I am eating the first popsicle of the summer. It actually seems kind of disgusting. It is not very sweet and tastes like plastic. It's especially weird to think it's made out of oil. Did we fight a war for popsicles?

Maybe it tastes bad because it's old. It probably has been there, on the shelf all summer, if not since last year because I really can't remember that many hot days where people wanted popsicles.

On another note, I found this really messed up picture of (e:matthew) 's white ice fish that died. I didn't know it was there till now. Someone must have used it while playing with the paint program on my phone. He was a cool looking fish but the other fish hated him and beat him up till he died. It was sad to watch as he didn't fit in and they scared him so much that he dug a little hole and would never come out.

I was listening to the iTunes streaming radio that (e:terry) had put on today. I really like it so I looked into where it was coming from. It was from the site of someone he knew from when he lived in las vegas.

The guys name is keith. This is a picture of him.



Anyways, it has some really great beats and lots of media. He also has some writings about Nocturnal Wonderland the biggest party of the end of the summer in SoCal. I remember Ronnie always wanting us to go there from AZ. I have to say my biggest problem with SE parties back in the day was the incredible amount of dust. The next day you would be blow black boogers out your nose. Not to say that partying in the desert doesn't have it's appeal.

Check out this girl's outfit.

m what is really going on. In my case it was the loss of this naivity and the important discovery of personal politicsm that ended partying for me.

I think a huge part of it , was also about an era change in American politics. Nowadays, I feel guilty in hedonist celebration. knowing that it is all at the cost of others. It's not just that people are celebrating that bothers me, it is that there is nothing realistic or political about raves. In a way that always surprised me. The beats are so powerful and the opportunity exists to use the music to move the masses into action and understanding of what is going on around them. Instead, the rave environment completly cuts the partcipant off from the society they live in for one night of total celebration. While many bands do that too, "band" style music has the ability to send important messages.

Here are some lyrics from a famous techno song that has been remixed into a thousand techno genres. It depicts the entire movement, both in a positive and negative light.


Something for your mind, your body and your soul..
It's the power to arouse curiousity.
The purpose, the goal which one acts on.
A journey of force, hot like the sun and wet like the rain.
Eternity has past..
wrong = right.
It's the point of greatest intensity.
Pleasures of the highest sense.
Feelings of warmth and security.
Willing and unwilling sensations of the mind.
A condition..
The ultimate seduction!!!


Maybe I should start politechno. Although, it probably already exists somewhere. Does anyone have any or know about any? This whole conversation with myself is so against what I had said ten years ago when I "raved" about the fact that techno music did not have extended, meaningful lyrics and was thus not subjected to the iron fist of propanagda.

I still just don't think that I could go to a party and not feel it is all fake now. Something has changed in me, and I find it hard to just let go and not care about the fact that world peace is crumbling around us. It is hard to dance knowing that someone is being shot by American soldiers, while we party it up. Maybe I am just old but I doubt that is it, something has really changed in America. I really like the music still, and I really like to dance, I just can't stand the fakeness of the environment.

If ravers are all about PLUR (peace, love, unity, and respect) why aren't there huge poltically charged "raver" masses marching in the streets instead of shopping at the mall. I think it is because no one can take a person dressed in candy seriously.

I thought that the obsession with the anorexically thin models was an american phenomena. I always just assumed it was part of the obsession with "the other" as America is pretty fat. While reading the Chinese news at xinhuanet.com again today, I came across this article about the "New Silk Road" beauties' swimsuit show Apparently, models from 40 countries come to a park in Hangzhou to participate in the pagent. They are prison camp skinny.



Apparently, starvation is an international symbol of beauty, at least for 40 countries. Wow how the times have changed. It really hits at the fact the human beings have moved so far away from the "natural" condition. Historically, being not-so-skinny was a sign of properity and beauty as it showed you had money, health, etc. Imagine how not-pretty an anorexically thin woman would seem if you were moving out west in a wagon train caravan and had to cross the salt flats, ford rivers, and traverse mountain ranges.

[size=m]Links[/size]
(e:sqb) added a link from a forum on the Central Terminal Project Site. It seems to be bringing a lot of traffic in. If anyone else uses any other local sites and has the opportunity to add links back to their journal, I encourage it. To find the internet address of a particular journal entry simply click on the little earth icon at the bottom of the journal. Once you click, a window will pop up with the direct web address to the entry.

[size=m]Beach[/size]
Last night we headed out to Tom's Beach house for a giant party. We saw a bunch of people I never expected to see and brought a bunch of peeps with us. It ended up being one of those hot summer nights, complete with skinny-dipping in the lake nights. (e:mike) actually got sick from swimming based motionsickness. (e:southernyankee) actually started to learn how to swim. I can't imagine not being able to swim, I guess I always took it for granted. Thanks mom for sending me to swimming lessons all of those very cold Buffalo summer mornings.

Roy from media studies was there with his wife. Apparently, his son works for for Tom's pet store [inlink]paul,1856[/inlink]. The new professor, Ste(v/ph)en from Media Studies, was also there. We hung out with him most of the night - he seems like a really nice guy. He lived through (e:matthew)'s tiraid on the plight of the Native American's in America. On the way home I thought the border Nazis would give us trouble at the border. Especially, because ste(v/ph)en was from Britain. At first they started hasling us, but as soon as we said where we came from they sent us right on through.

I actually tried to play tennis for a while. Not as in "by the rules" but as in "ran and chased after balls." It was kind of fun and made me think that I should possibly get more excercise. I felt bad for (e:rachel) because she is actually good at tennis and the rest of us sucked. We hit the ball back and forth a maximum of five times.

