{"id":40624,"date":"2022-12-14T04:15:00","date_gmt":"2022-12-14T11:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=40624"},"modified":"2022-12-13T16:18:53","modified_gmt":"2022-12-13T23:18:53","slug":"whats-in-my-now-rob-ray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/whats-in-my-now-rob-ray\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s in my NOW? \u2014 Rob Ray"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rob Ray<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0is an artist, Associate Professor of Design at California State University, San Bernardino, and a senior technical experience designer at Electronic Arts. Previously, Rob was a senior designer at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he led human-centered design for ProtoSpace, the Lab\u2019s collaborative mixed reality (MR) platform. His website is\u00a0shimmeringtrashpile.com<\/a>. You can find him online\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PHYSICAL<\/strong>

Panasonic RQ-2102 Cassette Recorder<\/strong><\/a>
I have been recording a few minutes of my thoughts each morning into my Panasonic RQ-2102 Cassette Recorder. My recorder lives next to my coffee maker, so I can record while the coffee is being made. The RQ-2102 is straightforward to use. It has a built-in microphone, so I can press the REC and PLAY buttons and just start talking. The recorder can be powered with four \u201cC\u201d batteries or a wall plug. I don\u2019t like buying C batteries, so I use rechargeable AA batteries with those little plastic AA-to-C battery adapters, which work great. These recorders are popular in elementary schools, which makes them easy to obtain off of eBay for about 20 dollars + shipping. Some even have great \u201cProperty of\u201d stickers on them! Blank tapes are easy to find on Amazon and eBay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hagoromo Fulltouch Chalk<\/strong><\/a>
Hagoromo Fulltouch Chalk describes itself as the \u201cRolls Royce of Chalk.\u201d I\u2019m not so sure about that, but I do really enjoy using it. Hagoromo chalk sticks have excellent density and rigidity while also writing very smoothly. There are many excellent vibrant colors to pick from, but I stick to white. Ten sticks of chalk cost about twelve dollars. It makes me feel smart when I use it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Visualizing Complexity: Modular Information Design Handbook<\/strong><\/a>
I\u2019m a design professor, so I can\u2019t resist recommending at least one design book! Nicole Lachenmeier and Darjan Hil\u2019s excellent \u201cVisualizing Complexity: Modular Information Design Handbook\u201d will delight designers and design-adjacent humans such as cartographers and data scientists. The book shares 80 simple approaches for clearly communicating information-dense ideas. Now when I bike or drive around my town, I find myself taking apart the information design systems used to create road signage and user interfaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DIGITAL<\/strong>

Metatext<\/strong><\/a>
I find the Mastodon platform to be a fun way to meet people and have conversations. I quite like that a person\u2019s local Mastodon server can be a mini-community with unique energies and enthusiasms within the larger \u201cfediverse.\u201d There are many excellent mobile apps for using Mastodon. My favorite so far is the open-source Metatext client created for the iPhone by Justin Mazzocchi. It makes switching between the Home, Local and Federated feeds very easy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

QGIS<\/strong><\/a>
QGIS is an open-source GIS system for manipulating map data. I\u2019m not a GIS expert, but I enjoy pulling in Open Street Map information into QGIS and making my own maps.\u00a0QGIS is a bit intimidating at first, but there are many blog posts and youtube videos that make it easier to get going. In my experiments with QGIS, I have discovered it can be really fun to take a map and liberate the buildings, bodies of water, and streets by giving them more imaginative names. I recently renamed \u201cNiagara Falls\u201d to \u201cIs the Fame Worth Dying in this Barrel? Falls.\u201d Making your own little map is a great introduction to more elaborate world-building creativities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

INVISIBLE<\/strong>

\u201cEven professional writers have days when they\u2019d rather clean the toilet than do the writing.\u201d \u2014 Octavia E. Butler<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Issue #149<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[2303],"tags":[1553,2389],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40624"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40624"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40625,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40624\/revisions\/40625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}