[ independent.ie ]
A Selection Of Old Halloween Postcards
A nice collection Hallowe'en postcards from long long ago. More varied that what I have on offer here. [via]
And also [ Heidi Klum: Skinless
Images taken at "Heidi Klum's HaLLoweeN Party" (just reading that from the background). Very nice but I wouldn't have used black for shading the dark areas. Who is Heidi Klum anyway? The name is familiar, I must have seen her in a film or something.
More high res images to be found at [ forum.usemycomputer.com ]
Sinead O'Conner: Head Shave, Jesus Tattoo
You know, she's not looking too bad with the shaved head thing going on again. Of course, there's that slap of make-up there too, but the hair, or lack there of, definitely suits her. Fair play and all that shite. Now let's get on with things.
Where is she going with that Jesus stamp on her chest? Holy god, as it were. Now is that really Jesus or is it a portrait of John Waters? It's confusing. When she was crying out for some lovin' a while back, where was John Waters anyway? I don't understand why these two aren't together.
[Daily Mail] [via]
Nearly The Best Spoiled Vote Ever
If it weren't for the spelling mistake, which clearly indicates heavy intoxication or mild retardation, I would <3 this person so much. I nearly regret not spoiling my vote now. I was this close ( | | ) to writing "NoAgendaShow.com" across the ballot paper. Damn, and I bet if I emailed the story to John Dvorak or Adam Curry it probably would have gotten a mention on the next podcast too. Double damn. [via]
MC Michael D: "A Wanker Whipping Up Fear"
A live mash-up between two Youtube videos.
Vocal track remixed on the fly utilising the timeline jump feature on youtube (numbers on keyboard correspond to times in the video). It's something I've been doing for over the past year but never bothered setting things up in such a way to record a performance. Perhaps not the best use of the "samples" in the video but all done in real time without much preparation.
For the foreign folk (and those Irish that are just coming out of a coma) Michael D Higgins has been voted in as Ireland's next president. I hope he continues to talk about wanking while in office as President.
Source videos:
- *Fire!!!* Instrumental (prod. by Greg Booth)
- Michael D Higgins unloads on Tea Party favorite Michael Graham
Vocal track remixed on the fly utilising the timeline jump feature on youtube (numbers on keyboard correspond to times in the video). It's something I've been doing for over the past year but never bothered setting things up in such a way to record a performance. Perhaps not the best use of the "samples" in the video but all done in real time without much preparation.
For the foreign folk (and those Irish that are just coming out of a coma) Michael D Higgins has been voted in as Ireland's next president. I hope he continues to talk about wanking while in office as President.
Source videos:
- *Fire!!!* Instrumental (prod. by Greg Booth)
- Michael D Higgins unloads on Tea Party favorite Michael Graham
Newspapers Urge Paparazzi To Get "Tears" Shot
The forthcoming forntpage of Monday's Irish Daily Mail newspaper, missing the illusive shot of Sean Gallagher in tears over loosing the Irish presidential election, 2011.
Gallagher's campaign, which was leading the polls by a high margin in the week leading up to election, fell apart when on Monday night last when he admitted to signing blank checks and having no bank account while being Minister for Finance... wait a minute... that was Bertie Ahern! How come he got away with stuff!?
Oh Sean, I'm crying with you now! This world was never mean't for someone as beautiful as you! Alas, alas.... Sure how were you to know what were in those brown envelopes. And at least they weren't like the envelopes from Martin McGuinness... full of bombs, so they were. They stabbed you in the back, Sean. Stabbed in the back like David Norris... sorry about that, not sure how that Oliver Callan styled humour got in here. Bonus Audio! Hopefully the company that made the Sean Gallagher wedding video will use it in a video recapping his election campaign.
