Brick Blueprint Postmortem
I had a half-baked plan to sell instructions for new models you could build with pieces from specific LEGO sets. The name I came up with for this project was Brick Blueprint, which I mentioned here a couple times last year before deciding to shelve the idea. Earlier this summer, I revived the idea and built a storefront using Shopify and FetchApp. I created a “blueprint”-inspired instructions template and worked out a streamlined pipeline to produce the instructions, from bricks to LDraw files to final PDFs. I designed a bunch of models. There was a Twitter account, too.
Marketing is no fun, though – and more to the point, store hosting isn’t cheap when you’re bootstrapping sales from zero. So, after a midsummer hiatus, I decided this is not how I would make my first million. The store has been put on ice and the instructions have been posted to Flickr.
Here are the twenty-six sample models I produced. These are free. Play well!
Links to the LDraw files for each model are available from the image pages.
As conceived, Brick Blueprint may not have been commercially viable, but I did learn some useful things such as how to set up a functional web store and how Google AdWords works from an advertiser’s perspective. I learned some new tricks for my favorite LDraw tools. Last but not least, I put together this nice little portfolio of pocket-size models built with a highly limited palette of parts. LEGO, hire me!
Posted on Thursday, August 30th, 2012. Tags: LDraw, LEGO.
Ship’s Log, Maintenance Excerpts
I’ve airlocked a couple LEGO-related scripts that had been lingering in stowage. They received little traffic, and had in fact been inoperable for some time without generating any complaints.
Bitsticker converted bitmap images to LDraw “sticker” elements; Scott Wardlaw’s Sticker Generator is a viable replacement. To create text-based LDraw stickers, I recommend using Ross Crawford’s original txt2dat instead of the “txt2dat online” interface I created, now retired. Likewise, LDraw part authors should use Philo Hurbain’s original LDraw utilities instead of my “Isecalc online” script, also retired.
With the cgi-bin hold cleared of such jetsam, the ship is leaner, meaner, and, practically speaking, more portable should I decide to change hosts or redesign the site.
Additionally, after years of uncertainty and intermittent customer support correspondence, I am pleased to report that the anoved.net domain is now unambiguously mine. (And now registered with Hover.com – buy your own domain name and make me rich with referral credit!)
Previously, the domain was registered in my hosting company’s name. At the time of purchase it seemed a reasonable consequence of my hosting package, but it proved difficult to make configuration changes and unclear what would happen to the name in a variety of a scenarios (change of company ownership, lapsed payments, etc.). Now that is all squared away and telemetry indicates nominal domain name operation.
End log. Stand by to resume standard content comm channel.
Posted on Tuesday, August 21st, 2012. Tags: LDraw, LEGO, log.
Time Lapse Portrait Sketches
Here is a brief montage of four portrait drawings, recorded at two seconds per frame.
I like sharing these time lapse drawing videos because I like the *process* of drawing as much as, if not more than, the resulting artifact.
— Jim (@anoved) July 11, 2012
My prior experiments with time lapse drawings can be found here and here.
Posted on Wednesday, July 11th, 2012. Tags: art, drawing.
Summer Running Update
After a relatively leisurely winter, I started running in the morning (sometimes early in the morning) this spring. In my experience, running first thing in the morning is a great way to start the day – it wakes you up, and you feel like you’ve already accomplished something by the time you sit down to breakfast. Despite those advantages, I’ve rarely managed to run in the morning on a regular basis until this year, so it has been a worthwhile project.
In early May, I ran in the Binghamton Bridge Run half marathon. It is a flat course through familiar territory. I only put in a week or so of distance training before race, but I was content with the 1:37:57 I managed to run.
On June 16 I ran in the Vestal XX, a pretty hilly 20k race. I ran it last year, too, and was pleasantly surprised to improve on my time by a few minutes, for a 1:33:29 this year. My strategy going in to the race was to “run smarter” – to refrain from going too fast early on in order to avoid running out of energy in the second half of the race, as I did last year. This strategy paid off, and I enjoyed one of the most competitive racing experiences I’ve ever had (moving up in a leapfrog fashion with a small but growing pack) through much of the second half.
I’m not sure what my next event will be, but I’ll post another update here once it happens.
Posted on Saturday, June 30th, 2012. Tags: running.
Weekend Artifact Coda
It’s been a few weeks since I posted a new weekend artifact, so I’ll conclude the series with one more drawing:
Posted on Thursday, June 21st, 2012. Tags: art, weekendartifacts.
Weekend Artifact 15
Drawn with a brush pen thingy.
Posted on Sunday, May 13th, 2012. Tags: art, weekendartifacts.
Weekend Artifact 14
Ballpoint pen sketches.
First, some fútbol doodles – sports photos provide a good reference for interesting poses. Trying to get a feel for the motion in a scene without worrying too much about details.
Second, portraits! Just let the lines spill out and see what happens. You might like it.
Posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2012. Tags: art, weekendartifacts.
Weekend Artifact 13
Posted on Sunday, April 29th, 2012. Tags: art, weekendartifacts.
WheresThatSat
My Twitter bot @WheresThatSat is up and running. More information about what it does is available at WheresThatSat.com. In short, it replies to comments about satellites with maps and information about the satellite’s recent course.
Posted on Wednesday, April 25th, 2012. Tags: geography, gtg, wheresthatsat.
WheresThatSat Preview
As I’ve mentioned a few times, I’m making a bot called WheresThatSat which is basically a Twitter interface to Ground Track Generator, my satellite-path-mapping program. The bot responds to queries about satellites (it knows of many – you might even say it has detailed files) by reporting their location at the time they were mentioned.
This week I’ve been making a complementary web site that displays more information (altitude, speed, heading, etc.) along with a Google Map rendition of the satellite’s recent path. The bot will include a map link with each response. The site isn’t finished yet (some icons and styles are still placeholders), but here’s sneak peak:
My goal is to get things working smoothly enough to let WheresThatSat resume running later this week, at least on a trial basis. Although the bot could search for and reply to any mention of the many satellites it knows about, I’ve decided it will only post unsolicited responses to a sample of tweets about one or two “in the news” satellites (queries explicitly addressed to @WheresThatSat will, of course, have access to a full catalog of satellites). This is partly a matter of manners and partly a matter of avoiding excessive API calls (Twitter imposes rate limits on how frequently programs can interact with it).
Posted on Sunday, April 22nd, 2012. Tags: geography, gtg.