Yesterdays dalliance with a streaming web camera has given me a few ideas for some kind of live theatrical performance. I’m not sure what the catch is with the software at Teveo, but it was incredibly easy to set up a live stream with just a cheap USB digital stills camera.

I’ve bought myself a cheap digital camera… nothing fancy, just something to quickly and cheaply generate images with. I’ve hooked it to the streaming server software at teveo.com, so for a limited period only, here are some live images.

Just when you thought the web was on its way to reaching its full potential, along comes Internet Explorer 6. Unless I’m mistaken, IE6 still implements the CSS box model incorrectly [Addendum: I’m mistaken, IE6 does implement the CSS box model correctly, it just doesn’t do CSS Level 2 trickery], and because of their new auto image resize, my technique of using 100% widths for images on this page seems to fail. Smart tags threatened to take control away from the designer and insert links into web sites without authority. The auto image resize feature is really an extension of this; surely it is up to the designer to create fluid websites which scale properly when the window is resized. Microsoft are selling the browser on ‘cool’ features such as this… unfortunately, they hinder the designer trying to innovate as well as design for standards compliance. What puzzles me is this: if Microsoft could create an excellent standards compliant browser 2 years ago with IE5 Macintosh Edition, why are they struggling to do the same now with IE6? Something is afoot. So, instead of downloading the latest version of Explorer, I urge you to download Mozilla, Opera or iCab instead. Change your default browser and stop Microsoft further taking control of the web.

When I was a youngster, it was my ambition to be an architect. I used to sit for hours with a cheap Staedtler drafting board and create precise drawings in perfect perspective. I was obsessed by the accuracy of it; each line was carefully calculated using a protractor and a pair of compasses, it was all arcs, foci, and intersections… abberations were carefully removed by one of those neat plastic erasers. However, a few years later I lost interest in it; I realised that I wasn’t cut out for the maths and physics knowledge needed to be a designer of buildings. During this time however, I read up on all the famous architects, my favourite being Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. He designed some wonderfully minimal buildings, an aesthetic that I understood and one which appealed to me even at an early age. Mies in America – an excellent Flash presentation from The Museum of Modern Art.

More wisdom over at v-2.org > beauty now for the people. I particularly like the Glass Engine.

There was an excellent documentary about CCTV on Channel 4 a few nights ago which raised many interesting points about the way in which surveillance has become a normal part of our lives. One particular section of the program explained how shopping centres [or Malls] can be likened to childrens’ playgrounds; in the same way that children are given a safe environment to play, thus are encouraged to do so, shopping centres provide us with a safe environment to shop. The program also highlighted the false image of shopping centres as being public spaces. The fact is that these places are privately owned, and all the owners want to see on their surveillance cameras is you busy shopping. Try exercising your right to free speech by peacefully protesting against McDonalds and the like and they’ll have you out of there in no time.

Situated in the city centre of Newcastle Upon Tyne is Eldon Square, one of the largest inner city shopping centres in Europe. I hate it. Unfortunately, its size is such that I have to pass through it everyday to get from A to B, there’s just no way around it. I have only lived in Newcastle for 5 years, so I don’t know much about its history, but I often think about what was there before it… some fantastic architecture and open spaces I expect. Now there is one huge monstrosity of a building circling a small open space now known as ‘Old Eldon Square’. You can be sure that everytime I pass through Eldon Square – usually at its thinnest point – I cast a distasteful glance at one of the security cameras. They’re watching.

‘Light leaks, fuzzy images, and drop-off around the frame edge make this non-serious looking camera a cult object.’ Another obscure European camera to add to my collection. [via Stu]

It annoys me when the film you are watching starts off brilliantly and then derails itself by having too many sub-plots, twists and turns. The first third of Tom Tykwer’s latest film ‘The Princess and The Warrior’ was perfectly paced, beautifully shot and I thought I was going to be in for a cinematic treat. By the time the closing credits appeared, I was deeply disappointed. Franka Potente plays Sissi, a psychiatric nurse whose life gets irrevocably intertwined with that of Bodo – played by Benno Furmann – when he saves her life after she gets hit by a truck. When Sissi tries to track down the person that saved her life, we discover that Bodo harbours as many demons as the psychiatric patients Sissi cares for. There are many memorable moments in this film, but unfortunately these are rendered forgetabble by the film’s labourious final half hour. Why can’t some directors end films in the right place instead of trying to do too much, thus making a mess of it. Whilst watching the ending unfold, I felt as though the film I was watching 90 minutes previously was something completely different entirely. However, this film is worth going to see as there are some stunning moments in it; it’s just painful to see a film start so good only to witness it turn to something pretty average. Incidentally, like ‘Alice in the Cities’ directed by Wim Wenders, this film is set in Wuppertal, Tykwer’s place of birth and home of the sky train. This particular transport system intrigues me… in fact, I’m tempted to visit Wuppertal just to go and see it.

