hamilton.likes.to.draw...

If your job involves telling other people your ideas in a corporate environment, chances are, you've had to make a slideshow and do a presentation. Previously, I wrote about some tips to a successful slideshow presentation. Let's continue that conversation with some more tips. But this time let's do it with a more... purplish plum hue.

• Make eye contact: I don't mean just look at your audience. I mean make a connection with as many people in the room as you can. This means making sure that you actually make eye contact. Both of you. The addendum to this tip, is that you should let your gaze meander around the room, never laying on one person too long.
• Practice your presentation: You might think this one is obvious, and it is. But never the less, you need to practice your presentation. Out loud. Not in your head. Not reading it silently, once over. You need to get at least two or three people sat down in front of you, and you need to speak through your presentation. You don't need to memorize it, but the day you give your presentation should not feel like the first time looking at one of your slides. The rhythm of the presentation will make itself known in the action of presenting. A script writer can write a perfect scene, but until it's been filmed and put in front of an editor it never truly comes alive.
• Make sure all the information is legible and able to be retained: This encompasses a number of concepts. The text you want your audience to know, needs to be able to be read. This means it must be a high contrast color. Find out what kind of screen you will be presenting on. Is it a projector, or a tv? A projector in a dark or a bright room? Small text on your screen might be impossibly small on a tv far from viewers. Give important phrases their own slide if your presentation is about making a point. Make last minute adjustments to your slideshow if necessary. Which leads me to...
• Learn how to use your presentation software: Learn how to make master slides or whatever similar concept is in your slideshow software. Powerpoint master slides, Indesign master pages, and Keynote master slides will let you edit all of your page styles at once. They will also let you make last minute adjustments to text color or size to your entire document before a presentation. If you are only able to use a pdf, then at least know how to make it full screen. Of course if you can use real slideshow software, you'll be able to have a presentation mode. Take advantage of page notes, and a timer.
• Lead into your point: Sometimes you show a slide and you start talking about it. But sometimes, do the opposite. Start talking about the topic of your next slide and as your sentence reaches a point, bring up a slide that enforces it. Mix up the rhythm of your presentation. Presenting is like jazz or love making. You can't just go at one pace and expect anyone to stay interested. Also, feel free to move around, there's some unexplored furniture in this place.
• Set expectations: You might as well be a teacher with a classroom when you're doing a presentation. I mean, it's what we do every day. And one thing a teacher has to do is give the students a timeline for the expectations of the day. It helps them gauge the rhythm of the presentation and dance back to your music. There is a phrase I learned when I first started teaching. Tell them what you're going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them. Set up the expectation for what is to come in your talk. Give your timeline of events and then your thesis statement. At each landmark in your presentation make it known that you are shifting talking points. And at the end of your presentation, reiterate any important aspects of your presentation.

Thanks to my former colleague Jim Mollé and my former student Tammie Leung for some ideas to get the ball rolling on another post. If you have any other tips for a great presentation, I'd love to hear them.

It's my job to watch presentations periodically. And then judge them. That's just part of my job. I've seen a few presentations in my day. Some great ones. Mostly mediocre ones. Some bad. Here are some tips I've accrued to help a presenter make their slideshow a little bit better.

• Have page numbers: If there's anything worse than sitting in a presentation and not knowing how long it will last, I don't know what it is. Please for the sake of your attendees, have page numbers on most of your pages (you don't need them for cool power slides) and include a total number as well. Something like 3/40. It makes the whole process so much better.
• Don't read your slides: If you have a paragraph that isn't a direct quote on your slide, don't read it. Paraphrase. Slideshows should augment a presentation, not duplicate it. You should say words that are at least somewhat different than the words on your slide. Don't put pages of text onto the slides if you're just going to read them, put those into your notes, and put something more interesting onto the slideshow.
• Use the spacebar, or a presentation remote: Heck, there are apps on the phone that can be used to control a slide deck. Step away from the podium, interact with your audience, and don't try to find the arrow keys every time a slide needs to change. Don't use the arrow keys. Use the space bar. You can find it with your eyes closed. It will advance the slides in every slideshow application ever.
• 40 slides is like... perfect: If you think you have the perfect amount of slides, and it's over 40, you're wrong. Look if you're doing a 2 hour presentation, we might not be talking about the same thing. I'm talking about a 15 to 20 minute presentation to a company. You do not have enough time to cover 60 slides in that amount of time. Which leads me to...
• Don't just skip slides: If your whole plan was just to waft through ten slides saying "and here was some process *click *click *click" DON'T. Don't do that. It takes all the wind out of the sails of your presentation, and it grinds interest to a halt. You've just told me, here's a bunch of stuff I shouldn't be interested in. If you have ten slides worth of nothing, make them into one slide of something. Even if it's ten small things.
• Have an after deck: This is something I've come to realize only after watching many presentations that have a questions and answers session afterwards. You need more content than just your presentation. You need answers to every question that might come up. If you ever had someone disagree during the testing of your product/project you need to be able to justify your decisions, because those same questions are bound to come up if you don't address them directly in the presentation. So have a whole deck of slides after your presentation is over, that answer questions. More research. More designs. Justifications. Statistics and specifications. All that stuff that was too boring for an exciting presentation is all the stuff you would be wishing for during the Q&A.

