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31 March 2012

 
Google Maps in 8-Bit



30 March 2012

 

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29 March 2012

 
Bees

(Reuters) - Scientists have discovered ways in which even low doses of widely used pesticides can harm bumblebees and honeybees, interfering with their homing abilities and making them lose their way.

In two studies published in the journal Science on Thursday, British and French researchers looked at bees and neonicotinoid insecticides - a class introduced in the 1990s now among the most commonly used crop pesticides in the world. ...more


 
I've been MUCH better since Tuesday's jin shin. Thanks, Frank!



28 March 2012

 
March comes in like a lion and goes out like a... *eyes weather forecast for Saturday, which calls for snow* ...like a... :( snowy lamb :(((


 
Extremely windy, as opposed to yesterday which was just very windy. Net in and out.



24 March 2012

 
Lucy sent this link for merit badges for adults :-D
I love the idea but I'm not as enamoured of the badges.



23 March 2012

 

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Glitch Progress Report from Tiny Speck

We are working so hard! And it is all coming together! These are exciting times at Tiny Speck offices.

Over the next month we’ll be making some major updates. The biggest of sets of new features will come in two big waves:

First, we’ll have “R2″, the second release of houses. This release will include the ability to expand & add floors to your house, enlarge and change the style of your yard and exterior street, cultivate your land to add resources and customize & change the style of your house exterior.

Then, once initial testing is done on that first batch of R2 features, will do the Big Transition to Imagination: XP will be converted, the new system of character upgrades will be introduced and we’ll launch an overhauled and simplified UI for the game. This will mean some fairly major changes to everyone’s character (some skills are being converted to upgrades and some skills will work in slightly different ways; your level will be transposed to the corresponding level in the new system; and more, which we’ll explain at that time).

With imagination in the game, we’ll be able to do the housing reset and introduce a second batch of R2 features centered around furniture crafting, including new skills, new items, new resource types and new areas of the world. You will be able to to grow your property, expand your house, add furniture and cultivate resources “for keeps”.

In addition to the those two big updates — the second housing release and the introduction of Imagination — there is a lot more awesome stuff slated for introduction in the next six weeks:
  • new quests, puzzles & games
  • a new way to share snapshots made in the game
  • an assistant who can greet visitors on your behalf on your home street
  • more swatches and furniture upgrades
  • a new type of storage furniture which can hold a near-infinite amount of a single type of item
  • a servant who can do your crafting for you, even when you’re not in the game world (!)

… it’s kind of crazy how much. OK. Back to work.

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21 March 2012

 
I'm just wasted. I wasn't good to begin with but my current degree of crapiness is distressing.


 

Chocolate Skulls Gone Nuts


 
Eyeballery apt today.
View from kitchen window just now.



20 March 2012

 

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19 March 2012

 


'Tek RMD provides the opportunity of movement for people with paraplegia by enabling them to independently stand up in a completely upright position with correct posture, facilitating their movement and comfortable completion of their daily tasks indoors, such as in the home, office and shopping mall. Tek RMD is not an alternative to wheelchairs, it is a totally new concept, a new platform.'


 


Higbeeeeeeeeee!


 
Pre-modern* Era Microsoft Video




*before the iPhone



18 March 2012

 


Aaron Sim's short is going to be made into a full-length film, I hear.

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When my little video camera croaked I wanted to replace it, but of course whatever replaced it had to be as cheap as possible. 'Cheap' meaning 'not costing a lot' but also 'lasts a reasonable length of time.' That video camera, a Sanyo Xacti (the teeny weeny model), didn't cost a lot, had some nice features (I looked at every camera on the market and compared), and broke quickly. I keep it now only as a holder for the 8 gig mini SD card I bought for it until I get another device that needs one :/

So I started looking around. I needed at least 1280x720 video, decent still size, and any other features going. I'd long been watching the iPod Touch, which started out with no camera but which, with the 4th generation, had a decent video camera, semi-ok still camera, crappy front camera, and a lot more scope than a video camera for a similar price. I reasoned that I could use Dropbox to throw files onto and therefore didn't require much internal memory. I decided to get it (don't remember what I paid but it was about the cost of the Sanyo).

Because my hands don't work and it'd get dropped I needed a very cheap, somewhat cushioned case with a lanyard. The one I got drives me somewhat nutsicle, but it has saved the pod from smashage numerous times.