Alfreds Camera Page is a well designed and informative site [mainly] about cameras from the former Soviet Union. A camera of particular interest is the LOMO Voskhod… I think I want one. [via Inflight Correction]For those obsessed by web statistics [me included]… How the web works.

If you enjoy listening to jazzy leftfield instrumental music, you’ll like much of the output from the Leaf label. They’ve just launched a new website on which you can find out about the artists and up-coming releases etc. Perhaps the best [or worst depending on the state of your bank balance] element of the site is the excellent, easy-to-use online ordering system. So why not fritter away your cash and buy some good music? A few recommendations: Leaf Compilation, Gorodisch: Thurn & Taxis and Manitoba: Start Breaking My Heart.

Phew. I’ve been busy fixing a few of the CSS bugs that have been niggling me slightly for the last few days. So, everything should look OK on CSS 1 and 2 compliant browsers now. Of course, I’ve done all this just when IE6 is about to be released… so just watch it mess up my design completely. I’m now certain that the latest build of Mozilla for Windows is a better browser than Explorer for Windows… so break your Microsoft allegiance and download it. Anyway, back to stuff you might find more interesting…

‘We protest against the use of surveillance cameras in public places because cameras violate our constitutionally protected right to privacy. We manifest our opposition by performing specially adapted plays directly in front of these cameras’.

I expected more from the partnership of Steve Coogan and Henry Normal in ‘The Parole Officer’. The words ‘formulaic’ and ‘tedious’ spring to mind as the unlikely hero and his team battle the bad guys in the face of great adversity until the good guys win and the hero gets his gal. Everything is wrong about this film, Coogan doesn’t cut it on the big screen, characters aren’t developed properly, the plot is inconsistent and the jokes fall flat. A disappointment indeed. Peter Bradshaw sums it up perfectly.

The Postmodernism Generator randomly creates incomprehensible writing in the style of Bataille, Deleuze, Derrida, and Baudrillard. Keep pressing reload for more postmodernist nonsense. Related: this Wired artlcle from 1994.

This is the winning animation in Warp’s competition to create a video for a track from Squarepusher’s latest album Go Plastic… very nice indeed. The videos for the 4 other finalists are excellent too.’How are forms of communication changing? How can architecture accommodate this evolution in communication? Is the telephone booth obsolete?’ – Archinect are running a competition to design a communications booth.

The unbelievable news of the day is that Star Wars Episode II is going to be called ‘Attack of the Clones!’ [I’ve added the exclamation mark for effect]. I expect Lucas’ response to the criticism that will no doubt be hurled at him will be something like: ‘Star Wars is – and always was – a comic book adventure aimed at kids’. In other words, titles like ‘Attack of the Clones’ and ‘The Phantom Menace’ are perfectly acceptable for such comic-book stories. Lucas is evidently trying to bind the nostalgic sentiments of reading comic books as a child [especially if you were a child in the ‘50s], to the big budget special-effect laden sci-fi epic. Others would argue that Lucas is further transposing reality [remember the horrifying racial stereotyping in Episode I] to the Star Wars saga; there is an unnerving correlation between this new title and recent developments in the news. No matter what the reasoning is, people will still flock to see the film. Lucas can afford to give his films daring [if silly] titles.

My hopes for my first published piece of writing were dashed when I discovered that the article I had slaved over for most of a sunny weekend was re-written out of existence by the editors of The Crack. I picked up a copy from The Tyneside, opened it and turned to the page which alleged to contain my work. I stared at it for a few seconds before hastily flicking through the surrounding pages. It was there, assimilated and bastardised into some other junkified piece of lightweight nonsense: “This is the sweet Russian mother of Lomo invention”[?]… my name is actually written next to this rubbish. The worst thing is that no-one actually bothered to tell me that they didn’t like it; they just ripped it to shreds and scattered the remains onto their own creation. They argued that my piece was too heavy and they had no option but to re-write most of it. I concede that on hindsight, the article was little bit laborious in places which is partly due to my inexperience and lack of knowledge about what the average ‘The Crack’ reader wants to look at. The least they could have done was let me know. One of the joys of publishing your own website is that you don’t have to care about all this stuff; you just write what you what you want to write and the fact that someone is reading it is an added bonus. I guess I have to put it all down to a ‘learning experience’ and stick to writing for this site only for the time being.

That’s right, time for more CSS woes as I try to make my redesign work across multiple browsers. Why do I bother really? Anyway, it was time to ditch those images on the right and concentrate more on the photographic content of the site. I still haven’t bought myself a digital camera [a rarity amongst the weblogging community?] so I’m sticking with good ol’ analog for the time being.