Arnie saves Christmas

Great little video here. "Hello Santa, you ole duck. Listen, I need a favor!"

Christmas Eve in Austin

Merry Christmas

Check out Brad's Ball and Socket Drill on Quirky.com

Emily's boyfriend, Industrial Design major Brad Dunn, submitted this idea to Quirky.com a couple of weeks ago. Take a look and be sure to vote for the Ball and Socket Drill. When Brad is not creating new designs, he likes to fire up the grill!

SCAD's finest!

Emily's roommate Caroline visits from Atlanta

Brad Dunn & Emily

Emily, Andres Gonzales and Wehman Hopke

Fun match with Andres and the college golfers

Mom and the girls

Uncle Ricky to the Sahara Desert

Jan. 12-21. Read about Merrakesh here. It is in Morroco, the northwest most part of Africa - below Spain. Check out these images.


 

The new way to work

Just posted a fun video called Run, Amy, Run. Here's the link.

Here are the things that stand out to me in the video:

• Simulating and rendering on other computers so that you don't lose local processing power
• Getting notified when your simulation and renderings are complete
• Concept design on a tablet that allows quick and collaborative workflows
• Using the desktop for more complex and detail oriented work
• Remote data access from anywhere
• What do you think? Are these concepts useful for your work?

Run Amy Run - Design in the Cloud

Snowflake Dress - Autodesk

Here's a fun behind the scenes story . . .

Our Favorite Part Of The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show – BuzzFeed

I like this line from the article: "The main designer is a trained architect who sees the body as an architectural system."

Get to know your sophomores!

Fun stuff on SCAD Website today! Click here to read.

Autodesk: C-Suite with Jeffrey Hayzlett

Here's an interesting piece that gives you an idea of the changing times at Autodesk. Emily, you might show this to Brad. You will see clips from Pier 9, where I hope you can get an internship or become an Artist in Residence. Enjoy!

Grace Hopper - American pioneer in computer science

"Google's latest doodle celebrates the life of Grace Hopper, one of the great pioneers of the computer age who is widely credited as being the "mother" of the Cobol computer language." - Washington Post

See this Washington Post article for the whole story. Be sure to watch the short video to see Professor Hopper in action and to learn about nanoseconds. This made me think of cousin, Dr. Luke McDowell, who teaches computer science at the US Naval Academy. Learn more about Luke's research and classes here.

Make it a great Monday!

Lu and her fan club

Lucy with Emily, Brad Dunn and Andres Gonzales - before Balance performed in Bastrop!

Simplygon

Sal, Here is something else I stumbled into last week that I wanted to share with you. I think I mentioned that I have been trying to help Amazon figure out how to get their home furnishing products into Homestyler. The idea is that when someone is designing their new kitchen, they would want to be able to select their favorite bar stools and put them (in 3D) around the kitchen counter bar. Instead of just selecting a random 'bar stool', why not actually shop for your favorite bar stool and then place the 3D image into your design. One of the challenges is that the manufacturers don't have 3D images that can easily be transported into Homestyler. The images they have typically provide are too data heavy and thus they can't be used inside of Homestyler (too clunky, too slow, etc.) That's where Simplygon comes into play. They have some special technology that solves this problem and it only takes about 30 seconds to convert your big clunky 3D image into something that can be quickly used on-line at very fast frame-rates. 

They currently only sell the technology to the gaming industry, but they are looking for other ways to monetize the product. (I bet Autodesk acquires this business at some point.) Anyway, I visited with the CEO Magnus Wennerholm - who is a good friend of my boss (Patrick Byrne) and we talked about the home furnishings industry and the Homestyler product. (Magnus is third from right on second row in the picture. He gave me a cool t-shirt to bring back to Lucy and if she reads this entire post and ask me about the shirt I will give it to her now, if not, she will have to wait until Christmas.) Note that they are a Swedish company and Magnus told me they have a partner in Sweden who does work in the furniture business and that they are using Simplygon to render their images.

This would be an example of how you might combine your love of interior design with your passion for technology. Think out side of the box!

Exponential technologies - The world is about to change in ways we can not even imagine!

As I sit through these different sessions on technology at Autodesk University, I have been thinking about Sally's upcoming career choices, as well as Emily and Lucy as they start to plan their professional paths. Sally may have decided that she definitely wants to work for a top interior design firm as a designer or project manager, which would be great. She certainly has the resume to make that happen, after two amazing summer internship experiences in NYC and Chicago and making straight A's in her course work at UGA.

But she might want to explore some other possibilities as well. She has mentioned to me how much she loves working with software products (like AutoCAD and Revit) and that she might be interested in teaching people how to use design software? That might be fun, though I doubt it would pay very well.

I want to encourage all of you to read this article: From exponential technologies to exponential innovation.

