Green Screen Tech Comes Home

I just saw the commercial for Yoostar(tm), which is basically a home green-screen video set-up with software that puts you into a movie or television scene.

It looks like a great concept, but right now there's only a limited catalog of scenes available. You only get 14 scenes when you purchase the system; the rest are available to download for a few bucks each. It's also pretty constraining; you can only upload your scenes to the Yoostar site or view them using on your computer using the proprietary Yoostar application. If you were hoping to YouTube your best Elwood Blues impression or burn Gramma's role as Blacula to DVD, you're out of luck.

Still, I'm excited to see yet another tool of video professionals being made affordable enough ($169.99 at Best Buy) for amateurs, and I can't wait to see what the hackers do with it. In the meantime, enjoy this clip, with Snoop Dogg whoring himself out at Tommy Chong, Marlon Brando & others.

Halloween is Coming! Part I: The Fog

A Facebook friend recently asked me for advice about fog machines. Actually, he only mentioned - in a general status update - that he needed a fog machine. Nevertheless, that was reason enough for me to go on a rant about all the various ways of achieving fog effects. After more than a decade in the theatrical supply business, I like to think I know what I'm talking about.

It wasn't enough, though, for me to force my advice onto just one online friend. No, I feel that this information is important enough to force onto all of my readers. (Hi Mom!) So here, without further ado, are my recommendations for all sorts of fog effects.

If you only need a fogger to last for a day or two, I recommend hitting your local -Mart of choice. About $30 will get you a cheapie with a bottle of fluid. Some even shoot the fog out of creepy skull faces with light-up eyes! Just please don't be disappointed if your party fogger craps out on you before the party's over.

If you want a decent fogger that you can use again next year, check out my friends at Theatre Effects. You can find their entry-lever foggers here: http://tinyurl.com/ydt7gug. [Full disclosure: I worked for Theatre Effects when they were based in Hagerstown. I left the company when they relocated to Cincinnati. I still know the owner, though, and can vouch for him as "good people." If you're a theatre person, or like to pretend to be one at Halloween, I can't recommend the folks at Theatre Effects highly enough.]

If you want a professional (i.e. theatre & film) fogger, well Theatre Effects has you covered there, too. A whole page of high-quality, high-output machines can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/y88usen. My personal favorite is the 9,000W (!!) Orka stadium fogger. For reference, one of the "high-output" theatrical foggers on that same page is 1,500W. In other words, it draws about 11 amps when in use. You could run two of them on one household electrical circuit. The Orka requires its own 50 amp service! All in all, a kick-ass way to blow $5,000.

Bear in mind that none of the above machines create spooky, low-hanging fog. They create a thick cloud of fog (or "smoke") that will rise into the air and disperse. The only visible difference among these types of foggers is the amount of fog produced.

If you want spooky, low-hanging fog, you'll need either a dry-ice fogger or a fog chiller. Dry-ice foggers work by heating a vat of water into which a basket of dry ice is then lowered. Fog chillers take the output of a standard fog machine and lower its temperature so that it's less inclined to rise into the air before dispersing. You can get either from, well, you should know by now: http://tinyurl.com/ycp7je2

If you decide to go the dry-ice route, bear in mind that it takes about 20lbs of dry-ice for 10 minutes of continuous fog. Dry ice can cost between $.25 - $1.00 a pound and doesn't store well, so plan accordingly. Call a local oxygen, beverage, scuba, or welding supply company for more info.

Liquid nitrogen works well for low fog, too, if money is no object. Check out the craziness the guys at Interesting Products in Chicago get up to: http://www.interesting-products.com/ Fun Fact! Liquid nitrogen fog is a popular effect in nightclubs because it can drop the temperature on the dance floor several degrees very quickly.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that you can get most of these devices, and more, from my current employer, Parlights, in Frederick, MD.

Photo Stolen From Steve Spangler Science.

On A Lighter Note...

Forget about gay marriage; what really ticks off the Lord is shellfish.

http://www.godhatesshrimp.com/

Faith vs Literalism

For the past few weeks I've been having a mostly internal debate on the possibility of someone being a Christian (or Jew, Muslim, etc) and, at the same time, being a rational, caring, and tolerant person. This debate stems mainly from the fact that I do consider myself both a Christian and a rational, caring, tolerant person.

