I love how good tv shows sweat the most ridiculous detail, even when it’s an inside joke:
Commander Adama has a shaving mirror in his cabin. This mirror is made by IKEA, and is a model called…Fräck.
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Attention to Detail
Saturday, June 14th, 2008“You’re due a blog entry, bitch”
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008So I’m actually looking at an email with that very subject:
I’ve been exceptionally busy these past few weeks (the second email in that screesnap gives you an idea what kind of week I’m having) finishing up client projects, working on my own stuff, learning the new hotness, etc.
I will say this, in my limited circle, the iPhone 3G announcement is having its intended effect: everyone I know who doesn’t have one is now saying they’re going to get one. My parents, for example: They’re all-in, which is pretty unbelievable for a couple of avowed Mac-haters. Me, I don’t really have a choice whether or not to get one–a wonderful occupational hazard for a gadget geek. I already miss the silver back and at-home activation, though.
Like everyone else on the intartubes, I’m curious to find out how long the battery lasts with a GPS app running and just how fast 3G feels in actual use. Especially where I live. The AT&T coverage viewer tells me that my whole city is just dripping with first-class AT&T 3G, but I’ll believe it when I can drive to the coffee shop without dropping a call.
One of the reasons it’s hard to blog is that much of what I’ve found interesting over the past few weeks is totally secret spy stuff (oh, so that’s how that’s going to work!) I expect that after July 11 I’ll be jibbering-jabbering away like a fool. In the meantime, if we could just get an SDK that worked. 
On the music tip, if you haven’t heard this, you should.
Wishlist
Wednesday, May 28th, 2008
Okay, so I’m in dangerous larp-nerd territory here, but I confess that–at least on paper–owning one of these seems pretty cool. I mean, just picture it: When my daughter acts up in years to come, I just say “Don’t make me get Frostmourne out young lady!”
If my dad had wielded that sword when I was growing up, I guarantee you I would’ve gotten ‘O’s’ for ‘Citizenship’ on every report card.
God. Dammit.
Monday, May 19th, 2008
Oh yeah, sure, I have time for this.
Flash 10 ‘Astro’ and Audio Programming
Thursday, May 15th, 2008If you thought there were a lot of music RIAs (RIMAs?) coming out now, just wait until Flash 10 hits the streets later this year. From Tinic Uro, the guy responsible for audio in Flash at Adobe:
Flash Player 10 code named Astro supports a new event on the Sound object: “samplesCallback”. It will be dispatched on regular interval requesting more audio data. In the event callback function you will have to fill a given ByteArray (Sound.samplesCallbackData) with a certain amount of sound data. The amount is variable, from 512 samples to 8192 samples per event. That is something you decide on and is a balance between performance and latency in your application. The less data you provide per event the more overhead is spent in the Flash Player. The more data you provide the longer the latency for your application will be. If you just play continious audio we suggest to use the maximum amount of data per event as the difference in overall performance can be quite large.
So, Flash finally has an audio callback mechanism like CoreAudio or ASIO. It’s not very low latency–the lower bound of 512 samples at 44,100 kHz gives you about 12ms flash to bang–but it’s much, much, much better than what developers have had to work around so far.
I’d say you can look for a whole wave of Audiotool type music suites in the next couple of years, giving traditional entry-level apps like Garageband and Fruityloops a run for their newbie users.
DreamOn Pro
Tuesday, May 13th, 2008This software looks HOT
ReBirth, 2008 Edition
Monday, May 12th, 2008
I will never, ever forget downloading and running the demo of ReBirth sometime in 1997. These incredible sounds were coming out of my computer, and the future seemed amazing and limitless. Interesting career note, I remember thinking I MUST LEARN HOW TO WRITE THIS KIND OF SOFTWARE. Heh.
I probably will forget the first time I saw Hobnox (today), not because it’s any less awesome than ReBirth was in 97, but because we’re so spoiled with virtual instruments coming out our ears (and phones).
As a developer, I’m stoked that they can do this much in Flash in realtime. As a user, I’m frustrated that I don’t seem to be able to save my creations or bounce them out to aif or mp3, but I’m sure all that’s coming.
What do you guys think? Will we be making music in our browsers any time soon?
Awesome/Creative Low Budget Music Video
Monday, May 12th, 2008The song grates on me something fierce, but the video is great.
Best Video Game Title. Ever.
Friday, May 2nd, 2008I’d actually be willing to do the music for this.
“But all our samples are totally legit. Honest”
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008Check out EastWest/SoundOnline’s excellent new website design to celebrate their 20th anniversary:
Now see if this looks familiar:
Wow. Just wow. Did they think that no MI customer might also be a gamer? Or that Gamespot is such an off-the-beaten path obscure site that nobody would recognize their copied-wholesale design?
Doug sure does earn his reputation.
UPDATE:
Looks like someone from Gamespot tried to call them on it:
Gamespot Mod’s (banned) profile on Soundsonline forums
And this post over on Gamespot’s forums: