fluxion23 tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1 2008-08-28T12:26:48Z Movable Type 3.36 Desktop theme: Deco tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.26 2008-08-29T12:04:49Z 2008-08-28T12:26:48Z I've always loved art deco design, for the angular shapes and the sharp contrasts, but most of all for the colors. They seem unique to me in any art movement of the 20th century. Last time I did this whole... SoGlitchy I've always loved art deco design, for the angular shapes and the sharp contrasts, but most of all for the colors. They seem unique to me in any art movement of the 20th century. Last time I did this whole thing, I just started with a hazy vagueness (which turned out ok, surprisingly!), but this time I started with a famous painting by Tamara de Lempicka called "Young Girl with Gloves." From there I had to work backwards towards something that would actually make a usable interface. Ain't that just always the way. After resisting the temptation to make another dark, "inverse" theme (it's always there with me, especially in the middle of the night), I went with a fairly neutral palette, the base color having perhaps a half-hint of green, but mainly a medium-light grey, highlighted with gold and black. Now, a word about "gold." I always thought it was a color. I was surprised and possibly enlightened to discover that... it's not. Red and green and blue are colors, they happen all on their own and stand firm in any light, but something like "gold" is so dependent on the colors near to it, and perhaps even the shapes and context it's put into, that it can't be called a color anymore than you can call "puke" a color. Gold is an emotion, and at its very best it's an event. If that sounds obvious, well, it does to me too, now that I see it. Ain't that just always the way. Aaaanyway. The icons are very different than the ones in the last theme I put out, even though they're based on the same basic stuff. The folders (very dominant in any desktop's color scheme) are a lipstick shade of rose, and many of the basic colors of other icons have been changed, enhanced, or the icons completely redrawn and reworked. Before you install any of this, make sure you have the latest gnome themes:
sudo apt-get install gnome-themes-extras
Do that first, and the "themes" package should drag and drop nicely. The icons should install just as easily, the wallpaper as always is at your discretion, and the login theme (labelled "Deco-gdm-login.tar.gz") should be extracted and moved by the root user to /usr/share/gdm/themes. And then (I have found no way to make this one-step, unfortunately), you have to go to System > Administration > Login Window, choose the "Local" tab, then choose the theme that you just plopped into the "/usr/share/gdm/themes" folder. The theme ought to show up immediately, even without restarting or logging out. (If it doesn't show up, try restarting or logging out. Heh.) Make sure you also choose "Themed" and "Selected Only" from the two dropdown menus at the top of the window, respectively. The process is not as pretty as it should be, I know. But if it was, it would be called Apple and it wouldn't be free. It also wouldn't be this customizable, so it's kind of a wash. Anyway, here you go.

Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

Sample: Icons
Download

Complete package (12.0MB)

Gtk theme only (491 bytes)

Icons only (4.5MB)

Wallpapers only (3.6MB)

