tiny nibbles :: violet blue ®

a non-mechanical moment

the weather today in Austin. good thing I brought lots of kicky sundresses and sandals!

My first few minutes with my badge at SXSW and I'm already going behind the curtains of "Oz".

Last night I went to the GayVN's at San Francisco's Castro Theatre. This ten-year anniversary of the event -- the 'gay porn oscars' -- was in SF for the first time ever. It was packed; like 3000 men and five women in the house. One of those women was comedienne Kathy Griffin: this is a short video of celebrated drag queen and porn director Chi Chi LaRue introducing Griffin to a standing ovation.

Kink.com had a housewarming party for friends and family at the SF Armory last night and I shot a couple videos. here, I just arrived and am showing you the main building, from above.

Kink.com had a housewarming party for friends and family at the SF Armory last night and I shot a couple videos. this one is very dark and not visually exciting, but in it I walk through the shooting range while the party is going on several floors above me. the shooting range is below ground level and Mission Creek runs through it -- literally. the Armory is almost 100 years old.

At last night's Dorkbot SF #32, GETV interviewed three locals who found a few of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force "terrorist" devices ("Holy Blinky Devices of Terror!"), then later Eddie took over the Dorkbot stage and had the three explain their experiences finding and obtaining the devices. I shot this grainy but fun video from the front row; don't miss the thorough wrap-up post with terrific photos on Laughing Squid.

the Extra Action Marching Band is out of hibernation! this is a short video of a flag girl and flag boy doing a bump and grind to one of their slower songs -- it was a crazy night, and I got to take my weekend guests (Monochrom, from Austria) to see this very special San Francisco treat!

this was the beginning of our recon mission for compiling the ultimate hotel bar crawl; we started at the Mariott downtown. I shot this quick walkthrough before the sun set -- I'm a bit tipsy! oh, and someone told us incorrectly -- the building I;m looking at in the end of this video isn;t the B of A building, it's the Hyatt (which we went to later and it was too icky for us to stay and have a drink).

Here, Jason Schultz presents Ashcroft vs. ACLU, covering COPA, the Miller Test and commercial speech -- all in regards to regulating obscene content on the Internet, and blocking/filtering technology. As it turns out, technology is more effective than law in achieving results such as protecting minors from accessing adult content, and the court finds that technologies such as filters are far less restrictive on free speech than the law. Keep in mind that at 5:22 into the video, the UC Berkeley campus bell tower rings five times (it was 5:00pm). This is a short clip I took during the graduate class at UC Berkeley's law school -- Internet Law: "Indecent Speech on the Internet" with Professor Jason Schultz (also staff attorney at the EFF). Later I spoke to the class as a guest speaker about cyberlaw and obscenity, 2257 and sex blogging (and sex in other Internet media).

Here's a short clip I took during the graduate class at UC Berkeley's law school -- Internet Law: "Indecent Speech on the Internet" with Professor Jason Schultz (also staff attorney at the EFF). Here, Jason talks about how adults have a right to porn on the Internet. Later I spoke to the class as a guest speaker about cyberlaw and obscenity, 2257 and sex blogging (and sex in other Internet media).

a very snarky video form macworld yesterday ;)

I walked in to see Margaret Cho doing an ultra-hot fan dance -- I had no idea she had so much ink on her body. very, very sexy -- while filming, I was given a handful of drink tickets from one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence... it was a great start to a really fun party! this was shot with my crappy point and shoot so quality could be better, I know :)

when I got to the Chronicle newsroom party last night I didn't know anyone, so I made a video. turns out, I had a blast! I look tired -- I'm still battling jet lag from hell, and slept 15 hours last night, ugh. as it happens, this was the newsroom party -- while the online version of the chronicle had their own party across town at the same time. after this video, newsroom people warmly introduced themselves to me all evening, excited and congratulating me like crazy and asking 'when are we getting you in print!?' 'I want to illustrate your column!' 'I read it every week and love it!' so it was interesting to discover later that I wasn't invited to the online (sfgate) party -- pretty much the opposite of who I expected would include or exclude me. the paper loves me. the online editors... hmmm....next year, I'm *so* busting out the disco moves for the newsroom party.

in Austria, exhausted and cold, walking around by myself outside the "porn castle", I go deep in thought about my appearance on the Taugshow the night before. the guest before me, a counterculture icon, thought that the present state of what he called 'information overload' on the web was a really bad thing. I realized in this video that I disagree in a very strong way. part of the video, around 2 minutes in, the audio cut out some of what I said because of the wind. I don't have a great camera, nor the means to get one right now, and I can't edit the video after it's shot, so I transcribed the bits of my little speech that are hard to hear. about 2 minutes in, read along here: (...) with media especially with news and information, we've just been taking what we've been given, and we have no tools or what we need to evolve, and adapt the tools to be able to sift through the information we get. and now that there's so much information it's forcing us to become consumers of information and consumers of our media, to *shop* for our media, and shop for information and shop for our news -- and the sources we get it from. and I think that that's really powerful. so, I'm all for information overload, because I think it can only make us better.

