Living

The local news decided to pay us a visit and talk to jason. It’s a shame there wasn’t more real hacking in the video, but we can work on that. I think we need to have some folks act as ambassadors for the media, probably the same people who are supposed to be doing the PR… I Don’t think any one person has all the keys to all our social/web channels. Things to be improved upon.

I apologize in advance the for obnoxious local advertising on the lead-in to the actual video. Meh, my mind is not for sale or rent to any god or government.

If this interests you at all, you should definitely come visit us on a tuesday for our weekly meeting. 1930 hours sharp (7:30 PM for you normal people) at 2929 spring grove avenue. Did I mention there’s pizza?

Learn more about Hive13 at Hive13.org!

The following is a combination of fiction and computer generated imagery, sent back through time by a supercomputer. You’ve been warned.

Christmas morning had passed and we were an hour away from the Day’s end. All the presents had been unwrapped and the paper strewn about the living room. All was quiet, save for we three intrepid explorers: the best present was yet to come.

As we ascended the first of 35 flights of stairs, my heart is pounding out of my chest. The smallest of noises had my cohorts and I stopping dead in our tracks and listening for what could be signs of our impending doom: someone trying to find us. We are uhhh, unauthorized visitors. The wind tore at the fabric wrapping the building and at our hands, there was no staying warm. We could hear the drone of equipment above us, not knowing if there was someone supervising it. We didn’t care, the adrenaline coursing through our veins reminding us that stealth and personal safety were just as important as phenomenal photography. “Life before limb” I thought, except Life in this case was telling my fear to sit down and be quiet — now is not the time.

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Blackboard claims that new version 9.1 will “support” installation on Oracle’s ASM (Automatic Storage Management), which is really just Oracle’s own LVM (Logical Volume Manager) geared specifically for Oracle files. Blackboard’s installer, prior to version 9.1, will balk if ASM disk paths like +ASM_DBPROD_DATA/ are entered for the installation path on the database, as opposed to normal (ocfs2, ext3, nfs, etc.) /ocfs2_dbprod_data. This is because the installer’s script validates that there is a ‘/’ on the beginning of the path to the database. However, if you enter a fake path, like say ‘/fakepath’ for the installer, it executes some CREATE TABLESPACE SQLs that specify the file name for the tablespace. This SQL of course failes, because /fakepath doesn’t exist. I copied the failing SQL out of the installer path and noticed something: the installer was querying Oracle’s specialUSER_TABLESPACES (or DBA_TABLESPACES, I forget) to see if tablespaces like BB_BB60_DATA and BB_BB60_INDX existed. If they didn’t exist, the failing SQL would then try to create them, and fail due to ‘/fakepath’ being… fake. A complete and detailed solution to this problem follows after the break.

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Cincinnati is full of abandonments, most of the time you drive right past them without knowing their history. Many people take the presence of these historical treasures for granted, some call them blight, but their significance in Cincinnati’s history remains strong. They are an ever present reminder of Cincinnati’s past, and in some cases, a beacon for Cincinnati’s future; but more than likely they’re just a playground for explorers like me.

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a slideshow of all 4 photos.

Standing quitely behind a snow-blind sledder in Mt. Echo Park, the Crosley Building was once home of WLW radio (better known today as 700WLW.) The radio tye-in doesn’t stop there though, previously Crosley Radio Corporation used the building to manufacture low-cost table top radios until 1942 when World War II operations within the Crosley Building demanded that manufacturing operations be moved elsewhere.

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I took the bold move when I was living downtown to ride my bike and/or public transport to get back and forth to work. It saved me time not having to find a parking space and I got some fantastic exercise riding around Cincinnati and felt great doing it. Then the derailer failed on my bike — I’d better to something about that.

I am proud to say I’m a member of the Hive13 Hackerspace and this video should clue you in as to why. Tinkering with hardware is a ton of fun, and even without any real active projects going the Hive is a great resource for minds, ideas, and a great space to work on electronic projects of all shapes and sizes. Everything I need has always been there, though some of it was (of course) stuff I donated from my personal collection.

Hive13 from Soapboxmedia.com on Vimeo.

