tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40140032024-03-14T05:46:58.718-04:00Zibblogi talk too much. now, i write too much.zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-40273934641380796372020-03-28T12:34:00.001-04:002020-03-28T12:34:33.330-04:00#PassLeBeat 0001<br /><br />
<br /><br />
We might be in quarantine, but we can still make stupid videos.<br /><br />
<br />Make your own remix!<br /> Source videos and stems:<br />https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VusniRq0UHKMTgkK5ENuEIkPW-Ql9Nb2<br /><br />Feat: Chris Lepp-Forest, David Gutierrez Osei-Afrifa, Elijah Mansevani, Guerschon Music, Sloan Lucas, Strange Froots, Gregg Noel, Jonny Tobin, Melissa Pacifico, Caulder Nash, Kiwi Illafonte, MC JUNE, John Piss, Enoch Attey Live, Léonie Gray, William Lussier, Rachelle Eastwood, Ryan Nadin, Arthur Smith, Hakim Belayachi, Joseph Hackl, Alexander Lioubimenko, Larry Jarry, Patrice Luneau, Julien Fillion, Gabriel Robertson Colavecchio, Alexandre Dion, Alex Lefaivre, Solon McDade, JeanSe Ledoujet, Jonathan Aristide, Sergey Danilevych, Mark Mathias Nybø, and Alexis Gagnon.<br /><br /><br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mc98S531Oe4" width="480"></iframe>zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-44748941594058745402016-11-02T12:45:00.000-04:002016-11-02T16:47:22.379-04:00Every single MacBook sucks (Oct 2016)It used to be that I would get serious techlust for Apple products. Those days are over. <span style="color: white;"><b>All of Apple's current MacBook offerings all suck.</b></span> Here's a breakdown of what is wrong with every single one of them.<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhahgiObZlsneX4WG0TTDonvst7Ap168xoi7T2doX67CHSreGZfVCxnBkZqTEn-W-JVGQtYYlH8XQdFHk42Njj5tuGBhCc2RM3zWz9hmtHybXmxY8fSqR1SnFmWZDxGcpcQdg_S/s1600/macbooks+shit.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhahgiObZlsneX4WG0TTDonvst7Ap168xoi7T2doX67CHSreGZfVCxnBkZqTEn-W-JVGQtYYlH8XQdFHk42Njj5tuGBhCc2RM3zWz9hmtHybXmxY8fSqR1SnFmWZDxGcpcQdg_S/s400/macbooks+shit.png" width="400" /></a><br />
<table border="1">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td></td>
<th>MacBook Air</th>
<th>MacBook</th>
<th>MacBook Pro (2015)</th>
<th>MacBook Pro (2016)</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Price</th><td bgcolor="green">$1,119 CAD</td><td>$1,649 CAD</td><td>$1,549 CAD</td><td bgcolor="red">$1,899CAD</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>RAM</th><td>8GB</td><td>8GB</td><td>8/16GB</td><td>8/16GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>HD</th><td>128GB</td><td>256GB</td><td>128GB</td><td>256GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>CPU</th><td bgcolor="#aaaa00">1.6GHz i5-5250U<br />
Broadwell (Q1, 2015)</td><td bgcolor="red">1.1Ghz m3-6Y30<br />
Skylake-Y (Q3, 2015)</td><td>2.7 GHz i5-5257U<br />
Broadwell (Q1, 2015)</td><td>2.0Ghz i5-6360U<br />
Skylake-U (Q3, 2015)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th><a href="http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/">userbenchmark</a></th><td bgcolor="#aaaa00">350th</td><td bgcolor="red">455th</td><td>229th</td><td>N/A</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Cores</th><td colspan="4">2 cores, 4 threads</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>GPU</th><td>Intel HD Graphics 6000</td><td bgcolor="red">Intel HD Graphics 5300</td><td>Intel Iris 6100</td><td>Intel Iris Graphics 540</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th><a href="http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/">userbenchmark</a></th><td>192nd</td><td bgcolor="red">302nd</td><td>168th</td><td>160th</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Size</th><td>13"</td><td bgcolor="red">12"</td><td>13"</td><td>13"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Resolution</th><td bgcolor="red">1440x900</td><td>2304 × 1440</td><td>2,560 × 1,600</td><td>2,560 × 1,600</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Battery life</th><td bgcolor="green">12hrs</td><td>10hrs</td><td>10hrs</td><td>10 hrs</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Ports</th><td>2xUSB-3 1xThunderbolt-2 1xSDXC</td><td bgcolor="red">1xUSB-C</td><td>2xUSB-3 2xThunderbolt-2 1xSDXC</td><td bgcolor="red">2xUSB-C or 4xUSB-C</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Power</th><td bgcolor="green">MagSafe 2</td><td bgcolor="red">X</td><td bgcolor="green">MagSafe 2</td><td bgcolor="red">X</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Now, when you're looking at this table, how does this shit make any sense at all? This is fucking ridiculous.
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: white;"><b>Summary</b></span><br />
What it boils down to is this:
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: white;"><b>MacBook</b></span> is useless for everyone. Expensive, slow, no ports, and no MagSafe. Of no value to anyone. <span style="color: white;"><b>DON'T BUY</b></span>
</li>
<li><span style="color: white;"><b>New MacBook Pro (2016)</b></span> is fast and expensive, but it also doesn't have any ports and no MagSafe. So if you want to plug ANY of your existing devices into it, you'll need adapters. So you're gonna blow $2k on a computer and still have to buy more shit in order for it to be usable. That's just fucking insulting. <span style="color: white;"><b>DON'T BUY</b></span>
</li>
<li><span style="color: white;"><b>Old MacBook Pro (2015)</b></span> is fast and moderately expensive, but it's got the ports you need and MagSafe. <span style="color: white;"><b>OKAY</b></span>
</li>
<li><span style="color: white;"><b>MacBook Air (2015)</b></span> is slow and cheap, but again it's got the ports you need, MagSafe, and the best battery life. Unfortunately it's got the shittiest screen resolution. <span style="color: white;"><b>OKAY</b></span>
</li>
</ul>
<br />
There is no <span style="color: white;"><b>OMG BUY YES YES WANT WANT WANT</b></span> on any of these because they all suck at least a little bit.
