Monday, August 26, 2019

Dog Blood, Birthdate Fields & Flower Flashes

Weekly Update 2019-32: The most unlikely electronic music pairing Dog Blood, how to better utilize birthdate fields online and the beautiful flower flashes of Lewis Miller.



Music: Dog Blood
The most unlikely pairing produced a booty-shaking smash EP only a few short months ago - Boys Noize And Skrillex have partnered on a 4-song playlist that's a really freaky, wild 16 minutes of electronic beats. It reminds me of 2012 era electronic, when Skrillex actually blew several blocks of power in the residential area surrounding Bluesfest, and which was also coincidentally the year that the pair first teamed up. I am happy they found each other again, only seven years later. We're all a little wiser now.



Accomplishment:
Finally today, I took down all the little papers and notes I had been collecting on my wall. It took forever to get all the dried-up sticky tac off, but it's so nice and blank now. I have a framed poster for the wall but I have to find time to hang it.

Laura's birthday was really nice, I especially enjoyed eating ice cream and having park hangs. Laura even gave me a cool riddle to share the next day at a party.

"A person leaves home. They take three lefts, and then return home. When they get home, there are two people waiting there for them. Who are those people?"

Post your answer in the comments if you like. I'll share the answer next week.

I met up with Saeha and Troy at a new tempura restaurant downtown (just another preparation for my Japan trip) which was a welcome end to a very long week. I ran a Lunch & Learn on component libraries for my work's development department, as well as a journeymapping session on the experience of one of our personas. Having two big projects to work toward in one week is really draining.

So it was the perfect time to go to the beach with some friends on the weekend. Larissa, Emilia, Kaylin and I all ventured out to the beach in Pickering, which was pretty closeby and quite lovely. Don't tell anyone though, because it was somehow not very crowded!

Goal:
This being a long weekend, I'll have time to check out the Textile Museum for a very special project. The Torah: Stitch by Stitch is a huge undertaking of using painstaking cross-stitch in recreating first five books of the Bible as well as selections from the Scriptures and Qur’an, reflecting on the theme of creation. The project spread through the world by mail, bringing in works from the far reaches to come together in Toronto on display.

After that, I'm dogsitting Theo (Eric and Laura's dog) for two nights. He's such a good boy, I can't wait to cuddle his furry little face.

Larissa's engagement party (Volume 2: Richmond Hill) is next weekend, and my parents have asked my band to play. I'm sort of stressed about it, but it'll definitely be different (and memorable).

Random Thought: Birthdate Fields
Ever had to enter your date of birth on a website? Of course you have. Many signup forms include birthday as a required field, and some websites sit behind an age authenticator to ensure their users are above a certain age. Our very own online Ontario Cannabis Store requires users to enter their age to ensure they don't sell to underage users.


I understand that it was probably best to leave these fields set on literally "Select", an empty state that requires input from the user for legal reasons. But many forms already pre-fill their birthday fields, often to January 1, [current year]. Even with examples like OCS, when I click into the year dropdown, it begins with the current year which is the least probable answer that anyone could give. Someone born less than a year ago couldn't control a computer!

So, when legalities don't limit the choices, why not auto-fill the birthday (or at least the year) field to the most common birth year of the product's target audience? It would ensure that some users wouldn't have to scroll so far to get to their actual birth year...although I don't think anyone takes birthdays in online forms seriously in the first place. Maybe this is all moot!

Inspiration: Trash Can Flowers
Since the world is basically a dumpster fire anyway, why not decorate literal garbage recepticles with something beautiful? That's exactly what New York's Lewis Miller has been doing with trash cans on the streets of the Big Apple.


He calls them Flower Flashes. “Gifting flowers to New Yorkers is a simple idea that I have been thinking about for years,” Lewis explains on the Lewis Miller Design website. “I am in the business of fantasy and flowers, and it’s my job to transform key moments in my clients’ lives into joyful, everlasting memories. I wanted to recreate a similar feeling for the everyday city-dwellers and tourists of New York City.”

I just love how Miller takes the grimy streets of a relatively dirty city and makes them feel inviting, beautiful, and invigorating. That's something I think we all can use a bit more of.



You can see more Flower Flashes here.

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