I was all taken in by (e:zipzock)'s post about the Comix Cafe ([inlink]zipzock,8[/inlink]). I thought it was a comix (books) cafe, and I was like, "Wow, a cafe dedicated to comic books? How cool!"

Alas, I am my own bad standup comedian... (*rimshot*)

But on a day like today I am wanting to avoid news of the pope and Columbine and most everything else. Let me fill my holiday with goodies from the Interwebs, and allow me to share some of my private stash:

Missing Image ;(

The link goes to twoplayer comics, which is the latest addition to GF! Written by longtime GF! staffer, Aaron Stanton, and inked by Noah Kroese, a totally great artist (both working out of Moscow, ID), twoplayer comics provides another POV on gaming and gaming culture.

So we had much better luck with the scanner camera today. We're starting to get the hang of it, and we got some great photos today. Mostly I'm just going to post up some photos for you to check out. I am also going to link to a gallery on my website where you can check out hi-res versions of the images.

So first off, here's what we did to make it work: We discovered an old opaque projector we had from awhile back and hadn't used in ages. It was a kid's art tracing projector called The Tracer. We bought it at a garage sale for like $10 about 10 years ago. It uses just a very basic (probably plastic) lens that happens to come off (because you need to focus the image on the wall).

We also got a couple of new boxes. We haven't painted or felted the insides of the boxes, and it was super easy to fit them in. We used a Canon LIDE 35 scanner, and the boxes were 15x12x10 inches. We placed the scanner inside the box, affixing it with duct tape at first, but eventually velcro tabs (velcro can hold anything to anything -- no artist should be without it, but we had used up our supplies). We made an X hole for the USB wire and ran it out the computer. Of course, we removed the lid of the scanner.

The first box is pretty much intact, and we've left one side open. The scanner rests in it as described above. The second box is completed the same way, except we cut the flaps off the open side. On the closed side we cut a circular hole to insert the lens. Then we inserted the one box into the other. We can slide the boxes to adjust the focus, and so far we've determined that 11-13 inches is prett good for a distance of about 5-6 feet. Here's what it looks like:



So what do the photos look like? Well, check my gallery here (http://www.shawnrider.com/scannerCamera ) for the whole show. But here are a few for the Strip:

Just to prove that we can take normal pictures, here are me and Sarah in classid mode.


Here is an example of distortion over time. As the image was taken (as the scanner scanned) I was playing with three dogs, Janis, Dolly and Mickey. It was fun.


And here's an example of multiples -- you get this effect by quickly changing position partway through the scan one or two times. It's hard to get right, and when it happens it kind of makes a weird pop-out effect a lot of the time. Notice the dirty apron -- that's what happens when you USE an apron, gentlemen.


These give a decent idea of the kind of fun we're having with the cam. Aside from the cool old meets new aesthetic, it really does new things in representing time and motion. It's like a super slow exposure without the blur. Each instance is sampled discreetly from the preceeding and following moments, creating that banding you see in the image. The image is crisp at the instant it's recorded. The images are literally sets of very narrow images captured in sequence.

So begins the saga of the scanner camera -- skip below if you want to see the first two shots..

What is a scanner camera? Well, I'd link to the fellow's page who describes it, but it's totally down now. And the Google Cache doesn't have any photos in it (cuz the site is down). So I'll summarize -- basically, think of a pinhole camera with a really big pinhole and instead of a bit of film in the back, there's a scanner.

We bought the Canon LIDE 35 USB-powered scanner (no extra plugs, super light, small, and works great) at CompUSA (thanks Fred!) and got some boxes from Office Max. We kind of screwed up when we built it because we didn't realize we should get boxes larger than the scanner and put the scanner on the inside. We have gotten some new boxes and will build version two tomorrow morning.



We thought we'd be able to use a regular camera lens, but didn't realize that the fellow who thought this up had actually disassembled the second-hand lenses he found and got the lens itself out. So if anyone has an extra overhead head laying around, let me know. Or a camera lens you don't mind giving away. Otherwise, we'll hunt the SuperFlea next weekend and make due with the Viewmaster lenses we grabbed from the toy section at Target. Why don't kids have cool toys like telescopes anymore???