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: white;"><b>Conclusion</b></span>
So I think the only viable purchases at this point are the <span style="color: white;"><b>Old MacBook Pro (2015)</b></span> or the <span style="color: white;"><b>MacBook Air</b></span>. But even then you're buying outdated hardware at premium prices, but that's always been the Apple way. It used to be that you would buy an Apple and it would Just Work. And you would be constantly in a state of wonderment as you discovered all of its cool features. Now it seems like you buy an Apple, you can't even plug a USB stick into it, and none of your devices work, and it has less cool shit than before.
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: white;"><b>Other</b></span>
The only <span style="color: white;"><b>important</b></span> factors I'm not including in there are:
<br />
<ul>
<li><span style="color: white;"><b>SSD speed.</b></span> sadly I wasn't able to find precise technical information on the SSDs except that the MacBook Pro 2016 SSD is the fastest.
</li>
<li><span style="color: white;"><b>Touchbar.</b></span> Because yeah it's cool, but seriously? Naw. $2,299? Bro, are u serious? Why not do this with many users' pre-existing iPhones & iPads? Encourages product integration.
</li>
<li><span style="color: white;"><b>Screen size.</b></span> Because if you want a 15" laptop, maybe you should really have a desktop or an external monitor.
</li>
</ul>
All of them are light and slim, so that's not a distinguishing factor. The keyboards are all slightly different, with the shittiest one being on the vanilla MacBook, again more reason it's a garbage purchase. The new MacBook does have a massive trackpad, which is kinda cool. And if you care about colour options you're a fucking idiot.
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: white;"><b>Bring Steve Jobs back!</b></span>
zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-65359631515638203432014-01-03T15:25:00.002-05:002014-01-03T15:25:53.632-05:00Happy Holidays y'all!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZRTsiA0wFpQ?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRTsiA0wFpQ">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRTsiA0wFpQ</a></div>
<br />Let It Snow Acapella! In 5 Parts + Interpreter (Merry XMas 2013)<br /><br />Another year, another incredibly late Christmas video. My first 5 part chorale, first video with me horribly singing (have your ears stopped bleeding yet?), first video with my new console (works great, thanks Alvas Music!), first totally solo xmas video. And for those who don't know me, no, I'm not clearly not a singer ahahahahaha.<br /><br />Hope it brings a smile despite it being super late! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year y'all!<br /><br />I'll be putting up the chart of the arrangement here in the next few days!<br /><br />Previous XMas videos:<br /><ul>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2XVHUBEG8o">Silent Night, Holy Night (Christmas Greetings! 2008)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4dVbKIS5qI">O Holy Stardust (Merry Christmas 2011)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bD__rAGzfsc">A Gingerbread Cookie Christmas Story (2012)</a></li>
</ul>
zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-71964705489041931552010-04-27T18:42:00.003-04:002010-05-17T15:33:45.792-04:00BuzzKillorThe grand experiment is over.<br />
<br />
If you follow(ed) me on <a href="http://www.google.com/buzz" target="_blank">Google Buzz</a>, you have been subjected, for the last month, to an endless barrage of imported tweets. I tried to keep them as boring and mundane as possible but unfortunately a few tweets containing actual amusing content slipped through.<br />
<br />
One of the highlights:<br />
<div style="background-color: #ffffff"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 16px;"><span class="status-content" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><strong style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a class="tweet-url screen-name" href="http://twitter.com/buzzkillor" style="color: #2276bb; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">buzzkillor</span></a></strong><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">buzz was the matrix revolutions of google</span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span class="meta entry-meta" data="{}" style="color: #999999; display: block; font-size: 11px; height: auto; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 2px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><a class="entry-date" href="http://twitter.com/buzzkillor/status/11857950438" rel="bookmark" style="color: #999999; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span class="published timestamp" data="{time:'Fri Apr 09 02:28:10 +0000 2010'}" style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">10:28 PM Apr 8th</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span><span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">via web</span></span></span></div><br />
But for the most part the tweets were as boring as humanly possible. You can check them out in all their asinine glory here:<br />
<br />
<script src="http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js">
</script><br />
<script>
new TWTR.Widget({
version: 2,
type: 'profile',
rpp: 30,
interval: 6000,
width: 'auto',
height: 300,
theme: {
shell: {
background: '#333333',
color: '#ffffff'
},
tweets: {
background: '#000000',
color: '#ffffff',
links: '#4aed05'
}
},
features: {
scrollbar: true,
loop: false,
live: false,
hashtags: true,
timestamp: true,
avatars: false,
behavior: 'all'
}
}).render().setUser('buzzkillor').start();
</script><noscript><a target="_blank" href="http://twitter.com/buzzkillor">buzzkillor on twitter</a></noscript><br />
<br />
So, what the hell was the point of all this? Well, when <a href="http://twitter.com/" target="_blank">Twitter</a> first came out I decided it was the Stupidest Thing Ever, mainly because it seemed like <a href="http://facebook.com/" target="_blank">Facebook</a> status updates with minor sugar- and <a href="http://zibalatz.blogspot.com/2009/02/why-twitter-is-doomed-to-failure-or.html" target="_blank">easy enough for Facebook to implement the features necessarily to replicate and kill Twitter</a>. I have now amended my position to say that Twitter simply does not suit my needs- although it is still true that Facebook could easily implement the features required to kill it. When Google Buzz first came out (and still to this day), it was the new Stupidest Thing Ever. Google has customarily been known for releasing products that are a clear cut above the competition. <a href="http://google.com/">Google search</a> had the most accurate translation of your query into usable results. <a href="http://gmail.com/">Gmail</a> had huge mail storage capacity and conversation-threading, among other great features. <a target="_blank" href="http://google.com/maps/">Google Maps</a> had the best UI (click and drag map scrolling and zooming in and out via mousewheel). And so on.<br />
