'pedias: Wiki- vs. Encyclo-

I meandered from Digg through some rabbit holes to this Roughtype post on the “amorality” of “Web 2.0” by Nicholas Carr.

This is what I read:

INTERACTIVITY IS TURNING THE INTERNET EVIL! Now Digg my post plz!”

For someone trying to remind us of the “objectivity” of the Web, Carr seems just as hysterical as the ecstatic self-styled e-prophets this article seeks to rebutt.

He also misses the point of Wikipedia as well as overvaluing print materials as a general information source. (I have noticed that one side effect of the era of the Internet and T.V. is that anything with a binding is automatically uncritically revered, but that is a subject for another blogpost.)

Some New Quartz Composer Patches

I wrote a few new patches for Quartz Composer.

MIDI Global Output CC :: This patch, when triggered, outputs a MIDI Custom Controller message on a specified MIDI Channel to all MIDI outputs.

MIDI Global Input CC :: This patch observes a specified MIDI Custom Controller on a specified MIDI Channel, and outputs the Custom Controller Value and a Value-changed trigger. Unlike the “MIDI Controllers” patch that comes with Quartz Composer, this patch doesn’t require the user to manually select the “Observed MIDI Sources” individually for every controller/computer combination - so you’re free to take your composition to a different machine and/or controller and jam without needing to hack the composition.

String With File :: This patch reads a file into a string.

String With URL :: This patch retrieves a URL into a string.

Document Info :: This patch returns some information about the zeroth Cocoa NSDocument.

This release is out-of-date.
Please see the latest version.

Get them here: http://softpixel.com/~smokris/widgets/quartzComposer/kinemePlugins/


Steve Mokris is a developer at Kosada, Inc.

Hidden Quartz Composer Patches Redux

In a famous blogpost from summer 2005, ClockSkew poked around inside Quartz Composer and discovered some fairly-complete-looking patches that aren’t available through the interface. ClockSkew also made a cool patch plugin that made these available through the interface. Unfortunately this plugin was written when Intel Macs didn’t exist, and it isn’t a Universal Binary.

Having myself somewhat of an obscurity-obsession, I decided to investigate how ClockSkew did this, and insodoing discovered a few new hidden patches.

File Under: Apparitions in Unlikely Places

So, a while ago I met the ghost of Hunter S. Thompson in a corn maze. He was chasing some kids around that appeared to be in his care in between muttering things like “This is like a Republican conundrum!”

Today at SIGGRAPH 2006 the phantom of Spalding Gray appeared in front of the booth in which Steve and I are functioning as ornaments. He was wearing 3-D glasses and delivered a short monologue about how he was from a suburb of Ohio. When asked where in Ohio, he said, “Manhattan”.

A moment after he left, Steve realized our mistake in not talking to him so I went after him armed with a DIY ruori sticker (the ruori URL and the words “You are a Winner!” written on a stolen Lufthansa baggage sticker) and explained that he had impressed us with his impromptu performance technique at our booth and after assuring him that I was not selling anything (nor was the website), and – after answering his inquiries about whether I was old enough to be admitted to SIGGRAPH (the minimum age is 16) – I gave him the sticker, accepted his obviously sarcastic thanks and handshake, and retreated, terrified and exhilirated, to the safe boringness of the booth.

the sound of the curtain of erich zann

Several hours into the night in which the door was locked, the curtain of erich zann began producing a most disturbing klanking noise. It was a regular, rhythmic beating – like that of a monstrous dumpster being emptied into a monstrous garbagetruck.

When we arose, we discovered that someone – or something – had unlocked the door in the night.

the curtain of erich zann

Oranienburgerstrasse 38 is a good hotel.

But there is something terribly creepy about the GIANT RED CURTAIN barricading the hallway after room 18.

Whatever lies beyond is clearly some kind of perilous heterotope, but for the mere mortal the curtain holds both the finality and the mystery of an interrobang and the menacing eerieness of the deepest abysmal realms of time.

Tonight we will lock the door.

dreams of interpretation.

M2: It’s funny that you mention mouths appearing where there were not mouths before. It was scary — when I was like, I don’t know, eight, nine, ten years old I had a recurring dream. This LITERALLY lasted for the better part of five or six YEARS, well into my adolescence, and it was always EXACTLY the same, as if were just a TAPE replaying every time.

The WORLD was FILLED with FACELESS CREATURES. Pretty much everything that was… mammalian… uh, was completely and totally FACEless – except these ROUND MOUTHS – perfectly round mouths – would appear from nowhere, generally in the forehead region, just LINED with these RAZOR-SHARP TEETH –

F3: That’s TERRIFYING!

M2:LAMPREY-like.

F3: Yeah, I used to be obsessed with echinoderms because they have creepy little mouths like that.

