jayroe

What do you get when you combine Sony PR with church dogma?

Pagan Coffee

Unintended connection by webjones. Thanks!

Joshua Bell plays tunes in a DC Metro station… will anyone stop to listen?

Interesting that kids always recognized greatness even as their parents rushed them along. This is a wonderful demonstration of the principle that “art is that which you call art,” it all has to do with context and the way it is presented.

For anyone in web design, you’ll know that over the past few years the Drupal content management system has really become quite popular. I’ve used it with much success in the past. Here’s a little tune that celebrates the goodness of Drupal: The Drupal Song

Thanks Sean!

Since my college days at USM, April 1st has always been International Trombone Day. Throw a party, ya’ll, drink some beer and crank some funk, jazz and orchestral excerpts!

A couple of articles at the MIT News Office caught my eye. Being someone with experience in diverse fields (art, music, computers, education) as well as the father of a 3 year old, I find articles about child development and learning particularly interesting. In Scientists show that children think like scientists, children assume by default that cause-and-effect relationships govern the world as opposed to mysterious, unexplainable forces:

The researchers found that children are conservative about unobserved causes (they don’t always think mysterious things are happening) but would rather accept unobserved causes than accept that things happen at random.

This is a critical area of human development that most people layer seemingly contradictory beliefs about philosophy and religion over. Is it ironic that adults often turn to mysterious explanations when facing the unknown or incomprehensible? Why do those who profess atheism or agnosticism often face outrage and even violent opposition by those who place their faith in mystery rather than cause-and-effect? Out of the mouth of babes, right?

Child’s play is serious study of cause and effect calls for futher study on the reasoning of children. In order to be better at parenting and education,we really need to understand how their cause/effect logic develops through play:

The theory of cause and effect is fundamental to our understanding of the world. However, despite almost universal agreement that children learn about cause and effect through exploratory play, little is known about how children’s play might support accurate causal learning.

Before working in computers, I was a music teacher and moved toward an IT career because I could make two or three times more sitting behind a desk writing software than I could teaching our children how to be good musicians and citizens of the world. Yeah, it’s evil, but hey, I’m a victim of circumstance…

What I hope we learn is a new respect for how abstract and sophisticated kids’ early learning is. It is much more sophisticated than what computers are capable of. It would be nice if people who worked with children got as much respect as people who work with computers.

On January 18th, one year from the day I started at Perpetual, I got an email from my once and future manager, Craig. Earthlink had a position open that seemed to be a good fit both professionally and family-wise. Doin’ it tha East Bay Way was starting to take its toll as we struggled with how to raise a family in the most expensive city in the US sans NYC. Earthlink flew me down to Pasadena for some informal interviews with the team I would be working with… if I got the job.

While there I got to hang with my good friend Brian, who’s Kevin Smith ambush is worth a read. After the interviews, I flew back to San Francisco to wait for the call. For someone who picked up the family and moved from Mississippi to San Francisco in 2006 it felt like everything hit slow motion. The possibilty of slamming everything back in a truck to move to the other side of the continent was utterly exhausting.

Only days later I accepted a Senior Software Engineer position with Earthlink in Atlanta. Arriving in our new apartment on March 1st and still tired from the first move across the country, we finally feel like we’re in a place we can call home. My wife and I both realized that we needed to go for something bigger than what Central Mississippi could offer. Moving to San Francisco was part of that effort, but it just didn’t feel right. Both growing up in Mississippi, we have always liked Atlanta: still in the South but a big city with all the accoutrements. Life is much less expensive here and family is much closer (no more air travel with an energetic 3 year old).

Notice some new threads on the old jayroe.com site? With stress levels and personal time returning to sane levels, I actually feel like working on personal projects again (Particle Sphere… I’m looking at you). To be sure, there are challenges here in the Dirty South and with my awesome new job, but at least it feels like home.

What’s up with Particle Sphere? The webcomic I started in 2001 and stopped working on circa 2004? Basically, I’m working on a script. It’s called Particle Sphere - Alpha and is the origin story for the main character, Particle. Following chapters will be named sequentially using the Greek alphabet: Beta, Gamma, Epsilon, and so on.

Why the delay? Well, for one… I’m slow. I’m a perfectionist and like to take my time on things, especially when I’m the one setting the timetable. The other major factor is my new job as Lead Web Designer/Developer at Perpetual Entertainment. My responsibilities there consume the bulk of my time and the move from Clinton, Mississippi, to San Francisco, California, was far from trivial.

My family and I have made it through the first year with a new job in a new state and hopefully 2007 will be a lot smoother. I take a commuter train to work everyday so I do have some free time that I have been using to chip away at a script for the comic. I am somewhat encouraged by the questions about Particle that come up from time to time when I talk to old friends. In fact, since we’ve been home for Christmas, I ran into a friend from my WorldCom days at the Thai House restaurant in Jackson, Mississippi, and he asked about the comic.

Since PS went on indefinite hiatus in late 2004 I have never really stopped working on it in some way or another. Sometimes I still sketch, still searching for an appropriate art style. However, most of my thought has gone into a script. So in the spirit of the season, here is the first, extremely rough draft of the prologue of Particle Sphere - Alpha…

At the edge of supermassive black hole a young woman in her early 20s with red, double-spiral curls is floating in space enclosed by a transparent, glowing electric blue bubble of light. A smaller red sphere hovers nearby preoccupied by various data displays.

Tech Reference: Super Massive Blackhole

PARTICLE: “I’ve lost everyone… why can’t I lose myself?”

PARTICLE: “Diary…”

A super-cute characterture of a diary appears. The pages open…

PARTICLE: “My father gave me eternal life…”

Words appear on the pages of the diary.

PARTICLE: “…whether I wanted it or not.”

PARTICLE: “Sphere, my ‘voice of reason,’ said I was being irrational… since there is no way in this universe to destroy me. Well…”

Particle shoots an icy stare over her shoulder at the spherical avatar. He is floating on the other side of the bubble of light that encloses them both. Despite his simplistic, emoticon face he appears deep in thought.

Sphere looks at one of the screens with dismay…

SPHERE: “Particle, two of our remotes have gone offline….”

PARTICLE: “…we’ll see about that!”

SPHERE: “What?”

Particle is looking straight “down” into the center of the black hole, in position like an Olympic diver, she leaps into the abyss…

Merry Christmas!

Will (cyb3rllama)