Reid Beels

I’ve been using Plazes for a while now to track my location as I wander around with my laptop. The concept is really cool. They have a desktop client that figures out your location based on a database of network ids and such. If it doesn’t know about the place where you are, it asks you, and the information is added for anyone else who visits that place.Earlier today, the client asked to be upgraded and I obliged. Moments later, the new interface appeared. The first thing that I noticed was that the window was slightly transparent. There’s no real reason for transparency here, so it struck me as another casualty of Apple making certain UI effects at bit too easy. (more…)

While I had a vague idea of features that I’d wanted to include when working on my current site design, I hadn’t thoguht them through enough when I started. As it happened, the design evolved out of some things that I discovered while implementing a different design in css and just stuck. In this process, it lost the ability to work with some of the functionality that I wanted it to have and it’s just kind of sat here in a half-finished state for some time now. Because I’m tired of it sitting like this and need to get a solid design worked out so I can focus on content and other important things, I’m redesigning the site with a lot more focus. Read on for a list of stuff that I’m planning on doing. Tell me if any of it sounds crazy.
(more…)

Back in December of last year, Erin, Leah, and I collaborated on a children’s book for our ethics class. After much discussion of content, writing of text, drawing of pictures, and painting of backgrounds we all met one night in the student publicity office to assemble everything into a finished product. Many hours later, we emerged victorious holding the one and only copy of our masterpiece: Be Patient, Peter, which we promptly presented to our professor and never saw again.

Later on, when I went back to look for the files I was unable to find them. After much searching, I eventually resigned myself that the work had been lost forever, the digital form to the ethers of technology and the physical form into the hands of Dr. Etlich. This being said, you can imagine my joyful surprise when I stumbled across all of the original production files nestled safely in the root directory of my iPod. Huzzah!

And so, without further ado, it is my pleasure to present the special edition digital reissue of our groundbreaking philosophy text:

Be Patient Peter (PDF)

If you aren’t yet convinced of the glory of the publication, I produce for you the text from the back of the book:

The purpose of this book is to teach children about philosophy. The wonder of young
minds lies in their ability to both accept new concepts and exercise reason. Through the short
narrative about young Peter’s meaningful walk in the park “Be Patient, Peter” provides a short
overview of various philosophical concepts and introduces the young reader to five points of
view.
Peter becomes upset when his mother doesn’t allow him to swim unsupervised with his
older brother. Even only children can relate to the frustration encountered when age presents
a road block. Initially, Peter feels angry and resorts to vengeance. “I’ll show her,” he claims,
and heads out into the woods intending to swim against her wishes. Along the way he meets
five classic philosophical minds, Socrates, Aristotle, Lao Tsu, Confucius, and Sir Charles
Darwin, who help him understand the reasoning behind his mother’s rules.
Socrates teaches Peter what philosophy is, the expectations involved, and the need to
talk to people to understand. Aristotle talks about virtue, balance and patience. Confucius
introduces the concepts of cause and effect and duty. Lao Tsu brings in the need to understand
and yield to the forces of nature. If we stop looking for results, and live in the present, the
answers will find us. Darwin continues this line of thought, introducing the idea that people
are animals too. He explains to Peter that over time he will mature and that is why he must be
patient. By the time Peter reaches the water hole he changes his mind.
Expect a lot of questions from young readers!

On Sunday I spend nine hours at PNCA sitting in on a planning meeting for p:ear, a local nonprofit that works with homeless and transitional youth through arts, education and recreation programs. I was not there to learn about p:ear or to help them plan their future but to study their planning process as part of a strange little extra-curricular project that has spun out of my Design Studio II class. John Calvelli (the teacher of this class), Gabriella (another student), and I (me) all attended the meeting and throughout the process Gabriella and I weren’t exactly sure what it was we were supposed to be looking for. We’re working on coming up with ways that design can be used to help the process progress more easily and efficiently, but what exactly that meant was rather unclear.

We met again this afternoon to debrief from the long meeting and brainstorm ways that design-based improvements could be made to the process. We still aren’t exactly sure what we’re looking at doing, but some strong ideas are surfacing. Mostly supplemental materials (informational packets, workbooks, etc.) and physical organization of data around the room.