last saturday in Vienna, our host Johannes took a whole group of us from Roboexotica to what he called the "porn castle", a giant castle in the Austrian countryside where porn movies are filmed. here's my report from the front of the castle; it was very windy so some of what I say gets lost (sorry!). I'm operating on a few hours of sleep, and it's like 4 in the morning for me at this point...

this is later in the show: on friday december 9, I was on the Taugshow TV talkshow in Vienna, Austria. in this video shot from the audience of the middle of my interview, I talk a little more about Survival Research Laboratories and the confrontational nature of our art/technology; then I explain the time that christian organization Focus on the Family targeted my first two books and attempted to have them banned.

on friday december 9, I was on the Taugshow TV talkshow in Vienna, Austria. in this video shot from the audience of the first part of my interview, I talk about Survival Research Laboratories, and the sexual ethics of hacking into a teledildonic cybersex exchange when someone in the audience asks me if it could be considered rape.

We walked around a corner and unexpectedly encountered this amazing plaza filled with huge mythological statues; then the sound started, and I just hit 'record'.

blogging from the Vienna museumsquartier, where I've been spending most of my time -- so very cool. here, I'm hung over and sedate as I walk around looking at the central square...

the External Combustion Engine, designed and created by David Fine and Jonathan Moore, on one of its first working runs. it later served drinks for nearly four hours straight, becoming the functional darling (and popular hangout spot) of the opening night festivities.

I'm here in Vienna, Austria for Roboexotica, a festival for cocktail robotics! That's right, machines and robots all about making cocktails and all the kitchy trappings of cocktail culture. I just woke up late and am drinking coffee (and the sun just went down, whoah) and ten minutes ago shot this short video of wandering around the machines and watching the builders doing tests and last-minute fixes...

round two: I request a flaming non-dairy version and try the results! photos at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/violetblue/sets/72157594368877650/ description: the proprietrix of SuicideBots.com is working on a Spanish coffee making robot that ignites cocktails for Roboexotica, a cocktail-robot festival in Vienna this December. I'm to be the 'lovely assistant' for the gig, so I was invited over to their house tonight for testing the bot. this is the first go-round, with a room full of SF State mechanical engineers (professors and graduates) heckling the procedures (and getting intoxicated).

the proprietrix of SuicideBots.com is working on a Spanish coffee making robot that ignites cocktails for Roboexotica, a cocktail-robot festival in Vienna this December. photos at:http://www.flickr.com/photos/violetblue/sets/72157594368877650/ I'm to be the 'lovely assistant' for the gig, so I was invited over to their house tonight for testing the bot. this is the first go-round, with a room full of SF State mechanical engineers (professors and graduates) heckling the procedures (and getting intoxicated).

I went out to lunch today with Jonathan Moore, co-organizer of Codecon and co-curator of the next Dorkbot SF. in this shaky video I shot in his cute vintage convertible rolling around the Tenderloin, he explains who and what will be at the next Dorkbot SF.What: Dorkbot San Francisco, http://www.dorkbot.org/dorkbotsf/ Where:Encounter Studio 555 De Haro Street Suite 120, San Francisco, CAWhen: 7:30pm, Wednesday 8 November 2006 Who: Greg Hazel -- Incoherence: Stereo Field Spectrum Analysis; Incoherence displays stereo field and frequency information together, in real-time. It can show frequency-dependant phase information in an intuitive way. The demo will include an introduction to the display layout, basic functions and music demonstrations.Matt Chisholm and Ross Cohen -- The Neighborhood Project; The Neighborhood Project is creating a map of city neighborhoods based on the collective opinions of internet users. Addresses and neighborhood data are translated into latitude and longitude values, and then drawn on a map. The address and neighborhood data are collected from housing posts on Craigslist.

I'm watching this huge fire from Dolores Park right now, wow, looks like it's near 18th and Valencia Street...

I got to see the whole process at the dildo factory, from liquid silicone and color mixing to dildo extraction -- plus I got to raid the 'free bin' after the tour! in this video, a dildo is hand-extracted from a mold with a reassuring 'pop!'

here's his recital of a very special hobo poem. if Hodgman comes to your town, go see him! it was an hour and a half of hilarity.