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MacHappens . Patrick Dinnen

1. How do you tackle a deadline?

Usually by procrastinating until achieving the project within the remaining time is nearly impossible. Then frightening myself with the near-impossibility of the deadline and killing myself getting it all done just in time.

2. Give us a brief breakdown of your workflow on a given project

My workflow varies a lot. Typically some scribbling on paper and then diving into computer code of one sort or another. Sometimes the code is replaced with electronic parts or cardboard, but a lot of the process looks the same anyway.

3. Your favorite OS and why?

I’m on Tiger OSX after many years as a Windows XP user. I have my whole setup just as a I like it for my way of working and OSX just seemed to make that a lot easier.

4. What applications do you use primarily to create your work?.

I’d say Textmate, for writing code, and Firefox, for Google, are my main tools. Plus I use Processing (processing.org) and Arduino (arduino.cc) for my more arty projects.

5. What hardware do you use primarily to create your work?

I work on a 1st gen Macbook. At the office I use an external keyboard/mouse and a 24″ Dell LCD screen. That setup works really well for me. Though I do cast longing glances toward the new Macbooks with their much more powerful graphics systems (plus their added shininess).

6. Your thoughts on resolution independence?

I just had to look it up on Wikipedia to see what it was. I guess that suggests I don’t have any very valuable opinions on the matter.

7. How do you contribute/share with your community?

Recently I’ve been trying to be more active on forums that I have found useful for helping my work. In theory I am very pro-open source too, but I don’t really feel like I’m a good enough coder to release any of my stuff. I am always happy to answer questions on how my projects work though.

8. Who would you like to work/collaborate with?

Lately I’ve been getting into the tech/art scene. Though I’d say that I’m more of a technologist with some artistic clue. So I’d really like to collaborate with more ‘real’ artists.

9. When did you justify to yourself that you could make a living off what you do?

When it turned out I could consistently pay my share of the mortgage.

10. Your favorite creation?

I like the work I’ve been involved with through the Media Lab Toronto group. I love playing at the crossover between the physical and digital. TXTRis is one of my favourites and TXTRis Mark II is in progress so I’m looking forward to showing that to people.