glitch gifs

though i've been dabbling in glitch video for years (as my youtube channel will attest), one format i haven't worked with too much is the animated gif... until recently, that is.


i've been posting these full-size on flickr—here is my flickr set of glitch videos and animations. but there's one big problem with hosting animated gifs on flickr: flickr automatically creates copies of your images in multiple sizes, but its resizing scripts don't preserve animations. (in fact, they're automatically converted to jpg regardless of your original image format. so my resized gifs aren't even gifs anymore!)

as such, the only way to view animated gifs on flickr is to view them at original size. this sort of works for me, but only because i post most of my images using a creative commons license. (original size view is not available on copyrighted photos.)



in short, flickr is a pretty lousy service for hosting animated gifs. yes, you can host the files there and save yourself the server space, but flickr's sharing facilities just aren't set up to support animated gifs. flickr does support video files, but there's no way to make them loop (which is kind of the point of making gifs).

however, i've identified a better service for sharing gifs: google+! google+ allows you to post animated gifs right to your stream, where others can +1 them, reshare them, leave snooty comments, and whatnot. (at least in web browsers; i've heard reports that the mobile g+ apps don't yet support animated gifs.) you do still need to worry about the images being resized, but only if they're wider than 402 pixels. this isn't ideal, but it works well enough, so if you're on google+ and want to see some glitch gifs, go ahead and add me. ¶

you mean those things can run on batteries?

shorter abdul hakim shabazz: some woman tried to convince me she was homeless, but i know she was lying because she wouldn't've known who i was if she didn't have a radio, and of course homeless people can't operate radios because they don't have electricity. ¶

so i played some shows in june... (or: two new tracks)

i played a couple shows in nashville and louisville a few weeks back. i sold a little merch, went to cool places like the patterson house and eiderdown, bought a bunch of records at great escape, and of course got to hang out with old friends like pimpdaddysupreme, EBNC, dj empirical, trademark G of the evolution control committee, and more. good times.

in addition to premiering two new tracks, i also busted my ass preparing glitch video for the nashville show (which nobody really watched). here's some video filmed by EBNC:


my two new tracks feature a new twist on my post-mashup style: they have more overlapping and layering. i deliberately avoided using much layering on a huge smash, as i was trying to explore other compositional techniques—and in particular, i wanted to demonstrate that you can do a lot more in the "mashup" realm than just laying two tracks on top of another and calling it a day. of course, the problem isn't that layering is bad, but that too many use it lazily. so, after introducing some different musical ideas in the mash smarter EP and exploring them in increasingly complex ways over the course of a huge smash, the time felt right to start playing around with layering again.

first up, i decided to revisit the title track from mash smarter not harder—the original track is strong, but the edits unfold pretty slowly compared to the stuff i'm doing now, and i wanted to play with some of those samples again in a more sophisticated way. the result was the drastically reworked "smartass mix", which is up on soundcloud:

stAllio! - mash smarter not harder (smartass mix) by stallio

the other track is the all-new "bust a groove", which can be heard in the video above, and is also on soundcloud:

stAllio! - bust a groove by stallio

i'm extremely pleased with both of these tracks. i think they're more accessible than some of my other post-mashup work but still live up to the principle of "mashing smarter", and i think you'll agree. ¶

rhythm & soul

in addition to composing two new tracks that i'll be premiering at tomorrow night's show in nashville, i've also been busting ass over the past few days preparing video. here's a quick taste:


(i don't know if there will be a video setup at tuesday night's show in louisville.) ¶

a huge mistake

as if the guy in the $800 suit is going to take photos of his junk. come on! ¶

stAllio! live events in june

i will be traveling to the land of dixie this month for not one but two live events, both of which should be worth checking out.

first up, i'll be opening for the evolution control committee in nashville on saturday, june 18:


the ECC arguably invented the "mashup" back in the '90s and continues to make appropriation-based music that is both well-produced and conceptually clever—particularly refreshing these days when so many just slap the vocals from one song atop the instrumental from another, without bothering to check whether the keys match or the beats are propertly synched. the ECC's latest album, all rights reserved, is brilliant from top to bottom, and is positively bursting with fresh ideas. if you haven't heard it, stream it here:

i've shared bills with the ECC before (at recycled rainbow events, back when they were held indoors), but this will be our first show together at a traditional music venue. also performing are my old friends pimpdaddysupreme and dj empirical, as well as local dj/producer quiet entertainer.

then on tuesday, june 21, i'll be playing the first night of the louisville experimental festival. this five-day experimental music event features 24 acts, including my old friend noiseman433 on thursday. my tuesday night show includes pete fosco, naughtmare, tropical trash, and bone crusher.



