The Infinite Wisdom of BB

More fun with Google Maps

2008-08-06T00:15:00.000+10:00

THE LINK

Aaahh!! Scariest ghost-car ever.

Wow this is productive.

Fun with google maps

2008-08-06T00:11:00.003+10:00

Click this link:

CLICK ME!!!

Welcome to Biw W Sunbury.

Now click the right arrow twice (aka continue down Horne Street in a SW direction.)

Tada! It is now . . . early morning I believe.

Photoshop Retouching

2008-05-27T12:10:00.003+10:00

This is a great site that has 17 examples of professional photoshop re-touching of images.

http://www.digitalphotoshopretouching.com/retouching.htm

It is fascinating to see the multitudes of very minute changes that are made to an image, from not only blemish removal, but colour changes, eyebrow repositions, even adjustments on the width of limbs and other body parts.

The site is set up as a flash interactive, in that it shows you the image, but when you mouse over it, it switches to the untouched version.

This allows the user to see an immediate and direct change in the features.

In the image below, the colour scheme has been altered, skin blemishes have been removed, a reflection on the glasses removed, the nose thinned, and a droop in the woman's top has been fixed.

Just a Tutorial

2008-05-25T18:52:00.003+10:00

But it looks fairly cool. Never have bran muffins been so exciting!!!!!!!

This particular tute can be found here.

The author provided some quite interesting methods for acheiving this effect, which to be honest, is making me hungry for a healthy snack.

I benefited most from this tutorial I think by learning a couple of new keyboard shortcuts, which I had never bothered to utilize:

Ctrl+I for Invert
Ctrl+L for the levels window

Not to mention a few others that I have conveniently already forgotten.

Dont worry though chaps, if you decide to do the tutorial, you can use any text you want. It doesn't have to be bran muffins. But you know you want to.

Nice business Cards

2008-05-23T00:26:00.002+10:00

Forget the American Psycho bollocks with you ivory white, slightly textured business cards. I believe you should put some effort in dag-nammit!

Like these creative little jellybeans have.

haha, the asthmatic, you need to, a ha, use your lungs, and, aha oh my golly, the second hand shop, haha, the card is second, haha, second hand, and the counseling, aha, ripped, ahaha, oh heavens.

Pranks for the Office

2008-05-21T14:27:00.003+10:00

I first got on to these through my personal favourite :

Computer Tourettes!

So what if I have a sick sense of humor? Here's how its done folks:

What do you think of when you think of Tourettes? Random swear words right? This next prank does exactly that. While you are typing in a word document or outlook a random swear word will appear. The words will appear in random increments and the words them selves are random. The words and the time gap is determined by you.

Step 1: Open Microsoft Word

Step 2: Press Alt F-11 (This will open the VBA Editor

Step 3: Select your Normal Template by double clicking “This Document”

Step 4: Copy the code below into your normal template. Remember to re-type any “s, they dont always transfer over correctly in the copy/paste process.

Sub typeRand()
Dim counter As String
counter = CStr(Int((30 - 1 + 1) * Rnd + 1))

Application.OnTime When:=Now + TimeValue(”00:00:” + counter), _
Name:=”TimedClose”

End Sub

Sub TimedClose()

Dim maindocument As Document
Set maindocument = activedocument
counter = CStr(Int((5 - 1 + 1) * Rnd + 1))

Select Case counter
Case 1
Selection.TypeText Text:=” F**K ”
Case 2
Selection.TypeText Text:=” A*****E ”
Case 3
Selection.TypeText Text:=” S**T ”
Case 4
Selection.TypeText Text:=” B***H ”
Case 5
Selection.TypeText Text:=” D**K ”
End Select

Call typeRand

End Sub

PLEASE NOTE: I blanked out the swearing above for the purpose of this Blog. Please feel free to insert any language you see fit.

