Another Pecha Kucha talk I did (here’s the other one). Slides and text after the fold.
Continue reading “My Car-Free Life”
My Car-Free Life
Month: April 2016
The Skin of the Earth
Flying to New York last week I had this amazing view of Central Illinois farmland. It was early in the season and nothing was growing in the fields yet, but they were no longer frozen. The land was unobscured by snow, ice, or crops. I noticed the naked fields were mottled, and it dawned on me I was seeing underground rivers – not unlike veins you can see under the skin – along with the obvious surface rivers. Humans parcel the land along even grid lines, and when I ride my bike through the countryside I tend to think of the land that way too. But seeing these complex, chaotic patterns underneath reminded me just how puny, idiotic, and clueless about nature modern humans really are.
I also got this nice shot of downtown Manhattan from the plane, because the lady in the window seat was asleep:
Manhattan had grown a new tower since I’d seen it last. Or maybe it was just happy to see me.
Ye Olde Bouncygif
I am blessed with a terrible memory, which allows me to get fresh enjoyment from my own work after enough time passes. So it was especially fun to come across a Facebook post in an unfamiliar language with a gif of my animation from 2004:
By some miracle, the original .fla files were on one of my main disk drives, so I reformatted one for today’s preferred 16:9 aspect ratio, and voila:
Maybe I’ll find some way to use it in a new project, and render it as 4K video. It was originally part of a short I was going to do about depression, because in 2004 I was very depressed. Instead I made Sita Sings the Blues, which was probably more therapeutic. But I sure like this walk cycle.
The original 640 x 480 gif is here, uploaded by some anonymous archivist.
