05-28-11

Generation Lost

This is the reality of our time. We don’t want pity and we don’t want to assign blame. I take exception to the simplistic view that Generation Y is optimistic because Cosby, Barney and Mr. Rogers taught our parents to make us feel special. We are optimistic because we don’t expect to be given anything easily and we’ve come to terms with that.

In Defense of My Generation by Jason Oberholtzer

05-26-11

Think about this…

“Instead, think about getting together with friends that you admire, or envy.  Think about entrepeneuring. Think about NOT waiting for a company to call you up. Think about not giving your heart to a bunch of adults you don’t know. Think about horizontal loyalty. Think about turning to people you already know, who are your friends, or friends of their friends and making something that makes sense to you together, that is as beautiful or as true as you can make it.”

R. Krulwich’s Commencement Address for the Berkley School of Journalism. Go and read it, journalist or not.

If you can… fall in love, with the work, with people you work with, with your dreams and their dreams. Whatever it was that got you to this school, don’t let it go. Whatever kept you here, don’t let that go. Believe in your friends. Believe that what you and your friends have to say… that the way you’re saying it – is something new in the world.

And don’t stop. Just hold on… and keep loving what you love… and you’ll see. In the end, they’ll let you stay.

05-24-11

Affective Engagement is Smashingly Good, Darling

My article on Emotional Engagement is up on SmashingMagazine.com, go check it out.

05-06-11

Swoon Awards: iPhone Apps

Instead of clogging up a friend’s wall on FB, I decided to list them here so that you, too could share in my daily love affair with my phone. You can tell a lot about a girl by the apps she has. Got a favorite I should try? Drop me a message below or via email. :)

Paid apps I love

Hipstamatic is not free but fun if you like photo apps. I think I like collecting the extension packs more than anything. It turns your digital phone into an analog vintage camera without the wait time for development. Thanks to San Diego who bought it for me for my birthday. :)

Viaden Yoga App saves me hundreds of dollars in yoga classes every month. Calendar, pre-created sessions, DIY sessions, pose base, videos. Swoon. Videos.

2.do helps keep my head on straight. Really, really straight.

Skeeball game. The only dates I can stand are my Starbucks and Skeeball dates that I take myself on from time to time.

Free apps I love

Scoutmob. A social buying app/website like Groupon and Livingsocial but not available in all areas yet. However, you can still use their awesome augmented reality mustachio photo tool even if they don’t serve your local. It’s mustachio and awesome.

Stanza is a free ebook reader, plus it gives you access to libraries like Gutenberg and Books from Munseys. It’s fun to go book shopping for classics at 2am instead of sleeping not to mention that vintage business books are always a win. I’m reading PT Barnum’s guide to economics now.




Foodspotting. Food pr0n. ’nuff said.

A friend just turned me on to Project Noah if you like gardening/outdoors…you’ll have to read up on this one. I haven’t played with it enough to give you a run down but it is worth looking into, TRUST ME.




Bluelight if you walk places in the city by yourself a lot. It will automatically send a text with your last GPS coordinates to an emergency contact once you set it if you don’t check in by the time you get where you are going.

Honorable mentions

Apps I use often and worth a head nod: Maps (i’m always using GPS and getting lost), Facebook, Twitter, email and calendar, dictionary.com, NPR news, FeedlerRSS. Apps I use to use but not so much anymore:

Mint is a good financial app, but has started getting too “let’s sell you a credit card” for my liking, so I am starting to look elsewhere.

Grocery IQ for shopping lists. You can take photos of barcodes and they get added automatically…HOW COOL IS THAT?

I’m a member of zipcar, their app is awesome b/c it let’s you unlock your car and honk the horn. I think car manufacturers are making similar apps for their cars now too, you can try looking for yours if you have one.

Kindle app. It’s only on my list due to the fact I have to test files I make with DRM (<-lame) at times.