I might add more to this list later, but I think these are the keypoints that I am constantly noticing with presentations. Things like watch your body language, and your ums, and speak up should all be implied. Check your spelling. Jesus, check your spelling and grammar. Pay someone else to do it.

A friend asked on facebook recently if people could ever truly change. I think we change all the time, but I think not everyone is actively trying to change all the time. But the fact that our world view could possibly shift any second means that we CAN change any time.

But do people change? It's up to every person. Some people don't want to change. They don't want to be changed. They want comfort, and there's nothing inherently wrong with comfort. With normality. With schedule. But at any moment, you could get in an accident and need healthcare. You could find a puppy and decide you're a dog person. Someone could hand you a million dollars, and you could suddenly decide to be responsible with it. Any tiny shift in our existence can shift our world view drastically. Everything is changing around us constantly and it's up to each of us to be open to possibilities and to dare ourselves to improve.

But do people ever really change? I'm talking really. Is an asshole an asshole forever? I don't think anyone is anything forever. Because I am not what I was before. I was reading back through some of my old blog posts here. This journal starts in 2001. And that's just this journal. I should pull out some of my older content from the wayback machine some day. Here's a thing for you. This blog wasn't originally my personal website blog, it was on livejournal. I used that for a while. Eventually I ended up pulling that content into a wordpress journal on my server. And when Wordpress started to give me problems, I made my own journal software, and pulled the old content into there.

This seventeen year old journal keeps me grounded in a way few things can. I think one of the main reasons people don't feel like they change, or don't feel like others change, is because they don't see their thoughts laid out over two decades. In some ways, I haven't changed, because in some ways I don't want to change. Certain things I want to always be me about me. I hope those are more or less good qualities, but everything else I try to change. Maybe some people just don't look at themselves enough. Does that mean they can't change? No. it just means they're not trying.

There is a problem that comes when you're not really poor, but you're not at all rich. You're in that middle bracket. I'd imagine this is the 40%? The graphs all seem to indicate forty percent of people are poor. Forty percent are what might pass as middle class, and then about twenty percent move up into the upper bracket. So let's say you're reading this and you're not poverty stricken. You also aren't currently wiping your bottom with the tears of the fallen. You make a decent wage. You pay your taxes. You pay your bills. You buy yourself fun this month, and then suddenly you have no money.

Where did it all go? You just got paid, and it felt great. And then suddenly there's nothing left. It's only one week after your "me" paycheck. You know the one. One of your paychecks is the rent. And one of your paychecks is the check that has your me money. You wait four weeks every month for that Friday. Then it comes and you promise yourself you're not going to spend it this time. Maybe you actually do put some in savings. Either way, one week later you look in the bank and realize that one of your bills hadn't gone through on time. You miscalculated exactly how much those last two items actually add up to.

Now you're broke. For three weeks. This is a first world problem, to be sure. But it's serious. It's mentally debilitating. Now you're scraping by for food, because you didn't plan it right. You can't go out and live the fun life that all humans want to live. You can't even hang out with your friends, because if all they do is go to the bar, you've only got a little bit for the rest of the week, and if you have to buy one round, you're fucked. Even if you have to buy two drinks for yourself that's like two whole lunches you could have bought.

Now suddenly you feel like some sort of social pariah. No, I can't hang out. Sorry, guys, I wish I could. I'll just stay home tonight.

