10 Facts About Water That I know

Posted by Crystal on Monday May 17, 2010 Under Photoshop, Random Facts
  1. It’s composed of two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen
  2. Water comes in four states of matter — Liquid, solid, gas and plasma
  3. If someone asks you if you would like to ban “dihydrogen monoxide,” they are talking about water. They are also being a huge asshole.
  4. You can die from drinking too much water.
  5. You probably aren’t drinking enough water.
  6. Water boils at a lower temperature at higher elevations and cooking takes longer (I found this out the hard way).
  7. Water does have a taste. I don’t care what anyone says.
  8. Your urine contains around 95% water but you shouldn’t drink it, even if you are stranded on a mountain.
  9. Drinking saltwater will cause your kidneys to hate you and you will probably die.
  10. There are many countries around the world where people do not have access to drinkable water. So when you start to complain about having to drink tap water in a glass instead of a $3 bottle water that probably came from the same place as the tap water, you should just close your mouth.

When I get bored that is when the photoshop comes out

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Another Day of Made-Up Words

Posted by Crystal on Sunday May 16, 2010 Under Projects

I stumbled on this video from DERRICK Comedy.

It’s funny that I saw this video last week. I have a few projects in the works and one of the problems that has come up recently is what to name them.

I was upset after watching this because the name was perfect for one of the projects, and that realization made me sad. The process of naming sites and apps shouldn’t be so complicated.

I know what should matter most is if my projects work and it’s what users want, but it seems a good portion of the battle to get people to use your applications is if it has a cool name.  I mean would Twitter have caught on if it was called “Chatter”?

Actually that is a pretty good name. Too bad it has nothing to do with what I am doing.

I think I will just find a toddler,  give him candy and record the sound he makes in a sugar-fueled euphoria.

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Case Study: Re-imagining our .edu

Posted by Crystal on Sunday May 16, 2010 Under Boulder Digital Works

(The following excerpt, written by Dan Viens, is from the Boulder Digital Works student blog.  This case study was created during a tech class taught by instructors from Crispin Porter + Bogusky. My classmates and I were  given the task of coming up with an innovative redesign of the Boulder Digital Works website.)

Group 3: Jake Johnson, Erin McHugh, Crystal Preston-Watson and Dan Viens

The concept for our BDW site redesign was based on a key element of what brought many of the first class of 60 Weeks students to the school, which was the network of people involved. From instructors representing some of the best in the interactive world to corporate partners like MDC Partners and Microsoft, we knew we wanted to heavily feature that network.

Using a Google Maps API, our main page would allow users to show all the different types of people/organizations involved with BDW. A simple sliding top nav gives the user the options of showing the people most relevant to the information on BDW they’re searching for.

As an example prospective students likely want to know about instructors and previous students. Each person associated with BDW would have a little pin on the Google Map which when rolled over would open up and show blog, web site and twitter information. Digging deeper, this site would feature aggregated twitter and flickr feeds from the BDW network.

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A Day of Flightless Birds

Posted by Crystal on Saturday May 15, 2010 Under Photoshop

I have always been somewhat jealous of my older sister because she can draw, subtract without counting on her fingers and write with both hands.  I made this:

Photoshop has almost made us equal*

*not really

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