Dustings #33

I’m so angry!

After making my big announcement yesterday, I went to the bank with the $600 check that Vanishing Inc., gave me to buy this site and the check bounced! Apparently they didn’t have enough money in their business account to cover it. And when I brought it up to them they were like, “Can we pay you in Vanishing Inc Points?” When I refused that option they stopped returning my phone calls and emails. They had changed the password to get into my squarespace account for this site too, but I was able to guess what they changed it to (magicboyz69) and recover the account.

So it looks like I’m going back to running the site myself. Ignore everything that was said yesterday.


Supporter Jon S., sent me this article about an advertising campaign that used images secretly hidden in a block of color that are only revealed when you adjust your filter settings in Instagram.

Screen Shot 2021-03-31 at 9.53.48 AM.png

I can definitely see some presentational uses for such a thing, but I have no understanding of how one might go about creating such an image. Is it a simple step-by-step thing you could do in photoshop? Or is it a more complicated process?

If you know how it’s done—especially if it’s something that’s doable by the average person—send me an email and let me know.


Second Helpings: Cyanotypes by Elisha Ott

5SecondsApp_638998600.542597.gif

In the pdf here you will learn the second best thing from Elisha’s ebook, Cyanotypes.

If you’d like me to post the second best thing from your book/lecture/multi-trick download, etc, then you can find the details about doing so here.


I just did an unintentional trick at the grocery store about 30 minutes ago. It’s probably not something I could pull off again if I tried, but it just so happened to work out tonight.

Sometimes when I’m in the grocery store and I’m pushing the cart and I want to do something on my phone real quick—like change what I’m listening to or reply to a text—I will push the cart so it rolls away from me at about the same pace as I’m walking behind it. So the cart is moving in front of me, but I’m not touching it, and my hands are free to do something on the phone.

So I did that maneuver in the store just a little while ago, and I walked passed the end of an aisle. A woman who was in the aisle saw me walk past and said, “Hey!” and ran up to me. I thought it might be someone I knew, but I couldn’t really tell because everyone is masked up. So I was like, “Oh… hey?” And she looked from me to the cart to the phone in my hand and she said, “We’re you controlling your cart with your phone?” From her perspective, she just saw the cart moving without me touching it, and me doing something on my phone behind it. Like they would make an app to steer a shopping cart.

Had I understood what she was saying immediately, I would have joked around with her. “Yes. Of course. Wait… you’re not still pushing your shopping cart these days, are you.” But I had no idea what on earth she was talking about, so I said, “What on earth are you talking about?” She explained she saw the cart moving in front of me and I wasn’t touching it and eventually we got it sorted out. It was a strange exchange. But also an enjoyable one. So I got her number. I’ll let you know if it turns out she always makes the least probable assumptions about things, or if this was a one-off situation.