using tilt-shift photography you can quite effectively create a picture that renders its contents to look like a manmade miniature. the strangest thing...




-taken from a really nice japanese photography blog, found via boing boing.

Common Results: strange phone numbers in your book, splitting headache, spilt red-wine, and periodic memory loss.

just kidding, this post is actually "Quote of the Day," but i thought it was such i funny title (so indicative of the period from whence it was named- cmon, who goes to "cocktail parties" anymore?) that i had to pun on it. sorry about that.

"Perceptually there appears to be little or no basis for polymeter as research shows that listeners either extract a composite pattern that is fit to a metric framework or focus on one rhythmic stream while treating others as "noise". This upholds the tenet that "the figure-ground dichotomy is fundamental to all perception" (Boring 1942, p.253). (London 2004, p.49-50)"

basically, this means that, if the music gets too complex, we lose perception of it, and instead hear just noise.

-from the wikipedia deffinition of "Metre (music)", one of two deffinitions that i accidently discovered reference Meshuggah as key examples - Polyrythm and Polymetre.

indeed, this post will aim to encompass the pass times of northwestern law students, bukowskis alcohol drenched idealism, and the largely errant career of matt dillon.
--

"do the three largely envelope eachother?" being the singed comment on all the razor-tongued critics of the day.

No. No they do not. mostly.

Dillon- a name chosen to asymetrically mirror one of his personal heroes- gives us a wonderfully constipated, rhythmicly retarded, potentially unrealised realization of whatever Mr. B originally intended to imbue for the character of Mr. Henry "Hank" Chinaski, a role originally played by Mickey Rourke in the 1987 release "Barfly".

an openingly comedic study on nihilism, this favoured character of Mr. B- his penned autobiographical representation- leads us on in a semi-pretentious and wholy pointless journey through the day to day banality of the average losers life style. but a loser with an 140 proof voice, so deftly able to describe and decry that and those about.

fascinating, then, that this self-focused interest of Mr. B's would lead him to describe a character that had not yet begun his writ-based fame, yet was simultaneously the ironic star of 4 of his heavilly published novels.
--

"alcohol becomes them."

it is my belief that those whose cranial capacities bend definitively beyond the average, tend towards those chemically enhanced emotitional states provided, because those naturally allowed plainly do no suffice, under the normal conditions. sadly, it would be the most commonly socially valued types that suffer the resultive downfall- jimi hendrix, janis joplin, head mitchberd, and chris farley- yet the classical condition remains just that, but of a larger concern; of a much broader reach, so to speak.

the tendancy to be an alcoholic reaches beyond the frat based parties of so many greek clubs and college revalries; effectively, it touches those of us who actively choose to disown this awareness so inate, and instead accept and embrace a moment of pure ignorance.

in that moment, we can find peace.
--

the movie is called "factotum" and is playing in lots of theaters. strangely, it would seem a global epidemic that theaters with 1 screen have vastly more selection than those bragging 18.

"I think they're misusing the copyright laws, which were designed to be used more as a shield than a sword."

-Charles Lee Mudd Jr. This Chicago attorney has defended more than 100 consumers who have been sued by the RIAA. The quote was in response to a RECORD companies move to appose the RIAA's seemingly incongruous moves to sue its memberships fan base.

ive often thought that a developed sense of humor made lots of people better to look at. and ive always thought that meshuggah had a good sense of humor about the relative comedic schlock that most heavy metal bands pass off as "their look" or "their wat of life."

heres the proof. the whole band is playing airguitar, accept for the drummer who is playing air-drums and the singer, who is singing into a bic pen. where talking sunglasses on at night. were talking hair for days.

were talking awesome.

wholly crap.

you need to check out this band. not in a minute, not tomorrow. right now.

