Aku Aku

fractal fox

I was watching another excellent TED talk video, this one featuring ethno-mathematician Ron Eglash who got a fulbright grant to study why African villages were built in a fractal manner. In his Introduction to Fractals bit at the beginning he demonstrates how a line segment fractal develops:

Maybe I'm weird (ha, "maybe") but I couldn't help but notice the resemblance to the famous "chunky bacon" foxes from Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby. Now my mind is full of an infinite fractal fox syncytium shouting "chunky bacon!"

Technorati Tags: chunky bacon, ruby

ein lama in yokohama

Ein lama in yokohama - Schnappi

schnappi the little crocodile

Schnappi Das Kleine Krokodil

travel window

I just found out about a site that does something very similar to part of something I've been working on. They show videos shot out of the window of a moving vehicle. When I was in Japan last year, we took a bullet train from Tokyo to Sendai, about a two hour journey. I found the countryside flying by fascinating. During that train ride I made a plan to come back and do the ride again with a high def video camera pointed out the window on both sides of the train.

My plan was to release the videos as something you could watch at home, but to also set it up as an experience in bars. I would design a faux train car set complete with uniformed cart service selling Japanese beers and snacks and lined with large HD TVs beside each booth. Then install the set in various bars and sell tickets within the bar for the two hour "trip" (and maybe arrange to get a portion of the drink sales). I could expand to other train rides, or any kind of transport. I even was planning on filming Napa hot air balloon rides.

There is more to my idea, including a whole Web 2.0 component I'll talk more about at some later date when I'm closed to launch. I'm still going to work on it, but just wanted to point out that I'm kind of tired of finding out about launched projects similar to things I'm working on. 

Eight years ago I put a lot of work into a plan for a mobile phone social network (yeah, before Friendster) then found out a guy in my Burning Man camp already had a million dollars in funding for Upoc.com which had implemented about 75% of my ideas, so I dropped it and co-founded a chemical informatics company. In retrospect I really wish I'd gone with my first idea instead. A couple of years ago I was thinking about how Web 1.0 agents could make a comeback and outlined some thoughts about collaborative server side scripting, then I get an email from Marc Andreessen and find out about his imminent launch of Ning so I dropped that as well. More recently I was working on a Ajaxy family tree site, then ran across an article that talked about a dozen of them about to launch (btw, Geni.com is pretty close to my vision).

I've got half a dozen more examples. I know it's just the way things are these days (if not throughout history). Any good idea occurs to a few dozen people around roughly the same time, and chances are you won't be the first. I'm just annoyed. I need to work faster I guess.

To top off the latest annoyance, I found out that someone named Ian Toews created a film in 2001 called Japan. Kesei Line Single Take that consists of exactly what it sounds like, a single take out of a train window travelling through Tokyo, and apparently won awards with it. Grr.

9 of 52: Kimono Pants

When I was last in Japan, Mie's Aunt gave her some old kimonos to bring back with us. I've been meaning to try using them to add some flair to a pair of old jeans ever since, and finally got around to it today. Lesson learned: sewing something onto trouser legs can be fairly complicated, and I suck at sewing.

Unsubscribe Me From Government Torture

I grew up in a Marine Corps town, instilled with a fierce sense of patriotism. I was proud to be part of the United States of America, the greatest nation on Earth. Not great because of our military power, but because of our values. We stood against tyranny. We stood for human rights. We rescued the world from the Nazis. We aided victims of disasters caused by either Man or Nature. We would gladly suffer ourselves to right a wrong, to help others. We were the heroes. From a very young age I believed we were perhaps the most morally evolved people humanity had ever seen. I still tear up when I hear patriotic songs.

As an adult I know that the pure version of that fantasy was false even before I was born, but what I felt inside myself was real. If I felt this way, so also some of my fellow countrymen did as well. The fantasy isn't wholly impossible. We can, as a nation, approach these high ideals and behaviors. We can evolve morally in a more just, a more heroic direction. It hasn't turned out that way though. Today I don't tear up with pride when I hear patriotic songs, I tear up with grief. I am ashamed to be an American.