]]> Gui Boratto - Anunciacion tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.36 2008-08-27T22:25:13Z 2008-08-27T23:06:34Z Even the least of the Kompakt Total compilations is worth having, and Total 9 is not one of the least. I could have picked any of a dozen tracks off it, but in the last year or so, Gui Boratto... SoGlitchy Even the least of the Kompakt Total compilations is worth having, and Total 9 is not one of the least. I could have picked any of a dozen tracks off it, but in the last year or so, Gui Boratto has won me over in a special way. This track puts me in the mind of a grainy Michael Mann nightscape.
Amazon.com | Resident Advisor
]]> Summertime mini-mix tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.35 2008-08-24T20:34:58Z 2008-08-25T19:02:32Z Summertime mini-mixSince the fish are indeed jumpin' and the cotton is looking on the tallish side, here's 25 minutes of "Summertime" that will seem either tedious or pleasantly melancholy, depending on what you think of the Gershwin tune. First,... SoGlitchy <p>Summertime mini-mix</p>Since the fish are indeed jumpin' and the cotton is looking on the tallish side, here's 25 minutes of "Summertime" that will seem either tedious or pleasantly melancholy, depending on what you think of the Gershwin tune. First, an overlooked Willie Nelson version, from an album he did with Leon Russell. (The recent "Legacy Edition" of the album Stardust could have and maybe should have included this track.) Then there's the Janis Jopin version, which would be a definitive version of the song if that were possible, which I sincerely doubt. Then Greg Dulli does his blue-eyed-tortured-soul thing, making the song sound not only sad but also angsty, and then Booker T. and the MG's do a great soft/loud take on it. Then the cherry on top, John Coltrane's version from the My Favorite Things album. It might be too obvious to include, but it's too damn good not to.
Amazon.com: Willie Nelson | Janis Joplin | The Twilight Singers | Booker T. and the MGs | John Coltrane
]]> Nat King Cole Trio - Bang Bang Boogie tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.34 2008-08-08T21:48:14Z 2008-08-09T01:01:25Z While we're in the 50's. Am I crazy, or does this song seem a bit... well... kinky? The Daddy/Baby labels may be just old slang, but now that they're outdated it's easy to see the dominant/submissive dynamic that they only... SoGlitchy While we're in the 50's. Am I crazy, or does this song seem a bit... well... kinky? The Daddy/Baby labels may be just old slang, but now that they're outdated it's easy to see the dominant/submissive dynamic that they only barely obscured. Thanks to Nat's light-as-air delivery, the whole thing sounds like a game, a little fun after Daddy gets home from work. "Has Baby behaved?" Because if not, she may be in for a spanking. Let's review quickly, Nat -- what's the safe word?
Amazon.com | All Music Guide
]]> Jimmie Rodgers - Kisses Sweeter Than Wine tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.33 2008-08-08T21:41:09Z 2008-08-08T21:56:19Z Depending on your point of view, this is either a joyous celebration of love and its fruits, a quaint throwback to a more naive time, or a grim cautionary tale. But there's no getting around it -- it's damn catchy.... SoGlitchy Depending on your point of view, this is either a joyous celebration of love and its fruits, a quaint throwback to a more naive time, or a grim cautionary tale. But there's no getting around it -- it's damn catchy.
Amazon.com | All Music Guide
]]> Sister Rosetta Tharpe - Strange Things Happening Every Day tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.32 2008-07-30T23:54:40Z 2008-07-31T00:19:56Z I'm not much of a God-fearing man, but that doesn't stop this from being a favorite song of mine. The simple yet ineffable truth of the title is (to appropriate a John Lennon quote) bigger than Jesus. Amazon.com | All... SoGlitchy I'm not much of a God-fearing man, but that doesn't stop this from being a favorite song of mine. The simple yet ineffable truth of the title is (to appropriate a John Lennon quote) bigger than Jesus.
Amazon.com | All Music Guide
]]> Wallpaper: "Have to" tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.31 2008-07-22T07:04:34Z 2008-07-22T07:50:00Z Ahem. Presented with all due apologies to Veer and the fine artists who keep me going back there. This began life as a wallpaper of theirs that proclaims, "You have to disconnect to reconnect," which sounds like an Oblique Strategy,... SoGlitchy Ahem. Presented with all due apologies to Veer and the fine artists who keep me going back there. This began life as a wallpaper of theirs that proclaims, "You have to disconnect to reconnect," which sounds like an Oblique Strategy, except lame. (You're required to sign up for an account to download wallpapers from them, but of course that's free.)

At any rate, I believe I found the hidden message in it.

You have to disco

Note: This is only in 1440x900 size (png pr jpg) instead of the usual range of sizes. I'm not going to go all-out for a goof. :)

]]> So serious about Chicago tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.30 2008-07-19T09:58:12Z 2008-07-19T10:57:54Z The Dark Knight was shot in my adopted home, Chicago, but so was the last Batman film, if you take the literal definition of "shot." Where Batman Begins took place in a CG world that had tiny bits of the... SoGlitchy The Dark Knight was shot in my adopted home, Chicago, but so was the last Batman film, if you take the literal definition of "shot." Where Batman Begins took place in a CG world that had tiny bits of the real Chicago mixed in with it, The Dark Knight very much exists in Chicago. Chicago's buildings, streets, and even basic infrastructure are all over it. Not that anyone not fairly intimate with the city would ever notice, because the city is not treated like that at all -- the movie is not crammed with recognizable landmarks and cultural shout-outs, the way most movies shot in Chicago tend to be (The Fugitive is a good example). It doesn't pander to Chicago's famous puffy pride, and cannot even announce that it is Chicago, because of course it's Gotham. But because of this subtlety, rather than in spite of it, the movie ends up making the city look better than any movie ever has. The locations and shots are never about the individual places, but about the feel of the city, the dark canyons, brick alleys, ubiquitous commuter train tracks, and most of all the unique and pervasive mixture of architectural styles. The Art Deco lives next door to the Modern; Louis Sullivan and Mies Van der Rohe borrow sugar and visual real estate from each other; everything from the literal inception of the steel skyscraper to the unfinished Trump Tower coexist -- and not just in one place, everywhere you look. The city's architecture is visionary in its anachronisms, and because of that all the more comfortable in its visions. I noticed in particular one man's office -- maybe you'll notice it in the movie, but probably not -- located in a building I once worked in, on the northeast corner of Michigan and Wacker. And I had to dig up an old picture I took from that building. So very... Gotham-y. The corner of Michigan and Wacker from the 14th floor, across the street.