so come on out for a good time! and southern ECC fans, take note: this will be the ECC's only show in the region. they put on a great live show, so it may be worth driving a couple hours for this one. ¶

check the kerning!

so the governator has a love child, and all gary welsh can think about is obama's birth certificate:

Barack Obama waited four years to release a long-form birth certificate to prove he was born in Hawaii, even if it proves on its face he was not a natural born citizen because it confirms his father was not a U.S. citizen, which made him a dual citizen. No, dual citizens are not natural born citizens, but we won't waste your time on that since the Omedia has declared the U.S. Constitution means something no federal court has ever said it means. To the point of this post, only a day after America learned former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger fathered a love child with a domestic worker who worked in his home more than a decade ago, the media has obtained the long-form birth certificate for the child. No, Arnold is not listed as the father.

ah well; at least he admits that obama was born in the US, even if his understanding of citizenship is wrong.

More importantly, the Omedia could care less that the document posted on the official White House website and represented as Obama's true long-form birth certificate is a total fraud and has been proven such by numerous document experts who have examined it.

got that? obama's long-form birth certificate, which "proves on its face he was not a natural born citizen", "is a total fraud and has been proven such by numerous document experts".

gary doesn't bother to post links to any of these document analyses, nor does he explain how a fraudulent document can prove anything. fortunately, melyssa turns up in the comments and links to this video, citing it as "absolute proof" that obama's long-form birth certificate is a fake.


yes, the document is a fake because "it uses kerning". KERNING PROVES IT!

for good measure, melyssa stops by my blog and posts the same link here, asking "Refute the kerning on his birth certificate, please. I'll listen."

melyssa is presumably old enough to have used a few typewriters in her day—i sure am—but seems to have forgotten what it was actually like. due to their analog nature, they were imprecise machines. they didn't produce perfect, consistently aligned text like today's word processors do. any number of factors could affect the relative spacing between characters. for example, blogger paraleaglenm—who's no fan of president obama—was able to reproduce this supposedly "impossible" kerning by varying how rapidly the letters were typed. hunt-and-peck typing produced wide spacing between letters, whereas typing in rapid succession resulted in letters that were much closer together.

this is just one possible explanation, though it sounds likely to me. at any rate, the idea that "kerning was impossible" using 1960s typewriters ignores the reality of how 1960s typewriter functioned. whether or not you can set the kerning on any given typewriter is irrelevant, because the assumption that kerning is the only possible explanation for irregular spacing in a typed document is erroneous. false assumptions beget erroneous conclusions. ¶

chocolate-dipped delete cookies

after posting this morning about the delete, accept, and deny cookie stamps i'm selling on etsy, i spent a fair part of the afternoon perfecting my "dipping" technique so i could make these chocolate-dipped delete cookies!

these beauties start with a sugar cookie base but kick it up a notch with a thick layer of semisweet chocolate. the result is similar to something you might get from pepperidge farm, but fresh-baked instead of store-bought. my wife fell in love with them instantly—and to be frank, she'd been getting sick of cookies lately, as i made countless batches of them while developing the stamps... and we're supposed to be dieting!

for the chocolate, i just melted some semisweet chocolate chips. you could use baking chocolate, higher-grade fancy chocolate (dark, white, milk, etc), or go in a different direction and use candy coating, butterscotch, or whatever... as long as it will be solid at room temperature.

for the molding process, i found it best to lay the cookie stamp on my work area, stamp-side up, and spread melted chocolate onto the cookie stamp so that it covers the text. then i pressed a prebaked cookie onto the chocolate, flipped the whole thing over, and put it in the freezer for a few minutes to make it set more quickly.

for the cookies pictured above, i filled the cookie stamps with a layer of colored sprinkles before spreading the melted chocolate. this really makes the lettering pop. ¶

bake your own delete cookies!

i'm pleased to announce my latest project: delete, accept, and deny cookie stamps!

for generations, bakers have used cookie stamps to decorate cookies and other treats. now, traditional baking meets in the internet age in the form of these hand-made silicone cookie stamps, which enable you to bake your own delete cookies, accept cookies, and deny cookies, perfect for your next LAN party or IT department meeting!

i'm selling these cookie stamps at my brand-new etsy shop, where you can get a set of all three for just $9.95 plus shipping. i've also set up a page here with baking tips and links to recipes (like these delicious maple butter cookies), in case you've never rolled out cookie dough or used cookie stamps before.

