PotD – Bleep Bloop
April 24th, 2010 ryan
You’ll find very little paper here.
Finally got around to reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Beware of This and That
PotD – Kindle Case
October 6th, 2009 ryan
Materials:
- Kindle 2
- Leatherman Surge
- Discarded packing foam, M203 rounds
- Thread
- Paperclip
No needles, fashioned a makeshift alternative from a paperclip. Worked great to attach the three foam layers.
Functional product, three layers of foam = Kindle Envelope
Ran across a couple of discarded placards most of the vehicles sport here. They’re made of thick plastic which I wanted to protect the exterior of the case with.
Intended final product.
Never actually got around to fixing the parts together as the resulting case was massive. Decided to sacrifice ruggedness for portability.
“Stay Free”
May 15th, 2008 ryan
Cory Doctorow at the Chicago Public Library today, reading from Little Brother and continuing to spear-head the crusade of freedom and privacy for the constantly expanding reaches of digital media.
Though openly supporting his recent release with a U.S. book tour the only publicity I saw for this particular shindig was mentioned previously and completely internal to the library system. The irony of a meatspace broadside in my otherwise non-palpable infostream tide pool is not lost.
After a brief introduction Cory read an excerpt from Chapter 12 to the mixed audience of adults, staff, 20-something nerds, and a group from high school. This was followed by brief oratory on some of the issues addressed in the book, such as the impending constrictions and modifications to the bill of rights (see: Patriot Act) and how steadfast technological prowess can bring said rights back to their intended state. This lead in to the growing lack of privacy in general, London being the prime example, and a reiteration of his easily-graspable logic on the evils of digital rights management.
This was followed by a decidedly well ran question and answer period where Cory talked about:
- Why he makes his works available for free via digital download
- What projects he is working on (WoW in China book in the works)
- Why he is an optimist: “You can’t be an activist without being an optimist.”
- How current times are a golden age for those that want to tinker with items and make them do whatever they want, citing Make, Instructables
- What reading he recommends for young adults: Daniel Pinkwater
He also fielded my oddly worded question regarding potential issues with Little Brother being seen as subversive or potentially banned due to some of the actions of its characters or the fact that one of the very first topics mentioned is how to navigate around a web-filter, stating that TOR backed him 100 percent, he didn’t pull any punches, and if it gets banned that’d be great for sales. Plus the freaking thing is free.
The event ended with an open offer for book signing.
(If you aren’t familiar with Whil Wheaton’s narration or the general memes that surround the man this won’t be very funny.)
I haven’t been to a ton of these kinds of things but the whole experience was a blast. In this case the author has a massive digital footprint, both professionally and personally, and it was cool to hear him mention topics that he is obviously passionate about. There are several artists/writers (Neal Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Ben Templesmith) out there that keep rather public, detailed sites and I really dig on how they allow communities to form that transcend physical boundaries. When those communities congregate for a function such as this one it reminds me that sometimes it is OK to be an optimist.
Corey Effing Doctorow
April 7th, 2008 ryan
Just pre-registered, having seen the above about 20 minutes ago during my library romp. Pretty surprised that it wasn’t already full up considering how popular he is and the fact that the Author Room seats 60.
Should be a total nerdfest.
Awesome.
PotD – and by America I mean the World
March 1st, 2008 ryan
Despite being available nearly two years ago in its entirety The Amazing Screw-On Head was something I wanted to see devoid of tell-tale video compression and the subsequent “buffering” which was sure to overlap even the highest quality of torrents or google video. Well, mainly the compression. In the quest of honesty let’s cut to the chase, I kept meaning to rent the DVD release but never got around to it. Also worth noting is my subtitle obsession, which knows no mortal bounds.
Yes, I’ve been a fan of both Mike Mignola’s harsh contrastic stylings as well as his quasi sci-fi / Lovecraftian / mythological subject matter for a few years and can’t proffer any acceptable excuse for having not seen it previously. Granted, the comic itself has been around much longer (see: 2002) and while I have graced those pages I wasn’t aware the show was as true to the material as it was. Despite it’s mirrored similarity I spent those 22 mins enraptured not only by the witty dialogue and above average voice acting but by the sharp rendition of President Linoln’s facial hair and its surrounding backgrounds.
The nature of this investigation has become much too personal. We’re dealing with undead perversions of the only woman you ever loved and your most trusted man-servant who vowed to do away with all subsequent man-servants in the cruelest means imaginable.
-President Abraham Lincoln
PotD – Apophenia
January 18th, 2008 ryan
Visibly half way through, will unleash ultimate commentary upon completion.
PotD – Others
January 11th, 2008 ryan
Cthomics: Subpar
January 10th, 2008 ryanCame across a comic that somehow got tucked into a manila folder with all my paperwork. Purchased perhaps 14 years ago it has traversed many a state, as countless of my nomadic belongings, and I had forgotten how horrid it was. Behold:
Yes, that’s an ad depicting the eldritch cthulhu in bipedal form, wielding a chainsaw and sporting what appears to be an apron. I desaturated because the whole page is pink on white and my already bruised mind couldn’t bear to share this monstrosity in its raw form.
I remember browsing the mouldering cardboard boxes of a certainly soon-to-be out of business comic shop and seeing the cover:
Naturally I took the bait, as many a fan boy does when confronted with the full-page colored cover of a book that is otherwise inked and produced by lackluster subordinates chained to their weathered cubicles. The deadworld comics were the same way.
