OrangeCoat Blog

First Edible Fungi of 2008

Evan Tishuk — Sat, 17 May 2008 12:06:50 -0400

I found my first edible mushroom of the year today: the Lactarius luteolus or the "Milky Fishy" (because it smells fishy). Screw you guys.

Crowdsourcing with $100

Evan Tishuk — Fri, 16 May 2008 23:35:07 -0400

Step one is to carve an image of a $100 bill into exactly 10,000 equal-sized rectangular cells. Ignore the likelihood that scanning currency onto your computer is probably a felony. Then use the Mechanical Turk to pay 10,000 individuals 1 penny each to trace one of those cells. Lastly recombine all 10,000 individual renderings and play back the whole process. What you get is a damn cool piece of art that says something about crowdsourcing. I'm drawn to the cells where some people just didn't put in much effort. And for one lousy penny, I don't blame them. However, that makes me want to run a series of similar experiments with progressively increasing payments. I wonder how much the quality would improve and at what price the overall quality plateaus.

Site Launch: AthleteFocus 2

Bear — Fri, 16 May 2008 12:11:08 -0400

We quietly launched the second version of AthleteFocus a week ago today. In that time over 100 new people have registered. If you haven't registered for AthleteFocus before and enjoy any of these action and endurance sports you should sign up. We're really proud of the new design and the code that runs the site. I think it's a giant leap forward for AthleteFocus and really shows off OrangeCoat's complete skill set. Good job team and good job Graham.

We Tumble Again!

Bear — Fri, 16 May 2008 09:30:09 -0400

Just because we launched OC4 doesn't mean aren't still working on OC on Fridays. And that means we tumble.

A bio on Stephen Hunter

Bear — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:44:32 -0400

My admiration for Stephen Hunter is becoming almost as well known as my love for bacon. Catherine emailed me a link to this well-done article on the Stephen in the Washingtonian.

The history of solitaire

Bear — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:10:57 -0400

An interesting and in-depth article on the history and importance of video game solitaire.

Josie at the beach

Bear — Thu, 15 May 2008 08:34:44 -0400

100 Must-Read Books: The Essential Man’s Library

Bear — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:47:59 -0400

I must admit, the list of 100 must read books for the man's library is a pretty impressive list. I won't bore you with the books I've read on the list or the ones I think should be added/ removed. However, from a sheer design stand point, how kick ass is this book cover?

Homer Evolved

Bear — Wed, 14 May 2008 09:10:57 -0400

The Simpsons opening with Homer evolving is a tour de force in animation. Wonderful stuff.

Cobra Commander Twitters

Bear — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:43:09 -0400

I've been following Cobra Commander on Twitter for a while but have held out on linking to him until he made me either laugh or cry.

A former Viper called HR confused about the difference between our COBRA! insurance and continuing COBRA insurance. What tedious underlings!

Funny on levels.

New Ideas Wild Card Voting Is About to End

Bear — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:27:54 -0400

Today is the last day to vote for the New Ideas Wild Card choice. If you haven't voted yet, get to it.

Live Action Fraggle Rock

Bear — Wed, 14 May 2008 08:25:36 -0400

I don't know what to think or say about this so I'll just post the link. The Weinstein Co. will adapt the Jim Henson series Fraggle Rock into a live-action musical feature.

Peter Diamandis Podcast

Bear — Tue, 13 May 2008 10:56:26 -0400

The most consistently interesting and enjoyable podcast I listen to is the Entrepreneurial Thought Leader's podcast produced by Stanford University. And of those podcasts, the one with Peter Diamandis is extra good. Peter's passion, energy, thought process etc are all top notch.

Esso Maps

Bear — Tue, 13 May 2008 10:32:43 -0400

Jon Hicks points us to some beautiful 1960's era Esso maps. Of course, all Esso maps should really lead to one place.

The science of scotch

Bear — Tue, 13 May 2008 09:44:40 -0400

Certainly a science worth funding.

