RKNet Blog... Thing

Lately I’ve gotten a really strong urge to learn how to screenprint, or silk screen as it’s also called. I’ve done some reading online, with MAKE/CRAFT magazine being particularly helpful. Still, as excited as I was I didn’t feel like I had quite enough information to really jump in and start buying screens and emulsion and inks.

Earlier, NotCot.org posted a link to a new book about screenprinting, called The Screen Printing Primer by Nick Paparone, Jamie Dillon. You can buy a signed copy directly from PrintLiberation.com for $25. Amazon also sells the book (unsigned) for about $16.

Print Liberation has some really pretty designs up on the site, featuring a lot of really elegant uses of typography. The book contains a few transparencies put together by them for people inspired by the book to get out there and do some experimenting right away, without worrying about the first big hurdle: what design could I come up with to print?

I’m really excited about this book. While it does take a little time, investment, and space to get started, I think that learning about the principles and the history could be a lot of fun and provide alternative ways to apply screenprinting that can be achieved without needing a whole big setup. But then again with some creative shopping and recycling, I’m sure there are ways to get around those issues, too.

I’ve been meaning to get to slapping my holiday list up here - not so much in the hopes of getting the gifts that are on my list - so I can do some slobberingly glorifying reviews of some of my favorite things.

The first thing worth noting is this great article on the MAKE blog about DIY gifts. You’d figure that anything do-it-yourself would run on the cheap side, and for some of the items I suppose it is technically cheaper, but some of these projects are for those with cash to spare.

Nevertheless, nothin’ says lovin’ like somethin’ from the… workbench. Okay that’s lame. How about: Give the gifts that keep on geeking? Uhmm… Right, well, the overall gist here is that you can make all kinds of technologically inclined do-hickies for all the open source loving, raw part digging, LED enthusiasts in your life. It will cost you between $10 (for the LED menorah) and upwards of $3,000 (for a hardcore 3d printer).

Just think, for younger people on your list, you could get one of the kits and build it together. For the musically inclined nerd on your list, you could build the Daisy Open-source MP3 Player and build a sweet ass steampunk case for it out of an Altoids tin or a Weighted Companion Cube or something.

Any way you look, fun times to be had by all.

Do you have a few minutes?
Do you have a microphone or some audio clips of your voice?
Do have a picture on your computer that you feel represents you?

If so, you can go to Lifehouse Method and they will process all of those things into a musical portrait of you! Word of caution to anyone who runs around with all the bells and whistles turned off on their browsers: you will need Java and Flash for this. Don’t worry though, before you go through the process, they do a short browser test to make sure you have everything you need. I found the signup process short and sweet, with just a touch of warm fuzzies. Even at the signup point, they want to know what you think of the site and their tools. That indicates to me a group of people who actually care what their visitors think and it’s rather refreshing.

If you’re interested though, don’t dawdle! You can “sit” for up to 3 free “musical portraits” until July 31st, and then they are going to go to a subscription service.

Check out the project’s pedigree:

The Method Music Software has been developed under the patronage of Pete Townshend by mathematician/composer Lawrence Ball and software developer Dave Snowdon. A team of composers, personally approved by and occasionally including Pete Townshend, will regularly listen to Method Music portraits and select a few for further development/elaboration.

I still have two more portraits left to go. I’ll probably fire up my microphone for the next one, since I used pre-recorded snippets, and didn’t really provide a “rhythm” track for the software to analyze. Download my first muiscal portrait

I couldn’t tell you why but I take such a perverse amount of pleasure in the Xs that keep cropping up in place of where my actual “friends” used to be. It’s almost enough to let this account sit here until this site officially implodes in on itself. Unfortunately it’s become such a haven for melodramatic teenagers (Gaia without the cute avatars?), that it is highly unlikely it will ever go away. While it is true some people do seem to use this for what could be claimed is its “original purpose”, based on my experience I think the vast majority are composed of about five types.

1 - Whores - This is a very broad category. This includes spam accounts to generate pay-per-click revenue for any number of ridiculous products, as well as people whose extreme attention seeking behavior earn them the more generic label of Ho. Just to clarify, this category includes:
~ jailbait who put up pictures of themselves in their underwear
~ “scene kids” nee “emo kids”
~ businesses who put up some manner of profile front (I’m looking at you Carlo Rossi),
~ And of course, actual whores and/or sluts (one expects cash and advertises as such, the other just makes you pay for everything then dumps you), etc.