In doing some reading on the subject, I recently came across an article that addresses something that people will quickly point to as evidence that people of faith are a bunch of superstitious nuts. I'm referring to the insistence of some believers in the "literal interpretation" of religious texts. Of course, many of those who insist that their holy text be read "literally," really only want the literal reading to apply to the parts of the text that reinforce beliefs they already hold.

The article, posted this January in the "On Faith" section of washingtonpost.com, stems from a tragic death in Wisconsin, where an 11-year-old girl died because her parents were part of a Christian sect that does not believe in seeking medical treatment for illness or disease, relying instead upon the power of prayer and God's intervention

Brad Hirschfield, author of the article and himself an orthodox Jew, explores the ramifications of Biblical literalism, and how often it "quickly devolves into ugly and dangerous behavior." He also makes some good points regarding the difference between people of faith, even fundamentalists, and hypocrites "hiding behind a claim of reading the Bible literally, which nobody does anyway."

It's well worth reading for anyone interested in the differences between faith and fanaticism.

Biblical Literalism Kills -- Literally by Brad Hirschfield at washingtonpost.com

Photo by Flickr user Wonderlane

The Cars That Go Boom

Somebody actually took the time to make a video for one of my favorite mashups ever. And it's pretty well edited, too! (If you don't like mashups at least hang in there for the vintage Beatles cartoon.)

Beck's Record Club

Alright, so I'm about a month late jumping on this particular bandwagon but, as a fan of both Beck and The Velvet Underground, I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention the Record Club project. Briefly, here's how it works: Beck and a bunch of his friends get together, they choose an album, and then they cover it, song by song, laying down the whole LP in one day. Their first pick was one of my favorite albums ever: The Velvet Underground and Nico.

When I first heard about the Record Club, I really liked the idea - I still do, really - but after listening to their covers of the Velvets' songs I've found I'm not so thrilled with the results when the idea is put into practice. I'm sure this is in no small part due to the fact that I've pretty much memorized every song, every off-key note, every junk-soaked phrase of the source material. I know this album like I know few other things in my life. If they'd started by covering Digital Underground's Sex Packets, as Beck claims they almost did, I probably wouldn't be judging the results so harshly.

But still. These tracks - most of them, at least - sound like exactly what they are: rough, unrehearsed experiments. On the Record Club website, Beck himself writes, "some of the songs are rough renditions, often first takes documenting what happened over the course of a day. There is no intention to 'add to' the original work or attempt to recreate the power of the original recording. Only to play music and document what happens." This is the sort of stuff I'd expect to hear from a favorite local band, at the end of their last set of the night, when they're just goofing around on songs that they feel like playing.

But listen up, Beck, this album is important to me. I don't want to hear you and your friends goofing around with it, and I really don't want to hear you goofing around with "Heroin," or "Venus in Furs," two of my favorite songs on the album. The cover of "Heroin," in particular, is just awful. Out of kindness, I'm not even going to link to it. It's that bad. I'm talking about the musical equivalent of a goatse prank. All I could do was stare unbelieving at the screen for almost a minute before frantically clicking away.

I have to admit, though, that this experiment also yielded some pretty decent tracks. For example, I really enjoyed the cover of "Sunday Morning," probably because Beck had a chance to rehearse it on stage during his 2002 tour with The Flaming Lips. He does a good job capturing Lou Reed's relaxed, slightly sleepy delivery; although I'd guess "slightly sleepy" isn't too much of a stretch for the guy who pioneered slack-rock. He also provides the vocals for "I'll Be Your Mirror," and he does Nico proud.

The best of the bunch, though is the cover of "All Tomorrow's Parties." This track is absolutely brilliant, with Icelandic singer Thorunn Magnusdottir giving a slightly softer, sweeter rendition of Nico's vocals while Beck's long-time drummer Joey Waronker plays drums with one hand and keyboard with the other. Check it out:

Record Club: Velvet Underground & Nico "All Tomorrow's Parties" from Beck Hansen on Vimeo.

I still think that the Record Club is a great idea, and I'm looking forward to future releases. I just hope that, from here out, they pick albums that I'm not quite so emotionally invested in. Take note, Beck, you just stay away from The Wall and Nothing's Shocking and we'll be all good.

