Searching for Adam ...

I made this map and widget for the most lovely lovely Caroline, who has a fabulously important book coming out on the 15th of June.

It was particularly satisfying because we only hatched our cunning plan on Friday and it launched on Tuesday!

Yay!

I have to say, it's one of the most fun tasks I've done ages. And I am just soooo thrilled that people are using it, and I'm getting a huge kick out of the fact that they are using it in so many place in the world.

Sometimes, here in Surrey, it's easy to forget how huge the planet is. I mean, I kind of know it, I have clients in Australia and Sweden and America and even Staines* ... but it's so easy to hang your washing out under a blue sky and not give a moment's thought to the fact that in other places it is dark. Dark! Amazing.

I feel like the map has plotted a journey of my own. Intellectually it gave me a chance to rub up against my new server and really find it's edges - having a new server is kind of like having a new girlfriend / boyfriend. It isn't til you have a major falling out and they won't do what you wanted that you really have a clue about how good the relationship is. Emotionally it was an opportunity to bury myself in something utterly self-absorbed for a few days which happened to coincide with some difficult anniversaries.

Working with Caroline, hatching ideas and bouncing them off each other has been a beautiful experience, one that has made me certain that I want to do more collaborative and less solitary journeying this year, in all areas. But most of all, spiritually, I am reminded that the world is a huge place and life is complex, but amazingly, little things I do really can create a ripple in the pond, that spreads and spreads and laps up on a shore on the other side of the planet.

And, there were a lot of numbers, and I am a bit of a dirty techie and I like a good bit of geometry every once in a while.

So, I have derived that:

(Numbers + new Server(php5) ) x ((InspirationalBlogFriends.caroline + purpose) / (tightDeadline + cupsOfTea(93))) * (blogFriends - geographicalConstraints) = http://insearchofadammap.blogspot.com + Stray.happy++;


And, if you haven't yet put your pin in the map - get over there! And please zoooooom right in before you position it because Canterbury is definitely NOT in tyneside!



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*for my international audience, Staines is about as exciting and glamourous as it sounds. Is there a word that means onomatopoeic but for meaning? There should be. And my housemate has pointed out that RonSeal doesn't actually seal Rons. Which is really quite worrying.

How good is your colour vision?

The game above requires Flash, version 7. If you don't have it, you can click here to download it. Or not :)

I originally made this game, which I called 'Planet Pop' just ... well, I'm not really sure why to be honest. I was teaching a friend a bit about how to make flash animations and games. We started with a little circle. We made it change size, move around, change colour. We made it do stuff if you clicked on it, and suddenly we were building a game.

The interesting thing about this game is that it tests your colour vision acuity. And, I've found that I can track the objects better if I don't look at them, but look slightly away from the screen - just past the edge of the game, which I know is a technique that wildlife camera operators use for following fast moving birds and animals. Anyway ... I dug it out to show someone today and I'd forgotten how much fun it is. So I thought I'd share it!

High scores can be added to the comments :) Just click 'new game' to begin!

(and before anyone complains about bandwidth and file sizes, .... it's only 27k - ain't maths great?)

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