^ Pictured above: Billionaire Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel went to Coachella with his supermodel wife, and then two days later laid off over 1,000 employees. I was one of them. So was my entire team of about 40 people.

We were the Bitmoji team at Snapchat, and except for a few people in LA, our team was completely eliminated. Acquired by Snapchat, Bitmoji remained, at least in spirit, a somewhat semi-autonomous republic within the larger company. But eventually the Bitmoji founders departed or were ousted, along with some long-time artists, and the corporate tech tentacles slowly creeped in to smother what was once a quirky creative team. I joined part way through the process, so I got to taste that fun/creative culture, but also witness its decline.

Honestly, we were all there by accident - artists, animators, and illustrators hiding in the corner of a Tech Company, quietly shocked at the generous salaries and benefits (and free lunches) we received, a contrast to the poor-paying studios and freelance illustration gigs that had come before.

The 5 years I spent there were amazing and horrible. Amazing because (1) Big Tech Salary, and (2) I got to work with some of the most fun, creative and intelligent people. No dead wood on this team. It was also horrible, because ultimately I was just making digital crap to keep users' eyes glued to an app and its advertisers. The pressure to perform and scale production was really high. I lost sleep and gained weight, and got to suffer from anxiety for the first time.

And now suddenly it's done. We're all out. Ostensibly "because AI", despite the fact that we barely used any AI in our creative pipelines, and only for non-creative tasks. I didn't lose my job because of AI, I lost it because of the *idea* that AI could do it all. And of course because Snap's stagnating stock price needed a boost.

It's honestly a relief. I've spent the last month relaxing and decompressing; I had accumulated a month's worth of unused vacation anyway. I'll eventually try to figure out what's next, but for now I have a generous severance to give me some breathing room. I'm free now, as are my fellow artists. I'm happy they can go use their creative gifts for things that are hopefully more meaningful to our society and culture.

thanks for reading my brain dump mltshp friends. That concludes my ted talk.

I went and saw Purity Ring perform last night and, holy shittttt, such amazing visuals. Photos don’t really do it justice

Related to my last post, this is the visual style we are going for. Sort of a 40’s/50’s workshop manual photography direction.

If you look back through my shake you’ll see posts about Hamill Industries. They do wild shit with video. This is their workshop. Pablo, one of the partners, has a lot of amazing machinery. Some of it works and some doesn’t. This is an old, massive drill press that isn’t working yet. I chucked in a bit and Chris held up a length of steel bar from the lathe station to fake a handle.

Same gear specs as the last image. I think the flash power was set to 1/4 +0.7.

I've never lived in a place where composting wasn't just "hucking stuff into the wild backyard" but this place has a compost bin and I've tried to get good at using it. Vermont says you're not supposed to toss out food waste anyhow. This bin was full when I toured the house and I specifically mentioned to the realtor that I'd need it emptied before I moved in since an empty compost bin was worth a lot more to me than a bin of compost (I am not much of a gardener). We had what I hope is our last frost this past week and the forget-me-nots are out in earnest and I just thought it looked so nice. The skunks have burrowed in to the back of it occasionally and I pretend not to notice.

Chris and I are still working on images for my master final project. Next week I have an informal presentation to the tutors. A month from now it’ll be in exhibition!

This is technically a “botched” image from the set we took yesterday. The flash didn’t trigger. Because it’s outside and I’m pushing the film to 1600 iso, the image didn’t expose to black. I really like how it turned out! It doesn’t work for the series but I like it on its own.

Gear nerdery: Hasselblad 500 c/m, 85 2.8 at f8, 1/250 shutter, tri-x 400 pushed to 1600. The flash that didn’t fire was a godox tt350 (great little flash, needed batteries). I used a godox trigger with a sync cable.

Rollins was the longest-surviving musician in the Great Day in Harlem photo shot in 1958. Actual end of an era.

Full list of musicians (jaw-dropping!) plus additional people who missed the photo session:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...

I sometimes wonder about the kids in the photo. What kinds of lives had they managed to have?

I had a big plan to ride 180 miles in SW Montana this weekend, starting and ending at Virginia City. A burgeoning lung infection had other ideas and I scrapped the ride about 8 miles in. So lemons, lemonade, etc, I decided to camp out at my initial destination (Red Rock Lakes NWR), then promptly got a flat tire. I had a fun problem of driving 110 mi on an interstate at 50 mph on a donut spare to get to the only open tire shop open on a Sunday, or get stuck until today when tire shops opened back up from the long weekend. Anyhow, the spare held, and I made it to Vigilante Cabin, my destination for night 2. Lots of lemons this weekend, but of all worked out pretty ok ultimately.

