Category: Creativity

Sanssouci

Sanssouci is a reimplementation of something like naked objects, which I always thought was way cool.

The basic idea behind Naked Objects is that you make the “objects” of your OO system into things that can be seen and manipulated directly by the user. This was one of the concepts behind the old Self project from Sun, whose GUI (“Morphic”) was appropriated for Squeak, but IMHO wasn’t as cool in Squeak because Squeak wasn’t a prototype-based system like Self, and wasn’t designed from the ground up with Morphic in mind.

Interfaces like this are cool because they allow the GUI to be a more direct path from the user to the underlying machine representation. Traditionally GUIs have put distance between user and machine, leading to the phenomenon which is the basis of Neal Stephenson’s int he beginning was the command line, where the GUI becomes a symbol of babying the user and giving him a distanced, artificial, unreal interaction with the machine, as opposed to the command line, which gives him a real, immediate connection to the machine. There’s no reason it has to be that way though, and things like Naked Objects move in the direction of making a more transparent GUI.

Sanssouci is the name of a palace built by the famous prussian king Friedrich II. (“The Great”) between 1745 and 1747 in Potsdam (near Berlin), Germany. The english translation from french “sans souci” is “no worries” or “no sorrow”. The palace was meant to be a peaceful place where the king could spend the summer season “without worries”.

We chose this name, because we as programmers don’t want to worry about writing GUI interfaces. Nobody really likes to do it and it is still difficult to maintain a good ease-of-learning and ease-of-use at the same time, while still providing maximum flexibility and functionality. Another reason for the naming: The user-interfaces generated by Sanssouci are really nice, just like the palace of the old prussian king!

He’s Always Sketching

Jeffrey Rowland I didn’t instantly recognize, but I should have. I could see the spiritual kinship between him and his avatar in Overcompensating. He had also set out some books and the like, and drawing gear, and as he chatted with people he sketched in their books, or in his sketchbook. That’s something I recognized almost immediately. Rowland sketches. All the time. Or at least, all the time he was there. He was personable and conversational and clearly enjoyed talking with his fans, but while he did so his pen was always working.

— websnark

I’ve kept my new year’s resolution to draw at least one page — one page of anything at all, even random scribbles all over it — per day. Often it’s been in bed just before I go to sleep, quick scribble something out and then hit the hay. But I’ve always done it. So far I feel considerably freed up with respect to art. I can see how the logical endpoint of this would be something like what Burns reports of Rowland.

The “replace at least one glass of pop per day with a glass of water” thing is going well too.

How to be Creative?

GapingVoid has made some good noise lately by releasing a Creative Commons licensed book on “how to be creative.” It’s in PDF form and also on the web.

I’d say it’s partly brilliant and partly wrong-headed.

I think that depending on who you are when you read it you are either going to take away the brilliant parts and think it’s a wonderful book or the wrong-headed parts and come away the worse for it.

Wrong-headed: he doesn’t (at least on the face of it) shake the myth of Successful People vs Losers. He’s always talking about failed creative people who work as waiters and whatnot. But then he’ll turn around and say: “Even if your path never makes any money or furthers your career, that’s still worth a TON.” Well, wait a minute. Should we pity the pathetic losers working as waiters because they didn’t have sufficiently different or unique ideas, or should we realize that what they’re doing may be “still worth a TON”?

There is a lot of this kind of conflict going on in the work. He takes a broad “everyone can do this, it doesn’t take special talent, just hard work” tack in one section, and then he talks about how really talented people “don’t need props” and mere hacks do. Wait, does talent matter or not?

Again and again he equivocates on really important issues. I think he says some really deep & true & important things, things where society’s assumptions are wrong and harmful, and we need to see the truth, but then he lapses back into those wrong assumptions on another page.

This is frustrating. But I think it’s a good book nonetheless, and I am really glad he wrote it and made it available. Lot of very very good stuff in there.

And I must admit I wrote this before finishing it, so I may have missed some very important stuff before the end.

Dowhutchalike

Annie Dillard:

A well-known writer got collared by a university student who asked, ”Do you think I could be a writer?”

”Well,” the writer said, ”I don’t know. . . . Do you like sentences?”

The writer could see the student’s amazement. Sentences? Do I like sentences? I am 20 years old and do I like sentences? If he had liked sentences, of course, he could begin, like a joyful painter I knew. I asked him how he came to be a painter. He said, ”I liked the smell of the paint.”

Jeffrey Jones (classic fantasy illustrator), interviewed in the Jeffrey Jones Sketchbook from Vanguard Press:

P: When you’re drawing, how important is the content? How conscious are you fo that as opposed to the lines you’re putting down, or is it just shape oriented?

J: Well, content is generally way down at the bottom somewhere. Up at the top is, ‘How much fun am I having?’ That’s way up at the top. ‘Is the ink flowing off the end of this pen? How does the piece of paper feel? Am I having fun or am I not having fun?’ That’s what’s first.
Second thing is, as I’m making lines, ‘Am I creating something that’s solid? Is this convincing?’ And then, further on down the line, composition comes in. ‘Is my eye traveling around or is it getting hung up in a particular place?’ Somewhere near the bottom is content. But it’s important because if it were some other content I probably wouldn’t be doing all the stuff above it. If it was a drawing of an automobile, I probably wouldn’t be doing all the other stuff — the fun thing wouldn’t even enter into it. So it is important, but it’s way down the list.

Do you like what you’re doing? The smell of the paint? Do you like sentences?