if you google the word databending, the first two results point you to this site. specifically, they point to entries on this blog (this one and this one), though i would probably prefer they point to my image databending gallery.

if you instead do a google search for the word databent, the first two hits point to a message announcing my image databending gallery in the archives of the awiannounce list (the mailing list i set up for news relating to AWIA, stAllio!, and other AWIA/bad taste-related artists). close, but not quite as convenient as a link straight to the gallery would be. if you google these terms you actually get a lot of links that either directly or indirectly point to me. probably because all those other databenders out there are busy actually bending data and creating bent art while i'm online worrying about search engine results. still, at least google thinks i'm relevant.¶

Labels: databending

i wonder whether it's possible to get meta tags into a blog entry.... ¶

nope - blogger won't accept "meta" as a legal tag. ¶

i've read in more places than one (here and here for example) that meta keywords tags aren't really very useful anymore for getting results into search engines. and google doesn't support them. there are other, better tricks to get into google, such as google bombing. ¶

yeah, google bombing almost worked for amway...

and it certainly worked for rick santorum! ¶

so, i've finally gotten around to try batabending, and i can get no results. what am i doing wrong? i tried taking a jpg, opening it in wordpad, making a slight change, and saving. what i get will not open in any application at all. ¶

that's a hard question to answer, because the JPEG format is very touchy and is pretty easy to break. if you bend anything in the header section, that could ruin the file for good. or if you corrupt/alter the data too much, that can break it. if you add or subtract data (even one bit of data in the wrong place), that can break it. all i've been able to do to jpegs with any consistency is cut & paste exact-length segments (not from the header section). you might want to start off with an easier format, like BMP or TIF: those formats bend like clay, though the results are very predictable once you figure it out.

let me add that i have yet to get comfortable with bending in a text-editing environment. wav editors let you zoom out in a way that you just can't with text editors, which really helps for seeing patterns in the data. ¶

aha -- i guess i missed somewhere that jpg was volatile and the bmp was a good starting place.

i'll try again. ¶

ok, i got a result. ¶