Gecko Bloggle

via We-Make-Money-Not-Art

This article about Valerio Spolentini’s project, called V-Scratch talks about this university student’s simple idea for video/audio scratching using a very simple layout.

A turntable with a record on it (any record with a paper label in the center, I assume).
A laptop (for the audio/video sources).
An audio mixer (but I’m not sure you’d REALLY need this)
Speakers
LCD projector (if you’re doing video)
and here’s the kicker:
an optical mouse attached to the turntable in such a way that it “sees” the record turning underneath it

The only other setup I’ve seen before now that did anything even close to this was FinalScratch by NativeInstruments, using specially crafted timecode-producing records.

I can’t wait until the HackADay people get ahold of this, and figure out how to do it, or even better: the guy either makes this an open-source project, or sells it direct to users, ’cause I’d flip him $50 for the software, if it works for mp3s and mixing.

Via Download Squad:

Hold onto your job while you’re looking around in here.

101 Free Games

Someone out there wanted the Internet’s help buying a G5 (at .25c per person, he got up to his $5,000 he needed).

How’d he do it?

By promising to BLOW UP HIS CURRENT Mac (a G4).

Now I’ve got to go find out how much Tannerite costs.

Much better quality and humour than one would usually find in a video of this genre.

Looks like BlueSecurity is making enough of a dent in spam (or at least is annoying enough to the spammer community) that the spammers are attempting to strike back. I’ve been using BlueFrog, which automatically reports spammers who fail to comply with the Do Not Intrude registry, for a few months, and today, for the first time, I received about eight anti-BlueSecurity spams on my work account, all claiming that I would receive many more of these unless I removed myself from the registry immediately.

I’ve reported them as spam, of course, so we’ll see what happens.

As of right now, it appears that BlueSecurity.com is not responding, which means one of two things, I suspect:

1) The spammers, having given up on spamming addresses in the DNI, have started DOSing the BlueSecurity site.
or
2) Someone posted this information to SlashDot before I did.

Still: What’s really sad is that someone, somewhere, is going to buy a sexual enhancement pill tonight because they got a spam. (Don’t get me started on why you’d do this).

Yamipod is Yet Another Manager for your iPod. I’ve seen a few managers out there, but this one seems to have it all, and it’s portable, so you can actually copy it onto your iPod itself. Available for Windows, OSX, and Linux.

I thought, “Yeah, right,” and downloaded the app to see what was what. It’s 12MB, so that’s not too huge. Opened it up without the ‘pod plugged in, and it told me to plug in my unit (hehe… he said “unit”).

…and it worked…

Just loaded up my library, and away it went.

There’s a column for Artist, one for Album, and a third for Playlists. Under that, the “raw” contents of my iPod, with the Title, Album, Artist, Length, Bitrate, Lyrics (?), Track#, and Size listed and sortable.

Oh, and it plays tracks too.

Now, I’ve got iTunes installed on this deck, but don’t know if that’s necessary or not. I’ll have to try it elsewhere, and see what happens.

Play tracks? Sure, with the built-in player. Aparently, yeah.

Copy tracks to the iPod? Yep. While playing audio? Uh-huh. Copy tracks OFF the iPod? That too. Synchronize your iPod with a directory somewhere (maybe called something crazy like, oh, I dunno “iPodBackup”)? Booya.

Here’s where it starts getting crazy: Download podcasts via RSS? Create/remove/edit your playlists? Submit those played tracks to Last.FM? Automatically remove duplicates? Yes!

Export yo-…

Never mind, just go get it, and flip the guy some Paypal bucks or something. This a beautiful piece of programming, (maybe the GUI could be a little prettier), and the ONE PERSON who wrote it deserves some kudo$.

Ernest Cline (the guy who taught us that when something’s really REALLY cool, it’s Airwolf), has a nice little slideshow he’d like us to see:

Dance Monkeys, Dance <- click that to go see... Check it out.

So I got a pair of funky Logitech Wireless iPod Headphones (with remote on the ear), graciously given to me by a person at work (who knows someone from Logitech), and loved loved loved them. They felt good, they sounded great (and much lighter than my monstrous Koss UR30s).