Apps on my list to try

Tea App I haven’t tried yet but am pondering if I should. I’m more of the OCD kind of tea drinker, if I try something new and like it, I will remember it because I’ll drink it for the next year until I get sick of it…

Got a good one I should try? Let me know via email or twitter.

05-06-11

My Process

Today, I wanted to share my process with you. These are shots of extremely early brainstorming play sessions. Enjoy.

SEO-ing a website.

Vision boarding (or craving Skittles).

Creative block

04-19-11

Information is Beautiful Greatness

I got a feature (Link)… I just saw it in my Flickr analytics from early this month. Yay! I added it to my little growing list down on the side. I have a handful more over on my shellgreenier.com site.

02-22-11

Plutchik’s Emotion Wheel

Designed for an article I am working on about Emotional Engagement. Plutchik’s theories are interesting, whether you agree with them or not, but I’m sure we can all agree the original wheel needed a make-over. Sometimes I post updates on the facebook group over thar —->here, so go like it please. I’m also considering redesigning a few other theories in need of makeovers but other than Maslow’s triangle, I’m falling short on ideas. Suggestions?

02-11-11

Maslow Was Wrong Part 1: Bacon Theory

I’ve been spending a lot of time with dead guys lately. I almost enjoy their company more than the live ones at the moment. I’ve been playing over Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in my head and things are just not adding up. Then I figured it out: Bacon!

Bacon trumps safety. Let me explain via this amazing little graphic here:

At it’s basic form, the theory states that before you can move up a level, the needs below must be met (unless you are a metamotive), but this had me thinking about safety. The basic principles of motivation is that as humans, we actively seek out pleasure (stimulus fulfilling need) and actively avoid pain (stimulus threatening need).

Hence the problem with safety: I will run across the highway before stopping to bite into that juicy hamburger in my hand (unless it had bacon, hence the name). That negates it. My safety concern for my body superseded my concern for not dying of starvation. This displays a possible hierarchy of functional concerns as well, but that is for another time. (I’ll call that one the “Eggs Theory”…which comes first: caloric or procreative concerns?) I get it, perhaps he was trying to adopt a Hobbian “we’re concerned with society and our role in society due to safety/nasty-brutish-short reasons” but that still wouldn’t be a need, it’s an effect of a cognitive response.

Safety is bypassing a threat to an already existing need. Safety concerns should fall somewhere in the plane of its corresponding need (safety of health would be at the functional level for example). More complex safeties like “safety of employment” would fall under the level of its more basic constructs like security of food, clothing, home or security to provide the basic functional needs for our families or security of our “super pimp in our mad corner office” status (aka. self-esteem).

02-10-11

How to kick a stalker off your blog

I decided to be a jerk to San Diego (nothing new there) and kicked his butt off of my blog a week or two ago. When he brought up The Madness, this is what he saw:

That’s right, I redirected him to the Wikipedia entry on stalking.

He has since sent me a text message pleading his case, and since my pageviews took a noticeable hit with him gone (and with it my self esteem, sigh) I decided to take him back. It was all done in jest, but here is how it is done for those of you out there who have masochistic friends you like to beat up on. It’s really quiet simple:

1. You need their IP address. In wordpress you can find it under the comments section if they left you comment, or there are other ways of doing it, but I’m kind of lazy and really didn’t want to go through the trouble.

2. .htaccess, grab yours or make one.

3. add a mod_Rewrite, replacing the ## with the IP address, formatted accordingly. You can replace the URL with whatever you wish.

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^###\.##\.##\.##

RewriteRule \.php$ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^###\.##\.##\.## [OR]

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^###\.##\.##\.##

RewriteRule \.php$ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking

02-10-11

Vintage Find!

Here is a certified original Shell design Circ. 2002. I was googling my name,  cleaning up my rep and came across this on a lone angelfire.com site. Swoon. There was a flash file that went with. I will have to try to track it down one of these days. enjoy!