Why can’t SSB environments like Fluid, Chrome or Prism allow for the creation of custom toolbars that are also site-specific, allowing for persistent access to user-initiated tasks?
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Stereopsis is an effect that allows for the eyes + brain to perceive depth, and is utilized in an optical illusion that, when equipped with the right method of visual perception, allows for the viewer to perceive a sense of depth in an otherwise flat surface area.
Many methods have been devised since the 19th century to give off an illusion of depth in a media-dedicated flat surface area (a technique known as stereoscopy), ranging from "wiggle stereoscopy" to the manual side-by-side-so-cross-your-eyes stereoscopy to the iconic anaglyph image + polarized "red and blue" glasses.
Most recently, a few folks on YouTube took to demonstrating the combination of anaglyph imagery and polarized 3D glasses with MIT graduate Johnny Chung Lee’s WiiMote headtracking method (resulting in hundreds of demo videos on YouTube from inspired users) to demostrate how such a combination of anaglyph imagery with headtracking might work.
Sadly, I’m not convinced by the look of the videos. Plus, after thinking it through, I ‘ve started to think that it seems redundant to combine digital CGI anaglyphs with headtracking polarized glasses.
I mean, if you demonstrate Compiz Fusion with its Wiimote-recognition plugin for headtracking separately from Compiz Fusion with its anaglyph filter plugin for polarized glasses, you get a fairly stereoscopic view from either perception; in fact, the Wiimote plugin for headtracking seems to possess much further potential range depending upon the range of motion that the viewer has around the screen, while the Wiimote anaglyph plugin for polarized glasses gives the classic feel of being able to almost reach inside the imagery on the screen.
The drawbacks, therefore, may dedicate either method of perception to particular media and particular audiences:
- the Wiimote headtracking method may be best for visual environments – preferably 2.5D – which concurrently allow for manipulation of the environment’s contents through interactive controls (like games)
- the anaglyph method may be best for visual environments – namely 2D – which don’t allow for manipulation of the environment’s contents through interactive controls (like movies).
I’ll expand upon this a bit later, but here are the two demos posted to YouTube:
An utter blackout on CNN regarding Madagascar
They’re not saying anything on CNN International, nor are they posting anything on CNN.com’s Africa archive.
Why is it that a possible overthrow of a sitting head of state by a strong – and pissed – opposition in one African country doesn’t win as much coverage on CNN as whatever’s gong on in Sudan and Zimbabwe? The last story posted about the conflict on CNN.com was from last month. Yet foreign embassies employees have gotten out of dodge and army has gone through a shift in leadership (a mutiny of sorts) that placed it more outside the hands of the current president than within the camp of the opposition; the military police has done likewise.
So I suppose that we’ll see something big happen by 1800 GMT, which is the time by which Rajoelina says he’ll make his move?
LiveJournal-MediaWiki integration?
I’ve finally gotten the Navbox template done on WikiFur.
Also, I think that a MediaWiki extension that utilizes a LiveJournal code base is possible and replete with potential benefits, although it may be more for integration of LiveJournal’s core features into MediaWiki in the form of user and community blogs (with the obvious utilization of wikitext in blog posts and comments).
Finally, what relevance does augmented reality have to brain-computer interfaces? I have glanced over multiple articles where the two are included as examples of virtual reality interaction, but I honestly haven’t seen where the two can be relevant to each other. At best, I can assume that any combination of AR and (two-way?) BCI can result in something like what I saw in Denno Coil and its concept of "Imago".
Celtic Reconstructionism and Pan-Celticism
For all this talk about returning to Celtic roots by both Celtic Reconstructionist Pagans and Pan-Celticist cultural nationalists, I’m surprised that there has been no serious effort to make Celtic Reconstructionism a part of Pan-Celtic cultural identity or to even establish and concentrate Celtic Reconstructionism in the Celtic nations.
I imagine Celtic Reconstructionism as being useful in the revival of the Celtic languages from within a religious-national context. However, this would be an initially-subsidiary role played by Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism, similar to how it took a long time for Israeli Judaism (the religion) to catch up with Zionism (the cultural and ethnic nationalism) in terms of enforcing and promoting the Hebrew language as a language of both national and religious identity in Israel, resulting in the comparatively-late blooming of Religious Zionist kibbutz long after the Labor Zionist kibbutz movements had come, played their role and eventually declined in productivity and attraction.
Combining CR with Pan-Celticism would also help in defining a Celtic-centric worldview through terminologies which can only be found within the Celtic languages.
Comic addventure, anyone?