they are so unreal amazing, its just fabulous; everyone in the band is fat, except the lead singer, but hes bald so that makes up for it. cept where he does have hair, hes sprouted 3 feet dreads, so its like this screaming dude whos half bob marley, half jean-luc picard. and they never show him actually playing guitar... or really, they never really show any one else really doing anthing on guitar or bass other than head bang, standing all cool like, or doing some generic quick wrist flick action that somehow translates to notes and call it a band.

i have a hard time accepting they are real... its just amazing...

click here to see the video.google findings.

i purchased euclid- my second of three networked, and thus named, computers- about 3 years ago. well 2 and 1/2. euclids purchase came at a strangely coincidental overlap between need and want. i wanted an apple. janus died the death of a thousand motherboards, and needed to be replaced. (as time progressed, janus would sporadically came back life, sputtering a bit, winding up, only to crash again mere moments later. she felt like the car you have parked on blocks next to your house; the proverbial "someday" project, to be tinkered on here and there.) since ive ever known computers, ive known desktops. large overweight cream-colored beasts, with the all to familiar hum, whirs and rattles. when euclid arrived, i half tried to break into its laptop-set of features, but really fell victim to my schooling. it soon took up a permanant place on my desk, with its accessories growning and their positions decided as well. it became a hassle to transport it simply because the second monitor, the mouse, the external hd, the sound jack, and ipod all had to be disconnected (and thus reconnected) so that i could take notes directly to file during class.

this all changed sorta, when i moved to brunel.

as one might when moving accross the world (or at least beyond driving distance), you sell everything you have, measure whats left, cut that in half, and sell again. as was the case when euclid first arrived in my life, laptops were not ubiquitous, so appearing with one was a sort of showy "look at my new mustang" move, associated more with the jock idiot types. luckily now, that has changed. laptops are common enough here that i can produce mine, and blend in. i like that. but my value for this machine goes beyond just portability. in a large way, it has to do with its shear size. heres this thing that, really, i use in almost every aspect of my daily life except for hygene. i get recipes from the net to cook better food, i put on nice music to lull me to sleep, i watch movies and downloaded family guy episodes to relax, i read the news to stay aware, i check posings for housing possibillities, i talk with my friends via im and email, i practice guitar via garageband, i procure income via programs like pshop, illustrator and dreamweaver, i read about music to learn about new and intersting bands, while purchasing bicycle and guitar parts on ebay to keep my hands busy. and its so small and quiet.

the pleasure involved with this machine leads me beleive that either laptops are the way of the future, or computers in general are going to get smaller.

below is a picture of my desk area taken a few weeks ago, when it occured to me that- at the time- i liked what my desk had to offer...

click the title to find out!

this ones for marcosi...

bethnal green has a number things going for it: some banksy activity, a street named "brick lane" full of indian food, a strangely uber-hip out of place side street, more hipsters than you can shake a fist at and tons of used gear / retro shops. i discovered all this on saterday, and took two shots to prove it.



in the building that is the majority of shot one is this SUPER random used gear / flea market that this one japanese dude that looks like he magically came to life from the pages of some eccentric japanese fashion mag, runs. only the whole place looks just like him. and it smells of 100 years of unfresh cellar air. the place sells pretty much anything they think they can sell. the nicest thing i found was a circa 2000 flat screen crt apple monitor, but they had tons of shoes, jackets, couches, tables, tools, long dead answering machines, old tv's, parts of beds, 50+ beat ass bicycles (im assuming hot), old records, used magazines, used books, probly a few rats and 1 traffic light (the dangly green-yellow-red kind). in short,

awesome.




down this out-of-place steet (shot two) was this funny little outdoor barbeque that looked like where the actors eat when off set from the shoot of "hipster city" or someother ficticious concentration of lopsided hair and holey flat soled shoes. oddly enough this street had all these rediculoid expensive stores, with £200 jeans and one off nike shoes, adjacent to hippy retaurants boasting "home made" cookies with "all natural" ingredients. it felt very similar to haight, but with the homeless weeded out and all the crap stores gone.

i will return.

