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Runtime: 92min
Directed by Scott Brignac
Self-Sabotage is a narrative told with no words. It follows six characters through an interactive journey that pushed the audience into meditative thought. It is 'composed' to an all instrumental album by Derek Webb called Feedback, which is based off of the Lord's Prayer.
More about Derek Webb.
Self-Sabotage: the deliberate subversion of oneself. Destructive or obstructive action that hinders the person who acts. See also: the Lord's Prayer.
The Lord's Prayer is inherently violent towards the one who prays it.
This film has come to pick a fight, and any viewing that fails to recognize that may put the viewer at risk in one way or another. Self-Sabotage is an exploration of the Lord's Prayer based on and inspired by Derek Webb's electronic all instrumental album 'Feedback'. It follows six characters in a narrative with no words - only the music to parallel the stories.
Self-Sabotage rests firmly amidst the tension between the prayed and the praying; the single-minded character and vision of the Lord's prayer serves as the sub-text through which we enter into the lives of its characters. Their lives, like moving icons, open windows into the great mystery of communion through self-dethroning sabotage.
A RESPONSE TO SELF-SABOTAGE by Drew Causey
I am not sure what that was, but I want to see it again.
This reaction may not be what a film-maker is going for when they premier their first short film, but it was what I heard (and over-heard) time and time again as I mingled among the audience at the premiere of Self-Sabotage.
Most of those attending the premiere had one of two connections to the project: they either knew Scott Brignac, the director of the film, or they were fans of Derek Webb, the musician whose album "Feedback" served as both the ground-zero text and soundtrack of the night. I was there as both, in a way, though my connection to Scott has much more personal history to it. My role for the evening was to moderate a panel discussion with Brignac, Webb, Cody Bess, Ryan Booth, and Scott Erickson about the project; yet even while we were having our discussion, my mind ran wild with all of the real questions I secretly wanted to ask but couldn't:
Why was that girl dancing in the streets? Who was that guy in the woods? Did one guy just punch himself in the face? Does the girl jump? What does this have to do with the Lord's Prayer? Did the running guy commit a crime? If so, what was it? Why does the creepy guy keep following the sad girl? Why doesn't she spray him with mace?
And why do I feel like this is about me somehow?
One of the surprising aspects of this film is that it poses more questions than it gives answers. And not only that, but it sets the audience up to ask questions in ways that the film never plans on answering, or at least not outright. I was comforted by the questioning that I heard from those around me that night, comforted not only that I was not alone in my questions, but also that these were the kinds of question worth asking in light of art that deeply connects to its audience.
So I now find myself writing about it all, filling up space with my questions and thoughts about a film with images and ideas that are still churning up questions in my mind, even in my gut. Scott asked me to flesh some of these ideas out in light of some of our later conversation, and I have, and still am in ways. This is my obscure attempt at understanding and making meaning from what this film offered though the music, images, and ideas it explored.
If you haven't seen the film, this posting will probably seem odd, either full of spoilers or harebrained abstractions that make no sense without the referent of the film. If you have not, do yourself a favor and watch Self-Sabotage. Watch it closely, and try it again if you need a refresher. Come back and bring your thoughts and we'll get this question-asking, image-decrypting, meaning-making art-house film party going.
Praying To Kill Yourself
If the four sequences prior to the Self-Sabotage title frame tell us anything, it is this: these four people are linked in some way, and that way is dangerous. A teary-eyed woman hauntingly gazing at the overpass. A man on the run for an unmentioned reason. A child nodding off in the back seat of a car. A distraught young woman and her looming company. All of them on the move. All of them headed away from something and towards something else.
The subtext of this film and the soundtrack that undergirds it happens to be one of the more familiar passages of the teachings of Jesus. The Lord's Prayer is found in the gospels of both Matthew and Luke, and has served as one of the model prayers in liturgy and personal devotion from the earliest days of the Church. Anyone who grew up around the church has heard the "Our Father", and it is this familiarity that provides one of the biggest obstacles the faithful face to praying it: we know this prayer too well...
...which is a problem because of the defamilarizing content we find in this prayer. If you really stop and think about it, the Lord's Prayer is a totalizing, world-encompassing petition with the boldness of its requests matched only with the audacity of its claims about the Heavenly Father. Such a prayer naturally assaults any worldview or desire that doesn't align with the Kingdom picture it presents, demanding the person who prays to re-orient their way of seeing and living with the ways it describes. The world exists as the prayer claims it does; its vision is the only vision for which there is room, and much like the hallowed One to whom it is addressed, it will not share its throne with anyone.
Such a prayer should naturally jar the one praying a little, and we must ask what dangers come from praying this kind of prayer. What is at risk in praying in this way? Or perhaps a better question: what is at risk in not praying this way? The underlying theme of movement and the threat of danger or harm in these four introductions reframe this text through their narratives so we can ask better questions, and perhaps though those questions, both seek and find.