<br />
So what did Google Buzz have? Nothing good.<br />
<ul><li><b>No ability to require followers to authenticate first.</b><br />
Yes, I realize that one can remove followers <b>after</b> the fact but that is hardly a solution.<br />
</li>
<li><b>No ability to filter out friends' Buzz content by import stream.</b><br />
For example, the ability to filter out all imported <a href="http://youtube.com/zibalatz" target="_blank">YouTube</a> updates but still get everything else. Do we really have to wait for <a href="http://www.farmville.com/" target="_blank">Farmville</a> to get ported to Buzz before Google realizes the value of being able to selectively filter out feed content? Of course haha I'm just kidding, <a target="_blank" href="http://www.zynga.com/">Zynga</a> wouldn't be dumb enough to waste their time porting to a failed social media platform.<br />
</li>
<li><b>No privacy controls whatsoever.</b><br />
No concept of groups of friends with differing levels of visibility, the aforementioned inability to require authentication before allowing a follower, etc, etc.<br />
</li>
<li><b>Use of email for notifications, effectively devaluing email.</b><br />
Note the way Facebook uses a separate notification system, a separate requests system, etc. Using email for everything will just cause people to either start ignoring email (which won't happen) or turn off Buzz (which will).<br />
</li>
</ul>Anyway, it was a clusterfuck, and their worst product launch ever, as far as I can remember. So, in response, I combined my twin hates of Twitter and Buzz and devised a plan. If only I could have done it all on a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook" target="_blank">Netbook</a>, I would have achieved the trifecta.<br />
<br />
I created a Twitter account aptly-named "buzzkillor", set Buzz up to automatically import its tweets, then disabled buzz in my GMail. What this amounts to is that I would be able to annoy the everliving fuck out of people following me on Buzz without actually being on Buzz and thus not receiving any of their annoying updates or comments or likes or whathaveyou.<br />
<br />
Here were the results (click for bigger):<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdqHzTnnvZkI5uMsLqIjJSbyDZpXeAAtFPlm1A11RsvlTgtY-D4ttt8S8qETwE-8fUn6Idm2fociwb5dh3AzIrlwp5PJYvl9t8x78jbLQrrkA8W-CsCzc6flIlBiU9QqCud9Ts/s1600/buzz-followers-over-time-graph.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdqHzTnnvZkI5uMsLqIjJSbyDZpXeAAtFPlm1A11RsvlTgtY-D4ttt8S8qETwE-8fUn6Idm2fociwb5dh3AzIrlwp5PJYvl9t8x78jbLQrrkA8W-CsCzc6flIlBiU9QqCud9Ts/s400/buzz-followers-over-time-graph.png" width="400" /></a></div><blockquote>day 1. mar 21: 39 followers<br />
day 2, mar 22: 35 followers<br />
day 3, mar 23: 35<br />
day 4, mar 24: 32 followers - end of day 4, admission: no i'm not on buzz<br />
day 5, mar 25: 31 followers - sera hill follows on twitter<br />
day 6, mar 26: 28 followers - rachel stops following<br />
day 7, mar 27: 28<br />
day 8, mar 28: 27 followers<br />
day 9, mar 29: 27<br />
day 10, mar 30: 27<br />
day 11, mar 31: 27<br />
day 12, apr 1: 26 followers<br />
day 13, apr 2: 26<br />
day 14, apr 3: 26<br />
day 15, apr 4: 26 followers - started ikariam tweeting<br />
day 16, apr 5: 25 followers<br />
day 17, apr 6: 25<br />
day 18, apr 7: 25<br />
day 19, apr 8: 24 followers<br />
day 20, apr 9: 24<br />
day 21, apr 10: 24<br />
day 22, apr 11: 24<br />
day 23, apr 12: 24<br />
day 24, apr 13: 24<br />
day 25, apr 14: 23 followers, mentioned that everyone should unfollow me the day before<br />
day 26, apr 15: 23<br />
day 27, apr 16: 23<br />
day 28, apr 17: 23<br />
day 29, apr 18: 23<br />
day 30, apr 19: 23<br />
day 31, apr 20: 23<br />
</blockquote><br />
I started with 39 and quickly dwindled down to a very <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discordianism">Discordian</a> <a target="_blank" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23_Enigma">23</a>. I can only assume that the 23 followers who remain are some combination of the insane, stalkers, and/or also have Buzz disabled and thus haven't seen my deluge of tweets.<br />
<br />
I'm hoping that Google fixes the problems with Buzz, but thus far their response has been fairly weak. Facebook is in serious need of strong competitor, especially given their repeated privacy violations/questionable moves.<br />
<br />
Designing a social media platform today without placing privacy considerations at the top spot is a recipe for failure.zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-1272383122921139552010-03-14T15:23:00.001-04:002010-03-14T15:36:04.790-04:00Scientific Analysis of Swing RatioMy friend Andre Majaes brought <a href="http://www.acoustics.org/press/137th/friberg.html" target="_blank">this paper entitled "Jazz Drummers' Swing Ratio in Relation to Tempo"</a> to my attention. It provides a scientific look at the ratio of the long-short pairs in swing 8th notes.<br /><br /><blockquote>What is not known is the exact relation between the long and the short note. It is not specified in the score and music students are often advised to learn it by listening to recordings. Such knowledge would contribute to the understanding of the perception and production of music. It would also be useful for generating synthetic performances on a MIDI sequencer, as well as being helpful for students who wish to learn how to swing.</blockquote><br />The essential conclusions they come to are that:<br /><br /><ul><li>Swing 8th notes are not triplet-based nor are they dotted-8th and 16-note pairs. The feel varies from drummer to drummer and, as is obvious to the ear and well-known, becomes more straight as tempo increases.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoss_9P8qZGJjl6vdHyeLSNbWw6rYqnwupUiAM7uV-mlyzD-75lKyDGc1hKko6N71kqhWTIw3W8KRZv4CoV9dMzsRTxlMVC18yyzdzv6US1dKYahlHFSFoknQth02hd7cNNFrF/s1600-h/swing-ratio-vs-tempo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoss_9P8qZGJjl6vdHyeLSNbWw6rYqnwupUiAM7uV-mlyzD-75lKyDGc1hKko6N71kqhWTIw3W8KRZv4CoV9dMzsRTxlMVC18yyzdzv6US1dKYahlHFSFoknQth02hd7cNNFrF/s400/swing-ratio-vs-tempo.png" width="400" /></a></div><br />It is interesting to note that Jack DeJohnette, compared to the other drummers used in the study, actually stays closer to a 2:1 triplet ratio regardless of tempo than the other subjects.<br /><br /></li><li>The length of the shorter 2nd note of each pair seems fairly constant regardless of tempo- around 100ms. According to the data provided, it appears that the length of the 2nd note only deviates from this fixed amount at slower tempos.