Tsukioka Yoshitoshi

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
"Warriors Briskly with Courage"

I randomly came across this fascinating Japanese print of what appears to be a startled monkey scribe about to be reprimanded by an angry human, who obviously doesn't appreciate the novelty of a writing monkey.

Anyway, I looked into the background of the 19th century artist, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, who was the last master of a Japanese woodblock printing technique called Ukiyo-e. His life story and his other works are equally impressive. The design, textures, and content of his prints are truly masterful & beautiful. As he was living in an era of change from feudal to modern Japan, he was subject to the great social and forces that inspire such great art.

"The night clouds dissolve
Hotei pointing at the moon
holds no opinion"

Tsukioka Yoshitoshi
One Hundred Views of the Moon
"Moon of Enlightenment"

Blogger Play

Blogger Play

As I was logging in to Blogger, I saw on the main page a description of Blogger Play. As a graphic artist and a visual information junkie, this website is like optical crack to me. It is basically a real time slideshow of images being uploaded to Google's servers. The never-ending flow of pictures are as random and as fascinating as the infinite realm of human experience. The universal mind continues to connect and expand...

Lone Monkey
Random photo seen on Blogger Play
(from Lizzy's Blog)

Evolution of Apple

I consider the Macs I use at home & work to be extensions of my mind. It truly amazes me how much creative potential and information can be unlocked through our magic light boxes.

Often, I feel like my life has run directly parallel to the development of personal computing tech. I was born around the time the Apple II came out. In elementary school, my family had the simple Commodore 64, which we only used to play games. Then around Middle School we got a Windows 3.1 PC that I knew sucked, even at the time, if for nothing else than that I had to learn some DOS programming language.

I knew there would, one day, be computers that were actually user-friendly and productive, but when?!?!

What I didn't know was that the Apple Computer was out there, giving ideas to Microsoft to rip off. In high school physics I was exposed to Macs for the first time. Going into college I had a PC with Windows 95 and eventually got a version of Photoshop that I started to teach myself. As an engineering student in college, I was forced into using PCs only, which in retrospect may explain why I ended up wanting to get wasted all the time. I came to my senses and switched to the Mac-friendly & Paul-friendly major of graphic design. For only taking 5 years to graduate, my wonderful parents got me the innovative G4 Cube, my first Mac. At home I now have a single processor G5 PowerMac that is unacceptably slow. "Give me quantum processing or give me death!" At the very least, I have vowed to not buy another Mac until the iTablet comes out, but Steve Jobs is not making it easy at all. Presenting the iPhone was like a sick taunt...

Anyway, this chart from tofslie.com is a detailed look at the greatest product line, ever.

We'll Make Great Pets

Perry Farrell thought aliens would be the ones to domesticate mankind, but perhaps our future overlords are destined to be beings of silicon that we help create. The internet/telecommunication grid is like an embryonic structure that has been connecting and forming like a vast brain for an entity that we can't even imagine.

Do not read this article
unless you want you want your head to explode.

Reason Magazine
"Will Super Smart Artificial Intelligences
Keep Humans Around As Pets?"

"My Pet Human"
karmasoup.org

This is probably more like it:

Hillary Calls Cheney 'Vader'

Hillary Clinton can spew meaningless political platitudes at times & is supported by corporate interests, but calling Dick Cheney "Darth Vader" on national TV is enough to get a vote from me. She isn't exactly correct, though, since Cheney is more like Emperor Palpatine...

Miraculous Tree Mark

"Tree-mendous: Disease Leaves its Mark
Inside Horse Chestnut"

This story about a tree-shaped mark found inside, of all things, a tree trunk reminds me of all the "imaginative" people who say they see holy apparitions in random irregular marks. If you convince enough people to see the face or figure that you see, you can probably make most of them believe its a miracle or sign.

