Pocket

June 7, 2014

Above the Clouds

Fremont Peak is a summit in the Gabilan Range, one of the mountain ranges paralleling California’s central coast. The peak affords clear views of the Salinas Valley, Monterey Bay, the southern part of the Santa Clara Valley, and surrounding mountain ranges. It is located on Rocky Ridge, 11 miles northeast of Salinas, California.

The peak is the site of Fremont Peak State Park which was established with 188 acres in 1936. Today the park has camping and picnic facilities, and is favored by astronomers for its clear views unsullied by artificial light. The Fremont Peak Observatory Association maintains a 30-inch diameter f/4.8 Newtonian “Challenger” telescope which was built by telescope maker Kevin Medlock in the early 1980s. The peak is also the site of the transmitters for television stations such as KSBW and KCBA and for radio stations such as KDON-FM.

June 6, 2014

The Importance of a Good Sketchbook

A sketchbook is a book or pad with blank pages for sketching and is frequently used by artists for drawing or painting as a part of their creative process. Artists often use large sketchbooks which include wide spaces of blank paper appropriate for drawing. Lawyers use rather large sketchbooks or notebooks known as legal pads that contain lined paper (often yellow) and are appropriate for use on tables and desks.

Principal types of binding are padding, perfect, spiral, comb, sewn, clasp, disc, and pressure, some of which can be combined. Binding methods can affect whether a notebook can lie flat when open and whether the pages are likely to remain attached. The cover material is usually distinct from the writing surface material, more durable, more decorative, and more firmly attached.

We like design to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant and above all timeless.

Massimo Vignelli

June 6, 2014

The Tools of the Trade

Graphic design is the art of communication, stylizing, and problem-solving through the use of type, space and image.

The field is considered a subset of visual communication and communication design, but sometimes the term “graphic design” is used interchangeably with these due to overlapping skills involved. Graphic designers use various methods to create and combine words, symbols, and images to create a visual representation of ideas and messages. A graphic designer may use a combination of typography, visual arts and page layout techniques to produce a final result. Graphic design often refers to both the process by which the communication is created and the products which are generated.

Common uses of graphic design include identity, publications, print advertisements, posters, billboards, website graphics and elements, signs and product packaging. For example, a product package might include a logo or other artwork, organized text and pure design elements such as images, shapes and color which unify the piece. Composition is one of the most important features of graphic design, especially when using pre-existing materials or diverse elements. Graphic design uses the elements and principles of design to achieve communication objectives and Stebbing suggests that these represent a type of “visual grammar” Effective application of the elements and principles of design ensure that graphic design can achieve a high ‘signal-to-noise’ ratio in the visually cluttered 21st century.

June 6, 2014

Exploring Pinnacles National Park

Pinnacles National Monument was established in 1908 by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.

Pinnacles National Park is a U.S. National Park protecting a mountainous area located east of the Salinas Valley in Central California, about 5 miles east of Soledad and 80 miles southeast of San Jose. The park’s namesakes are the eroded leftovers of the western half of an extinct volcano that has moved 150 miles from its original location on the San Andreas Fault, embedded in a portion of the California Pacific Coast Ranges. Pinnacles is managed by the National Park Service and the majority of the park is protected as wilderness.

The national park is divided by the rock formations into East and West Divisions, connected by foot trails; there is no through road that connects the east and west entrances to the park. The east side has shade and water.

If this is coffee, please bring me some tea; but if this is tea, please bring me some coffee.

Abraham Lincoln

June 6, 2014

The Kingdom of Thailand

Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the west by the Andaman Sea and the southern extremity of Burma. Its maritime boundaries include Vietnam in the Gulf of Thailand to the southeast, and Indonesia and India in the Andaman Sea to the southwest.

Thailand is a monarchy currently headed by King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Rama IX and governed by a military junta that took power in May 2014. The king is the ninth of the House of Chakri, and has reigned since 1946 as the world’s longest-serving current head of state and the country’s longest-reigning monarch. The King of Thailand’s titles include Head of State, Head of the Armed Forces, Adherent of Buddhism, and Upholder of religions. Although a constitutional system was established in 1932, the monarchy and military have continued to intervene periodically in politics.

June 6, 2014

The Sound of Vinyl

A gramophone record or vinyl record, commonly known as “a record”, is an analog sound storage medium in the form of a flat polyvinyl chloride disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. Phonograph records are generally described by their diameter in inches (12″, 10″, 7″), the rotational speed in rpm at which they are played (33 1⁄3, 45, 78), and their time capacity resulting from a combination of those parameters.

The Phonograph disc record was the primary medium used for music reproduction until late in the 20th century, replacing the phonograph cylinder record, with which it had co-existed, by the 1920s. By the late 1980s, digital media, in the form of the Compact Disc, had gained a larger market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. They continue to be manufactured and sold in the 21st century. In 2009, 3.5 million units shipped in the United States, including 3.2 million albums, the highest number since 1998, and the format retains a niche market. They are especially used by DJs and many audiophiles for numerous types of music.

June 6, 2014

A Beginner’s Guide to Blogging

A blog is a discussion or informational site published on the World Wide Web and consisting of discrete entries typically displayed in reverse chronological order. Until 2009 blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often covered a single subject. More recently “multi-author blogs” have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, advocacy groups and similar institutions account for an increasing quantity of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other “microblogging” systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into societal newstreams. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

The emergence and growth of blogs in the late 1990s coincided with the advent of web publishing tools that facilitated the posting of content by non-technical users.

A majority are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via GUI widgets on the blogs, and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. In that sense, blogging can be seen as a form of social networking service. Indeed, bloggers do not only produce content to post on their blogs, but also build social relations with their readers and other bloggers.

There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.

Hunter S. Thompson

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