Sally is entering the job market at one of (if not the) most exciting times in history. Here are some random thoughts/questions that I want to share with Sally, as she starts to look for her first job:

• Could Sally find a job that allows her to take advantage of this new technology and perhaps work for a company in the technology space?
• She would be an amazing sales representative or marketing professional for a tech company selling software to design professionals?
• She would also be good in a small start-up tech company with a product targeting design professionals?
• HGTV is located in Knoxville TN. They do a lot of filming in Atlanta. That might be a fun company to work for. Maybe she can ask her contacts in Atlanta to introduce her to some people at HGTV? (I could see Sally on TV!)
• What technology (software and hardware) products do design professionals use and what is going to change over the next 1-2 years in how they work? Try to catch the front side of a wave!

Funny faces

Thanksgiving Family Photos

Paella with Andres and Kristin

Wow Lu!

Looking forward to your competition next weekend in Bastrop!

Final garment modeled by E's roommate, Carleen

Top made from recycled eyeglasses!

Finished collection and technical flats

Men's shirt project

Emily's friend Walsh - proud of their shirts!

Chaps upset Hendrickson in first round of playoffs

All smiles when Chaps win!

Good times with Grandpa

Go Chaps! Making the 'W' with Cathy

Famous Bar-b-que Chicken!

Emily's Collection!

Sally Singletary's Curiosity

It's Women Power Wednesday and today we celebrate Sally Singletary. The girl has been busy! Not only is she an amazing student, enjoying an exciting Senior year at UGA, but she is also a modern day Nancy Drew! J.M. Cattafo looks to be a pretty interesting writer and teacher. Check out this site for more on Sally's friend J.M.

Sustainability

Sally, Emily, Lucy . . . I've been thinking about your futures (as we parent-types tend to do) and often wonder what the world will be like when you are my age, perhaps raising a family of your own? In my work, I occasionally get to spend time with the sustainability experts from Autodesk and I always think that it would be smart for you to look for ways to incorporate sustainability-expertise into your professional skills. This book caught my attention this morning and might be something worth reading. Here is a little more about the book, which Autodesk helped launch earlier this month. I hope you will give this some thought.

The Future

Here's an excerpt from a speech by Brit Harris, Teachers Retirement System of Texas. I really like his message.

It is always easy to assume either that things today are not as good as they were in the past or that they aren’t going to be as good in the future. The first is irrelevant, and the second is usually not a good bet. Mankind is pretty amazing at doing foolish things to create problems and then brilliant ways to overcome them. I am not unaware of the world’s many current problems, but I am optimistic nonetheless. Pessimistic people always sound smarter than optimists, but optimists generally live in bigger houses. Whatever the case, it takes optimism to remain hopeful, and hope is what is needed to struggle on. There is always a way forward if we are willing to look for it, and if we have the collective will and the individual courage to do what is needed when the time comes to do what is right.

With that said, some things are obvious and will have to be reckoned with. The era of disinflation, declining interest rates, multiple expansion and easy credit is ending (or has ended). So too, has the time of protracted deregulation and declining government. Taxes are going to rise. Demographically, the developed countries of the world are aging, but the less developed countries are not yet ready to take up the slack in growth that may create. Monetary authorities all over the world are on high alert. Political in-fighting is unusually high. Full-scale war has been replaced by cyber-terror and vigilante groups. These are the winds of our time, and it may take a while to sail through them.

Still, we will likely have just enough growth, just enough productivity, and not too much inflation to allow the world to muddle through. Despite it all, we are now in the American Empire, and empires, by definition, last longer than most expect. In America we still have more than our fair share of the world’s greatest corporations, the most innovative culture, the strongest military, the best universities, the most effective form of government, a healthy financial system, and reasonably strong spiritual values. As a result, America continues to attract more people to our shores than perhaps all other countries combined. As dysfunctional as we know we are, these truths still remain.

 

Stay whole Tuesday!

My new background photo on my Mac

SCAD Fall Invitational

Who's baby is this?

Hunker it down, ONE MORE TIME!

Cloud Nine, Bulldog Heaven

Sally, Emily, Lucy. Take a few minutes to watch this inspiring video. A Letter For Larry written to UGA's Larry Munson, the Dawgs' legendary radio broadcaster, from his longtime broadcast partner Loran Smith. It starts, "Larry Munson, Cloud Nine, Bulldog Heaven", which is exactly where I imagine Pop is hanging out these days! Read the wiki page and you will see Larry was an Army doc, so Pop and Larry are getting along great. Be sure to scroll down to the Famous Calls section and read the scripts from some of Munson's classic calls. Goose bumps for sure. Come on you Georgia Bulldogs, keep the magic alive against unbeaten Mizzou today!

Lu to ACL - Parents Gone Soft

Andres Gonzales and Kristin

We are looking forward to having PGA player Andres Gonzales and his wife Kristin rent our pool house for a few months this winter. Andres will be training in Austin and working with his swing coach (Ann Marie) at ACC. Here's a great article that gives you a sense of his personality. He is a fan favorite on the tour!