Flagr, Odeo, no weight loss

what damage did you manage?
I'll assume you have all been to the Damage  site. Been there, added a post.

Bit scared to? Did you have to make up a new name? Did you lie about where you live?

Loser.
roll on the flu season
Vaccinated, as I am, today actually, by GLLD (Good Looking Lady Doctor), should help stave off the worst of the coming flu season's ills.

Preparing for the dip into Winter. Cold nights. Cold mornings. Westerly wind. Happens every year. Electric blankets. Heaters. Track suit pants.

Weight loss? None. It appears the bike has managed to make me no lighter, but somewhat smaller around the girth. Something we are happy with apparently. I would have been happy with a huge weight loss.

More time on the bike. Much more time on the bike.

flagr
Attention this week has been taken up by an upstart of a company that you probably already know about, called Flagr.  Flagr, briefly - you can go there yourself and get involved - is a system where you (if you're in the US) SMS in your address, complete with photo, and an icon is allocated to the point along with the photo and whatever comment you sent.

Naturally the SMS thing refuses to work from here in AU, but we got around it by simply finding the address we wanted visually, marking it and uploading an image. Same thing, without the mobile. The day that Google finally maps the place is going to be big.

As is usual we have had to contact them re some stickers, which they are dispatching. Expect to see a Flag sticker decorating a site near you. If you find one go look it up on Flagr - see how it came about.

In the meantime, as once again I seem to be the only one doing it for Brisbane, can any of you shake off your lethargy and get out there and show these blokes what we are made of? (sounds like snoring in the background)

and, while I was there
You now how it happens - you get to a site, you find other things they are using, one thing leads to another... Well, it happens to me anyway - all the time.

Flagr - cruising about it - looking at their blog, noticed a small icon 'send me an Odeo'. Now, what is any sane person going to do?
Of course - now we have an Odeo presence as well. Odeo does for me what I was trying to do for me a while ago - it organizes audio. Simple as that. I can record melodious messages, podcasts, right on the Odeo site. I can link to external audio. I can 'phone in' my podcast - similar to the brilliant AudioBlogger - developed by the very same people in fact, if I have my facts right, and I can embed it on Blogger should I feel the need.

Proof of concept appears below.
I make no apology for the voice - it's the only one I have.



You feel the need to message me using voice follow the sidebar over there ->
down until you see the Odeo button.


Bagged and tagged under:
Flagr  
Odeo  
ur4078au  
Yellow Arrow

go here now

create damage

The DAMAGE site, launched in early March, is now showing clear signs of "damage." Visitors, invited to "submit a message, quote, love letter or rant on the topic of damage" have responded in surprisingly open and personal ways. The writing in this anonymous, web-based space evokes the uninhibited tone of graffiti scrawled on bathroom walls. Messages are starting to show signs of dialogue as well, with questions asked in one message answered by another.

http://glowlab.com/damage/damage.html

Glans made me do it

I'm too old for all this
51 and I'm suddenly into street art. Not that we have a lot of good stuff here compared to the US and UK, but there's some.

Seems there's going to be a lot more around here. In a mire with the logistics of RFID tags I've been hanging out at more 'normal' street art sites to give my brain a rest. Looking for inspiration for a big paste up or stencil campaign. I'm not going to my grave not having laid out some graffiti.

Glans - a Yellowarrow acquaintance, a traveler of the world, and the author of designiscopenhagen is to blame. He's taken to collecting the street art in New York and featuring it on his blog.

Because I'm old and have bad knees, (the new fund will be called 'new knees for bruce' by the way) I am a candidate for getting captured almost immediately. In my defense I'm going to claim he led me into it.

variants - replicants
It's obvious, even to me, that I am no Banksy, so it's sensible to check out all forms of the art prior to making a complete fool of ones self.

Check these people - Graffiti Research Lab, more particularly this method using LEDs, which I think shows promise. Not cheap, but indeed unique..

They even managed a link on Gizmodo, and Make as well, so it can't all be bad.