i must stress that these cookie stamps are hand-made, so supplies are limited. if demand is strong, that will probably motivate me to fix up another batch or two, but the only way to be sure you get a set is to act now, because i won't keep selling these forever. ¶

as close to a retraction as you're going to get

late last night, i pointed out that advance indiana's gary welsh had fallen for a ridiculous satire about president obama's birth certificate.

in my post, i wondered whether gary would post a retraction—and figured he wouldn't, since he has never retracted anything in his years of printing misinformation.

turns out i was right. sometime in the middle of the night (or early morning), gary discovered he'd been had and, in an effort to hide his humiliation, silently deleted the post in question. fortunately, i had to foresight to take screenshots:


secretly deleting posts is bad blogger ethics, but is probably as close to publicly admitting a mistake as gary is capable of. ¶

gary welsh duped by satire

in a post that ironically begins "I know I am as cynical as they come", gary welsh of advance indiana proceeds to fall hook, line, and sinker for a satirical article which claims that a group of high school students have discovered president obama's long-form birth certificate to be a fake.

the article was posted at the san diego reader's satire section, which is titled SD ON THE QT - ALMOST FACTUAL NEWS.

i've said before that gary will print anything negative about obama, no matter how ridiculous, and again he proves me right. this is particularly embarrassing considering that gateway pundit's jim hoft had already been rightly mocked for falling for the same article more than 24 hours earlier. (in fact, gary probably found the article via gateway pundit, and immediately assumed it to be true without checking, as he does for every obama conspiracy.)

so now we return to the eternal question: will gary welsh post a retraction?

i'm betting he won't, since as we all know, the man is utterly incapable of admitting a mistake. ¶

the city is melting

i had a bit of a surprise during my evening commute last night. as i headed east on W 79th st, i discovered that the road was covered with some sort of black substance. i couldn't tell what it was, but it was obviously very sticky because as i drove over it, my tires made a ripping sound so loud that it drowned out the engine noise of my 10-year-old car. this continued for a good half mile until 79th ended and i turned onto spring mill.

but when i saw this indy star story, i knew the mystery was solved:

Melting sealant snarls traffic on Westside roadway

Melting sealant on the roadway is causing rush hour traffic issues on a mile-long stretch along a Westside road.

Sealant that was used to fix cracks in the roadway before winter was heating up and turning into to a sticky form that was getting all over motorists cars, said Mike Pruitt, Wayne Township Fire Department spokesman.

there was just one catch: the article said the melting sealant was on high school road, which is miles away from 79th st. clearly this was happening in more than one place. i shot reporter gretchen becker a quick email about my experience, and she wrote back to let me know she'd pass it on to DPW.

apparently i wasn't the only one, because here's the latest version of the story:

Indianapolis officials are investigating why recently repaved potholes left a gooey substance on vehicles throughout the city.

The Department of Public Works said in a release that crack sealant was bleeding on various streets. Crews are placing sand over areas of concern today, an effort that began late Wednesday after the city learned about the problem.

Early reports indicate that rainy weather followed by a rapid rise in temperatures could have contributed to the bleeding sealant.

Motorists with damaged vehicles should call (317) 327-4039 for information about filing a claim.

it remains to be seen how extensive a problem this is. we don't know how many crews used this apparently-defective sealant, nor for how long, nor how prone to melting it really is. this could be a freak happening that is out of the news within a day or so.

at least, mayor ballard had better hope so. word is that road construction is going to be a pillar of his reelection campaign, so the last thing he wants is for the public to get the impression that his road crews have been doing shoddy work. ¶

jocelyn-tandy runs in another primary

primary elections are today in indiana. i'm not enough of a party wonk to get excited about primaries, but i have been intently following one race: the republican races for city-county council, where perennial also-ran jocelyn-tandy adande has been vying for an at-large seat.

jocelyn-tandy is no stranger to local politics. a former democrat, she ran in the democratic primary against the late julia carson in '96—her crushing defeat inspired an epic grudge and countless conspiracy theories about "the carson machine". she lost another landslide primary against bart peterson in '99. and she was involved in one of local democrats' most embarrassing fiascos of the last couple decades: she was the campaign manager for bob hidalgo kern in his disastrous run again dan burton.

