I’m updating this blog via a fresh installation of Jaunty Jackalope. Yay! Everything worked right away, and I’m again sinking into the Linux-therefore-invincible state of mind. I missed putting on my sudo gloves.
GIMP is looking more tidy, by the way. Intewesting.
Yahoo will be closing Geocities sometime this year. That’s one less artifact to exhibit, for those of us who would have liked to teach our children about the early days of the Web. Back then, Geocities was my well of anime bliss – blinking backgrounds, midis and the unrepentant use of Times New Roman were merely part of the package. I embraced them. Heck, I looked forward to them. They were signs that pointed home.
As Crunchgear describes, “We make fun, but GeoCities was one of the pillars of the blooming web, and shared its growing pains as well.” Now I’m waiting for someone to ask me what a webring is.
It cracks me up that there’s still a used copy of the first romance novel I ever read on Amazon, for $0.01 (P0.48). That blond, all-geared up girl on the cover became my idea of American beauty for years, and taught me that red and white are the coolest colors you can ever wear. (Years later, Zac Efron moves in for the kill.) Thank you, Suzanne Rand. I hope you got paid a dollar at least – plus a light, heterosexual kiss.
Whoa, this totally looks like a stage from Prince of Persia – only it’s in Italy. Apart from the geeky reference aspect, I’m also enjoying the texture and strong vertical-ness of this one. Edited with GIMP, too. (Alas, I’m not brave enough to make the switch.)
I’m still discovering search engine optimization (SEO), but I’ve always felt that it’s like magic – in the geeky sense that it only becomes good or evil by the people who use it. The unfortunate case with people is that many of us are profit-obsessed, moral dead-ends. I don’t usually mind this so much, except when it manifests in the practice of hidden-link-mongering that even my beloved Kotaku is guilty of. That, and websites made up entirely of keywords. Those just freak me out. The content itself looks valid, but read it and you know it’s gibberish, like an English Lorem Ipsum. Imagine! So much junk on the internet, and it’s not even porn.
Anyone in need of adorable, hand-drawn stationery should check out this collection of free downloads from The Small Object, an online shop run by an artist named Sarah Neuburger. These playful, squiggly designs also figure on her other works, mostly craft objects and home stuff (even the site’s favicon). Very, very cute.
While designing a cover for a friend’s thesis DVD, I came across this roundup of Criterion Collection box art. Beautiful stuff. Beautiful, expensive-looking stuff. My favorite is Amarcord, above, which suggested “carnivalesque” even before I read the synopsis. That and the Fellini bit, there.
Is anything cooler than doing this for a living? (“Hey, artist-person, I need a cover for Fellini’s 8½, stat. What, you haven’t watched it yet? Well, here’s a fresh copy!“) I’d love to see the packaging in real life – the box alone may be worth its own photoshoot on Flickr. It better be, at nearly two thousand pesos. Meanwhile the closest I’ve come to a Criterion product is a pirated copy of Pygmalion, which got everything down except for the shiny Chinese text. Huzzah!
Confession: I slept through half of 8½. Dreadful, I know. But it was siesta time, and the classroom was dark and cold and perfect. Even a Zac Efron shower scene can’t contend with that.
In an attempt to get a decent screencap of Hanuda Noodles, I tried to run Siren on an emulator called PCSX2. I got as far as the title screen. But hey! It was totally worth it, just knowing it’s possible. Read more
This news comes kind of late (5 days ago), but as my imaginary audience knows I live mostly in my head, where a time distortion curtain is always a-flutter. Anyway - Anti-Piracy Law Causes Drop in Swedish Internet Traffic. So much for Sweden being the last bastion of filesharing.
“Most experts (including more neutral ones) judge it as an initial scare effect that will wear off after a week or two,” Swedish Pirate Party Chairman Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak, adding “This is what disturbs me the most — that the industry thrives on scaring the common citizen.”
So far, two suspected pirates have been arrested. They have since been cut from their daemons. (I kid – they’re to be questioned further, according to the article.)
However, more Swedes are also seeking out services that offer web anonymity, so the inquisition may just end up making more profit for them, and even more bad press for the knights of copyright. Perhaps downloaders could also acquire the habit of looking over their shoulders once in a while. Paranoia – the government does it so, so well.
Zooey Deschanel Wants You To Know That She’s Not Katy Perry. Not only do they look alike, but they also do the wide-eyed, open-mouthed vintage pinup-girl look so well. I like Katy Perry, but I love love love Zooey. I want to take her shopping and have her model the clothes I pick for her. Certainly I’m not the first pervert to think of that.