But actually... You have savings. Actually, you have some cash stashed away. Actually, all your bills are paid, and there's tons of food in the pantry. Actually, all your friends would buy you a drink if you just asked. But it doesn't feel that way. You feel broke. In a couple ways that matter in the moment you are in fact cash depleted. But you're not poor. You're just rich broke.

I started a conversation with friends the other day about 4th and 5th dimensional beings. There's two possibilities in my mind. Beings that exist in multiple realities at once, and beings that exist in multiple times at once. I asked people which one they thought was the 4th or 5th dimension.

Most humans can't immediately comprehend the concept of multiple realities, because they've never seen them. We can comprehend multiple times, because movies and pictures have been able to store a memory of times. This caused, in my mind, almost all people to immediately answer that time was the 4th dimension.

But the fact of the matter is, you exist in multiple realities all the time. Dreams are another reality. Memories are another reality. VR is ACTUALLY another reality. And you exist in both this reality and that other when you are experiencing one of the others. Your consciousness goes to another reality while your physical self continues to exist here in our tangible reality (since all of those others are intangible).

So here's the thing. Are we 3rd dimensional beings? Or 4th dimensional beings? Are you already a 4th dimensional being? I think so. And that would make time the 5th, not 4th, dimension.

And I believe this is necessary for the meat of my conversation.

A God that could: know all, be everywhere, and do anything, is responsible for everything.

A one-dimensional thing is a point. Not a line, not a circle, a single point. It is simply a position.

A two-dimensional thing is a line. Not a line on a paper. A line of measurement. It is simply a distance.

A three-dimensional being exists in many points at once, with distances between them, going in any number of three different directions: x, y, z. This being might not always access the same points in space. They might not even be the same shape all the time. But they always exist in more than one point at a time. They exist in many points at once.

A fourth-dimensional being, I believe, must exist in multiple realities before they can exist in multiple times. And the reason I believe this, is because we already do. Imagine that in the morning you put on your socks. And you existed all at the same time with green socks on both feet, and you also chose brown socks, and you also chose red socks, and you only ever had one pair of socks on. You exist, in some way and form, in all of those close changes to the physical visible reality you see. You are... at the least aware of all of them. Would one of those existences of you make different choices based on their reality of brown or red or green socks? Who knows.

When we move our arms they exist in multiple dimensions at once. But not always the same, and not always the same shape. Closing our fingers changes the fundamental shape of our bodies in the three dimensions. When our shoulder moves, however, our arm moves with it, or else it gets severed and we lose contact with it.

In my mind this must be the way a true fourth-dimensional being must exist. Making choices and existing in multiple realities, but if one existence goes too far afield the being would lose contact with that particular vestigial consciousness.

A fifth-dimensional being must exist in multiple times. And this is where we get back to the concept of God. The judeo-christian god is described as being all-knowing, existing in all places at once, and able to do anything. Now I put them in that order because I believe that is the order of possibility for the hypothesis of that god. Can do anything is an imaginary concept and should be thrown out immediately for the purposes of science. But let's not.

If a being could be a truly purposely fourth-dimensional being, they could potentially exist big enough so that they could see everything possible. I'll bite on that. I can imagine it. Of course, to truly see ALL things, they would have to exist outside of what we consider standard time. Because in order to peer into the future they would have to be somewhat fifth-dimensional. But time is a measurement of movement not an existence, and so truly being able to see all times would necessitate a sight of all realities as well. Being able to see only one reality wouldn't be much of an omniscient. We just infinitely increased this being's knowledge threshold. They know all things. Because they are there.

It's this way that we get to omnipresent. Forget the idea that they know all thoughts. Let's just presume they know all existential things. They see it all. Let's stick with that. This being sees everything. But not just everything. They see all the possibilities. They see the blue, the brown, the wet, and dry socks. They see it all.

This must surely be a passive creature. If they could do anything they would, wouldn't they. Wouldn't they change things. Maybe they do. Does this creature exist at once in all those places? What are we even talking about anymore? This isn't a being. It doesn't exist physically. How could it? Surely it could only manifest itself. It wouldn't matter at that point what it looks like. It looks like everything. Because any time it manifests itself it is also not manifesting itself. Any time it looks like a dog to lead the dogs in their revolution, it also is a man killing your daughter.

Not everything needs to be explained. Not everything needs to have a reason to happen. And most certainly nothing needs to be explained for you. The search for a rationale for anything that has happened is often as useless as worrying about the things that haven't happened yet.