Fun Facts About Drugs and Money

FaceBook friends, please ignore. This post should have gone here instead of my notes page. It's one of those days, again. As an act of contrition, I've added a picture and lightly edited the post for content, running time, and to fit your screen format.

For anyone interested (and since I'm likely on a DEA watch list by now anyway) here are the stats I used for my recent CokeMoney posts:

In FY 2008, the US Bureau of Engraving & Printing delivered 7.7 billion notes (stats from the BEP Web Site). This number includes all denominations. 95% of those bills were to replace bills already in, or taken out of circulation. I confess that I slacked on the math a bit here, sorry! Please submit any complaints, comments, or corrections to our customer service website - http://www.gopoundsand.com.

Of those 7.7 billion notes approximately 80% have, by now, come in contact with powder cocaine - usually by way of an ATM or counting machine. (Stats from this Snopes.com article: http://www.snopes.com/business/money/cocaine.asp)

80% of 7.7 billion notes is 6.16 billion notes - still a lot of cash! (Fun facts: That's about 13 million pounds worth, or a stack of bills about 418 miles high!)

Also according to the Snopes article, the estimated average amount of cocaine per contaminated note is 16 micrograms per note. (1 microgram = 1 millionth of a gram for all you drama majors out there.)

Based on those figures, we get 98,560,000,000 micrograms total, or 98.56 kilograms of cocaine. This is the answer to William Gibson's original question, "If you soaked all the money in America in a BIG vat, then removed the money and evaporated the water, how much cocaine would you have?"

Curious, I took things a step further. The "street price" of any narcotic varies widely across the country, so I hit up a few sites (mostly law enforcement, but a few "amateur enthusiasts" as well) and compared the results. In the end, I decided to use a value of $20,000 / KG for cocaine, because it's a nice round number and it's at the lower end of the scale.

ERGO: 98.56KG of coke * $20,000.00 / KG = $1,971,200.00 worth of cocaine floating around on our dollar bills.

Q.E.D. bitches!

Finally Finished the Himalaya Project!

So I finally finished that "Himalayan Mix Tape," I was going on about. I started with over 50 songs (including a lot of your suggestions, dear readers) and pared it down to a one-hour, compilation CD that I think will shout CARNIVAL! at you louder than a midway barker. Here's the run-down:
1) Rock You Like a Hurricane - Scorpions
2) Back in Black - AC/DC
3) Immigrant Song - Led Zeppelin
4) Paradise City - Guns 'N' Roses
5) Tom Sawyer - Rush
6) Don't Bring Me Down - E.L.O.
7) Centerfold - J. Geils Band
8) Everybody Wants You - Billy Squier
9) Take a Chance on Me - ABBA
10) Mirror of Illusion - Hawkwind
11) Dirty White Boy - Foreigner
12) Fox on the Ron - Sweet
13) Godzilla - Blue Öyster Cult

I'm going to give it a listen tomorrow on my way to work, but I think we have a winner. If you'd like your own copy just shoot me your snail-mail and I'll send one out as soon as I get around to it. (Sorry, hard copies only, I'm just not up for fighting with my FTP client this week.)

Thanks again to everyone who suggested songs. It's gratifying to know that there's a couple of people actually reading this stuff.

(photo courtesy of Gush Party, USA)

If The Bene Gesserit Had to Face Tech Week...

It is tech week.
Tech week is the mind-killer.
Tech week is the little death that brings total obliteration.
I will face tech week.
I will stay up all night; I will work through weekends with completely irrational people.
And when tech week is over, I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where tech week has gone there will be only closing night.
Only strike will remain.

Double Dork Points(tm) to me for combining Dune and tech theatre into a blog post.

Minus several million for ripping off Jon Rosenberg.

Actually, now that most folks I know have survived tech week, his strip is more appropriate:

http://www.goats.com/archive/990517.html

Face your beers, people, you've earned them!

Good News for Internet Radio

I listen to a LOT of internet radio. At work, I listen to a "Steve Roach" (ambient/drone) station on Pandora, in a feeble attempt to keep my stress levels down. At home, I listen to the "Drone Zone" on Soma FM while paying bills (for the same reason). And Robyn and I have recently started listening to the live stream from AM 1710 out of Antioch Illinois (old timey radio drama) at night as we go to sleep.