"Woman 'Blessed by the Holy Toast'"

I used to sit on the school bus in the winter and imagine whole scenes in the frost of the window. When I would look out the window at night into the trees behind my parent's house, I would visualize faces & all kinds of forms. I guess it just annoys me that people don't realize that the significance of the form is created in their mind alone & it's not inherent to the perceived form. Basically, people are fooled by the pattern-making nature of their own brain.

Holograms are Virtually Here!

..pun intended...
There were a couple ideas in science fiction that always seemed to be waaay to technologically difficult to overcome anytime soon - teleportation, faster-than-light travel, laser guns, fighting robots, etc. In the mind-boggling time that we live in, these hurdles seem to be much more feasible with each passing day, approaching the information singularity, perhaps?. One future tech that I always thought to be especially tough would be holographic displays. Despite living in a holographic universe, the idea of creating images in thin air seemed far-fetched. Of course, human ingenuity can be surprisingly ingenious.

"Rendering for an Interactive
360º Light Field Display"

Link to story on Engadget


How appropriate that they chose an image of a TIE fighter,
since the next step for this technology is:

Twisted Metal Atomic Clown

At first, I thought this was just a cool graphic, demonstrating superb visual irony. Then I found out that it's an awesome ad for a new Twisted Metal game for PS3. Clowns are scary by themselves, but combined with the insanity of nuclear weaponry this is as nightmarish as imagery can get.

Osama bin Goldstein

Osama through the years: 2001, 2004, 2007


Being an expert in reality manipulation, as well as a complete skeptic, it is hard for me to look at these Osama videos and take any of it at face value.

I don't claim to know anything that I haven't experienced first-hand, and even that's questionable. Osama could be dead, he could be alive in Crawford, TX, he could be a hologram... none of these possibilities would really surprise me. All I know is that he has been The Terror Warriors' perpetual Emmanuel Goldstein and the timing of these past few videos have been, at the very least, suspicious. What I never understand is how the media & intelligence agencies have access to 'Al-queda' websites and members, but they can't pinpoint where these epicenters of Islamofascist terrorist propaganda are located.

Maybe Osama really did dye his beard before making a jihad video in the frontier regions of Afghanistan/Pakistan/Whereverstan. Maybe the CIA/KGB/Mossad now uses an advanced CGI 3D model of the dead Osama to make these propoganda videos... & they forgot to make the beard grey. Maybe Barak Obama is really Osama in disguise!!!! He needs to keep the shaved look as 'Obama', so he had to use a fake black beard for the 'Osama' look using the cave backdrop. That probably as feasible at this point as any other theory:

Star Wars: Then & Now

By far, my favorite movies are the Star Wars saga. The movies have enthralled me since I was a kid, but as I grow older and learn about the contributions of those like Joseph Campbell and Industrial Light & Magic, I really gain a deeper appreciation of the story and production as it relates to overall human culture.

As someone who uses Photoshop daily & enjoys the creative possibilities it provides, I am indebted to the wizards at Industrial Light & Magic who helped develop the original software. I came across this article that goes into great detail concerning the technological innovations that were developed in the production of such movies as Star Wars & Close Encounters:

"Star Wizards"
"How a handful of desperate innovators took special effects to new heights in two 1977 movies—Star Wars and Close Encounters"

The other interesting bit of current Star Wars news is a trailer for an upcoming game, Force Unleashed. They already have the new Def Jam game out, so besides this Star Wars game all the have to do is come out with the next Soul Caliber and I'll be forced to buy Playstation 3...

Indexed: End of 'The Weekly World News'

I think the site Indexed is funny and very clever, and this card reminded me about the tragic end of one of the most entertaining media creations ever - The Weekly World News magazine:


In high school, me and my friends would religiously read the absurdities contained in The WWN during the pre-internet Dark Ages. Of course the greatest story & accompanying picture ever contained in it was the infamous Bat Boy. I had a T-shirt with this picture on it (that I'm surprised didn't cause me to be committed to an insane asylum by my teachers):

I'm pretty sure my mom used to try
hiding this shirt from me so I couldn't wear it.

Bartolomeo Vanzetti: Quoteable Anarchist

I found this quote by Italian-American Anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti to be visionary & inspiring. Which is why it isn't surprising that he was executed 80 years ago. I guess in the 1920's "Anarchist" was the #1 scary term for the commies/terrorists/boogiemen of the day...

"I champion the weak, the poor, the oppressed, the simple and the persecuted. I maintain that whosoever benefits or hurts a man benefits or hurts the whole species. I sought my liberty in the liberty of all, my happiness in the happiness of all. I wanted a roof for every family, bread for every mouth, education for every heart, light for every intellect. I am convinced that human history has not yet begun, that we find ourselves in the last period of the prehistoric. I see with the eyes of my soul how the sky is diffused with the rays of the new millennium."

...It's like someone summed up the complete opposite of the Bush, Inc./neocon philosophy!

From the Democracy Now! interview:
"Sacco and Vanzetti: 80 Years After Their Execution, A Look At The Men, the Murders, and the Judgment of Mankind"

It's amazing how major events are just forgotten over time. The infinite number of human experiences lost to history is mind-numbing. Thankfully (maybe), the internet & Google are attempts to reverse the trend.

Art by The "Mentally Ill"

I saw these posts on FindingOptimism.com about art by people who supposedly had "mental illness". That description probably fits 95% of us artists, so I guess it's probably just as representative as a random sampling would be!

Art by the Mentally Ill (Part 1: Famous)

Art by the Mentally Ill (Part 2: Not So Famous)

Picasso and Monet have nothing on John Cadigan, who created this superb optical bug-out monkey design:
After looking on his website, I was interested by his mission statement, "... A large part of art and spirituality are essentially mysterious. Francis Bacon said that the job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery."

I feel that sentiment whole-heartedly, which is one reason I created "Da Vinci's Challenge" - to evoke a sense of mystery in an accessible and stimulating way.

Bible Fight Game

Adult swim has a Flash game version of a concept I've always wanted to make - religious characters in a 'Street Fighter' type game.

[adult swim] Bible Fight Game

What better battle to have than the Prince of Peace vs. the Prince of Darkness?

Another great, twisted game on the Adult Swim website is the game '5 Minutes to Kill (Yourself)'.

Dick Cheney Ignores Himself

It's hard to believe that anything resembling the truth ever came from Darth Cheney...

Dick Cheney in '94
"Invading Iraq Would Create a Quagmire."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCccFPZAHV0

Let the Machine Wars Begin...

It's fascinating how in this day & age, finding more technologically efficient ways to destroy human life is somehow considered progress. I wonder sometimes, "Haven't these assholes ever seen Terminators 1-3?" All the ingredients are stewing - even liquid metal 'ferrofluid' technology for a T-1000 Liquid Terminator.

"U.S. Military Expands Robot Patrols in Combat Zones"

We are literally one step away from a Robocalypse. I have compiled the visual evidence and it should be enough to make all of us humans squirm like the bacterial sacs of protoplasm that we are.
I don't think anyone ever anticipated just how easily Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" could squashed by a Pentagon-sponsored tank tread.


1st Step: Army Ground-based Robot
Result: Terminator Hunter-Killer

1st Step: DARPA's prototype robotic hand
Result: An army of T-800 cyborgs




1st Step: Ferrofluid dynamic sculpture
Result: Mimetic poly-alloy liquid metal T-1000




Meanwhile, the Japanese are teaching their robots how to dance instead. I'd definitely rather have souless machines tearing up the dancefloor than tearing up people.

"Japanese Teach Robot to Dance"

Create Your Own Simpson Avatar!

Although I haven't seen the Simpsons Movie yet, I have been a huge fan since I first saw them on the Tracy Ulmann Show when I was a kid. It has been standard Sunday viewing after dinner at my parents house for over a decade.

The movie website lets you make your own Simpsons avatar. There's not a whole lot of choices, but it's enough to have a little fun with. I made the Simpsons version of myself & promptly downloaded my Springfield doppelganger. If the shirt was un-tucked & the pants had cargo pockets, it would look like a photograph...

Oil & War - Business First for Bush, Inc.

CNN: "$20 Billion Arms Sale to Saudis"

I thought this cartoon from Bartcop.com pretty well summed up the total hypocrisy of anything that comes out of The War Monkey's mouth, especially regarding the propaganda promoting the inherently un-winnable arms & security profit bonanza called "The War on Terror".

Supposedly, most of the 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
However, since that country is sitting on black gold, & the Saudi royal family controls the country, America has formed an oil-money-weapons symbiosis with the Saudis.

Speaking of 'symbiotes', what's the saddest part of the whole deal? There is a certain country/imperial outpost that our compromised government officials must now openly receive permission from before any move is made. Acting truly "Holy", as usual... as in "Holy Crap":

MSNBC: "Israel OK's U.S. Arms Sale"

Bush & Cheney's America is like a rich addict who does business with a drug dealer, even if the dealer smashes & shoots up his Ferrari... and then sells the dealer more weapons while buying more drugs at the same time, instead of taking steps to get out of his mess.

On the other hand, if you have gone so far down the rabbit hole that you don't think there were Saudi hijackers, then I guess that analogy is partly bogus.

Coverpop

Coverpop.com

I found this site through it's series of patterned chromatic music wheels.

The technology that gives the site its name, though, makes pictures or patterns out of photos from sites like Amazon.com or Flickr.

The 'Coverpops' either arrange mined photos into a recognizable image or a pattern based on image attributes. It is like a visual Google Product Search.

These images link to my 2 favorites:

A Spiral using images of color fields on Flickr.

Sc-fi & Paranormal Covers from Amazon used to create a Grey

Top Video Game Monkeys

MTV has a list of the Top 10 Video Game Monkeys.

The digital primates range from
Monkeyball's cute cartoons with big spiral ears & Pacman eyes-

-to the Justice League's super-brained enemy Grodd.

...who looks like he's about to knock those other monkeys around

Funny Sale Sign

I saw this sign on a box of junk & assorted crap at a flea market while I was on vacation in the Poconos.

Capitalism at its finest...

I should have stolen the sign.

Dick Cheney Feeds on my Nightmares

Mr. "Go F*ck Yourself", Dick Cheney, appeared amid the stench of sulfer & brimstone on my TV tonight with Larry King. Watching Cheney lie and snarl on the screen before I go to bed is like being visited at midnight by Mephistopheles himself as you curl in terror inside a candle-lit pentagram.

For the record:
This guy is the man for being the only human being on record having the balls to stand up to The Dark One.

Graphic Humor with GOP Elephant

While doing an image search on Google, I came across this collection of great takes on the stupid Republican elephant icon. (For the record. the Democrat's donkey is just as stupid.)

I love seeing design work that is way too clever for me to accomplish. It gives me something to aspire to.

The blog I saw it on is Lian Chang's Commentary, which is my kind of eclectic mix.

Oh crap, I just clicked through & realized there are actually 100 of these wonderful GOP logos by illustrator Thomas Fuchs:

Swarm Behavior

Human Swarm & Ant Swarm

I can sit on my back step for an hour just watching ants and other bugs crawl across the vast mini-landscape. Their ability to explore & survive as a collective intelligence is one of the wonders of life. Humans are just as immersed in their own 'hive minds' whether they be political rallies, evangelical mega-churches, or the Internet.

The idea of a collective mind has also spawned alot of fictional examples; Matrix Sentinels, The Borg, Buggers, Aliens, Geonosians, and probably many others that I'm not aware of.

This National Geographic article tries to tackle the mystifying complexity of life operating in networks-

"National Geographic: Swarm Behavior"

Here are some examples of mindless hive behavior, except it's in the human species...

