paper me
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August 31, 2004
a little evening reading...
Tonight i'm catching up a much needed blog injection. Along the way I'm gonna introduce a few new mp3's for ya.
Listen: Black & Brown - We Gotta Party
Are you famillar with the ambient orb? If not well here's the gist of it, its an orb that is wirelessly connected to the net via cellphone like technology (i assume its basically gsm etc) anyways it glows based on different information that occurs in the day, weather temps, stocks up or down etc. Kinda cool. The pillow project is kinda like that as well, a bit more sophsiticated. I love this kind of tech, its reaching beyond what we think is possible in the living space. Check out the pillow project. The idea of remotely passing gestures in our everyday lives that are not tied to typical interfaces like cellphones, email etc is wildly interesting to me. The pillow is just one concept I've seen on this. I've seen a remote gesture(able) flower pot as well. Ok maybe thats all a bit too cyber for ya but I think this stuff is pretty cool.
On another note, some day I will get to Ubicomp 2004. And maybe CSCW 2004?
Listen: Naked Funk - Trango
Are you 31-40 years old? Odds are if you are, you read blogs. Bout time someone did study on blog reading. I find blogs far more valuable than traditional media outlets.
Someone has finally designed the superior towel. Bout time geeeze. That'd be fun to user test.
Drifting anyone? There's been a pretty good special on the Country channel of all places on Fast n Furious type folks. Check it out, tivo it. Speaking of tv, if yer a CSI nut be sure to check out Spike TV's best of CSI marathon coming up Sept. 03.
Listen: Enigma - Knocking on Forbidden Doors
Its probably been around for awhile but I just discovered it tonight. Shift-Japan just got a blog! Hot dang. I like shift, been a big fan of that site for a long time now. Don't always get to it on time, but I like the blog aspect. Lots of cutting tshirt, design concepts, figures, motion flicks, you name it creative edge and typically Shift is at the base of it.
Listen: Rae & Christian feat. Veba - Swan Song
Sport Prius? Yep hybrid is the way to go folks.. its just gonna get better. Actually I just read about UPS deploying three hybrid UPS delivery trucks in california as well. I think this kinda stuff is awesome really. I test drove the prius, it had plenty of power for day to day driving really. This is another good blog.
Listen: St Etienne - Cool Kids of Death
The Japanese have been working tirelessly on the art of building the better cat. Why? Who knows. For as long as I can remember the Japanese are just absolutely convienced that a robo cat is the way to go. Year after year I've seen cat after cat after cat concept hit the net. I kinda envy them a little. I've debated buying my own fake cat since most of the folks I know.. well family especially are allergic to cats. A real cat would rock. Yet i've debated Sam the Cat... cause he's cheap and he'd purr.. see now thats cool. Now i just watched this video of the new Near Me cat, thats hilarious. Thats a big leap in robot cats there.
Listen: Dreams
Got a TiVO? Got a top ten?
What do ya know about stick-n-sex? Personally I've never heard of the term until last week at work when one of my co-workers said to me "yer not one of those guys who's just lookin for stick-n-sex are ya?" Stick-n-Sex? Tiny women, or skinny women that just represent sex in yer mind. Least thats what I figure that term means. And no, I dont want a stick-n-sex gal. I wouldn't mind Brooke Burke though. DAMN she is fine.
Listen: Trumpet Thing - Need You
Locker Mania! This is a pretty cool read on storage. I admit it. I love storage gizmos and furniture.
I've recently dived into the fold of dating again. Or did I ever start really? Hmmmmm good question. Anyways the quest is on, this dan is up for grabs ladies, make yer mark! Currently I'm using eharmony's site which, I'll be honest I'm not entirely thrilled with. But i'm curious of the alternates. And I plan to do some of my own home grown blind dating as well. Actually I think i'd be a blast at Speed Dating. Sure I can do that.
EBAY buys a stake of CRAIGLIST. Another one bites the dust.. heh well not really a controlling stake but an influcing one I hear. Say speaking of ebay I hear thier new site design navigation is throwing folks for a loop. Gotta check that out.
Hmmm free white paper?
Check out this futuristic visions site. Very cool stuff.
August 30, 2004
trailers, raves and you
When it comes to music, I think dj's and I when I think dj's I think vj's. If anything I was a VJ before a DJ. I used to create videos for nightclubs and raves. I took great pride in it. Armed with my amgia in hand I ventured forth to create wildly unique video reels. I sampled clips from movies, and shot my own stuff and incorportated toaster magic and lightwave 3d, I really got into it. Course just anything seems to sync up nicely to a beat. Thats an old joke Andy and I had at ADV FILMS. Take any techno beat and match it up with a few cuts of anime and its like presto perfect sync. We'd always laugh when some visual seemily unplanned seemed to sync up just perfectly with some audio in the background.