Visit my Flickr page

]]> Ponytail - Celebrate the Body Electric (It Came From an Angel) tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.29 2008-07-09T15:01:44Z 2008-07-09T15:06:30Z I knew this record was something special the first time I heard it, but the more I listen to it, the more it's... whoa. Hot new audio love affair. Don'tcha love those? I picked this track because it's the longest,... SoGlitchy I knew this record was something special the first time I heard it, but the more I listen to it, the more it's... whoa. Hot new audio love affair. Don'tcha love those? I picked this track because it's the longest, not for any better reason. The whole record is amazing.
Amazon.com | Pitchfork
]]> iTAL tEK - Tokyo Freeze (remix) tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.28 2008-07-09T10:01:32Z 2008-07-09T11:00:09Z Call it dubstep, call it what you will, but young Alan Myson of Brighton, England, has made a helluva long-playing record here; shaking, stuttering, and brooding in roughly equal measure. I can't get it off my iPod. Amazon.com | Boomkat... SoGlitchy Call it dubstep, call it what you will, but young Alan Myson of Brighton, England, has made a helluva long-playing record here; shaking, stuttering, and brooding in roughly equal measure. I can't get it off my iPod.
Amazon.com | Boomkat
]]> Low Motion Disco - Things Are Gonna Get Easier (Woolfy's Forgiveness Mix) tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.27 2008-07-09T08:59:58Z 2008-07-09T10:27:16Z I don't know much about this Swiss duo (I don't think anyone does -- they're famous for not giving interviews), but I know they always put a nice spit-shine on a downtempo track. This is nice stuff. Goes down smooth.... SoGlitchy I don't know much about this Swiss duo (I don't think anyone does -- they're famous for not giving interviews), but I know they always put a nice spit-shine on a downtempo track. This is nice stuff. Goes down smooth.
Flexx
]]> Desktop Theme: StudioJade tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.37 2008-07-08T12:06:59Z 2008-08-28T12:09:27Z Another of my little hobbies is redesigning the theme of my desktop PC, which is running a flavor of Ubuntu. Switching to a GNU/Linux operating system has been a huge eye opener for me on the customization front. While Mac... SoGlitchy Detail: StudioJadeAnother of my little hobbies is redesigning the theme of my desktop PC, which is running a flavor of Ubuntu. Switching to a GNU/Linux operating system has been a huge eye opener for me on the customization front. While Mac offers a few great tools for tweaking things like icons and the dock, and Windows has a lot of options and plugins, nothing offers the hands-on constructive frustration of Linux. You can change the look and feel of anything, quite literally, and usually without breaking anything too mission-critical in the process. It has its problems and limitations (say "X-server" to any Linux geek, and you'll get a saturnine nod), but on the whole, the fun to be had playing with it far outweighs the bad times.

The theme I'm calling StudioJade (so named because it's based on a few UbuntuStudio theme elements, and of course because it's a jade-ish color) began life as a Winamp skin, was discovered by me as a skin for Audacious, and I've been kicking it around, abandoning and coming back to it, ever since. I've taken pains to try to avoid the pitfalls of dark or inverse-colored themes, like magical disappearing text, or areas with too much or too little contrast. It has been revised within an inch of its little green life, but I have based all of my revisions and improvements on what I have discovered by doing what I do with my machine (web browsing, word processing, web development, graphics, and music editing). Maybe it goes without saying, but your mileage may vary.

