Jack Kilby, co-inventor of the microchip, pauses to have a Big Mac and Fries.
This is my first attempt at a ds106 assignment, Patty Pioneers.
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Jack Kilby, co-inventor of the microchip, pauses to have a Big Mac and Fries.
This is my first attempt at a ds106 assignment, Patty Pioneers.
Assignment: DS106 listed a “Patty Pioneers” assignment that required students to place a fast food item in the hands of a computer pioneer.
The Process: I used GIMP to combine two pictures, one of Ted Nelson (original here, by Mark Bernstein) and one of a burger (original here, Le Parker Meridien Hotel’s Burger Joint). After making a custom selection that traced his fingers (so that the burger would be behind them) I used the ‘Paste Into’ function so that he would appear to be holding the food. The effect could’ve probably been improved by making a tighter selection along his fingers, but I don’t think the end result was horrible.
The most annoying thing was probably scaling the burger after I pasted it in because I didn’t know the size I wanted in pixels so I had to just make it a little smaller, then look, then smaller, then look, etc until I got it to a realistic size. Also had wanted to rotate the burger but ran into issues with GIMP’s rotation tool when working with a pasted image.
I ultimately chose to completely de-saturate the image as well so that the colors from the burger picture and the colors from Ted Nelson’s picture wouldn’t clash.
The Story: The title is taken from Nick’s blog post in which he did the same assignment 
I chose Ted Nelson because of my research about him and his Xanadu project. The burger doesn’t have any symbolic significance, but the picture seemed to lend itself to a nice burger in his hand.
Perhaps Mr. Nelson’s upward stare is him thinking about how his ideas about burgers are so far from the reality of them today.
- Paul
Original scanned photo by telehistoriska – CC Licensed via Flickr
After this morning’s class I thought I’d do a post on Weiner. I decided it was about time to move on to DS 106 assignments since we are ending the section in one week or so. My first intention was to start off with the easier creative assignments, but technology was intimidating me. It has been quite a while without touching any photo editing software. I have had experiences with Photoshop back in my high school years, because I was one of the yearbook editor. However, I couldn’t suddenly buy Photoshop and I never worked on freewares like GIMP or Inkscape. Both of them were installed in my laptop somehow, though I had no clue how to use them. It took me a few hours to begin the whole assignment, and I had trouble going through the process. I failed a few times, but thanks to the Internet Pioneers — I with helps from tutorial sites I actually got something done!
Whenever I see a dachshund, I always think “a hot dog is walking on the street”. As you know, the name hot dog derives from their long body that looks just like a wiener. I doubt that there are hardly any hot dog stands or shops out there using proper pork and beef mixed wiener sausages. Hot dog is fast food, right? It’s quick and easy to prepare. So I added a hot dog, a bottle of coke, and a plate of french fries in Norbert Wiener’s picture. In the original photo, he is holding a cigar between his fingers.
Norbert Wiener has an unique biography. The story of him being the child prodigy is interesting enough, but what appealed to me was the transformation of his ethics against science and politics. I think he is an almost underrated contributor to the fields of cybernetics, mathematics, and extensive studies he related to them. He has won significant awards and honors. However, I have a feel that people tend to pay attention on the sophisticated form of outcomes the more modern pioneers have produced. Perhaps, his partly Jewish origin had kept him away from further prestige and celebrity. I didn’t know him and thought that the originator of Cybernetics and electonic communications should be noticed by everyone. Also, along with accumulating some facts about Wiener from online readings, I realized that truly intelligent individuals seem to have similar human philosophy. They all work for the establishment of a better human society by applying what they specialize in. As I mentioned before, Wiener is a remarkable personage. His near-rebellious attitude towards the government and questions on the ethics of scientists distinguishes Wiener from the other pioneers we have covered so far.
Image: 43081 :p by telehistoriska – CC Licensed via Flickr
Image: Hot Dog :p by TheCulinaryGeek - CC Licensed via Flickr
Image: coca cola :p by AJBeanster – CC Licensed via Flickr
Image: French Fries :p by ghirson – CC Licensed via Flickr
Simply put, this assignment involves editing a picture of any Computer Pioneer so that it looks like they are eating/about to eat/holding a burger or similar types of fast food.
For example, instead of using a hamburger as I did in the example photograph, you may wish to use a hot dog or french fries. Anything that you may find at a local fast food restaurant is acceptable. Drinks may be used as well, however, you must incorporate fast food within your picture.
Here are some tips when selecting a picture:
1) Try to pick a photograph where the person is already holding something in the picture. This will allow you edit the picture more easily, effectively, and helps make the picture more realistic looking after editing.
2) Try to match up the quality of the images you are working with so that they will be more ascetically pleasing, as well as more professional looking. If you are more technically capable, you may want to distort the image of the food item by inserting a layer of noise on the photo and then blurring the edges around the food item in order to make it blend in to the background. Remember, layers are your friend!
4) Don’t be intimidated by photo editing. The internet is your friend! Use a web search and find some tutorials on your favorite image editing software. It’s actually quite an easy assignment to do.
