Home-made BLT sandwiches. Yum. Thank you, Marks & Spencer, for your sub rolls.
March 2005 Archives
I got an Airport Extreme brick. It's very good. "Regret" by New Order is playing over my old speakers plugged into it at the moment. And I'm posting this from my iBook over the other side of the room.
As always, the network didn't "just work". It pretended to, but I had to tweak the settings. This would be beyond many users, and isn't what I expect from Apple.
"Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before" - The Smiths.
I think Apple should invest in some pretty major AI. I just want to turn on Airport and have a daemon exhaustively try to make the network work. Surely that's doable?
As always, the network didn't "just work". It pretended to, but I had to tweak the settings. This would be beyond many users, and isn't what I expect from Apple.
"Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before" - The Smiths.
I think Apple should invest in some pretty major AI. I just want to turn on Airport and have a daemon exhaustively try to make the network work. Surely that's doable?
I refactored draw-something to be an ASDF package. Which means it's easier to load and debug in slime.
If that last line meant nothing to you, nor will the next few. :-)
I used OpenMCL's profiling to find the bottlenecks in the code that are slowing down execution when drawing around more than a few lines. No surprises: (nearest-point-on-line) and (distance) cons heavily. So I've changed polyline to use arrays rather than lists and moved any object creation and moved any accessor calls as far out as possible. Hopefully this will get things moving faster when I finish debugging it (Lisp's "do" loop is horrible).
I can optimise the distance search by storing some working out each time, or I can move to a mixed vector/bitmap implementation. I wonder if AARON still uses bitmaps and cells?
If that last line meant nothing to you, nor will the next few. :-)
I used OpenMCL's profiling to find the bottlenecks in the code that are slowing down execution when drawing around more than a few lines. No surprises: (nearest-point-on-line) and (distance) cons heavily. So I've changed polyline to use arrays rather than lists and moved any object creation and moved any accessor calls as far out as possible. Hopefully this will get things moving faster when I finish debugging it (Lisp's "do" loop is horrible).
I can optimise the distance search by storing some working out each time, or I can move to a mixed vector/bitmap implementation. I wonder if AARON still uses bitmaps and cells?
I updated minara's C code to be closer to the GNU coding standards.
I think I'm going to mothball minara. Unless I can find anyone to help on it, but I'm not even sure I have the time to look.
Good idea, too far from what I want to be doing right now.
Update: This week I have been mostly hacking Minara. It's not mothballed, just something I'm working on as-and-when, the same as everything else. Currently I'm working on picking. Next is probably some basic UI work and then transformations.
I think I'm going to mothball minara. Unless I can find anyone to help on it, but I'm not even sure I have the time to look.
Good idea, too far from what I want to be doing right now.
Update: This week I have been mostly hacking Minara. It's not mothballed, just something I'm working on as-and-when, the same as everything else. Currently I'm working on picking. Next is probably some basic UI work and then transformations.
I slept in until midday, then went for a ride out through Peterborough on my bike. Heading back into town I picked up the new New Order CD, had a hot chocolate at Cafe Nero, then went for a walk by the river. After wandering through fields and trees for a while stumbled across a sculpture garden with a Caro and some Gormleys in. This set me thinking, and I scribbled away feverishly on various artistic ideas.
The napkin my notes were on disappeared on the way home but I reconstituted the notes in my notebook. Hopefully I didn't lose any ideas. Then I put a stew in the oven for later, and blogged for a while.
All in all a perfect day. Life, nature, music, art, food, and no hassle.
Bliss. :-)
The napkin my notes were on disappeared on the way home but I reconstituted the notes in my notebook. Hopefully I didn't lose any ideas. Then I put a stew in the oven for later, and blogged for a while.
All in all a perfect day. Life, nature, music, art, food, and no hassle.
Bliss. :-)
One definition of a random system is one that cannot be more concisely described than giving a complete account of it.
Aesthetics may require a complete account of (human) consciousness to account for it. Aesthetics would therefore be random in this sense. But randomness would not, of itself, be aesthetic...
Aesthetics may require a complete account of (human) consciousness to account for it. Aesthetics would therefore be random in this sense. But randomness would not, of itself, be aesthetic...