The final answer, not of the prayer but of what should orient our questioning, is the title frame. Self-Sabotage. Sabotage itself is usually associated with conspiracy and subversion, but usually one person or group acting against another. Here, we find the subject and object of sabotage as one and the same. Self-sabotage, then, is the deliberate subversion of oneself; destructive or obstructive action that ultimately hinders the person who acts. Whatever questions we ask about faith through the lens of this prayer, then, we must ask with self-sabotage in view.
It is important to ground our discussion from this point in the perspective of the text from which it springs. It is hard to divorce this text from its context in the Christian church, and while Christian faith is not by any means a prerequisite for this or any art that draws from Christian art, texts, or iconography, it is important to note that this lens of faith will inform many aspects of the film, and thus will give us a better lens for grappling with the images that spring out of this film and text. This lens doesn't limit our interpretations, but it does provide a framework or base from which to construct, challenge, and question meanings as we make them from the film.
This is incredibly important with the concept of self-sabotage itself. From a psychological perspective, this idea is incredibly dangerous and destructive; to be a self-saboteur is to consciously or subconsciously hinder one's own self-interests and success through self-imposed obstacles. To promote this kind of self-sabotage would be irresponsible.
Yet the purposed self-donation (and thus self-sabotage) of Christ could not be more focal to the Christian faith; this act of Christ reveals the self-giving character of the Triune God most clearly, and becomes the pattern by which the Church understands the love she is both given and is asked to offer. Christ's self-donation is not narcissistic self-hate motivated by a desire to hinder his own success, but rather by God-enthroning self-giving motivated by holy love. In this sense, self-sabotage embodies both a move away from some things and a move towards others, much like we see in our four scenes. Self-destruction is never an end in itself, but a means towards an/other reality.
Self-Sabotage, then, carries with it direction. This moving away and moving toward guides us into four scenes in which self-sabotage is embodied, explored, questioned, complicated, and ultimately tested in the images and narratives of the film.
The Edge of the Middle
As we explore these four narratives individually (and then take in their collage and complex informing of one another in the third movement of the film), we begin with a tight shot of our crying woman, now calm, resolved, and as the shot pulls back, on the brink of jumping from an overpass into the traffic below. While we have no indication of what has driven our actress to this point, the tears from the prologue testify that this is a painful last resort.
Suicide. A difficult issue within itself, and here a logic extension of the concept of self-sabotage. The narrative images of this section, however, bring a true complexity to how we understand exactly what is happening to this woman, and thus how we should go about making meaning of what we are seeing.
First, we must note that we are seeing intercut layers of differing scenes. Which of these , if any, represents the "real" versus the metaphoric? The obvious end of the metaphoric end of this spectrum is our dancer in the road. With painted face and black ballet garb, we are confronted immediately with the surreal nature of this scene; yet it is the contrast between her graceful movement and the immanent danger of the cars around her that captures the true tension of the jump in front of her. Death surrounds her on every side, and yet the resolve and beauty we see in her dance proclaims something else entirely. The interplay between this scenario and both the overpass and the dance studio suggests an interior and exterior play against one another; this woman is on the edge, but this is no place new. She has been dancing the edge of the middle of the road for quite some time.
The road itself has an interesting place in the narrative as well. Obviously, as the site of her possible jump, the road is the place she would be departing from as she jumps; it will be past when or if she decides to move. But the internal road is the place where she dances, the site of both the clearest beauty and freedom and the greatest risk to her. In one scene, the road is the site of the death she heartbreakingly wants to choose; the other, the site of the graceful life she daringly dances.
How, then, do we understand self-sabotage in this scene? Is death something she fears? Something she has resolved to embrace? Will death liberate her from the heartache that drives her to the road? Or is the edge of the road the most life-giving place for her to be? Is the middle of the road dangerous or safe?
While there are aspects of her narrative yet to be told, at this point we know one things for sure: this path to the edge has been one of intentional movement. If anything, the resolve to climb to the edge and the discipline shown in her dance have similar roots, roots in control. A dancer that moves gracefully shows great control; that kind of gracefulness doesn't exist without both discipline and control. The pure physicality required to move with such intention and seeming ease is quite high; many give much of their time, money and energy to master themselves for such a discipline.
It is interesting how the control and discipline of dance, then, stands in stark contrast to the idea of suicide. If dance embodies control, suicide embodies a seeming lack of control, or perhaps a desperate act committed in order to gain some semblance of control.
The first movement of the film follows what could easily be marked as the more transcendent issues of the prayer: the naming of God as Father, the hallowed name of God, the submission to and petition for the will of God to "be done/on earth". This prayer traffics heavy in issues of control, and specifically the yielding of it. Perhaps the most critical connections we can make between the film and the text start in the intersection of control and self-sabotage: What does it mean to self-sabotaging yield control to another? In what ways, if any, can this a good and/or needed thing? In what ways, if any, can this be a bad and/or dangerous thing? And can it be both at the same time?
