Michael Champlin mjchamplin

1. How do you get your news? This is open-ended on purpose. I get breaking news from Twitter, generally. Throughout the day I listen to the NPR hourly news update through NPR.org or the NPR One app. I listen to Diane Rehm's Friday News Roundup most weeks, and catch at least an hour of All Things Considered most days. I don't have a TV so it's all online or on the radio for me.

2. Please send me a gif or video or poem that captures your attention span? Andrea Gibson: Panic Button Collector https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOS2ohwDpyA which I first heard in @lazuni's car in New Hampshire last year.

3. How do you take your coffee? Often. Cream and sugar.

4. Who's doing it right in news?

Salina, 2am

I’m tired. I’ve dozed off in the backseat of the car, probably, somewhere in the dark expanse of Kansas. I remember a lot of calamity and singing when we hit the Kansas border, the new energy of a road trip just started, sheer excitement and anticipation of an all-night drive. Her driving makes me nervous — she swerves and corrects abruptly as she texts and checks Instagram. It bothers Jessica too, and occasionally she’ll grab the wheel to steady us while Brandi texts someone and takes both hands off the wheel. I will come to appreciate this behavior in the most general sense — Jessica will be an anchor of reason when others begin to float away on the buoyancy of their overwhelming emotions.

We pull into Salina around 2am, stopping for gas on the edge of town. By the time we exit farther into town to stop to pee and buy snacks, we’ve listened to “Salina” by The Avett Brothers three times through. They sing along. Brandi closes her eyes and coos her favorite part; Jessica grabs the wheel and c

Alright folks.

I'm taking a social media break. I may or may not be back.

You might think it's silly to post on social media about going off social media, but I wanted to give everybody a heads-up and give some context and (most importantly) make sure everyone knows how to get in touch with me. I'm gonna explain a few things, but if you just want contact info you can scroll to the bottom.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much time I spend looking at screens. I suspect we can all relate with this in some way, especially people my age.

I could write an essay here about how unhealthy these behaviors are, how I'm basically addicted to looking at my smart phone, and about how social media is unravelling our society. But everyone probably already knows that; I've known it for a long time myself.

	“Energy” as in an act
	Of pure creation
	Making something out of nothing

	Knowing nothing isn’t nothing
	It is carbon, it’s the ether, it is plasma, it’s the spark
	And the blank canvas

	Your fingers caress the loving smooth
	And cool metallic surface of

	An Architecture of Thought
	--------------------------

	* * *

	I learned two major lessons in my years in architecture school: First, that design is my passion in life, in all its forms. Design is not a collection of geometry and color on paper; great design lives and breathes. It touches people.

	Secondly, I learned that I have no interest in being an architect.

	In telling this story I'm often met with a response that implies that three years was some kind of a waste, a path to nowhere. I don't see it that way.



	1. Pull latest Instagram photo via API (php file, crontab)
	2. Parse data > location > "latitude", "longitude"
	3. Write one-line location to `whereami.json`
	4. Load .json on pageload and pass locations into mapbox.

	Mapbox background on champl.in will center map on latest Instagram location.

	This could also be done with Twitter or Foursquare (or any social API with location data).

	# Alpha.

	Think Anthropologie meets West Elm with a dash of Mad Men.

	Timeless, clean-lined with a nod toward the androgynous.

	Beard oil and hairpins, art prints and bow-ties.

	Our customer is stylish, and values things made by hand -- and recognizes that high-quality items are worth the price. They’ve graduated from the home section at Target to Crate and Barrel; they’ve (mostly) moved on from IKEA to West Elm, and their favorite home decor items came from Renegade Craft Fair.

	<div class="box"></div>
	<div class="box"></div>
	<div class="box"></div>

	.box { width: 25%; height: 25%; } This would never make squares.
	.box { width: 25vw; height: 25vw; } This would always make squares, in supported browsers (that's over half of them)

	vw = viewport width in percentages.
	25vw = 25% of the viewport width.

	<html>
	<head>
	<title>testing</title>
	<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.0.min.js"></script>
	<script>
	// This script randomly populates an item (.quote) with a string from the array "quotes". ie random quote display, etc.
	$(document).ready(function() {
	var quotes = new Array("pie", "cookies", "coffee", "Kaytee"),
	randno = quotes[Math.floor( Math.random() * quotes.length )];
	$('.quote').text( randno );

	\| Method \| Teaser \|
	\| ------------- \|:-------------:\|
	\| affinity diagram \| Find natural relationships between data points and organize information with this collaborative sorting exercise. \|
	\| design brief \| Set requirements and expectations and define success for your project.\|
	\| design values \| Workshop a set of values to help you frame future conversations around product success.\|
	\| experience attributes \| Workshop descriptive words to help inform the visual direction of the project.\|
	\| feedback session \| Collect constructive feedback for designs and prototypes to help share risks and responsibilities with stakeholders.\|
	\| human spectrogram \| Establish a shared vocabulary and empower stakeholders to open up about where they stand on design decisions.\|
	\| hypothesis definition \| State assumptions as hypotheses which can be designed for and later validated with user testing. \|
	\| interface inventory\| Break designs into components to ensure consistency, eliminate redundancy, and create a catalog for use in c