okay.. what. the. fuck? .'.

let's travel back in time a couple of hours to 4pm my time..

me: "Yayyyy! My new laptop! It's here!
oooooh.. shiiiny bits and matte bits... ooohh fastttt!"
(proceeds to go through the usual setup procedures, "hmm.. a couple of dodgy pixels on the screen.. no biggie.")

now zoom forward to 6:30pm

me: "Well.. that's windows pretty much installed, I'll go make a cup of tea and then it's time to make some music!"

6:45pm

me(freshly cigaretted and clutching a few CDs): "Alriiight.. let's get to it! what should I insta... okay.. what. the.. fuck?"


Alright alright.. so I suck at monologues.. Basically, the computer was no longer doing anything - and showed no signs of changing it's mind.
Called up overstock.com - they said I can return it (phew!) and they'll do a refund, minus a 15% restocking fee (on a dead computer?). But I want a computer, how about a replacement? "Sure, we can do replacements, what we do is send you a label, which you put on the box to ship it back to us, we process that and then we send you another.. that will take about a month..."

I. Am. Utterly. Fuckin. Speechless.

phobius is frantically avoiding feeling like Universe simply doesn't want him to have a computer..

|this little comment was deleted :)|

*choking sounds*

That timely moment of ultimate release .'.

I have come to talk of many things. Precisely all of the things except for That.
Yes, that's right pholks, do not be fooled by my overzealous choice of heading, there will be no talk of such things here and now.
Instead let me first mention that I rerouted emails to my mobile phone a few days ago in anticipation of a certain automated correspondance - it came, my order confirmed, within the next two days I shall have the latest technology for masculine enhancement! (well, actually, I'll have a computer - I knew I couldn't trust those online stores..)

...and that means... MUSIC! CODE! DESIGN! ..money?

..a shed blah deefar kinopes hoe.

TUNGI (That Un Named Genetic Imager) .'.

Whipped a little something up last night - tweaked it a bit this evening.
It generates images using a simple gene structure, you can mutate images, they're scalable, they're
pretty.

a quick sample:









There are plenty more examples at The Gene Gallery, have a look, have a laugh - try your hand at unnatural selection.

note: this is highly experimental, messy programming, so if something breaks, please let me know.

Hey peoples, my apologies for the audio section being down for the last couple of hours, I updating it and forgot to do so in a non-live directory - it is now up and running (I gave up ;-P)

So I had a few minutes and was putting the family into google::images, found a really nice photo of a lilikoi, which is a passionflower/fruit and also the name of my sister. Funny thing really, I had no idea it's name was a reference to Christ's wounds, but apparently it is.(I haven't looked into that.)

Whipped up a silly language... .'.

Here's a sample of an [as yet] unnamed language, we'll call it sotlicod for now (sotlicod means (roughly) 'magic-ish')



Sotlicod is one of a few languages that I'm working on at the moment, they are all based around the same symbolic network that I've constructed.

The alphabet shown is one of 5 that I made tonight just for sotlicot (each of the languages have a few alphabets, each with a different goal (speed, aesthetic value, ease of reading), that will eventually be consolidated into the best fit. They all have 24 consonants and 5 vowels.

Sotlicod is interesting in it's similarity to arabic in that it's limited to the use of verbs, nouns and prepositions. It's verbs are based on triconsonantal roots, which are also used to make the nouns.

The vocabulary is quite limited at the moment, but aside from that the language itself is near complete. My choice of consonants for the roots was a little off-the-cuff, which has led to it having a sort of klunky sound, so the vocabulary will revised so that the consonants have a more sensible alignment on the symbol map.

So far i've been working on it for four hours, the text is a primitive ramble warning against procrastination (eminonti).

any questions?

Forehead slappers .'.

Musical puns reminded me of a couple of literary gags that I only recently noticed (forgive me if I already hit you with these, or if they're common knowledge or something, I just love things that feel like they should be obvious but were heretofore unnoticed...
(PLEASE feel free to add your own in 'comments', I'll put up more as I think/remember 'em)


1. The Illuminatus Trilogy - this one's probably obvious to most Americans - but - the name of the character "Saul Goodman" is a simple permutation of 'S all good, man' ("It's all good, man"). reasonably general purpose, but used for "you're welcome" or "no worries" or "okay" etc..
The phrase only stuck around because the usage is similar in italian "tutto bene."
(Incidentally - Saul is from the Hebrew "Sha'ul" meaning "desired," "[longed/prayed] for", it's also the pre-christian name for Saint Paul. Completely irrelevant, but hey..)