if you click on the title you should be taken to my (my)space where you can see what ive done. the story is that ive been hacking away at this ridiculous project management assignment and doing graphics as catharsis throughout. i noticed my chimera was looking me in the face two days ago (it sits directly above my laptop on the desk) and i turned it on, made a face and took the shot. to the right is the initial pshop version.

then i gave a new color palate, started layering the facial portion, and trying to re-utilize the negative space, whilst clumsilly stumbling along... i got to 'enh.'

then i assigned it as my background on myspace, then accidently realized that even if you delete a photo from your personal photo collection, it still remains on their server. now it MAY be that in due time, they will purge those marked for deletion, but for now im hosting my image on their site. (this is a releif after numerous failed attempts at sourcing photos from all over the place; first it was images.yahoo... but they have dynamic address so that plain just didnt work... then i tried sending it to myself via gmail, but they just wont let myspace servers in.)

then i became compelled to clean up the obviously tiled image im my (my)space background. after searching and running through a few tiling 'how to's' i basically figured out that, although procedurially differnt, the results ended the same.

the concept is that you need to move the images boundaries to the center of the image, so that you can freely edit accross them then, effectively "hiding" them. the following is the walk through. if you are so compelled, i recomend trying it... to figure this next part out was actually a challenge to me; after i posted it i thought "wow. that was actually HARD." i was/am stoked.

1) any graphic will do, must be a rectangle. mine was black and white, so this kept complexity down, although those who are "ballson" can go deep into whatever...

note* youll notice that the main portion of my graphic has self contained content; the shoulders and the top of the hair are the only edge-breaching elements, so that sliding the face arround (next step) was easier...

2) working with a copy of whatever image your using (incase we have massive crash action), go to filter > other > offset. click "wrap arround." it doesnt matter what amount (of pixels) you chose as long as its a significant portion of the image (say, 33 - 50%) and you remember them. this effectively places your edge seems within editable distance from the edge. BUT! remember to still stay away from the edges; any stroke you do now that touches an edge will show up again when you recenter the image.

3) now that your image is looking alot more abstract that at first, start dealing with the edges. in my image, its the squiggly hairy-armpit lookin areas that are cover ups for hard seems. i just tried this with a complex image (of me in a pub) and the result is lots of cloning-tool turned abstract weirdness. once the first round of edges are dealt with, move the image at least one more time to reveal any edges you hadnt noticed before. (to keep track of all this image moving, i initally moved the image down and over 50%, then on the second move up and back 25%, leaving me with a predictable amount to finally correct for).


i suspect that a rigid methodology could be constructed for creating really nice and smoothly tiled images WITHOUT wastefull use of the clone tool and probably WITH layers, creating a nice interwoven effect... someday...

the last one is what the complex tiled image looks like. basically, its ugly. the clone tool shows, and its fairly clear where the edges WERE. but you can see how the process works...

"Fact-checking on the Web is: you put up something on the Web and if it's wrong, somebody e-mails you and tells you it's wrong, and you put something up saying, 'It's wrong.' " - David Lat.

Author of 'Underneath Their Robes'- an irreverent blog about the nations judges, penned while working in their offices- Mr. Lat has been the suject of a New Yorker article, a guest on Charlie Rose and is currently the Senior Editor at Wonkette.com.

while getting the back story down for the last post (mutatis mutandis), i became enthralled by the interwoven lives and plots enthroned by one dude- the real omnipotent force, stan lee. i basically started with the Xmen deffinition as put forth by wikipedia and read, and read, and read some more about nouns (people, places and things) i didnt know about. let alone CONVOLUTED plot twists and grandfather paradoxes, cloning, genetic resemblance and the greek alphabet.

all in all, i must say, the most fascinating (and well orchestrated plot line) story would be the twin lineage's of the Summers' and the Richards.' the leading males, respectively, are Cyclops and Mister Fantastic. from these 2 males and at least 3 wives (and 4 forms of Jean Grey), are spawned at least 9 relatives (some of which are siblings or forefathers, introduced later for their back story.) i was just about to try to give the reader a recap of all these people, but in doing so, i discovered more relatives and had to bump up the relative count (to 9). therefore, i suggest you do the digging.