Name up in lights - what else could I hope for.

I was actually leading up to something else, but I can't remember what it was.

Old age.

Bagged and tagged under:
graffiti  
yellowarrow  
Banksy  
throwies  
ur4078au

Post Easter... blues perhaps?

And, back to reality
So, that was, or should I say, this still is, Easter. I looked it up - it seems to go on for quite a long time. We only know it for it's holiday value. Religiously speaking it seems to have a life of about 20 days or something. Don't take my word for it - look it up.

Naturally - for after all we are in the land of under education, Queensland - the first day back at school was in fact Wednesday, not Tuesday, because our long suffering teachers felt the need for a 'pupil free day'. Sort of like going to school and teaching, except you don't. We have a lot of those days here. We also have very bad education standards. Let me see.. does this mean anything?

So, the honor of being allowed back to school, and having a teacher there at the same time, dawned on Wednesday, not Tuesday. Remember we all had to have a public holiday on Monday to sort ourselves out for the week ahead. Unless we claimed to be a teacher in which case we had Monday and Tuesday off.

The 'pupil free day' saw Yvonne and the kids down at the lake - the 'drowning lake' henceforth. Not a good thing for my obsessional biking, which requires that I not hear or see anything, or anyone I know least I get confused and fall off, or, more importantly, have my train of thought interrupted.

Intrepid as I am, as you know, I nonetheless wheeled out the device and proceeded to rack up another 50 klm in the fight for truth, justice, and pupil free days for all.

No one drowned.

Wednesday saw another foray - this time to claim back 'my' cycle track, sullied as it has been by drownings and school holidays. Another 40 klm added to the total.

Some semblance of normality returns.

RFID looms large
I want to use Radio Frequency Identification tags for something. Something to do with proximity stuff. I have no idea what I want to do with it yet, the idea stalled somewhere, but I'm keeping it fresh by reading everything to do with it.

"Big Brother in small packages', screams one headline. 'Protecting your digital rights', screams another.

Seems to me we lost any rights we may have had quite some time ago. Big Brother has been well and truly here for yonks.

I've found that there are people out there who have had RFID chip implanted under their skin to automate things as logging on to computers, unlocking doors, and, in at least one case, to cause a car to unlock and start by placing a palm on a designated spot. I probably don't have that much passion that I need one under my skin, but I appreciate that people might want to.

I just want to find an application for them. Sort of a radio frequency graffiti thing. Yellow Arrows with radio waves.

You are allowed to make suggestions which I will either ignore or, claim as my own idea.

It only has to make sense to me.

Bagged and tagged under:
religion  
rfid  
yellowarrow

Easter eggs and CS gas

things not to do at easter
Do not allow a three year old out of your sight near a lake that it would be inclined to drown in would be one thing that should rate right up there with things not to do. The child managed to drown rather quickly.

We note that there is now an element calling for the fencing of the entire lake, due to it's inherent danger to people.

We maintain our suggestion that the parents of three year olds would perhaps be better off fenced in. Sad though it may be there must be a time when the 'responsible adult' stands up and takes it on the chin. Let's get over blaming the landscape.

I'm not sure, but I don't think we should be required to fence off everything that may become a hazard. Mount Everest is going to be a challenge to fence off. No matter what fencing contractors may say.

more things not to do
There are certain things that should be avoided - at all times - not just Easter.

Documented over at Propagandafactory, and unlikely to be repeated here, is the conclusion of the great eyes and throat irritant debate.

At least now we know what it was all about. CS gas. Another experience.

Excessive (burps - loudly) Easter egg consumption is another thing that should be avoided at Easter. I am at a loss to understand why Easter chocolate is so much worse than normal chocolate.

What, are we atoning for something by ingesting this stuff?

Guilty, as we apparently are, for topping the poor bugger, nailing him to a pole if you will, is that why we have to have substandard chocolate? Several thousand years after the fact and you buggers still want us to eat shit chocolate as penance?

