Rhea Myers

Blog

  • Evie & Li In The Sea

  • O”Reilley Book On Open Source Licenses Coming

    It covers the Creative Commons licenses as well. There are some factual errors in the sample chapter available online, and it isn’t spectacularly well edited, but it looks like a good legal discussion for the layperson (US law obviously):

    Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing

    It should be out soon.

  • The Indoctrination Of Youth

    The latest US craze headed to the UK is our over-stretched teachers becoming unpaid propagandists for the kind of corporate unreality that lead to the DMCA/EUCD.

    There’s a good letter against this at Kuro5hin.

    Soon maths questions will be based on calculating how much revenue poor EMI lose each time someone downloads Unplayable Crap Vol.3 from the ‘net, history will be based on when the first conviction for file swapping happened, and art will be based on drawing anti-file-sharing posters.
    This jihad is turning into a real multiple-whammy for culture.

  • Aesthetic Experience

    (From Aesthetics-L)

    Aesthetic experience is reflective awareness of the discovery or rediscovery of an engaging pattern in chunked sensory input combined with memory by right-brain abstract global pattern-matching systems.

    Reflective = awareness of consciousness available to consciousness.
    Engaging Pattern = one that appeals to the organisational principles of the brain, rewarding its work.
    Chunked Sensory Input = sensory input processed in some way by the brain, anywhere from properties to signs. This may involve different “levels” of perception, but is still perceptual.
    Brain Structure = Whatever the brain does to structure information.
    Right Brain Abstract Global Pattern Matching System = See any bad left/right brain self-help book.

  • Reflexive Consumption

    In Quality Assurance, the product (work) should delight the customer (consumer). In art, the artist is the first viewer (consumer) of a work. What of a Jeff Koons work, made by artisans for the artist? In QA, what of the sweatshop workers who make the product? Are they its first consumers? Does it delight them?

  • 1968 – Almost There

    1968 is almost finished. I’ve realised that it can be regarded as a distant relative of Sarah Morris’s project. 1968 isn’t grids and capital, it is biomorphism and militarism. I like Sarah Morris’s work very much, but it wasn’t a conscious influence.
    I’m looking at the images for 1968 on a CRT and there are a few colour changes I can see I need to make. 1968 has been made mostly on LCD. I did San Jose on LCD back in 2000, so it isn’t a first for me, but that was some time ago and I don’t yet trust myself to get the screen at the right angle. I suppose I should fiddle with ColorSync more.
    Apart from the colour changes I’m working on a Makefile (a computer script) to generate the different formats, archives and web pages for the work automatically. This will allow me to put this work and future projects online quicker. It used to take hours to format up a project. Now I’ll just be able to type “make”.

  • Minara

    I lost some code for Minara to not backing up. :-/ I’ve just about remade the lost functionality, and it should be in CVS soon. I didn’t finish 1968 using Minara, so no dog food for me.

  • Police Sketch Art

    I wondered if there was an instruction manual for police sketch artists. The only thing on Amazon that I can find is an American book by an expert:

    Mug Shots

    I’m interested in this because it may provide a facial ontology for drawing software and some way for me to improve my face-drawing skills.

  • Back To iBlog

    I’ve switched back to iBlog, so this blog has now returned to my site.

    Welcome back.

  • Purgatorio

    Gatwick “Village” is an enclosed indoor complex of wide, irregularly-angled corridors opening onto generic shop franchises and large open areas filled with low rows of padded chairs. At 3am all the chairs are covered with people. They’re asleep, still clutching mobile phones, books, bags and clocks. Dozens of them, all stretched out over chairs and backpacks.
    Nothing happens. No one leaves. Nothing is stolen. There’s nothing to do and nowhere to go. There’s no way to get out and actually get anywhere.
    The departure board VDUs update second by second, all the times seeming a long way off. We spend some time in McDonalds then I keep watch as one by one the others pass out as we wait for the first train to London some time after 4am.