Categories
3D Printing Digital Culture Gaming Personal

Fabjectory

Check THIS out:

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It’s Mii!

A long time ago, I blogged about a company who would take your Second Life avatar, and create a little 3d render of it using a 3d printing process. Then, a bit later, I blogged about getting a Wii.

Unbeknownst to me, the president of the company, Fabjectory, had noticed my blog posting, and had been reading me (or at least skimming my feed) since then. When he saw I got a Wii he emailed me to let me know that Fabjectory was now making mini-statues of Mii’s, and he offered to make me one gratis. After a few emails back and forth to assure me he wasn’t joking, and for me to assure him that I wasn’t guaranteeing that I’d blog about it, etc…I took him up on it.

The process was really simple: for a Mii, you just take a few full-body shots of your Mii right off the TV screen. You can do that from the Mii edit screen…here are the two I sent in:

Mii_Jason_head.jpgMii_jason_body.jpg

From that, the Fabjectory guys recreated my Mii, printed it using a Z-corp color 3d printer, and shipped it my way. My only negative about the process was that my initial discussion with them was in March, and while I checked in a few times to make sure the photos came through ok, it’s August now…better than 4 months since my initial order. Still, it’s a freebie, and almost certainly wasn’t given the priority that a paying customer would be given.

I’m really impressed with the detail of the fig…it’s so well done, with the colors being dead-on. Overall, it’s just amazing to see this once virtual piece of me now as a physical item. I would definitely recommend this as a cool gift…Betsy nearly fell over when I gave her the one of Mii, and I think it will be quite cute on her desk at work. My fig is one of the 3 inch figures, and at a retail of $50 is a bit on the steep side to order on a whim. On the other hand, it’s a great little object d’ arte, and if you’ve gotten as many comments on your Mii as I have, it might be a small price to pay.

Here’s some detail shots of the figure:

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I’d recommend Fabjectory after seeing the quality of the work, and just the intrinsic coolness of holding your Mii. I’m considering pushing my Dean to pony up for a SketchUp model of the new library, once the plans are finalized…how cool would it be to show off a model to the students?

Categories
Personal Sewanee

Across the LupUS

If you have had any “Gee I wonder where I should donate this money” moments recently, I have the perfect answer for you:

Across the LupUS

These two Sewanee grads, inspired by the struggles of one of their mothers, decided to try and raise $50,000 for Lupus research by biking across the US the summer after graduation…this summer. They are wrapping up their trek in the next few weeks, and could use any help that anyone can give them. Even $5 will make a difference…besides going to a good cause, it’s tax deductible.

If you know anyone with Lupus, you know how terrible the disease is. These are two great guys, trying like hell to help out as they can…help them.

Categories
Baby Digital Culture

Bullet Proof Baby

Oh my…please tell me this is a joke.

Bullet Proof Baby

AHHHhHH!

Categories
Gaming Monkeys Personal The Living Dead

At GenCon

GenConSo this weekend is my annual pilgrimage to Indianapolis to GenCon. This may be my last until Eliza gets big enough to want to go with me…but it’ll be great if that happens!

I know that Josh Neff has done the GenCon thing…with all the rage around gaming librarians, any other librarians hitting the largest gaming convention in the world?

Categories
MPOW

Preparing for the onslaught

So the relative blog silence has been brought on by the frenzied preparation for the beginning of the semester. We’ve updated our ILS, which brought about a TON of unforeseen changes (doesn’t it always?). Our vendor, VTLS, pointed out time and time again that our installation was a bit odd…it was originally done by someone very familiar with the software, and he took lots of liberties with the install. This means a LOT of things don’t work for us…directory structures are all wrong, so stuff just often falls apart when you try to run it.

As a consequence of moving to a more standardized install, the URL for our catalog changed.

I’ll say that one more time. The URL to our catalog changed.

Do you have any idea how many freaking things depend on that URL? I certainly do now.

*sigh*

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Twitter

Twitters from 2007-08-04

  • Thinking it’s really funny to look at my twitter friends and see all those red locks…. #
  • @cindi: go forth and download Handbrake. it will solve your dvd problem #
Categories
Library Issues

Building a Library 2.0

I’m not sure if that title actually comes across with the meaning I’m after. It’s not Building a….Library 2.0. It’s Building a Library….2.0. ๐Ÿ™‚

Is anyone aware of a building project being managed via 2.0 tools? MPOW has been funded for a new library, and we are currently in the project planning phases. I’m pushing for us to be completely transparent about the process…we are a state school, and everything we do is more or less subject to sunshine laws. Might as well put it right out there.

As a part of the project, we’re going to be managing it with a wiki (still under construction due to new server being purchased), probably sharing documents with Google Docs, and we’ve already started our Flickr Pro account for photos of site visits. We’ve got two video visits that will probably go up on YouTube.

Is there anyone else out there doing this? I know there aren’t many simultaneous builds going on, especially of academic libraries, but surely someone has done a “transparent build” before. Our plans involve letting the community comment on the wiki, and gathering feedback from as many of these sources as we can to inform our build plan.

Anyone out there have suggestions for the process that the 2.0 technology might improve, other than the things I’ve mentioned? This is new for me…it’s going to be an interesting few years.

Consider this the first of a few blog posts on transparency. More exciting news coming later this summer. ๐Ÿ™‚

Categories
Twitter

Twitters from 2007-08-03

  • Up far, far, far too early (4:15 am) so that I can go on the GA trip. Will sleep in the van. #
  • pulling into ga state university #
  • ga state renovation = awesome #
  • my sister is having a boy! #
Categories
Twitter

Twitters from 2007-08-02

  • @ijastram: holy shit! police first, then inventory, then change locks… #
  • @ijastram: and then email or im if you need to talk #
  • More ILS problems this morning…the upgrade borked everything, including my URL (which borks OpenURL resolver, which borks article search.) #
  • Heading out finally: going to visit GTech and GA State tomorrow in Atlanta. #
Categories
Twitter

Twitters from 2007-08-01

  • @shels: Congratulations! That’s really great… #
  • Twitter > Pownce. It’s all about the community… #
  • Univ. changed wireless setup AGAIN: now students have to download a “security plugin” before they can get online. Insanity. #