Everybody Loves Lindsey Vonn
Lindsey Vonn won her first Giant Slalom in the opening race in the women's FIS Alpine Skiing 2011/2012 World Cup, at Sölden, Austria, on Saturday. And aren't we all delighted, I know I am! And even better, Maria Hoefl-Riesch came down the mountain sideways, to finish nowhere! Oh joy. With half the German team suffering busted legs received during Summer training, I just know this is going to be a great season! o_o At least Rebensburg managed to finish in a close second place.
I sometimes wonder if Vonn should be disqualified for cheating. The weight of her ego is surely an aid in coming down the mountain faster.
M8 Black Spot
There has been yet another accident at this spot since this picture was taken in July of this year. That makes five accidents in total that I am aware of happening on this stretch of the M8. The damage to the barrier, shown in the image, occurred on a day in June experiencing heavy showers of rain. I came upon the accident a few minuets after it happened, and was faced with a car on it's roof straddling both lanes. I am still unaware what caused the accidnet but I do remember noting standing water on the outside lane near the wall. What was really odd though was that another, unrelated accident, happened on the opposite side of the motorway just a few dozen meters along.
View Larger Map
The first time I drove on the M8 I noted this section of road as being somewhat unusual for a motorway, but being honest, I never deemed it as dangerous. I felt it unusual because of the relative steep camber and sharp bend to facilitate the roads traversal over a regional road underneath. As mentioned above, both sides of this bridge have experienced accidents of varying degrees and I really do think the RSA are going to have to sort it out.
Maybe they'll fix it like how they usually fix dangerous roads, by putting up a few speed cameras. Sorry, sorry... putting up a few "safety" cameras... ¬_¬ [UPDATE 04.11.10] There has been another accident (possibly multiple) at this point since I wrote this post. The section of road has now been reduced to one lane in an attempt to stop people killing themselves... what am I saying... I mean, to stop the ROAD killing people.
Six Years Worth Of Skin Flakes
I had to get the vacuum cleaner out, although the CPU never actually showed signs that it was struggling. That's Pentium D's for you; designed to work at 13.6 million degrees Kelvin. Today's top tip: Hoover your heat-sinks.
Dana: White Witch Of The Masonic Occult
One of the greatest spells invoked by Dana was the creation of her five children without ever engaging in acts of physical consummation. Dana is the prima witch of sex-magick. She has on many occaisons reached the 9th plateau. Her powers are very strong. Dare not to trick with her. She will throw you to the feet of Shiva and you will be obliteration by the fires of reversed orgasm.
For further occult secrets of all seven presidential candidates, read through the discussion located in the comments section of this post [dana roseMARY conspiracy] by atoast2toast.
Steve Jobs: "I'm going to destroy Android"
I had to laugh when I read of Steve Job's doing a Steve Ballmer'esque rant at [Google] Android earlier this year. The ex-visionary is quoted as saying:
"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this." [google+]Thermonuclear war? Well holy god, them's fightin' words! But wait, hang on a second! What happens after thermonuclear war? Radiation, right? And what does radiation give you? *trollface* And for what were you willing to commit commercial Armageddon over? What were all these genius features you had fitted to your iPhones that the big bad Google were stealing? Stuff like copy&paste? Oh Steve you destroyed yourself, and for what; to be the coolest kid on the block. You didn't care care about anyone else. Not your customers, not even your Apple workers, who you were willing to slaughter to be victorious. Didn't anyone ever tell you it was the taking part that counts? Your fans are trumpet how you changed the world, but what kind of world would we have if you were in charge. Perhaps, a little like this?
I've been trying to write a blog post about Steve Jobs, since he died, where I outline three positive things about the man. I'll be honest, it's a tough one. I have two points but finding the third one is tricky. I will say this about him, in light of the news above. He was more human than Google. All his failings were human failings: greed, mego-lo-mania, jealousy, ego, power mongery, God complex... but Google, Google are a machine devoid of all emotion. With Google the algorithm is always right and the user [the weak flesh] must be wrong. Both Google and Apple have the means to destroy us all. If war broke out between Apple and Google it would really just come down to what flavour of the euthanasia liquid you'd prefer to swallow.