Very, very good.
Some guitar, some synth, some nods to classic New Order songs, some side-project riffs, some awkward lyrics, and some songs that you'll be haunted by before they hit their first chorus.
Much, much better than "Get Ready", and much better than the more anally retentive reviewers have hinted. This will be your summer and your autumn, too.
Highly recommended.
Try http://www.neworderonline.com/ for a fan site with lots of listening and reading resources.
Some guitar, some synth, some nods to classic New Order songs, some side-project riffs, some awkward lyrics, and some songs that you'll be haunted by before they hit their first chorus.
Much, much better than "Get Ready", and much better than the more anally retentive reviewers have hinted. This will be your summer and your autumn, too.
Highly recommended.
Try http://www.neworderonline.com/ for a fan site with lots of listening and reading resources.
I'd give the first episode of the new Dr.Who a "B". The next episode looks much better.
The production quality is high for the BBC. Billie Piper makes a very effective companion (yes, really). Christopher Ecclestone makes a semi-convincing Doctor, capturing his levity without his underlying gravity. I'm sure he'll grow into the role, and despite losing his footing when first facing the villain of the piece he is surprisingly affecting when the confrontation strikes a personal note.
The only real problem is the terrible incidental music. I'm sure some people will find the plot silly, but it's no sillier than the average Star Trek plot, and surprisingly evocative (blink and you'll miss the Doctor recount the entire history of the star-spanning Auton war and his part in it). It's pitched at kids, just like the original Dr. Who (which people always seem to forget). Tom & friends were raving about it. So the target audience have been hit.
Favourite line:
Rose: "If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North?"
Doctor: "Lots of planets have a North!"
Recommended. Just don't tell anyone I watched this and liked it. ;-)
The production quality is high for the BBC. Billie Piper makes a very effective companion (yes, really). Christopher Ecclestone makes a semi-convincing Doctor, capturing his levity without his underlying gravity. I'm sure he'll grow into the role, and despite losing his footing when first facing the villain of the piece he is surprisingly affecting when the confrontation strikes a personal note.
The only real problem is the terrible incidental music. I'm sure some people will find the plot silly, but it's no sillier than the average Star Trek plot, and surprisingly evocative (blink and you'll miss the Doctor recount the entire history of the star-spanning Auton war and his part in it). It's pitched at kids, just like the original Dr. Who (which people always seem to forget). Tom & friends were raving about it. So the target audience have been hit.
Favourite line:
Rose: "If you're an alien, how come you sound like you're from the North?"
Doctor: "Lots of planets have a North!"
Recommended. Just don't tell anyone I watched this and liked it. ;-)
Via generative.net :
http://www.crossover.dk/landscape/
I like this for two reasons. Firstly I've a soft spot for landscape, and I always like to see someone who takes the idea of a contemporary landscape seriously. Secondly, it's simple but effective use of graphics (and code) rather than algorithmic one-upmanship. The result is something that is situated within and extends the story of art.
http://www.crossover.dk/landscape/
I like this for two reasons. Firstly I've a soft spot for landscape, and I always like to see someone who takes the idea of a contemporary landscape seriously. Secondly, it's simple but effective use of graphics (and code) rather than algorithmic one-upmanship. The result is something that is situated within and extends the story of art.
My sheep from "Inbetween Cities" were added to the Sheep's Parade :-) :
http://www.arteonline.arq.br/sheep/
http://www.arteonline.arq.br/sheep/
A CC-licensed (BY-2.0) postgraduate journal:
http://www.mazine.ws/
I picked up a print copy at WOW2. Highly recommended.
http://www.mazine.ws/
I picked up a print copy at WOW2. Highly recommended.
RR are running a remix competition, prizes include getting your music included on a future Loca Records compilation:
Click here for the competition.
Click here for the competition.
Life Isn't Just as You Want It? Remix It!
The remixing metaphor applies to almost any area you can think of: music, politics, culture.
The remixing metaphor applies to almost any area you can think of: music, politics, culture.