Spend less of your time trying to figure out a culprit and move forward with your day. Don't worry about things you can't change, and instead make sure to notice the things in which you can affect a change.

Be a rational realist optimist.

Examine and dissect and question and study. Accept nothing except everything.

Look at the world as it is, not as you wish it to be. Revel in the strengths that you have, instead of pining for the rewards of the strengths of others. Enjoy the moment whenever you can, and this takes practice.

Hope.

Whenever you are walking down the street with someone else, and you think about how beautiful a tree or a building or a woman or a puppy is, say it out loud. Include the world around you in your moment of joy. Don't be selfish with your pleasant outlook on life. Smile at someone.

Stretch.

Give when you can, and hoard until you don't need to. Be open to fun nights. Tell people "no" every once in a while, but don't dissemble about why. Take a night for yourself. Be honest with yourself more than anyone else. Stop calling them cheat days. Do what you want, and if you want to change DO IT.

If you want to change do it. It doesn't have to happen all at once. Set a date and stick to it. Start small and work your way up. Practice takes time and you have to practice this change. Baby steps. Do a little every day. Clean one corner of one room every day. Do 5 push-ups every morning.

Love yourself enough to be appropriately selfish, and then give the rest to others.

For the last few months, I've gotten a bagel and coffee every morning at a coffee shop and bakery down the street. This morning, I have my own bagels at home and brewed my own coffee. I'm writing this in my underwear while a bagel just popped up from the toaster. There's something to be said for paying 10 dollars for the next two weeks worth of bagels and coffee, instead of 5 dollars every day. That's at least a 40 dollar savings.

But I think I will miss the human interaction. I never interacted with my old roommate, so I don't miss him. But the more a person makes themself sufficient at home, the more they cut down on those daily interactions. I haven't gone to the barber in years, and I kind of miss it. Anyways.

This is just a rambling post in the morning... I think I might start doing these on my blog, instead of on facebook to cut even further down on human interactions. Not sure yet. I'm still picking up the pieces after my roommate moved out.

Cleared out all of his things. Cleaned out his room, and I've begun stretching and doing yoga in the morning in there. Still need to bleach the walls. I've been cleaning a bit every morning. Cleaning a bit every night. Removing the layer of grease that was in the house from his style of cooking. Bought some groceries. I don't know that I have a point to any of this. But I will say, that I'm happy right now. I'm using my house for the first time in over a year.

Find the thing that's stopping you from finding happiness and cut it out of your life. This is the opposite of saying find what makes you happy, and make it your job. Make it your war to kill the unhappiness. Cut it out, clean it, gut it. Don't let the bad things consume your well deserved selfish happiness.

I've been getting questions recently after a couple local news organizations (KRON 4, SFGate) have run stories on me, so I think I should put up a post answering some questions.

FAQ, if you will.

What do you use to draw?

I currently draw on a number of devices. When I'm on BART I draw on the Samsung Note 5 and mostly in the app Infinite Painter. When I'm doing more professional work, I'll tend to use the Surface Pro 4 i7, 256 GB SSD, 8 GB RAM, in Adobe Photoshop. And when I want to do some fun experimentation or record a drawing, I'll draw in Procreate on the iPad Pro 9.7 using the Apple Pencil.

Why do you use those devices?

The Note line of phones are the only phones that exist that have a wacom pressure sensitive stylus. Any bluetooth pen that has to pair with apps just can't compare.

The Apple pencil, however, actually pairs with the operating system, so there's none of that latency other pens had on ipad devices when you use them, so it's great. Apple finally stepped up in that arena, and Procreate is a killer app for drawing.

Microsoft has been killing it with the Surface line of devices, and the Surface Pro 4 is a fantastic computer. It's also a full computer, not a "mobile" device, and so it can run all of the great drawing programs that exist for windows on it.

What are the best programs to use for these devices / What should I use to draw?

The programs I listed are my current favorites, but there are so many great ones.

• Android / Samsung Note
• Infinite Painter
• Autodesk Sketchbook
• Artflow
• iOS / iPad Pro
• Procreate
• Concepts
• Adobe Sketch
• Windows / Surface Pro
• Adobe Photoshop
• Manga Studio (Clip Paint)
• OpenCanvas
• Sketchable

So what device should I purchase?