At first I didn't use it much. Now I use it a lot. I can read my email while I drink coffee, take pictures and video, use Instagram and other image apps, listen to the radio and music, I've used it as a phone (I hate phones though), sometimes I read various things or surf the web, make 3d flowers with Helloflower. It's small, yes, and as many times as that's been a liability it has been a strength. It works for me because I live with wifi; without wifi it'd be less useful but still worth it.

Dropbox works perfectly. Flickr, Vimeo, and YouTube have good apps. Blogger, Twitter, and Gmail have good apps. The camera apps I have are Camera+ and Tripod, Miniatures and Time Lapse, VidEditorFree. I haven't found Tripod or VidEditorFree very useful, but I haven't decided to drop them yet. The app store has loads of interesting and fun things to try. So far the most delightful app I've found when judging interfaces is Percolator, which is a novelty image editor. It is inspired and delightful in its functionality, something my brain labels as 'creamy.'

Most apps are uninspired in the way they operate, which is ok if they do the task. Some are downright ugly. Others are ugly AND don't work correctly. I have an app for a Seattle radio station which is ugly and doesn't work correctly and for which there is no substitute except to send my ears elsewhere. Even the ICON makes my eyes bleed.

I have a crush on the Miniatures app, which saves me countless hours of bother by directly creating time lapse videos, with tilt shift effects if you want them. I use a plastic plate display stand for a tripod. I have a fabbo tripod I bought at a yard sale 15 or more years ago then never used as it just wasn't right for what I needed, that will be just the ticket I believe when summer and its attendant lack of gale-force winds arrives.

I get crushes on machines; I have a crush on that little tripod. I got a huge crush on a projector I found at a Tacoma Goodwill, once. I searched for ages and finally found its cord and bought it though it had no bulb. I replaced the bulb and it worked perfectly, a joy forever :-D I used to buy mass tons of movie cameras, projectors, films, etc. Even old photos and slides. I need to dredge out my Nixon slides. Once I found a disposable camera in the street and had it developed.

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17 March 2012

 


Made with Miniatures time lapse app on the dreaded iPod.
Music: Alexander Boyes 'Februum'

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Edited some footage I had hanging around.

Claudia222 Jewell's Spirit installation at the Art Screamer sim in Second Life is wonderful to behold.
Thank you to Peter Rudenko for the dramatic and lovely piano music.

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I feel so sad for this man and woman:

A Bothell man may have shot his wife to death because she was suffering from a serious medical condition, according to court documents released by the Snohomish County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.

The man, 54, called 911 Wednesday afternoon to tell police he had just shot his wife and needed an ambulance at their home.

The man's adult son told detectives his mother had been ill for some time, and his father had been caring for her for several years. According to court papers, the man's wife had asked him to shoot her months earlier, but his daughter had told him not to.

"The male calling party ... stated that he could not stand it anymore and also stated that he was sorry," the husband reportedly told 911. He later told detectives his wife had fallen asleep on the couch and he had sat next to her for several hours before killing her.




16 March 2012

 
I'm too tired to lay my thoughts out completely and coherently, but I'll try to say what I'm wondering about. I was reading an article in the New Yorker about biologists and mathematicians wrangling over a formula to describe the evolutionary function of altruism when I read that, [paraphrased badly], "...within a group individuals without altruism have an advantage but between groups the altruistic group has the advantage over the non-altruistic group."

I thought, "Hmmm, well to me that means an altruistic group's makeup would gradually move to the non-altruistic side through genetics and mimicry and that a tipping point would be reached eventually where the group itself turns non-altruistic - then the seesaw would move in the opposite direction." Then I wondered if that explained the rise and fall of nations. As the creep burden increases in the government the nation's overall suckage would increase.

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15 March 2012

 
Link courtesy of Candide:


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Intarwebz Rulez11!!



Memes take over earth, providing way for large groups to interact as one.
One what we aren't sure, but it's cool.

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Hobo Cinema



 
Instagram
My name is firemistred
If you are on Instagram tell me because I don't have enough images to look at.


 
Rodvik on gameindustry.biz talking about SL and LL's new trio of products including one involving LittleTextPeople:

'"Although it [a new product] will launch with some very, very well crafted content, the overall plan - just like all Linden lab products - is to democratise the actual creation process. Other people will be able to make things on that platform. That's really the business we're in: building platforms that allow people to express themselves in different ways."

"You can view Second Life as a shared 3D creation space; the product LittleTextPeople is working on is going to be a creative shared storytelling space, where you can make your own stories and have people share them and play them. And then the two other products, certainly one fits very much in with virtual worlds, and the other one is kind of a unique, weird thing again that is even harder to describe - actually, it's much harder to describe."

