Tom’s Image Gallery

Me

What is so special about the speed of light c? Only light energy can travel as fast as light and nothing can ever go faster. Suppose you are a celestial analog clock (like the analog timepiece modelled in geosynchronous orbit above the black and white checkerboard planet in Plinth Park – let us assume) and the time was 01:60:20 UT (Universal Time), 01:46:46 ST (Standard Time). There have been countless celestial analog clocks since the Big Bang, a regular procession of the clocks throughout the eons, but like insects trapped in amber, one by one, every clock stopped. To commemorate the demise of a clock, loram gniebs, moral beings similar to us, yet not the same, erected a plinth. Visualize yourself as a celestial analog clock hurtling through space at a maximum velocity of 235,794,887 meters per universal second, 299,792,458 meters per standard second, which is equal to c. From your vantage point, time is standing still momentarily, but from the point of view of the cosmos, including that of Humanity going about its day-to-day, routine affairs on planet Earth, time flies slowly. Test the hypothesis.

Having trust in Humanity is important. Trusting your fellow humans is a virtue. Trust me.

Triskaidekachronistic Counter-clock Clock (943 KB) is a Windows screen saver and a potentially virus-infected file. You can download it for free. Downloading is safe. To be of any use to you the file must be executed. Gotcha. Be careful. (You people on Mars — I mean Macs — I’m sorry, the screen saver is god — I mean good.)

Images

Creating images on my computer was a hobby of mine from 1995 to 1999.

In 1998 Rainbirds came in 61^st in a raytracing contest!

Fiction

“Tom’s Image Gallery” accommodates a cycle of plays and an html story. The plays contain images. Twelve gallery images are those in plays.

I would be remiss not to mention the plays were not always online plays: Visitors are advised that just as there is no sex in space (until someone puts it there), there is no cybersex in cyberspace (until someone puts it there). I estimate a fast performance would take about an hour; a more measured performance could take perhaps an hour and a half, in playing time.

1998-1999: I wrote the plays, submitted with the images to publishers and agents the fait accompli, and they were rejected.

2005: I sent two copies of a manuscript which included the plays and the images to literary agents, who rejected the material.

October 2005: An agent replied to an eBook of the plays (I emailed her), “I’m afraid I don’t feel sufficiently committed to offer representation.”

2009: “We represent stage plays and writers for film and television, rather than online plays,” was the response I got back recently to a covering letter describing the online play cycle.

Fiction links

Magicus Oculus (plays: In-Line Guide page) guide.htm

Berliner (prose: html fiction) text000.htm

oBook

The oBook oDition of Magicus Oculus (77 pages – full version) is an interactive eBook. Images are linked. Following the links (by clicking) constitutes interacting – I think I’m right – with the ‘oBook’.

Also see Blind – which immortalizes the Magicus Oculus stage set as I had first envisaged it.

Themes

The theme of the raytracing contest (in 1998) was “Great Engineering Achievements”. Rainbirds was inspired by smart missiles homing in on their targets during the first Gulf War. The second Gulf War was somewhere over the horizon. We just didn’t know it yet.

My favorite theme is terrorism. The Gentleman for instance, which I don’t consider a farce, is a short, satirical piece in which the main character accepts responsibility for a foreign terrorist attack on American soil.

Project

Hyperlinking to behind-the-scenes scenes (for want of a better pleonasm) in the html fiction is a kind of dramatic (Brechtian) alienation effect (Verfremdungseffekt). Pages are deliberately formatted to facilitate jumping around in the story that explores the concept of computer-generated art. Berliner is thirty-seven pages. Seventeen pages are linked content. You must read Berliner in a browser. I aim to write more html fiction as necessary. Pas de cadeaux and no promises.

Online literary experiments are as hard to find buyers for as cybersex in cyberspace (until someone puts it there). I’m planning an offline Windows installer, the prose, the drama and the images rolled into a saleable commodity. (I hope.) That is not to say, performing (and publishing) the play cycle is now superfluous. Art is never superfluous. I am convinced the plays are enjoyable as-is. The plays could prove their worth on stage. (Call me an optimist.)