So in the past I never liked automated VJ's. I didn't like the 3d animation reels either, they lacked real substance and I think as would be club goer myself I wanted to see stuff that lept off the screen, targeted me and where I was right now. Even back then they had basic switchers and cut effects the typical cheesy wipe hardware device.
Bah I say. Yesterday after a killer game of ping-pong, the old man whipped me again. I went thru a box of old video tapes. Videos I did for raves, 10speed, even my own precious pre-tapes were still entact. I loved making pre-tapes. Which to me were tapes of various visuals fused together ready to be fused once again in something new. I made pre-tapes at ADV as well. I used them extensively on shows like Neon Genesis Evangelion. It was always a pain to go thru each epsiode to find good clips for every time i had to make a trailer. What's that? Why did ya go thru each episode to find clips, why not just take from the first episode? Look pal I didn't get the name trailer dan cause I sucked at it. I made damn good trailers. And the key to trailer making, least in my opinon is a few core factors- footage, presence, beat, no lips without a voice and fame and fortune.
Footage is all about what ya got. For Spriggan I had 20mins of footage and a cd soundtrack, which I stole from 3 tracks and made my trailer background piece along with effects. For Evangelion I had 23 epsiodes to pull from, typically I only had say the first 6 or so cause they trickled in the door and we had to go baby go. So good footage works. If its action, great, if its not action and they want an actionable like trailer, bad, you cant make up animation right, so ya gotta figure out how to build the action with dramatric presence.
Presence is really the pace of trailer, is it fast, is it slow, is it verbal. Typically we never had a vocal track so in that regards your presence or pace follows the beat and the visual footage ya got. So its presence thru footage, edit style and music. Gotta have good music. Sometimes I didn't get music and had to fake it like that was on purpose. For Parasite Eve I didn't have any real music. If fact I didn't have much of anything. It was a hard production to do. And remember I typically had to crank out at trailer in 2 weeks. Speaking of Parasite Eve, it was one of ADV's first live-action flicks that departed from the giant monster world of Gamera etc. It also wasn't very good. But it did have playstation tie-in ability which is why the master called for its aquistion no doubt. Heh, I was looking for the trailer online just now.. hoping I could show it off.. instead i found this little tidbit regarding the DVD of the film and how one reviewer was disappointed seeing the trailer as a value added extra. LOL
"The final insult was the joke of a 'trailer', which I assumed would be a Japanese promotion or something, but instead, it's a promotional trailer for the U.S. release that, quite literally, features voice-over by someone apparently cupping their hands over their mouth to sound 'evil.' The trailer also claims Parasite Eve is from "the masters of Japanese horror", which is an odd comment since the majority of the crew were first-time filmmakers, part of a newly formed television drama department at Fuji TV Network."
Those are all vaild points. Like I said I didn't have any music and you can't really dub in the japanese in there saying fear cause no one would understand it right? unless ya had a subtitle. And we didn't dub the picture so no english to go with. I had to use David Del Rio orginally from the shipping department ( now I think hes doing marketing ), to give me some errie voice. The trailer came together pretty well I thought. Still funny looking back on that.
Ok back to the factors and the point of this entry today. Next up we have beat. I liked editing on a beat, it just works. Most of my work focused on the beat. And typically fans liked my edit style. I recall much of those early days of ADV as innovation times. We were the underdog and the stakes seemed more flexibile in terms of what we could do and dish out to the masses. We made our market the way we wanted to make it. Now perhaps its still the same though parts me think ADV has grown up. And did it recall any of the youth along the way? Who knows.
Next up we got no lips without a voice. I'm a eye person. I do alot of looks, stares, whimscal gestures, sighs, but never a lip. No one is talking in my trailers unless theres a voice to give the viewer that connection. This is probably the reason why trailer dan ended his career doing japanese animation with ADV. The boss always wanted more trailers like "them.. those other folks.." he wanted to hear his characters speak. Typically though I did trailers long before we started actual production on the title. I easily beat out the dubbing studio crew by five to six weeks. And time was everything, six weeks of extra play time promotion time is huge. Anyways the boss always gave me the evil eye of sorts. He wanted dubbed trailers before we ever did the dub. Which is difficult and I dont think he ever really got it. Cause they still have the problem today heh. Still I was open to doing trailer dubs seperate from the film. Its a trailer its a promo, thats all run with it ya know. That was frowned on due to consistancy, you cant have the green robo guy have this voice only to have that voice later, thats bad bad bad. But I say what the hell man, you want dubbed trailers we gotta do it. Or you opt for the 3rd party narrator guy that talks over the trailer, now you introduce a non existant character voice into a film that dint have a narrator. It helps the trailer out but then again the consistancy police show up and complain that the guy doesnt exist so no. In end, no lips no talkin unless you got vocal element there.
