Category: posts

My font was in a movie

My font, Plastic Tomato, appeared briefly in Despicable Me 3.

I get a huge kick out of this, mostly because I made it twenty years ago while I was still in high-school. Grunge design was popular and there was an indie font scene happening on the early web. I churned out a bunch of fonts over the span of a year or two, released them all online, but didn’t take it much further. They managed to make it through several site migrations, and are still tucked away in the dusty type section of the site.

All of the fonts were freely available and had a note attached saying to get in touch if you want to use them commercially. I still get the occasional email, mostly people using them for smaller personal projects. So, I was a bit surprised to get a message from a movie studio asking for clearance to use it.

I wanted to reach out because I’m working on Despicable Me 3 and production is interested in using your Plastic Tomato font for a 1980’s style action figure commercial in the movie. The font would be seen on screen (along with other fonts) stating the action figure’s features. If you’re okay with the use, we’d appreciate it if you could sign the attached clearance request.

I signed the request, but wasn’t sure if it would actually make it into the movie. Never got around to seeing it in the theatre, but grabbed a copy when it was released digitally.

And there it is, the font I made in high-school, on-screen (gif) for approximately two seconds!

Connection versus competition

From an article on mansplaining by Erynn Brook:

In competition (male) style communication the person who talks the longest and the loudest “wins”. Topics shift more frequently as speakers try to move conversation to their area of expertise/comfort, so that they can talk more, and thus “win”.

In connection (female) style communication the speaker “wins” by deepening connections with others. People tend to stay on topic longer in order to explore those connections and will pass the mic around/ask questions.

If you’ve ever done any teaching/speaking/group leading/camp counsellor-ing, you’ve probably used both styles, competition when you need to get everyone’s attention and connection when you’re leading.

Invention of the AeroPress

From Invention of the AeroPress, the story of inventor Alan Adler:

Among coffee aficionados, the AeroPress is a revelation. A small, $30 plastic device that resembles a plunger makes what many consider to be the best cup of coffee in the world. Proponents of the device claim that drinks made with the AeroPress are more delicious than those made with thousand-dollar machines. Perhaps best of all, the AeroPress seems to magically clean itself during the extraction process.

It definitely makes a good cup of coffee and is also super portable. I bought an extra one to leave at my parents place. That way I can avoid the high-test freeze-dried drip coffee that my dad tends to make.

American War ?

American War is the first novel from Omar El Akkad. If you’re into dystopian sci-fi, I’d definitely recommend picking up a copy. His prose can be a bit of a slog at times, but worth seeing through. The world building is amazing, I found myself wanting to know more about it.

Full disclosure: Omar is an old friend, so I might be a tad biased. He has always been a prolific wordsmith, and one of my favourite writers, so I’m super-stoked that the book has been well received. Go Omar!

On Smoak as the Jays’ next slugger

From Cathal Kelly’s Globe & Mail article on Justin Smoak’s transformation into Jays’ next-gen Jose Bautista:

His final at-bat of the series against Yankees’ David Robertson was a minor-note master class. To hear Robertson – one of the most cunning relievers in baseball – tell it, he ran out of ideas after eight pitches. Smoak put the ninth one over the centre-field wall. It was a grand slam and the game winner.

When someone asked Smoak if he was thinking curveball on that ninth pitch, he said, “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m just glad I was thinking the way I was thinking.”

Which is not actually an answer.

Smoak is a throwback in a lot of ways, but none so pleasing as the fact that, unlike many of his colleagues, he isn’t demystifying the game. He’s mystifying it.

I was at the exhibition games in Montreal last year, just before the start of his breakout season. One of my friends asked me if I could describe Smoak in a word. My near-instant reply was “Derp”. I stand by that.

Clearing out the cobwebs

Wow, it’s been awhile. I didn’t really intend to stop posting for two years, but that’s always how it goes. Between posting “content” elsewhere and working regularly on other WordPress sites, this place sort of became neglected. So, I’m getting this initial post out of the way (I’ve been avoiding it for awhile) and can return to posting quasi-random crap I find on the internet. There’s also a bunch of tinkering to do with the theme, but I can’t really let that be an excuse not to post.

Confusing Google’s self-driving cars

Apparently, cyclists riding fixed-gear bicycles confuse Google’s self-driving cars.

The car got to the stop line a fraction of a second before I did, so it had the [right of way]. I did a track-stand and waited for it to continue on through.

It apparently detected my presence … and stayed stationary for several seconds. it finally began to proceed, but as it did, I rolled forward an inch while still standing. The car immediately stopped…

I continued to stand, it continued to stay stopped. Then as it began to move again, I had to rock the bike to maintain balance. It stopped abruptly.

I had never head of a track-stand before. Performing one involves a rocking back-and-forth a bit with your wheel at an angle, it helps to preserve momentum. Here’s a video.

Only crashes on Wednesdays

A fun bug story about crashes that only happened on Wednesdays:

After several weeks of frustration, where entire days devoted to experimentation had produced no results, I ended up basically adding printf statements to every single line between receiving the event from the serial port and writing it in the database… and in the process, as I revisited every line of that code, a sinking realization dawned on me.