(Blog)

I was just reading about the latest demo of Google’s Android mobile operating system. The Android Community site got an exclusive live preview of the latest version, and posted plenty of pictures and video, most importantly, this:

In a nut-shell, this system is already looking like it can do whatever the snazzy iPhone can dish out, with two key differences: it’s free, and it’s open. Where the Apple software, even with the new App Store and iPhone SDK, is crippled by being under Apple’s lock and key, Google Android will let developers do whatever they want, on their own terms.



The Sunset Glint, originally uploaded by ASurroca.

Still at the artwork in Photoshop… I started off with this piece, took out all the ribbony bits, and focused on turning the photos into this abstract piece here. I did add a few new ribbony bits that (purposely) make a screen-door effect.



In Rainbows, originally uploaded by ASurroca.

Why the title? Duh. I started making something bright and airy and with a white background, and I ended up with this instead.

Reminds me of the Stanley Donwood’s artwork for Radiohead’s current album. I’d say it’s inspired by it, but it really isn’t; this is just the way this bit ended up looking.

Full disclosure:
I used a few of my old photos for this.

“When I walk down the street and only 3 or 4 shots are fired at me, I find it hard to stay awake.”

That’s the quote that stood out, among numerous outstanding quotes from this excerpt of a book of post-modern stream-of-consciousness madness by an author known only by the initials H.C.

It’s not new, especially by internet standards. In fact, by said standards, it’s ancient history, and I’m almost positive an entire generation has completely forgotten about it by now. It’s a relic of the days when WIRED was wired rather than tired (WIRED readers will get the reference), and anything with .com at the end was automatically invaluable. Much of what the original C3F site spoofs, such as Pathfinder and the original incarnation of MSN, are bygone relics that the Sidekick generation has never seen or heard of.

I guess you could say it’s something like The Catcher in the Rye meets Snow Crash meets any random blog post from Maddox.

Note that you can read the whole book by starting here and replacing the numbers in the URL until page 6, where the author makes things a little less maddening (most of the time) for the reader by providing links. Enjoy.

One day, years ago, I wrote the following immediately upon waking:

She wore a robe of burgundy and gold, and her flaxen hair was all I saw. Her home was made of felt and porcelain, full of satins and ceramics. The house was too small, as if caving in on itself, and stuffy, though not suffocating. I felt as if I weren’t there.

The doddering old fool, I heard from my left. Out of a cupboard-like cubbyhole of a room to my right, a slinking hag emerged.

“Pot calling the kettle black, indeed,” she mumbled in retort. “She’s dropped her wishes,” the old woman continued, as if I knew her, what she spoke of, and its apparent importance. “Go on!” she continued, with more urgency, “pick them up, before she realizes she’s lost them. Do you expect to go to market empty-handed?”

Her words were confounding. Speaking of wishes as if they were physical objects? Going to market? None of it made sense, and this house was beginning to feel like an attic inside a dollhouse, and I had to get out.

I glanced down the hall and spotted a small staff leaning against a wall, delicately painted with golden symbols I could not read. Next to it, there was a pale blue robin’s egg. No, a stone with an egg-like appearance, with the same symbols as the staff. As the cupboard-dwelling hag vanished into the ether, the hall turned bright, and spring morning air wafted in.

From all around me, I heard, or felt, It was sunny, and glowing; it was Sunday morning.

Feeling these were the correct objects, I grabbed the staff and the stone. I wondered if these were the wishes the lady had lost, or whether they contained her wishes within. Perhaps they were the symbols. I wondered what story they told. She wore burgundy and gold, and held this staff and this stone, her wishes, and now she was gone.

Sunday morning tea and cake, everything methodically laid out, I heard whispered from all around me. As I ambled downstairs, that’s what I thought, as if the house or environment were thinking through me. On the first floor, I saw weathered oak chairs with pillows, an ornate teacup with a spindle used as a cover, delicately prepared pastries laid out on silver tray, and an enchanting view of a forest outside. Everything was indeed methodically laid out.

I sat down, ate a pastry, and drank the tea. I packed the staff and stone in a sack and decided to take the teacup, spindle, and the remaining pastries. I understood that I was to leave this house and seek the lady. Burgundy and gold, and flaxen hair, I heard and thought, picturing the lady of the house. I would make it to market, and find her.

I walked outside and turned to the west and entered the forest, for it beckoned me.



One Drive Cable, originally uploaded by ASurroca.

I’m still on a color kick, and filled with much linear love. Once again, I headed over to COLOURlovers to make myself a five-color palette and got to work.

If you cannot tell, this is a hard disk drive cable; well, it would be an HDD cable, were HDD cables less boring in real life.

Here is a dialog box I’m often greeted with in Adobe Dreamweaver while working with XHTML/CSS files that have linked graphics:

[name of file] has changed on the remote server since your last get or put operation. Putting the file may overwrite changes to the file. Do you wish to put the file anyway?

In the case that led me to write this, I had FTP’d the most current copy to the server using a separate FTP program; therefore, the server copy was the same as the PC copy. This is how I understood the dialog box:

Since you last put this file on the server, the server copy has changed. If you choose to put this file onto the server, the changed server copy will be overwritten with the PC copy you are putting there now. Is that OK with you?

I have no problem with that. Except, this is what actually happens:

Since you last put this file on the server, the server copy has changed. If you choose to put this file onto the server, despite telling you otherwise, I’m going to copy a previous version of the server copy over to your PC, overwriting your PC’s copy of the file and shitting up your whole day. Hope you made a backup—oh wait, I guess that was your backup. Ha ha! Fuck you! Adobe out!

Dreamweaver proceeded to take a previous cached version of the file (not even the most current version on the server) and send it to my PC, overwriting the most current version. Then, apparently, it took that now-old version and steamrolled the server’s current copy with that too, leaving me with old copies of the file on both PC and server. Whee.

This is kind of like being transported back in time in a time machine, except just one hour back in time, and without a way back to the present. On one hand, it’s pretty cool to have officially become a time-traveler. On another, thanks for nothing, badly worded dialog box.

At least I didn’t get a disease that would be easily curable in the present, but is incurable in the time where I was sent. Even if I had, I’m quite sure any disease that’s curable right now was equally curable an hour ago.

Such a Colorful City

Just finished a new little bit of really colorful artwork… from my flickr photostream

I sat idly for a couple hours, and came up with this in the meantime. Since I wanted something colorful, naturally, my first stop was COLOURlovers, where I used their palette design app to come up with the five-color palette used here.

I’ve been drawing in black and white for ages; it’s been a long time since I put some color in my work. I think it’s a welcome addition. God, I love color. How could I have stayed away for so long?