For several years now, there's been a struggle between internet radio stations and record labels. The point of contention has been what constitutes reasonable per-song royalty rates that the labels could require for sites providing streaming music. For a while, it looked as if the rates would be so high as to force stations like Pandora and Soma out of business.

According to a recent article in New York Times, though, the record labels and online music services have reached an agreement that will allow sites like Pandora and Some to stay in business, while providing the copyright holders with some compensation for their music.

There seems to be some question as to whether or not this agreement will remain in place; but if it does I think it will turn out to be a good thing for the labels. More and more, streaming music services are replacing commercial radio stations as the place for listeners to discover new music.

It's The Amateur Dream Analysis Show!

Because the only thing Blogger needs more than angst-ridden poetry and LOL cats is people rambling on about their dreams. That being said...

A friend of mine and I have both been having persistent dreams about being lost/trapped in buildings. For me, it's a shopping mall/hotel complex with a weird princess-themed restaurant, in which I have tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up waitresses in hoop skirts and tiaras. Comparatively, his is a much more normal, multi-story maze of rooms. In my dream, I'm usually just wandering around, lost, while he has a very definite need to escape the building.

My thoughts so far:

Okay, so Zolar's Dictionary (Amazon link here: http://tinyurl.com/ly9p9r) says a dream of a very tall building indicates you "will have much success." Faces of strangers means you will have a "change of residence," while being stuck in a maze could mean you either, "are surrounded by unhappiness," or should, "beware of domination by insincere friends."

But that's all just a bunch of new age mumbo-jumbo.


The wife (who's had more psych classes than I) says that a building in a dream is a symbol for one's own mind. So if I were to play shrink, I'd say that the "unknown but important reason" for you to get out of the maze is that your mind is trying to work it's way through some problem.

If that's true, then the "lost in a building" dream is probably a pretty common one, much like the "showing up for a test completely unprepared" dream that most of us have had at least once. The particulars of these dreams, of course, vary from person to person, and focusing on those particulars may give some insight into what our mind is trying to tell us.

For me, the dreams always center around retail environments. That makes sense, considering that I spend most of my offline time trying to sell things. The sense of being lost is, I think, a projection of my desire to, once and for all, figure out how to be really good at selling. To extend the metaphor, the failed attempt with the waitress could be my fear of failing with a customer.

Why she's wearing a hoop skirt and tiara (and waving a little fairy-wand, now that I think about it) is anybody's guess.

The Himalayan Mixtape Project Continues

Your suggestions so far:

• Shake It Up - Yes!
• Stand Back - More of a parachute ride song, if you ask me, but I'm willing to give it a go.
• Sweet Child O' Mine - This, or Paradise City; I'm still deciding.
• Rock of Ages - Yes!

Also, I seem to recall hearing "Heart of Glass," on at least one ride.

This is going to be a little tougher than I thought. The songs need to be upbeat & high energy, a la Rock of Ages, but not too angry. Welcome to the Jungle, for example, would be just a hair over the line.

My Himalayan Mixtape

The great thing about writing a blog that's read by tens of people (hi mom!) is that I can, on a whim, call upon your combined brain-power, thereby saving me the trouble of using my own.

That being said, and bearing in mind that you failed me miserably the last time I asked for help, here's your assignment: I want to compile a mixtape for my 40 minute commute to work. I need it to be upbeat and high-energy to get me "pumped up," about selling theaters and theatre accessories for 8 - 10 hours. My solution: the music they play on the "Himalaya" ride at the traveling carnival.

So, dear reader, leave me a comment with the song or songs you best remember being played (or think would be played) as the soundtrack for a tilted, supercharged carousel. I have a few songs already in mind, but I don't want to skew the results.

All I'll say is, "Fox on the Run."

Photo by sambeaner77.

I Just Deleted the "Most Recently Played" Sidebar

I've realized that most of the music I listen to is either via iTunes radio (or the Rhythmbox equivalent when I'm booted into Linux) or other streaming sites. These services do not play nicely with Last.FM, or Last.FM hasn't figured out how to collect information from them, I don't know. The point is that unless I'm streaming music from Last.FM or listening to my library on iTunes, Last.FM doesn't have a clue what I'm listening to and the results get all screwy.