M2: OH YEAH! And, and, like, the, this dream, like, basically, I was surrounded by these things, and some of them were like, vaguely recognizeable as like, people or creatures or animals that I KNEW throughout my life, and, and, there was no real sense of malice for the first good HALF of the dream; they were just kind of, AROUND. And then they started, like – but they stayed at a relative distance. Then, uh, in, er, uh, the, uh, middle-ish, uh, uh, uh, of the dream, or so, they started, uh, just, getting CLOSER. As I was going through all these different places they’re MUCH, MUCH CLOSER, and these MOUTHS start appearing. And they start coming TOWARD me.

F3: This sounds like the zombies in Zelda.

M2: Wuaouh, UEH, I, uh, maybe. This was BEFORE I ever played Zelda, so, but yeah, crazy-crazy.

But th- uh, the DREAM always ended the SAME WAY; uh, like, this MAN and, we-, uh, he’s in, like, a BOWLER hat, and he’s FACEless. And he takes off the bowler hat-

F3: Magritte! Your whole dream was about Magritte!

M2: Well, yeah, it IS very Magritte in that regard but- well, there’s no apple, but instead of an apple there’s this BIG FUCKING MOUTH, and he just, like, LEANS TOWARDS me, and I close my eyes and scream, and I open my eyes, and I’m on this LITTLE GREEN WOODEN DINGHY on the middle of an OCEAN, like, just, OUT IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE. And my MOM’S DOG, he was-

F3: Dinghy! (Laughs uncontrollably) Sorry!

M2: He was a BELOVED FAMILY PET. His name was Machette – my mom had THREE STANDARD POODLES named Machette. She brought her first one back-

F3: Like “machette”?

M2: Uh, well, uh, yes. FRENCH pronounciation of “like the word ‘machette’ ”.

Uh, she brought it back, uh, in the 1960s when she moved back – she’d been living in Paris and she moved back to the United States. She’d been working, uh, in the US NATO office, and uh, she was good friends with one of the French ambassadors, and when he moved to a new apartment he couldn’t keep his standard poodle, Machette, so he gave it to my mom; my mom kept her for a couple of years, moved back to the states, and she flew Machette back with her. And every time Machette died, she would get a new Machette.

So I always knew a black standard poodle, female, named Machette. This was like a staple… like a pinnacle… like a PILLAR of my CHILDHOOD, like, the ULTIMATE SAFETY, ‘cause there was always a dog named Machette.

And at the end of this dream, I’m in the middle of this OCean, no land in SIGHT, no sun, no clouds, just OMNIDIRECTIONAL LIGHT. And this faceless Machette comes up out of the water, puts both front legs on the edge of the boat, and this BIG MOUTH appears, and I was like WOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!!! and then I wake up.

And I literally had that dream once a month for five years.

Yeah. Fucked up. “Mouths appearing where there were not mouths before”… something so specific has to be in some… it has to hit on some eventual – some insecurity or something. I don’t know.

(Fin)

[M2 === Aaron] [F3 === Beth]

i wanna be a popstar, etape deux

The latest parlor game among friends and family when I’m in their presence has been, “What are you doing with your life, Tina?” I thought that, rather than responding with the standard “I’m dropping out of grad school. And then I don’t know! I just don’t know! Please don’t ask me again because I’m going to explode if you do!” line, I’d mix things up for a change.

So I’ve been saying instead, “Oh, you know. I’m going to move to a bigger city and be a performance artist and work on the side to pay the rent.”

I’ve been getting some interesting responses.

There’s the concerned parent always looking out for her daughter’s well-being: “You could marry some rich doctor or lawyer. Then you wouldn’t have to worry about working. Or you could work for airport security. Or, this friend of mine’s daughter got this job somewhere in New Albany, and the HR manager brings in decorations for holidays – or, when things are slow, she brings in balloons, tapes them to the wall, and all the employees get to throw darts at them! Now, doesn’t that sound like a fun place to work?”

The ex-boyfriend who never understood my existential crises: “Oh. Well…. Well. Wow. I mean, my aunt was a film producer and had to work some odd jobs to cover that - at least until she started getting government grants. She and her husband never had enough money to raise a family… I mean, maybe they could have if they really wanted to. Well, they seem to be the happiest couple in our family. But they just never had much money. Well… Wow.”

The random English grad student acquaintances: “Oh. That’s cool. I wonder how you report a pound of cheesefries on your tax return?”

The college drinking buddy, whom I thought knew me better than he actually did: “I don’t know what’s more shocking: that, or the fact that you seriously contemplated the rich-old-doctor-or-lawyer thing as an option.”

The one person so far who has actually responded positively: “Cool! So we can all say someday, ‘yup, we knew Tina back when she was nothing but a horribly lazy grad student and borderline alcoholic.’ “