Harebrained News is the blog of Maija Graham, an artist, educational media developer, graphic designer, and schemer.
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By Maija, on April 25th, 2013
This blog is not dead, only resting. This post is here because a bunch of cards went out with this URL on it an if you got one of them and that’s what brought you here: welcome. I have been very busy sculpting, so busy that I have not had time to relearn Wordpress after three years of having nothing to do with it. I have had just enough time to see why the ease of tumblr is so appealing. Although maybe Wordpress has smartened up in the last few years and made media management simpler. I will look into it. And then I may cave to tumblr.
Meanwhile, I give you a couple of photos of a diseased gopher. This little fella was inspired by Riley Rossmo’s zombie apocalypse (OR IS IT) series REBEL BLOOD, which you should get and read now.
By Maija, on May 18th, 2010
By Maija, on April 8th, 2010
 Click to see additional views Un bel di vedremo, 2010
Mixed media
7cm X 15cm X 15cm
This was an exercise in letting go. I went to an event this evening for which we were asked to bring an “artifact” to leave behind. This broken and badly repaired teacup seemed to fit the bill. Why do I have a broken and badly repaired teacup in the first place, you might ask?
Continue reading Un bel di vedremo »
By Maija, on December 19th, 2009
 Robin told me she wanted to add a section to her site where she could post new things but she didn’t want a blog. So I came up with this swirling 3-dimensional cloud of non-linear randomness, which Robin has called Curios.
The cloud includes the capacity to post images as well as random words constructed from Robin’s cut-out letterforms. The images can be clicked on to see larger images, and although no text has been added yet, the pop-up view can include text and links. It’s all loaded dynamically with XML. Actionscript (and some trigonometry) puts it all together in this crazy, swirling cloud.
Click here to see Curios in action.
By Maija, on December 9th, 2009
By Maija, on December 1st, 2009
 Once upon a time, I slipped a little piece of romantic fiction into Australia’s history. This was long before Wikipedia, back when you had to do it by hand.
I had just spent six months adventuring around the southwestern Pacific Rim and I was ready to head home, but I was stuck in Sydney. I couldn’t get a connecting flight from Singapore to Vancouver for another week. I was annoyed, homesick, and tired of Looking At Sights. What was I going to do for a week?
I took a ferry ride just to get out on the water and think. As the ferry was passing under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, we met a haphazard fleet of small vessels. They were jostling around an odd, colourful wooden ship that bobbed and pecked at the water like a little chicken. I love tall ships (though she was hardly “tall”) and this funny little vessel in her vivid colours was enchanting.
Continue reading The Chook, the Squid, and the Sweetheart »
By Maija, on November 16th, 2009
 Click here to see examples of a rollover interactive
Rollover interactives are a compact way to show more information about a diagram than will fit in the space available. These were used frequently in the courses I collaborated on, typically to show forms and documents and the information to be filled into each field, or oil field equipment and the identification of parts or functions. It’s a simple way to show an image without having large labels covering up areas of the diagram. The “hot spots” where the user’s cursor can trigger the rollover effect may be highlighted or hidden.
Continue reading Rollover interactives »
By Maija, on November 16th, 2009
 Click here to see the four versions of the drag-and-drop exercise
Drag and drop exercises have been used frequently in the online courses I have collaborated on because they can be used to quickly self-test knowledge with simple mouse interaction. For the SAIT Polytechnic programs I was working on, we had several different kinds of circumstances requiring drag-and-drop functionality, so I created a script that can behave in a number of different ways, depending upon the value of variables contained in an external XML document. For the types of behaviour not involving original diagrams or icons, Flash wouldn’t have to be opened at all in order to change the behavior and content of the drag-and-drop. All of the content is contained in the XML document and ActionScript generates the entire interactive dynamically. These were displayed in a static HTML page, but with a little modification to the ActionScript, this script could also create drag-and-drop exercises dynamically from a Content Management System.
Continue reading Here be Drag ‘n’ Drops »
By Maija, on November 14th, 2009
 Click to see additional views tad, 2009
Mixed media
5cm X 5cm X 20cm
This was made for the Elephant Artist Relief fundraiser entitled Spawn. I was inspired to make this piece by the name of the auction and by a length of copper pipe I had left over from an earlier project. The title is tad as in “tadpole” or “a small amount” or “a small child”. Nothing to do with “Thaddeus”.
By Maija, on November 14th, 2009
 
Maija & David, circa 1976, 2004
Sculpey, metal armature
5cm X 5cm X 5cm
Aw, aren’t my brother and I cute. This piece was a gift for my mom for her Christmas village. We are to scale with some of her figures, but much larger than some other figures, so in those parts of the village (a large Christmas County, really) we rule as mighty giants.
I chose to spare my brother’s dignity by not including the toy carriage he was pushing in the photo I used for reference. Except that I’ve just published the photo on the intarnets for the whole world to see.
 Sorry, Dave!
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