I can't stop using doodlekids

Last night I found myself up at 2am obsessively making pictures using a combination of photoshop, pokemon and doodlekids. my wrists were hurting from using the keyboard and I was falling asleep. Why? I think I have an addiction to doodlekids.
Doodlekids is an app on the iphone which paints a different shape with every touch. if you hold your finger down and paint you get scattered lines of the same shape, in different colours. It's just a perfect combination of pretty and unpredictable to keep you experimenting. Here are some of my early doodles.

Then I discovered that you can doodle over photos. So this opened up a world of possibilities. First I had a go at using the stills from a Stan Brackhage animation that I had already saved for backgrounds etc.

Then I had a go at combining it with screenshots of other apps, my favourites are from combining it with 'ps mobile' 'planets' app and with 'ibeams lite'.

After that I started trying out putting the images into photoshop at different stages and combining them with underwater screenshots from my pokemon sapphire game on the VBA. Here is a progression of a few things I tried with this image.

And here I used one of the earlier photos, cutting lots of holes in the layers to let the shapes show through

Finally here's my favourite, combining the opening of pokemon sapphire, a photo of me at a festival and of course doodlekids. I call it 'step into laptopland'!

Connan Mockasin

This is Important at The Camp, Old Street.

I got to the gig quite late so I caught about half of what must have been Blue on Blue's set. The first thing I noticed was it was bloody loud, but the music was alright. the bassist had a really ridiculous haircut which was the most amusing thing. After I sneaked my beer outside past the knob of a bouncer and waited for connan to play.
The only disappointing aspect of connan's set was that it finished too soon. I can't remember all the songs but forever dolphin love was there, and Egon - which has a new arrangement that I really enjoyed. There was a bit of feedback which he got upset about but it didn't matter at all. Also the bassist was apparently a last minute replacement but you really couldn't tell.

For anyone who hasn't heard of him before Connan Mockasin is a small new zealander with a blonde mop of hair (which is surprisingly soft) whose music is described as alternative / japanese pop / showtunes but I think thats a little misleading. he's also totally adorable and super friendly.
his songs seem to be mostly about private jokes, or his cat, or stuff that generally doesn't make much sense. he also does lots of drawings and paintings which are usually disturbing. That's a really bad summary so just watch this for a better idea.




Connan's sound has really changed over the past 2 years that i've been listening, originally it had a brighter, more raw sorta sound and he used to use a sqeaky singing voice. Check out sneaky sneaky dogfriend to see what I mean




Nowadays there's these waves of basslines and percussion and cowbells that makes it way more psychedelic. Its more professional sounding to be honest. I couldn't say which style I prefered although I think his new style live is fantastic because you get all the bass-y vibrations. Here's megumi the milky way above



I think if he'd gone on for longer we'd have got some of his trademark audience involvement; he'd have got off the stage and had a walk around while singing or told us all to sit on the floor like he did at his album launch.

The art projections were kind of interesting, there was one of a woman in heels walking over and over some material, and ping pong onto van gogh pictures, and something else..

I've been to a gig by myself before but for some reason this time was way more awkward, I may put it down to the layout of the club - the audience also make up the only route to the bar so its harder to mind your own business. but the seating area is good, some proper sofas.
Anyway I missed the DJ bits wandering around looking for people, but we went back to their place and met some really interesting people and played that game where you draw parts of a person and fold it over. there was some pretty hilarious dancing going on. i also got some free pants so all in all a good evening.

Lois and I walked to hoxton station at 6 in the pouring rain but it was sort of refreshing, then some guy asked us to take a picture of him naked which I thought was an imaginative way of being creepy
SO basically the point is connans great and you should all go see him and/or spend all your money on his album.
One last thing, this is probably my favourite song but he doesn't play it any more.
OVER AND OUT

Technicolour gene coat


"Brain cells glow with different colours under UV light in this image of the brainstem of a "Brainbow" mouse.


The trick is to add a piece of DNA containing the genes for several different fluorescent proteins to a mouse, along with a mechanism that randomly cuts out some of these genes when activated in brain cells. As a result, different brain cells produce different mixtures of fluorescent proteins, creating a kaleidoscope of colours. "
THIS IS SO PRETTY!

Huzzah

This post is to celebrate my Brian Cox video having over 1,000 views!



I made the video a few months ago, before the Wonders series had even finished. I heard the Owl City song and just got this UNCONTROLLABLE urge to make this video. Which is always the best kind of urge when undertaking an editing project. I scoured the internet to find a way of making iplayer downloads editable, a process which I will NOT be revealing here.... Suffice to say it is very complicated. I used two of the episodes, and edited it right down to the most artyfarty pretty shots - Of which there are MANY because the cameraman is clearly in love with Brian. (who isn't?)
So it's had 1,100 views today. I have been watching the views go up almost obsessively. I especially enjoy the 'discovery' tab which shows me how people are finding the video...