That is really a complicated issue. You might not need as much as someone else, or you might need more than a particular device can supply.

If you want a full computer with Windows, and the ability to draw, touch, and install any software available, you actually have lots of options. Tons of devices exist that are tablet convertibles with pens and touch in the Windows ecosystem. No seriously, bunches of them. But make sure you don't just buy the cheapest one expecting it to be able to draw massive canvases with tons of layers. If you go cheap with a computer, you'll have a bad time.

On the other hand, if you're already embroiled in either the Android or iOS ecosystems, then you really only have a couple options, and both of these come with limitations and advantages. The Note 5 is a beast of a phone, but so was the Note 4, and it had a removeable battery and microsd card (and it's cheaper right now). Take that into consideration when purchasing.

The iPad Pro comes in two sizes, and one may not be right for everyone. I personally love to draw in a small space, and so the smaller 9.7 was a better choice for me, although both devices are essentially the same in their capabilities for an artist.

I've used a stylus before, it wasn't very good.

Well that's not really a question, but I'll try to address this.

Most "stylii" that you see out in the wild just have those big rubber nubs. Those are known as a capacitive stylus. Those "styloo" send the same charge as your finger does to the screen and allow you to touch the screen just like a finger. Those "stylaa" are not pressure sensitive. You can't press harder or lighter and get a different effect.

All of the devices I listed here use a pressure sensitive stylus. These "styluu" are specifically meant to be used by artists to simulate the touch and feel of a real media tool. These "stylee" will make all the difference between feeling like you're playing, and feeling like you could make real art.

How can I follow you on social media?

I have pretty much the same name for all major social media, and that's @bronkula. Twitter Instagram Facebook Youtube

Also, did you try to click that header image? HA. It was a total fake out. You fell for it. You rube.

I can't express to you just how obsessed I've become. Suffice to say I have kept myself poor recently spending all of my loose money on more and more 3d printing devices, parts, and paraphernalia. It's probably not even funny anymore. I've learned SO much, and I've done so much too. I'm learning about construction, electrical wiring, engineering, 3D design, and so much more.

In about October of last year I bought my first 3D Printer. It was an M3D. It was a learning experience. I found out you had to know so many things to begin to be successful at this particular hobby. I also quickly realized that the tiny, cheap Micro3d printer could just not reach the standard of printing that I wanted. It was fun to learn on and play with, but it was too limited.

In November I purchased an original Prusa i3 mk2. It said it would have a 4 week shipping delay. It ended up being a 10 week delay. But it was so worth it. At the beginning of this year, I received the Prusa and it is an amazing machine. I bought the machine as a kit which meant I had to put it together, in a process that ended up taking me about 10 hours.

All this time, ever since I first got my micro, I had a dream of building a printer from scratch. I started doing research immediately, and after seeing a video on youtube by tech2c, I decided to make a CoreXY printer and use his hypercube design. I started printing pieces for it and ordering 2020 extrusions online. The pieces I printed on the micro were bad and very discouraging. It just couldn't produce smooth sides, and its circles were garbage. But I began cutting the aluminum extrusions and eventually bought more and more pieces every month, trying never to spend more than a couple hundred every month. But every time I bought a part, I bought two. I knew that if I was going to build one 3d printer, I was going to build two.

After putting together the Prusa and seeing what it could do, I was emboldened. I purchased all the remaining parts I could think of and began printing all the parts on this much better printer.

I'm almost done. I just have some wiring to do and I will finally have a 3D Printer that I made completely from scratch. I cut the aluminum, the steel, the wires, and I printed the parts.

It was very difficult to find all the parts needed from one site, but I've finally compiled a list of all the materials and tools needed to make a 3D Printer into one place, and when I put together the second hypercube, I am going to be making a tutorial and a build log to go along with it. For now, there is a page started which describes my process and has a bill of materials that you might be able to follow along with eventually, if you too would like to make a 3D Printer with me.

I have been working on using the canvas recently, and I am coming out of it with a bit of code. I've compiled that into a library of code called DrawTools. This library is still a bit haphazard at the moment, but it's starting to round out, as I improve my own knowledge of drawing on the canvas, and gathering positional data on clicks and touches.

I have a small example using the library, that I wanted to share with you, that I put together for one of my students, maybe it will give you an idea of how easily things can be done with it.

... or maybe not, I don't know.