Ben Dunkle

Blog

  • Sketchbook rant

    Pick a book, any book, off your bookshelf or wherever you keep books. Maybe you don’t have books.

    I guarantee they are better quality than any of the sketchbooks you can buy. The paper, binding, everything — 100% better than the most expensive moleskins or rhodis or lagenhreufer / whatever that german brand is.

    Why? 90% of those copies are never going to be opened, much less read.

    Here’s an idea: someone yank the printer ink out of the press halfway through the run, and sell the BLANK, AWESOME books at double the msrp. I guarantee they will sell out and leave the boring printed junk in the dust.

    I wish I knew who was in charge of printing all those perfect bound, glorious books. “Hey, Mike– save me a few blanks on your next edition of Cold Mountain:A Journey into the Boringest Place On Earth; name your price” I’d say.

    Next time you go to church-open up a hymnal, rifle through the silky, wafer thin sheets covered in cacaphony, and imagine having one with nothing on it. 1000 pages of near indestructible, perfect surfaces just waiting for you to scrawl on.

  • WPROC24

    https://www.figma.com/slides/Rvz8ix0Ga95pWft6ygDmzf/Do-you-really-need-all-those-plugins%3F-WCROC-24?node-id=1-524&t=eydFaPuREse7w60E-1

    https://bendunkle.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Do-you-really-need-all-those-plugins-WCROC-24.pdf

  • Testing out WP 6.5

    Hoping to find:

    • Renaming blocks (or at least groups)
      • Yes!
    • Better font management
      • Yes!
    • Native lightbox
      • wawa
    • Styling links
      • wawa

  • How to frame paintings

    E.G., a 30″ x 40″ painting:

    1. Get your supplies at lowes or homedepot or whatever

    -2 x these for the outer frame: 

    https://www.lowes.com/pd/1-1-2-in-x-8-ft-Pine-Wood-Lattice-Moulding-Actual-1-5-in-x-8-ft/1000443635 (or deeper than your painting**)

    -2 x these for the inner frame: https://www.lowes.com/pd/EverTrue-1-1-8-in-x-8-ft-Pine-Wood-Lattice-Moulding-Actual-1-125-in-x-8-ft/3042181 (or less deep than your painting**)

    -Clear (or whatever color you want) and Black wood stain like this:

    https://www.lowes.com/pd/Cabot-Tintable-Solid-Exterior-Stain-Actual-Net-Contents-7-25-fl-oz/5001615019 (or use sharpie or acrylic paint or whatever)

    -Wood Glue

    -Clamps

    -Miter saw (if you want to miter) or just a good hand saw

    -Sand paper

    **Make sure the painting is somewhere between the depth of the lattice strips:

    They sell lattice in various depths, so the links I pasted above would be good for a 1 1/4″ deep painting.

    2. Measure and cut 

    That diagram shows you the general idea of where to make your cuts and how to line up the strips, but in reality those exact measurements won’t be perfect. So actually line up the lattice strips and mark them with pencil, then cut along the line. Err on the side of too long; you can always shave more off. Gaps are bad. 

    3. Sand the cut edges and stain them. You can use sharpie marker if you don’t feel like waiting for the stain to dry…

    4. When the stain is dry, run some wood glue along the bottom edge of the black lattice and clamp them to the stretcher. Those will be the inner frame.

    When that’s dry enough (like the next day) do the same with the natural stained lattice. Use as many clamps as you can to hold it together. You can even run twine around to make it super tight, but it’s probably not necessary unless you only have a couple of clamps.

    Once the glue is dry, it’s pretty solid. You can drill small holes and hammer brads in, then cover the openings with wood putty but that’s a lot of hassle.

    If you’re feeling adventurous, you can try mitering the corners. Use the pencil measurement method, then cut with a miter saw. Make sure you have extra wood since you will mess up the first time. It’s really not necessary though.

    Good luck!

  • Lichess Patron Icon

    I probably am on lichess.org more than any other single website, mostly losing chess games. It’s an absolutely perfect example of the best open-source software can be.

    As an open-source project, the developers do not charge for membership. It’s totally free. There’s something extraordinarily humane and selfless about open-source, especially when it rises to the usage levels that Lichess and others (Linux, Blender, WordPress, e.g.,) have achieved.

    Alternatively, closed-source projects usually offer a free membership, but include motetization strategies such as ads that only go away, or features that can only be accessed if you purchase a membership.

    That’s not to say they don’t need money, but almost all of the revenue open-source make comes from donations.

    One of the interesting ways Lichess monetizes is via the “patron” badge. If you donate at least $5, you get a little wingy icon next to your username:

    That’s it–instead of a boring little circle, now you have a bit of “flair” that distinguishes you as someone who supports the hard work it takes to make an open-source project great. It’s a brilliant strategy to encourage donations. But I have to wonder, is it a feature? In other words, does paying for Lichess actually improve your chess skills and help you win more often? Does it help your rating improve?

    I think this would be a great study. Lichess has a monumental open data set. One could conceivably analyse the data and determine that become a member does, in fact, make you a stronger player. At the very least, it would make you a stronger player on Lichess.

    Symbolism and iconography have a powerful effect on us. They form our communication methodology and influence our decisions. When you play someone with a wingy badge, you may feel empathy toward them, and thus not play with your typical competitive drive. Or you may feel intimidation, or some other form of distraction that might throw you off your game, even if it’s just the tiniest bit. Placing the Lichess dataset under a microscope might reveal patterns that show that patreons are not only being supportive, they’re being tactical.

    Here’s my hypothesis: becoming a Lichess patron makes you a better player. Time to get the abstract written.

  • Life in 2024 so far

    Teaching has shifted to administration

    The huge migration is nearly done

    My wife and kids are beautiful

  • Movies and shows, 2024

    I’ll try to post the stuff I watch with reviews this year. I saw some great stuff last year and meant to do this, but didn’t :/

    1. Barbarians (Shudder). Cool concept. So many dumb and useless scenes. Too bad, since the actors were great.