Architectural Redesign of Clemson's Student Union

Evan Tishuk — Mon, 12 May 2008 10:53:02 -0400

Friend, colleague, and recent graduate from Clemson University's School of Architecture -- Aaron Bowman -- proposes a redesigned student union to help bring the center of social gravity back over to the west side of Clemson's campus:

The existing Union has become functionally obsolete for the university and does not provide the facilities or the amenities necessary to satisfy modern college students. With the demolition of the Johnstone dormitory, a major portion of the West campus housing was lost. The construction of the Hendrix student center on the East side of campus and the relocation of the bookstore also pulled students and others away from the West campus union. This proposal seeks to bring the social heart of campus back to the original west campus location by providing a town square for the university.

Download the full PDF here (1.6mb)

Of note, a movie theater, technology lounge, expanded bowling lanes, and a bar are incorporated into the design. On the south side a double skin system is used for solar control and ventilation. The outer glass layer is fritted with a linear dot pattern that looks modern but also perforates the glare with some beautiful shadows.

Not only is this proposal a first-rate idea, the presentation itself is expertly laid out and beautifully rendered. Keep in mind that the original document is over 25 megabytes and designed to be printed on a plotter and presented as a series of wall-mounted posters.

I was wondering if student generated designs like Aaron's were ever considered for implementation. So I checked with the university's master plan for the campus, and found that the union is fated to be converted into greenspace and maybe a fountain.

Budget aside, I like Aaron's design better.

Update: I inadvertently linked to the wrong PDF file. Here's the correct link to the aforementioned design document

Duck hunt lamp

Bear — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:03:50 -0400

The Duck Hunt lamp will go perfect on my Blades of Steel coffee table.

Happy Birthday Mr. Blanchard.

Bear — Fri, 09 May 2008 11:41:05 -0400

Get yer ass over to one of Olivier's many blogs and wish the old man a Happy Birthday!

She and Him cover

Bear — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:23:50 -0400

The ChipperDemon's April CD release includes a beautiful cover of one my favorite songs of all time.

Platypus Genome Sequenced. More questions than answers.

Evan Tishuk — Wed, 07 May 2008 17:33:08 -0400

My personal power-animal, the platypus, has finally had its genome sequenced. Of course we know the platypus is a chimeric combination of a unicorn and one of hell's duck-demons, but did you know:

The sex of the platypus is determined by a set of ten chromosomes, an oddity that sets it apart from all other mammals and from birds...“The sex chromosomes are absolutely, completely different from all other mammals. We had not expected that,” says Jennifer Graves of the Australian National University in Canberra, who studies sex differentiation and is an author on the paper. Instead, the platypus Xs better match the avian Z sex chromosome. Another chromosome matches the mouse X, Graves and her colleagues report

I might start calling shennannigans on Darwin for this one.

Advice on how to reduce clutter

Evan Tishuk — Wed, 07 May 2008 14:14:29 -0400

"I too live in a small place that at least has high ceilings--or they may be low floors, it's hard to say. My place is overflowing with Malcolm-Jamal Warner memorabilia, so I know what you're going through. If you're living with someone, maybe you could kick them out to make room for your stuff. After I moved my grandparents into mini-storage, I was able to move around more freely."

New Ideas Wild Card Voting Has Begun

Bear — Wed, 07 May 2008 10:19:43 -0400

The top 10 "Wild Card" submission to the New Ideas contest have been selected and now it is up to the internet to select its favorite. Go forth and vote.

Papa Lord

Bear — Wed, 07 May 2008 09:52:06 -0400

Lord offers parenting advice in the form of cartoons.

Go Pack Go

Bear — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:45:30 -0400

I've got a couple of friends who grew up in Wisconsin. They love Brett Favre as much as the next cheesehead. Well, that is unless the next cheesehead is a kid who wore the same Brett Favre jersey for 1,561 days in a row.