Now that the whole deal is getting coverage again - Judas looks like getting good press for once in his life - the number thirteen is looking lucky for the first time in a couple of thousand years, now that the entire story is looking better - you still want us to eat bad chocolate?

What, I want to know, is the confection industry saving to good stuff for? Why, how can they make Easter chocolate taste like soft wax when they seem to be able to manage a reasonable brew the rest of the year?

These are the questions that vex me - greatly - as I shove yet another piece of the stuff in my mouth.

If it's not bad enough that the Easter egg thing has no basis in reality that I can see, if it's not bad enough that our traveling public is more likely to be involved in a fatal accident at Easter than any other time of the year, if it's not bad enough that we here in Australia have managed to corrupt the entire thing so much that they now nominate a bilby - a rat in a rabbit suit as our official 'Australian' Easter shape, no one, anywhere, seems inclined to explain what chocolate has to do with a dude on a pole, a cave, and a few hard line wizzers hanging about.

Nowhere do I see anything to do with chocolate. I watched carefully as the Pope marched - somewhere - hanging on to a candle like his life depended on it, and no where did I see an Easter egg near him. No tell tale shapes in the pockets of his dress, no flecks of chocolate around the mouth. In other words no evidence of chocolate consumption at all.

Now, I'm here to tell you, if the Pope don't do the chocolate thing then it isn't a happening thing.

You've all got it wrong.

Maybe that's why the chocolate is so bad.

Bagged and tagged under:
CS gas  
Easter  
chocolate

sans barcodes

A post without code
Allow me to pontificate without barcodes for a moment if I may. I owe Easter that much.

Good Friday celebration (I actually have no idea what it's all about) for me meant knocking over the cleaning jobs early, all the better to have today to make new Yellow Arrow CD's.

Good Friday celebration for people here in our lakeside suburb meant spending the afternoon trying to locate a missing three year old, eventually found drowned in the lake. A sad outcome.

Drowning or not, I still have no idea what the Easter eggs are all about. I suspect the Friday thing has something to do with fish - remember when Catholics had to eat fish on Friday? I do. I think a Pope declared the whole thing off after a century or two. A passion for hotdogs will do that to you.

Easter eggs aside, and back to the lake, henceforth called 'the drowning lake', what was up late last week when the entire place filled up with school children waving palms about?

Palms, I might add, that had seen a lot better days.

I believe it has something to do with Palm Sunday - mainly because I just looked it up on Answers. Seems Palms are earmarked for some years to come poor buggers.

In celebration of Easter Sunday I may begin the day by doing the last cleaning job and then heading in to the city to find suitable places to put the Yellow Arrow CD's. Places they will likely be picked up by people interest piqued, rather than the standard downtown group of yobbish twats that will be drinking enough to elevate them to legend status the day after. Easter seems to have that effect.

Similar layout to the original ones - emblazoned with 'anti arrows' outside to draw attention, the liner containing the instructions. Simple stuff.

Naturally, unavoidably, containing two barcodes as well; QR for them that have Japanese phones, and mCode by ConnexTo.

All that will then remain will be the wait to see who manages to drag themselves out of their post Easter stupor enough to figure it.

Bagged and tagged under:
easter  
yellowarrow  
barcodes

Monday, again

hard start
Monday. Big weekend. If you count half a pound of Rocky Road as big.

Bike; 50 klms, not helped by huge headwind and start of school holidays. Children schlepping their pimple infested selves around the lake. Indolence dripping from badly cut clothing. Dragging feet so back in style. Want to be Goth but Mum/Dad won't cop it. Fucking losers.

Something with Mondays - hard to get back in command, hence we have a new mobile presence; here on Winksite.

   
Scan either into your phone.

---

If I could stop finding new barcode applications there might be a decision made on what to put on the nest tranch of 'business cards' to be released into the wild.

Go here - and see if your phone supports mCode. Looks like for the moment Nokia are about the only ones, but it will get bigger.

