Movie

I find that I am not much for verbiage right now. I am going to exercise class tonight.

Inspired by Tim, I have been making low res(to speed up the rendering), wide-angle fractals. Just ideas in color or black and white. Here is an old black and white movie of snowfall.

Tired Eye

After wedding planning, curriculum design, crazy school days, and now taxes, my eyes are tired!

Woot Competition

I have recently been pulled into the time-limited, oddly-creative world of Woot competitions. Each week there is a challenge to create an image around a theme involving one of their daily products. This one revolved around the use of a paper shredder as a main character in an action film. While I don't have anywhere near the chop skills of many of the contest entrants, I do enjoy playing with the ideas. Perhaps I'll win a flying monkey. Here are my two entries for this contest. I even had someone reference one of my entries which is as much as I could hope for.

Hello Sunshine

Spring is here, the sun has returned, soon warmth will follow. This image reminds me of the surface of the sun.

Impermanence

It is funny how things are absolute and then without looking become fluid. A while back, there was a fractal that would not render regardless of the many things I tried. I did all the highly technical things like restarting the program and computer, and then devolved into the less technical including sticking out my tongue, cursing, and singing silly songs about obstinate fractals. Nothing seemed to work. Out of sheer perverseness I tried again last night. Low and behold, it rendered. Here is the recalcitrant dancing light.

What's in a Group?

In searching for the name for this new fractal, I looked up collective nouns to find what a group of butterflies is called. My instinct was swarm, but that did not sound poetic or reflective of this image. Instead, flight of butterflies sounds much better. Other choices include rabble, roost and flutter. We humans take on collectives of other animals when congregating. A posse is a group of turkeys which accurately describes many groups of people who self describe as a posse. This was a particularly obnoxious group of guys in my highschool who had rather inflated egos. I thought I had escaped them by going to college far away, but one member also went to the same college a year before I did. When I arrived, there was the same arrogant group of guys claiming to be the "posse." I only just found out that they were turkeys.

What other collective nouns describe groups of humans? Do we need new ones to accurately describe our collective actions when in a group? Cattle, kangaroos, and emu gather in a mob; elk, weasels, bison, buffalo, dogs, and turkeys (they keep coming up) are also known in groups as gangs. Shouldn't our gangs really be prides, ambushes, aeries, or batteries? I just get this picture of wanna-be toughs with their in-fashion falling-down pants strutting around like turkeys.

Here is my flight of butterflies. They are fluttering through sunbeams and something that looks like webs in the background, but I did not see this as sinister. Just a more gentle and beautiful image than I normally go for.

Five or Two

This recent fractal reminds me of a sand dollar. I remember reading something about a significant correlation between starfish (another animal with fivefold [pentalateral?] symmetry) and human DNA. There are many weird articles on the Internet relating to this. What if we evolved with five or ten eyes, arms, legs, etc? Would our problems be seen as a balance between five possibilities instead of right/wrong or good/bad? Would our lack of bilateral symmetry (yes Sand Dollars do have bilateral symmetry) change the idea that there are two sides to every problem? This is interestingly similar to the design of Magic the Gathering card game with its five colors.

Oh, I'll take number 4490

I just made the number up after laughing myself silly.

Order your own...

Here is my latest, a sea monster plowing through the currents of an ancient ocean:

A Week of Fish and Fish

This week seemed to pass by so quickly and yet take forever. In school, my students probably remember this week as the week that the placid algae eater (see picture of a the pleco's cousin at right) attacked and killed one of its new tank-mates. This was during a read-aloud that was promptly cut short for the nature show. I am not sure that tank is moving with the rest of my classroom materials to the new building next year. I never kept fish as a child, and while I enjoy a nice fishtank in someone else's house or business, I do not like the maintenance and upkeep they require.

And now to fish today. It is a rainy day in Philly, and we are going to the food tasting for the wedding meal. There will be several fish courses as well as some chicken. I imagine I will be stuffed after that. Along the way there is another photographer. Much to be done this weekend, and I still have not even touched my grading.

Why do people misuse apostrophes so regularly? Isn't it another keystroke to put one it? I find they are added incorrectly more often than left out, and this happens most often with plural's. (See that sneaky example of what I am talking about, hmm?)

