Since I started my REAL wall nearly 2 years ago, I've been on a mission to encourage people to spend time making things with their hands and to use their computers to foster positive human social interaction. To use the computer to get away from the computer if you will. Handmade mailart makes lots of sense in this context.
I'm a week behind in Mailart365, and when I thought of this one, I thought it would get me back on track. Hmmmm that was my first mistake.
"Elena" I said "I'm gonna make a functional QR code by hand"
"Right" she said "Good luck"
Elena is a lot better at estimating things than I am.
At work, I'm an e-learning advisor, and I've been getting really excited about QR codes. These new-fangled 2-dimensional barcodes can encode loads of lovely data, including URLs so, inspired by this Edible QR code slam video I decided to go and encode http://mailart365.blogspot.com/
How hard could it be, this only takes 2 seconds to generate using an online QR code generator like Kaywa
First thing to do was draw a 31x31 square grid, then count and mark with a cross every black square in pencil.
Then I had to use a fine tip black pen to colour every square. For you non-mathematicians out there 31 x 31 is 961.
So much for catching up. 2 days later, and a total of about four and half hours of painstaking colouring and tippexing my cockups, I had finally finished it.
Couldn't just leave it at that though right? That would have been too easy!
So I went and dug out this damn cool pixel tape that I bought a while back from Suck UK. This stuff is so very cool. It's just dots and lines, and you have to colour over the ones you don't want for that digital effect.
An hour of that later (I was tired so I mangled a few attempts) and voila! A digital piece made entirely by hand and a functional QR code to boot!
If you don't believe me, point your smartphone's barcode scanner at it, and guess where it brings you...
January 27, 2011 at 2:30 AM
Awesome!!!
January 27, 2011 at 2:32 AM
Thanks Prosthet. It's gone 2am and I can finally get some sleep
January 27, 2011 at 4:47 AM
I love making things with real objects. Ive made some Qr stuff at my webstie http://www.qrarts.com - I think you would like them.
Did this google slam actually get posted to google ?
January 27, 2011 at 10:11 AM
Hi Patrick - I believe that the Google QR Slam was actually sponsored by Google. I'd love to eat one!
January 27, 2011 at 11:19 AM
I had to Google "tippexing my cockups" because I had no idea what two of those three words mean and this blog post came up as the second hit :-)
Cool card, Andy. It has a sort of counted cross-stitch pattern look, too.
January 27, 2011 at 3:45 PM
@Postmuse - definitions
Tippex = Whiteout/correction fluid
Cockup = (never had to explain this one before) erm. Balls up? Mess up? mistakes?
Glad to see that I can still get a google high ranking if I try hard enough.
If you think it looks like a cross-stitch pattern now, you shoulda seen it earlier
January 27, 2011 at 7:05 PM
I figured it out. I'd never be able to say "cockup" aloud but it is funny. Wonder what whiteout is called in other countries?
February 3, 2011 at 4:28 PM
The cockups give it a human element :)
Guv - I can confirm receipt of this wonderful piece of mailart. The other side is even more extravagant in my opinion, loving it. Thank you so much!
Watch this space for the home page updates as discussed. Should be wicked.
February 3, 2011 at 4:45 PM
@Postmuse - I'm more interested in what they call "cockups" in other countries. You don't use that one then?
@Jay - yay! It arrived! Can't wait to see it on your brand new walls guv! (@postmuse "guv" is short for "guvnor". I guess that's like the person in charge at a prison or something. We tend to use it in London between friends as a term of affection or something. I guess you folk don't have that one either right...?)
February 3, 2011 at 5:10 PM
No ... I have never heard "cockup" in the US. There is another "up" word that is used quite often and means the same thing though ... it begins with an "f" and I don't like it very much, no matter what dearly departed Carlin says.
To me "guv" sounds like cute cockney. Perhaps the equivalent in US English would be "dude"? Probably back when guvnor was used only when speaking to upper class it was like our use of the word "sir" in the US ... meeting a businessman on the street ... "Nice to see you, sir."
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