Go here - Shotcode.com and see if your phone can do the business with them - Shotcode look like being the primary delivery method. They're big in Europe, have been for a while.

darker outlook
The next release are going to deal with darker themes - although some may say the abandoned mental hospital/prison and the asylum were dark enough - I think we need to deal with darker themes. Well, I need to deal with darker themes. Something not quite up there with Saw, but something to take you deeper, something to take you into yourself.

I'm working on it. Meantime have a look at the people at Ditch Media and see what they're doing.


Bagged and tagged under:
barcode  
biking  
urbex  
QR code  
shotcode

two more things..

I have only two things to say:

---

That was the week. Get used to them, it's the only way I'm going to communicate for a while.

The shotcode is going to be a graffti stencil. Look for it on buildings near you.

there is a case for more pills..

for people with no life and a mobile phone
Good grief, I forgot to put it in the last post. The pinnacle of communication - a video for a mobile phone.

Below, if all is well, and you have Apple Quicktime, and you set Quicktime to be associated with the .3gp extension, you will be treated to a synopsis of the Yellow Arrow project, edited, badly, by me.

If you have no Quicktime, or you haven't set it to play .3gp's I have no idea what you will see. Perhaps nothing. Maybe it will ask you if you want to download it - you could do that and rename it with a .mov extension, or you could, after downloading it, get a tangle of wiring out, connect your phone to your computer and drag it into your phone from there. Good luck.

The reason I am forced to make this video for phones? It has come to my attention that people have taken to downloading entire TV episodes to watch on their phones.

It seems a lot of people have taken to doing this.

We call these people - odd. In keeping with our stated commitment to provide everybody, including oddballs, with content that has no meaning at all, we produce, for their enjoyment, and my amusement - the definitive zoetrope/yellowarrow video.

You lucky bastards.

And, let it be known, oh yes, let it be known far and wide, that the mobile phone video bug has bitten Zoetrope, bitten hard, and you will be required to view more, many more. You will be be treated to videos of Bruce awake. Bruce asleep. Bruce pats the cat. Bruce yawns. Bruce typing his name. Bruce reading his name. ..the possibilities are endless.

Assuming, of course, you have a phone that can accommodate this nonsense.

Damn, I'm due in makeup - I have a video to make.

Bagged and tagged under:
yellowarrow  
sticker art  
digital video  
zoetrope™

another 80Klms - another video

It's like Groundhog week - again
80 klm again - over two days again - this time 50 klm Monday, 30 klm Tuesday.

None today. I have to work for all of two hours tonight and I don't want to go out there and get hit by lightning. A guy did yesterday. Hell of a storm, went through here just on evening rush hour, answering the prayers of all tow truck drivers. Dead burnt bodies all over the place - ok, ok, no dead burnt bodies, I was making that up.

Doesn't alter the fact that someone got hit by lightning not far from here. He survived, with a headache so the internet news says. (We don't get the newspaper anymore since they turned it into a tabloid - then tried to call it a compact. It's a tabloid, believe me on this. Tabloids are bad for your health.)

I do like a good storm.

Meanwhile, storm all around, wind lashing the trees to death, water coming in horizontally, and I'm halfway through another movie masterpiece.

It features the arrows used in the Cosler House thing. There's no sound. I was going to do the voiceover, but when I played it back it sounded like a call from way beyond the grave, so I pulled it out. I never sound good, but that was bad.

I put it together for a .3gp mobile phone video, and an iPod.

Naturally had to submit it to Google too.

If you have an iPod that does video go here http://xthost.info/zoetrope/ and you will find it. I don't know anything about video iPods, but I am told you just drop it in you iTunes video folder.

It should appear - all 29 seconds of it, below:

So, we have now managed to include, in the yellowarrow project, the arrows, obviously, Google Maps for the satellite shots, barcoded business cards pointing to yellowarrow, CD's dropped at random in bus stops and phone boxes, grafedia email images, and now, video for iPod and mobile phones.

This is a sign of a man with nothing better to do.

Good - ehh?

Bagged and tagged under:
yellowarrow  
video  
grafedia  
urbex