The KOI Burners couldn’t have picked a better venue than the Mockbee for Carnivolution, a heady mix of sensual and exhilarating performance (including Dante’s Gypsy Circus) , outrageous costumes, classic midway games and fantastmagorical persons of all shapes and sizes. KOI (Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana) Burners, a local arts group and appendage of the larger Burning Man collective located a few blocks away from the Mockbee building at 2008 Freeman Avenue hand built carnival games and much more. The Burners slaved for weeks to perfect their costumes for the carnival and burnt the midnight oil polishing the experience of the Midway for Carnivolution. The C.M. Mockbee Building, the crumbling industrial former home of a hardware company, refuses the be relegated to abandonment like so many others of it’s kind. For Carnivolution it is reborn a third time as a venue for experiencing the fantastic.

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a slideshow of all 55 photos.

Arlequin

Now she’s out of the straight jacket

Roxanne in Hookah Lounge Wonderland

Dante’s Gypsy Circus

The Fred Astaire of Practice Poi

High Class Bearded Lady

Feathers (Oh how I love feathers)

Want More?

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a slideshow of all 55 photos.

Or simply watch the slideshow in your browser now:

Nonsense and scribbles scratched on the wall in crayon, pencil, dirt. Names and geometric patterns drilled into the wood work. Floors covered in hay. Mary, Richard, Seth, Sue. I know there were children here before this house became, like so many in rural farming areas in America, storage for hay. Dated February 7th, 1974, the Centre Daily Times (or as I like to call it the Centre Daily Misprint) contains a piece “Weighing the risk Of an impeachment” doing exactly that in reference to a post-watergate Richard “Tricky Dick” Nixon. This is a fantastic parcel of land, and the house is still quite solid save for a crumbling foundation in one corner and a mushy floor on the back porch. There is another house just up the private road. Perhaps they just moved, electing to use their prior residence as storage for hay?

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a Slideshow of all 32 photos.

Sue’s Handiwork

Beautiful Decay

I love you

Seth’s Scribbles

Comedy/Tragedy

Weighing The Risk Of An Impeachment – 3 photos

View all 32 photos.

Location: near State College, PA

I went home to Montoursville, Pennsylvania for the Thanksgiving holiday. This was my first time home since my father’s death, and I had my doubts about how well I was going to take seeing the house again. Thankfully I was wrong — the work my Mom did is absolutely amazing. As far as the upstairs bathroom and master bedroom are concerned, I might as well have been coming home to boutique hotel. With a 50 gallon bath tub, no less.

View a slide show of all 16 photos

The bathroom is warm and inviting and features radiant floor heating, towel warmer, fifty gallon cast-iron bath tub, and airy glass shower. I’d say the icing on the cake is the HDTV on the swing arm above the bath tub.

The bedroom is the perfect place to crash after a wonderful day, or just to take a nap. My father always said that my mother was a fantastic napper. Our first dog, Boris, would run up the stairs to the bedroom if you asked him “Where’s Mommy?!” Why? because that’s usually where she was!

I love you Mom, you did a wonderful job… and you’re not even done yet!

View a slide show of all 16 photos

View the 16 photos in this set

A year is a long time, and in the space of that year I feel like I’ve really grown as a photographer. Oddly enough, this meant not only bettering my skills behind the camera, but facing fears. I was afraid to explore, because I didn’t want to go to jail. In actual fact, the Cincinnati Police Department seems to have a lot better things to do with their time. I was uneasy around people. Viewing the world through the viewfinder, the “real” world seems to fall away, and with it the anxiety. All that’s left is the image, the concentrated essence of the moment, and off we go…

Nota Bene: you can click these and see the full resolution versions on My Flickr, or view a Slideshow of all 37 photos.

You, You’re Awesome at the Southgate House

You, You’re Awesome at Northside Tavern

Abandoned Loch #5, Bowling Green, KY

Arsclan Jesus Respawns 9 Mug Shots

Sunset over Louisville,KY Rail Bridge

Unammed Boy, Sedamsville, Cincinnati, OH

Impromptu Portraits

Abandoned Hudepohl Brewery

Life in Downtown Cincinnati

Urban Decay in South Fairmont

Life as we know it:

And that’s just the beginning, trust me. I’ve come this far in a year, and the next year will be even more of the same. More shots, more exploring, more photowalks with those near and dear in Goettaville, Cincinnati, OH. I look forward to getting into my visual groove, feeling the world fall away, and creating wonderful pictures.

Much Love,
–Matt