[ Gaddafi image via NCOTB ]
Moog Release Virtual Synth For Ipad
Moog has surrendered to the digital age. Once upon a time, they would rather have gone bankrupt than release a synth with digital circuitry, but now with the release of the "Animoog" iPad app, they have hopped over all that and landed right into the dubious world of the "virtual synth". RIP Bob Moog.
I figure that was a good intro to a post about this thing that I have no interest in. Don't let that first paragraph fool you, I'm not a hardcore analogue synth or Moog fan or anything, but I thought it was worth noting. With this Animoog thing being an iPad app it means that it will be nothing more than a yuppie toy for the unprofessional. Not to put the app down, but until they release it on a platform with more than a headphone out jack, use of this beyond novelty will be severely flawed.
Like I said, I have no interest in this "app" beyond it sounding nice. What arrested my attention though was the use of the "Gamma Goblins" theme at the start of Moog's demo video for the app. New readers to this blog should be made aware that my use of the name gammagoblin is unreleated to the song by Hallucinogen, who I found out about coincidently from his link to Shpongle.
Video via Failed Muso
Note to self: do update post on use of the name Gammagoblin
Aeroplanes Look More Like Fish Than Birds
I came across a nice collection of planes in flight, taken by Polish photographer, jaropincet [flickr]. What's unusual about these photos is that they were taken of planes, flying at cruising altitude (30+km). Becuase of this, there's a lot of athmosphere between the lens and subject which gives a very ethereal quality to the images.
Aeroplanes no longer resemble creatures of flight. They instead, look like they are swimming. Like mechanical manta rays, slicing through celestial soup... or something.
There's no data on the lens focal length in the EXIF data so I'm guessing he used some sort of analogue coupler to a telescope, or similar, to get the nescessary magnification. Excellent stuff!
Bill Gates Chair Jumping + Rhyme
Hey diddle diddle,
The Cat and the fiddle,
Bill Gates jumped over the chair,
The little Dog laughed to see such sport,
And Steve Jobs kicked the bucket.
Fear Caught In Their Eyes...
Taken in pitch-black, at the moment something horrific appears, illuminated by strobe flash. More at Nightmares Fear Factory [flickr stream]
Exorcist President
This is a canned post from a week ago. Dana has just said wicked awful slanderous stuff is going to appear in the papers about her tomorrow. My bet is secret support for Mexican-only abortion clinics in the US. She's suing everyone, so I say again, that is just my humble guess and is based on no known truths. The original post is also based on no known truths.
For whatever reason, Dana always reminds me of Linda Blair, the actress who played the possessed child in The Exorcist (1973). They aren't very similar looking or anything but I always get that vibe whenever I see either of them. I can't really explain it. Could it be the fact that they both masturbated with a crucifix in their childhood? It's just not clear. The mysteries of the world abound us!
Richard Stallman On The Death Of Steve Jobs
A few people getting all hot and bothered over what Richard Stallman, creator of the GNU [free software] Project, has said about Steve Jobs. Let's have a look what he said:
06 October 2011 (Steve Jobs)
Steve Jobs, the pioneer of the computer as a jail made cool, designed to sever fools from their freedom, has died.
As Chicago Mayor Harold Washington said of the corrupt former Mayor Daley, "I'm not glad he's dead, but I'm glad he's gone." Nobody deserves to have to die - not Jobs, not Mr. Bill, not even people guilty of bigger evils than theirs. But we all deserve the end of Jobs' malign influence on people's computing.
Unfortunately, that influence continues despite his absence. We can only hope his successors, as they attempt to carry on his legacy, will be less effective.Oh for god's sake. Some really have it bad for Jobs. I recommend to these people that they go into a corner with a picture of Jobs and have a good wank for themselves.
