Artist, graphic designer, & tech consultant in Nelson County, VA
Author:lemsy
John LeMasney (lemsy) is an artist, graphic designer, and technology creative. He is located in beautiful Nelson County, VA, but works remotely with ease. Contact him at: lemasney@gmail.com to discuss your next creative project.
I had someone ask me yesterday, and I took a moment to think about my answer. I said that technology was moving towards individualized experiences that are more immersive, connected, and transporting.
Immersive
For example, we are starting to see more reasonable, affordable, and comfortable virtual reality gear. It’s still large and clunky, but the prototypes show that we could eventually just have these functions present in the form of our glasses. When you can pick up and put on a normal pair of glasses and not have battery or nausea or connectivity issues, people might spend their entire day in augmented or virtual reality. Ernest Kline‘s Ready Player One predicts this in very interesting ways, and Microsoft’s Hololens is a pretty promising way to think about first steps. The Oculus Rift and Samsung offerings are amazing, but I don;t see anyone walking around with them on anytime soon. This is an adoption factor.
Connected
Some of us spend some time in social networks, like Facebook. I spend a lot of time there. I often find myself defending social media against the claim that it is not social. In other words, many critics of social media see it as dividing people, and not a gathering place, and I simply disagree. Further, I believe that my online, social network based conversations and posts strengthen and enhance my in-person meetings with people. When I greet someone, we might spend 5 minutes talking about the various things we had shared and seen from each other recently. I feel far more connected with people who are on social media with me than not. We stay connected in the interim between meetings. I suspect that this will not decrease, but increase, and that it might not be in a form that we recognize, like Facebook, but maybe the virtual reality systems described above. Maybe a less pixellated form of Second Life, but hopefully, something far more grand.
Transporting
Before those things happen, we are already starting to see visual media taking on new importance in our browsing habits. Further, video is becoming the prominent media. This is in part because technologies like bandwidth and storage are at the point that they can more readily handle video without hiccups. Video is interesting as medium because it offers the most senses to be interpreted by the watcher. More than still photos or audio alone. Therefore you get more of a sense of what happened in the captured scene. Tools like Periscope allow for real-time capture and broadcast, and their philosophy is that they are offering teleportation services, which is kind of amazing. I believe this heralds a shift towards technology as superpower or science non-fiction. So perhaps in the future, technology will give you the power of flight, invisibility, or x-ray vision, but instead of you doing these with your natural senses, your body would just be sensually informed (by sensors, actuators, signals) that you were doing these things.
There’s a free and open to the public class tonight (4/15/2015) at Princeton Public Library at 7 pm on Google Drive. I’m excited for the session because in many of the conversations that I have with clients about how they manage documents and archives, I usually end up discussing Google Drive with them as a solution.
Why Google Drive?
Because of:
Cloud-based storage, about 15 GB for free
Rich creation, collaboration, and editing tools for documents, spreadsheets, drawings, and presentations
The multi-platform nature of drive, in that it opens up anywhere you have a browser or app.
The security that protects my documents, especially when using two-factor authentication.
I hope you can join us for my talk on one of my favorite software services,
Don’t eat anything incapable of rotting by lemasney
So, those of you paying close attention may have noticed that I write about food. A lot. And so you might ask:
What does food and nutrition have to do with technology, design, and training, John?
And my answer is straightforward: Everything.
Cooking, food, nutrition, and technology.
Food and nutrition in my life are highly influenced by technology. Every time I eat anything, the next thing I do is use my phone, computer, or other Internet connected device to add to my food log. I count every calorie I eat. I am able to review, analyze, or otherwise know the details of every calorie I eat, going back years. Around my neck, always, is my fitbit, which counts steps, stairs, sleep, and other data about what I’m putting out as far as energy. The difference between when I was very heavy and now is that now I know to the calorie what I am taking in and what I am burning. As a result, technology is directly responsible, in part, for my level of fitness.
Cooking, food, nutrition, and design.