The "addventure" is a form of non-linear collaborative fiction that has evolved since the term was first coined by Allen Firstenberg in 1987-88. Primarily a combination of select aspects from both the round-robin style of collaborative, chain-tied fiction with the "Choose Your Own Adventure" method of interactive, non-linear fiction, the addventure is meant to allow for the creation of multiple reality sequences, with authors able to start again from any previous landmark and fork off with their own derivative sequence of following events.
So while you already have round-robin webcomics and interactive "CYOA" webcomics being published, I wonder if a "addventure webcomic" has been tried yet.
I see such a webcomic as being potentially bigger, more diverse and more rich with parallel dimensions than anything that could be mustered by Marvel Comics.
A foray into FA flack
This, and the reactions. (NSFW)
I hypothesize that the kerfuffle over humbuged’s eliciting of payment for an SWF file arises out of a combination of the following factors (and the unacknowledgement of such factors):
- The comparison with a normal still-art commission is flawed in the traditional sense since such commissions tend to be privately requested and transacted, with the requestor typically posting the commissioned piece to his/her account gallery.
- To my knowledge, there are very few active FA users who own paid-access galleries of their own, as such individuals, such as Jeremy Bernal, tend to be very restrictive and litigious about their works being posted to publicly-accessible archives like FA and VCL (even imageboards such as fchan and furpiled maintain a DNP, or "do not post", list in order to steer clear of legal threats from such individuals).
Thus, humbuged may be going against the grain or trend of such archives by advertising previews of his already-created for-pay works through his FA account, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that his still-art works or still flash previews can’t stand alone as being "good enough for freeview". As noted in the comments, animation requires a bit more – or a bit different – expertise compared to the creation of still art, and thus entitles the creators of these works to the levying of additional financial barriers to access until easier, less personally-intensive means of animation can be delivered to the public.
I wonder, however, if FA has a policy regarding pay-based archive sites and the proper means of promotion through user accounts? It may clarify what would be in good taste of financial gain through such a business model, especially for something like user-created animation.
Predominant themes in DC and Marvel Comics
I’ve noticed that DC and Marvel have historically tended to derive their characters’ abilities from sources which are, more or less, specific to the companies and predominant as themes in their published works. DC’s supercharacters’ abilities have mostly been derived from various supernatural and/or otherworldly non-human phenomena (Superman, Womer Woman, Hawkgirl), while Marvel’s supercharacters’ abilities have mostly been derived from mutogenetic and/or otherworldy human phenomena (Spider-Man, X-Men, The Hulk).
Is it because Marvel, the younger and more financially-troubled of the two rivals, has historically sought to bring a predominately-human, predominately-current feel to the supercharacter, or is it because DC, the elder and more conservative rival, wanted to sandbox its supercharacters within almost entirely alternative histories and realities which are similar to ours but have much more of a fantastical and fictionally-flexible atmosphere for the writers?
As per above, the "superworlds" of the two companies are different: Marvel mostly retains real-world communities like New York and Washington, while DC creates such alternate-but-similar communities as Metropolis and Gotham City.
Heck, that may be a partial rationale for why Marvel also went the extra mile to bring pre-inauguration Obama in as himself in the current Spider-Man title (he did give Spidey a ringing endorsement), while no similar move came from DC’s running publications.
But back to the main question. If Marvel sought to push the superhuman into a greater quantitative status over the average supercharacter, then what will the next big comic publisher bring to the table?
Maybe, for that next publisher, the Internet and networking media will play a role within the framing of a fictional reality (or fictional virtuality, if you will), where the hubs of the Web and the so-called "Metaverse" will become framed as stages for superhuman ("superavatar"?) action, drama and wonder.
Chaos magic vs. divination and fortune-telling
If anything is possible in chaos magic, then would such concepts as those behind fortune-telling and divination, which rely upon the premise that whatever is seen or felt as being in the future of the individual is "set in stone", destined through fate or will eventually occur despite our best preparations and preventory methods, conflict with the premise of chaos magic?
I mean, at best, a chaos magic approach could take any "personally-internalized" word that is told or interpreted from fortune-telling or divination and simply, in the words of Pete Carroll, "fake it till you make it". But fortune-telling and divination would not, within the concept of chaos magic, hold any water on their own except as words of deliberately-internalized subconscious changings of reality in a "self-fulfilling prophecy" fashion.
That is, unless I’m wrong about the intents and proper appropriations of fortune-telling and divination…
The Holy Spirit/Ghost as a veiled threat, and other things
When people in YouTube comments leave such comments as "I’ll pray that the Holy Spirit comes to you and arrests you", I take it as saying "I hope that the boogeyman gets you".
Oh, and its snowing down here in WR, with snow actually sticking to the ground!
Ahh, what a time to worry about my math grades (I’ll need a tutor since they’re getting worse despite my studying) while watching back episodes of Static Shock.
