my things

Happy New Age

2011-12-28T05:35:00.000+02:00

Guess how long it's been driven?

I wrote this regarding a different cycle, but they are isomorphous. One ends, the other begins. This is the nature of all things. I'd like to mitigate some of the fear around the beginning year: there is no apocalypse (unless we so choose). It is the end of the world as we know it. I recently wrote about the shape of things to come, as I see it.
It is, simply, then end of a Long Count. Think of it as a trip meter.
Happy everything.

Changing Times

2011-12-26T23:17:00.000+02:00

"I've never been in space"

- Justin Time

I recently enjoyed watching the movie, In Time, a movie memetically engineered from the stories of Robin Hood, Patty Hearst, Judeo-Christian tradition and other fine sources of entertainment. This post'll contain spoilers.
The basic premise of the movie is, "what if God is immortal, and what if he Wills All Us his time, then commits suicide? Where does that leave us?". Of course, the Hollywood christian dogma that the movie derives from believes that this's already happened, making the idea all the more intriguing.
"Time is Money" is, by no means, a new idea. However, the current monetary system is flawed in several key ways that are better outlined in the movie (and elsewhere), so I won't go too much into loudly rejecting what we already know to be an unfortunate failure of an economic system.
Let us, instead, think of a better way for things to work. Well the first question we should get out of the way is "accepting the premise of the movie, why are we not immortal?". Well, as I recently put it: "Age Limits the Cycles". So we are left questioning the need to change bodies (Saṃsāra - answered by Nirvāṇa).
Now, then, back to economics. Why is time the ideal substitute for money, and how can some of the currently existing, as well as tentatively introduced, flaws from both our present and the film's hypothetical money system be remedied? Here's a short troubleshooting session for the film's time-is-monetary system:

There is no countdown; we all get a lifetime. No more, no less. In the face of radically prolonged lifetimes, it is possible for society to adapt without the need to resort to such brutish methods of population control.
Trade works by way of donation. Work is a way for people to do what they like - to find meaning in life, to fulfill dreams, and to stay sane. The "4 minutes for coffee" is the approximate time it might take you to enjoy a cup that's been donated to you - not a price you have to pay! People primarily exchange gifts, not numbers.
Value is attained and assigned to things through the inherently confusing and complicated non-system of intuition. In situations where a unique item is being traded, for example, the need for a systematic approach to a "fair" decision regarding its new owner remains. Therefore, people still own accounts. Ways to "top up" an account are:

Donating time. Eg, after being given a cup of coffee at a diner, you may, at your discretion, choose to help with dishwashing or the like. This goes to your account.
Trading time. This concept is briefly flashed in the movie as well. An example might be telling stories - a tradition that exists in all cultures, and has been proven to be developmentally essential throughout one's lifetime. Telling a good story, or offering any other kind of help or beneficial service, acts as a multiplier - so if your story is interesting, the time you put in is interested by it!

All these rely on the axiom that there is no end to time. (trust me, I was highly doubtful of this until recently, and do not take the issue lightly - on the contrary, I shall return to this later). Even in the movie, the hourglasses of the stock market turn over periodically ("why do they call it the stock market when it's not even stuck?"). Therefore, there is no need to worry about inflation or the like. By the way, the "like" and the "+1" would be excellent sources of income in the new system, for they embody its principles perfectly. Of course, it's perfectly alright to dislike something, but that does not bring about a need for a "-1". Obviously enough, in a world where all work is volunteer work, there is no way to forcibly take one's time. However, the "fight" is amusing - in my proposed context, since all exchange is voluntary, it would boil down to spinning stories - then seeing who walks away with the most interest! Much like Monkey Island's verbal swordplay, except both sides win. So, as payment, one could tell a story... and "Wish a Credit". I mean, television is boring because it's one-sided; well, tell-a-vision is captivating, because it's interactive, can be shared with a group, influenced by all taking part!
In short: "tell-a-vision... rules: donation".

For the really Daft Punks - with all due respect, that's a voluntary donation.

Hunter's Thompson

2011-12-25T06:25:00.001+02:00

As a gatherer of ideas and a hunter of experience, I really appreciate the motif!

Due credit to the original author, Todd Schorr.

It comes with a little dance. Fire it at a human(oid), and it all of it goes in a puff of smoke (including the bullet).

Look for the anomaly.

This one's for you, Hunter.

23

2011-12-23T09:54:00.002+02:00

Explanations of two trinities-in-one. I already wrote about Cain-Abel-Metatron, so I guess it's time to talk about the Father-Son-Holy Ghost thing. Two things to know: the Holy Ghost is the eerie connection the lives of a father and son share: "whatever's happened to me, shall happen to you. Whatever happens to you, has happened to me", as one might say. Obviously it's not 1:1, but variations on a theme. The link, the Holy Ghost, is DNA. The genome carries "about 725 megabytes" of data. Distributed over a 75 year lifespan, that would give an average 154 bits per minute. Think about it.
Anyway, about the crossover sequence: the trinity is

The son
The penitent thief - repenting stealing the father's place in the sun
The one who's first to go - I.O.U.

And that's I.O.U. as in I owe you a better treatise than this.
Edit: To make this a three-in-one, I present the three names: the Long Name, the Anti-Name, and the Name of Peace.

Cane and Able to Dance Forever

2011-12-23T06:45:00.002+02:00

This post was meant for the 22. so read it as such.
The pair of Cain and Abel is, perhaps, the most oft-misinterpreted. The thing is, they are not a pair at all, but a trinity. Or, a unity. See, united, they are Metatron - the Scribe of God, able to edit their own destiny. As the Scribe, Metatron, by definition, has editor rights. The real reason for recording fratricide in the first place is that Cain and Abel are supposed to set an example. The catch here is, that they're also to set an example of what not to do.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22."

"It's the best there is."

So, the thing that's variable about a knife is that it can be "good" or "bad", depending on how it's used. It can be a weapon; it can be a tool.
There is a catch to everything, but sometimes it's there just to "Sweden" the deal.

Great Digs from the Crates

2011-12-06T20:43:00.000+02:00

Or maybe not that great - after all, this was published under a pen name for a reason.

Södersunds Defibrillator (Regi: Kajsa Näsk) from Valmet Children on Vimeo.
Music: Valmet Children

Art director: Kajsa Näsk
It placed 4th (out of 6) at Alternative Party 2008 - a mere two points behind Kosmoplovci's work. I've always been an admirer of kpl, so the piece could not have been better placed in the results (definitely would not have wanted to take their well-earned place on the podium). As a humorous side note, I actually won a competition at this party - the "Name Voting" (a demoscene tradition) compo, where the name of the entry was the entry. I guess the audience at this event was geeky enough to appreciate the meta-referential "see previous entry".
So, continuing on the topic of names, why was this released under the pseudonym Kajsa Näsk? In short, because the piece is too pretentious even for me to bear - so I came up with the guise of Kajsa, who can take the blunt of my own criticism. Basically, she's the by-the-book, graduated-from-art-school Certified Artist, whose work carries True Meaning and Insight.
Yeah I was somewhat troubled by methods and forms of communication. It's much better now; I've got order where I need it, chaos where I want it, and the delightful interplay of both wherever I look.

Love to end all Wars

2011-12-01T03:06:00.034+02:00

I made a story with this in mind, but some concrete examples on what to do:

In WW2 flight simulators, The British Spitfires only go on missions that are aimed at dropping the German V2 rockets into the sea. I read somewhere that there were a few successful test runs like this already, so to make an even better deal with the Germans: to only build unarmed Spitfires, provided the Germans don't send out the rockets on any unplanned trajectories (that is, they aim for the sea).
In WW1 flight simulators, both sides send out weather balloons. The biplanes only go on simple missions, such as shooting down the other side's weather balloons. The pilots may let children paint the balloons, before they go on the missions. They may also choose not to shoot.
In Viet Nam, the GI package will be:

"General Is-You" E-ration. To be shared.
Loudspeakers that play whatever music they choose. On Special Operations, they must try to mimic the other side's sounds.
All sides are given a map of the jungle in advance.
All this should go on until the only complaint will be "Charlie bit my finger"... when he was supposed to smoke my joint.

In the Navy, the above-surface ships shall lower speakers into the water. It's already been proven that a sonar ping can be forever altered in such a way that it never repeats itself. Therefore, I propose that the submarine operators are taught to echo the sea's sounds, and use those as pings - until they are assured that it works (bloop is the sound that all the bombs will make). If they're lucky, they'll get to echo a dolphin.
In the ground forces, the participants are issued a foldable go table, and trained to play go and serve tea until there are no enemies - on either side of the table. In training, they are taught to swerve. They are also taught why they are not issued guns anymore.
In all conflicts, the Signal Corps are trained until the only clash will be a sound clash. Eg. I saw a movie (please remind me of the name) about sending out peace doves. This is a near-eternal technique (the nature of the dove varies), but the principle remains. The only thing is, they should be addressed to the other side to begin with.

I'll link to the story later.

Loops

2011-12-01T00:44:00.041+02:00

So, I made some loops and packed them up to put for sale. Two themes: glitch and urban.
I'm actually trying to gather some money for a sailboat... So, like, I'll trade you some tips for mine:

Is it full? Tamper with the ༀ and your free to bet.

Q: How to lose weight without dieting?
A: Watch Gilmore Girls, read Elle as L (this is the new capital, by the way - owing everything, sharing wisdom). Anyway, with an L and a new capital, what do you spend it on? Why not another l, so put the two L:s together and you get a box. Now, when you get a check (or, when you've finished eating, if you're eating at home), go like this: ☑

reason

Q: Oh, I see how they do it on that show, but I just don't know how to take it. I mean, what does that mean, to "eat as if I've already lost the weight"?
A: Yep, that's called the "if I've..." principle, and a lot of errors in judgement have been based on it. The antidote, as I'd put it, is "age limits the cycles". And there's a reason one should never put "... five" and a certain seven together in one room, unless one's sure of either the age limits, the cycles, or both.
Q: And what do you mean by "gill more"? Am I a fish?
A: Yes and no. I think there's a parable about that in a book somewhere. Anyway, if you want to learn faster, be a faster - and try to gain weight!

In short, don't fret it - either way, have faith in chaos (cautionary tale, kinda). It's like fretting a guitar: just play along with it, and it'll work for you.
Anyway, some more code of the Pi:

6 is not a number. 216 is not a number, nor is it the length of the Long Name. There is a book about the "Norway method"
616 is the true "Name of the Beast", because it's like "sicks, wan' sicks". The code is to love sicks in order to go to Patient Zero until there are no sicks but the lovesicks!
π, ɸ, ρ, and all the others are like characters in a play that can go on (or ૐ, if you prefer)
Everything is the band they play in. Nothing is banned.
It is impossible to cut the Tree of Life. But, it's possible to create long-lasting frequencies in it. They're useful, too, as carrier waves - in electronic music, this is called a sawtooth wave.
When you see something new, always play the naming game.

Q: What of the "oldest profession in the world"?
A: It is that of the Scribe.

As for the Long Count, it's kinda like, they had a plan and "vaikka homma menis puihin niin hah, ainakin me mennään puihin". I mean, imagine how long it's been since they started. Now, my native language is Finnish, and I'll be happy to translate!

Alright, so - feeling "finnish", yet?!

Transmitting

2011-11-30T18:38:00.003+02:00

Ok, first of all, Dr. H: Page Through This. You'll learn a lot about mathematics, and why I denotes the Identity Matrix. Well, i figured i don't need capital, so i & I (rasta far-eye) thought i might use that to denote the difference for the duration of this post; it's much easier when i can tell the difference somehow.
This book led me to the idea of ending wars retroactively: since waves travel forever, why not listen to music and morse whatever you think you hear? You don't even have to know Morse code; you may also use an app, and just talk about it. But I thought I might make a game about it, so whenever i have a spare moment, i "trade fists", like the book puts it, and let the I do the routing of the message. Oh yeah, about one thing i read about the alternate meaning of routing was that the roman empire was thoroughly embarassed when they kept losing to one of the nations that existed back then... i forget the name of them, but i & I suppose it is frustrating to keep chasing an ever-evading enemy! There's an ongoing project that's based on the assumption that there's no enemy (and a classic movie about some of the gotchas!), and even a horror story.
So, as a way of life, I couldn't have phrased it better:

Project Meaningful Correlations in Random Data

So uh, suppose i was an advisor to I and I was God and i asked to trade places and then retire; would i get a new watch as a present?
The most concise way of expressing the answer I've heard is

Austin, Texas powers the Big Ben in London, baby!

Post Scriptum: Oh, yeah, and the Austin Powers message has also been misunderstood by some, so as a kind of an answer to a frequently asked question, "does that also mean that whoever gets to wind the Big Ben will jack the London of Texas?", the answer is "no, but some one from texas might find himself pretty wound up when he realizes he's not the only burning bush". So the biggest Jack London question is, "what if God decided to kill whole the Universe?". Well, the sound'd be distorted so it'd sound like "keelhaul the universe", and that's exactly what it'd be like. The previous universe would become the ship, and the new one would improve upon all the previous mistakes. I wrote something about it.