Food is design in that when you cook, count calories, or otherwise plan your nutrition, that is design. It’s not visual design, or architecture, granted, but it is very clearly design. In fact, I would posit that the difference between the obese and the normal weighted is very often the result of a lack of design. I’ve redesigned my nutritional plan, and lost over 100 pounds. Design is the act of codifying, simplifying, and making clear a plan of communication, layout, or direction. Taking hold of one’s nutrition is a pure form of design.
Cooking, food, nutrition, and training.
I have learned a lot in my journey towards health. I know when and exactly how I am mis-eating, which I did not know before. I knew when I was eating badly, I knew when I was eating cleanly, but I did not know, numerically, to what degree either had as an effect on my fitness. I know now. I firmly believe that I could help (e.g. train) anyone with a weight problem to resolve it, if they want to. There is no cost but your will in my method, and no disbenefit except awareness of how badly you might be eating. But as soon as you lose your extra weight, you’ll forget all about that.
Take typed notes – You can use it as a simple note taking application, and many people do only that.
Take image based notes – you can also use it to take images and add them to your research or study notes.
Take voice based notes – You can be your own Don Draper and use it to do voice based dictation, with transcription!
Take webpage based notes – You can collect web pages for reference in Evernote
Annotate your notes – Once you have created your notes, there are lots of ways to add commentary.
Store and organize your notes online – You use Evernote’s cloud service to store your notes, and use notebooks and tags to group them.
Get to your notes from anywhere – Because it’s a cloud based service, you get the benefit of access from all of your devices. That includes most OSes on the desktop, phone, tablet, Raspberry Pi, etc.
Study – Evernote is a student’s friend, allowing you to collect all of your citations, tag them, add them to a notebook, and include lots of different media types.
Do research – Field researchers love the abilities of Evernote, from the multifaceted media input types to the organization and taxonomy tools.
Support your business – Some people use Evernote as a customer relationship Management tool, and so might you.
In case you’re wondering, Muesli is a rather de-sugared, de-oiled, de-processed form of what we know as granola. Instead of using sugar and oil to combine ingredients into a clump, we use muesli as a kind of flexible additive condiment, snack, or texturizer. As a result, it is a versatile and nutritious way to snack or add a layer of extra nutrition to meals. My muesli recipe is below.
“Packaged muesli is a loose mixture of mainly rolled oats or cornflakes together with various dried fruit pieces, nuts, and seeds. It commonly contains other rolled cereal grains such as wheat or rye flakes. There are many varieties, which may also contain honey, spices, or chocolate. This dry packaged muesli can store for many months and served quickly after mixing with milk, fil, yogurt, coffee, hot chocolate, fruit juice, or water. If desired, pieces of fresh fruit may be added. Alternatively, the mix may be soaked overnight in milk and then served with fresh fruit or compote to taste.”
“Muesli and granola are similar and are often confused on store shelves. With common ingredients of grains, fruits, nuts, and seeds, these breakfast choices are actually quite different in origin, nutrition, and health benefits. Muesli is often endearingly called the healthy sibling of granola. In our products, we don’t use any oil sweeteners other than the dried fruits. Granola tends to contain lots of sugar and other sweeteners.”
– Difference Between Muesli and Granola –
On the history of Granola:
“Despite the differences between muesli and granola, they were created around the same time by doctors with similar intentions. Granola was developed in the late 19th century by US citizen, Dr. James Caleb Jackson in Dansville, New York. Jackson served his “granula” at his health spa in Dansville into the early 20th century. Around the same time, John Harvey Kellog developed a “granula,” later changing the name to granola to avoid trademark infringement. Granola remained unpopular for many decades until its growth with the hippie movement in the 1960s. At this time, granola became popular with the hippie movement while health conscious hippies stuck with muesli.”
– Difference Between Muesli and Granola –
What’s so great about your muesli recipe, John?
