I made a little full-day animation of yesterday's use of IAM (it's about a three meg WMV file). Blue dots represent a user online at that instant, and a yellow glow of various sizes gets emitted depending on how many users are online in that location at that moment. You'll notice two or three users that have mis-entered their location as well (you can see below someone showing up in the Marquesas Islands, which I'm guessing is wishful thinking). Timecode is EST by the way:
please right-click+save to view
Since I always get asked this, the audio over the video is a brief excerpt from
“Popcorn”, AKA the soundrack from Arkanoid “Long Dark” by Electrelane (off the
Rock it to the Moon album). When I get a chance I'm going to improve my rendering routines and create a prettier version of this as well.
Well, Brent went and got the GoldenPalace.com forehead tattoo. I really hope it was worth it for him and my sombre predictions are just biased naysaying… It's no secret that Brent really rubs me the wrong way — and I think the same in reverse — but maybe it's time to finally do an interview feature on him… I don't think I could do a fair job on it, I'm too biased, so maybe I'll burden one of the new staff with this task. Anyway, if you want to watch the video…
…it's funny that he calls them a company that's known for their
“humanitarian work”. I was happy that they sponsored one of the X-Prize competitors, but their reputation in the world of online gambling is far from spotless — things along the lines of tampering with odds and falsifying RNGs, as well as simply not delivering payouts as owed. If I was going to risk my money online, that's not the place I'd do it, even with their forehead tattoo ads, kooky amateur spaceships, and other
nutcase media grabs…
.
I've just posted an update to Under Mars for those that are interested. This update contains mostly shots of Iraq that have a real (and surreal) “tourist” vibe to them (less combat oriented photos than in previous postings). The experience of war isn't just fear and fighting; there's an immense logistics and operations wing that has to support it all.
Thank you to everyone who's been supporting the site and sending good feedback about it. If you know anyone (they don't have to be in Iraq, and they don't have to be American) serving that might like to share their photos, please consider sending them the URL of the site.
www.undermars.com
This photo was taken at the recent Tattoo Expo in St. Petersburg, Russia. Either Paul Booth has lost one hell of a lot of weight, or this guy is no longer in possession of his soul. Remember, if you get someone else's tattoo, you become their plaything in the afterlife!
A few entries back I mentioned some of IAM's ability to do geolocation maps of usage. I thought it might be fun to do an animation showing a full day's use. Below is about forty minutes, starting at just after 7AM EST. Assuming my little bot keeps running smoothly, I'll post the full twenty-four hour animation tomorrow. I don't have time right now to do “recreational” programming, but I think I need to add a graphics overlay that lets me display both daytime and nighttime backgrounds on the same image… it's not hard to do, it's just a matter of finding the time.