Good review in the Grauniad :
this book is the final ludicrous monument to an intellectual corruption that has filled contemporary museums and the culture they sustain with a hollow and boring, impersonal chatter
But I think that A&L did better in the 1970s:
On the Material Necessity that the Editors of October, its Contributors, Supporters and Relatives, and Particularly, the Arch Fool, the Illiterate Liar Jeremy G. Rolfe, be Sought Out, Their Hands Smashed, Their Eyes Put Out, Their Offices, Ateliers Destroyed, Burned and Portions of the Bloodstained Ashes Sent to the Towering Wretches of French Structuralism
this book is the final ludicrous monument to an intellectual corruption that has filled contemporary museums and the culture they sustain with a hollow and boring, impersonal chatter
But I think that A&L did better in the 1970s:
On the Material Necessity that the Editors of October, its Contributors, Supporters and Relatives, and Particularly, the Arch Fool, the Illiterate Liar Jeremy G. Rolfe, be Sought Out, Their Hands Smashed, Their Eyes Put Out, Their Offices, Ateliers Destroyed, Burned and Portions of the Bloodstained Ashes Sent to the Towering Wretches of French Structuralism
Article on the science of Cubism:
ART, SCIENCE AND THE MIND: CUBISM AS A FORM OF COMPLEXITY
I prefer the neurological "peak shift" idea but this is still interesting.
ART, SCIENCE AND THE MIND: CUBISM AS A FORM OF COMPLEXITY
I prefer the neurological "peak shift" idea but this is still interesting.
A periodical about art and the public domain, via Rhizome :
CommonPlaces
Public space and public information are common concerns, and both are under threat.
CommonPlaces
Public space and public information are common concerns, and both are under threat.
Like Sourceforge for Open Content:
OurMedia
Via the ever-reliable Boing Boing.
OurMedia doesn't handle project management, but it handles more media than archive.org and is dedicated to Free licensed work.
OurMedia
Via the ever-reliable Boing Boing.
OurMedia doesn't handle project management, but it handles more media than archive.org and is dedicated to Free licensed work.
Aesthetics is for artists what aerodynamics is for birds.
CC are working on a CC-Wiki license:
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002782.shtml
http://creativecommons.org/drafts/wiki_0.5
I admire the community spirit that this license is proposed in, and an inter-wiki license seems like a good idea, but it's called the FDL. And a "credit the organisation not the individual" license is a dangerous thing to create (and probably breaks the Right Of Paternity). It's going to get used for many non-wiki megalomaniac's projects, and it breaks the social contract of wiki contribution anyway.
This is niche license proliferation. License proliferation is bad. A wiki-specific license is such a bad idea that Britannica should sponsor it (suggest it to them and watch their faces light up like a TV company executive told that CC licenses don't effect moral rights). Wikis face quite a challenge in non-"fair use" jurisdictions, ghettoising their content will just add to their problems.
An authorship assignment or licensing toolkit would be more constructive.
(Incidentally, I'm against the Creative Archive license as well, it's basically CC-BY-SA with a definition of NonCommercial that, taken literally, wouldn't allow schools to use CA content).
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/002782.shtml
http://creativecommons.org/drafts/wiki_0.5
I admire the community spirit that this license is proposed in, and an inter-wiki license seems like a good idea, but it's called the FDL. And a "credit the organisation not the individual" license is a dangerous thing to create (and probably breaks the Right Of Paternity). It's going to get used for many non-wiki megalomaniac's projects, and it breaks the social contract of wiki contribution anyway.
This is niche license proliferation. License proliferation is bad. A wiki-specific license is such a bad idea that Britannica should sponsor it (suggest it to them and watch their faces light up like a TV company executive told that CC licenses don't effect moral rights). Wikis face quite a challenge in non-"fair use" jurisdictions, ghettoising their content will just add to their problems.
An authorship assignment or licensing toolkit would be more constructive.
(Incidentally, I'm against the Creative Archive license as well, it's basically CC-BY-SA with a definition of NonCommercial that, taken literally, wouldn't allow schools to use CA content).