2 - Drama Students - While I applaud the philosophy of “never stop learning”, this does not apply to the kind of overly melodramatic and destructive behavior that one is likely to pick up during the Junior High and High School years of one’s life. Quite frankly I never wanted to use the internet to find out who hates who and why, and it’s largely because I usually don’t give a flying fuck. I disrespect drama in all forms, but internet drama… Stupid to the nth degree. Whatever happened to the good old fist fight? The screaming match in public? People are getting awfully passive aggressive. I blame all that “self-esteem” crap they taught us when we were all little.

3 - Angst (omigod awesome link lol)- It comes from all sides. I’m guilty of a bit myself. It’s that bizzare ritual of self-deprication in public, seeking sympathy, understanding, and/or open communication from any source even if it includes a bunch of people you don’t really like all that much. Angst, drama, and whoring are usually daisy chained together 4lyfe, but this gets its own category because there are career angst-and-woe types out there who absolutely must insist that they are miserable (or perhaps really are miserable) at all times, in the most public ways possible. How many people really give half a thought to you? Probably not as many as you would hope. Learn to bottle and die early of heart disease, if it was good enough for your grandparents and great-grandparents, it’s good enough for you. (Then give me all your meds, maybe there will be something good in that pile of rubbish doctors prescribe for behavioral modification.)

4 - Fledgling Media Breakouts - Before the recent rash of whores through my approval box, the only time I would bother to check this thing is when some manner of small or local band wanted me to rally to their flag. Sure thing guys, more power to you I guess. Someday I might even stop being such a workaholic and find the time to go catch a show. Who knows?

5 - /B/tards and Related - These people of indeterminiate race, religion, quanitity, and quality want you to be a retard who will fill in your password at the drop of a hat, without paying attention as to whether or not you really are still on the myspace servers. Then they’re going to take your brilliantly crafted profile and probably replace it with something involving memes, cuss words, and/or penises. Anonymous is legion, and they really don’t give a shit about you or your friends, so if defiling your profile is going to be funny to anybody, it will be done if you’re stupid enough to give up your information blindly. Quite frankly if you can’t be bothered to monitor your login information, you deserve it. (Besides, I think it’s kind of funny, too. …desu)

I hope I have made both my disgust and my amusement with this Borg-like hive of ridiculousness that is myspace. Please do let me know if I’ve forgotten any key points.

In recent weeks I feel as though in the struggle to constantly produce content, I Can Has Cheezburger has slowly changed formats from its origins of “amusing image macro cats of various internet origin”. At this point it seems to cater less to savvy internet addicts with a general fondness for cats and seems to be favoring crazy pet owners who enjoy photographing their pets in specific poses so they may then make up a lengthy caption that explains the entirety of any joke they may have been trying to drive at, even if it’s not actually funny when done with subtlety. I will cite examples that have lead me to a reaction of *cutcutcut* instead of I LOL’D!

• Is this supposed to be a lol-dog? More like a corndog amirite?
• A primary example of what I like to call “Trying too hard”.
• Should have been “Diabeetus”. Seriously, what else do you do with a cat like that besides make fun of Wilford Brimley?
• Yes, we get it, you own a cat and a giant stuffed Ewok. Does anyone care? Is this funny to anyone?
• No, David Bowie has one “stuck” pupil, not two different colored eyes. Thanks for playing though.

I actually unsubscribed from the RSS feed after a rash of this nonsense. However, going back to look for the links of what I feel were the biggest offenders I do admit I saw several from the last few days that did in fact make me LOL. I definitely respect the site for being on top of the petfood issue, since undoubtedly a large part of the audience isn’t just basement-dwelling nerds, but actual pet owners who love their animals. Nevertheless, I’m discouraged to see some of the posted submissions turn towards the dark side of generic 40-cats-crazy ladies posting photos of their “babies”. Keep it sharp, ICHC!

And lest I forget, HEY ICHC! A Challenger Appears! (They always do.)
LOLBots - A collection of image macros and captioned photos of various robots. A co-LOL-ction for those with animal allergies? A site for the more technologically inclined? Generally freaking awesome? You be the judge. They’re out to prove that “Robots are the new kittens”, which I take to mean that they want to prove robots are just as adorable and LOL-worthy as any ol’ LOLcat ever was. They’ve already been linked to by a few webcomics, like Diesel Sweeties and Questionable Content. The traffic generated from those links was enough to force them to throw up a makeshift splash page. Plain though it is, you get an immediate taste for their sense of humor with a photo of Data LOL-ing with the caption “INVISIBLE EMOTION CHIP”. How nerd-tastic is that?