Betwixt the lies that are cover art I was confronted with scenes such as this:
Alright that line is bad ass but the rest of the story, artwork, and dare-I-say intended homage is just terrible.
I understand that differing tastes in even related subjects bring about the best in terms of creative output. I’m far from one that would classify themselves as a purist on any topic, be it the location of orc tusks or the size of an eldritch being’s vestigial wings, and I enjoy new depictions and interpretations, honest. It’s just unbridled mediocrity that gets the blood boiling, clear non-attempts at something regardless of the level of talent.
I could go on and on about dark, cringe worthy pits of despair such as elfwood or the majority of deviantart but I have way too many posts to catch up on over at conceptart.
PotD – Consumertron 9000
December 22nd, 2007 ryanHells to the yeah.
Pictured left: gift I received on my doorstep mere moments ago.
Pictured right: gift which I just finished reading and will be giving to the sender of book pictured left.
Our phone conversations about the above-pictured usually go much in the manner of:
T: Dude! Did you see the-
R: Heck yeah, and the way it was-
T: Oh I know, the best part was when-
R: The thought bubbles, definitely.
It’s actually quite sad since I’ll naturally be sending both so T can read the present he got me just as I read the one I got him.
Poor nerds representin’
The Call of His Dark Thing That Should Not Be, Dust. Thulhu.
December 3rd, 2007 ryanI can remember a time of card catalogs. Musty drawers concealing endless yellowed note cards whose texture advertised the use of a typewriter which permanently tattooed each once-alive pressing with a sparse bit of information. Reliable? Hardly. Perhaps some Neanderthal before had misfiled, or saints forbid, entirely removed the precise entry you were searching for. It was a time of etiquette, perseverance, and frustration. Point of interest, the scariest scene in the original Ghostbusters film for me was when I watched, mouth agape in horror, as all of the cards were whisked into the air, alphabetization thrown to the winds like so many fall leaves from a autumnal storm.
Admittedly, modern techniques are better, more efficient, but I am glad to have encountered that dark time prior to the omnipotent search algorithm in which the dusty smell of discovery went alongside the gritty feel of paper and the sight of hastily smudged type print.
I wanted to talk about cross referencing and the flow-chart-esque manner in which seemingly different interests overlap and converge. More to the point, that of two experiences of mine with music and literature. The first and most memorable was that of my discovery of one eldritch, blankly staring, author.
I was in grade school when a project was assigned in Art class to reconstruct a CD album cover (yes, I am young, for CDs were abundant, though I still taped everything to listen to 
it portably) using chalk on paper. This was the mid 90s and music being what it was I was exposed to the expected American alternative that dominated the airwaves. Admittedly I enjoyed some, I mean who didn’t like Nevermind when they first heard it, but the only band at the time I could claim I was a fan of was Metallica. I proceeded to bust out the black and blue to draw my own electric chair.
Though I couldn’t pinpoint when I can recall hearing Motorbreath for the first time (first song heard), but that was the beginning of the end for me. Books, shirts, fan club – you name it, I ate it up. It was as an impressionable youth that I listened to Ride the Lightning and simultaneously read up on the band’s influences among which was an author whose works inspired The
Thing that Should Not Be and of course, The Call of Ktulu.
It’s strange to think of a time in which what I consider to be one of those cultural references that everyone knows was, in fact, unknown to me. I picked up a collected works which contained several of Mr. Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s works and the mark was made. Somehow a metal band had introduced me to an early 1900’s author and, over time, a subculture all of its own which has seemingly done nothing but grow and pulsate rhythmically over the years.
It was recently that history manifested a sort of repeat performance, only this time it was when reading an interview with the members of a more recent band, slash – decommissioned airship aeronauts*, that another bit of literature reached out to drag me forcibly into the author’s creations. Regrettably I did not at first hasten to acquire said series, and it was only after months of waiting that I gave up my faith in the Chicago Public Library to provide said trilogy and went forth to purchase my own. I am referring in this case to His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman. 
The fact that the books have recently seen a film transition did nothing but set a deadline for when I had to have them read by.
And read them I did. My commute offers the luxury of being able to read for a solid 2 hours, 5 times a week, which when coupled with my lunch break averages roughly 15 hours every 5 days, guaranteed. Needless I say flew through them and enjoyed the story on a level I haven’t experienced in quite some time, the measurement of which can be indicated by the sheer existence and general amount of babbling I have enacted above.
So the book has my endorsement, and while I am late to the game, as is predictably the case, it pleased me immensely to read it and will please me, thusly, to recommend you do the same if you have not already.
__
*And how did I come across (un)said band?
- Got in to rasputina from friend who made random download in 2000.
- Saw the group a few times, once with Stolen Babies who opened for them back in 2004 and completely blew me away. No really, check them out.
- Followed series of links on intertron to a flyer depicting the airship crew in full performance costume, as they were playing together. Dug new band’s music and aesthetic, found interview.
So 7 years ago I heard of a band, which led me to another band, to yet another, which then lead me to a book. Neat. Granted, it’s pretty popular at the moment but for me the shock factor (for lack of a better term) is comparable to finding out that Eugene Hutz played with James Kochalka back in his Burlington days.