(kern managed to sneak his way onto the ballot and even win his primary before the public caught word that he was a convicted felon. [choice JT quote from that article: "Bobby's election to the House will drive standards no lower than what they've already reached."] the party sued to get him thrown off the ballot, but failed. kern's candidacy was featured on the daily show at the time, a taste of which can be seen here.)

i first became aware of jocelyn-tandy via the indy star's long-deleted INtouch blog, where her writings were so over-the-top that she was kicked off the blog and her posts were excised. from there, she degenerated to copying and pasting her tirades in the comments sections of various right-wing blogs, having long since realized that the republican party was a better place for homophobes like herself.

she's been a republican for years now. this year's primary isn't even her first as a republican—after julia carson passed away, jocelyn-tandy ran (and lost) against jon elrod to become the republican nominee to replace her. but local republicans, terrified that the ballot's alphabetical order would let her eke out a victory over their chosen slate, sent out an attack mailer against her, complete with unflattering photo. the mailer accuses her of being some sort of liberal plant (as opposed to the die-hard social conservative that she is) who changed her name to trick voters (arguably true, but it happened more than a decade ago).

are republicans right to be concerned? will jocelyn-tandy finally win a primary election, after 15 years of trying? we should know in a few hours!

update: she's nothing if not consistent: jocelyn-tandy loses again, with only half as many votes as the next guy. what will she run for next year? ¶

republican math

gary welsh reposts a press release from indiana GOP chairman eric holcomb:

Democrats continue to fight for narrow special interests clamoring for the status quo. A finance report filed last week shows the entire Urbana hotel bill was footed by unions - many of them out-of-state.

Unions contributed $139,000 to the Indiana Democrat Party during the walkout, every penny of which went to pay off the $84,953.70 hotel tab.

wow, every penny of their $139k contribution went to paying off an $85k tab?

hmmm... there seems to be something wrong with that statement, but i can't quite put my finger on what it is...

...oh, i see what the problem is. he said "democrat party"—the correct name is democratic party. ¶

bad taste is back!

oh frubjous day! after having been down for three months, the bad taste site has been resurrected once more!

after the catastrophic failure of our old hosting service, some data was lost. the old bad taste blog is gone into the ether, for example. so we're going to take this opportunity to rebuild and redesign the site from the bottom up. but that could take a while, and after being gone so long we didn't want to leave you hanging, so we made sure that the mp3 section is well stocked. in addition to our page of free ringtones, we have thirteen releases available for free download, including one that has never before been available for donwload—the classic mainline VS temple ov S_i_D split! the mainline side, japanese soundscapes of effects is 100% analog—four tracks of soundscapes and chill-yet-warm beats assembled using classic analog synths. temple ov S_i_D is a chiptune side project by dr. butcher m.d. devoted to the commodore 64's legendary SID chip. need i say more? ¶

hipsters: the more you know

i've finally learned what the word "hipster" means:

knowledge is power! ¶

on hiring ex-offenders

so gary welsh posted a screed this morning lamenting how outrageous it is that the city has programs for helping ex-offenders find jobs. in particular, he's up in arms that ex-offenders are landing city jobs driving garbage trucks, cleaning up parks, and the like.

i know fear of crime is big in right-wing politics, but i'm puzzled about what's supposed to be so bad about mayor ballard's ex-offender programs, because frankly i believe those to be among the mayor's most admirable initiatives.

in our criminal justice system, if you're convicted of a crime and fulfill the terms of your punishment, then that's supposed to be that. you did the crime, now do the time, as they say. but the reality is that there are few opportunities for those who've been incarcerated. when you get out, you have no money, often have no support system, and finding even a crappy mcjob can be a mighty struggle because lots of employers discriminate against ex-offenders. many end up returning to crime out of sheer desperation—they're broke, desperate, unable to find work, and crime may be the only life they know.

the best hope for breaking the cycle of recidivism is to help ex-offenders find stable jobs, housing, and support systems so that they can learn how to become upstanding members of society. mayor ballard wants to do that, but this makes gary welsh very angry. so what does gary think should happen to the city's ex-offenders? are they supposed to curl up and die? should we lock them up and throw away the key? should they just remain criminals, hopping in and out of prison until they get shanked in the shower? should their useful indiscretions doom them to life as a permanent underclass, barred from getting cushy jobs like working with "solid waste"? should we just give them a one-way bus ticket to cincinnati and let someone else deal with them?

i don't often find reason to praise mayor ballard, but i whole-heartedly support his ex-offender re-entry programs and feel we need more such programs, not less. they're good for the ex-offenders, good for the community, and even good for the economy—incarcerating people costs tax money; getting them jobs creates tax revenue. there is no down side—unless you believe that people can never change and there's no such thing as rehabilitation... in which case we probably shouldn't release people from prison at all.

update: i'd been hoping that paul ogden would try to talk some sense into gary, but no, he now has a post up calling ballard's program "insane". he writes, "While we shouldn't rule out people convicted from working for the city, it certainly shouldn't be a positive chip on the side of the applicant." but why not? it's a public good for ex-offenders to be able to find gainful employment when they get out, so what's the harm in setting aside a few jobs in order to help that happen? i can't think of a more benign or effective way to achieve that goal, and ogden sure doesn't propose any.

