http://formtroopers.com/ beautiful visualization based loosely on bubble gum
Hey everyone I am going to try hard and pick back up with my life now that school is done! I wanted to post some links to images from the final exhibit since I just got them. I did my final thesis work on interaction design, the cyborgian state of our existence and socio-techno interaction in daily [...]
Last night at makerlab we were talking about dating sites a bit - commenting on how strange it was that they didn't leverage social networks. For fun today I threw a fun idea together as a test of how to make dating more social. It isn't terribly serious but perhaps amusing. I like to combine talk with praxis. Here it is:
Hey all, So I have not been posting quite as much as I would like to these days because I have been spending all of my time working on my final paper for school. I would love to say that I had something extra special to post here but I don’t. Instead I will post some exceprts [...]
Musical Masterpiece :: Downtown Librarian plays Uptempo Soul and African Funk Friends - This weekend, if you find yourself near: Valentine’s [232 SW Ankeny PDX] Friday 1/23 Tiga [1465 NE Prescott PDX] Saturday 1/24 Drop in and have a drink. Matthew Yake will be spinning records 9pm - Close at both locations. He was kind enough to send me this Youtube Video [...]
Coming In From The Cold: Towards the Demarginalization of Creative Practice The Artistic Method: Self Reflexivity In Socially Activated Art Gary Wiseman at IGLOO Gallery December 2008 ‘The creative individual, previously known as ‘Artist’ has an unprecedented opportunity to step out of the margins of society into the mainstream. This creative individual may choose to use his/her creative, [...]
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Whatever happened to Stereoscopic Video anyway?
Whatever happened. Well, let us think seriously about this. Some things move on. Value is fleeting in a liquid environment like this.
Technology has been the most liquid of all stages of societal development.
Cross your eyes so that the two middle images become three, and then kind of watch the middle. Or you can use stereoscopic glasses.
Ciao.
Join Us for a Candy Factory Tour! from Amber Case on Vimeo.
While driving around Denver, Colorado, my family and I saw a sign for a free candy factory tour. We called the number to get the address and arrived a half hour later.
However, it was Christmas eve, and there were no tours happening anymore.
But the owner saw our faces and took us on a behind-the scenes tour where he showed us all kinds of cool equiptment and let us sample secret candy they’ve been working on at the factory.
See the post that goes along with this video.
A Story about a Robot and his Dog (and a Duplication Machine) from Amber Case on Vimeo.
What’s one to do when snow attacks your current place of residence, disallowing a flight back home? There’s only one thing a person like me can do — make stop-motion animation!
Warning: Contains violence, terror, and futuristic epicness.
Soccer Playing Dog Found in Southern Oregon from Amber Case on Vimeo.
Salem Ore - Ticket, a soccer playing dog, was last seen near an elementary school in a cozy hidden neighborhood. Ticket’s owner, Xali Poppystone, reported that her dog had just “picked up the sport one day at the dog park”.
“I threw him the ball one day and he ran with it and never looked back”, Poppystone said, “and all of the folks at the dog park kept asking me how the heck I trained her to do it.”
When asked if Poppystone planned on extending the dog’s capability to make goals, she shook her head. “I’m sure it will come in time, but I’m just going to let her have fun”.
Briar-Gate, 8, was seen playing with the dog during Thanksgiving weekend. The pair seemed to be teaching each other new tricks.
Ticket is part Rat-Terrier, and part Chihuahua.
Anslem makes a Frankenstein from Amber Case on Vimeo.
We were supposed to be making Tamales!! Did it work? NO! Well — kind of. Here is something great to watch that tastes better than tamales.
Posted on 17 June 2009
http://formtroopers.com/ beautiful visualization based loosely on bubble gum
Posted on 20 May 2009
Geek warning: This post is a bit of a total geek out but in any case here’s a bit of code that some of you might find useful. For the rest of youzes here is a pretty picture:

Yesterday I ended up writing a small piece of code to determine what timezone code a person is in. This was not as trivial as it sounds.
In fact it was a learning experience about how complex our organization of time is - living on a sphere and all. Timezone maps are not country maps, in fact time-zone maps are a complicated politic cleaving apart regions that have a minimum number of people - like some kind of crazy voronoi diagram of clusters of human populations. Country boundaries play a strong role, but timezones are more like a mold that has grown over the existing history of a landscape. Alberta has a time zone that juts into Saskatchewan just to capture one town. Argentina slices timezones horizontally towards the South Pole to conserve sunlight for farmers. Chile doesn’t give a damn and puts all of Chile in one gigantic vertical strip of a timezone - so that in the winter it is dark at 6:00 in Santiago but sunny at 6:00 in Tierra Del Fuego. In other places of the world things like small islands show up more clearly than in country maps because each island tends to be a well defined separation of human populations and thus a good opportunity to have a single time zone code. A lost history is left traced in palimpsests here of residual boundaries.
If you look at the zoneinfo article on Wikipedia you can get a sense of what is going on here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoneinfo
The backstory is that the OpenBSD folks wanted help to automate configuration of timezones for installs. What we did was take the geolocation of their IP and use it to look up a timezone code.
There are 27000+ polygonal boundaries that make up the timezones. And there an odd 370+ timezones including all the various cases.
The goals were:
I did fix one bug which was that in asking MapServer to spit out .png files it was palettizing the colors into an 8 bit deep image - whereas I needed 9 bits… So I had to ask mapserver to print out a tiff. If you see any other bugs….
Here are the source files in any case:
You can build it by typing
gcc timezones.c
And you can test it running with a longitude, latitude pair - for example:
./a.out -114 53
Which should return to you a string showing the time zone you are in.
The way it works is that I read in a timezone shape file from this place
http://koordinates.com/layer/751-world-time-zones/
This was piped to the following program:
http://civicmaps.org/maps/layers.rb
Which instructed my mapserver to generate a special kind of cloropleth map - which can be seen here ( but don’t bother because it chews my machine ) :
http://civicmaps_dontbother.org/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=/www/sites/civicmaps.org/maps/x.map&service=WMS&WMTVER=1.0.0&REQUEST=map&SRS=EPSG:4326&LAYERS=lowboundaries0&FORMAT=image/png&STYLES=&WIDTH=2048&HEIGHT=1024&BBOX=-180,-90,180,90
This data file can now be used as a bitmapped query interface for discovery of unique time zone codes as done above - or as done in ruby here :
http://civicmaps.org/maps/longlat.rb
You need ImageMagick installed.
If you wish, you can convert the image into a ppm file or something and embed it directly in the C program. Or memory map it and have a query gateway to it… that would be fastest.
Posted on 16 May 2009
Yes/No.
Yes/No.
Yes/No.
Yes/No.
________.
A while back, a little survey was pasted onto the Internet. It asked various site visitors certain questions, and then stored the answers in a database. Below are the results of the surveys over a period of many years. You can add your own answers to the survey at “Wonderland Products | Your Void is Our Workspace“.
