John – Page 9 – 106 drop in

Week three in the village

It hardly seems any time at all since I arrived in the Village, the third week sped by. I’ve not done too weel in ticking off items in holiday itinerary. I did try, but got a bit distracted (more in a later post about that).

I managed a few snaps for the photo safari.

The day I was planning to get most turned out (as usual this summer to be rather cloudy. I did get to wander the hill around the Village for a while, seeking information and pondering the ideas around the Safari.

I fell short on my Daily Create Requirements, but managed a couple:

This one I aded the text to with PS Touch on my phone.

And even though there was no real work involved I liked how this one turned out:

I managed three assignments:

I quite like the title of the second one, and the idea of the third. I just realised that the third fit with ds106 Assignments: Multi-Frame GIF Story so more credits:-) The Mulit-Frame Gif is one of my favourite assignments, this one is not my best, I ended up hurrying the process up too much.

In lieu of thinking about spy shows I read prisoner106: Some Thoughts on Spy Shows of the 60s a great post by Geoff Cain.

Although I continue to spend most of my holiday watching the TV and dreaming on the couch I did get out and about and visit my fellow ~~inmates~~ guests this week and really enjoyed chatting about their experiences.

Very soon I hope to get out a wee bit more and perhaps start up an small activity club for fellow residents in the Village. #BeSeeingYou

Behind the Cupboard, a Comic

After finding some old photos I dug around the apartment some more and found a page of an old comic:

Something told me this was no ordinary comic, I sneaked into the General’s room and, with shaking fingers feed it into the machine:

comic-machine01

As the paper emerged I grabbed it and turned it over:

Despite the lack of speech bubbles or callouts I claim one credit for daring the General’s rooms. (ds106 Assignments: Comic Book Effect and ds106 Assignments: Multi-Frame GIF Story)

The Resignment Village

I’ve settled down in my apartment now. Poking around in different corners I found some old photos of the Village, I’ve put them on the corkboard in the kitchen. I suspect they were taken by a previous resident, the photos look quite old, maybe 40 or 50 years I’d guess, quite instagram.

Some information:

If I wanted to fake this sort of thing this is how I’d go about it.

I’d create a blank document in FireWorks, say 1200 pixels by 800 pixels
I’d watch the video using QuickTime Player (I still have the old QuickTime pro), on an interesting frame I’d stop and copy (⌘-c).
Switch to fireworks and paste in the image.
Repeat this another four times
Back in fireworks I’d select all the images and hit ⌘-T and then type in say 70% to resie them all, I might try a few different sizes.
I’d then make a rectangle the same size as the 5 images. Set its fill to a radial gradient, yellow- purple, and set the opacity to around 20.
I’d have duplicated the rect until there was 5
I’d make another rectangle, no fill, white border.
I’d then align each ‘photo’ with a gradient and a frame and group them.
After that I would search my HD for a cork tile and create a background.
Then I would have arranged the photos in a random fashion rotating them a little.
Finally I’d export to a jpg.

If I was really silly I would not save as I go along and I’d have to do the whole thing again if FireWorks crashes (my old version has a tendency to do that)

If I wanted to earn a couple of credits I submit this to: ds106 Assignments: A Collage Of Your Favorite Vacation Pictures

I suspect I could do a better job with the filters and the rotated rectangles look a little jaggy, maybe these ones are fake too?

I’ll be snapping you

snap01

We don’t need no general education

Interesting happenings in the village this week, there seem to be a lot of ‘learning’ going on. As I watch number six get into trouble I am thinking my decision to be less confronting was a good idea. However this episode is taking the committee well inside my wheelhouse. Although I’ve not got number six’s skills I think there are other ways to subvert the establishment here, perhaps a bit of digital graffiti…

Making some Adjustments

As I had to get up early this morning I though I might make good use of my time. I popped into the Village shop and bought a screwdriver.

I wanted to have a closer look at the TV in my accommodation after last night’s blip.

I also need to get some more credits and decided on doing a wee bit of audio work. I am still trying to get an understanding of The Village by looking under the bonnet.

I had already taken a bit of audio from on of the surveillance tapes:

I ran it through the reverse filter in audacity:

Which was interesting and make some sort of sense if you are in a hypnagogia state. But it required further investigation. I found some instructions which lead to a new tool to add to my toolbox. PaulStretch is quite fascinating, and after spending quite some time testing the settings I fell back on the basic preset:

Feeding this into some video footage from the archives:

Tells us quite a lot about the state of Rover’s mind, or perhaps his master’s?

Some information

Movie clips extracted with MPEGStreamclip from video taken from dvd with HandBrake.

Movie clips concatenated with ffmpeg.

Slowed down with ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -i rovercon.mov -filter:v "setpts=4.0*PTS" rovercon.mp4
Which turned into mp4 too

Added the stretched audio:

ffmpeg -i rovercon.mp4 -i the-prisoner-backwards-strech.mp3 -map 0:0 -map 1:0 -shortest rovercon-audio.mp4

I am finding ffmpeg interesting as you can try different variations out quickly.

Rover normally seems to be a cold mechanical creature, this view suggests something deeper, organic perhaps, hints of ancient chants and secrets. Perhaps the Village is not as rational as we think.