Lastly fame and fortune. Make the trailer, make the edit, larger than life. This is really just sheer editing here. Make it look good.
I just looked at the ADV site, ok sure its been about 4 years since I've been there and ya not much of my old skool video trailers are still there. Expect I did notice the new "directors cut" edition trailer of Neon Genesis Evangelion uses my original edit as the base of it. Thats flattering. Goood to know they respect the trailer dan ya know. HA! Hehe.. still good stuff. I like some of their new trailers, but I'm pretty critical on ones that don't grab me and take me for a ride. Heck I'll have to do a piece on the do it now, next time around.
And the point of this whole ramble is that while in the past i've always opted to go into excessive detail when it comes to visual editing magic.. i've always been interested in the tech side of cheating it so to speak to get the same effect.
And heres a cool site with some tools that cheat in my opinion but are very clever and slick tools to boot. Motordrive.
August 29, 2004
take a note, listen up
August 27, 2004
can't sleep
I've had a hard time sleeping lately. Not sure what it is. Maybe its cause ive missed four straight days of working out. I really need to get back in there. I need my workouts.
There it is again. 4AM. What is up with me and 4AM?
I just finished speed-watching Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, TIVO style, one thumb on the 3x fast forward. I just wanted to see the action scenes and the lovely comb battle. Sad love story though. Not exactally what I needed to see. Fate and its cruel side. He was a monk surely he saw it coming. Thats the trouble in movies like that. They carry the pain front and center through out the whole picture. You know they will never hook up. Its depression theater with vivid sword fighting. Why are we drawn to produce; to watch depressing stories?
August 25, 2004
monstervision
3 Monster? Kinda freaky sure, but I like this trailer. Nice use of music, dramatic segmentation, soundeffects and screaming.. lol, anyways I like it. Its got that "oooo look im artsy and campy.. and crazy..." feel to it. And its edited well, its actually better than the full trailer in my opinion. It really has a great Wong Kor Gai feel to it. A very stylish Hong Kong cinema feel. Did I mention i liked the music?
This is cool, I want to make this... kinda expensive.
and this....
is an excellent idea! see now heres just some good smart thinkin..
August 23, 2004
damn sexy baby
Say thats damn sexy baby..
Speakin of sexy.. lets talk music. Here's a few tracks I'm diggin lately. Lately my sound ( the sound of me what i like etc ) has been drifiting around lately. I'm getting back into some of what they call nuskool...
"Nu Skool Breaks is a form of breakbeat. The term was invented in 1998 when djs adam freeland, rennie pilgrem and tayo played at a new night called "friction" in london. However nowadays many prefer to use the term breakbeat. Back then they played dark and filthy breaks tracks, downpitched drum'n'bass and fresh sounding electro and basically started the scene from scratch. Nowadays producers like ils, koma&bones, tipper, BT and many more are amongst the most profilic producers who push the sound forward. Nu Skool Breaks clocks at 130 - 140 bpm, has a breakbeat rhythm and melts elements of techno, electro, drum'n'bass (basslines mostly) into a danceble, accessible music that has quickly gone round the world."
but I also like Funky Beats..
"Breakbeat with a funkier edge and more danceable rhythms, often using retro 70s samples and stabs. Funky breaks are perhaps best typified by some of the music of Fat Boy Slim. Less rockin’ and noisy than big beat and with greater emphasis on traditional funk elements such as a slapping/popping bass and funky guitar stabs. Old school funk vocal samples are also quite common. "
and I always love a good Big Beat track..
"Not surprisingly, big beat is a heavy, beat-driven variant of breakbeat. Made more for the dance floor than the Barcalounger, this hard and sometimes noisy style often uses breakbeat-oriented rhythms, fat basslines, many heavily manipulated electronic elements, and media samplings. Big beat can be considered a fusion of rock and breakbeat that focuses on beat permutations and often brings in effected guitar. If the style is called chemical beats, reference is being made to the Chemical Brothers (a defining player in this genre) and includes a generous helping of acid. Other major bands are the Propellerheads (although they often stray into disco/dance, hip hop, and funky breaks), and Fat Boy Slim (also known for his funky breaks). Big Beat tries not to take itself too seriously and places a lot of value on fun and rule-breaking. "
whatever ya call it, i like it.. so let's begin..
- why? the deep electro-cosmic-speak-n-spell vibe. I really like it. I'd love to hear it on the dance floor, good house thumper here.