In Defence Of Sean Gallagher
Much fun has been made of Presidential Candiate, Sean Gallagher's, appearance. Some of this has been over the appearance of his eyes. I'm not trying to get up on the high moral ground, but a lot of Gallagher's "unusual" appearance has to do with irregular iris's, caused by the removal of congenital cataracts he was born with. As you can see, they do make quite a difference, and this condition [may have] led to his familiar squinting expression.
During one of the presidential debates, I heard Gallagher say he's lived with a disability all his life. I went investigating and discovered it while looking at high-res images on flickr. I'm not sure how many people are aware of this, but I thought I'd bring it to your attention anyway.
The irony of all this is, if the man's DNA had destined him to look a bit "wonky" we would feel ok to mock him, even though technically, genetic makeup of all types are "medical conditions" too. Irrespective of all this, the man is Fianna Fail in congenital cataract's clothing, so he can take a running jump like the rest of them.
What Does The "4S" In "Iphone 4S" Stand For
Before it was presented, I did expect the new iPhone to come with Steve Jobs signature on the back. The 4S now strikes me as a coincidently reference to "4Steve (For Steve)". I'm getting soft in my old age.
Trolling Hard
This isn't fair of course, because Gates changed the First World as much as, if not more so, than Jobs, we just have short memories. And just because someone didn't get involved with charity doesn't mean they haven't had a huge impact on the world. This isn't a Jobs bashing post (for once) it's more of a pro-Bill post.
It kills Bill Gates, I mean really kills him, that he developed and pushed the tablet device for years, convinced it was the future but was unable to make a success of it, and then Jobs came in with the iPad and made it a hit almost overnight. Watch the D5 conference from 2007. Watch Jobs, when Bill as he says he's convinved tablet computing is going to be a hit, even though it's currently failing. Watch Jobs bite his lip. The sly old bugger.
It's a great conference. You should definitely watch it in full [http://castroller.com/Podcasts/St...]. You can really appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of both men.
Fear And Loathing In The Square, Tallaght
David Norris does some shopping in Dublin today. He has selected a child of the female variety. I hope he keeps a receipt, I fear he may want to return it for the other model. Zing!
I genuinely think David Norris would have made an excellent president, during "The Boom". All that partying we were doing, fuck man, Norris would have been Ireland's answer to Freddie Mercury! There would have been all kinds of cocaine parties up in Phoenix Park. Instead what we had was Mary MankyCheese, who had all the party mentality of Oliver Cromwell.
I joke, because much like the deflated optimisim of "The Boom", we now are left feeling dejected as more and more truths about David Norris become uncovered. There has been an awful lot of spin put on it, of course, but the reactions by Norris have been most depressing. I'm reflecting on all the people I've met who have critacised him in the past. I really don't know what to think anymore.
[ Photo by Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland via The Journal ]
When is the Apple Keynote Happening?
Like I can't fucking wait, or something... Coincidentally, I came across this article AFTER making the image above. Comparing Apple to North Korea is unfair, of course. For one thing, Apple has more money than the Communist state, and has a much bigger army; minions, all too willing to die for the cause.
Apple is also more like a religion than a country. A religion like Scientology for instance. Most people assumed Scientology would die off with the death of it's supreme visionary leader, L. Ron Hubbard, but it only went from strength to strength. The same will be true of Apple post Steve Jobs. Jobs to his devilish credit, has instilled the idea of choiceless propriety closed-systems, within the minds of us poor peasants. Seeing how easily people went from hating Microsoft to loving Apple for identical reasons, I have no doubt of our doomed technological future. The Dawn will not be Red, the Dawn will be a little pulsating Apple logo on everything we own.
But anyway, back in the real world...
My crazy neighbor once said to me "If Hitler had invented the iPod, we'd all be speaking German by now." Even though I was running away at this stage, he continued: "He could have put Apple Stores inside gas chambers and people would have been murdering each other to get in first." He was an odd old chap. Haven't seen him since his house burned down on Halloween a few years ago. Probably for the best.