interesting note: both males bore offspring that later took the codename "marvel girl," which would mean that hyperstorm has a "marvel girl" as an aunt on both sides.

notable bad dudes & dudettes involved (genetically or non)

apocalypse
stryfe
mister sinister
madelyne pryor
emma frost
sentinals
magneto (i know, its obvious. shut up.)
hyperstorm
selene
the shi'ar
galactus.

the phrase of the week.

mutatis mutandis has appeared twice in my short life, and supprizingly both in cartoons. it literally translates as "that having been changed which had to be changed", while its modernized form is a bit more accessible: "with the necessary changes". initially used as the moto for Xaviers School for Gifted Youngsters (thats X-men lore, if you dont know), the term also appeared in an Aeon Flux episode called "purge", while Trevor Goodchild is explaining his motivation for "righting wrongdoers." this makes me wonder if Peter Chung- animator and creator of aeon flux- is giving his quiet form of a Hi-Five to Stan lee...

the first one that i can think of (of the existing posts) this is to be the inaugural 'i remember' piece. as i listen to absent with out leave 1, it brings me back to banana hands' over hyping of the shapeshifters appearing in sf. the whole event would transpire at elbow room, an old haunt of mine and a funny place to see people of a respectable nature (as compared to the crap acts that normally filled the gaps in their bill). the pre party started officially in b-hands' room with some shitty beer, while kirkistan and b-hands tried enphatically to express just how awesome the following show was to be. there was a video played of 'circuit city, then the song- of much higher fidelity, which drew simon out of his room beckoning "oh yeah, i like this song! this song is sick!"

by the time the show had started, maybe 30-50 people had peppered the show floor, with simon, grab, b-hands and kirkistan holding close to the stage, if not the whole front of the stage it self... the rest gets hazy as i enjoyed the simultanaety of the group surging to the beat, and my friends surging back... i THINK that some b-boys instigated a break ring where, upon my prompting, grab slid/floated in and showed all these player punks what was really happening...

good times.. i must say

an old punk rock roost, camden town offers many cheap thrills; piercing shops, tattoo parlors, fake leather emporiums and crappy weed pipe stores. beyond that, they also boast a somewhat stagnant punk rock scene, and consequent slight-hipster scene. oh and 1 tube stop. tonights events involve the later. yemi was a character that initially approached my parents in budapest, asking for a picture of him and the surroundings; my parents (the quickfooted thinkers they are) deftly passed on the task to me, a like-aged fellow, so that we might bond and have something in common to talk about. (thankfully, this technique was similarly employed when two american hotties requested of them, similar.) any who, it turned out that yemi and i both lived in london town and, as we later decided, should hang out some time. your anticipation of that some time being today is correct. we did normal things, talked of girls, discussed musical editing techniques on cakewalk and generally had a good time. on the way to where the roads split, we passed this shiny reflective ball thing and i took this shot.

the man behind at least 4 venetian snares album covers sent me this (and, im assuming, everyone else thats ever bought something from him) for the new year.

its so sweet of him!

ps. heres some factoids that i just cant live without:

funk is a real name, and is a prominant name in canadia, where hes from. i was told this by 2nd cousin once removed's best friends neighbors wife, who has Funks as 3rd cousins.

he has a new album comming out called "Cavalcade of Glee and Dadaist Happy Hardcore Pom Poms"

over new years i think i broke my foot. it hurts now, and it has been. my flatmate jason says we break various bones in our feet all the time, but they heal while were none the wiser. heres what i learned:

1. calcaneus;
2. talus;
3. navicular;
4. medial cuneiform;
5. middle cuneiform;
6. lateral cuneiform;
7. cuboid.
8. first metatarsal;
9. second metatarsal;
10. third metatarsal;
11. fourth metatarsal;
12. fifth metatarsal;
13 - 26. phalanges'

i just got back from the local mini-mart for a beer run, and i started wondering if i turned off my little blinky light thing. i checked (it was off), took it off a loop from the exterior of my timbuk2 bag and tossed it into one of its pockets. upon second though, i reexamined the bags contents and thought about the nature of why i bring all these funny little things with me all the time. i suspect its largely to do with my boyscout upbringing, where the moto is "be prepared"- although i bet i learnt best from forgetting, not preparing.

it then occured to me that a documentation of ones (well, my) bags contents would make for a good peice. not to mention that the man-purse faces wide adoption amongst many urban bound youths and post-youths, where the practicality of being prepared hours from home can pay off in spades. it is also worth while to note that the contents of the bag vary per required journey, but not by much. here we go:

Neccesary Evils:

• 1) Deodorant. never leaves the bag, save for me' pits. good for school, cuz i never think to put it on before class.


• 2) 2 pens. im always drawing on things and descibing things, and losing pens, so i have 2 for when i only have 1, ill still have 1 left.


• 3) A small treasure of paper. mostly reciepts, some virgin pieces; this is good for the drawings.


• 4) Tube Map. the only way i know the city, and the only way 90% of its inhabitants do.


• 5) Blinky light thing. good for at night, and when riding a bycycle.


• 6) Small assortment of Pills. normal ones like Ibuprofen, Tylenol and Benadryl are lifesavers. used to also have antihangover pills but, uh, i used those.


• 7) Extra Contacts. the ones that my eyes have like to jump out when they feel like it, and one time i had to drive from LA to SF with just one contact BECAUSE i wasnt prepared.


• 8) Eye Juice, Miniature bottle. about the size of a regular eye dropper bottle, shes a life saver.


• 9) Toothbrush. obvious.


• 10) Ear PLugs. For when things get loud, like an unplanned night at a rock show, or drunk horny neighbors.


• 11) Flash Drive. so ill ALLWAYS have a copy of my passport on me, plus some extra space for random files from friends or school or something... and it plays mp3s too, or it sorta does... but phil broke it.


• 12) Pocket full of Change. ESPECIALLY usefull in the UK, change is a common means of payment. they dont issue single £1 notes, only coins. good for that random beer, a coffee, laundry and that late night ride home you werent anticipating.


• 13) My Chimera. Good to have about just for that random thing you need to photograph, i dont know.


• 14) Beanie. for when your head is cold- although usually its on my head allready.

Secondary Evils, Riding:

• 1) Gloves. while the rest of you is warming up, these parts arent. its worth it.


• 2) Bike Pump.


• 3) Bike Lock.


• 4) Second Outer Layer. usually a rain layer.

Secondary Evils, Central:

• 1) Book. Mostly used during to-central-and-back trips, where youve got upwards of 3 hours collective of sitting downtime.


• 2) Gloves. Although your walking about, they body still doesnt think to keep these parts working good.


• 3) Scarf. It only takes once to wish you allways had one of these.


• 4) Second Outer Layer. it might be a rain layer, but usually its a a heavier wool thing for long walking at night.


• 5) Sunglasses. Much more usefull in a land where theres sun, but coming home from central with a mean hangover the next day is a perfectly good time to use them.

These lists are meant to exclude two key groups: weekend travel gear (like a set of clothes), and random contents that normally dont live there; beer, food, laptop, keys wallet n cellphone, small variety of womens negligee, and random purchases of the day. if you own a man-purse / urban warrior armory kit, and you have an opinion or see a glaring issue, please feel free to email me! i want to get this one right.

cheers. c money

ever since sandisk came out with its little hinged wonder, every other computer gizmo maker thought "holly hell! lets capitalize on this!"

so some japanese devils figured out one cute little application, the iDisk Diamond. i want one. i wonder when dongles are going to become fingernail size as well?