- why? its got that dark under sound i like, nice breakdown in the middle of it, then it gets back to work.. great progressive house tune
- why? more on the bleepy sound of beats but nice, its slow start makes for good jammin later on in the track, it appeals to old school industrial experimental side of me, the best part of this track, is the moog or syth solo section at the end of the track.. i love that sound
- why? this track has been on the scene for awhile, probably overplayed but I always like it when I hear it, it actually has a beat that mixman software ships with, ive used this bass line myself on a few songs ive crafted.. in fact i bet you could remake this track in mixman, trance progressive love fest here
- why? i love the energy of this track, this song takes me right back to QuakeCon 1, it takes me to ID software, the glory days of Quake and all the fragging that occured afterwards, an utter deathmatch track, it takes me back to early days of ADV FILMS, it takes me back to margs, dancefloors and good times... pure big beat
- why? this track is from Sasha's Airdawndagger cd, its a great mood piece that slowly builds, its like right outa some ghost in the shell anime experience, very blurry, moody, developing, evolving, spooky, then subtle awareness, beats arrive, the picture gets painted, get the cd on amazon, u will like
- why? well i have no idea who this is, sorry came off ripcast, but I like it.. the is more nuskool break beat sounding, more on the darker side of nuskool though. i guess its the beat.. the boom... boom.... boom.... booom.... boom
- why? another unknown. this is a pure nuskool sound. and theres some lyrics to boot :P sort of.. a great track, i have many an animation looping in my head when i hear tracks like this with their fat loud sound...
- why? its another unknown, probably from the guy that did A8, in which case i'd like to know who it is, cause id buy their cd... great sound here..
- why? probably more on the funky side of break beat.. lotta groove magic in this one, its got more of a fat boy slim sound for sure in it.. very zesty and groovolicious though..
That's whats spinning on the floozdecks. Nighty nite.
Bout time
Bout time. I found this on the net tonight and all I can say is.. its about time. This along with RFID and bluetooth and yadda dadda is the next wave in advertising. I cant wait really.. the dawn of the age of displays I used to think only existed in japanese animation is upon us.
Human Locator! Maybe I need to sic Bob and Troy on this kinda concept next. It would be good to have some kind of solution like this.
Today while sitting at a lonnnnng super dang lonnnnng stop light I gazed over at a new BMW 745 L, a beautiful car. It was right next to an Audi 4.2L A8. I have to say I liked the styling of the 745 a bit better but overall I didnt really go for the new look BMW did this year. It reminded me of an animation i've been watching. Turn A Gundam. A mecha series that has been going on for ages in Japan. Every 2 years or so a new studio takes a stab at reinventing the Gundam license. Alternate universes, new character directions, and always, wildly interesting mecha designs. Its yer basic robot show. You cant go wrong with Gundam, its always good. Sure a little campy at times but if you like mecha, robot fighting, beam weapon glory with characters that just have to keep fighting for the good of man, well its yer show. Its also great for the villians, the bad guys that wanted to do good and the best way they think they can do it is by dropping an asteriod on Earth.. teach those Earthlings REAL pain!
Anyways in Turn A Gundam, the mecha designs strayed soooo far off the beaten japanese path of design, in fact they landed in the hands of Syd Mead of Blade Runner fame. That look on japanese animation is just... well different. Kinda like the new BMW look. I didnt like it at first. But its growin on me.
Tags do the body good....
state of the flooz
"the creator has a master plan..."
A little funk goes a long way baby. So the state of the flooz this week??? What's up? Lots can't talk now just got more stuff to do.
August 20, 2004
floozdex
Ok its not really the final floozdex but what the hell I put this together today. My brother Tom and I are doing a little fantasy stock action. This list is a bit too big really but we'll see. There's alot of crap on there as well. Still autodesk with a 4pt gain! Woooo. And of course google and its rampage continues.. though I still dont see that stock being worth that much really.
state of the flooz
all audio this time kidz
August 13, 2004
doom is back
Back in 1994 I dabbled in the art manifestation creation and essence of Doom editing. I created levels and sound packs. It was fun jumping into a world environment and playing with attributes and textures and modelling tools, though sometimes crude, it was still a blast. Now with Doom3 back on the shelf, the fun of creating yer own doom has returned. One thing I loved about doom was monsters, I loved the baddies, and I loved throwing a few baddies in on a good death match level. That was just extra spice really, alot of fun. The new baddies in doom 3 are a plenty, tons of zombies and freaks and all out terror. I can't wait to start messin with them.
And so far its consumed my evenings. Its just alot of fun to create in this environment. I can't wait to go home and jump into the editor and start messin around.
But what to create.... so far ive got a few ideas, and always I want the carnage to be spectacular. I tend to think to EGO/TROY like marine specs. What would Troy do..... he'd be cautious, he'd want to explore but he'd sense a poor laid out trap. I look at rooms ive done and think, "what troy needs here are a few dozen exploding barrels, ya thats it!" I also want to create those rooms where everything seems fine and then one switch and the lights go out, and the room fills with badness.. hahah.
generally
Life is tooooo damn short for poor communication. I say speak it, say it, get it out. Let's keep moving! Motion changes everything, we don't have time to sit still, to wonder to ponder, to worry, to debate, I say if yer gonna do all of that, you better have moving forward as the actionable outcome.
