Bitch Kitty Racing

For millions of years, the human race has yearned to throw off the mathematical chains of Mordor, i.e., degrees, radians, and minutes. During The Great Math Student Rebellion of 1376, revolutionary students at East Hackensack Junior High stood united against Mr. McClusky in the stance that, not only was 360 a freakishly strange number to divide anything by, it made what should be simple math really, really irritating. The students barricaded themselves behind committee-approved textbooks that would have been woefully out of date had the printing press been invented yet, but were massacred under barrage after barrage of “Because that’s the way it’s DONE, damn it!” and “It’s ALWAYS been like that!”

Yesterday, I became fascinated with the Kraftwork video “Musique Non Stop.” Way, way back in 1986, the basic method of computer modeling appeared on screen to be essentially the same method used today.

I was reading this morning about the feeding habits of a species of terror bird, extinct two million years, that can be logically inferred using finite element analysis (like structural analysis). Using a computer model of the skull, and defining the strength of the skull’s material, forces are applied to the skull. The computer will indicate where the skull is weak and where it is strong. Because life is evolutionary, the strong parts are there for a reason. Therefore, the skull was most likely used in this or that fashion.

Brilliant. I love the modern world.

This is Kraftwerk’s 1986 video “Musique Non Stop.” As you watch it, note that the majority of the head models are done using straight lines, but that there is a final ten second fully-rendered sequence. In 1986, we had just descended from trees to create animation on bark-and-stone Wangs. Did we even have 286s yet?

ACCESSING DATABANKS…

Not only is cancer painful and life-threatening, it’s also very expensive. Please buy this button that we made for our friend Chris. The money will help him cover costs while he’s going through chemo and unable to work.

A drunken foray into Seattle’s Chop Suey led to the discovery of the Fuck Buttons, quite frankly the loudest and dirtiest pair of synth geeks ever created.

They also have a killer web designer.