Driving with No Hands
The road images continue into our next story, as we find our running man out of the house and on the road. Again, we don't quite know what the situation driving these actions, but we do learn a couple of things about this man and his narrative through the images of this section.
First, the symbolic representations here carry huge visual connection to the theme of self-sabotage. The fight between the man and himself portrays the most outspoken image of it, and the violence of seeing a man choke himself to death carries with it the weighted commentary on the process of self-sabotage itself. Interestingly, if we look at the dual image of the man as two aspects of himself, with the hooded one being the aspect that was not desired (and thus attacked), we quickly notice that it was the hooded man that found the other and not vice versa. If two versions of the same man, it was the hooded man that did the seeking out, and the sought one who did the attacking.
While the good self/evil self labels can easily be attached here, what seems most essential to making sense of this image is the violence that exists between the divided self. The one cannot allow the other to co-exist; it seems too dangerous or risky to do so. And the goal was not to scare off or even injure the other; the goal was to kill him.
What does it mean to have a fractured self-image? To have multiple versions of oneself? Is this good, bad, or a mix of both? Why do these two hate each other? Is there a history between them, or is this animosity something inherent in their mutual co-existence? Is there an aspect of self-sabotage that has to be this violent and intentional? If so, towards who or what?
The car scene holds another telling metaphoric image of this man's narrative. The pacing road and flashing lights intercut with shots of the man at the wheel, driving both away from home and towards something else. While his intentions are unclear, the flashing lights on his face suggest a tie to what was on the television earlier. The defining moment, however, comes when the man unexpectedly lets go of the wheel. The horizon spins to send the man upward in a strangely disorienting direction, and the relief this man expresses as he lets go shows through clearly.
The act of letting go ties back to the ideas of transcendence and control mentioned earlier. What strikes me, then, is the sequential link between this kind of release and the violence that follows it. There is a liberation or ease that overwhelms the man when the steering wheel leaves his hands, and that move sends the car in a different, and markedly unnatural, direction. The upward direction has spiritual overtones, and paired with the reaction of the man marks a pointed change in disposition. Yet the violence, intercut with police sirens flashing on the man's rain-soaked face, links this experience of letting go with a declaration of war against the other self.
Self-sabotage, then, is both a letting go and a taking of control, or at least it seems to be in this narrative. The prayer that God's will be done carries within it this kind of release, but also the violence of submission and its effects on the aspects of self that fight most aggressively for the steering wheel. This prayer holds faith in God and this kind of yielding together; one cannot be without the other.What does it mean to "let go"? What does this prayer suggest that means? What parts of my life would this be violent to? How so? Can self-sabotage in the sense portrayed in this film exist without some form of opposition or violence?
In Pursuit
The third narrative of the film offers us two characters: the little girl who sleepily rides in the car, and a man to whom she is connecting, though the exact nature of their relationship is not yet disclosed. The majority of the narrative takes place in a symbolic reality in the words; we know the girl is riding in the car, but the wooded area seems to represent her world and the forces within it. The woods are not a populated or warm place, but they don't seem to be a haunted or scary place to the girl, who climbs through the fallen trees quite comfortably.
It is not until she finds and begins playing with a wooden boat that the man from this narrative is introduced. This man enters the scene with frantic energy, and the cuts between his panicked voyage across the water to find the girl and her play-voyage with the toy boat have too many overlaps to be ignored. The playful boat ride of the girls imagination contrasts the chaos of the man at sea, and yet the back-and-forth interplay implies that these voyages are, in some way, the same trip from two vantage points.
The frenetic pursuit of the girl by this man, then, must be interpreted though this dual lens. We are seeing two different perspectives on the situation, and the one that seems most dangerous is the one of which the little girl is ignorant. This man, while in some ways chasing this little girl in an almost frightening way, seems to do so in order to protect her, not to harm her. The real danger in this scene is what will happen if he does not reach her; she is playfully hiding and playing, and we as the audience are just as ignorant as she to what could possibly happen if he does not find her soon.
Is the girl lost? Or is this a place she knows? What could possibly be looming from which she needs protection? What kind of self-sabotage is this?
Unlike our previous two narratives, this particular story doesn't involve outright violence to oneself, as suicide and self-suffocation visually implied for us. However, ignorance as self-sabotaging could be both the most subtle and the most dangerous version of this idea we've seen. The dancer and the driver are both portrayed as willing participants in their self-sabotage, and both images had dense layers of danger and potential in the movements within their structure. Here, however, the little girl movements are of secondary concern, and we have little inclination as to whether anything she is doing could ever be self-sabotaging in a positive or redemptive sense. Instead, we are left to fixate on the movement of two other characters towards her: the man looking to protect her and the present danger in pursuit of her, lurking out of her frame and ours. In hiding from one, she sets herself up for a possible encounter with the other.