--- side note...
Do you ever ask questions that you already know answers to just to ask those questions in the hopes to get conversation actually happening when said party is clearly not speaking? I have to do that with my brother Matt. Typically theres an agenda in a conversation, an agenda i dont really know much about. I talk a bit, but then clearly and early in the conversation its clear the answer is already known, the tresure is found. Now what? Personally i'd like to keep talkin get over the "agenda" and more into the "how ya doin" talk, ya know the meat of the conversation... but then you realize that unless you ask a question or make a statement you know the answer to or that will spark him to speak, you know this conversation will die and fast. So I ask those questions, and i go where I know I shouldnt go but I do that to see if I can get more.. and i typically don't. The conversation seems to die even faster. Ahhh well. I love my brother Matt. I wish him the best always.
ello blog kittens and scrappy tots!
It's friday baby! You know what that means.. its "holy crap i still gotta ton of stuff to do" day! Yep! Lots to do. Gonna burn thru it all today, its gonna rock!
I love the lomography folks, they always create these super fun festive sites. I love the supershooter flash gallery site. This is a great gallery flash/transition idea.
Get yer shag calendars today baby!
Hmmmmm fashion anyone? or book reviews? or music? These guys always whip together pristine beautiful website creations. Very nice.
Ok back to work.. Electronik!
August 10, 2004
the connection
a very cool site called: theyrule.net
August 09, 2004
state of the flooz
The story thus far. Let's see it was a good weekend, lots of sun, clean & shiny mini, tofu adventures and even Sunday dinner with Farther Dave of the Newman Canter. No real casualties except for going to the gym yesterday only to realize that i packed my bag with 2 t-shirts.. no shorts hmm.. well i did have the shorts i wanted to change into later but still.. its like my mind is drifting lately.
So on the high side tofu was fun, workouts were good, steam room... ahhh i love that place and today I get a massage so all is right with the universe thus far. I watched Happy Tree Friends - Third Strike dvd this weekend. Whenever I see the happy yellow bunny rabbit I always think of Troy. Without Troy I would of never known.. well probably, never of know of the HTF. The third dvd is excellent, even more violent that ever! LOL Well cartoon violence that is, still I doubt this stuff will ever make it to TV or cable.
A great addition to the HTF - Third Strike dvd is a new Buddhist Monkey short. Which is about as close to my creation of Monkey as possible. He's a great monkey! Animated monkeys rule!
August 08, 2004
the tofu chronicles
Yesterday was an expensive day but I was determined to make the master Alton Brown's Tofu Experience. I just had to try it. Why not ya know? But cooking isn't really something i'd like to think i'm good at. Still never the less the list was made the shopping began. A few hundred bucks later.. ok not that much but i still needed some new supplies, ya know the usual stuff, yogurt, bee pollen.. ha!
Ok so back to the tofu. Ever since I saw an episode of Good Eats on Tofu I've been hankering to try it. Could it be yummy? I have it all the time when I have sushi, it can be yummy but ya it typically lacks any real flavor. Alton Brown on Good Eats seemed to make it pretty clear it was an easy and very yummy thing to make some night for dinner. So tonights the nite.
---- side note..
Woah i've been watching Ghost in the Shell's : Stand Alone Complex - II lately... and I feel like im in the episode where the bad guy tells the good girl the TRUTH to all that is... ya know the plan, the result, the why, etc.. its always man can't handle it! All bad guys are really heros in their own mind. And the really bad ones have facial scars and travel in packs. Production IG has done espeically good job on the quality of animation in this series and the music is beautiful.
---- side note..
Fillet'OFu
1(19-ounce) block firm tofu
2 tablespoons sherry vinegar
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Few dashes of hot pepper sauce
Canola oil to cover skillet by 1/8-inch
2 eggs
1/2 cup all-purpose flourSlice the block of tofu into 4 equal portions. Place the slices on paper towels and fold the towels over in both directions to cover the tofu. Place a baking sheet on top of the tofu and weigh it down with a 28-ounce can of tomatoes for 1 hour.
Combine the sherry vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, and hot pepper sauce and place the tofu into the marinade. Marinate for 15 minutes on each side.
Place the flour into a shallow dish and the eggs into another. Lightly beat the eggs.
Heat the canola oil in the skillet over medium-high heat.
Remove tofu from marinade and drain on paper towels to remove any excess marinade.
Lightly dredge the tofu in the flour, knocking off any excess flour and slide into the eggs until completely, but thinly, coated on both sides.
Slide tofu gently into the hot oil and fry for 2 minutes until golden brown and delicious. Flip the tofu using the tongs, and cook for another 2 minutes.