M400 Helicoid staircase (Roger Tallon, 1964)

More pictures and source:
https://www.reddit.com/r...

Big Aussie Units Series #74

The Big Sherrin - Ungarie, NSW

An AFL footbal, in the home of the Danihers, Ungarie. The town is famously known as the birthplace and hometown of the Daniher brothers—Terry, Neale, Anthony, and Chris—who all played for the Essendon Football Club.

Posting this one in honour of Neale, who passed away yesterday from MND. He was an icon of Australian football as both a player and a coach. the coach of the Melbourne Football Club between 1998 and 2007, and also held coaching positions with Essendon, Fremantle and West Coast.

He is also the 2016 Australian of The Year

Vale Neale.

Have not visited

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki...

By Qin Yang
https://www.tumblr.com/pmamtrav...

remarkably clear for a 7-pin dot matrix font.

source: https://ecma-international.org/publicat...

Pontiff on point.

We could do with a bit of Galadriel's girl power too, afaic, but I never would have imagined the Pope quoting Tolkien.

I wonder what the old man would have thought of that..?

Or AI for that matter, lol.

@kittons sent me a giant bag of tiny chickens (and whales, and frogs, and rabbits, and frogs, and ducks, and mushrooms) so now i can join in the tiny creature distribution.

dropped two on the counter at my favorite coffee shop yesterday. am now looking forward to lightening the otherwise insane week by hiding a few at work.

previously:
https://mltshp.com/p/1RQ19
https://mltshp.com/p/1RPES

It's been several replacement parts, between five and seven hours of messing with it over three maintenance attempts, at least five YouTube videos, literally locating the original manual, and enough cuss words to get me thrown out of a Walmart, but it actually makes a locking stitch again.

I generally avoid big multi-day festivals as typically there are not enough bands I want to see to justify the cost. However, the stars aligned this year. Nearly every band I wanted to see was playing on my birthday. Spent about 10 hours there and it worked out to about 8 bucks a band in the end. My wife was a trooper, she was having allergy issues and is not a crowd person, but she also had a good time when it was all said and done.

source: https://www.reddit.com/r...

Savannah, Georgia, 1969
Lee Friedlander speaks of the medium with humility, as if his photographs are simply gifts he has been fortunate to receive, but the more closely we look the more keenly we see just how carefully he guides us through the photograph into life itself.

#photography #LeeFriedlander

https://www.theguardian.com/artandde...

Die Gedanken Sind Frei, is an old German song, of unknown origin. This quote popped into my head, from a female Phd German teacher, the USAF hired to teach in my Overseas school. She was old by my eighth grade standards, had to be in her seventies, and an excellent teacher. The song title was a private message of uplift delivered to me, under the breath, over some classroom taunt.

Thoughts are free, who can guess them?
They fly by like nocturnal shadows.
No person can know them, no hunter can shoot them
and so it'll always be: Thoughts are free!

I think what I want, and what delights me,
still always reticent, and as it is suitable.
My wish and desire, no one can deny me
and so it'll always be: Thoughts are free!

I love wine, and my girl even more,
Only her I like best of all.
I'm not alone with my glass of wine,
my girl is with me: Thoughts are free!

And if I am thrown into the darkest dungeon,
all these are futile works,
because my thoughts tear all gates
and walls apart: Thoughts are free!

So I will renounce my sorrows forever,
and never again will torture myself with whimsies.
In one's heart, one can always laugh and joke
and think at the same time: Thoughts are free!

More than two years ago, one of my neighbors suggested to me that I should paint a mural on an ugly wall at a square down my street.

It took me forever to scrape enough courage together to get funding from various kinds of places. But I managed. I got the money. I got the permits. I got the scissor lift. I got the wall renovated and plastered. I got the paint and a colleague that is going to help me. And it should be ready by June 13, because then it’s going to be officially opened.

I found the whole process rather nerve-racking because all in all it’s about €18,000. But my goodness, will I be happy and relieved once it’s done.

But I'll save my tears for those I care for.

Did a 35 mile ride on the bike trail this morning. While I was tempted to stop an pet the couple of kitties I saw along the way, I thought it bet not to pet this guy.

My kid just graduated HS, and will be bussing tables and interning at a chemistry lab at NU this summer, before heading to University of Illinois in the fall (Chemical Engineering with a music minor). My wife starts a 6 month contract in a week from Monday that will involve a lot of travel. I’m slammed at work with 50-60 hour weeks likely through October.


But first, a week in Central Oregon!