For example: according to Last.FM, my current favorite artist is Brian Eno, and the last time I listened to music was on Friday, when I listened to the entirety of the Sigur Rós album "Ágætis Byrjun." Now, I did indeed listen to "Ágætis Byrjun" on Friday (and enjoyed it very much, thank you) but I've since listened to Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue," DJ Shadow's "Preemptive Strike," and a collection of Jonathan Coulton songs on the CD player in my car. I also listened to an hour or two of Classical Music on Magnatune while doing some homework.

As far as I can tell, Last.FM has no way of when I listen to music on anything other than iTunes, iPod, or their site. And there's nothing wrong with that, I guess, if that's how the majority of their users listen to music. I don't, and so my "Recently Played" box has been empty for the past few months. I finally got tired of looking at it and just deleted it.

Enjoy the new sidebar with tons of Amazon.commy action!

Why I Follow William Gibson on Twitter

So William Gibson has a Twitter account that less than 8,000 people follow.

To be clear, I'm talking about the author of cyberpunk classics like Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic; the man who made "cyberspace" a household word; probably the first science fiction author you would think of if I said to you, "internet." And he has less than 8,000 people following him.

To put this into perspective:

• Wil "Wesley Crusher" Wheaton has over 650,000 followers
• Neil Gaiman recently passed 444,444 (I know this because someone TOOK A PICTURE)
• Hell, even LeVar-f'ing-Geordi-La-Forge-Burton has over a half-million followers

I guess this would be understandable if his "tweets" were the usual, "I'm having breakfast with the fam, I made bacon!" sort of prattle. (Or Mr. Wheaton's color commentary on the NHL playoffs, for that matter.) But here's the thing, William Gibson always, ALWAYS has the good shit, AND HE SHARES IT WITH YOU:

EXEMPLI GRATIA:

"Black Cable" in and Around DC (a growing problem for developers):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/30/AR2009053002114_pf.html

Bicycle Parkour in Scotland:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z19zFlPah-o

And this, about which I can think of nothing more to say than, "very, very cool, go check it out."
http://www.flickr.com/groups/lookingintothepast/pool/

Happy Free Comic Book Day!

Nerds of the world rejoice! Today is the first Saturday in May, which means it's Free Comic Book Day!

My preferred method of celebration: grab a non comic-reading friend or relative, get out to your local shop, and don't leave until THEY pick out a comic.

The Tallest Man on Earth

I've told you about The Tallest Man on Earth, right? I haven't?! Quick! Watch this video! No no no! There's no time to thank me now! Do it later! Click! Hurry!

Bacon Is A Vegetable Is A Rip-Off UPDATED!

So, first off, there's this blog called Baconation-baconation. I'm not linking to it directly because I don't want the three people who read this blog (hi mom!) to give them any additional traffic. I'll get to why they thought their blog was so nice they had to name it twice in a second. First, let me rant.

The blog itself is pretty terrible. The animated .gifs in the right-hand column are particularly distracting and annoying, and the content seems to be a regurgitation of other articles on the web, put there simply as a framework for click-through images of their CafePress products.

What really gets me, though, is that a good many of the products offered in the "Baconation" Cafe Press store are stolen images from other, talented, artists.

Example: They offer products with something eerily similar to this design (see above) by rstevens of Diesel Sweeties fame. Trust me, even if you're credulous enought to believe that two people could come up the the phrase "bacon is a vegetable," the other dudes' design is clearly a rip-off of Mr. Stevens' work.

As if that weren't enough, the Baconation jerks then decided to rip off one of my favorite bacon-related webcomics of all time from XKCD. I mean come on people, what's next? Stealing the title of your crappy blog from some other bacon-related blog? OH WAIT YOU DID THAT TOO.

UPDATE FROM RSTEVENS:
"The crappy Bacon is a Vegetable rip-off shirt was taken down thanks to all you rad Twitter people!"
Hurray for Twitter-based crowdsourcing!