Are their types of self-sabotage that are ultimately good and other that are not? How does this prayer address ignorance and the unknown? How does this narrative expand or complicate (or contradict) the notion of self-sabotage? In what way does the Lord's Prayer deal with the unknown?
Haunted Walks
The fourth narrative is to me the most provocative, most likely because it has the most ambiguous and layered of the relationships between two characters in the film. This narrative takes up the entire second movement of the film, which coincides with the second block of the prayer. This part of the prayer also contrasts the transcendence of the first and third sections with the immanence of petition: the Hallowed Father is brought near and asked to bring himself near as the provider, the deliverer, and the protector for those who pray. If the first three narratives highlight self-sabotage in relationship with the transcendent Father, this story grapples with the role of self-sabotage in relating to those we live with everyday.
The road/travel trope of the film carries into the subways and streets of the city for this narrative, and as we look at the movement from and towards here, we find that the young lady faces a dilemma that moves with her. From the introduction of these two characters in the prologue, we can trace a common thread: where she goes, he follows. Perhaps a boyfriend or formerly intimate friend, perhaps an embodied idea, memory, or some other symbolic representation, the one thing we do know is that she cannot escape this guy.
The travel tracks, interwoven cuts of walking, and orchestrated editing of lights and track movement with the music gave this narrative a circular feel, in the sense that the more this couple walked around, the more we felt like they had done this a thousand times. The agony on her face is compounded by the knowledge that this walk is one she has made over and over again, with each journey underlining the tragic nature of her relationship to him.
The most complex issue of their relationship shines through in their glancing interaction before she parts ways with him. Notice that within the edits, she resists looking at him, looks at him, and looks longingly at him. He returns glances of similar types, and the lack of dialogue highlights the pain in both interacting and not interacting. As she walks away, the quick edits following reveal this guy walking the streets looking for her again, and the repetition of the first sections lead us to think that he will find her.
What happened between them? Were they married? Do they love or hate each other? Why does she let him follow her around like that? Why don't they speak? Is he real to everyone or just to her? What does this have to do with anything we've been thinking about? How do we relate this narrative to the prayer of Jesus? The idea of self-sabotage?
The critical connection between this narrative and self-sabotage lies, for me, in the tension of the young lady's desires. Whether this guy is a memory, a metaphor, or a real person following her around all the time (creeper!), his presence in her psyche is something she cannot negotiate one way or the other. He is neither friend nor enemy; he is a specter. He haunts her wherever she goes, and it seems the only way she knows to cope is to keep moving.
What do we do with the aspects of our lives that won't die? That won't go away? These are the things that sabotage us because they are part of our "self", and all the self-sabotaging we've ever explored hasn't exorcised these kind of demons. It is one thing to choose the path of self-sabotage, and an entirely different thing to have it chosen for you by the aspects of who you are that will not quit follow you. In one way, this story wrestles with the powerless side of self-sabotage, the part of it that leaves you vulnerable, helpless, needy, and broken up.
The Sequence of Sabotage
As the final movement opens, we are given four more windows into these narratives, each one clarifying and expanding our understanding of these characters as they move forward. The dancer confronts herself in her bathroom mirror, wrestling with the issues that would drive her to the edge of the overpass. Perhaps the issues stem from the mirror, or the self she finds in it, but the juxtaposition of her dancing suggests that the things in her life that display the most control mask the areas where she feels most chaotic.
The driver has become a runner; running down the road from whoever may be pursing him. While the television set-up may be the motive behind his flight, the real enemy is the hooded version of himself, from whom he hides and yet from whom he cannot escape. When this hooded self finally catches up with him, another fight seems to be inevitable.
The girl and the man's relationship is quickly cleared up as we discover the nature of the danger she is facing: a car wreck. We find that the man is some form of guardian over her (perhaps her father), and at the time of the wreck, it is his panicked reaction that sets the tone for their narrative. She lies still, asleep or unconscious, at the mercy of the man who has now picked her up and carried her towards the help she needs.
The young lady enters a coffee house to join a group of friends who seem to be enjoying themselves. Their joy rubs off on our heroine, at least temporarily, until the guy arrives at the coffee house to find her. The brokenness of her countenance is moving, as his presence unquestionably conquers her with the same dread and sadness she carried through the streets. However, what could be most clarifying about their relationship comes from the way the camera eclipses the guy out of the final shot of the scene; it is quite possible that this guy is an internal memory or symbol, as the shot brought us visually back to her being alone and isolated.