Anyway, here are the first two images taken with the camera. Well, technically we took some nice photos of "white" and "black" a few times. But you can actually see things in these. These are the houses across the street, shot through a pinhole this evening. I'll post more details about the camera when we get it working better, especially if the other guy's site doesn't go back up soon -- I know lots of people want to know more about this, so we'll share our experiences.

On with the images!

I love open source stuff, but the prevalence of closed, corp software makes the decision something of a pragmatic one. For example, I run a videogame website. I cannot go All-Linux because then I wouldn't be able to play nearly as many games. Although there are some great games available for Linux, it's just not really an option. As a developer of internet media and multimedia, I also feel like it's essential to be able to simulate the user's experience as much as possible, and that means Windows.

But I appreciate being able to modify and customize software, and I believe in open source development and the creative commons and all that good stuff. I've tried to get students to use the free Photoshop alternative, Gimp (http://www.gimp.org) but its hard to justify -- there are like no jobs looking for Gimp skills and thousands looking for Photoshop skills.

So then I found GimpShop. (http://www.plasticbugs.com/) It ain't perfect, but it's pretty dang sweet. It definitely makes it easier to go between GIMP and PS. That's for sure.

The Experimental Gameplay Project: create 50 to 100 games in 1 semester. New games every week.

The Rules:

* each game must be made in less than 7 days
* each game must be made by one person, including all art, sound, and programming
* each game must be based around a certain "toy" ie. "gravity", "vegetation", "swarm behavior", etc.

Some really cool indy games here. Check it out:

My friend Steffan is always talking about doing a game where the rules change everytime. Then I always go, "CalvinBall!" and he sighs at me. Sorry Steffan.

But I found this Game of Nomic Wiki (http://www.nomic.net/~nomicwiki/index.php/GameOfNomic) which explains the Game of Nomic, which is a game where "changing the rules is a move." The game becomes less about aquiring points and more about twisting the rules. It sounds like what all of our politicians should be doing instead of playing Nomic with all of our culture and society.

So I made this thing last weekend. It's a dynamic short story called "So Random" (http://www.shawnrider.com/soRandom). I hope you like it. (e:paul) is helping me do cool things with it. Thanks (e:paul) -- you deserve your own day, like commemorating, like, your birth or something... hehe

Wow. That's all I can say here. Not only is this some of the highest quality LARPing I've ever seen, but it's also phenomenally well-shot documentary footage. Really nicely put together to illustrate the seriouisness of this play. It's great. The juxtaposition of imagery is excellent, especially in the sample here (http://www.darkonthemovie.com/darkon_video.html) but there's another promotional video sample that is availalb here ( ) and you should definitely check those out.

And I think, (e:paul), that this documentary shows why our project is a somewhat different thng than "LARP" proper. I would like to think that we're going to alter it and mainstream it so that, in general, it is a bit more flexible to provide the user experience people deisre at a range of levels. The technology will certainly take away somewhat from the fantasy roleplay element, but for other stories I think it will be excellent. What I think is crucial is that we tap into that energy the interviewees here talk about, which is that visceral quality of doing something in a location with a group of people. Facilitating community play.

I think our system could be better for some stories, too. For example, role-playing a Shadowrun or generally Cyberpunk/SciFi LARP would be very difficult without some kind of technology integration. Our system could be ideal for that.

Some thoughts... I'm so excited...

From BoingBoing (http://www.boingboing.net), but I can't resist this image -- woot, li'l cowpokes!

The artists who created these covers probably never meant for them to to be used as spank fodder, but being the mean-spirited, immature, asshole that I am, I've decided to do the only thing that a grown adult would do: point out juvenile observations of unintentionally sexual acts on comic book covers.Quoted from: Unintentionally sexual comic book covers: Part 1.

I just heard about this site, Our Media (http://www.ourmedia.org/), which apparently is some kind of relation to the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org), which is one of my most favorite things in the world.

Anyway, Our Media seems real cool so far. I'm trying it out right now. here's my link (http://www.ourmedia.org/user/11582)