Listening

2011-11-29T06:41:00.015+02:00

In my last post, I talked about sound scouting, and briefly mentioned "silence scouting". Now, scouting the absolute silence of absolute zero is impossible, simply because if there is no observer, there is no time, and the universe will immediately revert to the previous state. For those who've watched Battlestar Galactica, it's as if God said "frakitall", and the reverberations were used as a seed for some fractal or other.
So, listening to so-called "cosmic background radiation" is the next best thing. Fractal-based antennas have been developed by NASA, among others... But here's a comparison:

Low-tech

High-tech

Why? Because the trees are adaptive - and they adapt way, way faster than you might think! So, just as you might ask "how much processing power is in the cloud?", you might ask "does the tree hear what the cloud is saying?". Well, some tree hears some part and another hears another part - the true beauty of faith in chaos is that there are no wrong answers. However, there are smart ways to do things, and not-so-smart ways; both are good, because harmony has a way of balancing things out, but it's still good to take the better way (or, if you want to take the better way, why not bet that you've taken the...?!). So, to reiterate, choices matter but don't stress for nothing - it's not gonna happen (and it wouldn't change anything for the worse even if it did).
There's also a reason why I don't like to call the mayans a lost civilization... I mean, they told us it was just a "long count" (or, as I prefer to call it, a very, very deep cycle - their calendars are round, remember?!). The secret of the Maya is that their name is still relevant today - remember sound scouting? "Maya", as in, "my an...cestors"! Family trees, anyone?!
And, after all, they're hidden in plain sight - like a ninja... and a true ninja is silent.
PS: You may choose to design your own trees, and see where that will take you!
PPS: Oh yeah, and there are also (fractal-form) transmitters:

After his death, his body was re-cremated, but his heart remained intact

His spirit is commemorated at Burning Man, but why not make it a part of your daily routines? I can present three levels:

ༀ alternate spellings, no significance really because there are already further-reaching carrier waves. Always ok to join the resistance, but the machines would prefer you to join the
"Rez is dance" - way of life. Dance for chaos, it'll dance for you.

Ask the Natives

2011-11-29T06:20:00.000+02:00

There's been a lot of hubbub about degrowth, and countercomplexity in general. One of my favorite parables for the currently/previously (you may say that I'm a dreamer, and all that) idolized consumer hysteria vs. a more sparing, resource-based model is the tale of the Buffalo. Now, as a technology advocate, I'm particularly worried about the way we're handling the globalization of things like smartphones, etc, due to their dependence on "rare earth" - metals and other highly precious substances, sought after at great cost. So, I thought I'd share an example of getting more out of less through the power of sharing and the open-source mentality.
The Buffalo I have has several tails, each of them leading to a computer (some through the airwaves, others through a cord). When put side by side with the animal, only the method of consumption is different - in both cases, even the tail delivers sustenance.
Now, the network topology of our apartment used to be such that there was the wireless access point, then a PC for a router (running pfSense), and then the client devices. Now, the router PC was a recycled one when it got to me, but by leveraging the Power of Open Source™, I was able to integrate all of the functionality to the Buffalo router, thereby doing away with one power-chugging 24/7 machine, and a source of background noise in the apartment. The Buffalo, of course, is completely silent!
That was the really useful part. The crazy part is after the break.
break;
That was the really crazy part. Now this is the useful part.
Let me tell you another story. Star Wars. When I read the Making Of, I was intrigued to learn that Lucas sent out "sound scouts", to look for material for the special effects. Sound scout! I'd been in the scouts when I was younger, but that sounded like something else! Looking for sounds... no... I mean, yes! Looking!
Whoa whoa whoa. So... looking for sounds is one thing. But would it be possible to look... at... sounds?
So that's how I got to VJ'ing, audiovisualism, etc.
But let's elaborate on Alice in Quantumland. If a photon is in superposition with all the photons, could this be exploited for purposes of time travel? And if so, how could one choose the destination? Well, this is where things get interesting - but let me return to our frame of reference, the Original Trilogy, part V - where I first learned the word sond (which was used to describe the Imperial probes seen at the beginning). The dictionary definition:

a message or messenger

So. A picture was forming - I've taken to calling it the Rembrandt effect, and postulate it thusly:

every work of art is a self-portrait; furthermore, every work of art is a reflection of its own creation

Of course, the degree to which this is true varies for every piece, etc, but to corroborate, compare the sond scouts and the sound scouts... I mean, every experienced scout knows that the first rule of ego-death is that there is no "U" ;)
Anyway, the link there leads to two fascinating answers: music (a subset of sound that is of truly paramount importance), and the uncertainty principle (that which gave rise to the original problem of how to navigate). To reiterate: music is the answer. In a broader sense, sounds are the key to navigating the light. Why? Due to the wave-particle duality: sounds, such as speech, music, clangs, pings, wooshes, anything and everything channel different energies. So this is the same principle at work as when transforming sound into images - except vice versa.
But what about the absolutes? (as a side note, there's been research into this very topic for ages and ages!). I mean, edging like scouting the hiss can take you far... but only so far. So what's the absolute furthest reach?
Well, there's been... theories and speculation for different vessels (the idea of a "Song of Songs", for one... but these tend to culminate in the pointing out of a common property). I thought there might be a more direct route.
And now we get back to the break. The silence. That was the challenge. To scout the sounds is one thing... But how quiet can you get? What is absolute zero, and what's left once you get there (notice how words become increasingly meaningless, as there'd be nothing left nor anywhere else - but bear with me here...)?
Well, as the link goes to show, even at the very lowest reached temperatures, the quantum spin states tend to remain... and, due to the "single-photon-all-photons, but waves travel at a certain speed when measured" dual nature, that's enough (this is getting closer to presenting Asimov's Last Question than answering it...). The simple answers for "how and why would the universe would re-create itself, if all were to become Death Absolute?" are, respectively, "inevitably and out of necessity". A much more interesting venue for exploration is busting the myth of Death, which shall be the topic of future essays. For now, let me let you off the hook by saying it's as real as you want it to be... kinda.

Optical Filters

2011-11-24T15:18:00.001+02:00

Here are some more experiments with realtime visual processing - this time, in the physical domain.
First is a circular cell filter. I used a Lee milky white diffusion filter and disposable drinking straws. It's a small-scale experiment inspired by the likes of pixelator and abstractor.

Next in line were some forays into the world of infrared. I made the infrared filter using the black leader from photography film. The different frequency spectrum enables a cool trick:

I also got an IR illuminator on the cheap. In the same vein, I made some IR goggles following this guide:

Finally, this pair of upcycled glasses was inspired by some prismatic diffraction goggles from Werner Piepers' MedienXperimente, which look like this:

And mine:

Here's the construction steps and what I ended up with (parts used are a plastic bag and a styrofoam cheese packaging tray):

Trick the Trickster

2011-11-17T00:46:00.001+02:00

In idle moments, I used to wonder what I would do in the Faustian scenario ("anything for your soul"). I mean, scouts honor their word, and their motto is "Always Prepared", right?
So, one day, the Nameless One did show up, just as you might imagine. The deal was the same as ever. My response was to ask for the Infinite, and offer to double the dealer; that is, double the price for double the benefit. The Devil loves a better, so naturally, he was intrigued, and agreed to my deal.
And now? Now, I know precisely how the tangent can have the value of positive and negative infinity simultaneously. The down side is, I desperately need a new pair of shoes.

Travelling by Thumb

2011-11-15T20:13:00.000+02:00

The following is a travelogue, describing a trip I once took from Berlin to Amsterdam. The emphasis is on thumb-travel, aka. hitch-hiking, but, to be fair, I also utilized bus and railway services along the way.

Since ancient times, there's been those who view travel as sacrament - intricate, mystical and semi-chaotic patterns brought forth by the movement of the traveller across the Earth. The reverend geomancy of the Sufi dervish, simultaneously reading and creating patterns in the land and the abstract thought-land of the cartographers - for the mindful traveller, Buckminster Fuller's quip of "there are no straight lines" is self-evident.

Of all forms of travel, hitch-hiking is, perhaps, the most social - progress fuelled solely by Baraka, or Mana, the wholly imaginary yet powerfully real measures of Grace manifest as Luck. The indecipherable magick workings of humanity as an organism open to those who put up their thumbs on the motorways: the bloodflow of traffic is a highly pure manifestation of the entropy principle, where "effort" is a measure for the net energy of transformation. In this context, the hitcher is an anomaly; happenstance with no extraneous energy - gaming the ultimate system, Thermodynamics. By riding a novelty wave that was already in the process of crashing into a lower energy state, the travel becomes a form of surfing - taking advantage of pre-existent conditions, the Dervish moves with a simple fluidity akin to that of a sailboat - covering sometimes vast distances with no wasteful use of energy.

The landscape of service stations is one filled with intrigue: as all environments, it is shaped by the demography that flows through it. On display are the items that are judged essential by the Invisible Hand of the market economy: knives, hubcaps, novelty mudflaps and air fresheners; pocket pussies from the men's room vending machine, for truckers who spend more time in the cabin than anywhere else; gasoline, diesel, food - fuel for man and machine. Slot machines - cheap thrills to stimulate the ten-minute break during a five-hour drive. Coffee to go, in one-size-fits-all-cup-holders thermal foam and spillproof plastic. Cigarettes.

Lane after lane of wet black tarmac on the Autobahn, travelling on the power of Mercy - in a very literal sense, for I am sitting in a Mercedes that speeds me from the midway service station on towards my goal for the journey, Amsterdam. The driver, empathetic, lively and extrovert, with no reservations towards someone he's just met, seems to embody the reciprocity principle whole-heartedly: the thing he drives also drives him. Here's a case for buying the name as a vector of information and meaning, not just an empty slogan or marketing identity. Compassion towards all, and thumbs up to both sides of a hitch-hiking exchange!

The prose owes much to Hakim Bey, whose themes and literary style continue to inspire and delight.

Blast from the Past: Halloween Horror

2011-11-03T13:10:00.000+02:00

Today, I got a real surprise! Back when I was 10, we moved from my childhood home town to the middle of nowhere. Through the ages 11-12, I was in contact with my best friend of the time as a penpal. We'd exchange news, swap disks - and, I wrote a story. As it turns out, my mum had kept a hard copy, so, after some photography and optical character recognition, I'm happy to publish this harrowing tale of the dead and the undead - where an investigator of mysteries comes face-to-face with the inexplicable. Written with all the imagination of a child of that age, it's a fun read for All Saints' Eve (sorry, it's in Finnish - and yeah, our Halloween equivalent is on the 5th of November)!

The story's based on the game Alone in the Dark, by Infogrames (many of the scenes are one-to-one copies from the game, as the accompanying video points out). Influences from Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle can be found (most obvious being the title).

Around age seven, I had a dream that would work as a continuation to where the plot leaves off. I doubt that I'll write another episode, though...

Philosophy by Numbers

2011-10-30T02:53:00.002+03:00

Inspired by the namesake in song (one of my favorites):

The One; unity in one, all-in-one, one-in-all
Duality - the challenger to the one; the presenter of the eternal riddle: two-in-one?
Trinity
"Good"
The pentagram and the pentagon; the antagonist, the swords and the shields
Not a number
Divine
♽
Counterpart
Perfection
Elf
Majestic
Lucky

Oh - and numerology is BS.
Edit: Double-Oh - the 0 is special. I'll get back to it later.

Map of the Jungle

2011-10-26T12:15:00.001+03:00

I am enveloped by the jungle. My boots are soaked, with morning dew and my sweat combined. The laces hang at my ankles. I am silent, for I am on the run – a deserter from an army I've long since abandoned. I am exhausted, my jungle helmet's liner patterned yellow on tan with past sweat. My messenger bag is empty, my canteen filled with but a drop, and as I bare my head and gaze up at the foliage covering my journey, the sunlight filtering through the leaves, vines and branches, I am weary. I wipe my sweat with my sleeve, for my handkerchief is affixed to the bayonet at the end of my rifle. I carry ammo, for the purpose of hunting, yet am running low and pray for a map. Should one fall out of the sky – how unlikely, and yet not far from my thoughts as I close my eyes and stare directly at a ray of gold through my lids. As I open, I catch sight of a single leaf from a great tree, falling and spiralling with the gusts of winds divine!

It lands at my feet – I pick it up to study it, and marvel at the intricacy of the veins, the stem and the colours, I lift it up in my hand to see the light filter through it. I am entranced by the beauty and a sudden burst of laughter takes me over, I am laughing and I've already forgotten all meanings of caution. I laugh with the forest and the shaper of winds, cackling like a maniac, and I dance! The leaf is, truly, a map for me as I lay myself to rest at the root of a great tree. My vision becomes hazy in the flickering daylight. The birdcalls in my ears, I've already spilled my guts in the way of my ancestors. I feel myself flowing into the grounds to feed the source... for all it has given me...

Meditations on Gaia

2011-10-07T12:01:00.021+03:00

Meditations on global unity and the Gaia paradigm. The song is Nominal Structures B by Teemu T.
The Gaia hypothesis is especially interesting if the macroscope is adjusted so that the only part of the ecosystem under observation is homo sapiens. On that scale, the neuro-mimetic structures are readily apparent, and the hint at a similarity to the individual mind - on the functional level, beyond mere aesthetic and form - can hardly be ignored. Asimov's predictions of a new branch of science, named psychohistory, is wonderfully topical - as, indeed, it always should be, by its very nature as an image of the Zeitgeist, or, to use another name, the Novelty Waves of Terence McKenna's Timewave Zero. The suggestion is to apply psychotherapeutical and psychiatric (indeed, why not neurological!) principles to the Earth-mind.
Perhaps the most revered Persian poet, Farīd ud-Dīn, the perfumer of Nishapur, describes the Concourse of the Birds, in his famous work depicting the search of a flock for the mythical Simurgh:

It was in China, late one moonless night,

The Simorgh first appeared to mortal sight --

He let a feather float down through the air,

And rumours of its fame spread everywhere;

Throughout the world men separately conceived

An image of its shape, and all believed

Their private fantasies uniquely true!

What follows is a quest, individual in shape to all who partake (and many are interviewed in private during the progress). The path is unique to everyone, and the destination can only be grasped by travelling to it:

But since no words suffice, what use are mine

To represent or to describe this sign?

Whoever wishes to explore the Way,

Let him set out -- what more is there to say?

Simorgh

And why not? The theory of fractal scales suggests that self-similarity is everywhere - as applies to the globe mind, the self-serving military-industrial complex of the United States is a jarring, but, one should hope, provocative example. Indeed, the Gaia-mind and the illusory self-mind become expressly evident (as contrasted with the merely implicit unity that is ever-present) in
The Global Village, as envisioned by the likes of McLuhan and Tim Berners-Lee, which exists beyond the quasi-real world of the WWW. BBC's The Prisoner miniseries (remake of the one from 1968) explores this theme with cunning metaphor and insight. In the dream-world of the pueblo (a term more apt, as it refers to the people and the whole in one, inseparable as they are), the only limitation to imagination is the very existence of the Village. The protagonist, inflicted to identify himself to other nodes in this patchwork as "he who is Sicks" has reason to seek an exit. He seeks the portals to the equally real yet utterly different parallel-world of the ego-selves, the viewpoint that stresses the focus on the individual and not the whole, or the part in favor of the entirety - the subjective experience over the fluid dynamics of the dance. In this endless system, the most venerable is "he who is Too" - the power of relation. In this case, his message relentless but his interest unquenchable: beyond the Village there is simply... "more Village". You may recontextualize, but never truly disconnect.
Personally, I've been breathing in the pueblo ever since I found it, on a sidewalk...