furthermore, i would argue that the program doesn't conflict with the mayor's overall focus on public safety, as ogden claims. on the contrary, the program makes our community safer by helping ex-offenders go legit rather than fall back into old criminal habits. but ogden may be right that a lot of republican voters won't see it that way. ¶

why newspapers are dying

well, this is embarrassing.

on tuesday, republican paul ryan released a federal budget proposal that would, among other things, slash taxes on the rich, abolish medicare and replace it with vouchers, and do something similar with medicaid.

since that time, the internet has been awash with commentary, as a million commentators with a million keyboards point out a million flaws with ryan's plan. for example:

• it ignores unfavorable numbers from the nonpartisan CBO (a government agency devoted to analyzing the potential budget impact of legislation) in favor of numbers from right-wing think tank the heritage foundation.
• using those numbers, it assumes unemployment will drop to a literally-impossible 2.8% (when bloggers started mocking this impossibility, heritage silently deleted the information).
• it assumes more upper-class tax cuts will somehow increase revenue.
• it depends on trillions of dollars' worth of unspecified cuts—i guess there must be a couple trillion dollars' worth of "fluff" in the budget.
• it eviscerate programs for the poor and elderly while simultaneously rewarding the rich with tax cuts.
• it doesn't cut military spending.

i could go on, but i think you get my point: ryan's budget is a joke, a fantasy. it could never pass, it relies on numbers that have been called "insane", and most absurd of all, under the plan, the debt would be higher than if we did nothing.

so i was flabbergasted when i saw the headline to today's lead editorial in the indy star:

Finally, a serious plan to cut deficit

this would've been humiliating enough if it had run wednesday morning. if it had, it would've shown that, like too many in the media, the star ed board is easily impressed by "bold" plans that take drastic measures, even if those plans rest on fallacious premises and rely on magical thinking. it would've shown that screwing the poor is all you need to do for the ed board to brand you as "serious".

but the fact that this ran today—after the internet has been tearing the ryan plan to shreds for three days—is mortifying. today, as the threat of a federal government shutdown looms, the star runs an editorial praising a budget plan that was shown to be sham days ago. they are shockingly, disgracefully behind the times. ¶

an old track, but it's new to you

i've been digging through some old tunes lately—both old records i haven't listened to in a while as well as tracks i produced back in the day—and i stumbled across a databent track called "denial of service". this track was recorded early in the true data sessions* and i was quite pleased with it at the time, but i made around eight tracks and there was only room for four on the record, so it got cut. however, unlike the other tracks that got cut—two of which have been on my mp3 page for ages—"denial of service" somehow slipped through the cracks and i forgot about it.

as such, i believe this track has never been released in any format. that seemed like a damn shame, so i uploaded it to soundcloud:

stAllio! - denial of service by stallio

* true data, of course, is available for streaming on soundcloud, and still available as a 12" in the AWIA shop. ¶

talk talk talk talk talk

did you know that the legendary metal band black sabbath wasn't always called black sabbath? this isn't an april fool's joke, folks! at one time, the band was called earth and they played hippy crap like everyone else in the '60s. then one day they wrote a really creepy song called "black sabbath" and realized they were on to something, so they took the song title as their band name and began exploring their new sound. the rest is history.

i like to imagine a similar origin story for the new-wave band talk talk, whose first single was titled—wait for it—"talk talk". apparently, the song was a cover: the original was called "talk talk talk talk", so maybe they decided to split the title in half and use the first half as their band name. talk talk - talk talk? guys, that's brilliant!

so my wife and i have been watching a lot of the 120 minutes video block on vh1 classic, and they play "talk talk" a lot. like, every time. way more than they play "it's my life", which was talk talk's big hit in the US. we wondered why this might be, and concluded it was likely due to ringtone sales. vh1 classic is all about selling ringtones these days, and "talk talk" is uniquely suited to ringtone use thanks to its lyrical content (or lack thereof).

of course, vh1's ringtones are a huge ripoff ($5.99/month gets you two whole ringtones each month!), and you'd be better off getting the song elsewhere and copying it to your phone manually. my wife mentioned this—that you could make your own talk talk ringtone—and at that moment, i was struck by inspiration—create the ultimate talk talk ringtone, stripped down to its essence: just the parts where he says "talk".

so here it is: the talk edit ringtone of "talk talk". and for your enjoyment, here's the full video version:

kind of hypnotic, actually... ¶