cafeteria and party environments where multiple ... http://mschindler.com/2008/01/30/usable-taco-shell-design/ If you overlook the sensational title from Newsweek's Mind Reading is Now Possible, there's something worth pointing out here. Scientists are finding that thoughts and ideas map to predictable patterns in the brain. Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University showed people drawings of five tools (hammer, drill and the like) and ... http://mschindler.com/2008/01/19/mind-mapping/ Thoughts on the Genesis of Interaction Design Deliverables Eventually, I would like to share with you the design theory I'm working on (I may even have settled on a name for it), but for now allow me to explain a small part of it which at one point served as the ... http://mschindler.com/2008/01/13/wireframes-left-visual-designs-right/ CNN's Election Center 2008 delivers not only a monumental amount of well thought out data-driven design, information architecture and Flash/AJAX wizardry, but the site itself may quite possibly represents the largest lesson in politics that's ever been delivered to the American public in one full sitting. Think about it. ... http://mschindler.com/2008/01/09/learning-politics-by-design/ I'm not exactly sure why, but more people than usual have been asking me about my Christmas card this year. This one started with some direction from my wife, which she stated plainly enough to me one evening, "You've never done a Santa before. You should do an old-fashioned one ... http://mschindler.com/2007/12/23/holiday-greetings-2007/ The other day I came across this book proposal on my computer, which I apparently wrote four years ago and abandoned for more sensible work at the time. Honestly, I vaguely remember writing it, but I must have been pretty serious about it. There's like, a whole chapter ... http://mschindler.com/2007/12/12/mac-os-x-web-design-unpublished/ I find it difficult to evaluate the movie American Gangster without some kind of compare and contrast to 2001's Blow, which I also felt compelled to say a few words about. Both are period films about drug smugglers, considered by some to be innovators during their time. Both are based ... http://mschindler.com/2007/11/22/american-gangster/ This nonsense brings back a powerful memory. One morning during my Junior year of college, my sculptor professor, a scruffy-looking curmudgeonly man, who also happens to be one of the most well-spoken individuals on the topic of art I've ever met in real life, led our small group through the ... http://mschindler.com/2007/11/21/beyond-words/ http://mschindler.com/2007/10/31/halloweenhead/ The Philadelphia Museum of Art has in its permanent collection a number of cannot-miss-works, including Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Cezanne's Bathers, and an entire room full of Marcel Duchamp paintings and readymades (although some are noted as replicas). But there are two outstanding paintings, which have left me breathless during the past ... http://mschindler.com/2007/09/30/a-tale-of-two-paintings/