So this project has been fairly labour intensive, though nowhere near what I was worrying it might be at first. I set up the first Final Cut document with the first disc of the boxset, realized Final Cut can only have 98 tracks stacked on top of one another, so then started to export the disc 98 tracks at a time... well exported 98 tracks into 1 track, then layered all the output tracks into one final track per disc. Then I copied that file and just told Final Cut that the file it should be looking at was the file for the second disc. So I kept the structure on the timeline, just had to reconnect the media once and then export again. I think I'm at disc 9... 4 more to go.

Finally thinking I would get the Linux box ready to go, after losing the drive, then reinstalling ubuntu, gphoto is now refusing to capture on it. So, I'm back to my old MacBook, it's fine and working and will likely be the candidate for extended tethered capture duty.

The idea is changing though. I'm thinking now about pairing up photos of the sky with some more extensive readings from that buoy weather station. The camera will point in the direction of the buoy, but still in the sky. I don't understand the science behind how far we can see in the sky, and what we're seeing when we do look at the sky in the distance... Am I seeing the sky over Lake Erie from my parent's house or just the sky over the next road?

I go back and forth about liking the idea of pairing it and then thinking it feels desperate.

I'm ripping the Transformers box set so I can make a 1-minute audio piece of the entire G1 series. I'll cut each episode up at 1 minute increments, then layer them all on top of each other. Unfortunately, I'm missing the first disc, it's somewhere in this place, or out in the world with someone I forgot I gave it to.... haha, awesome, awesome, awesome!!! As I was typing this, I looked over to a pile of books and saw the dvd case that I knew the disc was in and thankfully, there it was!!! wooooooo!!!

So, each disc takes about 4 hours to rip. I can only do about one a day, as I'm usually needing to move my computer around. I'd rip them on my old Macbook, but I'm nervous about the drive, since it did that somersault and while back.

So, that's all I got...

An automated shot using gphoto in my studio.

Big limo on the Big Walk.

What causes those patterns in wood?

Street sign.

Small house.

Another drive dead, this time on the Linux box.

More progress, but not quite what I was hoping. I figured I would start testing annotating images, or adding text to them, via ImageMagick. However, I seem to be unable to do this, likely because of trying to run it from my mac, and not having every library properly installed... I can't even really determine what GhostScript is, if I need it to do this, or if I'm getting a gs error for an entirely different reason. I should try later with my Linux box, as likely this will be the thing that actually runs the collecting process. Now, it might seem a bit silly to be spending so much time going through and trying to create a script that will add the text to the images, as I could easily do so via many other programs, but there's something I like very much about the idea of this thing running on its own for an extended period of time. If I could leave it running for a year straight, with my current settings (approximately 1 picture every 3 minutes, and if it ran at night shooting basically black), I would have 157,680 pictures of the sky, and maybe around 12775 blog posts found (averaging around 35/day). So, as silly as it sounded at first, I'm convinced that if I did let the thing run for a year, I'd be very happy to have this text thing happening automatically. Now, of course, it would be easier to do, if it existed only as a website. The text could be pulled from a database, the just inserted via html in a div or something like that. I also wonder if this work will perpetually exist through a website, if I can get it all working as I'd like. The camera worked without issue for 6 hours yesterday (the night before, I stupidly had the computer set to go to sleep after 15 minutes), so I missed out on seeing what might happen as it gets really dark.

The image above is from about 20 minutes of documenting a Max patch playing with some video I had taken earlier in the day. I also had Steve Reich's Music for 18 Musicians going with it, which is how I'd imagine it as a performance. Now, this is not to say that the Max patch is at all aware of the music, but rather that I'd perform with this patch in response to the music. I've realized that it helps to have some recognizable figures, shapes, patterns, something... the particular video I was using was a lot of leaves blowing, as yesterday was soooo windy, but they become lost a bit... which is fine, I suppose, it just seems to help to be able to pull something from the images every now and again.

Just when I thought I had ImageMagick figured out, at least for my very limited purposes, I've discovered a problem. Originally, I had been using -normalize to add some contrast to the cloud images, but it was adding too much contrast, it "transform image to span the full range of colors." Then I was trying multiple -contrast commands and that was okay, until I came across -contrast-stretch 0, which looked really good on images with clouds and sky, like the first two images above, but then with images just blue sky or only a few clouds it seems to be throwing it. However, the behaviour seems strange as the contrast throws only the bottom of the images. I'll have to do some digging I guess.

I also shot some video today, I'll capture it soon.

I'm beginning to think more and more about making the clouds project a series of books. Volumes corresponding to the months or weeks of the year... I also found a simple way to display the text, but I'm not entirely sure about it. I'll post it soon if it still looks good in a couple days.

It's so beautiful outside and I've had the intention all day of making some considerable headway in making a decision about how to execute this clouds project. Only now, I feel deflated. Not sure what to do next, and I'm feeling a momentary disinterest in the project altogether. I suppose that means I should give it a rest, at least for the rest of the day.

We carved pumpkins last night ... I went with a more traditional pumpkin head, while Dan carved an owl silhouette.

I've also been wrestling with a new colour laser printer, a Samsung CLP-310. I had to downgrade our Airport Extreme and for the most part it's been behaving. Prior to the downgrade, it had been continually failing to print, but showing no error messages... Got the idea to downgrade from the Apple Forums...

I also did some more mastering on my never ending attempt to finish another album. I don't suppose everyday has to be a successful one.

Hoping to get a video camera in my hands this weekend.

Doing some test prints from our new laser printer came out about as I expected. Workable for just testing, but there's some significant issues with gradients, etc. And that's fine. I know when I print graphics, like something from Illustrator, it will be better, and really I couldn't honestly expect a $150 colour laser to do much better.

I realized that these prints are larger than what I thought they would be. Although I'm quite sure I printed them at 100%, I should actually potentially resize them a bit more. Because the image is coming from the camera, there's no 4x6 cropping on these images, but part of me likes that aspect ratio better, but it might also make the prints, with the text below feel stumpy... something to try later today.

I'm also going to Studio A to prepare for the upcoming Noiseborder performance. I'm not sure what I'll be showing, likely a video I've already finished, but potentially that video performance thing I mentioned in my last blog.

Also, I got some interesting information from Environment Canada, though not entirely sure what to do with it yet. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but may actually make the Weather Report work better, or make it into something else entirely. More soon.

And Danielle completed her Law School application this morning, big relief, and now we just wait, and wait patiently.