Woot! There it is

My first post to Woot was in their just finished challenge to create the worst movie of a TV show that has not been made yet. Scroll down this linked page for my Arsenio Hall entry.

My school is having a fundraising auction, so I contributed some items from my store and will donate all proceeds from April 8-23 as well. Here is the business card I created for the event.

Welcome Speedsnail!

Here is Speedsnail. Is it a fractal constellation racing in a blaze of greens, yellows, and oranges across the mathematical firmament? I have taken details from its heart and from its orbits in the upper left corner. Click on them to really see the detail.

Mystery Solved?

The sleuth has a report. I tried to eliminate a recent anti-virus software upgrade as the culprit by disabling it while rendering my Dancing Light fractal, but to no avail. I then rendered another fractal over a 12 hour period, and this on was fine. My conclusion is that the file has a problem somewhere. I may try to recreate it with another equation and the same coloring algorithms to see if that is the problem. I really do like the look of the fractal, but who knows what it would look like when rendered. There are always neat surprises to find.This fractal, called Wind, was just an attempt to see if I could still render more complex fractals. Not much in the way of transparencies, masks, etc. However, I am always interested in the closeups from various sections of my fractals such as this one from Wind.In my store, I used closeups on quite a few items including many Coral Fractal items. These two postcards show a detail on the left and the entire image on the right. Both are interesting in their own right.

The Choices

So, I have done a little e-research (ie, looking through several websites). Here are my final selections:

No Sweat- dedicated to no sweatshop labor, not organic-$18.50

Janice's- Organic cotton sweatpants-$44.95

Kasper Organics- French Terry organic pants-$26.95

Justice Clothing-another no sweatshop but not organic clothing source-$21.50

I eliminated the $50-$60 range of sweatpants from the organic crowd. I am pretty torn between organic on one side and union made on the other. I think I will go with the French Terry.

(edited) OOOOPS. Then I tried to order. Out of stock was the issue for two choices, so I went with Justice Clothing. This process took far too long.(end of edit)

That fractal rendered into nothingness again. I have saved it as another file and am trying to re-render it, but I do not have great hope. It is too bad as the image looks pretty neat. Ah, well.

Ghost Appears, Dancing Light AWOL

Here is a closeup of the ghost fractal. I like this even better than the original. My dancing light fractal is still AWOL, so I am redering it for the fourth time. Like they always say, "Fourth time's a charm." You can see why I called this one Ghost.Today was pretty productive. Did some grading, then went on one of those never-ending and always-increasing errand runs. It started with a wonderful massage. Then off to Target for a new pair of sweats and a floor lamp so I can read at night in bed. Neither were to be found, and I hopped over to another mega-store, Home Depot, for the lamp. They had it. The sweats, however, made me think as I am trying to change my buying habits to support more local and fair wage goods. I think I will go online and find an organic, fair wage pair for some ridiculous price compared to the 5 bucks that the non-existent Target ones were supposed to be. I'll bite the bullet and hope that most of that cash is actually going to the producers and manufacturers. Any suggestions?

Dan Riles and the Case of the Mysterious Fractal

I have rendered this fractal three times now, and it never appears in the destination folder. I actually quite like the image and am interested in how it differs when rendered. However, it has gone missing. A full disk search turned up nada. I, like other famous boy detectives, shall have to gather my trusted side-kick and head out into the neighborhood to look for clues and solve this mystery. Meanwhile, the next fractal that I am rendering may not disappear, so I hope my next post will actually have something to show.

On another note, I have found that live bookmarks make it so easy to keep up with the few blogs that I now read. I pop them in a folder in my bookmark bar (Firefox) and just hover over them to see if there is anything new. The wonders of yesterday's technology that I am just now appreciating.

Home Again

The trip was a success! Our parents met before we even got there, and they hit it off. We then spent Saturday evening together with dinner at one of my parent's favorite restaurants, Zinnia. The walls are really lavender in there.On Sunday, after a brunch at the St. Louis Bread Co. (history on how it became Panera), we headed to the orchid show at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Then, Sunday night, there was the contra dance.