This film from Amnesty International shows a performance artist subjecting himself to a typical CIA enhanced interrogation technique, called "stress position." Prisoners are forced to stand for many hours in positions that cause extreme muscle fatigue. They are told that the floor is electrified, or that they will be shot if they fail to stay in position. The man in the video is not acting, he actually did this for six hours and his response is real. Two more films showcasing other methods are forthcoming. Ask yourself. Is this who we are? Is this what you asked your government to do for you?

VectorMagic

Last weekend I spent a couple of hours fooling around in Photoshop to create a 'vexel' of Mie. Now anyone can do it in a couple of minutes just by uploading a photo to this VectorMagic, a Stanford project.

Vectormagic

It didn't give her a lip ring, but not bad for two minutes of time. You can download the EPS file and further edit it yourself.

Here's William Finn Robert's first vexelization:

WilliamFinnRoberts_vectorized

 

Kiva: New Loans

I've put out three new loans on Kiva.org. These are small amounts (about $25 each this time) pooled together with other lenders to constitue loans that range from a couple of hundred dollars to a thousand. The loans are given to small business people in developing countries and paid off over a year or two. Here are my recipients this time around:

Lole Lemalu

Lole has a convenience store in Samoa that she's been running for 4 years. She got a $300 loan to expand the shop and inventory.

Hannah Taupo

Hannah has a plantation business in Samoa. She got a $475 loan to buy equipment for the business. If all goes well, she plans on getting another loan after this one is paid off to help her daughter go to University.

Irène Dakini

Irène is a hairdresser and will use a $1000 loan to add beauty supply inventory that her customers have asked for.

Kucinich

I've made up my mind to support Kucinich in the US Presidential election. I don't like any of the Republican candidates enough to think I'd vote for any of them. I don't like Hillary Clinton even though she's better than the current President by several orders of magnitude, because I believe she's still part of the old guard corrupt system, the same with John Edwards. I've been on the fence with Barak Obama, holding out some hope, but I just have never been able to be sure he wasn't just the same stuff in a new package. Kucinich though, well, I agree with most of his policy decisions, and if I had to pick one presidential candidate to trust with my life, it's him. It's easy to be convinced that he is not part of the same old corrupt political machine. This is a smart, caring and determined man.

dennis kucinich abc news interview

I wish the Federal elections had Rank Choice Voting (aka Instant Runoff). Most people, at least in San Francisco, think that it's just about saving money by not requiring a second runoff poll day in close elections, but to me it is really about eliminating the "go ahead, throw your vote away" mentality where people prefer a candidate, like say Nader, but feel they can't vote for him because not voting for Gore might let Bush win. Rank Choice Voting allows you to vote first for the candidate you really support, then second for the lesser-of-two-evil candidates you feel you must support. For example, if 25% of Americans voted Nader first and Gore second, 40% voted Gore first and 35% Bush first, Gore would still win with 65% of the vote, since in the end the Nader first votes would get converted to Gore votes. However, the political landscape would change because Nader would be known to have the support of 25% of the population.

I can use the primaries to achieve the same thing in a way. I've decided to throw my support behind Kucinich for the primary, even though I know I'll probably end up voting for either Obama or Clinton in November 2008. I'm going to contribute double what I've already contributed to Obama, and look into volunteering for campaign support as well.

8 of 52: Mie Vexel

I was doing a search for Hello Kitty images (for another project) and ran across an image at vexel.net (btw, I really like their bamboo-themed banner). I'd never heard of vexel graphics before although it reminded me of that old Duran Duran style. I ended up following a link to the artist's site and her page at Deviant Art and contacted her to see if she'd do a commission piece. I was thinking it would be cool to have an image of Mie in that style. Before she got back to me on her rates, I considered that maybe I should look into doing one myself as this week's art thing. I assumed at first that it would be much too hard, but realized I should at least try. With a little research I found a pretty good tutorial and realized my Photoshop skills were probably up to the task.

So I started with this image:

Then using the tutorial as a guide I made a basic vexel Mie:

I made sure to have a no hair version so I could play with hair styles a bit:

Then, since I <3 SuicideGirls, I added some spiky hair:

And then some red highlights:

Finally I gave her a lip ring and lightened the skin tone a bit:

If you have Adobe Photoshop, you can download the image file and play around with the layers to make your own custom Mie.