Archive

This is the second release of the Kineme Quartz Composer Plugins.

New this time:

• MIDI Global In Note :: This patch observes a specified MIDI Note number on a specified MIDI Channel, and outputs the Velocity and a boolean Gate signal.
• MIDI Global Out Note :: This patch, when Gate is rising true, outputs a MIDI note-on message on a specified MIDI Channel with the specified Velocity. When Gate is falling false, a MIDI note-off message is sent.
• Image With Composition :: This patch loads a Quartz Composer Composition (.qtz) file and renders it to an Image. (This is intended to replace functionality that was removed with the Mac OS X 10.4.7 update, as described by Roger Bolton and David Wolf.)
• File Type :: This patch provides the Uniform Type Identifier (UTI) of the specified file. For example, if the path to a QuickTime movie is specified, File Type outputs “com.apple.quicktime-movie”.

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

Steve Mokris is a developer at Kosada, Inc.

And a second entry in the exciting-discoveries-late-last-night file:

QCRegisterPrivatePatches

Enables dozens of new CoreImage kernels, the previously-described hidden patches, and a few as-of-yet-unseen patches.

Some further string-hunting in the Quartz Composer framework has revealed an interesting value:

QCShowPrivatePatchSettings

It looks like Quartz Composer is reading a value with this key from the global user defaults repository.

In fact, enabling it by bringing up Terminal and typing

defaults write -g QCShowPrivatePatchSettings 1

causes Quartz Composer to present some additional options for well-known patches.

Tonight we had a short conversation with Laurie Anderson after she performed as Denison University’s 2006 convocation.

Melinda approaches Laurie Anderson.

Laurie Anderson: Hello.

Melinda: Hi! I’m Melinda.

Laurie Anderson shakes Melinda’s hand.

Melinda: And this is Steve.

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.)

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.

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

Steve Mokris is a developer at Kosada, Inc.

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.

Dearest Vostek,

Every time we hear someone mention the word technologies we mentally prepend “amazing…” and append “…that will drive our economy”.

This has increased overall conversational verbiage by 39.1%.

Thinking of you.

project ruori

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.

Oranienburgerstrasse 38 is right across the street from the skin of this wall. Beneath the skin of this wall is a foodstand staffed by a very disdainful man.

“Ketchup and mayo? Ay ay ay.”

And the unpunctuated question that is clouding the Berlin consciousness:

HOW
LONG
IS NOW

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.

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.

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]

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.’ “

So the other day, I had this dream that I was flying back to Columbus, Ohio, to perform some sort of musical drama. The performance was, like, going to be in two weeks and it was like, not going to be performed in Columbus, but rather in Philadelphia, and the script was still incomplete, and we hadn’t, like, finished writing the music or practiced at all or anything.

So, when I arrived at Steve’s condo, Ashley and Ryan were, like, building some animal out of plastic and, like, filming it. Or something. This went on for a couple of days, except they were always filming different things, like Cheerios and Floam creatures and sea-urchins-that-look-nothing-like-sea-urchins. Made out of pipe cleaners.

So. We were going along, filming weird things and writing weird things – oh, and I think we might have been, like, keeping a blog of all this or something – when the guy who was going to play keyboard said he wasn’t coming, and we had to rewrite everything for four people instead of five – which we might have had to do anyway, cause, like, we were trying to maintain correspondence with the number of tines on a typical dinner fork.

Then we started having these rehearsals. And I think one night during one of these rehearsals, I was going to, like, chant some lyrics or something, and then Steve started waving his hands above his head, which I recognized as the universal signal for “dance like a robot,” so I started, you know, dancing like a robot. And then the music stopped and Steve was like, “What are you doing?! That was your cue to come in!!”

Anyway, one day Steve and I went to the airport, where Beth was, and it was weird because I knew immediately who she was even though I had never met her in person before. Then we picked up Aaron at his house in Newark, and he started driving and then we realized that we were going west, and for some reason, we, like, didn’t want to be going in that direction, so we turned around.

So we were, like, driving somewhere at night and it was dark, you know, because it was night, and all of a sudden, we were in, like, this dark tunnel and Ace of Base started playing really loudly and the car windows rolled down. Then the sun came up and we like found this hotel in Philadelphia, and it had a toaster that didn’t really toast things, so I brought the untoasted bread to our room and fell asleep on the floor for two hours.

Then we were, like, at this old house that was called an “arts center” and this guy who called himself Dr. T was, like, projecting some really crazy fractals and Hindu gods on this screen, and I almost became hypnotized and, like, had to go out and get some fresh air.

And then, we, like, did the show, you know, and there were people watching and clapping once in a while, and afterward, someone came up and told us that it was “fun.”

Well, you know, even though that was over, we were still kind of trapped in Philadelphia, so we wandered around in Chinatown and bought some fake fruit to keep the projectors company, took a trip to New Jersey, and ate at the Great American Diner Pub.

The next day, we were back at the arts center and had to do some visuals for some other musicians who were there, so we were, like, putting some postmodern evil flashing teapots up on the screen, and after that, we went outside. While we were standing there, I was suddenly having a panic attack from all the mind torture, so I bummed a cigarette off of this guy, and you know, it was just like being in Germany, because I was standing there smoking with other people who were smoking.

We were almost ready to get out of there, but then the van started clicking, and it turned out that, like, besides trying to communicate with us from the Twilight Zone, the van’s battery was dead. So we had to jump it, which was difficult because it was dark, you know, and we couldn’t see. But Michael Victor lent us a flashlight and we got things working, and we left to go to Perkins. Except that it wasn’t Perkins, it was just an overly-airconditioned diner where old men go to talk about killing their wives.

Well, finally, we escaped and were driving back to Columbus, stopping along the way to pick up a Christian selfhelp book about how eugenics is good and how identifying your complicated, unpredictable, genetically-inherited temperament will help you find your vocation and marry a beautiful wife.

Then in the end, the whole thing turned out to be some sort of moralstory about why you should never leave your whale in the desert because, you know, it’s kinda useless there.