Bill Kristol: "Why Bush Will Be a Winner"

"Neocons on a Cruise: What Conservatives Say
When They Think We Aren't Listening"

Cupboard with Morphing Surface

This is the very beginning of a future in which all sorts of surfaces will be covered in motion graphics or morphing designs. I think electronic paper & film will eventually be the common technology in the world of ever-changing appearances.

In what could be considered a primitive precursor, this piece of furniture by Front Design seems to use a mechanical array of panels to simulate the appearance of large shifting pixels:

"Changing Cupboard Displays Pixelated Art"

Origin of Punctuation Symbols

I am always interested in the history behind mundane, yet universal pieces of our culture.
There is nothing more mundane & universal than punctuation, but their origins are more diverse
than we would think.

This background on the basics of our language symbols is from the supremely entertaining "Uncle John's Bathroom Reader":

"The Origin of Everyday Punctuation Marks"

Man vs. Wild

There are not many TV shows I watch religiously... The Daily Show, Colbert Report, The Simpsons, South Park, and a couple others.

I like the programming on the Discovery channel, but there is one show that I have become a big fan of - "Man vs. Wild". It is basically a show where a former British special forces soldier is dropped of in some extreme location & has to survive to find civilization. I had no idea that the host's name is Bear Grylls, but it just makes him that much more awesome.

Youtube: Man vs. Wild

Hmmm, am I in the mood for elephant dung, or my own urine?.....

Real Candidates: Dennis Kucinich & Ron Paul

As an Independent voter, I make no judgments about a candidate based on party affiliation. The only thing that matters to me is what they are saying, how qualified I think they are, & the greatest of all analytical tools - my own intuition.

I think the Democrats have intelligent, competent people in their lineup. Unfortunately, much of the rhetoric I hear from the 'front runners' about war & solutions to serious problems is just that, rhetoric that doesn't address the root causes. On the Republican side, I couldn't tell you too much about their rhetoric (besides "9/11" & "more torturing brown people")... it is so overwhelmingly insane and idiotic it makes my ears bleed if I listen for too long. Personally, I hope the Republican party gets their asses handed to them in the next elections, because they have become a frighteningly corrupt & inept group whose purpose has apparently been twisted into creating a fascist theocracy.

There is one person in each party that I consider mostly clear-sighted and correct in their positions. Although they are underdogs in this game of millionaires and media creations, the fact that their message is being heard and supported is a great thing.

Democrat - Dennis Kucinich

Republican - Ron PaulI'll give just one example each that shows the level of candor & insight these candidates have compared to the rest of the pack:

Dennis Kucinich:
"Impeaching Cheney First Step to Restoring the Rule of Law"

Ron Paul:
"U.S. In 'Great Danger' Of Staged Gulf Of Tonkin Style Provocation"

Of course, the corporate media and the influence peddlers will continue to vigorously resist promoting these 'far-shots'. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live on a sane planet...

Luckily there is the wonderful world of Youtube, where you can hear their positions for yourself.

Dennis Kucinich on Youtube

Ron Paul on Youtube

Joseph Longo's Plasma Incinerator

After I had posted about the possible energy revolution that's coming, I remembered a technology I read in Popular Science during my lunch break. As I read the article, I was blown away by the simplicity of the concept and the functionality of the design.

The invention is an incinerator that uses super-hot plasma to basically burn everything except nuclear waste down to individual molecules. I don't care how much it costs, there should be local and federal initiatives to mass produce these machines. This is the best investment any government can make.

"A Startech machine that costs roughly $250 million could handle 2,000 tons of waste daily, approximately what a city of a million people amasses in that time span...

..a $250-million converter could pay for itself in about 10 years, and that’s without factoring in the money made from selling the excess electricity and syngas. After that break-even point, it’s pure profit."

The article is great, and all the benefits of this device are just mind-blowing. The above example is just one of many reasons for investing in this technology.