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDptkWYE2GK5hf5RnliaChetU8A0x6DSyFjSyi8Fcl6s9Sde5x52bTubtTKBA0hvX2nPCmqgdjivgqNgE1GKXITqw4uG1f1Ne9aWQece44tCCgGAI8BATLt2_aRvNvNnopjwIu/s1600-h/short-note-vs-tempo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="316" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDptkWYE2GK5hf5RnliaChetU8A0x6DSyFjSyi8Fcl6s9Sde5x52bTubtTKBA0hvX2nPCmqgdjivgqNgE1GKXITqw4uG1f1Ne9aWQece44tCCgGAI8BATLt2_aRvNvNnopjwIu/s400/short-note-vs-tempo.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /></li></ul><br /><br />(note: images above from the original paper)<br /><br />I'm glad to see there is finally somewhat believable scientific evidence that swing 8ths really do vary from player to player and are not absolutely triplet-based.<br /><br />I do think this study could be done better, however.<br /><ul><li><b>Better Data Visualization</b>. More data points per drummer, or per-drummer breakdowns, instead of lumping all drummers together. Yes it is visible based on the shape of the data point, but it's had to get a clear picture from it.<br /></li><li><b>Control Cases</b>. Comparisons with the same drummers playing straight 8ths and triplet-based feel to use an accuracy baseline.<br /></li><li><b>Don't average lengths, but average ratios</b>. I think it is erroneous to average out lengths of notes over the context of an entire song, since variations in tempo (i.e.: speeding up or slowing down) will skew the data. Perhaps this is already done in the original study, but it's not specified.<br /></li><li><b>More data</b>. I'd like to see more drummers included in this, and comparisons of relative 8th note feels in different contexts. Also, why not include other instrumentalists as well? I'd also like to see the same drummer at the same tempo, but from different recordings. Perhaps we'll have a clearer justification for why certain recordings "swing like a MOFO" more than others.<br /></ul>It might also be interesting to see a second study exploring the use of accents in swing feel.<p>[ source: <a target="_blank" href="http://www.acoustics.org/press/137th/friberg.html">Jazz Drummers' Swing Ratio in Relation to Tempo</a> ]zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-44594431596036184912009-09-14T22:35:00.014-04:002009-09-15T02:32:28.261-04:00Best. Present. Ever.About 2 years ago, my parents moved out of their house in NDG, which was my childhood home, to move into a condo located downtown. Part of this move included throwing out lots of "old junk" deemed no longer necessary. In fact, the cleaning process started years and years ago, even before they decided to get a condo. Those who know my parents know that they have a dark and quirky sense of practicality and uber-foreplanning- some say fatalistic others say realistic. My dad explained the cleanup: "We want to throw out all this junk now so that, after we die, you don't have to go through all of this".<div><br /></div><div>Unfortunately, one of the items deemed "junk" was a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_VL-1">Casio VL-1 VL-Tone</a>, which was my first ever musical instrument, and whose demo song was the first piece of music I ever learnt how to play.</div><div><br /></div><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVDw7uPnfa8#t=29s">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVDw7uPnfa8#t=29s</a><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WVDw7uPnfa8&hl=en&fs=1&start=29&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WVDw7uPnfa8&hl=en&fs=1&start=29&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></div><div><br /></div><div>Not exactly the hippest thing ever, but back then I couldn't get enough. I mean, christ, I eventually got so good at playing the theme that I would play the melody while switching the rhythms and sounds around at the right spots.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you've never heard of the VL-Tone, but hear something in it that sounds familiar, it may be because you've heard songs that have used it. The most famous is probably German band <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trio_(band)">Trio</a>'s song "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Da_Da">Da Da Da</a>".</div><div><br /></div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15YZUXL_ULU">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15YZUXL_ULU</a><br /><div><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/15YZUXL_ULU&hl=en&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/15YZUXL_ULU&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></div><div><br /></div><div>Anyway, so, like I said, my dad threw it away and I was shocked and horrified- partly nostalgia but also partly because I've had the idea in the last few years to start a project that would integrate retro electronic sounds, and the VL-1 was going to be absolutely integral to it.</div><div><br /></div><div>Fast-forward to tonight, when I was over at my parents place for dinner. Due to age and my dad's illness, I've been helping out with various chores and repairs that would have previously been trivial, and so, after dinner, I headed downstairs to pick up the mail. There was a package waiting for us.</div><div><br /></div><div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmKoNcKU6QUTGRDlMWD9nhnHnZJDn2qgxFN2nLjywDCz0byLQS7blE0KR9lJG1lvQg5UFo1rNC_l8fCVL6xyr7qww68viyPUHoEaa1UATTdRmdynBggK6EKbZWRHRcpn2CW5iQ/s1600-h/IMG_0379+smaller.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmKoNcKU6QUTGRDlMWD9nhnHnZJDn2qgxFN2nLjywDCz0byLQS7blE0KR9lJG1lvQg5UFo1rNC_l8fCVL6xyr7qww68viyPUHoEaa1UATTdRmdynBggK6EKbZWRHRcpn2CW5iQ/s320/IMG_0379+smaller.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5381556690914355602" /></a><br /></div><div>Suddenly I realized why my dad had been asking me questions about eBay for the last couple of weeks without the slightest idea it was for this. Best present ever.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also, thankfully I did manage to stave the hand of junk-disposal before they got to my old Transformers toy collection.</div>zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-90641722607980728932009-08-08T11:12:00.010-04:002010-12-01T11:55:16.525-05:00Before Music DiesI'd heard about this documentary about the current state of the popular music industry, that is to say, marketing-driven music, as opposed to music and musician-driven music, a while ago, but never got around to watching it. My loss. Contains some great insights although it comes off as a bit of a commercial spot for ATO Records at the end of it.<br />
<br />
You can watch the entire movie here:<br />
