What For

I'm in a strange limbo, in which none of my outlets are quite right. I project constantly: I'm always writing or wanting to write or otherwise turn my relentless thoughtstream into something tangible. I always want to share. I want the reflection of others. There is an interaction between my creative mind and the world that I crave every moment yet can only satisfy through a few imperfect means. I have a lot of things I would not share on Facebook (either account). I am not clear what purpose this blog serves. I have not disciplined myself into real writing yet. I have not started the year-long process of regaining my horn-playing chops, yet cannot discard the idea. I have an art bike to make. I see my partner taking on and completing various forms of art projects and am simultaneously proud and inspired and envious and frustrated at the contrast.

What for is this blog? Is Facebook? Is the writing space I would have if I made one? Is the garage workbench? Is all this energy?

No answer. I'm just expressing the question. It comes up because supplies for a fantastic work of art are slipping through my fingers.

For a living, I design circuit boards used for software development and validation of cameras to be used in phones and tablets (and "phablets"). I do other stuff, too, in theory, but there is so much churn in the imaging world that my specialty is pretty much a full-time job. We architected the larger validation systems so that peripherals (e.g. cameras, displays, modems, gyro sensors, whatever) can be mixed and matched economically. This is done with add-in cards. So I design internal-use-only add-in cards. Teeny tiny cameras mounted to flex printed circuits (FPCs) are plugged into them.

Oftentimes, R&D is a dead end. Oftentimes, thousands of a thing are built only to be scrapped. I just got word that thousands of little camera FPCs that I designed a board for are going to waste. I can have a few if I need them -- and I don't, but requested some anyway -- but the rest -- thousands -- are bound for the recycler. Thousands of neat-looking identical objects. The reorganization and repurposing of a quantity of neat-looking identical objects is the essence of fond-object art. I know that in the right hands, these things could serve a much higher purpose than their inevitable decomposition into a few precious metals and a pile of toxic waste.

Here's yer old records

But they will not. They will be discarded and their cost written off as a research expense. It may be I could fight for them. Someone somewhere within my reach would make good use of them. Who knows, maybe I would. Indeed, the guy who told me said they tried to think of a use for them. Imagine some vast array of teeny tiny cameras, bound together like a fly's eye and capturing the world in a thousand parallel streams of MIPI CSI2 data! Or, dead and disabled, their orange flex circuits and shiny little lenses catching the sunlight and shattering it into millions of artfully disturbed photons. But no. I do not need yet another big box full of mostly useless shit, and neither does anyone else I know. So, regretfully, I must pass. What for, then, is all this unbounded creativity? I guess it just needs whipping into line.