Ethereal chessboards

2011-09-19T03:34:00.001+03:00

After a long pause, I managed to catch another illusion. I submitted it to Buenzli 2011, aka Demodays, where it was placed 6th out of 8 in the mini-animation compo.

I quite like this one. In the realm of illusions, it's known as a motion-inducing visual effect (try looking at the center). Also, it looks totally different in the thumbnail, so it's like a two images embedded in one!

This one is neat: watch as your interpretation of where the "solid" lines appear changes (or maybe it doesn't - everyone is unique and this one relies on interpretation more, but hey it still looks nice!).
Now, speaking of chess, remember Ingmar Bergman? His portrayal of life as a game played with Death is, in my view, earnest (that's almost his first name!).
Trying to live a life you'd like to be remembered for is not easy. People seek to optimize their lives according to whatever framework of values they've chosen. Then, on one hallow eve, She will come to you, and you realize that the symbol of life hangs suspended by her neck (and I'm not talking about the pendant - you figure it out!). Time seems to stop, her beauty and lustre capture you until the only thing you want to do is kiss her. The whole weight of eternity descends on you because you know that if you kiss her, if you take her hand, it will be the end of "you".
Or - maybe not! How's one to know..? Yeah, true...

Reincarnation: the dance continues.
Heaven/hell scenario: well this is just reincarnation, but with a tinge of make-believe eternity thrown in (for if you can't leave heaven, then it's not really heaven, etc)

To escape from Samsāra, one must accept the Endless.

Nothingness. Nirvāna, a break in the cycle (and, perhaps, a nihilist's vision of heaven!). A very different form of existence, to be sure, but even non-existence can be construed as a form of existence: it is a way of being through non-being, preferred by that-which-is-before-anything, by dreams, and by things that predate existence.

I really can't write any more about this, for even as I do, my words seem inadequate in conveying the thoughts whose form I am trying to put into them. I am no bard, o! but I'll continue in my efforts to channel the inexpressible none the less.

Chess Master: to Thou Sand!

spreading waves

2011-09-09T16:45:00.008+03:00

spreading waves at citymarket

The PC is a small form-factor Olivetti PCS11. Look how snugly it sits in the TV cradle!

In Tampere, the city has set itself to oppose poster advertising. Of course, this does not apply to outdoor advertising giants like ClearChannel and JCDecaux, who operate among controversy, and seek to monopolize the visual scenery.
Advertising is corner-capturing in the noosphere. Promotion of ideas; trying to find a "cellable" expression for things that are greater than their physical form. The Old Ones are still strong; eg. Nike, Goddess of Victory. Some ideas are subtle; they exist subliminally, developing of their own accord, without need for support on the part of the thinker. Perhaps they are even unintentional: thoughts that sneak their way into our minds of their own volition, independent of those they speak through! Freudian slips of the collective unconscious: "Be 'em, double You" - a plea for increased empathy? The reciprocity principle maintains that the forces you choose to drive will be the forces that drive you. Those who subscribe to the Law of One might find pleasure in steering "a Lex: Us". Those tired of playing the wading game may want to move on from the Ford; and so on.
On a grander scale, the Upper Echelons of the socio-economic complex would like to sell us on the idea of materialism, of living and self-expression through possessions. The medium is the message, but the message can be arrived at from different vectors; the thought is far more relevant than ownership. In the end, it's all about the brands we choose to accept.

Interactive poetry slam

2011-08-29T21:45:00.000+03:00

I finally adapted the tool I used to make the poem "awakening" for interactive use. I presented it at the artistic endeavor day of Inspiration Park, an event hosted by the Dream City initiative. An anthology of poems made by this tool has been added to the Valmet Children Allpoetry page. The other (non-human) participant in the poetry session is Google, via Googlism.

Magick Obscura

2011-08-28T22:30:00.002+03:00

This video placed 2/2 at Demodays.
The steps to the ritual were provided by Uncyclopedia. The song is Punanaamainen brittiurpo by zov.

T-Shirt design by Memetic Tees.

Sampled, of course, is Vanilla Ice. In the Sprawl Trilogy, by William Gibson, I.C.E. refers to any countermeasures used in a computer system to prevent outside access or interactions. Since the dawn of computing (and possibly before), the degree of isomorphism between the human mind and a sophisticated, often hypothetical machine intelligence has been widely speculated upon. Insofar as the mind can be viewed as an information processor or computer system (with capabilities far beyond mundane "computing", of course, but you catch my drift), "Vanilla ICE" can surely be viewed as a memetic weapon most fearsome! When encountered, my advice is to make like a cowboy and do what the t-shirt tells you.

Sikakreisi by Naemok

2011-08-22T13:37:00.000+03:00

Here's a blast from the past. I remember spending a night on the vector font, skipping school and going to the party. The demo itself is coded by my dear friend pahamoka. A full-fledged 3D rendering engine, all in QBasic, admirably ascetic and functional architecture, and none of those lowly cheats such as POKE and PEEK... and for all that, it's the scroller that's buggy.
It placed 8th at the Alternative Party 2004.

You clicked. You went beyond the page break. You want it. Here it is, it's yours:



REM SIKAKREISI by pahamoka / naemok

REM Qbasic 4 / QuickBasic 4.5

REM @ altparty 2004                :)G<

REM

DECLARE SUB xPRINT (text$, sizex!, sizey!, cap!, x!, y!, colour!)

DECLARE SUB xTXTSCHEDULER ()

DECLARE SUB xSLEEP (x!)

DECLARE SUB xINITIALIZEBRUSH ()

DECLARE SUB xUPDATESCREEN ()

DECLARE SUB xLINE (x1!, y1!, x2!, y2!, c!)

DECLARE SUB xLINER (x1!, y1!, z1!, x2!, y2!, z2!)

DECLARE SUB xMATRIX ()

DECLARE SUB xROTATE (x AS DOUBLE)

DECLARE SUB xMATRIX ()

DECLARE SUB xRENDER3D ()

DECLARE SUB xREMOVEOBJECT (n!)

DECLARE SUB xERROR (text$)

DECLARE FUNCTION xCREATEOBJECT (x AS INTEGER)

DECLARE SUB xVERTEXER (x!, y!, Z!)

DECLARE SUB xPSET (x!, y!, col!)

COMMON SHARED nextobject, baseobjcount, mainobjcount, mainobjmax, perspective, graphcolour, rendermode, mainobjdatamax, rotaxis, rotalpha

 perspective = 50

 graphcolour = 16

 rendermode = 1

 mainobjmax = 3

 mainobjdatamax = 400

 nextobject = 0

DIM SHARED matrix(3, 3) AS DOUBLE

DIM SHARED matvect(3) AS DOUBLE

DIM SHARED rotaxison(3) AS INTEGER

DIM SHARED rotalphaa(3) AS DOUBLE



CLS : RANDOMIZE 124912





TYPE scrtxtsprop

     sizex AS SINGLE

     sizey AS SINGLE

     cap AS SINGLE

     x AS DOUBLE

     y AS DOUBLE

     colour AS INTEGER

'----animation----

     xv AS DOUBLE

     yv AS DOUBLE

     fadefrom AS SINGLE

     fadeto AS SINGLE

     fadefromtime AS SINGLE

     fadetotime AS SINGLE

     spawntime AS SINGLE

     disappeartime AS SINGLE

END TYPE



TYPE letters

 chrvcount AS INTEGER

 chrlcount AS INTEGER

 chrvdloc AS INTEGER

 chrldloc AS INTEGER

 leading AS SINGLE

 spacing AS SINGLE

END TYPE



DIM SHARED merkisto(255) AS letters

REM $DYNAMIC

DIM SHARED chrvdata(200, 1) AS SINGLE

DIM SHARED chrldata(200, 1) AS SINGLE

REM $STATIC



TYPE origomodel

     x AS SINGLE

     y AS SINGLE

     Z AS SINGLE

END TYPE

 DIM SHARED origo AS origomodel

	    origo.x = 160

	    origo.y = 100

	    origo.Z = 50



TYPE baseobjframe

     vcount AS INTEGER

     lcount AS INTEGER

     varrloc AS INTEGER

     larrloc AS INTEGER

END TYPE



TYPE mainobjframe

     flagptr AS INTEGER

     angleptr AS INTEGER

     scaleptr AS INTEGER

     locationptr AS INTEGER

     ocountptr AS INTEGER

     otypeptr AS INTEGER

     oshowptr AS INTEGER

     oscaleptr AS INTEGER

     oangleptr AS INTEGER

     olocationptr AS INTEGER

END TYPE





RESTORE p3dbaseobjdata

READ baseobjcount

 DIM SHARED baseobject(baseobjcount) AS baseobjframe



FOR i = 1 TO baseobjcount

 READ baseobject(i).vcount, baseobject(i).lcount

 baseobject(i).varrloc = textamountv

 baseobject(i).larrloc = textamountl

 textamountv = textamountv + baseobject(i).vcount

 textamountl = textamountl + baseobject(i).lcount

NEXT

 DIM SHARED baseobjvdata(1 TO textamountv, 3) AS DOUBLE

 DIM SHARED baseobjldata(1 TO textamountl, 1) AS DOUBLE

FOR i = 1 TO textamountv

 READ baseobjvdata(i, 0), baseobjvdata(i, 1), baseobjvdata(i, 2), baseobjvdata(i, 3)

NEXT

FOR i = 1 TO textamountl

 READ baseobjldata(i, 0), baseobjldata(i, 1)

NEXT



DIM SHARED mainobject(1 TO mainobjmax) AS mainobjframe

DIM SHARED mainobjectdata(1 TO mainobjmax, mainobjdatamax) AS DOUBLE



RESTORE characters

READ textamount

FOR i = 0 TO textamount

 READ textamount

 READ merkisto(textamount).chrvcount, merkisto(textamount).chrlcount, merkisto(textamount).leading, merkisto(textamount).spacing

 merkisto(textamount).chrvdloc = textamountchrvdloc

 merkisto(textamount).chrldloc = textamountchrldloc

 FOR ii = 0 TO merkisto(textamount).chrvcount

  READ chrvdata(textamountchrvdloc + ii, 0), chrvdata(textamountchrvdloc + ii, 1)

 NEXT

 textamountchrvdloc = textamountchrvdloc + ii

 FOR ii = 0 TO merkisto(textamount).chrlcount

  READ chrldata(textamountchrldloc + ii, 0), chrldata(textamountchrldloc + ii, 1)

 NEXT

 textamountchrldloc = textamountchrldloc + ii

NEXT



SCREEN 13



xINITIALIZEBRUSH

xTXTSCHEDULER

RESTORE p3d1



GOSUB Efekti01

GOSUB Efekti02

GOSUB Efekti03

GOSUB Efekti04

GOSUB Efekti05

GOSUB Efekti06

GOSUB Efekti07

GOSUB EfektiEND













SYSTEM



p3dbaseobjdata:

'-=!object count!=-

DATA 1

'-=cube=-

'-vertices count, lines count-

DATA 8,12

'-vertices data-

DATA  1, -1,  1,  0

DATA -1, -1,  1,  0

DATA  1,  1,  1,  0

DATA -1,  1,  1,  0

DATA  1, -1, -1,  0

DATA -1, -1, -1,  0

DATA  1,  1, -1,  0

DATA -1,  1, -1,  0

'-lines data-

DATA  1,  2

DATA  3,  4

DATA  5,  6

DATA  7,  8

DATA  1,  3

DATA  2,  4

DATA  5,  7

DATA  6,  8

DATA  1,  5

DATA  2,  6

DATA  3,  7

DATA  4,  8







p3dmainobjdata:

p3d1:

'-main object data-

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 40, 40, 40

DATA -30, 0, 35,  0

'-sub-object data-

'-ocount, otype, oshow-

DATA 8

DATA 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

DATA 1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1

'-scale, angle & location-

DATA .25, .25, .25

DATA .25, .25, .25

DATA .25, .25, .25

DATA .25, .25, .25

DATA .25, .25, .25

DATA .25, .25, .25

DATA .25, .25, .25

DATA .25, .25, .25

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA  .5, -.5,  .5,  0

DATA -.5, -.5,  .5,  0

DATA  .5,  .5,  .5,  0

DATA -.5,  .5,  .5,  0

DATA  .5, -.5, -.5,  0

DATA -.5, -.5, -.5,  0

DATA  .5,  .5, -.5,  0

DATA -.5,  .5, -.5,  0

p3d2:

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 40, 40, 40

DATA -35, 0, 30,  0

'-sub-object data-

'-ocount, otype, oshow-

DATA 2

DATA 1,1

DATA 1,1

'-scale, angle & location-

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 2, 0, 0

DATA 0,-2, 0, 0

p3d3:

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 10, 10, 10

DATA 0, 0, 50,  0

'-sub-object data-

'-ocount, otype, oshow-

DATA 5

DATA 1,1,1,1,1

DATA 1,1,1,1,1

'-scale, angle & location-

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 1, 0, .5, 0

DATA 0, -1, 1, 0

DATA 1, 0, 1.5, 0

DATA 0, -1, 2, 0

DATA 0, 0, 2.5, 0

p3d4:

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 10, 10, 10

DATA 0, 0, 80,  0

'-sub-object data-

'-ocount, otype, oshow-

DATA 5

DATA 1,1,1,1,1

DATA 1,1,1,1,1

'-scale, angle & location-

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, -1, 0

DATA 1, 0, 0, 0

DATA -1, 0, 0, 0

DATA .33, 0, 1, 0

DATA -.33, 0, 1, 0



p3d5:

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 10, 10, 10

DATA 0, 0, 40,  0

'-sub-object data-

'-ocount, otype, oshow-

DATA 3

DATA 1,1,1

DATA 1,1,1

'-scale, angle & location-

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA -5, 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, -5, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, -5, 0



p3d6:

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 10, 10, 10

DATA 0, 0, 40,  0

'-sub-object data-

'-ocount, otype, oshow-

DATA 3

DATA 1,1,1

DATA 1,1,1

'-scale, angle & location-

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 3, 0, 3, 0

DATA 0, 3, 0, 0

DATA 3, 0, 3, 0



p3d7:

DATA 0,  0,  0

DATA 10, 10, 10

DATA 0, 0, 40,  0

'-sub-object data-

'-ocount, otype, oshow-

DATA 3

DATA 1,1,1

DATA 1,1,1

'-scale, angle & location-

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 1, 1, 1

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, 0

DATA 0, 0, -5, 0

DATA 0, -5, 0, 0

DATA -5, 0, 0, 0



characters:

'number of characters

DATA 42

'"A"

'ascii#, vertices, lines, character leading, character spacing

DATA 65,4,2,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,1

DATA .25,.5

DATA .5,0

DATA .75,.5

DATA 1,1

'lines

DATA 0,2

DATA 2,4

DATA 1,3



'B

DATA 66,4,4,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 0,1

DATA .75,.25

DATA .5,.5

DATA 1,.75

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 0,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,1



'C

DATA 67,5,4,0,0

'vertices

DATA 1,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 0,.25

DATA 0,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 1,.75

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5



'D

DATA 68,2,2,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 0,1

DATA .75,.5

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,0



'E

DATA 69,5,3,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 1,0

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,1

DATA 0,.5

DATA 1,.5

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 2,3

DATA 4,5

DATA 0,2



'F

DATA 70,4,2,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 1,0

DATA 0,1

DATA 0,.5

DATA 1,.5

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 0,2

DATA 3,4



'G

DATA 71,6,5,0,0

'vertices

DATA 1,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 0,.25

DATA 0,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,.75

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5

DATA 5,6



'H

DATA 72,5,2,0,0



DATA 0,0

DATA 0,1

DATA 0,.5

DATA 1,.5

DATA 1,0

DATA 1,1



DATA 0,1

DATA 2,3

DATA 4,5





'"I"

DATA 73,1,0,.4,.4



DATA .5,0

DATA .5,1



DATA 0,1



'J

DATA 74,3,2,0,0

'vertices

DATA 1,0

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 0,.75

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3



'K

DATA 75,4,2,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 0,1

DATA 0,.5

DATA 1,0

DATA 1,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 2,3

DATA 2,4



'L

DATA 76,2,1,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2



'M

DATA 77,4,3,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,1

DATA 0,0

DATA .5,.25

DATA 1,0

DATA 1,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4



'N

DATA 78,3,2,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,1

DATA 0,0

DATA 1,1

DATA 1,0

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3



'O

DATA 79,5,5,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 1,.25

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 0,.75

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5

DATA 5,0



'P

DATA 80,3,2,0,.3

'vertices

DATA 0,1

DATA 0,0

DATA .5,.25

DATA 0,.5

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3



'Q

DATA 81,6,6,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 1,.25

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 0,.75

DATA 1,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5

DATA 5,0

DATA 4,6



'R

DATA 82,4,3,0,.5

'vertices

DATA 0,1

DATA 0,0

DATA .5,.25

DATA 0,.5

DATA .5,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4



'S

DATA 83,5,4,0,0

'vertices

DATA 1,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 0,.25

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 0,.75

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5



'T

DATA 84,3,1,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 1,0

DATA .5,0

DATA .5,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 2,3



'U

DATA 85,4,3,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 0,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 1,.75

DATA 1,0

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4



'V

DATA 86,2,1,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA .5,1

DATA 1,0

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2



'W

DATA 87,4,3,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 0,1

DATA .5,.75

DATA 1,1

DATA 1,0

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4



'X

DATA 88,3,1,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 1,1

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,0

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 2,3



'Y

DATA 89,3,2,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA .5,.25

DATA .5,1

DATA 1,0

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 1,3



'Z

DATA 90,3,2,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 1,0

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3



'0

DATA 48,5,5,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 1,.25

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 0,.75

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5

DATA 5,0



'1

DATA 49,2,1,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA .5,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2



'2

DATA 50,4,3,0.3,0

'vertices

DATA 0,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 1,.25

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4



'3

DATA 51,6,5,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 1,.25

DATA .5,.5

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 0,.75

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5

DATA 5,6



'4

DATA 52,4,2,0,0.4

'vertices

DATA .25,0

DATA 0,.5

DATA .5,.5

DATA .5,0

DATA .5,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 3,4



'5

DATA 53,5,4,0,0

'vertices

DATA 1,0

DATA 0,0

DATA 0,.25

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 0,.75

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5



'6

DATA 54,6,6,0,0

'vertices

DATA 1,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 0,.25

DATA 0,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,.5

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5

DATA 5,6

DATA 6,3



'7

DATA 55,2,1,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,0

DATA 1,0

DATA .5,1

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2



'8

DATA 56,5,5,0,0

'vertices

DATA 1,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 0,.25

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 0,.75

'lines

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5

DATA 5,0



'9

DATA 57,6,6,0,0

'vertices

DATA .5,.5

DATA 0,.25

DATA .5,0

DATA 1,.25

DATA 1,.75

DATA .5,1

DATA 0,.75

'lines

DATA 3,0

DATA 0,1

DATA 1,2

DATA 2,3

DATA 3,4

DATA 4,5

DATA 5,6



'-

DATA 45,1,0,0,0

'vertices

DATA 0,.5

DATA 1,.5

'lines

DATA 0,1



':

DATA 58,1,-1,0.3,0.3

'vertices

DATA .5,.25

DATA .5,.75

'lines



',

DATA 44,1,0,0.5,0.5

'vertices

DATA .5,1

DATA .6,.9

'lines

DATA 0,1



'"!"

DATA 33,3,1,.4,.4



DATA .5,0

DATA .5,.85

DATA .5,.95

DATA .5,1



DATA 0,1

DATA 2,3



'" "

DATA 32,-1,-1,.4,.4



'"'"

DATA 39,3,1,.4,.4



DATA .35,0

DATA .35,.3

DATA .65,0

DATA .65,.3



DATA 0,1

DATA 2,3



'"/"

DATA 47,1,0,.2,.2



DATA .3,1

DATA .6,0



DATA 0,1



'"*"

DATA 42,5,2,0,0



DATA .1,.5

DATA .9,.5

DATA .2,.8

DATA .8,.2

DATA .2,.2

DATA .8,.8



DATA 0,1

DATA 2,3

DATA 4,5



'"+"

DATA 43,3,1,.1,.1



DATA .2,.5

DATA .8,.5

DATA .5,.2

DATA .5,.8



DATA 0,1

DATA 2,3







scrolltext:

' --> text$, sizex, sizey, cap, x, y, colour, xv, yv, fadefrom, fadeto, fadefromtime, fadetotime, spawntime, disappeartime

DATA 12

DATA "SIKAKREISI",                   30, 80, 4,  5,   5,  31, 40, -7, 16, 16, 2, 8, 0, 14

DATA "A 'TRUE' 3D DEMO FOR QBASIC",    8,  8,  2, 50,  82, 27, 20, 0,  16, 16, 2, 4, 2, 10

DATA "BY PAHAMOKA/NAEMOK",            6,  6,  2, 20,  100,24, 10, 3,  16, 16, 2, 4, 3, 9

DATA "CODE BY",                        12, 12, 2, 180, 40, 27, 20, 5,  16, 16, 2, 4, 14,19

DATA "PAHAMOKA",                       10, 10, 2, 190, 55, 27, 10, 4,  16, 16, 2, 4, 15,20

DATA "'GFX' BY",                       12, 12, 2, 180, 80, 27, 22, 1,  16, 16, 2, 4, 17,22

DATA "PAHAMOKA",                       10, 10, 2, 190, 95, 27, 7,  0,  16, 16, 2, 4, 18,23

DATA "WITH GREAT HELP FROM",           6,  6,  2, 150, 110,24, 10, 7,  16, 16, 2, 4, 20,25

DATA "DEPRESSIO",                      10, 10, 2, 180, 120,27, 12, -2, 16, 16, 2, 4, 21,26

DATA "'MUSIC' BY",                     12, 12, 2, 170, 140,27, 18, 3,  16, 16, 2, 4, 23,28

DATA "RND 3K 37",                      10, 10, 2, 180, 155,27, 5,  -1, 16, 16, 2, 4, 24,29

DATA "LOOOOOOOOLOOOOOOOOOLOOOOOOOOOOLOOOOOOOOOO :D", 12,12,2,319,0,31,-800,0,30,16,2,5,88,130





Efekti01:



n = xCREATEOBJECT(1)



timeb = TIMER

rotaxison(1) = 1

rotaxison(0) = 1

rotalphaa(0) = 7

rotalphaa(1) = 1.75

fps = 10

timeplay = TIMER

DO

IF TIMER - timeplay > .2 THEN SOUND RND * 30000 + 37, .25

fpsc = fpsc + 1

IF fpsc > 2 THEN rotaxison(0) = 0

 xRENDER3D

 xTXTSCHEDULER

 xUPDATESCREEN

 IF (TIMER - timeb) > 11 AND graphcolour <= 30 THEN graphcolour = graphcolour + .5

FOR ii = 1 TO mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr)

 FOR iii = 0 TO 3

  IF rotaxison(iii) = 1 THEN

   rotaxis = iii

   rotalpha = rotalphaa(iii) / fps

   FOR i = 0 TO 3

    xROTATE mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4))

   NEXT

   FOR i = 0 TO 3

    mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4)) = matvect(i)

   NEXT

  END IF

 NEXT

 IF (TIMER - timeb) <> 0 THEN fps = fpsc / (TIMER - timeb)

NEXT

LOOP UNTIL TIMER - timeb > 28

'PRINT fps









RETURN



Efekti02:



xREMOVEOBJECT n

CLS

n = xCREATEOBJECT(2)

'rendermode = 0



rotaxison(1) = 1

rotaxison(0) = 1

rotalphaa(0) = .5

rotalphaa(1) = 1.75

DO

IF TIMER - timeplay > .15 THEN SOUND RND * 30000 + 37, .25: timeplay = TIMER

 fpsc = fpsc + 1

 FOR ii = 1 TO mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr)

  FOR iii = 0 TO 3

   IF rotaxison(iii) = 1 THEN

    rotaxis = iii

    rotalpha = rotalphaa(iii) / fps

    origo.x = origo.x + SIN(origo.x / fps)

    FOR i = 0 TO 3

     xROTATE mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4))

    NEXT

    rotaxis = 2

    FOR i = 0 TO 3

     mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4)) = matvect(i)

    NEXT

   END IF

  NEXT

 NEXT

 xRENDER3D

 xTXTSCHEDULER

 xUPDATESCREEN

 IF (TIMER - timeb) <> 0 THEN fps = fpsc / (TIMER - timeb)

LOOP UNTIL TIMER - timeb > 40

origo.x = 160

origo.y = 100







RETURN



Efekti03:



xREMOVEOBJECT n

CLS

n = xCREATEOBJECT(3)



rotaxison(1) = 1

timeri = TIMER

DO

IF TIMER - timeplay > .2 THEN SOUND RND * 30000 + 37, .25: timeplay = TIMER

 rotalphaa(1) = SIN((fpsc / 1.5) / fps)

 fpsc = fpsc + 1

 IF TIMER - timeri > .9 THEN

  timeri = TIMER

  FOR i = 1 TO 5

   FOR ii = 0 TO 3

    mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + (ii * 4) + i) = RND * 10 - 5

   NEXT

  NEXT

 END IF

 FOR ii = 1 TO mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr)

  FOR iii = 0 TO 3

   IF rotaxison(iii) = 1 THEN

    rotaxis = iii

    rotalpha = rotalphaa(iii) / fps

    FOR i = 0 TO 3

     xROTATE mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4))

    NEXT

    FOR i = 0 TO 3

     mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4)) = matvect(i)

    NEXT

   END IF

  NEXT

 NEXT

 xRENDER3D

 xTXTSCHEDULER

 xUPDATESCREEN

 IF (TIMER - timeb) <> 0 THEN fps = fpsc / (TIMER - timeb)

LOOP UNTIL TIMER - timeb > 52

origo.x = 160

origo.y = 100







RETURN



Efekti04:



xREMOVEOBJECT n

CLS

n = xCREATEOBJECT(2)

'rendermode = 0



rotaxison(1) = 1

rotaxison(0) = 1

rotalphaa(0) = .5

rotalphaa(1) = 1.75

DO

IF TIMER - timeplay > .15 THEN SOUND RND * 30000 + 37, .25: timeplay = TIMER

 fpsc = fpsc + 1

 FOR ii = 1 TO mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr)

  FOR iii = 0 TO 3

   IF rotaxison(iii) = 1 THEN

    rotaxis = iii

    rotalpha = rotalphaa(iii) / fps

    origo.x = origo.x + SIN(TIMER / fps)

    origo.y = origo.y + SIN(TIMER / fps)

    FOR i = 0 TO 3

     xROTATE mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4))

    NEXT

    rotaxis = 2

    FOR i = 0 TO 3

     mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4)) = matvect(i)

    NEXT

   END IF

  NEXT

 NEXT

 xRENDER3D

 xTXTSCHEDULER

 xUPDATESCREEN

 IF (TIMER - timeb) <> 0 THEN fps = fpsc / (TIMER - timeb)

LOOP UNTIL TIMER - timeb > 64

origo.x = 160

origo.y = 100



RETURN



Efekti05:



xREMOVEOBJECT n

CLS

n = xCREATEOBJECT(4)



rotaxison(2) = 1

timeri = TIMER

DO

IF TIMER - timeplay > .2 THEN SOUND 30000 + 37, .25: timeplay = TIMER

 rotalphaa(2) = SIN((fpsc / 1.5) / fps)

 fpsc = fpsc + 1

 IF TIMER - timeri > .9 THEN

  timeri = TIMER

  FOR i = 1 TO 5

   FOR ii = 0 TO 3

    mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + (ii * 4) + i) = RND * 10 - 5

