Mosque

A Google Earth model of the mosque I am working on with one of my old professors has been posted on the client's website. I am suppressing proper names in this post because I'm sure that the client wouldn't want to be associated with 'Astromen' by way of a Google search. The model file and instructions on how to load it are provided on the client's site, as well. Link.

BLARGH!!1!

Eric Talbot's blog, who's artwork I enjoy...

The Future(tm) is now in alpha

From their site:

Our goals are sort of idealistic. We think there are all kinds of things on the Internet that would be improved if anyone could have a virtual place of their own. Right now, there aren't enough good games, for example, and they all seem to be about elves in tights or soldiers in battle armor. Metaplace allows more diversity. Right now, there are lots of people who want to use virtual worlds for research, or education, or business, but it's just too darn hard to get one going. Now you can create a world in just a few minutes and start tailoring it to your needs. Basically, we wanted to democratize the process of making online spaces of all sorts.

Time to start learning Lua...
Edit: More info here...

For those of you playing Bioshock...

"Greenspan was a longtime associate of Ayn Rand - yes, that Ayn Rand. The one who seemed so very revolutionary when you were 14 or so and first read “Atlas Shrugged.”

In an article published in 1963 as part of Ayn Rand’s book Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, Greenspan declared that protection of the consumer against “dishonest and unscrupulous business was the cardinal ingredient of welfare statism.”

“Regulation which is based on force and fear undermines the moral base of business dealings,” he wrote. “Protection of the consumer by regulation … is illusory.”"

Giant bugs!

Another video from the TED Conference.
Theo Jansen is a kinetic artist / puppeteer whose machines exemplify living form. This is really visionary stuff. Tyler Paint had a post a while back about this fellow, too. The video is only ten minutes long.

Content Aware Image Resizing

℞

A prescription for mental atrophy caused by the work week: listen to Harry Shearer's LE SHOW four times monthly.
Link to the podcast at KCRW.

A World Transfigured

The BBS DOCUMENTARY is a fascinating and careful examination of a world long gone; its author, Jason Scott, has also set up a website called TEXTFILES.COM which is a repository of the often crass and irreverent writings of that sub-culture. I frequented BBSes from middle school on until early 1999; mostly as a lurker and leech. The boards I dialed-into were much more of the public domain, rather than underground, variety. The Engine One and Engine Shop BBSes served as my Internet portals in Chicago, free of charge, until I moved away.

Link to the BBS DOCUMENTARY homepage.
There are eight episodes available on Google video. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8. Viewing the streaming version is legit because the documentary is under a creative commons license.
Link to the TEXTFILES.COM directory.
The INTERNET ARCHIVE has 20 of the interviews from the documentary, uncut (link). I watched the one with Dead Lord of the Legion of Doom. He's a mild mannered fellow who unwittingly dodged Operation Sundevil and went on to run Manhattan's first ISP (link to the interview). The Legion of Doom plays a large role in Bruce Sterling's HACKER CRACKDOWN (link).

The Archive also has the two television shows that covered computerization from 1983 on, both by the same fellow, Stewart Cheifet. THE COMPUTER CHRONICLES (link)ran from 1983 to 2002, and THE NET CAFE (link) ran from 1996 to 2002. The second show has a very telling social & cultural bent.

There are many things worthy of notice on the INTERNET ARCHIVE.; entirely unique, though, is the inclusion of material from the Prelinger Archive a "a collection of over 60,000 ephemeral (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films" (link), many of which lay bear the mid-20th century American psyche. Amid all the pyscho-social conditioning is a wonderful account of the construction of the Watts Towers in Los Angeles, built single-handedly by Simon Rodia over the course of thirty-years. (link to to the short movie, link to Wikipedia entry, link to 2,000+ Flickr photos of the Watts Towers).

The Pirate Bay Goes Mainstream!

The Swedes that form everybody's favorite anti-copyright group were interviewed for the Guardian. There is not much insight in the article, but I always get a kick out of reading the quotes of frothing at the mouth MPAA lawyers and executives.

The Heart of the World