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| electroencelfloresys — high definition tv — breast implants imploding — Intel MMX — organic circuitry — organic circuitry — not understanding it — cloning — cloning — cloning — – — definitely cloning, as well as vaccines — none — television, novicane, mass production, plastic flowers — weapons — li++gh — li++ght bulbs, medicine — most of them… — – none — animals that are given human growth genes — the ones that make death so easy — implants — Blow up dolls — missels — artificial intellighence — isolation and extermination of the queer gene– — human genome project — most of them — invasion of privacy — – cloning — cloning — speed — high tech weaponry — fat removal systems — cloning — java — all of them — language about language — “The Wheel” — inline skates — chemicals biological warfare — becoming too stagnant — WebTV — genetic engineering — – genetically altered fruits & vegetables — – nothing — surveillance — intelligent bomb devices — – genetic technology — stuff thats broken — – Any technology that makes advertising closer to me — Deep Blue Winning @ Chess — ai — cell division and replication — – olestra — – That I am Vice President of a software company and yet cannot understand MS Word. — postings of first and last names on the internet — Those that try to get rid of other technologies — – Manifesto technologies (push technology) — cheesecake and rat turds — feeding tubes — cloning — cloneing — info overload — – — Disney is thawing — – — dan’s idea to make our computer room a saline tank — virtual reality — – massive cocks — – stupid people with power — surviellance cameras and clone machines — – — – biology — {Caller ID… food radiation… permanent makeup… stealth missles… undetectable video alteration… new, improved detergents — } — – chemical weapons — computers suck, cars and roads, cities, businessmen, politics, governments, wars, nuclear bombs — Nothing — computers — pushme pullyou — – recording devices — possibility of abuse by those in power — surveillance and detection — mutant cows — virtual vibrators — me — www — – — nothing — CORRUPTNESS — – one’s I’ll be too old to enjoy — gentechniques — evesdropping devices — Animal Cloning — – The Net. It transmits info which may or maynot be factual. It may prove to be too much of a temptation for society to live with. We may not be advanced enough to handle the technology we have created. — – — germ warfare -anything contributing to homogenezation of any species — – Microsoft Wizards — – — government control — webtv — fgdfgdfgdfg — – Big Brother type stuff-surveillance and abuse of information — – human — cloning — theirs — – none — none — nothing we all gunna go sooner or later — internet and websites like this — clo — genetically enginered mosquitoes — clonig — everything — nothing — – Spam — all of the above — – atm machines — the market for personal information — |\\\ — all — guns — – biological weapons — those i don’t understand — cloning — bombs — chips….not doritos. The other micro kind. — the pen — the pen — big brother watching me — technologies impact on the enviroment — – the ignorance of ability — guns — advances that are hidden from me — clone — dna — chemicals — chia pets — cloning — – digital imaging and cloning — – FIRE AND WHEELS — Fact that 90% will adopt it. — penis cloning — genetics — None — anti-porn internet safeguards — – the newest, the latest, better than last year — – you — thought — all of the above — genetics — buttmonkeys — genmanipulation — – control on people will — – — more masterbation — biochemicals — cloning — – …i am technology… — computers — – hmm new cemichal things — rubber boots — human cloning — penile enlargement — computers — computers — none — i don’t know so much that it’s techonology that scares me, I think the thing that gets me is the way that people will use the technology. — this — – — – — – Newt Ginghrig on e-mail — – cloning — bill gates — food science and meat science — the ability to lose myself in technological space — – fine ,thanks — fine ,thanks — none — “mouse overs” — thinternet — nothing — nothing scares me, i am thrilled — guns — alien — – cloning, Kenneth Starr — more precise measurement — the end of relgion or spirituality — cloning — the big world wide web — – — toaters — books — juventen 999 [ multi-dimensional volumetricals ]-[ virii {} service sufi:man ] — the genome project — this web site — – I’m not really scared of technology — headless humans — we are getting to close to eachother — No death — refrigerators — – — everything, information technology — genetic — dates — everything — – html — technology — animals being genetically altered — – — – — none — micro brewed ales — – — – this site — the mind — clones — ladyshavers — virtual reality — no really — the relative lack of speed in advance sucks cause i want a clone — Th advances in logistic systems — Chemical warfare — – — cerbral implants–mind control — gnetic engineering — my own — cameras everywhere…….. aaaaaaaaaaaa! — sex — – slippery things — IA — – — – none — surveilence cameras — – Such Internet-Pages!!! — Demise of communication and thought — sex changes — athomic bomb — None, only that I won’t be around to see them — interactions — genecticly egineered humans I swear that rich people children have been egineered to be highly attractive yet pathetically stupid — bio-fascism — windows nt — weapons — – asdf — cloning,chemical weapons — cloning,chemical weapons — – gene manipulation — none and all — ware — cloning — – I am afraid of the slowness of the advances. What if they don´t find eternal life during my life time - then-I-will… — being unable to pick up a pen and write — – CLONING, TECHNOLOGY THAT ALLOWS US TO NEVER LEAVE THE HOUSE OR USE OUR BODIES — – synthetic communication devices-i.e. pagers and cellphones — – xxxxxxxxxx — dolly — cloning scares the hell out of me lets start a hatchery! — Information which you can not handle. — – — none — – me — – — – brain implants-If the slates to be wiped clean, why not go full throttle andpump me full of nick at nite reruns — torture techniques — making long lines shorter — – — – cloning — nano machines — – cloning — genetic engineering — Manipulation — – nuclear, — brainstorming — wind-up toys — Cloning, Genetic Engineering, The Internet Faithful — dna technology — – genetics — none — – — cloning — biotechnology — – — none — butt plugs — – — this web site — world wide web — genetic cloning — everything — somewhat — none — – Internet — – biology — substitution of people by computers — lies — genetics — ???????? — cloning — juventen 999 [ multi-dimensional volumetricals ]-[ virii {} service sufi:man ] |
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| What is it about HUMAN interaction that makes you most afraid?