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPZztrRWjZ8">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPZztrRWjZ8</a><br />
<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sPZztrRWjZ8?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sPZztrRWjZ8?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object><br />
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Features interviews with record industry execs, random music fans, and lots of famous and not-so-famous musicians such as Erykah Badu, Eric Clapton, Dave Matthews, Branford Marsalis, and ?uestlove. Also contains an amusing insta-popstar creation using the dude who wrote Jewel's big hit, a 17-yr-old model, and of course the wonders of autotune.<br />
<br />
This also contains the famous quote from Branford Marsalis about the state of students today, that has been floating around the webtersphere.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rz2jRHA9fo">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rz2jRHA9fo</a><br />
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I've seen Branford speaking out on various subjects a bit more recently, and he seems to have a similar combination fire, controversy, and intelligence that Wynton has, but I tend to agree with his opinions more. Kinda like my feeling on their music too, haha.<br />
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Here's a clip of him talking about race and the objectification of women:<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJiUi3dcOp0">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJiUi3dcOp0</a><br />
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One of the more bizarre/hypocritical parts of the documentary, though, is hearing Erykah Badu talk all about how the music-industry today is all about image over content, but she is doing this while wearing her very notable but very fake afro wig. Hrm.<br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92GM851j20k">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92GM851j20k</a><br />
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Found via Zakari's post on Peter Hum's Facebook wall.<br />
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(updated on 2010/12/01 with link to video of Erykah Badu's comments, and updated link to movie)zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-53431242151298352932009-04-17T01:52:00.005-04:002010-04-27T18:45:25.478-04:00Bring Back the Old Facebook- wait, no, not the Old Old Facebook, but the Old New Facebook** title courtesy of Jeremy Tan<div><br /></div><div>So now that the initial "I HATE ALL NEW THINGS" furor over the latest "new Facebook" has subsided somewhat, here's my beef with the most recent overhaul, in a nutshell. Facebook has upgraded to a social networking site that has killed the power of social networking. Okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's certainly true that they have stifled the very forces that make social networking spread like wildfire.</div><div><br /></div><div>First of all, let's look at what the perceived problem was and what Facebook sought to resolve with the new iteration. As far as I can tell, the main issue was balancing overburdening people with every single item from their friends' minifeeds (the old real-time feed) vs the haphazard culling of pseudo-random items into a summary feed. Their solution was to decide that some kinds of content were more important than others and to present this subset of all generated friend content in their totality.</div><div><br /></div><div>There's a number of big problems with this.</div><div><ol><li>One is that Facebook has decided what feed information is important to you (which may not be accurate). This is the "killing the power of social networking" part of things. A lot of seemingly innocuous or unimportant information that was previously the source of great amusement (such as one's changing of one's profile picture, or one being tagged in some content, or one joining a group) would flow down to one's friends and spread in that fashion- now that information is lost, except for friend-specific stalkers.</li><li>A second problem is that for those who were used to the completeness of the old real-time feed, this is a step backwards. Admittedly, though, the overkill of the real-time feed is for the obsessive and not for everyone.</li><li>Thirdly, because the only stream available is a "real-time", because no summary/randomized feed is available, and because not everyone is a 24hr/old posts-checking Facebook junkie, a real-time-only feed means casual users miss out on a lot of things, potentially. The "Highlights" are an attempt to address this sort of thing, but, again, only certain kinds of content qualify, which bring up the same sorts of problems as in (1) above. Also, folks in different timezones from one another are likely to miss each others' updates, given the time differential, unless one, again, goes through the trouble of scouring old posts.</li><li>Fourthly, and this is a general problem that existed before "new" Facebook, blanket user feed filtering doesn't really work. Generally, some types of updates from some users are problematic- but not *all* their updates. Case in point, twitter-esque status updates from one friend might be annoying but you don't want to completely ignore their updates and miss out on their photo uploads, for example.</li></ol><div>In my opinion, there are ways to address these issues and still address the issues that Facebook wants to improve on.</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's my suggestion, in a nutshell, of how to fix Facebook.</div><div><ul><li>First, we need the concept of "Publisher" settings (i.e.: for a user updating his/her status or posting a link, or otherwise creating anything that would create an entry in their feed) vs "Reader/Filter/Feed" settings (i.e.: for a user reading his friend's updates).</li><li>All of the things that qualify, i.e.: anything that can appear in a feed entry, should be atomic and treated equally, and should default everything on for writing (publishing) but, in the interests of backwards-compatibility with current Facebook, only the same items that currently show up in the feed should be enabled. Turning on everything from the reader-side would be equivalent to the old real-time feed and appeal to the hardcore/obsessive.</li><li>Instead of blanket per-user filtering, what we really want is per-user per-atomic newsfeed item filtering, same for publishing. In other words, anything that can be published can be filtered, on both a global or per-user setting basis.</li><li>Bring back some variant of the old feed, but call it something like the MishMash Feed or the Summary Feed. This is great for casual users. This could also be achieved by simply provided a Feed-like interface to Highlights, but with more "old" entries.