Ok so back to the tofu, aside from almost setting the kitchen on fire, all went as planned, though I didnt haven any Sherry Wine Vinegar, and I couldnt find it. Anyways everything else, check - did. The result? Pretty darn tasty. I did add some orange ginger sauce at the end to flavor things up even more so. I had lettcue warps prepared in case all went to hell as well.
August 06, 2004
tablet for 1395?
We've got a new gig coming up that I feel requires second gen tablet hardware. Maybe yes, maybe no, either way I'm sniffin out some new goods. I've read a few inital reviews of this Averatec Tablet Pc that is hittint he streets at just under $1395. Thats a nice price alright.
I need to install this on my tablet, I've always wanted to try this input ability. Dang another reason to upgrade to SP2.
Hmmm do we need a cantenna at work?
Ok ok back to the tablet thing.. sorry got distracted there.
The HP TC 1100 is the second gen version of my TC 1000. This is the baby I was thinking of getting though.. a pure slate with a dockable form is also desirable.
WAKE UP!
great day
Today I had to check in with the doc's on my progress thus far on the workout program. Due to schedule conflicts I had go in at lunch and workout. That's not something I usually do but ya know I felt so good the rest of the day I may have to do that more often. I just worry about the time, its hard to do just an hour workout, it never really works out just as an hour, 1.5.. ya I could that.
The doc's and I love my progress so far. Very happy with how its going so far.
After watching an Alton Brown - Good Eats episode on soy products I picked up some Tofu at Trader Joes the other day and dare I say i'm gonna attempt to cook up some tofu this weekend. HA! Crazy dan I tell ya.
The day just gets better and better. After a good dinner with Bob, Lynn, Clint, Traci and Todd I hussled on home to greet the folks. I hadn't seen them in awhile. Need to check in with Ma ya know.
On the way into the neighborhood complex a 6 yr girl playing basket ball with her folks and a friend waves me down in. I stop and she calls out to me "I love your car!". I said the usual thanks and asked if she wanted to sit in it? She just about exploded with happiness. I parked the car and let her romp around in it while I introduced myself to her folks. Tooo funny. Nice kid, nice family, and nice Mini.
I love the Mini. I swear nearly every day I get some little hint at its goodness. From people that pass by to gettin waved down by 6 yr girl. LOL, thats just classic ya know.
Now in other news....
Danger just let the cat outa the bag on the new T-Mobile SideKick II. I will definately upgrade. Why not. In fact I'm shelving the Nokia this week. I never did get into my more robust Nokia camera solution and I blame ATT for that. The have funky policies, what you can do online is not what you can do in their stores. All the hassle of x y and z i'll be happy to leave them. The lastest travel stuff I've been doing made the sidekick a real bonus to have. I love that connectivitiy. I'm pleased to know the new sidekick II has a built in camera with flash and a supposed 60-70hrs stand by time / 4.5 hrs of talk. Thats a big improvement.
Some tasty reviews PC Mag, CNET.
Another product I've been keepin an eye on.
| Archos AV420 Pocket Video Recorder |
I'm always on the hunt for digital video recorders. There is a constant need to rethink how we capture the experience. Flim? DV? Hi8? WebCamera? Still Camera? HD? Lowfi usually works to some degree really. Alot starts from that inital conversation, what do we need to pull to gain acceptable results from this project. What the advantages to this AV420 solution vs say SonyDV cam which is what we do now? Well right off the bat, run time. 20hrs recording vs 90mins ( then ya gotta change the tape on DV ), and believe me that chage the tape thing can often break the mojo of a record session. So its a factor, but then ya lose something, dvd burnable quality. DV tape is more flexibile, you can put it in Avid or one touch dub it to DVD. The AV420 can be an good audio recorder as well. More flexible considering space etc. Would it work with alternate camera rigs? Maybe.
For instance I've been tasked to find/build/discover a camera rig that allows us to:
- record from about 8' feet in the air looking down in an angle at a scene or situation
- control the zoom, views etc
- not change a tape would be better
- semi portable ( ha! )
- easy to use
- flexible power options
Piece of cake! Heh. With DV it would mean basically a nice tripod, probably an LCD monitoring screen, control functionality, but then the tape and the camera mount/dismounting to change the tape really mess me up there. My first question to the folks askin me about this camera rig request is- What's the deliverable?, if its non DVD quality related, I'd seriously ponder an AV420 like solution, its smart and slick - provided i figure out the camera side of it, and I may have to give up zoom control. That's another question I gotta ask. Do ya need zoom? Heh.
I thought about using a FlowPod, I've wanted to buy one of those forever. I really just need to bite the bullet and get one. But it dont think it'd work for this situation.
Now the stealth zoom, I could use that for camera zoom control... ok good gettin closer now. Ok so then we need a ball head on that tripod, something like this or that. I'll have to see if I can get a ball head for the sony tripod we have.