Also, different screens will do different fancy and terrible things with color, and laptop screens are notoriously bad with dark colored-themes, in part because of the nature of LCD displays themselves, and in part because of how often people look at their laptop screen from an oblique angle or in bright light. This theme may still work for your laptop, but that's not what I had in mind. Like almost every designer I know, I spend a lot of time up at all hours of the night, sitting in a darkened room, staring intently at a monitor for hours at a time. Too much white is hard on the eyeballs after a while, and too much contrast is almost worse -- you can't look at straight-up white-on-black any longer or more comfortably. So there is a need to mellow things, turn the lights down on everything, and let your retinas know that it's all going to be ok.

First a note: this theme will work fine on any variant of Gnome Ubuntu (the "regular" version, if you will), but if you want your window titlebars to look like the ones you see in the screenshots, you'll need the UbuntuStudio theme, which you can get from the universe repository without the software suite or kernel by typing

sudo apt-get install ubuntustudio-theme

The theme also comes with a much more groovy bootsplash screen and a better set of sounds than the default Ubuntu installation. (Take it from one who has learned the hard way, though: don't try to install the whole UbuntuStudio package unless you have a pretty serious machine. A slower PC will choke on it in no small way.) So, without further adieu.


Screenshot 1

Screenshot 2

Screenshot: FileZilla
Download

Complete package (8.6MB)

GTK-2.0 theme only (74.6KB)

Icons only (3.2MB)

Wallpapers only (4.0MB)

As you can see, the "Jade" package includes the GTK-2.0 basic theme, which is really most of the hoopla, and a set of icons, which are basically the UbuntuStudio icons with different folders. Both of these can be installed through the usual channels: System > Preferences > Appearance > Theme tab. (Remember, install the whole tar.gz archive package. Dont untar it first.) There are some wallpapers, which you can do whatever you feel like with. And the "Complete package" also includes a gdm login screen theme, which can be installed with the Login manager (System > Administration > Login window).

Enjoy, and there's more on the way soon.

]]> Marvin Gaye - Where Are We Going tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.23 2008-06-29T18:17:27Z 2008-07-01T23:15:18Z In spite of the rather serious question, and talk of war and chaos, this song makes me happy, like the sound of kids playing on the sidewalk outside. Wherever we're going, it couldn't be that bad, could it? Could it?... SoGlitchy In spite of the rather serious question, and talk of war and chaos, this song makes me happy, like the sound of kids playing on the sidewalk outside. Wherever we're going, it couldn't be that bad, could it? Could it?
Amazon.com | All Music Guide
]]> Wallpaper: "You." tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.22 2008-06-29T17:35:37Z 2008-06-30T10:54:19Z If it's true that, as the saying goes, "a writer always writes," then I guess it's equally true that a designer always designs. I don't take days off from sitting at a computer and messing around to make things prettier.... SoGlitchy If it's true that, as the saying goes, "a writer always writes," then I guess it's equally true that a designer always designs. I don't take days off from sitting at a computer and messing around to make things prettier. Doesn't even occur to me. When I'm stressed or bored or, in the case of this week in Chicago, overheated, I just downshift a bit and mess around with something that doesn't matter to anyone but me. Desktop wallpaper is perfect for that.

This pretty lady has a message of some kind. Perhaps you have been chosen for some gravely important task, or maybe you need a stern reminder of who's untimately responsible for something. (For instance, you.) In any case, the object of her attention is unmistakable.

You.

Detail

detail
Widescreen

2560 x 1600 -- .jpg (439k) | .png (999k)

1920 x 1200 -- .jpg (285k) | .png (664k)

1680 x 1050 -- .jpg (225k) | .png (528k)

1440 x 900 -- .jpg (187k) | .png (439k)

Standard

1600 x 1280 -- .jpg (332k) | .png (763k)

1280 x 1024 -- .jpg (183k) | .png (425k)

1024 x 768 -- .jpg (122k) | .png (286k)

iPhone

320 x 480 -- .jpg (49k) | .png (106k)

]]> The War On Drugs - Taking the Farm tag:fluxion23.com,2008://1.24 2008-06-20T11:39:26Z 2008-06-30T10:54:57Z I don't know that I've read a review of this album yet that didn't mention Tom Petty, and I think it's a bit unfair, because at a glance you'd assume the record sounds like "American Girl." There's so much more... SoGlitchy I don't know that I've read a review of this album yet that didn't mention Tom Petty, and I think it's a bit unfair, because at a glance you'd assume the record sounds like "American Girl." There's so much more going on than that. This track, for instance, makes me think of Animal Collective more than anything else.
Amazon.com | Prefix
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