No names have been changed, but appropriate links have been provided to appropriately ID the other participants in the conversation. Where no appropriate link could be found, the name has been omitted. Some cross-talk has also been omitted, since it doesn’t make quite as much sense out of context as it would with much more text. Rather than retell the story, again, in another format, I figured just sharing this with everyone would suffice.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was standing outside in the back parking lot of my apartment building with some people, talking about I don’t even remember what. It was night time approaching early morning and rather cloudy. All of a sudden there was a noise in the air like dozens of planes. Flood lights popped on to periodically illuminate green (like the old copper on Lady Liberty) planes of a sort I don’t even suspect could really fly. Rather than having a wing perpendicular to the body, or two as with a bi-plane, there was one wing suspended away from the body in a parallel that extended slightly beyond the body of the plane on all sides. While I was busy being confused-bordering-on-fearful about it all, one of the planes swooped low and banked hard over our building once or twice before dropping a bomb that rocked the very air around. Everyone outside was knocked down, including myself, but I looked up to discover the damage was mostly to the third floor, but there was a fire. I pushed myself off the ground in a rush. I nearly went right back down to the ground from the immediate dizzy spell, so I half-ran and half-crawled to the badk door, struggling to get the key in the sticky lock and charge up the stairs. The next thing I remembered I was waking up next to my beau. It was early in the morning, the apartment was a mess, and it took me a moment to realize what had happened. I’d gotten to the apartment and passed right out. Why he was there, seemingly undisturbed, I don’t know. I can’t remember if I woke up on the floor or in bed. At this point, a frantic search for the people outside occured, turning up everyone who had been there, plus extra. Rushing up the stairs, the damage was awful but no fire was raging. Heading back down to the lot showed everyone was either up or getting up. There was some outside source who didn’t believe in the bombing, at which I nearly lost it. The planes had been there! Everyone else saw it, too! It was a short lived argument for whatever reason, and next I was looking to help one of my neighbors who was mysteriously also one of my co-workers. He’d lost a lot in the explosion and I was going to offer to store some of his stuff while he tried to rebuild/relocate. The beau wasn’t too happy about that and was probably less happy when neighbor/co-worker started making up the couch as if to stay there.
Before, during, or after all that, I was somewhere public with a little watch on a chain attached to my collar. Just a little clip on thing, and it also had a pink teddy bear charm. I found out during the course of the speech I was listening to that there was a culture of dominance and subserviance which relied on such indicators to show who was who. Sure enough I look across the room just in time to spot the short haired girl with the animal collar riddled with charms just like my little pink bear. I didn’t get my watch out of sight fast enough and she came over to me. Subserviant though she was, she was clearly a leader in her circle. I tried to explain that I didn’t know, and it was a mistake. The girl only smiled at me knowingly and proceeded to evaluate the quality of the bauble hanging from my shirt collar (or did I have on an animal collar as well…). I remember a couple arguments between some same sex couples where I hyperfocused on their faces, as well as the start of another event/scene/thing, but not clearly enough to make the transition.
that’s all.

And I dare you to use it.

71 3F 92 64 35 8D A6 C6 B7 9F EF 28 E4 5E ED 91

Now what do I do with it? Can I sue people? Maybe I should make the blog’s color palette using the hex from that?

The article itself is short and sweet, so read through the comments at the linked article. The whole subject is highly intriguing if you’ve a socio-political interest in this flap over people who think they can “own” an integer. Also interesting for math and software geeks too! (Particularly software/crypto geeks!)

I don’t go out a lot, and wherever I go, there usually aren’t a whole lot of people. Which is why I was horrified that when I went to Dairy Queen last night, I found it to be relatively crowded, mostly with people my own age. To make the whole experience more surreal, they were dressed really strangely.

It turns out it was prom night.

Sometimes, to people who know me fairly well, I’ll say something like “would you believe I never went to prom?” I say this as if this should be surprising. I never went to the 10th grade.

So it’s surreal. But what really bothered me most was, well, who the hell brings their date to Dairy Queen on prom night?

Recently I have been playing around with Twitter. I signed up months and months ago as part of some contest and only recently started using it to assist a friend in figuring out what the big deal was. (Besides, it’s always nice to get your initial awkward moves in a new social tool accomplished under the radar, ne?)

So far I’m finding it entertaining, or at the very least amusingly distracting. One of my recent acquaintences, a writer for zombieattack (congratulations on the Wired mentions guys!), posted this extremely short, sweet, and intelligent set of guidelines for Twitter neonates.

Give it a once over. If you’re new, these are good guidelines utilize. If you’ve been at it for a while, read it and make sure you aren’t guilty of any social service faux paux.