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A tale of woe. An AIR app is initialising. It needs to loads its images, which have been downloaded and stored locally on a user’s machine. Enter characters Main App, Local Store & Image Loader

Main App. Local Store! Get these seven images NOW!
Local Store. Sure!… Here you are, seven images!
MA. Hey, this is only one image!
LS. [...tumbleweed...]
MA. [sigh] I can see I’m going to have to do this myself. Fucking useless class. OK [crack knuckles] Loader! Load these SIX images!
Image Loader. Sure!… Here you are, six images!
MA. Great, thanks Loader, at least i can rely on YOU. Listen, can you have a word with Local Store? i think he skives off sometimes.
IL. We’ve talked to him before, he just doesn’t listen. Some classes are… dunno, `bit ignorant like that. [shrugs]
MA. OK Loader, well you’ll have to do his share sometimes
IL. Hey sure, I’m a Loader, I just LOVE loading things!

Scene 4 - doubtless involves some other problem we’ll have to hack around…

inspired by this post on my friend matt pearson’s professional website, i thought i’d have a stab myself at transcoding a william blake poem into code (using actionscript, as it’s what i’m most accustomed to)

var garden:OfLove = getChildhoodGarden();

if (garden.chapel is Chapel)
{  
  garden.chapel.x = garden.width / 2;
  garden.chapel.y = garden.height / 2;
  garden.chapel.shut = true;
  garden.chapel.doctrine = “Thou shalt not”;
  
  var len:int = garden.sweetFlowers.length;
  for (var i:int=0; i<len; i++){
    garden.sweetFlowers[i] = new Tombstone();
  }
  
  var priest:Priest;
  len = garden.priests.length;
  for (i=0; i<len; i++){
    priest = Priest( garden.priests[i] );
    priest.setStyle(”gownColor”, 0×000000);
    priest.walk();
    priest.bind(BRIARS, my.joys);
    priest.bind(BRIARS, my.desires);
  }
}

i’m a fisherman. metaphorically speaking that is; on a practical footing i have no idea of what it’s like to chug out to the north sea with a net and a host of black flags. but professionally, metaphorically speaking, i’m a fisherman.

(more…)

there have been a few times over the past few years when i come on here and apologised about being busy and not being able to update as often as i would have liked to. i have again been idiotically busy these last few weeks but i have to say for once not with tiresome domestic or business matters. true, i have been working evenings and weekends for my present client, but i’ve also been tramping through london’s abandoned dockyards, building impromptu beach sculpture, dreaming up a truly genius idea for public artwork and creating my first truly awesome piece of generative art. not bad for a damp february! i also built an art-game late last year that i haven’t had the chance to release yet!

i’ve been desperate to blog about it all but really just haven’t had any time. i mean, it’s nearly midnight now and i’ve done nowt but code and sleep for days, weeks. i’ve been doing the high-pressure freelance paying gigs so solidly for the past 6 months that it’s beginning to affect my health and so next week, when my present contract finishes, i’m hoping to get away for a few days of r&r and document all this. just a simple room in a b&b in some anonymous town  somewhere. yeah, just me… and my mac… and a wifi connection… and a box of k-nex, my sketchbook, camera, stop-motion animation software, a duffle bag of science, art, software & mathematics textbooks and my favourite faber-castell drawing pens! :)