One thing is clear: like Second Life, Linden Lab's trio of new products won't comfortably fit in with our common perception of video games. Indeed, they won't necessarily cohere to our understanding of virtual worlds, either. But for Humble, any difficulty people have with applying labels is a strong indication that he is heading in the right direction.

"With many people who work at Linden Lab, and ones who are about to join, they are people who have pushed at the edges of the games business and what games can be," he says. "I'm very comfortable with that label of, 'Are you guys really in the games business?' That's a good question. The more that occurs the better, I think. It shows that we're elbowing around the edges, which is where I like to be."

"Linden Lab has been very successful with one innovative product, but I want to stretch the company out again, to make it a really exciting place where people can't wait to find out about the next unusual title we're going to release. For me, generally, our [business] is shared creative spaces; that's generally what the company does, but also the weirder the better, I think. If we had a motto, that would be it."
'



14 March 2012

 


This was good :-D

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Gusty wind; power flickering. Usually that means a tree limb on a wire, I think. Stay on, trizzities! Frank told me yesterday the jin shin place was powerless on Monday.



13 March 2012

 


 

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Just now...

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12 March 2012

 
The way my mind mind works:

This photograph of Einstein...

...made me think of Philip Glass:



...who made me think of John Cage:



...who made me think of Merce Cunningham:



...who made me think of Enjah because on her train trip because she'll pass through Centralia, where Merce Cunningham was born.

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My power just came on. I'm cold. It went out at about 8:30.


 
Incredibly windy ===:O



11 March 2012

 
Saltburn Yarnbomber 's Secret Knitted Olympians


 
Glowstones from Ambient Glow Technology


 
Snowing...


 
Sleeting.


 
Hailing :(


 



10 March 2012

 

One of my alts on Aditi.

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Anteworld Demo by Outerra
Anterra is an earth-based global virtual world sandbox ready for you to build and explore.It's based on maps of the earth in an unspecified future where all trace of humanity was erased (!) and those remaining must rebuild. I like it because there's no game, no leveling, no one killing you, no mobs, no fake motivation. It's building, flying, and so forth. So far it's just an unfinished demo but they seem to be adding capabilities all the time. It doesn't necessarily play nicely with graphics cards at this stage.


 
Integratron


 


Adobe Shadow is free for the nonce.



09 March 2012

 
Kris Kuksi
I always like stuff like this. I *really* like his drawings, though.

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'Coca Cola and Pepsi are changing their drinks recipes because the state of California is listing a key ingredient as potentially cancerous. The soft drinks giants stress there are no health concerns. They say they just do not want to fall foul of what they describe as a “scientifically unfounded warning.”' - Euronews



08 March 2012

 

Today

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I think the rise of home computing has a lot to do with the way the crime rate has dropped.

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Governments seem to be using the globe-y nature of the Internet as an excuse to overreach their boundaries. I think. Anyway, this sounds peculiar to me:

"Sports betting is illegal in Maryland, and federal law prohibits bookmakers from flouting that law simply because they are located outside the country," U.S. Atty. Rod J. Rosenstein said in a statement.

Doesn't being 'located outside the country' mean they aren't subject to your laws, dude?



07 March 2012

 

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Anteworld Demo

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06 March 2012

 

This was really enjoyable.

Graham Leggat writes: "...the narrative is not the point—the extraordinary imagery is. The painting literally comes to life in this spellbinding film, its wondrous scenes entering the viewer like a dream enters a sleeping body."

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Made a minute ago with Miniatures time-lapse app.

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05 March 2012

 
I'm trying to learn a comic program and this is my first try. I had these shots from setting up my avatar for Enjah's noir thriller-to-come (which is going to be awesome).


 



04 March 2012

 
Ugh.

'Katter's Australian Party has slammed Federal government proposals to use the Great Barrier Reef as a dumping ground for dredge spoil, and vowed to immediately stop this if elected.

State Leader Aidan McLindon said the “pay to pollute” scheme proposed by the Federal Government and backed by Anna Bligh, points to the fact the major parties are willing to do anything to please major companies, particularly mining companies who will look to capitalise on this scheme.'
---- My Sunshine Coast

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03 March 2012

 
Glitch house set up as a computer shop.