Now the yellow bits are where my video has been on 'featured video' which is totally cool!
But I get a lot of views from people looking for that bloody 'Brian Cox Spoof' video because mine is a response to it. Yes its funny, but it got 131,158 views in the same time that mine got 1,000 and that pisses me off. Because mine had ten times the work go into it. *sulk*
But on a positive note, the video has gone down very well, with a bunch of people favouriting it and one guy even stole it and uploaded it seperately! ...I chased him up and made him take it down. Turns out they're hankering for a better quality upload, which turns out to be trickier than anticipated.
As for whether Brian himself has seen it, who can tell, but I sent it to him a gadzillion times so lets hope so. :)

Three really good sites to keep an eye on at the moment are www.newscientist.com, www.popsci.com and www.ted.com

They're all bursting with really really interesting stuff, the sort of stuff that's a little bit hard to make yourself watch without checking your facebook in the middle but its worth it, really. (the internet has definitely shortened my attention span...)

Here are a few choice articles and videos that I've enjoyed the most:

British Amputee Cat First to Get Bone-Grafter Exoprosthetic Paws


this is so cute.. and, frankly, should have been done years ago. I caught a program about pioneering vetenary surgery on pets that is using artificial knee joints and stuff, but they were saying how been doing it to humans for decades, why not animals? e.g. RACEHORSES?

(I'm leaving out the whole ethical business here but in terms of pushing boundaries its all hunkydory)

Chatroulette Plans Penis-Recognition Algorithm to Block Pervy Users




so so so funny. This is best appreciated if you have spent an evening on chatroulette, where you will discover that 3 out of 4 people just turn out to be a guy having a wank. Penis recognition software?? seriously? I loved the comment of one guy who said

‎"Why do I get the impression that these same wierdos will start to dress up their penis in odd costumes to bypass the software?"

Incidentally the picture is from possibly the best south park episode ever, which deserves a blog in itself.

Clay Shirky: How cognitive surplus will change the world



this is a good'un, its about all the faffing we do on the internet in our spare time and what it can be used for. It's also interesting because he basically explains how we are more generous in a social contract than in a monetary one.
It's nice to hear people talking positively about the internet for a change. He says how all our new technology has revealed how generous we are as a race and how much we enjoy sharing.

Dan Gilbert asks, Why are we happy?



This one really got me thinking. Its basically about how we have two types of happiness, synthesised and natural, and how in society we PERCEIVE synthesised happiness to be inferior to natural - BUT IT ISN'T!!! Because when we 'make do' we are actually happier than when we get what we 'want'... I found it really relaxing cos it was like, you'll be happy no matter what happens to you.. But sabine said it made her all nervous like if you understand this video you will be happy

Jonathan Harris: the Web's secret stories



Last one from TED. Another corker about the internet. It's not that great but what I love about it is the visualisation of information, which is something cropping up an awful lot at the moment with google maps and iphones and stuff.

Time Lords discovered in California




OKAY so it's not really about time lords, its about synaesthesia and I LOVE SYNAESTHESIA, I do kind of wish I had it.. I'm always on the look out for new combinations of senses to check whether I have any of my own wacky little eccentricities.. 'even numbers ARE warm coloured!!!' and so on
So these people see time, mostly in circular shapes like one woman has a calendar thats a circle around her body. I get that, because in my head the yearly calendar is like a clock layed flat.
But anyway imagine being able to see time!? reminds me of Donnie Darko with the tube coming out of his stomach.

There's tonnes of other stuff but to be honest the best place to find this sorta thing is on Derren Brown's blog or his twitter - sounds mental but he is ridiculously busy finding interesting articles, I can't keep up with him.
I'm going to sleep now, got a horrible cold but a day off tomorrow and its set to be a scorcher. Toodles!

I'm sitting in bed next to a sleeping lois in whitechapel. shes knackered cos shes been working all day and then we went to gay pride in soho and got a bit tiddly and had chinese and ice cream. But i'm chronically nocturnal and I was lying looking at the stars from the massive open window and the steam rising from the hospital incinerator and my head was whirring so I started to type.
I've played a lot of pokemon since I moved out of halls. (maybe its a clinging on to doing stupidly childish timewasting stuff leftover from furzedown) Sabine got me into it, so I blame her. basically what I didnt realise is that you can download a gameboy visualiser thing onto your laptop and then play loads of different gameboy games on it AND you dont even have to play it little, you can make it full screen if you like!
The last time i played pokemon was when i was about 9, so it was familiar but i didnt know it back to front (like sabine haaar har) I got sapphire only cus it was the first that happened to work when i downloaded it. im actually finding it enjoyably challenging, but training up my pokemon in the long grass was a little monotonous. the game is pretty funny, I saved some screen shots of the bits that made me laugh:





what's the obsession with the soil being 'soft and loamy'??? anyway i had to stop because when i went to bed the trees outside my window looked like pokemon (a charizard and an abra to be precise) and then i had horrible swirly dreams about pokemon battles where i couldnt work out which types were most effective against each other. (cos its not logical right, fire is really effective against electric, but theyre all metal and stuff??)

im working on monday for two weeks and its a fine job but really mind numbingly boring sometimes so i need stuff to occupy my head with like, interesting things so if anyone has any cool thought provoking stuff i could do with it about now. all im going on at the moment is the TED lectures, ive watched one today - was about cognitive surplus, pretty much my area.. and it was about how people are really generous and enjoy sharing and we've not realised this as much as we have in the new digital world and stuff.
http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cognitive_surplus_will_change_the_world.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2010-06-29&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

Coldplay 2008

This is the best moment of my life so far, captured on film:
http://www.coldplay.com/newsdetail.php?id=120&page=480