The hopeless tone of these four scenes highlights a dark reality about the process of self-sabotage, something clearly seen in the pattern of the life of Christ and in his model prayer: the process of self-sabotage is lethal to every aspect of who we are. It is by not mistake that death precedes any form of hope or resurrection; only the dead can be brought back to life. This kind of thinking echoes throughout the declarations, petitions, and praises of this prayer.
And yet it is the closing sequence that encapsulates the swing from self-sabotage into being preserved by an/other. The water metaphor, surfacing images of baptism and rebirth, surrounds the images and narrative lives of these characters, with each of them being lifted out of the waters as the film moves to its final frames. The static lifting out of the waters (as opposed to lifting themselves out) raises a completely different set of questions:
What happened to them? Did they all die? Did the little girl survive? What happened to the creepy guy? What does this really symbolize? What does it mean to be lifted out of the waters? What are the implications of this visual symbol on the concept of self-sabotage?
Oddly, what most of the film has wrestled through is the challenge of self-sabotage; what the prayer highlights most clearly is the character of the Hallowed Father as described in this prayer by Jesus. The water image reminded me that self-sabotage does not exist without reciprocal action. Just as Christ freely offered himself in self-sabotage and was raised by the Father on the third day, so too the challenge of self-sabotage through this prayer is not an empty, self-hating exercise of aimless obedience. The Lord's Prayer may lead people to their own end in lots of ways, but never without the corresponding gift of reciprocating love and life from the Hallowed Father.
Questions Plus Answers
It's been a month an a half since I first saw Self-Sabotage. I still think about it regularly. Part of the reason is because of the images speak into conversations I am still rehashing. But the majority reason why I keep bringing this film up is because it breathed fresh wind into some parts of praying that are easier to leave un-prayed.
Easier, but not better.
This film is beautiful. It is well done. It is art in the truest sense, and it is a wake-up call to anyone seeking to bring faith and art into productive and fruitful conversation. The world of film needs art like this. So does the world of faith.
Thinking through the questions this film arose in me has lead me to a lot of things, including some answers about some things. But it has lead me to even more questions, and I believe that's healthy. Questions lead to seeking much easier than many answers do, and there is something about art, questions, and the Mystery of faith that hold hands in a way that I'm all too comfortable with.


text:
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
This new track in the ICME M.S. Program will supersede, beginning in the
fall quarter of 2014, the interdisciplinary M.S. Program (IDP) in
Financial Mathematics in the School of Humanities & Sciences. The IDP has
been offered by the Departments of Mathematics and Statistics since 1999,
in close cooperation with the Departments of Economics, Management Science
& Engineering, and Finance in the Graduate School of Business. The
Financial Math program provides a master's-level education in applied and
computational mathematics, statistics, and financial applications. The
program has been consistently ranked among the top tier of Financial
Engineering/Mathematics programs in the U.S. Its interdisciplinary and
collaborative nature has expanded from education to research, culminating
in the establishment of the inter-school and inter-departmental Financial
and Risk Modeling (FARM) Institute at Stanford in 2012. The Institute is
of timely relevance in the wake of the recent financial crisis, which
exposed the weaknesses and limitations of traditional financial models,
pricing and hedging theories, risk measures and management of derivative
securities and structured products. Better use of information technology
and data, and better models and strategies for investments, risk
management and regulatory reforms are called for. While the establishment
of FARM is timely for research towards these goals, time is also ripe for
the Financial Mathematics program to integrate itself better with FARM by
adopting a more computational and data-oriented approach.
The Steering Committee of the Financial Mathematics Program has found ICME
to provide a better environment for the envisioned growth of the program,
which will be re-named Mathematical and Computational Finance (MCF) to address the new focus.
Since several members of the Steering Committee are already on the faculty
of ICME, the transition of Financial Mathematics to the MCF track of the
ICME M.S. program has proceeded smoothly, and the curriculum and degree
requirements have been developed. Upon successful completion of the MCF track in the ICME M.S. program, students will be prepared to assume
positions in the financial industry as data and information scientists,
quantitative strategists, risk managers, regulators, financial
technologists, or to continue on to their Ph.D. in ICME, MS&E,
Mathematics, Statistics, Finance and other disciplines.The MS track in
Mathematical and Computational Finance is overseen by a steering committee comprised of ICME
faculty members Kay Giesecke (co-chair), Tze Lai (co-chair), Peter Glynn,
George Papanicolaou, Bala Rajaratnam, and is advised by Darrell Duffie of the Graduate School of Business.
Financial Mathematics – Stanford University
This new track in the ICME M.S. Program will supersede, beginning in the


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Difference between revisions of "Google Summer of Code"
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== Live Path Effects related ==
== Live Path Effects related ==
* [https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape/+spec/lpe-blueprint More Live Path Effects] - There is a lengthy list of ideas to choose from here.
* [https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape/+spec/lpe-blueprint More Live Path Effects] - There is a lengthy list of ideas to choose from here.
