Probably more television than I’ve watched for the past year combined. Hit that mute button now to end noisy vibrations penetrating my inner cortex. It has been a big week, a strange week, and I’ve been laying low, flying high, I can’t decide; a vagrant heart.
Home it seems doesn’t feel as its name would suggest. So I’ve been the wanderer, the seeker, the midnight drifter, up and down this old town. Currently commandeering control of a friend’s slavish computer, whose master is half the world away, following the heart, or something similar.
Not much to report that hasn’t already been broadcast through alternative means, or that which lies lock-safe within. I need to write more, but sometimes it is what you don’t write… who am I kidding? The days take control, and the daze takes control.
In my head there is a future brewing, vying for evolutionary equilibrium… strange… attraction.
While taking a forced break from recording due to unforeseen software issues, I decided to turn my hand to the other side of band life, the organisation and chaos.
Updating The Strange Attractors on Last.fm there was a little notice saying that they are now going to start paying royalties for music played on Last.fm. I signed up immediately, although I think I’m going to have to expand my catalogue a little beyond the three demo tracks before any real revenue starts streaming in. Dreams of a new music label are still unevolved in the mind, but they’re getting there.
With the music economy in a wave of confusion, this is a major step in the right direction.
Good to see some regular comment coming in to this relatively new blog, but…
Check out the comments to this article (or leave one if you are the first one) and you will see that next to the comment will be a groovy little image. This will more than likely be of a grey anonymous head at the moment, but it doesn’t have to be this way…
WordPress now comes with Gravatar support built in. So head on over, sign up, and upload your pic and use your avatar associated with your email address on loads of different websites around the web.
Here is my current gravatar pulled from the Gravatar site (probably due for a change soon maybe):
You’ll also be able to grab the URI for a direct link to your image, which can be handy at times. It will look something like this:
Verse:
Lennon prayed we’d join him some day
Imagining a better way,
But it seems we’ve got a long long way to go.
If heaven is a magic pie
Waiting for us to pass it by,
Imagine if we all believed in you.
Bridge:
Because I feel, the way you do,
And I need you, to be there too.
Cause now I feel, the way you do.
And in your head, you know I’m talking to you.
Verse:
Hey John sing me a song.
I need to hear, It Won’t Be Long,
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Cause I am he, but she’s not free
To go on living eternally,
Just like the time you saw her standing there.
Bridge:
Because I feel, the way you do,
And I need you, to be there too.
Cause now I feel, the way you do.
I’m in your head, and yes I’m talking to you.
Outro:
Na, na na
Na, na na
Na, na na
Na, na na na
Join us.
Na, na na
Na, na na
Na, na na
Na, na na na
May need a touch more work. Will get to that later.
Like fish in the pond, only moderately aware of the mysterious goings on just above the surface we all solemnly swim. In the blinding light of the unknown, the complexities of human drama, emotion, aspirations, expectations, hopes and dreams, loves and passions, the fish swim blissfully unaware, day in and day out. They live out their lives and serve the perpetuation of their kind as though they are the centre of their little universe, and they marvel at their ingenuity, while looking to the stars.
“It’s not especially private, but I still don’t want you reading it.” — My brain, Me
Yesterday I dug up the GNU Privacy Guard email encryption software again, inspired by a recent wave of news about the possibility of employers being commissioned by the Australian government to monitor our emails, the old take the people’s liberties by saying you’re protecting them from ‘terrorist threats’ trick. O what insult to intelligence. My only assumption on their reason for going to the public for help in cyber-snooping is that they are too incompetent to be ‘up for the job’ themselves — if you know what I mean.
I’m unsure of what we the people have demanded in regards to secrecy of correspondence in this country. It seems, from these articles, that email spying by government agencies is just fine and dandy, but for employers it would seem to be illegal, which personally I find to be a little back to front. Perhaps it is strange to think that the government should stay out of privacy for the main part, to hold the that government be restricted in passing any law denying free access to any information, to put privacy not in the hands of any bumbling third party, but in the power of he who values it most, the individual.
I think you’ll find that although I’m not an especially private person, I do respect privacy, and am vehemently against forceful invasion of privacy, particularly by government organisations, or dangerous cults. Working the machines in an office though, I can divulge that it is extremely easy to track electronic correspondence and especially email, though I think the person I’d keep an eye on is the IT guy and not the company administrators, who most likely wouldn’t have a clue. So to those concerned about their own privacy, don’t rely on ineffectual totalitarian control — which doesn’t work from what I can tell anyway — and take your privacy into your own hands.
That’s my little rant over anyway. This post is really just about the creation of a contact details page that I made. Included on that page is my PGP Public Key so that anyone can encrypt an email to me and it would take anyone else about a hundred million years to crack. Also, if anyone does have a public key, could they send it to me, or leave it in the comments here, so I can add it to my keyring.
