Flame Alc – on!!
Adobe recently announced the first public release of a research project code-named Alchemy. Alchemy is a C/C++ to ActionScript compiler, which opens up a huge new world for the Flash platform. Compiling some C or C++ code with Alchemy will result with a class that is basically a virtual machine, written in ActionScript and AVM2 bytecode.
Following the getting started on the Adobe Labs site Marc and I set about trying to setup Alchemy on Linux and OSX respectively. Cue much frustration and cursing! The guide given on the site is actually very straight forward and easy to follow, but (for the moment at least) following the guide will not mean you are ready to start playing with Alchemy.
Unfortunately, the symlinks in the Alchemy bin directory for ‘g++’ and ‘gcc’ ($ALCHEMY/bin/llvm-gcc) will point to the sub-folder ‘llvm-gcc4-ubuntu-install’ in the bin directory ($ALCHEMY/bin/llvm-gcc4-ubuntu-install/bin/llvm-gcc). This may be fine if that happens to be the version you are setting up uses this structure, if not then you could waste a lot of time trying to find out why gcc and g++ silently fail whenever they are run. These symlinks should be changed to match the sub-folder in the bin directory of Alchemy. In the case of gcc this symlink should be changed to:
‘$ALCHEMY/bin/llvm-gcc4-[flavour of os here]-install/bin/gcc
e.g. ‘$ALCHEMY/bin/llvm-gcc4-darwin-install/bin/gcc’, in the case of OSX.
This has been noted (as of 11/20/2008) and the config will be fixed to resolve this issue in the next release. But for now, check your symlinks!
Who hates balloons?
I stumbled across these portraits on Greyscale Gorilla whilst trawling the Coudal blended feed (a good source of inspiration and randomness throughout the day), and I absolutely love them. A wonderful set of photos, with stark simple photography and wonderfully contrasting colours. The placement of the subject’s favourite thing is at times playful and humorous, and in others works wonderfully to frame the subject’s face. I especially like Nick’s self-portrait.
“I asked my friends to grab their favorite things off their desk at work for a quick photo shoot project.” -Nick Campbell
After looking through more of Nick’s (awesome) photography on his flickr I couldn’t shake the feeling that his work seemed strangely familiar. It was whilst looking through more of his portraits that it hit me.
Nick Campbell directed my favourite ever video short!!
Produced by Colin Davis, edited by Josh Bodnar, starring Benny Monson, shot at a unnervingly beautiful 250fps, ‘Bubbles’ is a perfect blend of chilled Jazz and slo-mo frantic bubble popping. Part of the reason I like the video so much, aside from being a sucker for slo-mo footage and Benny’s manic expression, is the way it gives the impression of being shot underwater. The way all the movements of skin, hair, and clothes are slowed down to a crawl, there even seems a similarity between the way skin pales and eyes look ‘glazed-over’ when underwater… probably a mix of how the video is shot and my own imagination.
Check out more of Nick’s work at http://www.creamyorange.com/.
![[Insert Jaws theme-tune here] @studiogpop @spazy_t @217jen](http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6237/6365285631_2ba3b7964e_s.jpg "[Insert Jaws theme-tune here] @studiogpop @spazy_t @217jen")