</li></ul><div>I'm pretty sure that this would do it. You'd satisfy the crazy Facebook junkies like me, giving us complete access to the information we used to have in the old Real-Time feed, but you'd still have the less overwhelming options for the general/casual user.</div><div><br /></div><div>On a separate note, it's probably only a matter of time before this happens, but if one can re-arrange the positions of items in one's profile, why can't one have similar control over (at least some) of the options in one's home/feed page? I can understand not being able to move the position of the ads around, but I for one would much prefer having my Upcoming Events near the top, and my "Friends You May Know"/"Suggestions" near the bottom.</div><div><br /></div><div>Yes, I may be a jazz musician, but I used to be a software developer in another life. Can you tell?</div><div><br /></div><div>[2009/04/20] Addendum: The other problem with having a Real-Time feed and no Summary Feed is that an extremely active user (or anything that can publish to a feed, such as a Public Profile or an Application) can easily monopolize one's feed. Both selective filtering on the Reader side and Summary Feed as an option would address this problem.</div></div></div>zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-48117603914385608132009-02-04T17:51:00.007-05:002009-02-04T23:27:19.406-05:00The Importance of Backups<div>Backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup, backup.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>Everyone says to backup one's data reguarly, but how many people actually do? Besides, buying an extra hard drive, installing it, and setting up a system for regular backups- this can easily become a non-trivial task, especially for non-technically-minded folks. There are a few one-stop-shop solutions, that offer some kind of do-it-all box to cover your backup needs, but these do tend to be expensive. <a href="http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/backup.html">Apple's Time Capsule</a> does try to bridge all these gaps, but no idea how it fares in the non-Mac world, though.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>My friend Kevin pointed out a great solution called <a href="https://mozy.com/?ref=RL6GPN">Mozy</a> that provides network-based backups. Basically you create an account, download a piece of software (for Mac or Windows), choose what you'd like to backup, and then your files are uploaded (encrypted) to a backup server using the Power of the Internet. I just started using it and it seems pretty great so far. Network-based backups just make so much sense to me, and from Mozy's business-case perspective, I would think it makes sense for them too, when considering the relative cheapness of hard drive space and bandwidth for the operations involved.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>The free version offers 2GB of backup space, which is just barely enough for me, but I manage to offload the space a little considering that I have my photos backed up on <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/">Picasa Web Albums</a> already, and I'm electing not to backup my mp3 collection for time being. The pay version ($4.95/month) offers unlimited backup space. Also, if you use my referral link to signup, we each get an additional 256MB. Woohoo! <a href="https://mozy.com/?ref=RL6GPN">Signup here!</a></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>As it turns out, I know a couple of the folks who work for the company that bought Mozy, so I'm hoping that they'll alert me before Mozy starts snooping around in my backup data, and make millions taking my avant-garde atonal jazz charts and converting them into Top-40 hits.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(85, 26, 139); text-decoration: underline;"><a href="https://mozy.com/?ref=RL6GPN">Mozy (with referral code)</a></span>zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-79780330688276452172009-02-04T17:00:00.008-05:002010-04-27T18:44:58.496-04:00Why Twitter is doomed to failure, or what Facebook has to do to kill TwitterSo, added to my list of things that I believe are doomed to failure is <a href="http://twitter.com/">Twitter</a>. Why? It seems that all Twitter amounts to is a very limited featureset that is easily superceded by the featureset of other social-networking sites. As far as I'm concerned, Twitter is essentially <a href="http://facebook.com/">Facebook</a> status updates with minor additional features. And I'm guessing those additional features will be coming to Facebook soon, in a much more complete/all-encompassing fashion to boot. Sooner still if Facebook wants to curb Twitter's growth. Here's what Facebook needs to do to match Twitter:<div><br />
</div><div><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Subscribing to Non-Friend Content:</span> Provide the ability to "subscribe to"/follow people's status updates without being their friends. People can elect to make their status updates "public" or "subscribable" to their non-friends in order to make this happen. This is already possible with public videos and public notes, so this isn't much of a stretch.</li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Commenting on Non-Friend Content</span>: Provide the ability for people to comment on public status updates. Again, already possible with videos and notes, so not difficult.</li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">More Control on Updates</span>: Provide the ability to more finely control what friend updates one receives, and how one receives them, in particular with regard to cellphone integration. I don't use <a href="http://m.facebook.com/">Facebook Mobile</a> (mainly due to the absolutely ridiculously exorbitant data rates up here in Canada) so I'm not sure how much control one has, but I would assume one does not have the option to receive a text message (or equivalent) for every friends' status update, currently.</li>
