Konrad Zuse June 22, 1910 – December 18, 1995

This plant did not come out looking like the photo on the seed packet.

The Next HOPE conference badge, for which I did the graphics.

These badges didn't just grant admission to the conference, they served as fully functional and hackable tracking beacons for its Attendee Meta-Data project.  (There's a video explaining the basics here, and more hardcore hardware info from the extremely neighborly Travis Goodspeed here.)  After the electronics were laid out and finalized, I was given the badge files so I could scrawl like a madman all over graphically enhance them.

I used what space and resources I had to bring the badge in line with the conference's retrofuturistic design theme, while highlighting and playing with some of the text labels and gadgetry within.  I even snuck in a silly little detail only a few people ever found and called me out on; the grid above the arrow logo makes use of a method I came up with in elementary school for hiding messages in notebook sheets, and contains the conference's initials.

This is the first thing I ever made completely in Inkscape.

This doodle came about because I’m excited for the upcoming album by those fine folks at Information Society.

I started drawing it right after pressing play on “Dominion,” a track to which those who preorder the album have been granted access, and stopped drawing when the song ended four minutes and twenty-one seconds later.

Carmen "humdog" Hermosillo (d. August 10, 2008)

Artist, writer, researcher, and poet Carmen Hermosillo was a participant in online communities, from BBSes, the WELL, and other early electronic forums to modern social networks and virtual worlds, and studied their place in our lives.

Hermosillo is portrayed here with one of her many virtual avatars.

Acrylic on canvas, 7x5″.  From my September 2015 set Luminaries of the Hacker World.

My contribution to the Ghostbusters collab, now slowly being released at whoyougonnacollab.  I'm in some insanely brilliant company here, everyone's contributions are great!

I’m in a hurry, so let’s not dawdle. @rob_t_firefly

Alexander Graham Plane 1978

As the era of novelty telephones took hold in the 1970s, third-party phones of all shapes and gimmicks began finding their way into homes.   Most telephone companies were still discouraging the practice of customers connecting third-party phones to their lines, but interestingly-shaped phones caught on regardless.  Canadian phone company Northern Telecom addressed the issue with their own cute airplane-inspired phone.

The Alexander Graham Plane, part of Nortel's “Imagination” line of contemporary telephone designs, was one of very few novelty phones of the period to be actively manufactured and made available by a telco.

Acrylic on canvas, 7x5″.  From my series of paintings of historical telephones.

Because we all love visual puns.  Made for b3ta's verbular celebrities image challenge.

Speaking of Doctor Who, care to kick my starter?

Nikola Tesla (July 10, 1856-January 7, 1943)

Tesla, a Serbian-American inventor never fully appreciated in his own lifetime, has in retrospect become known as one of the most important inventors on record. Much of our 21st -century technological environment has its roots in Tesla's work with electricity, radio, and more.

Acrylic on canvas, 5x7″.  From my September 2015 set Luminaries of the Hacker World.

Callie and Izzy is an upcoming webseries it’s been my pleasure to be part of.  The show is by Nicola Rose, with whom I’ve previously worked on The Media Show and the musical Aisle Six.

More info coming soon, keep an eye on it!

I took some video of part of my rail commute and set it to the English-language cover of Yatta! I made recently; the result turned out surprisingly mellow.  More info and an MP3 download in the track's original post.

Captioned lyrics are included if you click through to YouTube.  Here's the direct YouTube link for embedophobes.

This goofy track has gotten a far kinder response here and elsewhere than I thought it would; thanks, Internet!  I shall have to do more musical things.