Well, doubter, my muesli is a low-cost daily snack that is delicious, balanced in nutritious components, varied in texture, sweet, crunchy, and filling. What’s most interesting is that it changes every week according to whatever I decide to get at the farmer’s market. I can mix in an omega 3 mix, a new whole grain cereal, or some dried fruit to change the flavor. I add about a 2 or 3 cup package of something new every week and mix thoroughly. I keep the regularly updated mix in a 2 gallon cereal container, and usually eat it a quarter cup at a time, for about 100 calories. Start by combining packages of oats, cereal, and trail mix, and grow it from there.
Muesli recipe: Rolled oats, cereal, and carbohydrates (3:5)
As a base for granola, you can not beat rolled oats. There’s little difference between the nutrition of rolled oats and steel-cut oats, and either are fine, though the resulting texture is slightly different. I try to get as close to the original grain as possible, with little salt or other additives. The oats melt in your mouth, and add a great papery texture underneath everything else. In order to lower the overall calories for the mix, I’ll usually buy a box of basic cereal, like whole grain cereal flakes, Cheerios, or puffed wheat or rice, staying away from the more colorful or sugary types.
Muesli recipe: Nuts, seeds, protein and fat (1:5)
This is where it starts to get fun. You get extra points (and kudos) if you crack your own, but I usually just get a prepackaged no-salt mixed nuts canister or get a bunch of a particular seed at a bulk-buy stand in the whole foods bin, especially when they are on sale. I typically look for superfoods, like walnuts, almonds, pumpkin seeds, flax-seed, and other interesting textures and flavors. I try different nut mixes too, like trail mix or omega 3 mixes, which also bring some interesting fruits. The protein and fat benefits of seeds and nuts are well-documented, and this makes for an easy way to simultaneously add them to your diet while keeping the resulting calories relatively low.
Muesli recipe: Fruit, sweetness and natural fructose (1:5)
I rely on trail mixes for most of my dried fruit, but from time to time, I’ll add a large container of raisins, crasins, banana chips, or tropical dried fruit. I will also add dried figs or cherries which add a nice chewy texture. The sweetness mixes with the earthy flavors of the other ingredients very nicely. As you’ll see from the uses and combinations below, there are lots of ways to push the flavors to a more sweet or a more savory outcome.
Uses and combinations
Milk or coffee
You can eat muesli as cereal, with milk, or you can add some coffee to it in a bowl to make a delicious and hearty one bowl breakfast.
Grain medley
I have been in the habit of making whole grain medleys with vegetables as a filling lunch, but that’s another post. After the medley is cooked, I’ll often throw a serving of my muesli into the pot to bring back the crunch.
Fresh fruit
I can think of at least 50 delicious moments in my kitchen doing a fine dice or slice on a firm sour apple or a banana, and then mixing in a quarter cup of my muesli. The sweetness is amazing, and the flavors compliment each other so nicely.
As a condiment
A peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a joy unto itself, but with a quarter cup of muesli, it’s divine.
I love my muesli. It’s delicious and saves me a lot of money over the prepackaged stuff, because it stretches everything out dramatically while adding to the flavors and combination possibilities. I hope this post inspires you to try it for yourself!
This sketch reminds me of the story of the space pen, in which it’s suggested that the US was wasteful in spending a million dollars to develop a space pen, while Russians simply used pencils. A great story, but false on many counts:
“The lesson of the infamous “space pen” anecdote about NASA’s spending a small fortune to develop a ballpoint pen that astronauts could use in outer space, while completely overlooking the simple and elegant solution adopted by the Soviet space program (give cosmonauts pencils instead), is a valid one: sometimes we expend a great deal of time, effort, and money to create a “high-tech” solution to a problem, when a perfectly good, cheap, and simple answer is right before our eyes. As good a story and moral as that may be, however, this anecdote doesn’t offer a real-life example of that syndrome. Both U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts initially used pencils on space flights, but those writing instruments were not ideal: pencil tips can flake and break off, and having such objects floating around space capsules in near-zero gravity posed a potential harm to astronauts and equipment. (As well, after the fatal Apollo 1 fire in 1967, NASA was anxious to avoid having astronauts carry flammable objects such as pencils onboard with them.)”