Revision as of 00:40, 4 March 2011
Welcome to Inkscape!
For a few years Inkscape was successful in participating in Google Summer Of Code.
GSoC is a program where Google funds the development of specific features in open source software by university students. You don't need to be a Computer Science student to apply. Features to be developed are picked by Inkscape administrators from the pool of proposals submitted by students.
We've mentored about half a dozen students a year since GSoC started. Many students enjoyed their work and continue to be involved; perhaps your mentor will be a past GSoC student! We have a high rate of acceptance of student code into the core codebase. Indeed, GSoC projects have been a key source of some of Inkscape's best features in the past several releases.
The Inkscape team plans to focus this summer on codebase cleanup and refactoring. This will affect the type of projects we can accept this year; we're looking for ones that either won't affect core code too significantly (such as Extension scripts, or File Input/Output formats) or that would actually result in improving the state of the codebase (adding tests, modularization, etc.). Students who have already been active developers in Inkscape previously will be allowed more latitude to work on core code (particularly if it will result in cleanup/refactoring of their past work).
Student Applications
- Google program information
- Summer of Code Application form
- Inkscape-specific information
- SOC Application Template
- Inkscape Roadmap - to see our overall objectives
- SOC Writing Project Proposals - some guidelines for proposals
- SOC Selection Criteria - how we rate applications
Successful SOC Projects from Previous Years
- 2005
- Connectors
- Inkboard
- OCAL Interface
- DXF Import / Export
- 2006
- Support for SVG Filters
- Filter Effects
- PDF export
- Inkboard Protocol Spec / Lib Conversion
- 2007
- Text Style Improvements
- PDF import
- Live Path Effects
- 3D Box Tool
- UI for SVG Filter Effects
- Raster Functionality
- Importing from, and Exporting to, a remote ccHost instance
- 2008
- SVG Fonts support
- 2Geom refactoring project - port most geometry code to 2Geom
- lib2geom: interactive applications showing off the power of lib2geom
- Tech drawing abilities
- A test suite
- 2009
- Node tool rewrite
- D-Bus scripting API
- Connector tool improvements
- ICC/CMYK workflow
- 2010
- Cairo-based rendering
- C++ification of SP Layer
The "two patches" rule
We require two patches from each potential GSoC student, before accepting the student for GSoC participation (it is the same requirement as for obtaining rights to commit changes to the Bazaar code repository). The reason for this requirement is that you can show us that you have succeeded in building Inkscape on your PC, and that you have understood a little piece of Inkscape's code and are able to improve it. Inkscape is a large project, and you really should not try to understand all the code. Many (all?) developers know only parts of the program code! You can join our jabber/IRC channel and ask developers for help. To get you started on Inkscape development, here is a list of (probably) easy-to-fix bugs or small improvements that require very little knowledge of the whole program.
Suggested "easy" bug fixes or improvements
- Bug #530957 "Save as dialog regression with filename": (MS Windows) File save dialog - the "save/save as/save a copy" dialog should fill in a suggested file name *without* extension. For example, if I am working on a file "hello.svg", and press "save a copy", the file name input field should have the text "hello" in it.
- Bug #408566 "Program won't save files without given extension on Win32": (MS Windows) A folder in the path with a dot '.' in its name prevents automatic adding of the file name extension and saves the file without suffix.
- Bug #561503 "Setting grid origin has no effect": (all platforms)
Suggested Ideas
Generic ideas
- Font editing and creation features, e.g. designing SVG fonts using styles
- 'New From Template' dialog
- kidscape - Condensed version of Inkscape aimed at young kids and small form factor devices
- Cutter control - Enable Inkscape's use with vinyl cutters.
- Guides Improvements
Import/export projects
- Importing of 3D scene files in 16 file formats using Open Asset Import Library
- xar-to-svg converter - Converter for Xara Xtreme to Inkscape
- KML SVG translation - For use of Inkscape with Google Earth or Maps
Internal work & performance improvements
- Continue C++ification.
- Improving 2Geom where necessary (e.g. boolops).
- ICC Color Management for cairo outputs - Would allow Inkscape to produce CMYK PDFs and PSs with Cairo.
- Text layout rewrite: Move flow-text into Inkscape name space. Add support for hyphenation, paragraph indentation, underlining, etc.
Better SVG standard coverage
- Full SVG viewbox support
- Multiple Page support
- Improve SVG compliance. Current status of W3C test suite compliance.
- Improve handling of CSS. We use libcroco which is unmaintained. Inkscape SVG output is full of unnecessary style attributes.
Improve Inkscape SVG for use on Web
A proposal should fix most if not all of these problems:
- Fix "plain" SVG to not remove <script> section, etc.
- Fix saving SVG to not modify CDATA (e.g. change & to &).
- Add option to set viewbox attribute to Document Properties.