that they will know — staring — sex — people — people — people — people — people — people — people — people — body oder — body oder — touching — ? — TOUCHING — kissing — responsibility for their emotions — – telephones — preconceptions of character — touching — comprehension — the ability to reproduce — m i s t a k e s — confession — grabbers — – intrusion — the fact that nobody really understands anybody — My own true intentions, ambition, and motives — eye contact — They want too much attention from MOI — – speech — murder, rape, love — the truth — – That noone will e-mail me at johns@denimsoftware.com — People think I smell like rat turds….as if that’s a bad thing. — reaction — not knowing where you stand….what is next - Vulnerable — having to make small talk — Alien zoo warehousing — that i will say something embarrassing — they talk back — idea of slaughter — nothing — all of the screaming. — love — – being taken advantage of — insincerity — sponteneity — {exposure, public humiliation, torture, sex, commitment, speaking truth} — x — being judged. being misunderstood. the loss of self. the possibility of rejection. the transience of it all. It mightn’t last. — fearexchangements — The ability of others the see the failure within. — an insight into how ugly people can be — fear of alienating others with my odor — duplicity — i am scared of all humans. — I AM NOT AFRAID — boasting — sex — eyes — unpredictability — death — loss of contact through computers — that I will be dismissed for the mere fact that I am young unattractive and “just a girl” — – shaking hands — – conciquenes — we are all the same — being placed down — – ugly people — why are you hurting my feelings? — marrige — moodiness — – Dinner & movie, and sex afterwards. — Relating — – jumping germs — PEOPLE — REALITY — – sex — fear — the distance — the interaction between humans — eyes — Talking (-limelife-) — i am afraid that people are trying to one-up me — risking humanity — – verbal communication with myself — the sex — the touching, the lack of touching, the taste — – rejection. — the other people — rejection — rejection — jerry springer fans. people who get off on the filth of the earth. — – Dan Sadan — people showing me that they think that I am stupid- and people disliking me and showing this very openly — My jokes not being laughed at — that they are driving cars — pollution — judgement of pther people, — thecan see me — Utilitarianism — Arrogance — – they’re laughing at me they hate me — personal contact — lovers — – Canabalism in the outer Atlantic tribes. — – the talking — humiliation — sorrow — how people percieve me — – sex — somebody refusing to pass me the salt — – do not know — – LACK OF INTERACTION WITH A CROSS SECTION OF SOCIETY — – some men cant fuck with a condom on — perfumes — the humans — sex — scaling that dang wall of china that surrounds the soul aura of most two legged sapienzzzzz — self gratification — they want my time — – nothing — the taste of rejection that only others can provide for me — divulgance — chess — – our constant need to lie in order to make people happy — violence — MY FAVORITE PART OF THE DAY IS WHEN I GET TO COME HOME AND ENTER IN ALL OF MY DNA INTO A DECODER. THATS WHAT REALLY MAKES ME TICK. — failure — conformity — eyes — they might touch me — inanity. — pants — germs — – sexual abuse of children — being stopmed on and squished out of the picture — attachment — embarrassment — |
Microsoft, Biological Warfare, Genetic Engineering, Human Cloning, Technology, Breast Implants, Chemical Warfare. These words brought to you by FEAR.