Disinfotainment announces the latest exciting experiment in QuickTime streaming video, broadcasting live from my art studio. I will work on a series of paintings live in front of a video camera, over a period of days. You can check in on my progress, watch as the image develops, and get a quick look at how a painter works. I will comment on my work as it progresses, and viewers are invited to leave their own comments.
Some of the most influential films in all of Modern Art are films of famous painters painting. Films of Pollock and Picasso painting on the reverse side of a glass are particularly famous, and have influenced (for good or ill) many painters including myself. There is something mysterious and unknown that happens when painters paint, something mostly unknown to the art viewing public and virtually impossible for artists to explain. Some artists open their studios once a year to allow visitors, but most artists would never allow anyone to watch over their shoulder while painting. Now I am opening not just my studio, but my easel to the public for realtime viewing. At the end of the experiment, I will offer these works for sale at low cost. By prior agreement, the first $150 of any sales will go towards a commercial license for Moveable Type. You can support the arts, and support Open Source software authors too!
I do not know how this experiment will develop. An experiment wouldn’t be worth doing if I knew in advance what I will learn in the process. I am not sure if this will even work. I’ve upgraded my systems to deliver streaming video more smoothly, but this system is based on a preview version of QuickTime Broadcaster, so it is strictly experimental. I will begin with low-bandwidth streams visible over a 56k modem, and plan on increasing the speed and improving quality as the experiment progresses. Please view the Test Stream and please leave a comment if you can or cannot see the live video stream. Yes, the test stream is too dark, this is just a test stream of live TV, the studiocam looks much better than this. I expect to go live and start painting this afternoon, perhaps in only a few hours if I get reports that the test stream is successful.
Update 2:15PM Still working on setting up live streaming, with mixed results. Please keep testing and leave a comment to let me know if you can or can not see the stream.
Author: Charles
Advanced Anti-Spam Techniques for MacOS X
I’ve just completed the first release of a new document, Advanced Anti-Spam Techniques for MacOS X. It describes my strategy for reducing spam with simple procmail scripts. I hope to add new strategies to this page, if anyone has suggestions then please let me know.
The Only Good Art Joke
There just are no jokes about art that everyone laughs at. There is a long tradition of poking fun at modern art, but there just aren’t any gut laughs, except for this one joke. It’s a sight gag, so I will show you the painting too.
On the Mary Tyler Moore show, Mary has convinced Lou to let Rhoda redecorate his apartment. The refurbishment is done and Lou hates it. Everything is a modern designer’s fantasy in chrome and glass, and the centerpiece is a very fine painting, “I Dreamt I Saw the Number Five in Gold” by Charles Demuth.
This is one of my favorite paintings, it’s in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and is considered a primary example of early American Modernism. But Lou hates the painting. Rhoda isn’t around so he yells at Mary, questioning Rhoda’s artistic taste. He accuses Rhoda of being too hasty in selecting his furnishings. He goes right up to the Demuth painting and screams at Mary, “I bet Rhoda had to look through four other paintings before she picked this one!”
My Favorite Art Joke
I finally located the original text of my favorite joke, as published long ago in Ian Shoales’ San Francisco Chronicle column. I’ve told this joke over and over and mangled it and never done it justice. So here it is.
How many deconstructionists does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Even the framing of this question makes a grid of patriarchal assumptions that reveals a slavish devotion to phallocentric ideas – such as, technical accomplishment has inherent value, knowledge can be attained and quantities of labor can be determined empirically, all of which makes a discourse which further marginalizes the already disenfranchised.
Free Spam Filtering for MacOS X: Important Update
I have just released an update to the hugely popular document Free Spam Filtering for MacOS X. SpamBouncer has been updated to version 1.5 so the updated documentation has the new installation procedures, plus many improvements and new procedures. The new version of SpamBouncer includes the latest anti-spam technology. So get it.
DSL: Good News, Bad News
I was offline for a day while QWest worked on my DSL line, but now I’m back (sort of). There is an abundance of good and bad news. The bad news is that the main trunk line between the telco and my neighborhood junction box was bad. The good news is that they replaced it. It was a long cable run, DSL hasn’t been available in my neighborhood, this far from the telco before. But when QWest repaired the trunk line, they discovered the local line between the junction box and my house was corroded and noisy. So they replaced that too. Now I have all-new cabling from the telco to my home, which will solve the intermittent connection problem. The tech wanted to check my Cisco 678 router and see if it trained. He checked it and said the output port is bad. This would explain a lot of problems I’m having inside the local network. The Cisco router connects and interacts perfectly with QWest and my ISP, however, it has a few problems with everything inside my local network.
QWest says they’ll replace my Cisco 678, I told them that since it was DOA they should expedite a replacement, I’ve been struggling with this unit for 2 weeks beyond the initial install target and they better get a replacement in my hands pronto.
The server and net connections seem stable now, so I’ll leave this running and see if it works. If you notice any unusual problems (slow page loads, unable to stream, the usual culprits) then let me know, it will help in debugging.
All Better Now (?)
I replaced my ancient 10BaseT hub with a new 10/100 switch, the server appears to be working better. QWest checked my line and says the quality is poor, so I frequently lose contact with the net. They promise to repair the line by tomorrow at 2:30PM. Bear with me, I’ll get these problems worked out soon.
DSL Hell
I’m still struggling with QWest DSL problems. My LAN is hosed, it takes between 60 and 180 seconds to load pages between machines inside my local network. It doesn’t seem to affect outside users, but I can’t even load self-served pages on my own CPU without the annoying delay. Something is deeply hosed. I’m going through NetInfo docs, but it appears I might have to rebuild a new OS from scratch. My ISP seems to think it’s a problem with the new Cisco 678 firmware v2.4.6, they recommend going back to v2.4.1 which is so ancient that it’s vulnerable to the Code Red worm. They believe the router has trouble recognizing machines within the local net, and that it’s due to a bug introduced in the post-v2.4.1 firmware. That doesn’t sound good. I may be forced to do something stupid like configure a proxy and a nameserver.
Disinfotainment now on QWest DSL
I’ve just switched over to QWest DSL, it appears the server is working correctly, if a bit slowly. Latency is poor but bandwidth is excellent. If anyone notices problems, such as slow page loading, video won’t stream, etc. then please leave me a comment. Some people who have not been able to see the streaming videos may now be successful, so give it a try! This DSL upgrade is designed solely to improve streaming video services, let me know if it works.
IBM PS/2
For no particular reason, here is an old photograph of an IBM PS/2 computer. I don’t remember what model this is, but it’s a 286 and fastest they made at the time. I used to work at this computer, in the middle of the busiest computer store in the world. Somewhere I have a photograph of me typing at this computer, taken from a tall scaffold, the workstation is in the middle of tall stacks of computers up to the ceiling.