2. A Clockwork Orange - the ludovico technique. My undereducated latin tells me that means "I play, I conquor." Was that his intention, or is there a different reason he used the name? Like perhaps, it sounds a lot like "Ludwig"? Alex (Alexandros) - "defending men" from Greek alexein "to defend, help" and aner "man" (genitive andros). (Thanks to www.behindthename.com)


I am really interested in any other things like that that people may have noticed - we're living in a television inflicted world of surface level literature, I'll take any practice I can get reading into things :)

Book Reviews? .'.

It seems that a section of the pentablog got snarfed up by some automated book-review finder thingy (Just scroll down to "Africa Adorned")... "All Consuming is a website that watches weblogs for books that they're talking about, and displays the most popular ones on an hourly basis....."
So in other words, if I mention a book in my blog, I'd better write something interesting...

darn.

Slowly Plugging back in! .'.

So offers come and offers go - a few days ago I was ready to buy a brand-new thinkpad, but the deal that made it feasible expired - twas a jump from a 2.3ghz system down to a 700mHz system for about the same cash :) Oh dear.. But it's a system none the less!
And to add to the nice happy joyousness I am using an old iMac until the new system arrives (it's on loan, runs slow, but I can check email on it and so forth)

So yes, that's all fun fun fun, still no job, but being able to check craigslist now will help a lot.

more soon... and photos, finally I can upload the images from that flashcard and take some new ones! :)

Nextel Two-Way Message .'.

Blogging from the mobile
Not long now, thanks to a certain person, we will be back on line again. Woohoo! Anyway, this takes way too long on a keypad.. More soon

Okay, make that 12 new tracks... .'.

Get awn in there - I wanna see lots of downloads when I come back ;-P
Though, bare in mind, these are just a few things I had lying around - they don't necessarily represent the views or tastes of me or any pentaphites :-]
I didn't get a chance to check links and so forth, so please, if anything's wrong, let me know with the email form (please mention the track you were trying to access, whether it was hi bandwidth or low, streamed or downloaded.. or don't bother.. whatever ;-)

Seven new or unheard tracks! .'.

Rachel's almost out the door - so wishing her the best of fun in Spain.
And saying a quick tataa to anyone who peeks in here. I'm uploading music while we get ready, so [up to] seven tracks should be available soon/now. How many there really are is dependent on how many times we get disconnected.
The audio database is still on it's training wheels, it'll be much easier to use after about 30minutes of coding, when this will happen I don't know. But!
If you click on show all tracks then it's listed in order, starting from most recently uploaded (with the exception of the top one, which is featured)

The featured track at the moment is SomeEyeTake2B, it's only available in 32kbps (for once I can blame weird pops and squeaks on something else!) until the end of Rachel's european tour.

As mentioned below, I in the process of making an album before the computer died, so keep checking in here every now and then, you never know - there could be something happening :)

Also note, just because a file was uploaded recently, doesn't mean it was made recently, check the coordinates!

Pulling the plug.. .'.

Just a quick note to say that I'll be offline for the next month in about t-minus 24hrs and counting.
If you hope to make contact with me during that period, please drop me an email (it's in the contact page) or send one through the email form.
I have an email-capable mobile phone here and I'll gladly give you the address if you wish to correspond, I won't be forwarding email from my regular address though, as there are far too much daily posts to dig through on such a little phone screen.
toodle-oo!

Whingeing yuppie scum .'.

And so it is that time again
My stash has dwindled to a stem
There's nothing left but wood and shake
(not quite enough for me to bake)
I sit and sift through them

Alas we're at that awful time
Where once there was a glass of wine
But now there is a simple glass
(I won't be getting off me arse)
So soberly I pine

But I am rich with beans and rice
I have some cards, I have some dice
I have a pen and paper too
(How else could I be writing you?)
I'm fed and that is nice...

And though it is quite rude to mope
I'd really like a bag of dope
Or perhaps, fermented grapes
(Just anywhere I can escape)
It is an easy way to cope

It can prevent you losing hope
Just have a sip and have a toke
But here I sit now without any
See, it costs a pretty penny
And I am flippin' broke.

Celtic knots, not licks, etc .'.

During research for my newly rekindled fascination with jewellry design I have rediscovered celtic knot work.
I'll photograph/scan a few of the little scribbles I've been doing and in the mean time, click on the title of this entry to check out an illuminating (no pun intended) introduction to celtic knots. No, you don't have to be artistically inclined, the approach mentioned has successfully been used in computer programs, in other words, the technique is almost purely mechanical, the creativity comes in it's use (hmm.. that somehow ended up being a meaningless sentence, although it's true, false, true and meaningless, meaningless and false......)