Wore them during my daily commute to/from work (I walk for about 30min each way, which is just about right for the 2600 podcasts and the latest – or eldest – tunes in my library), and had them for about two weeks before I noticed that the fit didn’t seem quite as tight as when I got ’em. After wearing them for another day or two, I took a look at the neck band, and noticed a hairline crack on the inside of the band. This is what I saw:

Now, two weeks later, the crack has managed to migrate to the other side of the band, too, and now I’ve got headphones that would (if I were to wear them) literally be held on by the wires inside the neckband. Now, I’ve seen sport style headphones before, but the major difference seems to be that there’s no reinforcement on the back of the neck point, which would create the largest amount of stress on the plastic. I’m also guessing that these Logitech phones aren’t made with the most supple of plastic, which gives you a nice tight fit on the side of the head (for folks who are missing the top parts of their ears, I guess), but means that the majority of the stress in on a part of the headphones that has 1) no reinforcement and 2) no give.

I’ve been Googling some other folks to see what they think, and it looks like I’m really REALLY not alone in this.

I’ve also seen some interesting ways to work around the brittle plastic that makes the neckband of these things.

I’m thinking coat hanger, bent around to make the shape of the band, and then duct-tape/gluing them in place, or trying to disassemble them entirely, down to the earpoint, and essentially Frankensteining another (cheaper, more durable) neckband onto them.

Still, I LOVE the sound on them, but it’s just so sad to see them snap so easily after some fairly mundane use.

And besides, it was really fun to put ’em on Ripley and then use the iPod in my hand to essentially turn him into a remote-control dancin’ machine.

Battlefield 2142 has been announced. < - Click for trailer. Yes, it's cool. Yes, I've played it. No, you can't. (yet) Official announcement can be found here.

FlOw is a very mellow and relaxed sort of “eat what’s smaller than you” kinda game, and even though I generally hate these sorts of games, I found this one really soothing and sort of hypnotic.

target=”none”

Takes about 30 seconds to figure out what’s going on (holding down the mouse button makes you move faster), and about 15-20 minutes to play through to the bottom (no, there’s no giant boss at the end), and I’m told by a friend there’s something very similar for Nintendo DS, but hey.

Free’s good, and so’s pretty… Headphones/speakers add to the effect (and could just about put you to sleep).

Last night, I had a collection of bad dreams, but I’m only really aware of two. The first one is gone in that fog of sleep that happens, but the second is sorta interesting.

I was getting onto a plane (at least the building I was in was very similar to an airport, with escalators, and lots of people coming and going), and had someone who reminded me of John Candy leading the way, and it was all somewhat rushed, like he was helping me get where I was going before time ran out. I was taking an escalator down, and then was placed into a capsule that was vaguely tube-shaped. Little windows at the top, and metal bars and framework around me. There was a sense of a countdown, and exhiliration of takeoff, but then something went wrong.

The tube was filling extremely quickly with water. Clear and clean, and fairly warm, but choking nonetheless. I couldn’t move, and couldn’t get myself out of the canister I was in, but wasn’t really able to do much but kick feebly at the edges of the tube, hoping that someone could hear me, or do something to get me out. The air in my lungs exploded out of me in a cough, and I felt the compression of claustrophobia in my chest. I sucked in water, and felt it burn my nose, and kept kicking… and kicking… I was heartbroken, I was dying, and couldn’t do anything about it. There was no panic any more, just futility, and loss.

I woke, and while I couldn’t move (what’s that chemical that we release into our muscles that keeps us from running around in our sleep?), I gasped in air, and then lay there panting, my head pounding and my heart bashing my ribcage as I lay on my still-numb hands.

I looked around a little, and realized that Tate was in the bed, but the soft (foamy, sorta rigid) pillow was over his head. I yanked it back and threw it almost off the foot of the bed, and then watched him closely in the dim light to make sure he was breathing. He was lying on his back, his head was turned to the side, away from me, and yes, he was breathing. He obviously hadn’t been bothered by the pillow at all. At least, he didn’t appear to be distressed in any way.

So why did I dream of drowning? Did my six-month-old son send the sensation of smothering to me for long enough to wake me to get the pillow off his head?

Or what?

That stuff aside, I’ve been feeling the hangover from dying today, and it still hurts. I’m still sad about it.