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Tube Chandelier
Treehouse Bedroom

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Other People Are Strange

Years ago I painted a portrait of a friend who was a stone-sculptor. Another friend liked hanging some of my paintings in her house and helped me store some of my bazillion canvases. She actually painted her dining room to make it look in keeping with the aforementioned portrait. My stonecarver friend asked me if she could buy it. I wanted to trade for a custom-made memorial statue - I had whacky and groovy ideas - but she was weirded out and wouldn't do it although I explained that I wouldn't be needing it immediately or anything. Meanwhile my other friend wouldn't give up the painting, even though the person wanting it was the sitter.

I'm still bummed that I didn't get a custom-made whacky marble memorial statue.


 
Wearing Delicatessen at Invisible Cities


 
Wearing Delicatessen at Gilmour


 
Wearing Delicatessen at Gilmour



02 March 2012

 

As seen on Reddit.


 

Go Get 'Em

Anonymous continued its ongoing attack on agricultural biotech giant Monsanto today by publishing an outdated database of the company's material. This is the newest in a barrage of strikes from hackers aligned with Anonymous who operate under the "AntiSec" banner.

In a statement posted with the database on a Pastebin site, the hacktivist group wrote it was aware that exposing the database would not do much harm to Monsanto but warned it would continue to target the company for what it sees as wrong.

"Your continued attack on the worlds food supply, as well as the health of those who eat it, has earned you our full attention," wrote AntiSec. "Your crimes against humanity are too many to name on one page."



 
Italo Calvino is one of my fave fave fave writers, and there's currently an installation based loosely on Invisible Cities.



When I was married (onstage on a set for I Do, I Do by a radio disc jockey, with loads of live entertainment and to which everyone in the world was invited by my husband-to-be in a newspaper article) we wrote our own vows and mine contained a quote from one of Italo Calvino's books.

It's *sort of* too bad I can't scrape up a photo (wedding photographer was a newspaper photographer) but I BURNED THEM ALL after my divorce.


 

Jazzpaws Kickstarter Project

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Knitted Treewear Project


 
I've been checking Glitch every now and then waiting for the housing updates. Last night they announced they were going off at midnight for an hour just for maintenance, not for any updates, however today we are able to test the new housing system basics including furniture (which is not yet craftable but will be). Type /home in local chat to go there. Also, there's a zoom function they claim is tempoirary but it is still working - type /zoom and a number - 1 is normal, below that is zoomed out, above is zoomed in.
Sunsetty.Notice.Emptineess.
You can change the walls/ceiling/floor, as well.Weird being out o' mah bog :(Friends can visit.

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Gilmour is an interesting place to visit. SL and surreality go well together, as always.

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01 March 2012

 
http://freecabinporn.com/


 
Duckface for Demanding Candide.

Jebus!!! Don't say I never did anything humiliated myself for you :-[[

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Things I Have Invented In My Mind This Week*
for all the good that'll do me

Iphone/Ipad/Ipod case that has a fold out stand/tripod on the long side.
Iphone/Ipad/Ipod case that has a tripod-compatible piece on the long side.
Toilet tank lids made from plastic that are light and have a fold-down handle.
Toilet tank lids with a rubbery frame that seals onto the tank and a hinge so one can lift it up.

* As in 'Why can't I build a derrigible with my mind?


 
Excerpt From 'Rick Santorum: Obamacare Poster Boy'

'By cashing in on his senatorial connections to join the 1 percent, Santorum managed to escape the crippling debt that can come with raising a disabled child. But his tax returns appear to show how expensive caring for a disabled child can be under the current health care system, even for someone with health insurance. In 2009 and 2010, the Santorums racked up $100,000 in medical expenses—more than the median American family income each year—and that's after their private insurance paid some costs. During that same time period, they also had nearly $100,000 worth of household assistance—help they didn't have in 2007, before Bella was born. (The Santorum campaign did not respond to questions from Mother Jones about the exact nature of these expenses.)

"The financial implications [of having a disabled child] can be pretty catastrophic pretty fast," says Katy Neas, senior vice president for government affairs at Easter Seals, which provides services to more than a million disabled people every year. "Families end up losing everything because of health care costs." She says the medical expenses the Santorums have incurred aren't unusual for families with disabled children. Private insurance plans, she says, don't meet these kids' needs, largely because they impose tight limits on payments for the various therapies disabled kids require. And until the Obama health care reform law passed, insurers simply wouldn't cover many disabled children.'
---Stephanie Mencimer in Mother Jones


 
At Frank's

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I want to ask for thoughts about improving the world -- what do people need? How can things be organised?