- Font fallbacks.
- Easily add/edit hyperlinks.
- Better CSS support.
- Option to add title to SVG (searchability and accessibility).
- Remove XML prolog/DOCTYPE.
- Move sodipodi namespace items to Inkscape namespace.
- More Live Path Effects - There is a lengthy list of ideas to choose from here.
- Multi shape editing - ability to edit more than 1 shape (like ellipse or star) at once, with extra features like resizing rectangles by dragging their edges.
- Transformation Anchors
- Further development of Shape Opera, a simple Javascript framework for morphing Inkscape PATH shapes.
- Add a palette of objects to Inkscape. Such a palette would contain often used objects and would allow categorizing such objects. Examples of categories: UML, electric, network.
- Connector tool improvements - Expose new libavoid functionality: orthogonal routing, connector ports, curved connectors. (Mentor: Michael Wybrow)
- Arrowhead/marker improvements
- Fillet/Chamfer tool
- Add Mesh gradients in Inkscape name space with appropriate editing interface. (Note that Cairo now supports meshes.)
Please do not feel limited to the above ideas - some of our best contributions have been unique ideas that students had in mind from other sources!
For more ideas, please see https://blueprints.launchpad.net/inkscape/


text:
'What If'?'
Jim Valentino was born in the Bronx, New York. Valentino began his career working on mini-comics in the early eighties. These stories, many of them later collected in the book 'Vignettes', were mostly autobiographical, inspired by underground comix masters R. Crumb and Vaughn Bode. He changed directions a few years later when he signed on to do his fondly remembered superhero parody 'Normalman' for Aardvark-Vanaheim. Valentino began working for Marvel in the late eighties and early nineties on series like 'What If?' and 'Guardians of the Galaxy'.
Then, in 1992, Valentino left Marvel when joined together with Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld, Whilce Portacio, Erik Larsen and Jim Lee to form Image Comics. As one of their artists, he has been involved with Image from the start. He produced a small line of superhero books through the company, including his own 'ShadowHawk' as well as the notorious Alan Moore-headed '1963'. Five years later, Valentino reevaluated his creative interests and returned to his roots with his emotional, semi- autobiographical comic 'A Touch of Silver' and other alternative comics.
'A Touch of Silver'.


text:
The Kite Runner (Paperback)
The New York Times bestseller and international classic loved by millions of readers.
The unforgettable, heartbreaking story of the unlikely friendship between a wealthy boy and the son of his father's servant, The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sonstheir love, their sacrifices, their lies.
A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic.
"A moving portrait of modern Afghanistan."—Entertainment Weekly
"This powerful first novel...tells the story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, Khaled Hosseini's privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian forces. But political events, even as dramatic as the ones that are presented in The Kite Runner, are only a part of this story. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence—forces that continue to threaten them even today."—The New York Times Book Review—The New York Times Book Review
"A powerful book...no frills, no nonsense, just hard, spare prose...an intimate account of family and friendship, betrayal and salvation that requires no atlas or translation to engage and enlighten us. Parts of The Kite Runner are raw and excruciating to read, yet the book in its entirety is lovingly written."—The Washington Post Book World
"An astonishing, powerful book."—Diane Sawyer


text:
It's a tough pill to swallow for a Seattle Seahawks team that imported the playmaker to be the final piece of their puzzle on offense. Still, all is not lost. As Chris Wesseling noted, the Seahawks averaged more than 32 points per game over their last 10 games last season.
Golden Tate had been prepared to cede some of the spotlight on offense to Harvin, though that transfer of power now is on hold. Tate told ESPN's Josina Anderson that Seattle's offense will make do without Harvin.
"As a professional football player, injuries are part of the game. So when a team signs a guy, they know they're taking a risk that could happen," Tate said. "Obviously we would be more dangerous with Percy (Harvin), but with or without him, I still feel like we have enough playmakers to succeed this year.
"I think coach (Pete) Carroll has done a great job of building up this team good enough that if one of the main guys goes down, we still have a chance to compete," Tate added. "That being said, we are going to miss him. He's a huge playmaker and we had big plans for him in this offense, but we're not going to be weeping without him."
Assuming Sidney Rice returns from his jaunt to Switzerland with his knees in good working condition, the Seahawks should continue to score points. A big reason why is Tate, an Around The LeagueMaking the Leap nominee who led all Seahawks receivers over the final 11 games with 42 catches, 635 yards and five touchdowns.
With solid remaining receivers, an ascendant Russell Wilson and the eternally underrated Marshawn Lynch, the Seahawks have all the pieces they need to survive while Harvin recuperates.
UPDATE: The Seahawks had former Arizona Cardinals receiver Early Doucet in for a tryout on Tuesday, according to the Miami Herald.


text:
There are bakers and there are cooks. It takes a chemist's love of precision to be a baker. Me? I'm a cook.
I do, however, love to bake bread. In fact, I've been on a bread baking kick for the several years, experimenting with everything from the old-fashioned knead-it-up method to neo-hippy, grow-your-own-wild-yeast-before-you-even-start-mixing-the-dough recipes.
Recently, however, I learned a method so wonderful that my experimental wanderings may be over.
The breakthrough occurred when I took a class with the legendary Jim Lahey, founder of Sullivan Street Bakery in New York and the man behind a sensational recipe for no-knead, slow-rise, no-fuss bread. Maybe just reading about it left me skeptical. Could baking bread really be as easy as he suggested?
Yes, it can. I went home after the class and adjusted his basic formula to my liking, adding extra whole-wheat flour, toasted walnuts and rosemary. Otherwise, I followed his instructions, weighed the ingredients, mixed them together and turned out an attractive, delicious loaf of bread.
One of the ways to ensure your success here is by measuring your flour by weight, not volume.
When you scoop and measure flour by volume — such as using a measuring cup — the amount of flour you get each time can vary widely, sometimes by several ounces. The discrepancy is due to how tightly or loosely the flour is packed.
A few ounces may not sound like much, but it can make a big difference in baked goods.
That's why I recommend investing in a good kitchen scale if you're going to bake bread. The one I own, which registers both ounces and grams, has turned out to be useful for any number of kitchen tasks.
And please remember: This is not your grandmother's bread, or at least it's not your grandmother's method of making bread. So don't be thrown off by the wetness of the dough (it's very wet), the temperature of the water added (it's cool, not warm), or the temperature at which the dough first rises (it's room temp, not warmer).
The only down side to this recipe is the need to plan ahead. Even though mixing the dough takes no time at all (30 seconds), you have to let it rise for at least 12, and preferably 18, hours.
Then, after you've shaped it into a loaf (another 30 seconds), it needs to rise for yet another hour or two. Finally, it takes 45 to 60 minutes for the bread to bake, and it has to cool completely before you can eat it.
But if you can deal with the amount of time necessary for the dough to set up, you may find yourself eating really scrumptious, fresh and healthy artisanal bread several times a week. And every time you bake one of these loaves, your whole house smells wonderful.
No-knead walnut rosemary bread
½ cup (50 grams) coarsely chopped walnuts
2 cups (266 grams) bread flour
1 cup (133 grams) whole-wheat flour
1 ¼ teaspoons (8 grams) table salt
¾ teaspoon (2 grams) instant or rapid-rise yeast
2 tablespoons (6 grams) chopped rosemary
1 1/3 cups (350 grams) cool water (55 degrees to 65 degrees)
Additional flour, wheat bran or cornmeal, for dusting
Heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Place the walnuts in a shallow baking dish, then place in the oven on the middle shelf to toast 10 to 12 minutes. Set aside to cool.
Once the nuts are cooled, in a medium bowl stir them together with both flours, the salt, yeast and rosemary. Add the water and stir briefly with a wooden spoon or your hands, just until the dough is barely mixed, about 30 seconds. The dough should be quite wet and tacky. If it is not, add 1 to 2 tablespoons more water. Cover the bowl and let it rise at room temperature for 12 to 18 hours, or until it is more than double in bulk.
After the dough has risen, generously sprinkle a work surface with flour and gently, with the help of a plastic bench scraper, scoop out the dough onto the counter.
Working very quickly, with floured hands, fold the dough inward to the center on all sides to form a seam. Turn the dough over to form a round with the seam on the bottom. Generously sprinkle a clean kitchen towel towel with flour. Lay the towel flat on the counter and set the dough on top, seam down. Sprinkle the top of the dough lightly with flour and loosely fold the ends of towel over the dough.
Let the dough rise in a warm place for 1 to 2 hours, or until almost doubled in bulk. You will know it is ready when you poke the dough and it holds your imprint. If the dough bounces back, it is not ready.
About 30 minutes before you think the dough is ready, heat the oven to 475 degrees. Put a rack in the lower third of the oven, and place a covered 4½- to 5½-quart casserole dish in the oven to heat.
When the dough has risen, carefully remove the casserole dish from the oven and remove the lid. With the aid of the tea towel, flip the dough gently, seam side up, into the casserole, put the lid on the casserole and return it to the oven. Bake for 30 minutes. Carefully remove the lid and bake until the bread has browned nicely, another 15 to 30 minutes.
Remove the casserole dish from the oven and use a spatula or dish towel to carefully transfer the bread to a rack to cool completely before slicing.
Makes 1 loaf (10 servings). Per serving: 180 calories; 40 calories from fat (22 percent of total calories); 5 g fat (0 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 30 g carbohydrate; 3 g fiber; 0 g sugar; 6 g protein; 290 mg sodium.
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