Tenfoot Films -inside Iraq

People may be interested that a good aquaintance of mine is a freelance film maker who is filming on and off all the time in Iraq, undercover and largely on his own. He is commissioned by different TV companies, mainly the BBC, to capture 'the other side', and me and a friend have started a blog for him at http://tenfootfilms.blogspot.com which he intends to post to regularly. This guy is a good man, and he gets stories that other people wouldnt even know to look for. I recommend you check his blog now and again to follow what he may be up to.

Flash Alice - and Jim Flora

Over at spamnet, he's having a prolonged sparkle of flash inspiration I think, as has sourced a lovely animation short of Alice in Wonderland. here it is full screen:

 

http://www.feelgoodanyway.com/interactive/alicepop.html

 

It reminds me alot of the site of Jim Flora, a fantastic Record Cover Designer. I think this guy started doing covers in the thirties, but his style is utterly timeless. Like the flash of Alice, it represents the hep cats of the forties/fifties especially, the epitomy of cool. We don't really have style like this these days do we? I wonder where it all went, that inventiveness and originality.

 

http://www.inhi-fi.com/flora/

Update on fatties - Introducing 'THE FAT SLUGS'

Ive been busy making an amusing [hopefully] little flash short of the Fat Slugs, porch dwellers in excelsis. Its 880k so you may need patience or a big FAT pipe. And you need sound to hear their neanderthal chat.

http://www.thesobs.co.uk/blogs/pen-e/flash/fatslugs.htm

Flash Polyphonic Quest

Recently spotted at the very fine and dandy spamnet, the new [?] flash game promoting some Polyphonic Spree thing or other, it's certainly inspired to some degree by Samorost, and in keeping with spooky hick fairy tale territory, which suits the Spree great. You must check it out, to see if you get further than I did....ahhh, I have done it on the second try. Very beautiful, and now I know it is designed by amanita design at http://www.jimmy-k.com/amanita/, and this is the guy who did Samorost!! I feel I am complete, just to know this.

questfortherest.



It's fabulous.

iTunes - the pricing rip off

I laughed out loud when I heard of the optimistic launch of the European version of iTunes. After a protracted battle regarding pricing and territories, it's reputed that downloads in Britain will be 79p each, but in the rest of Europe, will be priced lower. Firstly, 79p per track puts the rough price of an entire CD at *£8.00, which is a considerably higher price for a CD than our European brothers. Secondly, since when did paying for the tracks equate to the same as buying an actual CD, complete with disc, box, sleeve, artwork and lyrics. Apart from the UK always being charged more for music than virtually [haha] any other territory, which is an ongoing outrage in the music business, how can they justify 'territories' in cyberspace. Surely, if you go to itunes.de, you will be able to pay in euro's, and therefore bypass such anachronistic legislation. The pricing of downloads seems to be a continual conspiracy to rip off the punter, and make sure the music business gets more than they are giving. I just can't understand it. As well as this, the perpetual myth that 'artists' are really against free downloads, and are all in the poor house as a result is such a lie. The music business relies on ignorance and disinterest to carry on its terrific monopoly, and we the people have no say, no one cares. It's only music for god's sake.

http://www.itv.com/news/1584412.html.

http://www.macnewsworld.com/story/34535.html. This just shows what kind of gang together type of conspiracy is going on, sad people who have never really had to think about why they made their money. Before the global community of modern life, no one knew about the rip off prices from one country to the next. In recent times the record companies have had to create new legislation to combat huge importing of cheap CDs from the continent into the UK to protect their 'protected' markets. That was only the beginning, and they couldn't even see it. Now they behave as if the digital revolution is all the fault of evil filesharers and downloaders. Horse, gate and bolted are words that come to mind.

Meanwhile, hundreds, if not thousands of American retail music stores are closing, and the same is happening in Blighty. I get the feeling they want a situation where only the record company itself can make money from its releases, cutting out all middle men. That cuts out the possibilty of piracy quite alot, or so they think.


* NB The price of your average new release in Blighty is closer to £12 or £14, so on a new release, the figures compare well, but that is just encasing the already exorbitant price of a new CD into a faceless cyberprice. You can't bargain with the webpage, you can't offer exchange, or bulk buy or anything. Your'e fu**ed.

Real Democracy?

I did my duty, I voted today in the voting thing that went on. I say voting thing, because when you actually got down to it, there were five votes to cast. I didn't realise this until the leaflet came through the door, and even then, on studying the contents briefly, almost decided it wsn't worth the bother, trying to figure out who was who and what was what. It all boiled down to, and I don't exaggerate, 'don't concern yourself with the individuals involved, it doesn't really matter who they are, just vote for the party tag that they represent', both complex and frighteningly simplified at the same time.
[[For your information, two votes for mayor of London, 1st and 2nd choice, two votes for the London Assembly, one for your constituency, one for London Wide [whatever that really means...] and one vote for European MEP, possibly. Still not totally sure, and I'm not totally thick, so god help the rest.]]

It's a joke really, what national and international politics has become. If that is the basis of the democracy that they all trumpet so loudly and use as the unchallengable foundation of their system, then they are going to be shortly up the spout. It goes without saying that the levels of manipulation and the potential for unnaccountability are truly scary.

Vector Graphics....

I've been doing some stuff in flash with the 'trace bitmap' function, and I found a really good clear tutorial for working out just how easy it is to convert images you import into flash into vectorized versions. There's alot of control in the settings window, so you can get various effects. It really is great. Even if you start with a 'drawing' or other non photograph image, you can get really good results. If you haven't used this little gem before, try it.

> Iboost.com bitmap to vector tutorial.

Fat-Fatter-Fattest

I went to the coast at the weekend. I went shopping today, for groceries. I was 'uptown' last week, Oxford Street, Regent Street. Fat everywhere. Everywhere you looked, every other person you walked by, sat by, squashed passed. Fat. Women, men, young, old, white, black, asian, arab, japanese, etc. On the buses, in their own cars, in trucks, on motorbikes, walking, on bicycles. FAT. [hi fatkid, not talking bout you as I know you are svelte and attractive, you joker, you]. When I was a kid, fat people really were the exception. I wasnt the thinnest in the class, but by the time I was twenty, I was only eight stone [112lbs]. I am now all grown up and Im still only about 150lbs 140lbs. What do these people do, or rather not do, that makes them so enormous by the time they are in their late teens? Mad, bad and FAT. Blubberhouses full of chips, crisps, coke, pizza, dietcoke, it's immoral. Haven't they heard of the starving millions? I know it's all supposed to be diseases and allergies and terrible afflictions. I don't believe it. Have you looked in their shopping trolleys?

YOU WANT FRIES WITH THAT?....
CHEWING THE FAT ON OBESITY...
GOOGLE FAT NEWS SEARCH....