</ul><div>Now, here's the additional features Facebook needs to kill Twitter, and other websites, entirely, or at least to aggressively compete against them:</div><div><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Generic Publishing:</span> Provide the ability for people to mark <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">any</span> content as public and "subscribable". For example, a film-maker could make their status updates, notes, and videos public and "subscribable", thus competing with, respectively, Twitter, Blogger, and YouTube.</li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Generic Subscribing:</span> Within Facebook, one only gets notifications on updates for items that one has been explicitly marked as participating in- this could be via a tag, a comment, and so forth. This shouldn't be necessary, however. If someone posts a really neat photo that I know will inspire a lot of comments (and I want to read the comments), I should have the option to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">subscribe</span> to said photo whenever updates are posted to it, and thus opt-in to receive comments, etc on it.</li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Content Labeling: </span>Provide the ability for people to mark their content with GMail-esque labels, and then set privacy settings, such as subscribability, on that. This is slightly different from friend lists but perhaps the two could be merged.</li>
<li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Facebook Connect 2-Way Communication:</span> Facebook Connect allows external websites to report a user's activities as Facebook newsfeed items. In order to become more seamless, the reverse should occur as well. Actions on Facebook should also be reflected on external sites. Currently, for example, one can import blog entries into Facebook as notes. When users within Facebook comment on the imported notes, those comments are not exported back to the source blog- but they could be, keeping one conversation thread across multiple reading interfaces. Taking this a step further, why not have my Facebook-uploaded videos also appear on YouTube?</li>
</ul></div><div>Now, to be fair, I don't actually have a Twitter account, so I may be missing out on some key features here, or mis-representing the featureset. Still, I can't imagine that there is all that much more that would be hard to reproduce on the Facebook side.<br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div>Some of these features could perhaps be introduced via Facebook Pages, so that people could maintain a private account and a public persona as two separate entities, but I think the bulk of these features would be desired by general Facebook account holders.</div><div><br />
</div><div><br />
</div><div>So anyway, that's it! Twitter, your time is up.</div></div>zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-54407535073543095172009-01-06T21:30:00.014-05:002009-01-09T00:53:55.088-05:00Adobe CS4 - even the installer is crap<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOuXhvbXsQhCBFtCJuB6cDQob6wy77wdKobF1RrNWJGp8rcmH_Uurtgw0r4BuwNUbAqyVap_YppaKyUawu_dzIjZp0dYrZ5OorLVBrJ5NmXnY7KYB4T_J2Z24MrNi-k0o4oIHJ/s1600-h/adobe-cs4-setup-no-space-available.jpg"></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNl4RiJsbPFUIqNgdx39LbQaEeuXSuM7UZWUgeW5VtjtX5Om56t25sLNARjRpz1DrMfnIj2Jk41RdL72kCUmJwUMI0PtglSEyzQmCl6PaHnTyyMONtDfPJQXGrdnCDXQdKs7B_/s1600-h/adobe-cs4-setup-mem-usage.jpg"></a><br /></span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht0Ul7KFxE6gIJU9O77qDKQ5iPNcHfQe1U4KCA6r9Vo9ihyphenhyphenpV-I5O8OLCtaKoJK_E5B7KU45IEzXvzCZPnG4EywE9rXwoGWNPNPQBf9f12NbOSeD2NfsjpLFXvNxxPxxlcpygp/s1600-h/AdobeCS4-is-poop.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEht0Ul7KFxE6gIJU9O77qDKQ5iPNcHfQe1U4KCA6r9Vo9ihyphenhyphenpV-I5O8OLCtaKoJK_E5B7KU45IEzXvzCZPnG4EywE9rXwoGWNPNPQBf9f12NbOSeD2NfsjpLFXvNxxPxxlcpygp/s400/AdobeCS4-is-poop.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288386974565233586" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre-wrap; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I haven't yet blogged about it, but I had a pretty frickin' horrible time with Adobe Audition and Adobe Premiere CS3. To be fair, one of the issues I had with them- repetitive crashing- was probably due to system incompatibilities/bad drivers, but it's really the poor way in which the software handled the crashes that was the crux of the problem. Anyway that'll be the subject of a future blog post.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So, now, I've decided to upgrade to CS4 in hopes of addressing the problems I had. I fire up the installer. This seems to take a long time. When it finally comes up and I get the chance to choose some configuration options, I check the Task Manager, just for kicks.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); white-space: normal; "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNl4RiJsbPFUIqNgdx39LbQaEeuXSuM7UZWUgeW5VtjtX5Om56t25sLNARjRpz1DrMfnIj2Jk41RdL72kCUmJwUMI0PtglSEyzQmCl6PaHnTyyMONtDfPJQXGrdnCDXQdKs7B_/s400/adobe-cs4-setup-mem-usage.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288395079468671042" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 57px; " /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">250M of memory usage?! For an installer?! Nnngph.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The E: drive is the home of my Program Files installations. Currently, my C: drive has 1.54GB free and E: has an ample 11.1GB free. The full CS4 installation is supposed to take 8.7GB. More than enough. So I set my custom install location to the E: drive.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); "><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOuXhvbXsQhCBFtCJuB6cDQob6wy77wdKobF1RrNWJGp8rcmH_Uurtgw0r4BuwNUbAqyVap_YppaKyUawu_dzIjZp0dYrZ5OorLVBrJ5NmXnY7KYB4T_J2Z24MrNi-k0o4oIHJ/s400/adobe-cs4-setup-no-space-available.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5288395915249882898" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 93px; " /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I... what?</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This... this is just fucking great. Really inspires confidence in the quality of the product.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">PS, current price of Adobe CS4 Master Collection: US $2,499</span></span></div>zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-84471690733383832742008-12-25T14:04:00.004-05:002009-08-08T11:29:13.952-04:00merry christmas!<span class="Apple-style-span" style=" white-space: pre;font-family:Arial;font-size:10px;"><br /></span><center><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-2XVHUBEG8o&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/-2XVHUBEG8o&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object></center><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2XVHUBEG8o&fmt=6">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2XVHUBEG8o&fmt=6</a>zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-4892245694902396392008-12-23T14:33:00.027-05:002009-01-09T00:53:39.072-05:00cd now available!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So, as many of you know, I've been working on a debut CD for the last few years, and finally, after numerous delays, it is DONE and finally available! It's composed entirely of original material, written and arranged by me and my co-conspirator on this project, Tom Eliosoff. There's a fair amount of experimentation with colour and time, but all within a certain "modern jazz" framework. I'd say that the clearest sources of musical inspiration would be Greg Osby, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Muhal Richard Abrams, and Henry Threadgill.