Image source materials: Tim O'Brien & Kim Jong-il
Iphone Journo N00b
I can forgive the use of a mobile phone to make an ad-hoc recording, we've all done it, it's certainly not something one would want to do long term, but hey whatever. What I can't fathom though, why is the person is pointing the phones speaker at Gay Byrne and not the microphone? *face palm* They have the phone orientated as if the drawing on the screen is a real microphone! Christ. At least they haven't pointed the screen itself at Gay.
Before anyone pipes up, I've researched this. There is a little capsule mic that you can plug into the top of the iPhone, but as you can see, it's not there. Maybe they needed to have it that way to keep an eye on the sophisticated VU meter on the app... ¬_¬ Of course, it being Gay Byrne, perhaps they were expecting the most intelligible sounds to be coming from the opposite direction: speaking out of his arse.*
* Having an uncalled-for pop at Uncle Gaybo for the sake of a few lulz.
Generating Video From Sequential Photographs
I browse through a lot of photographs on the internet, scouring places like flickr and so on, and I often come across streams of photographs that have been taken in quick succession. So, I got the idea into my head to see what would happen if you tried to make a video of these images. I'm not going to say the results here are amazing, but given the right type of photographs, taken under the right circumstances, the results can be quite pleasing. Skip to the third video if you want to see the best example.
I'm using VirtualDub for all the video editing, plus two filters to achieve the resultant video. I've already blogged about the second part of the editing process, the frame interpolation between photographs. The new part to the process involves Gunnar Thalin's Deshaker plugin which does a really nice job on steadying each frame relative to each other. The plugin has a lot of options and if you know what you're doing, even the most choppy video can be tamed.
In the three examples, the order of the video is as so: First the photographs are played back to back at 5fps. Then the final result result is played, also at 5fps. Following that there are the resultant videos after each process: raw, stabilised, cropped, side-by-side comparison. The last video works the best, as the models movements aren't so dramatic from photograph to photograph. I've increased the length and frame rate in the side-by-side comparison in in the seond and third videos to help see the results. Notice the extreme morphing in the second video. Concentrate more on the overall smoothness to the video, rather than the transition in poses of the models. More advanced software and user-defined morphing points would alleviate a lot of the weird transitions.
Personally, what I see this useful for, is making video from screen captures. I tend to make a lot of screen captures when watching live streams of things (TWiT, Eurosport, RTÉ, etc.) which I sometimes make into gif animations or video (for example). With the videos in particular, interpolating the frames I miss with the screen grabs would make the videos run much smoother. I tend to shy away from video capture because you end up with a lot of crap you don't want, plus taking stills is a lot more fun :)
All photographic credit goes to cosfit [flickr], who's photographs not only were of invaluable use here, but also helped inspire the post too.
Woman Gives Birth In MRI Scanner
"A team comprised of obstetricians, radiologists and engineers have built an “open” MRI scanner that allows a mother-to-be to fit fully into the machine and give birth there. The birth was the culmination of a two-year project by the research team. MRI uses powerful magnets to magnetise some atoms in the body which makes them detectable to radio waves. Importantly, it can make cross-section images of a subject, showing intricate detail of soft tissue and bones in the body.For some reason thelocal.de's article had the picture upside down, as if the woman was giving birth on her stomach. Unless she were on hands and knees I don't see that being correct. For the image in my blog post, I got my markers out and coloured it in, to make it pretty ^_^
The team built a special “open MRI” scanner, a new type of machine whose open structure had the necessary space for the mother to give birth. The new machine will enable the researchers to study in greater detail how the baby moves through the mother’s pelvis and down the birth canal – issues that have long been studied and debated.
Among other benefits, it should help researchers to understand why about 15 percent of pregnant women need a Caesarian section because the baby does not progress properly into the birth canal." [www.thelocal.de Published: 7 Dec 10 14:04 CET]
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