View current page
...more recent posts
Abe Linkoln suggested collaboration on an animated GIF tattoo, where he works on the tech and I start drawing up some "flashing skulls and snakes folding in on themselves." So I drew this skull, with the vague plan to make an animated snake writhing up its neck and slithering around its mouth and eyesockets. Eeew. Stay tuned to this space to get creeped out! (If I finish it.)
Apple Rant
Have you tried to update your Quicktime player lately? Used to be you clicked once and could view a QT movie right away. Not anymore. You can't get version 7 without accepting a bundled, mandatory download onto your computer of the dreaded iTunes. Which immediately links back to the Apple Store and starts sending you information about stupid pop songs you don't want, and tries to get you to sign up for their proprietary scheme.
Recently a musician sent me a link to iTunes with a complimentary download of his CD (thanks, mon). I clicked the link and was directed to the Apple Store, which insisted I provide an email address and phone number. C'mon, why do they need that from a gift recipient? I balked, and the musician was kind enough to send me a CD in the mail.
I'm using Windows, the people's OS, and play .mp3s on Winamp, which is a very mellow and non-invasive program. I briefly tried out the iTunes player, and found that while it accepted my Winamp playlists, it wouldn't play the songs from their original folders. I had to copy them to an iTunes folder. I play .wav files of my own tunes in Winamp, because not everything gets ripped and besides, they sound nice. To copy them to the iTunes folder meant doubling about 10 gigs of material. I suppose I could have just moved the songs and then played them in Winamp from the Apple folder, but I really resent the use of my computer as contested territory in some brand turf war, so I threw up my hands and uninstalled iTunes.
Update: Jim B. found a page where I could download QT 7. I was trying to do it by upgrading my Firefox plug-in from 6.5, and I swear to you the link took me to a page where I couldn't get QT without accepting iTunes.
An image made with the CebraText teletext editor for eventual transmission on the Boob Tube. As mentioned below, Emma Davidson (Lektrolab) and Paul B. Davis (Lektrolab/BEIGE) are doing a Teletext project that will run on Dutch TV later this month as part of ambientTV.net. Their Teletext TV station is called Microtel, and they are calling for submissions to create simple text and graphics messages. You can download the CebraText program (Windows only) to create the Teletext files and then email the files to Davis and Davidson for TV reformatting. The above artwork, by Davis, is an example; the tutorials on the Microtel site make the process seem pretty painless. I say that because I haven't tried it yet. The interest in near-obsolete media and the reincarnation of old programs in an open source environment I find pretty fascinating; the aesthetics of it are what drew me to the BEIGE project back in the day ('02).