Mr. Hicks

Face Averaging

misterhicks — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 08:57:14 +0000

I came across this interesting article in Mashable about FaceResearch.org, a pet project for a designer and developer that finds the average between two or thousands of faces. Faces can be grouped by gender, nationality or randomly – you can even upload your own image.

Obama Video / Palin Poster

misterhicks — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:16:32 +0000

Check out this Obama/MLK remix done by my Zosimo Maximo.

I made this the day after the Palin announcement, before all the drama.

The Law of Declerating Consumer Patience / Computers as Terminals and The Super internet / The Ethics of Privacy in the Future

misterhicks — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 17:02:26 +0000

By now, we are all familiar with Moore’s Law of Accelerating returns – basically, the law states that processor speeds increase exponentially over time at a measurable rate. I believe there is a parallel law, the Law of Decelerating Consumer Patience. That is, as computer speeds increase, our patience decreases (or our expectations increase). This leads to frustrations and perhaps a misconception that our computers have gotten slower. Of course, this is a generalized statement, and I’m well aware of hardware decrepitude, however, exposure to cutting edge processor speeds (directly or indirectly) has a “grass is greener” effect. The question is this “Has my computer gotten slower, or do I simply expect more?” After all, when your computer was first purchased, you were probably amazed at how much faster it was than your previous model. There may have even been a hopeful perception that this new computer would meet your needs for a long time to come. All computers will seem (and actually be) slower over time, according to Moore’s law, and entropy itself. That is, until quantum computing is discovered…

If we’re going to have this continual frustration for the forseeable future, how can we “stay on top of the game?” Well, ultimately, it’s not about the computer or hardware we possess, it’s more about the flow of information and content, more importantly the speed at which it can be disseminated and digested by us. This leads me to my next vision of the future, what I like to call the Terminal Culture.

In the terminal culture, we are all part of a super internet. All of our content, files, and information will live on the internet. Personal computers and desktops will only be terminals – only a few bytes of information will be stored locally – even operating systems will be run from the network. You will, at any time, be able to walk up to any terminal, log in, and your “computer” will appear before you. Terminals will (and are) appear in the form of many different types of devices, allowing you to be perpetually connected to your information. Undoubtedly, encryption technology will become more advanced in tandem with the Terminal Revolution. There will also be a physical limitation, the fact that the terminals won’t have or need the storage space necessary to localize private information. However, since everything will live on the super internet, that information will be arguably more accessible to hackers and cyber terrorists.

The concept of privacy is going to change from the way we traditionally know it. This lack of traditional privacy will have an effect on the ethics of society. That is not necessarily to say that we will be “more” ethical, but rather that our ethics will change to meet the new landscape of openness. We’re seeing this already with publicly accessible photo galleries which often show moments of intimacy, embarrassment, and revealing moments that help to define us in a deeper way to those around us.

New British Currency

misterhicks — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 06:30:26 +0000

Wow, check out the new winning designs for British currency. Amazing in it’s simplicity. I found this on typography.com.

Thankless Heroes…

misterhicks — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:36:31 +0000

Yours truly is listed on this site’s page for my appearance in last year’s feature Film, VACANCY, starring Kate Beckinsdale and Luke Wilson. The site “Black Horror Movies.com” grabbed a still from my scene in the film and goes on to say:

If there were no black people, who would die in horror movies? In the horror realm, it could actually be seen as a badge of honor to be important enough to score a death scene. It’s with this in mind that we honor these thankless heroes.

On a serious note, someone did a lot of work pulling all those stills, and I have to say, it looks like I’m in good company.

Jeremy Jay

misterhicks — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 20:54:43 +0000

I recently discovered the sometimes Peter Murphy-esque musical stylings of Silverlake local Jeremy Jay:

Clicking on the album cover will take you to the Amazon page where you can preview the tracks. I wish I could install the Amazon Widget, which would allow you to listen to the tracks from within this page, but WordPress.com doesn’t allow this for security reasons. I guess this works on WordPress.org, which looks like a paid service. Wow, I’ve just hit my first blogging ceiling!

Hollywood Remembers Stan Winston

misterhicks — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 23:14:41 +0000

Can’t remember how I stumbled across this news article on eOnline.com… weird because I NEVER surf that site. Check out the article here.

BMW Concept Design

misterhicks — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:25:22 +0000

BMW understands the essence of design. Chris Bangle briefly mentions the importance of emotion in this concept car’s design. In the age of intelligent machines, this is brilliant and a little creepy at the same time. Brace yourself, Jason:

Patterns in Illustrator

misterhicks — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 23:44:42 +0000

Check out this fascinating article on Patterns in Illustrator on Peach Pit Press. It looks like it’s from a series called Mastering Vector Design. The article will teach you how to:

Apply pattern fills to strokes
Rescale a pattern within a shape
Move a pattern within a shape
Stack multiple patterns in a single shape

Even if you already know how to do some of this stuff, the tutorials are bound to teach you something you didn’t already know, be it a quick key, or hidden menu. Here’s a pattern that I recently created for a friend/client’s interior design agency, Donahue Paye:

Mr. Hicks Heelflip

misterhicks — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 18:01:58 +0000