a lot of stuff and nonsense from eclectech

Eclectech was 6 yesterday!* I decided I couldn't let it pass without getting something online so I finally got round to tweaking the second part of the animation I made for the June baked beats event.

Medium Wave. 1.5MB Flash.

As before it's a mash up of lots of my looping animations put to a very fine tune from the Voodoo Trombone Quartet.

For those in London there is another baked beats event tomorrow, with music from the fabulous Mr and Mrs Swing amongst others. There should be some silly moving pictures from me too.

* The web site that is, not me.

Labels: blether, flash animation, mr and mrs swing, voodoo trombone quartet

A couple of weeks back I promised a frisky tortoise so here he is. Rumour has it that later on he did actually manage to mount the lady tortoise the correct way round; he was 100 odd years old so I suppose he's not doing bad really.
Tortoise of Lurve

And whilst I'm here (and as I have another mad week ahead and am unlikely to get much online playtime) I recommend having a wee peek over at indexed, I particularly liked this one.

I'm restraining myself from ranting about this. I saw a couple from the plane being interviewed saying something along the lines of "Rightly or wrongly the atmosphere changed when they got on board".

I think you'll find that's wrongly. Yes. Definitely.

Och well. Enjoy the tortoise of lurve. I hope to reappear before the week ends with the next part of my Baked Beats animation but I might be being overly optimistic.

Labels: blether, neat links, news links, video

I am ridiculously busy at the moment but my bookmarks are overflowing so time for a little link dump.

I was touched by this thought provoking post at Stranger Than Fiction. Thanks to Dana Shalash for commenting on here, leading me to nose around her site.

Interesting article about how only traitors try to make us afraid of terrorists, particularly given the recent declaration from Reid that terror 'may force freedom curbs'.

And that was before the alleged terror plot of a couple of days ago.

A depressing addition to these pieces is this quote from Hermann Goering, at the time of the Nuremberg trials.

"People don’t want war [...] the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

Hmm. Anyhow, onto lighter things at YouTube.

I don't use YouTube for my personal stuff as I prefer to keep control over it on my own web site, am not entirely happy with the terms of use and remain generally unsure about it all. That said, one of my animations is up there at the moment; Chained to My PC. Originally created for the TUC's WorkSmart site this new version was adapted for the Communications Workers of America.

Hopefully it will continue to go down well, although I see I'm accused of 'poor taste' and vulgarity. Heh. I can't get excited about a dog peeing I'm afraid. I did fume when I was informed that there was a company down the road with call centre staff unable to go to the loo without putting their hands up and asking a supervisor, which I feel is more important. Fortunately it seems a few folk agree.

While I'm at YouTube I did find this amusing; Python's Camelot interlude, by Kirk and crew. A very nice ludicrously silly mashup. Hooray.

There's the 95 theses of geek activism post over at science addiction that's a fine read. Good points well made, and some interesting links.

I was both amused and irritated at the news that a website for Mums has had to request all users avoid discussing Gina Ford, allegedly a childcare guru, after she attempted to get their entire site taken offline for people slagging her off in the forums, although the powers-that-be were removing the offending posts. I don't know if she understands kids (although from what I've read over the last week I don't think I'd have a great deal of time for her) but she certainly doesn't seem to understand the net. A ridiculous overreaction to a site that was doing so much that she requested. Thanks to John for the tip.

And finally my random Pants Pirate Message of the day, because it tickled me.

/link dump

Edit: The observant will notice that this claims to have been posted on Friday, but appeared on Monday. That'll be the 'chained to my desk' problem interfering with my blether, although being more accurate I was chained to a model of an alternate world and my camera. More fun than a desk at least.

Labels: blether, disgruntled, flash animation, flash toy, neat links, NO2ID

I have been making more things for the TUC with Mr DogHorse.

A Very Personal Assistant. A tale of one Pup, his new job and the surprises it holds for him because he didn't check out the company first.

And once you're through with the puppies I've got some new photos of monkeys and apes and meerkats and prairie dogs and everything online too. They're rather cute.

Video of a giant tortoise attempting to hump another the wrong way round might appear online soon too, if you're very lucky.

Labels: flash animation, photos