Ok provided we find one, whata we got here... lets see. Bulk wise its a rig no doubt about it, its a DV cam solution that works, ya got the tilt camera support, the dv cams should be light enough, ya got yer stealth zoom action, oh ya add one of those LCD displays as well, gotta have that to see what yer doing. If we could rotate the camera from the base of the stand that'd be a bonus as well.
Power is an issue I gotta address as well. Are we gonna have access to any power outlets in this room? Odds are they are gonna tell me no. Which makes me wanna get closer to figuring out a solution with the AV420 recorder, thing is, we toss out zoom, well theres a slim chance we could get zoom, but we toss out DVD deliverable for sure. But we gain record time, battery life, no change tape hassles and portablility.
I suppose on the DV side of things we could bypass tape and record firewire down to a drive. Firestore. Hmmmmm... 13GIGs per hour of DV storage. 40 GIG firewire drive would give me just over 3hrs recording time. BUT!!! BUT remember dan yer gonna be recording multiple sessions, so think 10hr work day...so big ass drives? Ok so 260GIGs should cover the needs. Again power is probably more of a concern, but we do fix alot of issues with the firestore solution. Not a bad solution pricewise, Froogle tells me $796 bucks but that doesnt include the firewire drive. Least I dont think it does... they seem to have built in drive solutions but i'll need mega storage which again messes up the power question.
Questions questions... well this was a good brainstorm, the only thing left to consider are the questions at hand and the the camera solution for the AV420 route. I'll get into that tomorrow.
August 04, 2004
THIRD STRIKE!
stock watch
Ya know this morning I annointed myself with toothpaste and this crap will not come off me. GRRRR!
Ok stock watch. Why cause, I dunno, I read the wall stree journal other day waiting for a plane so here it comes, all the crazy picks. No order, no reason, just gonna spit this out here for now:
Electronic Arts, Hershey, Segate, RayTech, Nokia, Primedia, Lsi Logic, Liquidbox... I wonder what happened to them. Tickers: PIR, MOT, PIO, PLT, MHY, MHP, MFE, DSS... ha! Bad Tom! TWX, Troy what was that spam fighter company that just went public? Autodesk, AskJeeves, Ati Tech, Nvida, Dominon Homes, Avid, Starbucks, Webzen? what the hell is webzen. answerthink, ive heard that from somewhere. ipass! FLEXSTEEL! igate? intervideo, etrs, nanogen, corvis, ipayment?, ebookers!, OXGN, jetblue, galyans, packeteer, duratech, lexarmedia, scandisk, LAVA, homestore, netflix... now curious note here, ya think blockbuster can catch up? I mean they finally gave into the netflix way of doing things, question is will they make a dent? Hmmm or is netflix slipping? I mean I don't use them any more. luminex, macromedia - always curious whats brewing here, nuvelo, logitech - always stuff brewing here as well, macrovision - whats macrovision got brewing for the wave of HD coming, OSTK, PCLE, ROXI - can roxio really dish out anything worth while?, RHAT - whats the fate of linux long term, adoption sure, independence without lawsuit -debatable, SIGM, SNIC, SNDK, THQI, TIVO, TMTA, TLABS - hey i was just there, SYMC, UPCS, UTSI, VWPT, YHOO - long term google battle stragety?, VTAL, WVCM, WIND - oh ya baby, dex media, dominos - did the ipo deliver? mannkind! BLKB, cocacola - c2 redefine culture?, DCX, XJT, BBL.
Whew thanks hiptop for keepin all that info. Next week we'll take a closer peek at the FLOOZDEX and weed out the choices and see how we do long term!
losing things...
I keep losing things I'm on day two of losing things. I lost a reciept this morning from the parking lot to my desk, poof its gone. It was going to be the basis of my rambling today. So anyways heres the gist of it, magazines. I'm a magazine freak. I've been doing better about subscribing to ones I read as often as they are issued: ReadyMade, Real Simple, Budget Living, Dwell, Wired, Meteropolis, Visual Merchandise + Store Design, Retail Traffic, Enterpernurer.. yes those I get. But I still go out and buy others off and on like: T3, Computer Arts, EFX Art & Design, Play, E-Gear, Digit, DV and several more. Gets expensive ya know. I miss Content, a european mag that was very good, ahhh well. The mags the mags, always the mags. Dropping 90 bucks on mags is never something I like to do but I will to get what I need.
Crave! What do you crave? Is there anything you simply crave? Must have?
August 03, 2004
i believe in the cock meter
Ok i know how that sounds but everyone measures up one way or another on the cock meter. Lately some of the folks I know in the workplace are excelling at being utter cocks about work. That attitude doesn't sum it up enough, its pure cock in my opinion. Its the ego throw of look at me, behold my utter cockyness i am the big cock!