Step 5: Close Microsoft Word

Step 6: Enjoy

If you have done this correctly the code will load when the person loads Word. Currently there are 5 swear words. They randomly appear any where between 30 and 1 second. This code will load the second they start using word. So if the person doesn’t even type it will start going. It will affect both word and outlook.

So there you have it folks. Sure to garner a laugh.
If you visit the link at the top of this post, there are ways to edit the script's behavior.
There are also a bunch of other script-based pranks you can play on your poor co-workers/friends:

1. Jumble Jumble

This prank will starts once you load word. Once you hit space the first time it starts to mix up the words that you are typing in random increments. If the person stares at their key board they will have no idea anything is going on until it’s too late.

Jumble Jumble Word Prank

2. Make It Stop

This prank will force your computer to think the enter key is being pressed… OVER AND OVER AND OVER again. Chances are they will have to turn their computer off to stop it.

Computer Script Prank

3. Perfect Spelling

This prank works best on idiots like myself. If I didn’t have spell check chances are nothing I write would be spelled correctly. This prank switches common words into misspelled words. The key is that the after switching the words to be misspelled it also adds the misspellings to spell check, so unless they notice the words remained misspelled. EVIL!

Spell Check Prank

There are also a number of other pranks listed on the site:

1. Kidnap some ones child. When they find the child it will be wearing a party hat that says “SURPRISE”.

1. Leave a bomb threat under your coworkers desk, signed by them. (for a bonus have a picture of them giving a thumbs up on the note)

3. Contact the NAACP and say your work requires all African American employees to address white employees as Sir. When they call you back yell at them to call you sir, then whisper that your boss makes you do it.

4. Set fire to things… anything

5. Have a friend arrested.

6. If your friend is allergic to peanuts put peanut oil in their make up or cologne.

7. Give every one in your office trophies for good work and place them on their computers. Make the trophies out of very strong magnets.

Might I add, I do not endorse anyone doing these, I simply found them funny. Believe me, I have actually censored out the more offensive suggestions. Hehe.

I almost wish I lived in America

2008-05-20T16:56:00.002+10:00

So that I could use this groovy little tool . . .

Call The Future.org!!!

No, nonono, I'm not joking - this is a webpage devoted to letting you call somebody in the future. Now, of course, it isn't the sort of thing where you give yourself a buzz and find out tomorrow's lottery numbers, it is an automated dialler that calls a particular number at a particular time.

The site describes itself in the following way:

"CallTheFuture calls the specified number with the given return name.Please understand that this is a demo only and the limit is often maxed out. If so, please try later."

Must be getting popular. To be honest, I can understand why - here's a couple of uses for the service listed on the site:

Good stuff. Unfortunately, the things I would use it for are specifically listed as things NOT to do with the free service. They include the following:

Pfft, how are they going to find out?

"All submissions are logged. Illegal activities will be turned over to the authorities."

Dammit.

You simply enter the desired number, what text to be said, and the time and date of the call. There's even seven different voices you can have read out your message!

Unfortunately, it only works on American numbers. Thus the title of this post. Grrrrr

Very creative

2008-05-19T20:55:00.002+10:00

Not to mention clever. Watch the video below, and try to guess what is actually going on before it gets halfway through. Seriously, dont cheat, its worth it to sit through.

This to me reeks of something created purely out of boredom. The creator himself says on the you tube page:

"This took a heck of a lot of work, and is dedicated to those who told me I have too much time on my hands in my 200 impressions video - this goes to prove you right"

The same guy has done two follow up pieces that are in the same format as this one.

Number two

Number three

The use of props in relation to the video is fantastic in the second video, and jusy happens to look really cool in the third.

Flash Kaleidoscope

2008-05-19T20:28:00.003+10:00

I found an online interactive kaleidoscope. How is it interactive I hear you ask? Well, let me show you.

The toy can be found here.

This is what the interface of the kaleidoscope looks like:

The left features a blank disc with a constantly spinning wedge. Under the circle are a collective of small pieces that can be dragged upwards and positioned wherever the user wants.

The way this is then rendered into the image on the right is that every frame that ticks by, the spinning wedge's current contents are put into the main circle, and mirrored alternatively as they go around to create a somewhat seamless moving image.

As you can see here, the wedge currently sits over a yellow circle, blue diamond, and parts of a yellow & orange line.

I have manually highlighted in pink where this wedge corresponds in the main kaleidoscope.

It is, or course, mirrored.

There is a link on the page to yet another kaleidoscope, which can be found here. It is used in the same way, but is somewhat intensive on the computer, as the selected parts are painted onto the circle, can move & be coloured manually. There are also speed options, transparency options, as well as a host of added features.

Making Celtic Knotwork

2008-05-18T23:02:00.003+10:00

I found this tutorial on creating Celtic Knotwork, a technique that could be effective in creating some beautiful patterns.

Web page here.

This technique could be effective in adding adornment to medieval designs, or simply in creating patterned backgrounds and fillers. I am considering using a similar sort of artwork in one of my typography pieces.

The page also has links to the purchase of a font, that creates not lettering at all but simply variations of the patterns. It would be much more satisfying however to create all the artwork from scratch.

Garfield minus Garfield

2008-05-14T23:24:00.003+10:00

What if a comic strip lost its main character? Would it lose its essence? Would it even make sense? Those questions floated on Internet message boards until Dan Walsh of Dublin did us all a favor and answered them with his Web site, Garfield Minus Garfield ( http://garfieldminusgarfield.tumblr.com).

The result takes Jim Davis's cartoon and strips it of the famously fat feline. All alone, Jon Arbuckle, Garfield's owner, looks manic at best and depressed at worst. And Walsh's fans seem to like it that way: The site averaged about 300,000 views a day in late February.

"The one resounding piece of feedback I've received is that people feel Jon's loneliness and desperation is just like theirs, but that his crazy antics makes them laugh at it," Walsh, 32, writes in an e-mail. "Sometimes the world can feel like a pretty intimidating place, and it takes someone like Jon to remind you to lighten up and laugh at the hopelessness of it all."

One of Walsh's occasional readers is Davis, who heard about the site a few months ago. The cartoonist calls the work "an inspired thing to do" and wishes to thank Walsh for enabling him to see another side of "Garfield."

"Some of the strips were slappers: 'Oh, I could have left that out.' It would have been funnier," Davis says.

Walsh may start having trouble finding the lonely, depressed Jon for his comics. Davis recently created a girlfriend for the longtime bachelor.

"How much humor can you get out of someone's unhappiness?" Davis muses. "Day after day for so many years -- it was getting to me, too."

The Garfield minus Garfield comics are depressingly hilarious, painting a picture of isolation and dementia, with the simple omission of a character. The site is a great example of the power of a strong concept. The site itself says:

"Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb."

Virtual Barbershop

2008-05-14T01:17:00.003+10:00

If you have never experienced the virtual barbershop, then you'd better thank your lucky stars you decided to have a squiz at BB's blog.

Listen Here

SPOILERS BELOW

...

...

...

Anyhoo, this is further down just in case some may not have wanted to know what to expect . . .
The effect is created by recording a scene with two microphones that are positioned the way our ears are. when each mic's recording is then channeled into the appropriate headphones, our brains calculate the ever-so-slight differences in the sounds to recreate the three dimensions, and the directions each sound is coming from.

"Setera . . ." - Still gives me shivers.

This is to date the best example of stereophonic (I think thats the name) recording I have heard.

*Edit* It is a holophonic sound clip, created with a technique called Binaural Recording

An example of what not to do

2008-05-13T00:40:00.005+10:00

I'm sure Ive seen this before, so chances are it is all over the MMD class's blog, but hey, its good for a laugh, let alone a handy pointer.

The following is a logo design created for the UK Office of Government Commerce.

So what? that's fine . . . it is easy to read, represents the letters, etc.

Of course, tilt your head and this is what you may see . . .

Hmm . . that certainly is interesting. How self centered of us it is to see human figures in innocently manipulated type. Oh well.

What's more, apparently an OGC spokesman commented:

“The OGC is currently overhauling the design of its corporate materials following a new strategy and forward direction. As part of this, the OGC has been developing a new visual identity, one aspect of which is a new logo.

“The proposed version, which you have sent over, has been shared with staff, and is now going through final technical stages. It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters ‘OGC’ - and is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on government spend!”

It's funny 'cos he said "firm grip".

Another note on bad logo design is the logo for the 2012 Olympic games. Some have commented on it looking like a depiction of Lisa Simpson committing fellatio. You be the judge:

Insane - a guitar with two strings

2008-05-13T00:36:00.001+10:00

Here's Stig Pedersen from Denmark's D-A-D (formerly known as Disneyland After Dark but don't let the Walt Disney Corporation hear you calling them that else their lawyer-dialling fingers get twitchy) wielding another one of his barking mad two-string basses. Absolute genius!

Too bad about the rest of the outfit.

How's this for concept?

2008-05-03T15:47:00.002+10:00

All of the below was completely made up. I have no scientific knowledge whatsoever.
(and I'm sure that people who do would realize this straight away upon reading it)

The human mind is something that the science community always has and always will strive to understand further. Having said this, we know very little answers to the mysteries of the brain, what it is capable of, and how it works. My name is Benjamin Butler, and I represent MrF, an advanced biological research group funded under the Australian Government’s $230 million Healthy Futures fund 2007. We believe that we have discovered a breakthrough in knowledge of how brain signals work, and a gateway to nearly unlimited further discovery.

We all know that every human brain reacts differently to certain input. Whether it be how someone reacts to a different style of music, a place, or an emotion, everybody interprets the happenings in their lives differently. In the past, science has attributed this to psychology, and simply concluded that past experiences, the circumstances of upbringing and growth are what decides the personality of an individual. We at MrF stand before you today to dispel that theory.

We were originally funded by the Federal Government as one of two teams to try and develop a bionic eye. While the National ICT Australia (NICTA) Victoria Research Laboratory came up with a working prototype that sends basic signals to the brain, allowing the user to recognise basic shapes and forms, we were much more specific in our work.
We wanted perfection.
Not content to waste time with a working prototype that would garner newsworthy but shallow results, we set about figuring out how the brain interprets signals sent by the eye’s retina, with the mantra that if we could crack the code, we would be able to perfectly replicate vision for the blind.

These signals has long thought to be impossible to find, or access for study, let alone de-code. Half way through our funded timeline, we believed that we were going to fail. No matter how specific our CAT scanning equipment and techniques were, the human brain was just so mind bogglingly complex, we believed we had no way of finding and singling out the information that we wanted.

But then we had a breakthrough. Our computer science technicians had created a program that was to be used to sort all of the information our scans picked up. Working on a hunch by one of our head doctors, Dr Meredith, we managed to isolate two sets of data from two test subjects. While they seemed completely different, using the same stimuli test on the vision of the subjects produced results that were similar enough to be considered a match by our percentages based matching system.

We had potentially found the stream of signals within the brain that determined the calculation of data received from the retina of the eye. While in the past it was thought that processing streams in the brain did not have a fixed position, thus making them impossible to decode, the repetition of results proved that they were indeed fixed. But why had science come op with the theorem of jumbled positions in the first place?

Because the streams were different between subjects. On further testing on various subjects, results for the same stimuli were different for each individual. This development, while rather significant, however left us in a paradox. How were we supposed to artificially create this data to send to the brain if it was for the same image to be seen by the bionic eye different in each case? This lead to our most stunning theory - that everybody sees different things to those around them.

Let me clarify. The human eye receives patterns of light, that lets say represent reflections of light off of a box. The light is interpreted by the eye into signals to be sent to the brain. But once they get to the brain they are then processed completely differently by every individual. So the brown box I see may look, say, pink to somebody else. But that separate person sees . . . A brown box. They have grown up accepting that cardboard boxes are that particular colour, and that that particular colour happens to be called brown. If this person was to see a box that looked to them the way I have always seen them, it would appear absurd.

But what if it went even further? Every person on the planet could see completely different colour spectrums! That is, my red may be as seen to your mind a colour that doesn’t even exist to my own knowledge. The colour spectrums we know are limited by the light waves they are carried by - the only colours that can possibly exist are defined by wavelength, etc. But there is nothing that limits how the brain may decide to show these colours to an individual’s sight. If this theory is true, than everybody on the planet lives on a completely different world visually, six billion different colour spectrums, that none of us could ever see. Due to our own brain’s interpretation, we could never even imagine that they exist. But we at MrF believe that they do.

After fully coming to terms with the implications of these discoveries, we wanted to know more. The bionic eye had become the excuse for us to use the funding we had received. But we wanted to do further research - if the brain interprets something such as sight differently, does it do the same to the other senses? Do my apples taste like your apples, do my roses smell like your roses?

We decided that audio signals were a way of continuing our testing in a way that we could replicate the stimuli perfectly. We set up further testing that built on top of our sight related findings, and through a lot of hard work eventually isolated the nerve centre of the brain responsible for the processing sound signals sent from the ear drum. Lo and behold, we very quickly deduced the same results for this sector of the brain as for the vision.

At this stage, after countless hours of study, calculations and testing, we had hit a wall in our research. We had deduced that every individual human being lives in a completely different world. There was not one person who saw what you saw, heard what you heard. The implications and possibilities that branched off of this were phenomenal. But having said that, would we ever be able to explore this any further? We could prove it existed, but each brain is not capable of accessing or even imagining the data that another would. We felt as though each person was trapped within their own set of sense-related rules.

At this stage of our research, the project was unexpectedly shut down. NICTA Victoria Research Laboratory had created their glitzy prototype, and it was hailed as a breakthrough on the world’s scientific scene. So why did we not expose our findings?

The government had funded two teams for one reason; they wanted results regarding a bionic eye. Theories that would require years more money and work to find information on an impossible sounding concept that would win them no votes was considered not important, and we were shut down. In the creation of the project terms, we had signed large waivers that gave the minister responsible for regulation of the project full rights to the information that was found. With these full rights came full choice of what was to happen with the information.

Under jurisdiction from a higher minister, it was deemed not only a waste of resources, but we were slammed with the threat that exposure of the information to anybody other that the particular politician had become illegal. We were left with a bombshell, one of the most amazing scientific discoveries of the century, but we couldn’t tell anybody because it wouldn’t win votes for the federal party like a bionic eye would.

However, we seeked legal advice. After reviewing the documents provided, our legal team found a loophole. We weren’t allowed to advertise our findings, that we had worked on the project, or project information on the project in any media. But it seemed as though if people came to us, wanting information, we could give it to them, just so long as they did not specifically ask for the findings of MrF, or anything similar. We had to find a way of making people want to find out more about a subject they were told no details of to begin with.

Thus we created a public game, a set of events that would leave people coming to us for information, which we could then exploit to voice our findings. We wish to make this a rich and exciting experience for the user, as a game that only leads to scientific data would not be followed with passion by the average user. As such a mixed media journey for the user was necessary, not to mention that fact that beginning the game would be completely voluntary, as decided by the legal limits.

Some logos

2008-05-01T10:43:00.005+10:00

Research for my final Assignment has actually been a fair bit of fun - Alex Trochut's work never fails to impress, and in my usual abstract style I managed to pull a link from typography to metal. I'm starting to believe that I can relate this godly music genre to just about anything. woo hoo!

Anyhoo, I came across this nice little page of metal band logos created by 'Lakmus'. The web page can be found right here, if you click any of these red words.

Lets throw up some piccys shall we?

"But . . . but . . . they're ridiculous Ben! You cant even read them! You're an idiot!"

Ah, I'm afraid you're mistaken my friend. Not about the idiot part, but the readable part. For some of them anyway. Who cares if they're unreadable, they look pretty anyway.

The bands are called (in order so you can interpret):

Godhate
Vigilia Mortum
Gorbag
Angband
Daemora
Palladium
Bedazzled
Weeds In Vogue
Soul Pantheon

There ya go kiddies.

I'm still hungover

2008-04-06T21:02:00.002+10:00

But what a top weekend.

Lets entertain the nerd within

2008-03-27T00:29:00.007+11:00

How? With a webcomic of course!!!

Haha, more stuff unrelated to current uni.

Now of course we have all read comics before, hell, we've all made comics before. And not to sound cocky, but the one I was involved in, rocks. Period. But I'm somewhat a fan of other, more commonly updated webby comics, not only those made by 'moi' and my classmates.

For a long while I've enjoyed mainly these three comics on a regular basis . . .

Cyanide & Happiness:

Wulffmorgenthaler:

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal:

But as of late I have found myself intrigued by another comic, entitled XKCD. XKCD comics can be found here for those of you playing at home, and as far as subject matter is concerned can be ultra nerdy, clever, depressing and feel well thought out all at the same time, while conveyed in the most brutally simplistic artwork imaginable.
In fact, it feels as though alot of the comics are scans of doodles.

I'll only throw one up here, as I'm sick of uploading images, and may have already broken too many copyright laws. Oh well.

Here come the links ladies & jellybeans:
C&H
SMBC
Wulffmorgenthaler

I take no responsibility by you being offended/grossed out/scared by any of the stuff you click your way towards via my links.

Oh yea, and I promise, no rickrolling here :)

Case Study - Behemoth

2008-03-21T15:35:00.005+11:00

If I was to think about what influences me the most, there would be no doubt that my music plays a very strong part in shaping my attitude, character and I guess style.

I've decided to throw some stuff up on Behemoth. No, not a giant monster, an extreme Death metal band.

Not only does their music blow my socls off, but I simply love the visual image they have created for themselves, in support of being one of the most blasphemous bands in the world.

For example, check out what they look like . . .

Good gravy! The outfits, poses, location, colour scheme, flags, fantastic. There is no doubt that they are quite the intimidating looking bunch of fella's. And how about that logo! a beautiful symetrical image. Here's a closer look:

'tis almost scary. The text looks positively evil, and the bird graphic is almost reminiscent of one of the Nazi regime's eagle graphics.

Now all of this sort of thing is fine and dandy, but Behemoth arent going to stop there. Oh no. While just about every successful musician makes video clips for their 'hit' songs, Behemoth seem to have taken this a bit further, with the video being made for the song At The Left Hand Ov God.

Commenting, the band said "Never one known to rest on their laurels, the Polish killing machine BEHEMOTH raises the bar once again with their bombastic new video "At The Left Hand Ov God," which provides them the perfect visual forum to convey their over-the-top ideals. This is pure blasphemy at its finest and it is just another step closer to solidifying their spot as the genre's most dangerous and unrelenting force."

I urge you, this will only be a minute of your life. But please, WATCH THIS VIDEO:

Ahh! That's for just a video clip!!! Never have I been waiting with such excitement over a video for a song. These guys need to make a movie!!!

Anyhoo, thats enough about Behemoth. Give them a listen, their music is fantastic.

The blog is made . . .

2008-02-26T15:09:00.000+11:00

. . . and the adventure into the depths of BB's psyche begins. Or something.
Does one pour one's heart out to the digital world, blabbing out their deepest feelings and secrets to anyone with access to the web? No, of course not. That's what people are for.
This is a portal to log artistic stuff to share with others. But mainly to get a good grade in MMD. Indeed.