After a long day of travel yesterday, we got back around 4:00. It was a wonderful trip. We were greeted by several large boxes on the landing! A down comforter, quilt, and a set of pyrex cookware. Our registry items arriving, beginning with an asparagus cooker, adds another level of reality to the whole wedding process. The next few days will be filled with things like photographers, invitations, and much more.

Last night, my computer restarted and dumped the newest fractal I was working on. I have restarted it, but you, dear reader, will just have to wait for a new fractal image.

Glazed Grin

Dance euphoria can lead to a grin glazed over the face. I felt that I had such a look for a vast majority of the night. Many folks who had not danced for a while came out to the dance and it was a treat to see them all. This is a community that I have been part of for about 16 years, and friendships that long, formed through dance, food, and conversation, are a wonderful thing. It was heady and exciting, and a warmup for our wedding. I found that the warning to eat during the wedding played out here because with all the catching up with people, I hardly got a bite in. Also, I did not drink enough water. Notes for the July event!

Happy Dan is going to sleep!
G'night

Final Fractal for a Few Days

This is my final fractal for a few days. The original image from which I created this looked like a ghost of a spiral floating in a blue space. I then did all kinds of coloring and such to it to create this, and am going to do a closeup of the spiral which looks really good at high resolution. It will require a re-render when I return. I may be able to post while traveling, but I am not counting on it.

We are scheduled to fly out of here around 5:oo. However, there are strong gusts and rain, so I do not know how that will affect the plane.

It seems that interesting thoughts occur to me in the morning when I am in a rush to get to school. I should find a way to capture them for later. Voice/data recorder might be the thing.

Communication Corollary

Having sent out an email about an impending dance Reena and I are hosting in St. Louis, it is amazing how voices from the past, both near and far, have come whispering in. A high school friend, a contra buddy, a prospective Haverford student's mother who I have never met, a teacher at a former school, and more. It is a wonderful web of new and old connections rippling around this event in time. It is as if all these connections are there all along, and this event and this email shone light or set in motion fibers of my social network that had lain dormant. Wonderful memories, new stories, and a feeling of extended community all have come from this experience.

It is a veritable cornucopia of good feeling!

Communication

Email and blogs, along with other Internet features, have created such a different style of communication from snail mail and telephone. I remember as a kid that I would call a person up, and if they weren't there, then the phone would just ring. Later, answering machines at least let them know you had called and the topic you wanted to talk about. Letters could be copied and sent individually to many people. Most notably chain letters served this purpose, but mostly they were a one-to-one type of correspondence similar to the phone.

Cell phones have changed the magnitude of this type of communication, but I do not think they have changed the manner of communication. The expectation when dialing a person is that they will be available and that they will pick up. Any person can be asked any thing at any time. I resisted getting a cell for quite a while, and it was only the airport connection and long distance features during a year of St. Louis to Boston dating that I was convinced to finally get one. I still have issue with the prevalence of personal conversation in public space and the interruption of time with people caused by answering cell phones. I replaced my first cell with a combination cell and pda. I couldn't carry two electronics around, and syncing everything was a nightmare. I wanted one without a keyboard that I could afford, and this Kyocera 7135 was what I came up with. I bought one on eBay, and it was set up to work with my provider, Verizon. Getting them to make the change, well that is another story.

IM, Blogs, and email insert an element of multi-party communication that formerly happened face to face in the same physical space. IM is most analogous with the conversation happening "instantly." Blogs create an extended conversation space for people to weave in and out as they choose. I have also found that people of like minds wander in and out of each other's blogs allowing for connections that were not possible before. Email combines elements of the two creating a disjointed conversation space that has a fluidity that can be a strength or weakness for communication.

I am fascinated in the changes that these communication tools have wrought on the psyche, habits, and cultural norms of the people using them.

Another form of communication is the parent-teacher conference. I have finished a full day of those and am looking at a half day of them after teaching tomorrow. This time, no one came in with an agenda, and all went fairly smoothly.

Well off to grading and curriculum; I will leave you with the latest fractal called Snowflake in honor of the recent weather that did not close my school on Monday despite the over 350 area schools that were out.