<br /><br /></span></span></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><img src="http://bagarap.com/records/albums/BGR-000-001/cover.jpg" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 405px; height: 391px;" border="0" alt="" /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family:arial;font-size:13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The album features myself and Tom, as well as Miles Perkin on bass and Mark "Bucky" Wheaton on drums, but I wrote some tunes and arrangements integrating a string trio on a number of tracks, and Tom added trumpet, trombone, and Rhodes to help fill out the group. I could try to describe what the music sounds like but, as Frank Zappa famously said (according to legend anyway), "Writing about music is like dancing to architecture", so I'll invite you to check out the album on the website of my newly-founded record label and universal music/musician resource, Bagarap Records:<br /></span></span><a href="http://bagarap.com/records/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(7, 77, 143); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">http://bagarap.com/records/</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /></span></span><div align="center"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><iframe src="http://bagarap.com/records/albums/BGR-000-001/player-link.html" width="276" height="216" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />Let me know if you have any issues listening to the music through the player there. Not much to see on that website at the moment aside from links to buy the CD and/or MP3s, but I'll be expanding it slowly over time.<br /><br /></span></span><div align="center"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><iframe src="http://bagarap.com/records/albums/BGR-000-001/paypal-link.html" width="395" height="160" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe></span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /><br />If you like it and want to buy it, the best option is to catch me at a show or simply to let me know personally and I'll set aside a copy for you. We can figure out a meeting time/place to deliver the CD. This is the cheapest option for you, and the most profitable option for me, so it's the way I prefer to go, in general. Assuming it's easy enough for me to arrange a delivery, the price is $15, when purchased this way. You can also purchase the CD (or Digital Download it as DRM-free MP3s) from the Bagarap Records website. The physical CD and MP3s are also available on CDBaby (</span></span><a href="http://cdbaby.com/cd/vincentstephenong" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(7, 77, 143); "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">http://cdbaby.com/cd/</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><wbr>vincentstephenong</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'trebuchet ms';"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">) and the Digital Download version will be available on a number of other popular sites (iTunes, Amazon, Napster, etc) shortly.<br /><br />Check it out- I hope you like it.</span></span><br /></span></div>zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4014003.post-50157014047299781512008-12-02T12:06:00.012-05:002008-12-02T13:51:53.431-05:00cuba!<div>i'm new to blogging and am not sure what exactly to write here. i'm thinking less is more, so here we go.</div><div><br /></div><div>first vacation in 6 years: a week at an all-inclusive resort near santiago de cuba, the brisas sierra mar. first time to cuba and the carribean for that matter, and my first time at an all-inclusive. had a good time but quickly discovered that all-inclusives are not for me.</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_RzgeUPXElqc/STN9KTGY_QI/AAAAAAAABmA/DGwea966ZAQ/s912/IMG_0084.JPG" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 456px; height: 342px;" border="0" alt="" /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">explored the countryside and chivirico, the local village. road a scooter on the precarious unpaved roads. almost exchanged a shirt, shoes, and soap for a lobster, but didn't work out in the end. almost organized a 30-person lobster dinner but made a dumb mistake and got caught by hotel management and had to cancel. ran into a practicioner of yoseikan, which is an off-shoot style of chito-ryu, which i used to practice. learned how to play the bongos. got schooled at the bongos by a cuban boy by the name of enrique. got sick with explosive diarreah from water/food/something. kayaked and pedal-boated. got a mild tan. didn't shave. learned that even in a legitimate-looking store with price tags on items, a cashier, and an electronic barcode reader, all prices are negotiable. learned a bit about cuban life, culture, and government. picked up a smattering of spanish. got schooled at pingpong. learned a little bit of salsa dancing. had lobster (well, crawfish) for lunch thanks to jacques and sisi.<br /></div></div><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_RzgeUPXElqc/STN9VpIOo1I/AAAAAAAABmY/awn5RSkwur4/s912/IMG_0095.JPG" style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 456px; height: 342px;" border="0" alt="" /></div><div><br /></div><div>on a side note, i had no idea of the level of poverty and more importantly lack of resources. i guess that's what a 50-year US embargo will do. cubans gladly accept used clothing or other items (e.g.: soap, pencils, etc) as these are in short supply. it is not at all poorly regarded to accept such gifts, in a social/cultural sense.</div><br />i plan to go back. maybe next year, maybe the one after that, who knows. but what i'm hoping to do is go for two weeks, explore havana, santiago and maybe a few other cities/villages, soak up the local culture, food, and music. for the last two days, meet up with the hotel folks at the brisas sierra mar and then head home. oh yeah, and i'll pack an extra suitcase full of old clothing and other items to give away. maybe this time i'll be able to trade them for a lobster.<div><br /></div><div>P.S. one final note- i had made a reservation with aerobus on the day of my departure for them to pick me up at the hotel near where i live and take me to the airport. they never came and i ended up paying for a taxi. according to the hotel staff, this happens quite often. fuckers.</div>zibalatzhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04003765701553033282noreply@blogger.com0