Human contact is a valuable thing in this age on inhumanism.
“Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and uncertain I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding forbidden ground, as you did just now, I may still say that on the constancy of one person (naming no person) all my expectations depend. And at the best, how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely what they are!”
This dialogue of Pip’s struck me, scanning my eyes over it once more on lunch down at the sushi bar. That it would strike me so is yet another matter to ponder. Identification, as it exists between reader and subject is most certainly beneficial to the survival of a story. This very reposting is testament.
Infefinity, as opposed to indefiniteness, I would define as the state of being presented with a plenitude of potential outcomes, bombarded by choice and chance, so as to make any certain action or decision a virtual impossibility. Some would say the word is in regard to something vague or poorly defined, nearing the indefinite. Fair enough. I’m sticking with my definition as well though.
I do sometimes miss the good old days, days still early in the evolution of the consumer camera. A trip to the corner shop for a roll of film, loading it up and away you went with 24 or 36 chances to achieve perfect momentary photon capture. No instant review for the impatient snapper, and no willy-nilly shots aided into existence by the thought of a quick and easy delete. Wind and snap, wind and snap ’till the film’s exposed its last, then it’s off to the shop for development and the waiting game begins. The feeling you used to get when you got to see your photos for the first time was hard to top.
There is no question that digital cameras have revolutionised photography in the hands of the people, but in some ways it has also reduced the value and merit in hitting that shutter button. We’ve become a global community of trigger happy snappers, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but as I said before, I do sometimes miss the good old days.
So I propose a new feature for the digital camera, a feature I thought of when trying to deflect the volleys of “can I see it?”s and “let us have a look”s, not so much a feature but a way to alter the photographic experience, an emulation of the way things were back in the days of film. It would simply be a new mode that could be activated.
Film mode could include:
A limit to the number of shots available, thus making the photographer think about each shot taken.
No review available after an exposure, and no way to review shots until all the shots are used up. This could be handy if you’re sick of having to show people the photo after every shot.
Limits to the automatic focus and shutter speed could be optional.
For the real hardcore types the photos could be encrypted in a way that only photo print shops could decode, forcing you to get them all developed in one go.
Ok, I’ll see if I can think of some more and add them. And yes, I’m aware of the seeming silliness of placing such restrictions on cameras capable of so much more. It is meant to be a little tongue-in-cheek.
Optional “film mode” on a new digital camera design could be a handy marketing gimmick though. I’d buy one, or maybe I should just dig out my old 35mm right now.
Just because you can, doesn’t always mean you should.
Flickr’s incorporation of video within their site was quite a shock and surprise. Will be interesting to see if their experiment will be a success. Glad to see it being pushed not as a simple YouTube rival, but as a creative outlet for what they term a “long photo”, up to 90 seconds, an attempt to get people thinking about their videos. Skepticism is creeping in though.
Personally I think they should have avoided the word “video” altogether, keeping their site just about photos and “moving photos”, because now all through the site they’ve had to append “and videos” throughout.
I naturally wanted to try it out for myself so during lunch I went out to the pond and took a minute thirty of the fishies swimming around. Ashley and Mick came out and wondered what the hell I was doing. That’s the reason I took out the sound. I uploaded it at full quality, just over 100 MB, but it took almost all day due to it cutting out in the middle the first three tries, no resume feature. I’ll compress more next time and resize to 500 x 375 I think.
Sit back and enjoy anyway… for 90 seconds worth of motion photo gold.
A preemptive effort at playing reverse fashion victim. The attractive boys have a little preview show down at Barsoma next Thursday. Even though it’s not their own show, best there be a decent breed of flyer to deliver into the hands of the people.
A good chance to hone some design skills with ill conceived ideas of criticism deflection and sensual suggestiveness. Sent out into the network ether just yesterday asking what people thought, and already some responses have rolled in.
Some favourites include:
“I think it’s hot!” –Ben
“Mmm… lollipop. It’s amazing how as innocent as lollipops can be so saucy. I like it.” –Jimi
“Hot… I need a moment…” –Leesa
“A very interesting look Josh, perhaps an unfinished symphony…?” –Jim
“That’s hot! …really like this one Josh. It’s an enticing look for your show & maybe time for me to get off my butt and come along…” –Stacey
“Its cool dude, I like your image! Type is in good place too.” –Kadir
“i dig. it’s stylish and funky, with a little bit of “we’re sexy” thrown in there.” –Nara
“Hi Josh, That’s really cool. The colours are awesome – really different to stuff you normally see in the Valley. It will really stand out.” –Danika
“Heh, sweet. Looks cool man.” –Maggie
That’s about it for now. It’s 3:20am and I have work tomorrow… Nite.
