August 21, 2007
Sleight of Mind and Limnic Eruption
Sleight of Mind by George Johnson from the NYTimes, cognitive science meets vegas: Money quote:
“Stage magicians know that a collection of cheap tricks will often suffice to produce ‘magic,’ ” Dr. Dennett has written, “and so does Mother Nature, the ultimate gadgeteer.”
And Limnic Eruption from the wikipedia:
Limnic Eruption, or exploding lake, is a rare type of natural disaster only observed twice, but the 1986 incident killed over 1700 people.
August 20, 2007
Going to Burning Man
I'm off to Burning Man for my seventh year, camping with Disorient at 8:30 on the Esplinade. Come visit or cya on the far side...August 15, 2007
FLAM3 2.7.5 released
FLAM3 2.7.5 released, get it here. changelog:08/14/07 various code updates to assist with compiling under msvc++. now can specify --disable-pthread or --enable-pthread to configure to better control compilation. fixed bug preventing renders of flames with more than 128 xforms.
August 10, 2007
Siggraph Pix and Sheep News
Siggraph 2007 in San Diego was a good year for the sheep: an excerpt from HiFiDreams was shown in the Electronic Theater, and they unveiled the Electric Sheep-based graphical identity for 2008.Best of all I finally met face to face with two of the silent forces behind the sheep: coppercat and llamamama. Thanks for the hospitality and all the yummy sheep. Y'all rock!
August 03, 2007
Sheep CC License Violation
Six months ago Ishwara posted a page of nice flame animations for VJs... They got a lot of praise, the page grew to 100 clips, and were listed by Resolume. I discovered them a couple days ago, and was dismayed to see designs that were perfectly familiar... a few minutes of searching proved beyond any doubt that each had been copied from the Electric Sheep server... without any hint the work wasn't 100% original.While I was happy to see Ishwara make the sheep available to a wider audience (by using a different codec and making a web page of them), I was disappointed that the sheep weren't even mentioned. The sheep designs are distributed under a CreativeCommons license that requires attribution. Ishwara's page is clearly a violation of the license and of the trust of all the artists who contribute to the gene pool.
I pointed this out on the VJ Forum where Ishwara announced his page. He launched into a tirade against me and admits to copying the files but denies any responsibility to credit his sources. The argument starts on page 5 of the forum... warning: R rated for obscene language. You should see the private messages he sent me....
What's strange is that he apparently was a contributing designer and sheep enthusiast years ago, and has since then for unknown cause turned against me and now harbors a deep and personal grudge.
No idea where this is going -- tell me what you think...
side-by side comparison of just one:
The image on the left is from his site (the 12th one down from the top on the linked page), and on the right is the original on the sheepserver. The files match bit-for-bit.
Update August 8th: Alas, rather than comply, Ishwara has removed almost all the sheep content from his site (hence the side-by-side comparison above no longer works). He's also vandalized the comments on this blog entry, and continued his screed against me on the vjforum and by email.
Update August 20th: Ishwara said he would correct the site and then bring it back. But then the whole thing vanished, and an error message from his ISP took its place.