Holy Crap I Want This

Commodore 64 Original Hardware Laptop

"This is a fully functional Commodore 64 laptop using actual hardware, specifically the C64C motherboard which was one of the last and smallest revisions. It uses a Gamecube power supply in place of the original power brick.

For storage there’s a device called the 1541-III DTV to “emulate” a floppy drive using an SD card. (Click here for more info) The SD card is formatted FAT-32 so you can dump disk images on it using a PC, and read it with the C64 - pretty cool!"

Demo Video:

In case you were waiting for it:

We can do holograms now.

Doctorow Reviews Sterling Novel / Bashes Hippies

Not really, but I couldn't resist that headline. Over at BoingBoing, Cory Doctorow has a review of the first Bruce Sterling novel in a while to pique my interest, The Caryatids; he also provides this thought about the future of environmentalism:

"...in Earth's future -- and in Sterling's -- there's no going back to the land for us. Not because the land is too poisoned, but because billions of charcoal-burning hunter-gatherers are far more hazardous to the planet than a neatly ordered world of cities in which technology is used to minimize our footprints by giving us smarter handprints."

Take that, all you tree-hugging dirt lovers.

Cory Doctorow's Review of The Caryatids @ BoingBoing

Webcomics Say The Darndest Things

Roast Beef: The invisible hand of this particular economy may wear a fingerless glove and write checks at the gas station but damned if this money don't have square edges and a certain legal tenderness...It also has tuberculosis and the Hantavirus so I'm gonna go microwave it for a bit

Grrl: "If you need me I will be listening to tape hiss in my room."

Vermont Pete: "I stimulated your mom's package last night."

Randall (see above): "I take the Jurassic Park approach to parenting."

Hovercat: Morbid Edition

So it's been a little while since last I played Hovercat but I thought I'd give it a go. I've been in a pretty morbid mood this week, so I tried "robot suicide." The results were better than I'd expected.

Top of the list was a story from last March about a man who built a remote-control device that could fire a pistol repeatedly. He then used the device to commit suicide outside his home in Australia. FOXNews.com's headline?

Australian Man Gunned Down in Driveway by Killer Robot

The second result was (to me, at least) a really sad commercial from the 2007 Superbowl, about an industrial robot who gets fired from his job at a GM assembly plant. These days it's all the more poignant by its reflection of what many American workers are going through.

And finally, I found a robotic art installation from 2006 featuring "C3" a robot designed to commit suicide by "drinking" Coca-Cola and then spraying the beverage onto itself. Enjoy!

THE Decade of Rock

So we (the office) have been charged by our Fearless Leader to make mix tapes for prizes and glory. Twice before I've attempted this challenge, and both times I was met with bitter failure. The first time out, we were supposed to pick the ten best rock and roll songs, period, from the Beatles' era through to 12/31/1999. The second challenge was to choose the absolute worst songs of the 1980s, which I wrote about back in 2006. Coincidentally, that post marked the first time I realized that people other than myself occasionally read this blog.

Well, this time you're not getting off so easy! By reading this far you have now entered into a legally binding agreement to provide me assistance in this year's challenge. Here it is: pick the decade that had the best music, and provide one track from each year to prove it. For the purposes of this challenge, a "decade" is defined simply as a span of ten years, not necessarily "the 80s," etc.
Now get to it, anonymous readers! I expect playlists in my comments section by Monday morning!

RIP Khan, Number Six: McGoohan and Montalban Die in L.A.

Wired.com's Underwire blog is currently running nice obituary columns for Ricardo Montalban ("Fantasy Island" and "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan") and Patrick McGoohan ("Secret Agent Man" and "The Prisoner") both of whom passed away today. Montalban was 88, McGoohan 80.

I have many fond memories of both "Fantasy Island" and "The Prisoner," but I have to admit that "Fantasy Island" was often formulaic and - I think - mostly stood out because it followed the stupefyingly vapid "The Love Boat."

"The Prisoner," on the other hand, never failed to challenge and surprise the viewer. Hell, the three-minute(!) opening credits sequence had more suspense than a full episode of other spy/action shows of the period. Oddly, though, whenever I think of "The Prisoner," it's the closing credits I remember most. The surreal self-assembling penny-farthing and those blaring jazz trumpets will forever be my link to one of the best television shows ever.