Ya know cocks don't motivate, well not like that Tuggernut, but in general a cock at work is flaming lip like action. Yer a pouting sour puss baby you ain't no cock!
I wish I could be colder with people. Maybe just babble at them... Quzaaamar DuuuKOT! Yes.
notes...danotes
I love notes.
3 cites, 9 participants = two thousand, six hundred and thirty notes.
That my friends is glorious! Take a gander!
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Quote, Workflow, Context, MySpeak, MyEnviroment, WeUse, EndGoal, Breakdown, DesignIdea, Terminology. Sometimes less codes are better, lately I've been using more to help me understand what happened with what. Ideally sometime in the distant future bob will grant me "auto code on export?" and I will say YES! and I'll teach the pc how to read my notes. Muahahahahah.
So what happens after coding? Start pulling our the patterns, reoccuring themes etc. Once those are out you go for quotes. Meaty quotes that give your client ammo in regards to the opposition they'll get just presenting yer findings. With 2630 notes.. we have OODLES of ammo. And most of it on camera. I can feel the changes happening already.
Sometimes I'll leave myself notes for later. Like:
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Yes I need new shoes. I plan on ordering some new Merrels tonight, size 14. |
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August 02, 2004
hijacked
Bushwhacked! Owww i am sore from working out. Typically when I think I really don't want to work out thats usually the time I need to work out the most. Today was a day like that. I really really REALLY didn't want to work out. I was tired from a long day at work filled with meetings and issues and sushi.. ok the sushi was good, and the sake was tasty as well but still.
In other bushwhackedness, I'm fighting off some mean spyware lately. Its forced me into the weird whacky world of multiple spy/ad/mal ware detectors and tools. Gah.. I wish this was easier. Spybot can't find it, Adware thought it fixed it, SpyDoc says yer clean, Hijackthis says oh ya baby its still there.
I love music. Todays selections fresh from Amazon.com include Sandra Collins Perfecto Style, very nice, she really spins a sweet mix. Saeed & Palash round out the selection and then of course we have 13.5 gigs worth of ripcast to sort thru. These russians, they know how to groove. Its a painstaking process but then again free music shouldn't be easy right? Luckily I've mastered the 1-2-3 skip keep delete system. Ya get 3 skips thru the track, sniff out the groove, locate, eval, ponder, keep. No groove, no keep. Unless its spooky and could be a nice moody piece.
a few slices...deep moscow radio
Now the big 65mb mix files are harder to delete. There could be goodness packed inside between song 3 and 4 or that little bit off song 6. Still apply the formula and keep or toss, theres too much music out there as it is to review.
Flickr aware folks should tune into my photostream on flickr to see the latest pix clipping I've done lately. I took about 170 pics in chicago, most of them at the Volo Car Museum.
August 01, 2004
state of the flooz
Landed. Ottawa - Madison, WI - Chicago, IL > home. The last two weeks have been a wee bit crazy but good times. Madison was greeen... Ottawa was, well that's canada ya know.. i dunno I didn't see much of it. It was green though. Chicago was a weee bit too crowded for my taste. My brother moved into his new home and the family is well. Luckily he's in Naperville which is pretty much like average day columbus ohio aside from a few episodes of intense traffic.
Not much to blog about. Travelling sucks really, least for 6'5 folks like me. Planes are just not built for tall folks.
The airport system can't really handle what it wasn't designed for. Terror that is. The state of constant terror takes what should be a simple action of traveling into a new level of over doing everything. Ohare airport is crazy, I was lucky to get back home even with the 2hrs lead time i gave myself to get on my flight back. Sooooo many frickin people, even then I somehow ended up on semi stand by service. That confuses me. I paid to get a seat but I dont really have one.
Ahhh well, sit back and enjoy that $7 rum and coke. Ouch!
What's next.. hmmm i'm pondering the idea of a beach, vegas or or something. I'm also looking at getting back to chicago to see the chicago paul gang and attend a confrence sometime in october.
The idea of cramming myself on another plane doesnt grab me at the moment.
So lets talk about what I learned.
- Programmers come in multiple flavors.
- Lucent has alot of empty buildings in Chicago.
- Chicago has alot of biz dev potential.
- Tarus, Jaguar, Impala, they all suck for big people.
- Delphi makes a nice GPS mobile navigation unit, supposedly circut city has them for $500.
- The hiptop/sidekick was fun to have again, gotta rework the email send/recieve on it, but overall I really enjoyed having it out in the field. Maybe switch to it for now.
- I wonder if my flickr pro account can handle all the pics im about to upload...
- the wallstreet journal is a suprisingly refreshing read
Well its nice to get back to tunes and delicious linkage. I had many a good talk on social network apps and the research potential to use them for future studies. I'll dive into some of the new finds after i get settled.