Michael Pollan speaks at Google

Bear — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:56:14 -0400

Six ways mushrooms can save the world

Bear — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:30:08 -0400

Evan went on a strange mushroom foraging kick last year. We are all much happier he is brewing his own beer now instead. Let's hope this TED Talk doesn't re-ignite the mushroom flames.

Fairness, idealism and other atrocities

Bear — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:44:10 -0400

P.J. O'Rourke, as always, gives great advice. Including:

Well, I am here to advocate for unfairness. I've got a 10-year-old at home. She's always saying, "That's not fair." When she says this, I say, "Honey, you're cute. That's not fair. Your family is pretty well off. That's not fair. You were born in America. That's not fair. Darling, you had better pray to God that things don't start getting fair for you." What we need is more income, even if it means a bigger income disparity gap.

Hot soup

Bear — Tue, 06 May 2008 09:05:59 -0400

Dear RSS subscribers, you might have missed the news. We launched the new OrangeCoat.com last night.

Can a dog be a humanist?

Josie — Mon, 05 May 2008 19:58:06 -0400

Kurt Vonnegut's explanation on what a humanist is and why his dog Sandy is not one.

Gourmet

Bear — Mon, 05 May 2008 16:12:48 -0400

We knew our old site was a bit out of date and didn't show the full potential of OrangeCoat. We made jokes about cobblers and excuses about being busy. Photoshop mock ups were passed around -- changed and tweaked. Changed and tweaked. Whiteboard upon whiteboards were filled with ideas and specs. We created flow charts and outlines. We did everything but...

Everything but create the actual website. Well, we are the cobblers kids no more.

We quit talking. We quit tweaking and changing. We cut our specs in half. We focused our Friday energy on creating a website that shows off our personality and our expertise. We started designing pages, coding specs, and writing copy. In short, we started doing.

During this process of doing we discovered some wonderful things. Ideas sparked and the site improved. We hit on a theme we liked "Gourmet Web Design" and we infused the site with this theme. We liked the word of gourmet for countless reasons but chief among them was the idea that good web work, like good cooking, cannot be mass produced and commoditized. Both still required a craftsman's touch and a passion for doing great work.

In many ways, redoing our own site was great company therapy. It made it easier for us to pinpoint our company's simple philosophy, "Do quality work with quality people". It helped us to think about why and how we all work at OrangeCoat.

To create OC4 was both an extreme pleasure and mighty pain. The end product helped to show our growth as company. It was something that could not have been possible without Michael and Jim on the team.

OC4 is powerful and flexible. Simple and complex. Dynamic and timeless. It is OrangeCoat and thank goodness it's live.

We are going to be writing a bunch more about this project in the coming days and tweaking and improving on the site over the coming months. But right now, Cinco de Mayo needs be celebrated. Negra Modelos need to be cracked and we need to enjoy the small victory of launching OC4.

*A couple of notes about the photo in this post. It was taken by fellow Clemson grad and friend of OC Jim Ferguson. It's of Mac's Drive In, the greatest gourmet hamburger joint in all the world. OrangeCoat could only wish to run such a successful business for such a long period of time.

Scrapbook Blogger

Bear — Mon, 05 May 2008 09:30:33 -0400

Congrats to Scrapbook Blogger for being accepted to the SC Launch program. It's great news for both Ashley and for SC Launch.

Tumbling the final countdown.

Bear — Fri, 02 May 2008 08:54:04 -0400

OC4 the final countdown.

No more posting for a while

Bear — Thu, 01 May 2008 13:15:31 -0400

Jim's re-syncing the Yeti data for OC4 so no more blog posting until the new site is live. If you can't stand not hanging out with me on the internet may I suggest the Tumble blog or my Twitter feed.

Robot dentists

Bear — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:43:47 -0400

It was just suppose to be a joke people. I didn't know it was true. Trrrruuuuuueeeee!!!! Self-aware dentist robots must be stopped!

Oh good Lord!

Bear — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:38:10 -0400

I don't care how cool you think you are you still want this R2-D2 projector. It's the most amazing piece of technology in the history of the world.

Mc-Fil-a

Bear — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:26:24 -0400

I didn't know McDonald's started offering a Chick-Fil-A sandwich clone. I guess if you are craving Chick-Fil-A on Sunday then ordering this sandwich is allowed, but ordering this sandwich at any other time is not acceptable.

Bad news in our war

Bear — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:12:10 -0400

Spider robots- the most deadly of possible self-aware robot arachnids. (That is, besides the opilione but lets not even think about robot opiliones)

Who's the opposite of affordable and stable?

Bear — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:54:20 -0400

I was suggesting a host to a client over IM earlier today. I think she provided the greatest answer ever to the question "Who doesn't like affordable and stable."

[12:48] Adam: Affordable and stable

[12:49] Jenny: Wright will like that

[12:49] Adam: Who doesn't?

[12:50] Jenny: Oh, I don't know...Paris Hilton?

Silverlight powering the Olympic coverage

Bear — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:46:40 -0400

Microsoft's Silverlight framework is powering NBC's online Olympic coverage. That's a big honkin' project. I hope it holds up and runs well.

In general I must say, I've been very encouraged by live sports online recently. I watch a bunch of stuff on ESPN360 and watched a good amount of the NCAA tournament on CBSsportsline.

Boston sports teams have become the new Yankees

Bear — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:26:53 -0400

Go Hawks Go.

Fed Innovation Agency Proposed

Bear — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:05:29 -0400

Amid increasing competition from global markets, high-tech trade and policy groups are urging the government to create a new federal agency dedicated to boosting U.S. innovation.

Whenever government and innovation are placed in the same sentence I cringe.

Super Mario Nazi Batman

Bear — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:20:06 -0400

Super Mario Nazi Batman the trailer. The trailer is actually odder than the title. I know. I was shocked too. (via Yewknee)

A History of the World in 6 Glasses

Bear — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:48:00 -0400

Finally finished A Historyof the World in 6 Glasses. Recommend and provided by Meg, the book is a quick and interesting read on how beer, wine, spirits, coffee, tea, and Coca-Cola each defined an era and moved civilization forward in some way, shape or form. I can't say every word was wonderful or every fact interesting but in general it was worth the read. It was nice to get a little history and social significance to some of my favorite drinks. The copy I read is being passed off to Lord and I'm interested to hear if he thinks it is awesome or not.

Miracle of Science bar and grill

Bear — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:52:02 -0400

Less Laminated Paper Menus, More Periodic Tables

Amen to that.

Site Launch: Flexible Technologies

Bear — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:31:13 -0400

I think we are going to be launching some sites this week. Can't promise anything, but I feel that to be the case. To start it off, Flexible Technologies. (There has been some issues with DNS with this site so if you see a site that doesn't look like something OrangeCoat would do, it might be the old one.)

British Macintosh vs. PC Adverts

Evan Tishuk — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:29:16 -0400

I like Macintosh commercials better when there's a british accent involved. My favorite segments are 1:20 - 1:45 and 5:24 - 5:50 (rofl at "awkward" around 5:43).

The Beacon Tagline Contest

Bear — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 14:18:34 -0400

I ate at the Beacon and all I got was this lousy triple bypass
Making chubby people feel skinny since 1946
Moderation, Shmoderation
Who doesn't want to smell like grease all day long?
If you can see your burger we didn't give you enough onion rings.

Happy Earth Week

Bear — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 13:57:33 -0400

Recycling make me feel like a lush.

The Pet Butler

Bear — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 08:46:02 -0400

IM points us to the Pet Butler. A franchise who's poo related puns know no end.

Puppy blog

Bear — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:24:13 -0400

Cutest puppy ever... a tumble blog.