In regards to [inlink]paul,1868[/inlink] and [inlink]paul,1869[/inlink]

Unnammed person,
I am not mad at you, I just wanted credit for my part. I think you should credit everyone in the project. That is what collaboration is about, right? What is the advantage to not crediting everyone? It would only be one extra line.

Paul

UPDATE: I think we finally agreed on this.

---

I am putting this here for future reference to myself and all collanoration participants. Rememeber to credit each other.

So I have been working collaboratively with some people on a project at school [search]josephine[/search] . I have to say that I am quite leary about the whole collaborative environment since Trebors Network and Collaborations conference, but I thought I would give it a whirl. Today someone I worked with posted their website to our school listserv. My friend wrote to tell me that they saw my models on the web without my name anywhere, as reference.



The background was all my models with no credit on it. I assume it was just an oversight, but in the mean time, lots of people viewed the page assuming that the work was not mine. Don't get me wrong, the person who posted them did a huge portion of the project and is by no means a slacker or stealer but I would never post their portion of the porject (code/storyboard) to my website and add no reference to them. In fact on my web site for the project , the only link to work I didn't create mentions the makers of the storyboard right on the link.

In regards to this [inlink]paul,1868[/inlink]

Hi Paul,
Thanks for expressing your worries about a copyright violation because of me using your rendered model image as a background image in one of my pages in my personal site.

I think I will rather prefer to change the image or credit everybody in the project at the same time.

You are right that image is modelled and rendered by you. But you didn't conveided it on your own. The project is Josephine's, You did the modelling based on my storyboards which I discussed with Josephine, Trupti the AI, Dave the VR whole toolset, Prof Shspiro Sneps and etc. This is a chain of collaborators, and one is not independent from the other in this project's context. I explicitly express my role in the project, I say that I am doing the storyboard (put the actual image there), and build scenes in YG and write/extend code for agent navigation. Belive it or not, to be honest, I thought that this is clear enough. So that people don't get the idea that I did any modeling. I also explicitly stated the kind of programming I do there so that people should not think that I do more than that in such a complex programming intensive project.

Besides, I made videos of people walking in the environment with a footage shot by Dave. This videos were only possible by everybody's contribution, but I did them anyway. I will put a grab from them instead of your image.

The reason I didn't put every name about the project is because I am linking to the very site which tells all of the details about it in a proper way.

I wouldn't worry about you using my code as a background image on your site because it is not entirely mine. You have to credit everybody involved with that or non. I guess people belive that "looking" at images is enough to claim a copyright, than perhaps the use of code/text as a visual/image.

I have a lot of issues to say about copyright and identity, and what belongs to whom, or who you are (like should one need to credit mom and dad, or the monkeys in the evolution chain, if there is any, which made your existense possible for claiming a right to that image) anyway but this is a different discussion for a different interest.

Anyway, I don't see this as a big problem and except your argument no matter I agree or not. And I am sorry if I dissapointed you, as I like you as a friend.
So the image will go or replaced, but I got also warnings about sending this kind of a stupid e-maisl to the list even though this was totally a mistake. People thought that I want them to visit my site. I realized that this is a huge list, and I don't want to take people's time again. If you don't mind, I prefer to give a written explanation to the people whom went to my site and reported this act as a violation. But if your really really really really really want to me write to this list, anyway, I should think a solution for that.

I hope you understand, and got my points. Again sorry for the inconvenience,and I apology if I made you feel dissapointed.

The image will be gone, or replaced, 1 min. after I send this e-mail.

Unnammed person

So I decided to work on the mushrooms a little more and to test out Maya 6's new soft modification tool. It rocks. It is so much easier than using lattices and yet yields even better results.

Here are the same mushrooms from this entry [inlink]paul,1864[/inlink], rerendered and modified.

[size=m]Nancy King[/size]
Before, I explain this I would like to note that Nancy King in the Media Studies office is the most helpful person I have ever dealt with at UB. She seems really caring.

[size=m]I want to finish now[/size]
I am so used to small schools, so this UB megunivopolis thing is overhwhelming. I think I really made a mistake when I decided to get my MFA there.

I am so busy that I have a hard time keeping up with the nuances of school beaurocracy. I am so jealous of the students who are not working right now. I can't imagine being able to really focus on my own education.

It is just too hard to teach two classes at Cansius, continue to do free lance work, work on my thesis project, and take a full-time course load. I keep telling myself it's almost over but then little things creep up. A great example being when I discovered that i am supposed to take 3 out-of-department courses. This wasn't listed as overtly as I would anticipate on the paperwork. It should be listed in the electve section in bold letter (Student's are required to take 3 courses in outside departments.) I wanted to take 3 one-credit courses as it did not specify the number of ours per course. The school told me that wold not satisfy t he requirement.

Someone must have heard about my story because at 5:45 am I received this anonymous email that said:

.. (the school's) position is weak. The documents legal implications are strong for yoou. You can likely take 3 one credit courses. If you put it in court, you will win. Unless you have agreed to do whatever they say at any time in the future.

The person is surely right but I don't think I could deal with the drama of the court case, not to mention it would surely end up costing as much as taking the classes.

Today I also temporarily dropped under 12 hours and was nervous because I won't be able to add classes until Tuesday. I thougt I would be financially penalized as we are required to remain full time. Luckily, I called the grad school and spoke with Debbie. She told me that I have until Friday to get my schedule finalized.

The Graduate School
408 Capen Hall
Buffalo, NY 14260-2608
Phone: 716-645-2939
Fax: 716-645-6142

Watch how 3D mushrooms are grown.

Here is the texture file with the corresponding UV coordinates marked out.



Here is the model with the texture applied and subdivided at level 1.


Here is the rendered image with the mesh subdivided at level 3.


Here are some examples after tricking the renders out in photoshop