funwithstuff

Side project: I've been reworking Identikit. If you've got a Mac running Mac OS X 10.4, please check out the new animated 3D spinning screen saver version, Identikit 3D. Built with Quartz Composer, the most interesting graphical toy in years, free with Developer Tools on any Mac. Here are a few examples (each cube takes up the whole screen; each cube segment spins) for the curious and the Mac-deprived.



The original has 41 faces, as does this one. How to get 41 faces on a cube? Cheating. Poke about in the source if you're curious.

Hey there. Back from a great weekend in Mooloolaba, eating, drinking and making merry.

Another Twelve Fives vid is up, but I've got to work quickly to get the next one done; this is a crazy week. And in case anyone was wondering, this Iain Anderson isn't me. Not that I wouldn't like to get back into 3D stuff or compositing a little more seriously, but there are only so many hours in the day.

Since there have been a lot of new people here recently, I'll just clarify a couple of links.

CGrUB, in the left hand menu, is a Mac-only tool meant to help IT students learn graphics programming. It's woefully out of date, runs in Classic mode, uses QuickDraw 3D with Codewarrior for the code samples... yet, has a nice multimedia part attached to teach the basics of 2D and 3D graphics programming, from Bresenham's line drawing algorithm through matrix multiplication. Hope someone out there finds it useful. Free for anyone with a (non-Intel) Mac, but no good on PCs.

Identikit was a fun photo-based project I did in 1999 for Stuff-Art, an Australian Film Commission-funded idea to fit multimedia on a floppy disk. It does still work, but it needed an update, which I've been working on and which should be ready for release as soon as I can get it all into one file. That's going to be Mac-only too, but I'll post some pics.

Finally for now, a big, big thanks to everyone who's linked to airport or otherwise said nice things about it. Check Technorati's list of links to this page (link below), pushing it up to over 45,000 views.

Wowsers. I mean, that's small change to a high-traffic site, but it's increased the viewership of this little film off the scale. Extra special thanks for Bryanshare, Sean Coon and mod*mom for their kind words, of course to Cory for the initial link, and the Guardian's Newsblog for getting me as close as I suspect I'll get to a mention in The Guardian itself.

I ♥ Blogs.

To help out anyone who wants to re-edit or build on Airport, here's a QuickTime (embedded Flash) of Airport, with higher quality audio, hosted by the fine folks at Ourmedia.

EDIT: To save the movie without QuickTime Pro: just right-click the link above and choose "Download Linked File" (or "Save Link to Disk" or something like that) then pick a place on your computer to save it. On the Mac, just option-click the link to save to your Downloads folder. It's CC-licensed, so please use it any non-commercial way you wish, sharing again if you create derivative works.

(You don't have to ask permission to use it educationally/non-commercially etc., but please leave a note in the comments here if you can. Commercial use does require permission, so email me, Iain, at this site.)

So many nice words being said. I'm especially happy to see many blogs in different languages linking to airport, especially as that was the idea. I mean, the symbols were meant for international word-free understanding, it only makes sense that the animation should be word-free and universally understandable too. Here's an interview I'd never read, with the man-from-the-toilet-symbol at the centre of it all: Design Observer: writings about design & culture: The International Symbol for Man Tells All.

Wow. Around 11 links pointed back to the boingboing post, but 77 have linked directly to airport. Check it out: Technorati Search for: funwithstuff.com/dswmedia/airport.html.

Since these blogs linked to airport, I thought I'd sign up for Technorati. (Not that you care, but I need to prove that this is my blog so I can sign up too. So here's my Technorati Profile.)

Oh, and how many people have seen Airport now, because of the boingboing link and subsequent cross-linkage? Over 31,500 and counting. I can't make a smiley face big enough. :)

The BBC can help you find out... What sex is your brain? Takes a little while, but interesting.

Irony-free shirts for US neocons. They're not serious, are they? Oh wait. Yes, they are. (Link for educational purposes only; not for purchase by sane individuals.)

How would you feel if a murderer linked to your blog? Check this out: He was always a wonderful boy. | MetaFilter. My favourite comment: "He was one of us?"

Welcome boing boing visitors! If you want your own copy of the symbols used in airport, they're available here for free: AIGA - Symbol signs.

You might also like to check out my current project, the video podcast Twelve Fives (that's twelve five second shots). Make your own Twelve Fives videos — I'll link to them. Lazy? Subscribe through iTunes.

How soon before we're eating not just vat-grown "animal-free" meat, but "printed" meat? Think I'm craaaaazy? Read New Scientist News - Print me a heart and a set of arteries.

Are Software Patents Evil? Read, find out. Interesting stuff.

Ah, love anonymous comments. I have only a rough idea who naykakotehka is, but they've left a comment I should pass on. Check out stretch daily : creative exercise for some graphical inspiration. March 9's entry is a quick Photoshop before/after example for the curious. And if *you're* naykakotehka, thank you.

Thought default fonts sucked but weren't sure how to express it? Learn of The Scourge of Arial.

Lonely? Foolish? Try Google Romance.