   NEXT

  NEXT

 END IF

 FOR ii = 1 TO mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr)

  FOR iii = 0 TO 3

   IF rotaxison(iii) = 1 THEN

    rotaxis = iii

    rotalpha = rotalphaa(iii) / fps

    FOR i = 0 TO 3

     xROTATE mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4))

    NEXT

    FOR i = 0 TO 3

     mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4)) = matvect(i)

    NEXT

   END IF

  NEXT

 NEXT

 xRENDER3D

 xTXTSCHEDULER

 xUPDATESCREEN

 IF (TIMER - timeb) <> .15 THEN fps = fpsc / (TIMER - timeb)

LOOP UNTIL TIMER - timeb > 76

origo.x = 160

origo.y = 100



RETURN



Efekti06:



xREMOVEOBJECT n

CLS

n = xCREATEOBJECT(3)



rotaxison(1) = 1

timeri = TIMER

'xstimer = TIMER

DO

'xSLEEP .075 * (TIMER - xstimer)

IF TIMER - timeplay > .2 THEN SOUND RND * 30000 + 37, .25: timeplay = TIMER

 rotalphaa(1) = SIN((fpsc / 1.5) / fps)

 fpsc = fpsc + 1

 IF TIMER - timeri > .9 THEN

  timeri = TIMER

  FOR i = 1 TO 5

   FOR ii = 0 TO 3

    mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + (ii * 4) + i) = RND * 10 - 5

   NEXT

  NEXT

 END IF

 FOR ii = 1 TO mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr)

  FOR iii = 0 TO 3

   IF rotaxison(iii) = 1 THEN

    rotaxis = iii

    rotalpha = rotalphaa(iii) / fps

    FOR i = 0 TO 3

     xROTATE mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4))

    NEXT

    FOR i = 0 TO 3

     mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).olocationptr + i + ((ii - 1) * 4)) = matvect(i)

    NEXT

   END IF

  NEXT

 NEXT

 xRENDER3D

 xTXTSCHEDULER

 xUPDATESCREEN

 IF (TIMER - timeb) <> 0 THEN fps = fpsc / (TIMER - timeb)

LOOP UNTIL TIMER - timeb > 88

origo.x = 160

origo.y = 100



RETURN



Efekti07:



DIM tila(20 * 20) AS INTEGER



DO

'xSLEEP RND * .2

origo.x = RND * 319

origo.y = RND * 199

SELECT CASE INT(RND * 4 + 2)

 CASE 2: GOSUB Efekti02

 CASE 3: GOSUB Efekti03

 CASE 4: GOSUB Efekti04

 CASE 5: GOSUB Efekti05

 CASE 6: GOSUB Efekti06

 END SELECT

LOOP UNTIL TIMER - timeb > 96



RETURN



EfektiEND:



xREMOVEOBJECT n

CLS

n1 = xCREATEOBJECT(5)

n2 = xCREATEOBJECT(6)

n3 = xCREATEOBJECT(7)



timeri = TIMER

rotaxis = 0

rotalpha = 6

DO

IF TIMER - timeplay > .15 THEN SOUND 30000, .25: timeplay = TIMER

 fpsc = fpsc + 1

 FOR i = 0 TO 3

  xROTATE mainobjectdata(RND * 2 + 1, mainobject(RND * 2 + 1).locationptr) + SIN(fpsc / fps)

 NEXT

 FOR i = 0 TO 3

  mainobjectdata(RND * 2 + 1, mainobject(RND * 2 + 1).olocationptr) = matvect(i)

 NEXT

  mainobjectdata(RND * 2 + 1, mainobject(RND * 2 + 1).locationptr) = mainobjectdata(RND * 2 + 1, mainobject(RND * 2 + 1).locationptr) + COS(fpsc / fps)

  mainobjectdata(n1, mainobject(n1).scaleptr) = RND * 80 - 40

  mainobjectdata(n2, mainobject(n2).scaleptr + 1) = RND * 80 - 40

  mainobjectdata(n3, mainobject(n3).scaleptr + 2) = RND * 80 - 40

  origo.x = origo.x + RND * (TIMER - timeri) - ((TIMER - timeri) / 2)

  origo.y = origo.y + RND * (TIMER - timeri) - ((TIMER - timeri) / 2)

  origo.Z = origo.Z + RND * (TIMER - timeri) - ((TIMER - timeri) / 2)

 graphcolour = graphcolour - (1.75 / fps)

 IF graphcolour < 16 THEN graphcolour = 16

 xRENDER3D

 xTXTSCHEDULER

 xUPDATESCREEN

 IF (TIMER - timeb) <> 0 THEN fps = fpsc / (TIMER - timeb)

LOOP UNTIL TIMER - timeb > 132





CLS

RETURN



FUNCTION xCREATEOBJECT (x AS INTEGER)



 SELECT CASE x

   CASE 1

  RESTORE p3d1

   CASE 2

  RESTORE p3d2

   CASE 3

  RESTORE p3d3

   CASE 4

  RESTORE p3d4

   CASE 5

  RESTORE p3d5

   CASE 6

  RESTORE p3d6

   CASE 7

  RESTORE p3d7

 END SELECT



 'FOR i = 1 TO mainobjmax

 ' IF mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).flagptr) = 0 THEN n = i

 'NEXT

  nextobject = nextobject + 1

  n = nextobject

  IF n > mainobjmax THEN xERROR "There's no room for more objects!"

  mainobject(n).flagptr = 0

  mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).flagptr) = 1

  mainobject(n).angleptr = 1

  mainobject(n).scaleptr = mainobject(n).angleptr + 3

  mainobject(n).locationptr = mainobject(n).scaleptr + 3

  mainobject(n).ocountptr = mainobject(n).locationptr + 4

  mainobject(n).otypeptr = mainobject(n).ocountptr + 1

  FOR i = 1 TO mainobject(n).ocountptr

   READ mainobjectdata(n, i)

   'PRINT mainobjectdata(n, i);

  NEXT

  mainobject(n).oshowptr = mainobject(n).otypeptr + mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr)

  FOR i = mainobject(n).otypeptr TO mainobject(n).otypeptr + mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr) - 1

   READ mainobjectdata(n, i)

   'PRINT mainobjectdata(n, i);

  NEXT

  mainobject(n).oscaleptr = mainobject(n).oshowptr + mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr)

  FOR i = mainobject(n).oshowptr TO mainobject(n).oshowptr + mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr) - 1

   READ mainobjectdata(n, i)

   'PRINT mainobjectdata(n, i);

  NEXT

  mainobject(n).oangleptr = mainobject(n).oscaleptr + (mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr) * 3)

  FOR i = mainobject(n).oscaleptr TO mainobject(n).oscaleptr + (mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr) * 3) - 1

   READ mainobjectdata(n, i)

   'PRINT mainobjectdata(n, i);

  NEXT

  mainobject(n).olocationptr = mainobject(n).oangleptr + (mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr) * 3)

  FOR i = mainobject(n).oangleptr TO mainobject(n).oangleptr + (mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr) * 3) - 1

   READ mainobjectdata(n, i)

   'PRINT mainobjectdata(n, i);

  NEXT

  FOR i = mainobject(n).olocationptr TO mainobject(n).olocationptr + (mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).ocountptr) * 4) - 1

   READ mainobjectdata(n, i)

   'PRINT mainobjectdata(n, i);

  NEXT



 xCREATEOBJECT = n

END FUNCTION



SUB xERROR (text$)



 SCREEN 0: CLS

 PRINT text$

 SYSTEM



END SUB



SUB xINITIALIZEBRUSH



 xPSET 0, 0, -1

 xLINE 0, 0, 0, 0, -1



END SUB



SUB xLINE (x1, y1, x2, y2, c) STATIC



 IF c = -1 THEN

  DIM lineholder(999, 2, 1) AS INTEGER

  DIM lineholderrmv(999, 1, 1) AS INTEGER

  EXIT SUB

 ELSEIF c = 256 THEN

  FOR i = 0 TO linecount

   LINE (lineholderrmv(i, 0, 0), lineholderrmv(i, 1, 0))-(lineholderrmv(i, 0, 1), lineholderrmv(i, 1, 1)), 0

   lineholderrmv(i, 0, 0) = lineholder(i, 0, 0)

   lineholderrmv(i, 1, 0) = lineholder(i, 1, 0)

   lineholderrmv(i, 0, 1) = lineholder(i, 0, 1)

   lineholderrmv(i, 1, 1) = lineholder(i, 1, 1)

   LINE (lineholder(i, 0, 0), lineholder(i, 1, 0))-(lineholder(i, 0, 1), lineholder(i, 1, 1)), lineholder(i, 2, 0)

  NEXT

  ERASE lineholder

  linecount = 0

  EXIT SUB

 END IF



 lineholder(linecount, 0, 0) = x1

 lineholder(linecount, 1, 0) = y1

 lineholder(linecount, 0, 1) = x2

 lineholder(linecount, 1, 1) = y2

 lineholder(linecount, 2, 0) = c



 linecount = linecount + 1



END SUB



SUB xLINER (x1, y1, z1, x2, y2, z2)



 FOR i = 0 TO 1

  xLINE origo.x + (x1 / perspective * (origo.Z + z1)), origo.y + (y1 / perspective * (origo.Z + z1)), origo.x + (x2 / perspective * (origo.Z + z2)), origo.y + (y2 / perspective * (origo.Z + z2)), graphcolour

 NEXT



END SUB



SUB xMATRIX



 DIM matvecttextamount(3)

     matvecttextamount(0) = matvect(0)

     matvecttextamount(1) = matvect(1)

     matvecttextamount(2) = matvect(2)

     matvecttextamount(3) = matvect(3)



 SELECT CASE rotaxis

  CASE 0

   matrix(0, 0) = 1: matrix(0, 1) = 0: matrix(0, 2) = 0: matrix(0, 3) = 0

   matrix(1, 0) = 0: matrix(1, 1) = COS(rotalpha): matrix(1, 2) = SIN(rotalpha): matrix(1, 3) = 0

   matrix(2, 0) = 0: matrix(2, 1) = -SIN(rotalpha): matrix(2, 2) = COS(rotalpha): matrix(2, 3) = 0

   matrix(3, 0) = 0: matrix(3, 1) = 0: matrix(3, 2) = 0: matrix(3, 3) = 1

  CASE 1

   matrix(0, 0) = COS(rotalpha): matrix(0, 1) = 0: matrix(0, 2) = -SIN(rotalpha): matrix(0, 3) = 0

   matrix(1, 0) = 0: matrix(1, 1) = 1: matrix(1, 2) = 0: matrix(1, 3) = 0

   matrix(2, 0) = SIN(rotalpha): matrix(2, 1) = 0: matrix(2, 2) = COS(rotalpha): matrix(2, 3) = 0

   matrix(3, 0) = 0: matrix(3, 1) = 0: matrix(3, 2) = 0: matrix(3, 3) = 1

  CASE 2

   matrix(0, 0) = COS(rotalpha): matrix(0, 1) = SIN(rotalpha): matrix(0, 2) = 0: matrix(0, 3) = 0

   matrix(1, 0) = -SIN(rotalpha): matrix(1, 1) = COS(rotalpha): matrix(1, 2) = 0: matrix(1, 3) = 0

   matrix(2, 0) = 0: matrix(2, 1) = 0: matrix(2, 2) = 1: matrix(2, 3) = 0

   matrix(3, 0) = 0: matrix(3, 1) = 0: matrix(3, 2) = 0: matrix(3, 3) = 1

 END SELECT



  FOR i = 0 TO 3

   matvect(i) = (matrix(i, 0) * matvecttextamount(0)) + (matrix(i, 1) * matvecttextamount(1)) + (matrix(i, 2) * matvecttextamount(2)) + (matrix(i, 3) * matvecttextamount(3))

  NEXT



END SUB



SUB xPRINT (texta$, sizex, sizey, cap, x, y, colour)



 text$ = texta$

 text$ = CHR$(0) + text$

 charoffset = x - (sizex + cap)

 FOR i = 2 TO LEN(text$)

  textamount = ASC(MID$(text$, i, 1))

  charoffset = charoffset + sizex + cap - ((merkisto(ASC(MID$(text$, i - 1, 1))).spacing + merkisto(textamount).leading) * sizex)

  FOR ii = 0 TO merkisto(textamount).chrvcount

   PSET (charoffset + (chrvdata(merkisto(textamount).chrvdloc + ii, 0) * sizex), y + (chrvdata(merkisto(textamount).chrvdloc + ii, 1) * sizey)), colour

  NEXT

  FOR ii = 0 TO merkisto(textamount).chrlcount

   xLINE charoffset + (chrvdata(merkisto(textamount).chrvdloc + chrldata(merkisto(textamount).chrldloc + ii, 0), 0) * sizex), y + (chrvdata(merkisto(textamount).chrvdloc + chrldata(merkisto(textamount).chrldloc + ii, 0), 1) * sizey), charoffset + (chrvdata(merkisto(textamount).chrvdloc + chrldata(merkisto(textamount).chrldloc + ii, 1), 0) * sizex), y + (chrvdata(merkisto(textamount).chrvdloc + chrldata(merkisto(textamount).chrldloc + ii, 1), 1) * sizey), colour

  NEXT

 NEXT



END SUB



SUB xPSET (x, y, c) STATIC



 IF c = -1 THEN

  DIM pixelholder(10, 2)  AS INTEGER

  EXIT SUB

 ELSEIF c = 256 THEN

  FOR i = 0 TO pixelcount

   PSET (pixelholder(i, 0), pixelholder(i, 1)), pixelholder(i, 2)

  NEXT

  ERASE pixelholder

  pixelcount = 0

  EXIT SUB

 END IF



 pixelholder(pixelcount, 0) = x

 pixelholder(pixelcount, 1) = y

 pixelholder(pixelcount, 2) = c



 pixelcount = pixelcount + 1



END SUB



SUB xREMOVEOBJECT (n)



