Thursday, May 21, 2009
Work + boredom + Excel = The Matrix
So Eurovision turned out OK in the end. Graham Norton did a fine job, although Norway won with a devastatingly rotten song. So bad I refuse to post a link to it, not that that will save Europe from its sickly embrace. That shot of saccharin and the unexpected glitz of this particular edition of the contest stand in sharp contrast with the daily drudge of work. And sometimes it can be a most repetitive drudge.
There’s a potential business plan here - an online Persian rug generator. Or I can take my designs to the masses, or get my local church retiled. It won’t cost much to print these off and blu tac them to those cold stone walls, and might attract some new converts if Muslims think they’re walking into an Iznik-tiled mosque.
The heart beats in a cage, and creativity in the workplace is vital. 7.7s and 3.2s and -0.1s may have begun to haunt me in my dreams, but those wretched numbers shall never enslave me, not so long as I can find ways to keep my five year old's brain occupied. Still, in the world of tiling I am a rank amateur. Here are some examples of how it looks when it's done properly:
So Eurovision turned out OK in the end. Graham Norton did a fine job, although Norway won with a devastatingly rotten song. So bad I refuse to post a link to it, not that that will save Europe from its sickly embrace. That shot of saccharin and the unexpected glitz of this particular edition of the contest stand in sharp contrast with the daily drudge of work. And sometimes it can be a most repetitive drudge.
Lord spare me from these infernal spreadsheets. Just look at all these numbers. These soporific lines and lines of digits. They mean nothing to me, even less to you. They are ugly and there is nothing fun about them at all. Staring at this impenetrable wall of statistics only serves to amplify my hyperactivity and artistic urges. Could there be a way to harness them for a higher purpose (i.e. a cheap diversion)?
This is Microsoft Excel. At first glance not the most stimulating computer programme. Still, there is potential for some amusement here. We can find beauty everywhere if we look hard enough, and nothing about Excel is more visually pleasing, nay, life affirming, than the graphs, charts and diagrams. Or maybe that's just the hours and hours in an office doing the talking. In a cooped up environment, seeing those cold, pitiless numbers mutate into all those pretty colours becomes an emotionally charged experience, and if we bypass those turgid bar charts and line graphs, and turn to the relatively ignored surface diagrams that use colour, contours and surface to render data then we can make the Sistine Chapel look drab in comparison.
Yes, that is a graph, and those little diamonds and assorted shapes are combinations of numbers, each with its own distinctive value. Just like the atoms behind every object in the word, they form a whole greater than the sum of its parts. That's right, I'm playing God. Playing God on Excel. Generating novelty bathroom tiles. But this is just the beginning. If we don’t consider the mid morning tea break that important, then we can get stupid with this kind of visual fuckery:
It looks a lot more hypnotic on my monitor. But it's still something, no? And just as we have sulphur and magma bubbling under our feet, hiding behind the beauty of our world, here we have sterile numbers holding these images in place, doing the hard work in an analogy that is certainly not at all contrived.
It looks a lot more hypnotic on my monitor. But it's still something, no? And just as we have sulphur and magma bubbling under our feet, hiding behind the beauty of our world, here we have sterile numbers holding these images in place, doing the hard work in an analogy that is certainly not at all contrived.
There’s a potential business plan here - an online Persian rug generator. Or I can take my designs to the masses, or get my local church retiled. It won’t cost much to print these off and blu tac them to those cold stone walls, and might attract some new converts if Muslims think they’re walking into an Iznik-tiled mosque.
The heart beats in a cage, and creativity in the workplace is vital. 7.7s and 3.2s and -0.1s may have begun to haunt me in my dreams, but those wretched numbers shall never enslave me, not so long as I can find ways to keep my five year old's brain occupied. Still, in the world of tiling I am a rank amateur. Here are some examples of how it looks when it's done properly:
The Alhambra in Granada
Iznik tiles in the Rüstem Paşa Mosque, Turkey
A tasteful fountain in Seville. Notice the painstaking diamond arrangement of the 0.6s and -1.8s to create an impressive overlapping effect that's clearly popular with the birds.
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What do you think those middle eastern countries spend their PhD mathematics students on?! The tile designing department obviously.
But seriously, my awe for your skill with Excel matrix design can only be in equal measure with your reserves of spare time. You should show this to Simon Cowell..
But seriously, my awe for your skill with Excel matrix design can only be in equal measure with your reserves of spare time. You should show this to Simon Cowell..
I won't lie to you, it's been a very easy couple of weeks in the office. I can only hope this continues for a little while.
Simon Cowell, and his noxious sidekick Piers Morgan should be buried alive togther. So it's better that I design some novelty bricks for them.
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Simon Cowell, and his noxious sidekick Piers Morgan should be buried alive togther. So it's better that I design some novelty bricks for them.
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