"Gelvis", 1993. A Warhol Elvis gunslinger/ Gilbert & George photo-work mash-up. I like the Pierrot-like figure that emerges from the collision of gay iconographies. I also like the glitch halo and what happens to the perfect grid of Gilbert & George's work. This was made with morphing software on either Amiga or 286/386, I don't remember.
What I've been reading about mash-ups sounds like the sort of cultural tweening I've always been interested in, maybe its time to get back to my roots and take this further. I don't know whether morphing software is appropriate, but it seems to be a good fit to the software used to shift and stretch sound for aural mash-ups.
It's the launch party for the first of the CC-UK licenses for England and Wales tonight:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/15/creative_commons_uk_.html
Moblog of the event:
http://moblog.co.uk/blogs.php?show=2506
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/03/15/creative_commons_uk_.html
Moblog of the event:
http://moblog.co.uk/blogs.php?show=2506
Guide To Open Content Licenses:
http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/pubsfolder/opencontent/
Copyright, Cultural Production and Open Content Licensing:
http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/pubsfolder/liangessay/
Shows why Lessig's "asian pirate" as the other of the creative western remixer is problematic.
Both highly recommended. Liang was a high-point of the excellent "Ways of Working 2".
http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/pubsfolder/opencontent/
Copyright, Cultural Production and Open Content Licensing:
http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/mdr/pubsfolder/liangessay/
Shows why Lessig's "asian pirate" as the other of the creative western remixer is problematic.
Both highly recommended. Liang was a high-point of the excellent "Ways of Working 2".
Kazushi Mukaiyama has placed the documentation for the next two versions of his drawing program Shizuka online:
http://www.kazushi.info/modules/news/article.php?storyid=394
Recommended reading, and a good example of why taking an idea and running with it can be better than producing a series of demos.
http://www.kazushi.info/modules/news/article.php?storyid=394
Recommended reading, and a good example of why taking an idea and running with it can be better than producing a series of demos.
"The internet is about the free exchange and sale of other people's ideas." - Kidnappster executive, Futurama.
It's funny watching this year's crop of bands on MTV trying to be New Order. That simulacral quality is something that Damien Hirst's new paintings share. Why is it important that a human being makes the paintings if the human being is trying to embody a notionalised procedure for making authentic paintings? Wouldn't it be better to offload that process into software? But that wouldn't reflect the managerial ego as well as using teams of assistants to work on each element of the painting. Software is not of itself exploitative, and it manages (of itself) no real resources, never mind human ones. So teams of assistants it is, adding noise and acting as labour to capture the vibe of the corporate state.
That and I doubt Hirst can program. ;-)
That and I doubt Hirst can program. ;-)
I had my first driving lesson last night. Steering is easy but pressing the pedals the opposite way to each other carefully or forcefully depending on what you're trying to do is difficult. I was fine on the road but once it was over and I got out of the car I got a bit shaky. It was fun, though.
Ways of Working 2 was excellent.
Favourite audience question of the day (paraphrased):
"If you find a way for artists to legally copy other people's work, won't they just find something else transgressive to do?"
Even better than the presentations was meeting people. I've never been asked "Are you the Rob Myers..." before, so having the experience a couple of times on the same day was cool. :-)
Favourite comment from someone I met (paraphrased):
"I thought you'd be a grumpy old professor [...] like Brian Sewell."
Fortunately not. :-)
Cool links:
http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/HomePage
http://www.copy-art.net/
http://creativecommons.org/worldwide/uk/
http://www.britishcouncil.org/
http://www.artquest.org.uk/artlaw/
Favourite audience question of the day (paraphrased):
"If you find a way for artists to legally copy other people's work, won't they just find something else transgressive to do?"
Even better than the presentations was meeting people. I've never been asked "Are you the Rob Myers..." before, so having the experience a couple of times on the same day was cool. :-)
Favourite comment from someone I met (paraphrased):
"I thought you'd be a grumpy old professor [...] like Brian Sewell."
Fortunately not. :-)
Cool links:
http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/HomePage
http://www.copy-art.net/
http://creativecommons.org/worldwide/uk/
http://www.britishcouncil.org/
http://www.artquest.org.uk/artlaw/
I did a personality test. Apparently I'm a "Social Philosopher"...
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