Final Post (or Post for the Final)

Put this under the failure category

Oh, wait, did I say failure? I, uh...I meant this is EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED.

Portfolio Addition

Simple portfolio addition: I've been messing with the tile function to create an image that creates a larger design. Originally I wanted to make a Celtic design of sorts but I'm still trying to to get that to work.

Frabjous Day

I finally got the TARDIS to look more or less natural. \o/

I had to make a canvas--and I realized what I was doing wrong earlier; I was trying to place the background at a place besides 0,0 which messed everything up. I then placed my "green-screened" TARDIS at 420, 430 on the canvas and swapped the canvas with the background.

Working on Portfolio

As far as the final project goes, I hit many roadblocks today as I realized I am going to have to manipulate some of the codes in some ways I didn't anticipate. I'm essentially going to have to combine swapbg() and placeInCanvas() because Jython is too blunt to have Alpha channels and GRARGH GRARGH GRARGH

So I only have crappy misplaced TARDISes (TARDII?) on a crappy background and one huge green canvas with the TARDIS and a blue sky background somehow.

When I got tired of failing at that, I decided to work on my portfolio images instead and I came up with this. I'm not happy that lossy ol' JPEG ruined how it looks but I am a fan of the final product. I had to tweak a bit of code to get this effect and I used ~multiple~ effects because I can.

The picture is of a friend of mine but run through threeColors and mirrored vertically. I think it looks like he's swinging above a lake now.

Grayscale Attempt

Let's be real, this entire course for me was pretty much an excuse to make images based on Doctor Who. Whatever.

For my first few attempts at a photo mosaic, I tried to make a clock out of David Tennant's face (and that might be the strangest sentence I've ever typed). My first attempt was too blocky so I tried a small image size. I have to work on getting the aspect ratio just right. I think the posted attempt turned out alright, with a nice balance of clarity on what the object is while still retaining a general idea of what the smaller images are, even though I lose a bit of Tennant's face.

Overall I think it's just a crappy base image. :/

What Colour are Your Bits Response

The author of this post, mskala, hithertofore referred to as Ms. Kala or Kala for short, considers the implications of intellectual property and how different people—namely “lawyers” and “computer scientists” feel about them.

Kala says that information can be described as “bits” that may or may not have “Colour,” which basically boils down to the properties that distinguish one thing from another. Kala argues that computer scientists do not see the Colour that files have; they are Colour-blind. They just see the bits that make up a file. However, lawyers believe in the Colour of things because they must judge things by their Colour—meaning that one thing is right and the other is wrong. To them, it matters where the bits come from. Kala’s argument is a bit more complicated than that but I have tried to boil it down for simplicity and argument’s sake.

With that being said, I think Kala brings up interesting points. I would have to side with the lawyers on this issue, because I think it matters where bits come from and what they are meant to do. Just because you scramble up a copyrighted file while it is en route to your desktop doesn’t make it any less illegal that you’ve downloaded it. But at the same time, I understand that to programmers, bits are just bits and it doesn’t matter how they get to where they’re going. I found it interesting when Kala brought up the idea of plagiarism and how bits could occur the exact same without being stolen, but it is very rare. In this way, Colour is vital to keeping the digital world under control. To me, without Colour, you don’t have any way of saying what is right and wrong. Ignoring the philosophical “what is right?” debate, I think no matter which way you look at it, if you get a book or music for free that isn’t in the public domain, it’s illegal. I’m not saying most people haven’t done it and I’m not saying it should be punished as heavily as it is, but technically it’s illegal. Whatever child pornography argument Kala brought up, I didn’t buy—it matters where the bits come from.

Though the idea that Colour doesn’t exist because even tags that give bits Colour are just more bits is fascinating to me. When you start digging this deeply, though, debate almost becomes pointless because everything can be brushed aside. “Why should this be illegal? It’s just information.” I don’t deal with arguing like this very well.

But still, this idea is what torrenters thrive on. Individually, people only submit tiny bits of information. However, when pieced together, you get a torrent of information (such as a movie or a new album). Separately, it doesn’t seem too illegal to download a split second of a movie; however, when you’ve stolen an entire movie, it’s suddenly completely illegal. Where is the line drawn? This seems to be at issue in the article: bit by bit, there is nothing wrong with this. However, the final product is illegal by its very Colour.

Overall, I agree that the digital age has ushered in interesting contradictions in legality. But I don’t think either side is completely right. Like Kala says, computer scientists should try to understand Colour more, but only to try and explain to lawyers why Colour is not that important. The more we immerse ourselves in a digital world, the more loopholes and tenuous distinctions we will have to make.