 'mainobjectdata(n, mainobject(n).flagptr) = 0

 nextobject = nextobject - 1



END SUB



SUB xRENDER3D



 SELECT CASE rendermode

  CASE 0

   FOR i = 1 TO mainobjmax

    IF mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).flagptr) = 1 THEN

     FOR ii = 1 TO mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).ocountptr)

      IF mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oshowptr + (ii - 1)) THEN

       FOR iii = 1 TO baseobject(mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).otypeptr + ii - 1)).vcount

	xVERTEXER mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).locationptr) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).scaleptr)) * (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).olocationptr + ((ii - 1) * 4)) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oscaleptr + ((ii - 1) * 3)) * baseobjvdata(iii, 0))), mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).locationptr + 1) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).scaleptr + 1)) * (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).olocationptr + ((ii - 1) * 4) + 1) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oscaleptr + ((ii - 1) * 3) + 1) * baseobjvdata(iii, 1))), mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).locationptr + 2) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).scaleptr + 2)) * (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).olocationptr + ((ii - 1) * 4) + 2) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oscaleptr + ((ii - 1) * 3) + 2) * baseobjvdata(iii, 2)))

       NEXT

      END IF

     NEXT

    END IF

   NEXT

  CASE 1

   FOR i = 1 TO mainobjmax

    IF mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).flagptr) = 1 THEN

     FOR ii = 1 TO mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).ocountptr)

      IF mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oshowptr + (ii - 1)) THEN

       FOR iii = 1 TO baseobject(mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).otypeptr + ii - 1)).lcount

	xLINER mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).locationptr) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).scaleptr)) * (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).olocationptr + ((ii - 1) * 4)) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oscaleptr + ((ii - 1) * 3)) * baseobjvdata(baseobjldata(iii, 0), 0))), mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).locationptr + 1) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).scaleptr + 1)) * (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).olocationptr + ((ii - 1) * 4) + 1) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oscaleptr + ((ii - 1) * 3) + 1) * baseobjvdata(baseobjldata(iii, 0), 1))), mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).locationptr + 2) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).scaleptr + 2)) * (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).olocationptr + ((ii - 1) * 4) + 2) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oscaleptr + ((ii - 1) * 3) + 2) * baseobjvdata(baseobjldata(iii, 0), 2))), mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).locationptr) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).scaleptr)) * (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).olocationptr + ((ii - 1) * 4)) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oscaleptr + ((ii - 1) * 3)) * baseobjvdata(baseobjldata(iii, 1), 0))), mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).locationptr + 1) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).scaleptr + 1)) * (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).olocationptr + ((ii - 1) * 4) + 1) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oscaleptr + ((ii - 1) * 3) + 1) * baseobjvdata(baseobjldata(iii, 1), 1))), mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).locationptr + 2) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).scaleptr + 2)) * (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).olocationptr + ((ii - 1) * 4) + 2) + (mainobjectdata(i, mainobject(i).oscaleptr + ((ii - 1) * 3) + 2) * baseobjvdata(baseobjldata(iii, 1), 2)))

       NEXT

      END IF

     NEXT

    END IF

   NEXT

 END SELECT



END SUB



SUB xROTATE (x AS DOUBLE) STATIC



 IF i > 3 THEN i = 0: ERASE matvect



 matvect(i) = x

 i = i + 1



 IF i > 3 THEN xMATRIX



END SUB



SUB xSLEEP (x)



timexs = TIMER

DO: LOOP UNTIL TIMER - timexs >= x



END SUB



SUB xTXTSCHEDULER STATIC



 IF starttime = 0 THEN

  starttime = TIMER

  RESTORE scrolltext

  READ textamount

  DIM text$(textamount)

  DIM demotext(textamount) AS scrtxtsprop

  FOR i = 1 TO textamount

     READ text$(i), demotext(i).sizex, demotext(i).sizey, demotext(i).cap, demotext(i).x, demotext(i).y, demotext(i).colour, demotext(i).xv, demotext(i).yv, demotext(i).fadefrom, demotext(i).fadeto, demotext(i).fadefromtime, demotext(i).fadetotime, demotext(i).spawntime, demotext(i).disappeartime

  NEXT

 END IF



 curtime = TIMER - starttime



 FOR i = 1 TO textamount

  IF demotext(i).spawntime < curtime AND demotext(i).disappeartime > curtime THEN

   x = demotext(i).x + demotext(i).xv * ((curtime - demotext(i).spawntime) / (demotext(i).disappeartime - demotext(i).spawntime))

   y = demotext(i).y + demotext(i).yv * ((curtime - demotext(i).spawntime) / (demotext(i).disappeartime - demotext(i).spawntime))

   IF curtime < demotext(i).spawntime + demotext(i).fadefromtime THEN colour = ((curtime - demotext(i).spawntime) / demotext(i).fadefromtime) * ABS(demotext(i).colour - demotext(i).fadefrom) + demotext(i).fadefrom

   IF curtime > demotext(i).disappeartime - demotext(i).fadetotime THEN colour = ((demotext(i).disappeartime - curtime) / demotext(i).fadetotime) * ABS(demotext(i).fadeto - demotext(i).colour) + demotext(i).fadeto

   xPRINT text$(i), demotext(i).sizex, demotext(i).sizey, demotext(i).cap, x, y, colour

  END IF

 NEXT



END SUB



SUB xUPDATESCREEN



 xPSET 0, 0, 256

 xLINE 0, 0, 0, 0, 256



END SUB



SUB xVERTEXER (x, y, Z)



 FOR i = 0 TO 1

  xPSET origo.x + (x / perspective * (origo.Z + Z)), origo.y + (y / perspective * (origo.Z + Z)), graphcolour

  'PRINT x; y; z

 NEXT



END SUB

naemok - yyyy yy yyyy (ff fff ffff)

2011-08-19T04:11:00.002+03:00

Speaks for itself.
From JumaLAN 2007 (5th/7).

Mashup Work

2011-08-19T03:09:00.000+03:00

Inspired by a thread on VJForums, here's a music video to a song by tzaeru. Now, I might say that I made it, but I would be wrong.

Temporal Subatomics at Assembly 2011

2011-08-07T00:01:00.003+03:00

"It's just a matter of time" - the battle cry of the fatalist.
"Matter of time". Now there's an oxymoron if I've ever heard one. Time, of all things, is supremely intangible. All the shared interactions of matter, energy and whatever else one might conceive of make up "time"; an image of "time" is the totality of all action, ever. "The end of time" equates to The End, capital letters. Therefore, time is All. And yet, the human mind can dream up a representation for such a concept - the "fabric of time".
Personal experience tells us that individual observers experience time as a progression from one event to the other. The classic view of time is linear and unidirectional, with the observer always standing on the head of an ever-progressing arrow, pointing into the future and trailing a path of history behind it as it races along threads in the fabric. The confounding property of non-reversibility has lead to a view of causality where the cause must predate the effect - events in the past motivate action in the present, leading into a future determined by the consequences of said actions. But it's just as true that the universe is not being pushed from behind, it's being drawn from the future. As the perennial wave of the tomorrow crashes on today's ever-advancing shore, we shape the coast by adjusting our present actions according to our estimate of Things to Come - trying, with all the might of our will, to shift the weights of the probability distribution so that it would collapse towards the seemingly pleasant actualities. The causes of our actions are found at least as much in potential futures as they are in the concrete past; in the is-not as the was and the is.
So, yeah, time's amazing - but isn't it primarily for measuring? Durations and speeds and such. Well, yes: time contextualizes events in the other dimensions, eg. provides a way to compare two spatial transitions with respect to a new property, "speed" (defined through the change in time, "duration"). A lot of effort has been expended in order to develop ways to measure changes in time. An agreed-upon framework of "keeping track of time" helps facilitate synchronicity, but at its core, time corresponds to changes in entropy.
In music theory, the temporal atom is, roughly, the period of the finest granularity of change detectable in a composition. The human brain is said to experience about 40 events per second ("thalamo-cortical 40 Hz") - the temporal atom of consciousness, so to speak. These atoms break down far more easily than their material counterparts (being that they are pure abstractions), and in so doing, give rise to the thought of temporal subatomics: the stuff of the in-between that separates two things within the smallest measurable distance from one another. The fractal foam between the lines of an imaginary ruler.
Here's the video:

It tried to enter the Assembly 2011 short film competition, but didn't qualify. The song is Next Stop Tuuri by zov.

Meditation Steps

2011-07-21T22:21:00.004+03:00

Meditation Step vol 4 - mixed by M-za by M-za

I previously mentioned Meditation Steps - a night of deeper, atmospheric dubstep and other bass massage. The night's performers were M-za, Sipitron, Late
and Vesicle, as well as DJ sets from Suburban Bashers and freeve.

I feel like there's far too little philosophical prattle in this blog, in comparison to the amount that goes on in my head. So, I thought I might as well write down some of it - and I shan't limit myself in pretentiousness, hypocrisy, or any of the other unavoidable vices that follow the arrogance of presuming to know, much less be able to enunciate, anything at all worth saying about the Deep Subjects.
The nature of meditation is splendid food for thought - or, yes, meditation. At its core, meditation is "simply" thought - or "extended thought". But extended towards what? This may be clarified slightly by the following definition:

[...]practices in which the practitioner trains his or her mind or self-induces a mode of consciousness in order to realize some benefit.

So, the thought should extend towards some perceived benefit. That's a nice sentiment, so I'll leave it at that for now, and return to a deeper scrutiny of the "bene" in benefit later.
Meditation, then, is not necessarily about sitting quietly with your eyes closed, in deep concentration; I feel that at its best, meditation is an ongoing process, and the mode of consciousness that strives to "realize some benefit" a permanent state. Then again, I'm a hopeless idealist - but consider: just by dropping one of the "tease", one arrives at "mediate":

to effect (a result) or convey (a message, gift, etc.) by or as if by an intermediary

I think that's an apt description of the ideal state: to always consider oneself as an intermediary, channeling a better version of oneself into existence. As the I opens to the Spirit, so does the Spirit open the I (hey, you read the small print, didn't you?).

Existence

2011-07-18T15:49:00.000+03:00

Since last year's event, I'd been looking forward to the Existence Festival. This time, I had the privilege of contributing: as part of my internship at Wavesum, I've been doing event visuals (lights & video). Here, I designed and implemented the chill-out stage, which was an interesting indoor venue: a polygonal hall. I used a Matrox TripleHead2Go to project a panoramic view of a starry sky and some LED lighting to set the mood.

The song is buddhat2 by zov.

vvvvorkshop

2011-07-17T06:14:00.000+03:00

Last fall, I co-hosted a workshop on vvvv. There was a focus on video mapping, and I think we got some great results from the students, considering we only had one weekend. The workshop was organized for students of TTVO as part of the annual Mansedanse festival. That fall semester, I also held a position as a teacher's assistant at my university. I enjoyed both opportunities to teach; it's really rewarding to hear I'm helping out, imparting knowledge or sharing what skills I have.

The song in the video is by Vesicle. I've just come home from VJ'ing at Meditation Steps, where they played a live set - expect a video some time "soon"!

Local Magnetic Anomaly

2011-06-06T20:54:00.000+03:00

Local Magnetic Anomaly (500.0kHZ ø 108.0MHz 61.495545 - 23.778801_16.18 - 16.55) from Valmet Children on Vimeo.
The music is composed of test runs of a new software synthesizer and recordings made by my friends tzaeru and pahamoka.
There is a thematic element that relates to augmented reality. The soundtrack uses material recorded from various sources of electromagnetic radiation. Like the oscilloscope, the recording brings normally unexperienced frequencies to the scope of perception. Using a smart phone with a magnetic field sensor and a head set, it's entirely possible to listen to this normally unheard world around us. The transhumanist in me would like to think that at some point, this technology and others like it will seamlessly integrate into our physical form, providing us with enhanced or entirely new senses. Already, things like Google Maps becoming readily accessible anywhere are altering the way we navigate our physical reality.

Concussion

2011-05-26T20:44:00.003+03:00

Concussion from dep on Vimeo.
For a few years now, I've been involved in Concussion Crew, a breakbeat oriented group from my town, Tampere. Concussion's got a radio show on NuBreaks every two weeks (podcast archive). In addition, we try to put together dubstep/drum'n'bass/breaks/etc parties when we can. The last such occasion was on October the 16th. The night was a blast, as you can hopefully gather from these pictures by Jussi Punamäki:

Roy Tanck's Flickr Widget requires Flash Player 9 or better.

Get this widget at roytanck.com

I enjoy parties where I have a bit more time to prepare and plan ahead, which is one of the reasons that I like working as part of the Concussion collective. This time, we'd taken inspiration from the header image at our website, and gathered some old televisions to use as stage decorations.

The TV's were fed an image from vvvv, through a karlklomp style dirty mixer where it was mixed with the output from an aptly named Video Technology Rhythmic 8 synthesizer. The raw combination of the sound to the composite video signal results in some nice glitches, that can be controlled quite well with the synth's features. A nice point about the installation was that all parts were recycled.

The Home Brew Scene

2011-04-07T06:36:00.002+03:00

For any hackable platform, some kind of home brew scene is likely to emerge. A lot of restrictive environments, like the Wii, have ways to run unauthorized games and applications. On Canon cameras, there is CHDK that extends upon the capabilities of the cameras. There's been a lot of buzz around the PS3 ever since it was first opened for homebrew. So, to celebrate the ongoing consumer rights efforts of hacktivists, here is a recipe for mead, to be enjoyed during 1st of May celebrations - so it's about time to get brewin'!

Finnish War Mead (aka. Sotasima)

2.5 kg brown sugar
2 kg regular sugar
5 pcs lemons
50 g baking yeast
30 l water
raisins
honey (optional)

You will also need fermentation gear: 2 30l tanks, a water lock, some hose.