Popular Science: "The Prophet of Garbage"

Zero Point Energy & Wireless Electricity

The technology that is coming our way with most potential to change our society is super-efficient forms of energy production & transmission.

Obviously, so many of our domestic and international problems come from the archaic use of combustion energies and their necessary fuels. The wars in the Middle East should be called the 'Petroleum Wars', because the main benefactors are the companies pumping the oil we're taking, plus the weapons companies & military contractors who profit with almost no oversight.

Why are we still in Iraq? The overwhelming reason is that interests who can influence the policy are making money. If we truly interested in stabilizing the region, we would give up our grip on the situation and have serious summits with all parties, even countries that our government tells us are supposed to be our enemies. However, that would mean giving up the continuing revenues for the previously mentioned industries. As George Orwell said, "War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed class think they are going to profit from it."

The end of not just dependence on foreign oil, but the end of our oil dependence altogether, would be a situation as revolutionary as the emergence of the Internet. I believe almost anything that humans can imagine can be willed into existence eventually. For my senior design class, I envisioned & a portable computer that ran off wireless electricity after studying the father of A/C electricity, Nikola Tesla. I am convinced in the feasibility of technologies as wireless electricity, fusion power, and even harnessing so-called "Zero Point Energy."One day we will figure out how to draw energy right from the infinite quantum field that permeates everything. It's only a matter of time, vision, and effort.

Reality Sandwich: "The Forgotten Science: Zero Point Energy"

BBC: "Physics Promises Wireless Power"

Gizmondo: "MIT Dudes Develop
Mind-Boggling Wireless Electricity"

"The New Wizard of the West"
Interview with Nikola Tesla, 1899

Our Bodies are Ecosystems

Discover Magazine: "Your Body's A Planet"

I've posted before about the bacteria and organisms living throughout our bodies, but it never stops amazing me how the body is mostly a vessel for an entire universe of living organisms.

90% of our mass supposedly consists of living microbes, viruses affect our DNA, and we cannot live without organisms like stomach bacteria. The idea of an independent 'self' is ultimately just that - an idea. Each person is really a system of symbiotic beings in constant interaction, on many different scales.

The amount of integration and effect that microscopic life has with us makes George Lucas's idea of Midichlorians not quite as stupid as I first thought...

Mmmmpph! Antibacterial soap... useless, it is!!!

It's Still Real to Me Dammit!!!

I saw a clip of this video on a VH1 show & watched it repeatedly on Youtube. It's one of those things that makes you laugh your ass off and shake your head in shame at the same time. (In other words, it's awesome.)

Then, I saw this segment from Jimmy Kimmel showing the whole video & it's so great I just had to post it.
As Jimmy says, "I could watch that 100 times in a row..."

There are only four words left to say:
"Captain Redneck Dick Murdoch"

'The Cube' by Jim Henson

click for Youtube video

Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, made this surreal look at the reality of the human experience. This is from a TV show in 1969, before he went on to produce iconic puppet characters such as these two.

'The Cube' is like a cross between The Twilight Zone, The Matrix, Waking Life, Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, Vanilla Sky, and any other film that warps your mind and then snaps it into oblivion.

For being almost 40 years old & almost an hour long, it's still a really engaging concept. Once I started it, I couldn't stop watching.

Google Video: "The Cube"

"This philosophical teleplay covers many themes such as, the nature of reality, individual versus scientific perception, self-reference, man's relation to others and society, insanity, social projections, and race relations. It originally aired on NBC's weekly anthology television show NBC Experiment in Television February 23, 1969. The production was produced and directed by Jim Henson, and was one of several experiments with the live-action film medium which he conducted in the 1960s"

Yoda House for Humans

"A Low Impact Woodland Home"

I saw this house on boingboing.com & think it's pretty wild. Truly a home fit for a 900 year-old Jedi master! It would be awesome to have either a house that's organic like this or modern yet 'green'.


This home would probably do in a pinch, though: