Sunday, September 28, 2008

Who needs drugs?

When you have this?

Adobe CS4

I know this is shameless advertising on their part, but I actually thought it was worth watching. But then again, I am a geek. You be the judge. (About the movie, not about my geekiness...)

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Pull up a chair and watch this (you pyromaniac, you!)

This is a long video, but worth the time. I want to go to Burning Man. It would be like living a week of seeing sideways, in the desert, with fire. Nuff said.

zoetrope

What the hell is a zoetrope anyway? Watch the video and click this link to find out.

UPDATE: 9-27-08
For some reason they have taken down the video that I had linked here... It was of a large scale stroboscopic zoetrope. It was basically stop motion animation in real life, controlled by railroad pump cars that powered the merry-go-round and strobe lights and as the lights flashed you would see the next stage in the animation... But, alas, the video is gone for some mysterious reason.

But trust me, it was way cool...

UPDATE: 9-28-08
I found it on Youtube! It is the one from 2007 and it is controlled by bikes, but the idea is the same. Here it is at night (as intended to be experienced for the animation effect...)


And here is it is by daylight (so you can see what the hell it actually is...)

Look before you leap!

http://www.nv.blm.gov/2images/PSA_AVI.avi

Do you still think she's hot???

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

What if you could...

play music using a radio controlled car and beer bottles???

Sunday, September 21, 2008

What if I could sleep?


Then I could not do this... (click that link for the animated/audio version of the image to the left...)

What if I could write my own music and paint with light in Photoshop??? It all started because the school bought me a brand new Mac laptop and I discovered Garage Band. Yay for those of us out there who were heretofore rhythmically and musically challenged. Plus I found a cool new tutorial on the photoshopuser site! Put them together with a complete lack of sleep and this is what you get...

I hope you enjoy it and I hope I can sleep soon!

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Meaningless rambles about time in a hospital window

Meaningless

The lighted window
in the dark of night
becomes
meaningless
in the light of day.

(first draft, written 9/11/08)

I wrote this while I was at a hospital this week (I drove a friend to have laser eye surgery, so don't get too alarmed!) and while I was in the waiting room (time) I noticed something really interesting. We had to be there by 7 a.m. (I know! - and with the 1 hour commute...!!! - again, time) so it was really early and had that pre-dawn beauty that most of us new media people never get to see. Therefore this odd light holds a fascination for me. I was waiting (time) and watching the world around me when I looked out the window and across the way was another wing of the hospital with another window into a room with the light on. Since it was sooo early in the morning, the window was a harbor of light against a dark wall, and even though the window only looked into a room with linens stacked up, it was fascinating (plus it was 7 in the freakin' morning, so for a night owl like moi the sleep deprivation that accompanies early morning is a little like having a buzz, so everything is fascinating!) I pondered it for a bit (not much else to do in a waiting room) and then started reading the interesting yet academically written book "Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture" (yes I am a geek, and be thankful for the books we are using in this class - I got this book with the idea it might be good for this class...but not so much, although I do recommend it...) Any way, after about 30 minutes, and only 3-4 pages (that should tell you something and it also says something about time!) I looked up at the window again and was stunned!!!

The beacon of light in the darkness was nothing more than a dull tan and white rectangle in a vast sea of dull tan bricks! Over the course of just a few minutes the sun had continued to rise as my attention was focused elsewhere, and even though I expected the view in the window to be the same alluring image it had been when I last glanced at it (I don't know why, I just did - guess my brain was in a different time stream,) the light had changed, bleeding the contrast from the image and completely changing it. There was hardly anything that would have caught my attention had I not seen it before. I looked to see if the light was still on in the room, and the telltale greenish glow of fluorescent lights told me it was, but, at least for me, especially compared to how arresting it had been before, it was not a visual experience I would remember... Had the light been off in the room it would have created a negative image to the one I had seen before, but the light was still on, so time was really the only thing that changed (plus the rising sun, of course. Funny how just a little time and distraction can completely change someone's perception of a thing. The window, the light in the room, the bricks of the building, the linens - they were all exactly the same as they had been before. But now they were meaningless to me.

So therefore, I believe that meaning can only exist in context and in time... And conversely, time is only relevant if it has meaning. And meaning depends on a person, and context depends on people and time. It goes back to that old "If a tree falls in the woods..." conundrum. And I also wonder if the significance of the date (9/11) had any bearing on my thoughts, even though I did not consciously realize the date until later in the day...

Friday, September 5, 2008

Weirdest egg...

Here is a picture of a normal egg on a light. Nothing unusual...

Now here is a video of a soft shelled egg that has been in my fridge for a week...



You can learn about the soft shelled egg phenomenon here.

Scariest potato...

Enough said...

Coolest bug...

This was on one of my sunflowers... I have no idea what kind of bug it is except "way stylin" in a '60's mod sort of way!