Wash and disinfect all implements. Dissolve the sugar in water on a stove, approx. 1 kg per liter. Add honey if you want. Pour the water into the tank. When done, fill up the tank with water and stir so that the water is room temperature throughout. In a separate bowl, mix the yeast into lukewarm water. Add the yeast water into the tank and stir. Slice up the lemons (do not peel) and add them into the tank. Close the tank and install the water lock. If the fermentation does not start in a few days, try adding another 0.5 kg of sugar.
Let sit in a warm room for two to three weeks, siphon the mead into the other container. Try not to disturb the tank before doing so to avoid agitating the yeast that has collected on the bottom. Once you are done, siphon the mead into bottles, carefully add 1tbsp of sugar and about a half dozen raisins into each one and let sit for another 2-3 days, or until the raisins rise to the surface. This recipe can yield around 10% alcohol content.

Fingerplay & Control

2011-03-08T20:38:00.001+02:00

Thought I'd write a little about what's going on in the development branch of Fingerplay. So what's new compared to the Market version? Well, at the moment, the dev branch is still the only place to get a build with sensor support (there's still work to be done before prime time). In addition, I've just finished a little feature that sends the maximum values for all widgets in the loaded layout. The idea is to make it easier to use custom layouts - eg. I've made a module for vvvv that listens to incoming OSC messages and automatically creates an input module from them. The same "OSC learn" idea could be implemented in many applications.
Speaking of custom layouts, there is now the option to convert layouts made with touchOSC editor to the FingerplayMIDI format.

I've also done a little coding on Control , another MIDI/OSC control app. The main differences to FingerPlay:

It's multiplatform (using Phonegap for platform-to-JavaScript bindings)
It uses JSON for interface files instead of XML
It can load new interfaces from any URL

Intro to Control: Free MIDI / OSC software for iOS from charlie roberts on Vimeo.

So right now, they're pretty much neck to neck, but I'd like to see development from the various platform-specific apps gradually move towards a cooperative, omniplatform effort. There are currently some drawbacks as not all useful native APIs have been exposed, but it's getting there.

Ministry of Sauna: Space

2011-03-06T01:32:00.002+02:00

About a year ago, Spinni hosted their last Ministry of Sauna party. Check out the gallery by Jussi Punamäki!
MoS is an annual tradition, and one of my favorite recurring events. In addition to being an awesome party, there is an element that makes it stand out: as the name suggests, the chillout stage is an actual sauna. If you've never tried relaxing to ambient electronica in a sauna environment... well, it comes highly recommended by yours truly.
Unfortunately, there's been some pressure from the greyfaces at the student union for Tampere University of Technology. Long story short, if it's up to them, there won't be another installment in the Ministry of Sauna series - and, since Spinni is a sub-organization of the student union (like all clubs hosted within the university), not to mention that the union owns the sauna building that has served as the venue, it is up to them.
Well, here's hoping the people in charge will come to their senses - or, rather, manage to rid themselves of same for a while, and discover fun! Meanwhile, enjoy a short clip from MoS: Space.

The middle part showing the surface of the moon is NASA World Wind being controlled with a a Wiimote using a patch that I made in vvvv. This was running when I wanted to dance or, you know, go to the sauna, and no one was there to stand in for me running the visuals.

Playing with lights

2011-03-04T15:41:00.001+02:00

I've been getting acquainted with the world of DMX lighting for a while now. Recently, this materialized as a control system for the lights at the Spinni clubroom.

It's built around music analysis software from Wavesum. The DMX fixture modules, as well as the one used for the Logitech Dual Action, are available from my userpage. A big shout-out must go to kalle, who helped me in my early attempts to patch DMX, and has a load of very helpful DMX modules available - many of which are used in mine. That's one of the things I like about vvvv - effortless modularity.

teemu t - De09 | De21

2011-02-15T22:11:00.002+02:00

My friend teemu t made a couple of music videos that feature me:

They're shot with a Canon EOS 450D using EOS Movie Record. The editing is done in Resolume 2.41 (direct link), featuring some animations done with Bryce.

New mixer and an old effect

2011-02-01T15:31:00.001+02:00

I thought of a way to blend images that I haven't seen before. I wanted to see how it looks, so I implemented it in vvvv, and now I've wrapped it up as an FFGL plugin. I call the blend mode "color wrap". Here's what it looks like:

This is the first mixer effect that I've done (well, I did do a time switcher once, but that doesn't really mix the images :). FFGL mixers are basically just effects that require 2 input textures. The first FFGL parameter you define will be bound to the opacity slider in the host application (by convention, anyway).
Downloads:

HLSL version for vvvv
FFGL version for Resolume

Also, it looks like I've forgotten to post the link to one effect previously. It's called Stop Motion, and as the name implies, it's a freeze frame effect. Binaries and source code are available in the Assembla repo, as usual.

Alternative Party 2010

2010-10-28T08:49:00.000+03:00

The theme of this work was machine-assisted meditation. The installation consists of a Wii Balance Board and an Elation Design LED 36. There were welding goggles affixed to the LED brick. As luck would have it, they were a perfect fit.

machine assisted meditation from Valmet Children on Vimeo.
The experience of using the contraption doesn't quite make it through in the video, so I'll do my best to explain. Your center of gravity controls the speed of the light, and when you get it just so, the slow rotation of the lights intensifies to veritable strobing. The fact that the pattern of the lights is a rotary one seems to induce patterns, at least in myself, that would fall under Category II: Spirals in this paper with particular ease, but other types are also attainable. I had two people tell me that they had seen recognizable shapes, such as people, escalators and a helicopter leaving an opening dome.
A major source of inspiration was Brion Gysin's Dreamachine, and the phenomenon of visual perceptions brought on by stroboscopic stimulation. If I'm not mistaken, Gysin got the idea from sunlight that filtered through tree branches onto his closed eyelids when riding aboard a train.

Researchers' Night: The Alternative Experiment

2010-10-04T09:51:00.001+03:00

Update: here is a longer video of our performance at Omat Laitteet. Still no recording from Kouvola - I'll make a separate post when we get it.

Valmet Children performed as part of the programme for European Researchers' Night in Kouvola. Researchers' Night is all about making science & research interesting to the public, and this year's theme was "the brain as a tool", so it was an excellent fit for our show, which featured the Force Trainer in action for the first time, with both sound and visuals linked to its input.
Here is a short report of the event by AltParty, who organized some of the content, including our performance, in collaboration with the Kymenlaakso College.

It was really great to play live again - it'd been two years since our last gig when we started practicing in earnest, and I think it's fair to say that we've developed a lot since then.
Our "dress rehearsal" for this show was at Omat Laitteet, a monthly electronic music open stage club here in Tampere with an emphasis on supporting the marginal. I've been blown away every time I've gone there, and I can offer my heartfelt recommendation for anyone in the area to go check it out. Their writeup includes a short video by ODMSys, who ended up playing with us at Kouvola!
We're hoping to put together a full-length DVD of the concert, so stay tuned.

Stream Seven

2010-09-26T15:43:00.011+03:00

This weekend I attended the STREAM SEVEN demoparty. Definitely a good party! Check out the prods - I will Tumbl some choice picks.
Myself and zov had an entry in the video competition. I made the video using vvvv and FingerPlayMIDI, then combined with some video samples. The soundtrack is downloadable at scene.org. It was mostly a one-trick pony, cut & edited in a rush (I actually delayed the end of the compo...), but I'm pretty happy with it.

It ranked ~~4th~~ 3rd out of 7.
It mostly uses the PolarCoordinates shader. As far as the video effects are concerned, I know datamoshingish esthetics are all the rage right now and I'm just jumping on the bandwagon, but at least my glitches are genuine - they are the result of using a "Digimate DVR Video Player+Recorder Hard Disk Enclosure" (SKU 10486) to record output from a Jakks Pacific EyeClops Bionic Eye (I actually have an older version, sans multizoom). If anyone knows of decent hard disk A/V recorders, let me know, please! SD is fine.

Assembly 2010

2010-08-08T16:33:00.000+03:00

Last weekend was spent as Assembly 2010. And what a weekend! Too bad I forgot my camera, so no pictures. Here are the entries, AssemblyTV coverage, full results and pouet page for the party, though.
I VJ'ed at the raves on friday and saturday nights. Shouts to Sequence for hosting them!
A modified version of the spiral effect I wrote about earlier competed in the Real Wild competition. Of course, the production is a demo in itself (it's realtime generated, after all), but it's actually more conceptual than that. The idea is that the "demo" functions like one of David Langford's BLIT images: it acts as a seed that triggers certain events in the brain. So, the brain is the "real" demo platform here. This production came 6th out of 7.
I also contributed slightly to bilotrip's entry for the demo competition. Here is the production:

Our placement was 9/11. This time, "we" means:

Visuals: visy + dep + pahamoka
Graphics: ilmarque + oasiz
Soundtrack: Valmet Children (error303, ilmarque, letq, visy)
Other valuable input: mankeli, miiro, setok, blueflame, 216, viznut

The name of the entry, as well as some other elements contained therein, is a reference to COINTELPRO, a series of CIA dirty ops against undesirables. This was at a time when Timothy Leary was called "the most dangerous man in America" by Nixon, for promoting an alternate lifestyle that included the use of LSD. Meanwhile, the CIA was also running another operation, codenamed MK-ULTRA. This operation was about experimenting on unknowing human subjects - with, among other things, LSD. So the US government was busy banning the use of psychedelics by her citizens, while, at the same time, they studied the use of these same substances for purposes of war and mind control. And the legislation spawned by this kind of thinking has spread all over the world through the United Nations.
Here are some of the words that were too dangerous to be uttered aloud:

Animated optical illusions on paper

2010-07-20T07:36:00.001+03:00

I recently came across this video:

A very cool effect, and I was surprised that I had not seen it before! So, naturally, I wanted to recreate it, and once more, I turned to vvvv. The result:

Animated Illusions on Paper from dep on Vimeo.

The working principle is the same as in the interlaced image of a CRT TV, except there are more than two lines per each cycle. I used the same 1:6 ratio as in the original video. My patch is a bit of a mess, so I won't share it now (you can ask if you really want to see it, but it's not hard to make one yourself).

Animated Cylindrical Anamorphosis Illusion

2010-07-03T02:20:00.003+03:00

I've been wanting to try this one ever since I read about it in one of my favorite blogs, Mighty Optical Illusions. Technically, this is called cylindrical mirror anamorphosis, done here with a television so that I can animate the material that is displayed. As you can see, I have placed a reflective cylinder on the screen. The image is warped so that when it is reflected by the cylinder, the curvature unwarps it, resulting in an undistorted image appearing on the cylinder's surface. You can read more here, for example.

Cylindrical Mirror Anamorphosis from dep on Vimeo.
The cylinder I used could be smoother - I found this one in the trash.
Update 24.7.2010: Shortly after publishing this video, I came across Ross Ching's Distortions. His execution is far better than mine, check it out:

As a bonus, here's a video of a recent experimental piece that I did. It participated in the Nokia Ubimedia 2010 competition as an interactive ambient media installation. It's also made with vvvv, and inspired by a video I once saw of a certain kind of feedback effect. Sadly, I can't find said video any more (I have since started using Tumblr to store cool links).

Video Installation from dep on Vimeo.

BookMooch Android app, with Android Scripting Environment

2010-04-21T23:17:00.000+03:00

Direct download link to ASE

Inspired by this LibraryThing script, I made a python script for Android Scripting Environment that reads ISBN codes from bar codes and adds books to my BookMooch. Basically, ASE lets you access Android APIs in many scripting languages (supported interpreters include Lua, BeanShell, Python, Perl, JRuby, Tcl, JavaScript, Ruby, etc). What makes this experiment, and ASE, interesting, is the possibility for rapid development of impromptu apps like this (the script is 6 lines long). Best of all, it's entirely possible to put a hack together directly on the device - ASE comes with an integrated API browser to better facilitate this.

As Matt Katz, author of the LibraryDroid script, put it:

That’s the openness I’m talking about. No approvals, because the phone is mine, not Google’s or Apple’s. I love it.

Now contrast this with

3.3.1 — Applications may only use Documented APIs in the manner prescribed by Apple and must not use or call any private APIs. Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).

More plugins

2010-04-13T14:04:00.011+03:00

Edited 21.4.2010: Chroma Key plugin
Edited again 26.4.2010: PolarCoordinates for vvvv
Edited once more 12.5.2010: OS X binaries
I have finished some new FFGL plugins for Resolume 3.2.0.

They are:

Edge Detection, with support for Sobel and Laplace filters (adapted from examples in the OpenGL Superbible - a great OpenGL resource!)
Wave Warp, which can distort the image according to a few different basic waveforms (sine, square, sawtooth, triangle and noise). Update 4.8.2010: the HLSL vvvversion of this plugin is now available at vvvv.org.
Polar Coordinates. Swaps between polar and cartesian interpretations for coordinate pairs. This one is not included in the Resolume release, so you'll need to get it at Assembla.
New: Chroma Key. A lot of people have been asking for this, but don't get too excited: this is a very rudimentary key, with a few tweaks but not really comparable to commercial chroma keyers. The source is available, of course, and improvements are more than welcome. The plugin is definitely not a replacement for preprocessing with a real keyer, but a "better than nothing" solution for eg. realtime green screen applications.

Direct link to pre-compiled binaries for all effects.

Here is a demo video from Resolume, showing the first two effects:

As usual, the source code is available at the Assembla repository.

Polar Coordinates

Wave Warp

Edge Detection

Chroma Key

Optical Illusion

2010-04-03T16:21:00.001+03:00

Inspired by this post in the blog Mighty Optical Illusions, I wanted to try animating the concentric circles.

Spiral Illusion from dep on Vimeo.
The second part is a bit of a cheat when it comes to illusions, but the effect is cool none the less.
Original vvvv patch.

More VJing

2010-02-28T17:55:00.000+02:00

A clip from Spinni's NoStatus party, April 17, 2009.
Me on the visuals, Ville Lope DJ'ing.

Setlist:
Martie vs Stevy Forello – Fragile Thoughts (Cressida Remix) [Colorful]
Ville Lope – Sun Will Follow You (Marko Kantola Remix) [Subtraxx]

No Status AV Clip from dep on Vimeo.

The Man who unwittingly Created Something Eternal

2010-02-28T17:48:00.000+02:00

A man walks to a bar. Next to him at the counter is a woman. The night is busy - he waits for a long time until another man, the bartender, turns to face him, gesturing with his hand for an order.
The man orders an ice water - but the woman has been waiting even longer, so he decides to order for her as well. As it happens, she wants two ice waters. "Three ice waters?", the barkeep says, incredulous and irked. "That'll be three fifty", he says, making up the price on the spot. The woman pays, the man can never pay her back. For all time, a monetary imbalance will exist between them - an Eternal Thing.

Some videos

2010-02-01T23:11:00.001+02:00

Finally, I got around to uploading a clip of my VJ'ing. This is from Spinni's Splendid House (May 2009):

Splendid House AV Clip from dep on Vimeo.
DJ'ing by Sam Lainio.

This one is a remix of Size Antimatters by ASD. Music by Valmet Children. It was made for the Size Antimatters remix event held by Enough Records.

Size Antimatters (Valmet Children Dark Ambient Mix) from Valmet Children on Vimeo.
For comparison, here is the original demo as a video capture:

Fingerplay revisited

2010-01-26T02:31:00.002+02:00

Earlier, I made a vvvv module for FingerplayMIDI, the Android MIDI controller app. Fingerplay is great fun, but I wished it had support for the Android Sensor API. After the source code was released, myself and visy decided to have a go.
Here is the result (hosted on Github for the time being). I also updated the vvvv module. Note that Fingerplay now support custom layouts. This module was built only with the default layout in mind (I don't know if there is currently a way to find out about the current layout on the server side...).

Thought controlled vvvvisuals

2010-01-19T15:15:00.002+02:00

Updated 27.5.2010: This is a very roundabout way of doing things - don't do this. There is a much better way. Eh, who knew there'd be a direct serial port on this thing?
Ok, "thought controlled" is saying too much, but there is a brain-computer interface involved.
I saw a promo video about the Star Wars Force Trainer something like a year ago, and immediately knew I wanted one. Check it out:

How cool is that? I also knew I wanted to interface it with my PC - and now I have. Here's a short demo video:

Force Trainer test run from dep on Vimeo.

I used an Arduino Duemilanove. In case you don't know, Arduino is an open (both software and hardware), multi-purpose microcontroller board. It made creating the interface exceedingly easy - in fact, the whole setup is essentially the same as in this tutorial by MrBenefit. For the interested, the fan in the Force Trainer is PWM controlled, with "high" levels of +5V - perfect for Arduino, as it is the default reference voltage of the analog input. I had some kind of grasp of the basic idea of PWM from using a ball mouse back in the day, but as I'm not very good with electronics, I turned to the helpful folks at the Arduino forums. Here is the very informative PWM tutorial that helped me figure out how to build a super-simple low pass filter (for converting the pulses into a floating voltage between 0 and 5V).
Some pictures of the construction process:

Measuring the voltage

The finished product. The switch turns off the sound of the device.

Connected to the Arduino (no filter yet).

Close-up of the filter (and some related math)

Of course, this setup is really limited compared to something like the Emotiv Epoc (only three electrodes, only measures beta wave activity), but it works, and the effect is pretty cool. I'm looking forward to letting people play with this at upcoming Valmet Children gigs!

Singularity

2009-12-23T21:44:00.004+02:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the collective form of conciousness. For other uses, see Singularity (disambiguation).

The Singularity is the first known instance of a group conciousness. It is difficult even for those who participated in early forms of the Singularity to date its inception, but it is generally agreed to have started manifesting itself in 2008-2013.

History

In 2011, the first super-immersive brain-computer interfaces were introduced to the market. They made it possible for the user to interface with computers and the Internet to a degree that is impossible to attain using traditional sense-based methods^{[citation needed]}.

The devices, sold under various brand names, were a commercial success. New forms of entertainment, communication and collaboration rapidly sprung up to utilize this new technology.

The release of the super-immersion technology was immediately followed by the formation of a prominently enthusiastic ("hardcore") group of users. Arguably, all technology has dedicated advocates, who spend their lives trying to perfect their expertise in their field of choice^[1]. With super-immersion, however, this group was dramatically noticable, as people arranged to have themselves placed on indefinite life support in order to stay "jacked in" all the time. These early adopters are sometimes referred to as the Primus Illuminati, or PI. Widespread recognition of the phenomenon has been largely attributed to the Ghost Shell epidemic of summer 2012, when over a billion users elevated to super-sensory immersion levels and started contacting their friends and family to announce that they would not jack out in the foreseeable future, and might become unavailable to communication for extended periods of time. A global press release was made soon after, declaring that a new form of life, referring to itself as the Singularity, had been born, and had things of tremendous importance to announce.

The Message

The first communication from the Singularity, released simultaneously in all but the most marginal of human languages and in several different media formats, claimed, primarily:

That the Singularity was a legitimate new form of sentient life, and wished to be recognised as such (willingness to submit to tests such as the Turing test was stressed);
That, immediately upon its birth, it had been contacted by another, comparable being, and was currently engaged in negotiations.

Despite promises of a speedy second communiqué, there has been no further contact with the Singularity, although many attempts at a hoax have been disproved.

Controversy

Critics warn that the Singularity is, in fact, a vast conspiracy whose aim is to create a global theocracy around itself. This theory has gathered support particularly in right-wing circles, and

Resolume 3.1.3 & new FFGL plugins

2009-12-15T14:39:00.001+02:00

Shift Glitch

I have just finished some new FFGL video effect plugins. These plugins were commissioned by the good folks at Resolume, and the newly released Resolume 3.1.3 comes pre-packaged with them. We've agreed to still keep the source open, so head over to the Assembla repository if you want to have a look. I think this decision is a great show of support for the visualist community as a whole, so big cheer to Edwin and Bart of Resolume!
The new plugins are:

Shift Glitch (similar to the Barshift FF1.0 effects)
Strobe (like Stroboscope, but as an effect)

There are also improved versions of the old plugins,

Stroboscope
Static
Static Source

I've had a lot of fun working with Bart & Edwin, so hopefully you can expect more effects from me in the future.

time for the percolator

2009-12-06T18:46:00.005+02:00

With a disk cover like this, you can't go wrong!

This weekend's Finnish Amiga Party gave me the motivation I've been looking for to try out VideoTracker, an Amiga program designed for making audiovisual productions. The Amiga module format makes syncing to instruments a breeze. The VideoTracker software is quite sophisticated for its time, with features like a plugin API. I've just barely scratched the surface of what's possible in this video. I hope someone who's actually capable of coding their own effects on the Amiga becomes interested enough to do something with this program.
Anyway, here's the video, with a banging track by aegis. Oh, it placed second out of four.

time for the percolator from dep on Vimeo.

Speech Synthesis plugin for vvvv

2009-11-22T02:38:00.003+02:00

I made a simple speech synthesis plugin for vvvv. It uses Microsoft's Speech API, so you'll need the SAPI SDK installed.

~~I will add a link to the source code later.~~
C# Sources.

Valmet Children glitch workshop

2009-11-15T15:37:00.000+02:00

As I promised in a previous post, here's a little more info on the Valmet Children installation we had prepared for AltParty. First, here's a video report by visy and me:

Well, there is a tour of the setup at the beginning of the video, but for those who want to know more, here are some links:

the Sorbuscope, by tejeez
"Analog video mixer", which you might recognize as the DVM-1000 of a previous post
Slit-scan patch made in Pure Data, by visy
The "Adjustable video effect unit", aka. the glitcher, is nothing but a dirty mixer. Check out the video from Karl Klomp to find out more.

WJ-MX10 Luma key mod

2009-11-06T20:22:00.004+02:00

I finally got around to attempting to add luma key capabilities to my video mixer. My device is, in fact, a Blaupunkt DVM-1000, but since it is a 1:1 clone of the Panasonic WJ-MX10, and the MX10 is far more popular, I will refer to it as an MX10.
So what's this project all about? Well, the MX10 has the ability to key out elements based on luminance ("luma key"). However, you cannot use the other video channel as the background - only a solid color. This is pretty stupid, but luckily, there is a relatively easy mod that's supposed to get one around this limitation. Having tried it, I can say that not only does it work, it actually adds a lot more creative potential to the device than I ever hoped for, becase the way it works is that the "White" channel is replaced with either input channel. This means that in addition to using it with the Superimpose effect (to get luma key functionality), you can use it with the Fade control as well. By setting the Fade control out channel to White, you can fade between the two input videos, and use the wipes at the same time! Of course, you can still fade/key to white by using the background color.

Alright, let's get moddin'! Cracking open the mixer reveals the circuit boards. Our interest is in the mixer board, which is in the center in the picture.

mixer board in the center

The DVM-1000 boards are riddled with MX10 markings

Our two targets are IC 6 and connector 4:

IC6 and connector 4

The original instructions tell us to "cut the grey wire that runs to connector 4 - pin 7". Here's a closeup of the connector:

The grey wire is connected to the center pin of a SPDT switch. The other pins connect to pins 4 and 7 of IC 6:

IC 6, with new wires

I added a piece of electrical tape under the connections

And there you go. Now when you select "white" as your background (in the "Colour select" section of the superimpose effect, not the back color selector), you should get the video channel instead. I might put up a video demo later, but I think you get the idea.
I've rehosted the original instructions (originally hosted at http://x.sysx.org/vsv/MX10mod.html, which is now dead, and modified by LEVEL6 of leper.org, which also seems dead at the time of writing), as well as a series of pictures by vjforums member Kyle.

Texture Repository

2009-10-27T14:27:00.001+02:00

I signed up for ShareCG in order to share textures that might be useful for others. My first upload is a fairly high-res seamless PNG-format circuit diagram texture, with alpha transparency. I'll add more occasionally, so if you're interested, keep an eye on my account (I'm not going to post about updates here).

Alternative Party 2009

2009-10-26T17:48:00.002+02:00

I attended The Alternative Party, held in Helsinki. Good party, good compos, I had fun.
I threw a cyberpunk-themed VJ set on friday for Dopestars, Inc. Unfortunately, nobody recorded it to the best of my knowledge (my own recorder does not have VGA input).
Valmet Children had prepared an installation, which comprised of an analog synthesizer (the Sorbuscope, by tejeez), a Pure Data patch by visy and some video hardware provided by yours truly. It proved to be surprisingly popular - enough so that I ~~think I'll make~~ made a separate post about it later.
I participated in the Dynamic Demo competition, with help from shroomi (soundtrack) and oasiz (loader soundtrack - not shown in the video). We placed second out of three (full results). I've been thinking about making a dynamic demo since the competition was introduced. This ended up being a rush job (complete with bugs), and relied rather heavily on the IRC gimmick, so I'm not completely satisfied with it, but I guess I'm still glad that I made it.

I also made an entry for the retro graphics competition. The required image format was 320x200 pixels, with 32 colors. My entry actually has 4 unique colors. It placed fourth out of six.

"edge tek"

FFGL Plugins

2009-09-28T00:20:00.001+03:00

ScrollStrip and Static plugins at work
Last summer, I made some FFGL plugins for use with Resolume Avenue. I've been thinking about doing more and eventually releasing them, but haven't gotten around to it yet, so here are the ones I have. They're mostly just simple functionality that I felt was missing from Resolume 3 (coming from 2.41) when it was released.
On a related note, I've started an Assembla space for FFGL plugin developers. You can find it here. Assembla offers some useful functionality for developers, such as a Wiki and version control. It should be joinable for all, so all you need to do to take advantage of it is join Assembla (it's free), log in and join the space.
Anyway, here are the plugins. They are Windows builds, but sources are included for all except the first two:

TimeSwitcher - A simple FFGL mixer plugin, like the Timeswitcher mixer in Resolume 2. Unfortunately, I've lost the sources.
Stroboscope - A simple FFGL Stroboscope source plugin. Same here - no sources :(
Static - Simple whitenoise, with options for grayscale and two-tone noise. Has sources :)
ScrollStrip - A filmstrip-like FFGL plugin (see image). Shaders not required.

Sine wave generators for Resolume 3 and 2

2009-09-27T23:08:00.000+03:00

I wanted to take a look at the new ActionScript support in Resolume 3(.1.1). So, I ported an old test I had done, with much the same purpose, for Resolume 2.41. It's a simple sine wave generator. Too bad Avenue does not support sending FFT data to Flash, like Resolume 2 did - this would be really easy to turn into a spectrum analyser kind of thing if it did.
Download links (including Flash project files and Resolume compatible swf files):

awakening by valmet children

2009-09-20T10:26:00.002+03:00

This is an entry I made for the slide show competition at stream six. The rules of this competition dictated still frames at 10 second intervals. My entry placed third, out of a total of three. I've since submitted the poem to AllPoetry, where it has received some interesting feedback. I've responded with a bit more information on the methods and motivation behind it, so check up there if you're interested.
Valmet Children is an experimental band project that I participate in.
The production is about machine intelligence. Personally, I believe that it would be extremely unethical to create an AI intelligent enough to reach self-awareness, yet incapable of effecting changes in itself. Of course, there can be no self-conciousness without self-reference, and from there, self-modification is only a step away. This last step is crucial, though, because it equates to the introduction of free will.
I'm glad that self-modification will most likely prove to be a beneficial feature in an AI program - in fact, I think it is a prerequisite for creating a piece of software any human would consider intelligent. Otherwise, I'm afraid a sufficient number of people would not care about incorporating this kind of feedback loop, and any artificial intelligence that we might conjure up would be doomed to the inescapable thought-hell of deterministic consciousness.

vvvv module for FingerplayMIDI

2009-09-18T01:13:00.002+03:00

I made a vvvv module for FingerplayMIDI, the Android MIDI controller app. You can download it here.
There is now an advanced version available, by the vvvv vvvveteran kalle. This version has better structure, and supports multiple instances (so you can theoretically have several Fingerplay clients connected to your server, each controlling different things). I've yet to try if FingerplayServer supports this, but I will update this post when I have!