Support the project

If you appreciate my work and would like to support the project, you can buy an image. Images cost UK £3.00 and UK £5.00.

A picture makes a nice gift for someone.

“Hey anybody, can you spare a dime? If you’re really hurtin’, a nickel would be fine.” (Frank Zappa – Can’t Afford No Shoes) Visit the Gallery Shop.

Navigation Panel

The Navigation Panel is a functional frontend for the gallery with dynamic features: a field that provides extra information about links, a status bar displaying locations and comments, and thematic buttons. Enable the panel.

Disable the panel.

Browser

Tested browsers are (Windows): Opera, Safari, Netscape, Firefox, Mozilla, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer. Avoid Netscape 4 and 6, Opera 5 and 6, and Internet Explorer 4 and 5, if you can. If possible, use Firefox 3 or Internet Explorer 8, or both.

Mac OS X (tested): Safari 2.0.4; Firefox 2.0; Camino 1.0.2; Flock 0.7.4.1; iCab 3.0.2; Mozilla 1.7.13; Netscape 7.2; OmniWeb 5.5; Opera 9.01; SeaMonkey 1.0.4; Shiira 2.0.

Validate this page.

Flash

Adobe (or Macromedia) Flash plug-in (to prove the Theory of Relativity). (Flash 6 minimum.)

Midi

A MIDI plug-in (optional). Windows Media Player or Apple QuickTime.

Mp3

An MP3 plug-in (optional). Windows Media Player or Apple QuickTime.

Internet

Connection, any speed.

PDF

Compatible viewer (optional). To view Magicus Oculus in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) you need a viewer capable of displaying PDF 1.3 (Acrobat 4.x) files.

Java

A plug-in (required for the Java Slide Show). Upgrading to the latest Java Runtime Environment improves performance.

Video

1024 × 768 screen resolution (or higher) at 96 dpi (or better), 8-bit 256 colors (minimum).

HTA Browser Object

Fed up with browser wars? MSIE v Netscape, AOL LOL, MSIE v Firefox, MSIE v Opera? No more browser wars. Who needs a browser? Peace.

You can easily turn a Website into an HTA that works online or offline.

TIG probably has one of the most sophisticated HTA implementations anywhere — due in large part to a notable absence from the Internet of HTA, I HTA (hasten to add) humbly.

How does an HTA browser object work?

Instead of opening a Web page online in your browser, you open the page locally. The page displays within an application window. Not just any application window, that is: a HyperText Application (HTA) window.

If you’re interested in creating HTAs with browser navigation buttons, have a look at the script sections in the sample code or download the example (9 KB).

What are the requirements?

Starting TIG in an HTA window requires Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer 5.5. You can run the browser object in two ways. To test-drive my HTA (from this site), do this —

Cache Method: “Run” (or open — do not save, then run) index.hta. (Click on the link.) The browser caches index.hta before it launches. The file is 5.2 KB. Some browsers only permit you to save the file.

Save Method: Download htas.zip (6 KB). (Click on the link.) The ZIP archive contains three HTAs, a MIDI jukebox (1), an MP3 song (2) and TIG (3). The MIDI jukebox and the MP3 song are linked in TIG. You can open them as links. The HTAs launch application windows. Extract midiload.hta (1), tchaser.hta (2) and index.hta (3). Keep the files together, extracting them to the same place. Double-click index.hta to open TIG in HTA mode.

Why don’t more people have HTA sites?

HTA is unfashionable. The strength of HTA is that it is deployable — as an HTML interface, as a means of distributing offline pages. That does not endear it to many who mistrust the practice of deploying code. Malicious HTAs are coming to get you.

What can you do to protect yourself against naughty HTAs?

Don’t click on files with an .hta extension. Data Execution Prevention (DEP) on Vista might protect you by stopping legacy ActiveX controls from running inside HTAs.