pc
The End is Near
Ew… wait… Does the world really NEED a game like this? People already give DJs shit about pushing buttons and turning knobs and not really being a musician… Then they give me double-shit for being a laptop DJ… So now i get to play a game where i’m pushing buttons and turning knobs to pretend to be someone who pushes buttons and turns knobs?
I hope when you choose your character in the beginning you can choose between vinyl, cd, and laptop… so i can play a game where i push buttons and turn knobs to control a simulation of a computer that is recreating the nuances of using vinyl to play other people’s music.
Maybe you can hack the game to actually send midi signal and then i can use fake numark mixer to control the little dude on the screen who triggers events in ableton which is playing for real people at a party.
“Scratch will feature original recordings from the catalogs of many top urban artists and will allow players to re-imagine songs on the fly and add their own creativity. This feature sets it apart from other music rhythm games and makes it a dream come true for both casual music fans and serious DJs/producers.”
HAW!!!
New Keyboard
I am fully prepared to take shit for this.
Despite the fact that i used an apple IIe (my 1st computer) from 1982 til probably 1990… i really can’t call it my 1st apple PURCHASE because my parents bought it. Saturday afternoon, after deciding against going to love fest, i ended up making my 1st apple store purchase in the form of Skinny Fucking Keyboard. (it says that on the box)
Skinny Fuckin Keyboard is something i’ve been wanting for a while… and as vocally anti-mac as i’ve been for all these years, you’d better believe the shitstorm has begun. Do you know what it’s like to have shit rain down on you every few minutes? It’s crazy son!
My whole reasoning for this move was to reduce the INSANE NOISE that i create when i type on my other keyboard. Because a) there’s no reason to alert my coworkers to how long my emails are… and b) this one crazy lady here actually asked to be seated farther away from me because of my loud typing… The down side of this plan is twofold; 1) she’s going to start noticing how loud i slap my mouse buttons (i swear my fingers are spring-loaded) and 2) i have to figure out a way around this missing print-screen button issue. (i use that a LOT every day for work, yo!) Shouldn’t be hard though… there’s many freeware solutions with customizable hot keys.
and of course 3) the shit hitting my umbrella right now. Long overdue revenge from my mac-adoring friends. No guys this is not going to be “gateway purchase”… leading eventually to me converting to the dark (albiet, white) side…
Fire away bitches. =)
I’m a LOUD computer user
all this clickitty clack clickitty clack… annoying even to myself…
i totally need one of those new mac keyboards.
fuck i did not just say that.
Finally Stepping Up…
The cheap old laptops i’ve been using since i first started this whole music business are finally not cutting it anymore… Live 7 is too hefty to write tracks without spending half my time freezing and unfreezing everything and now Live 5 won’t even start anymore… i’ve uninstall/reinstalled several times and deleted all my cache and temp files… but it still locks up when loading “scrollU00.tif” every time.
That and i constantly have to beat on it to get the monitor to stop fritzing out… And i just know one day that ribbon cable is just gonna break… and with my luck it’ll probably happen in the middle of a set.
So after doing a bunch of research last night, I’ve decided to buy this puppy today:
www.circuitcity.com/ssm/HP-P…Detail.do
‘cuz fuckit… that’s why. The only complicate part is going to be getting rid of Vista and putting XP pro on it… but i have friends out there… contrary to popular belief.
If anybody thinks this computer purchase is a BAD idea or has something better for less, speak now or forever hold your “piece.” =Þ
PowerPoint
We had a special guest here last week (on the night of modeselektor)… a presentation design specialist who just published a book on the subject… Since he likes us so much (and since we get business every time he mentions us in his blog), we held his book signing party here. Among the guests were people from microsoft and cisco… and i must say the hors doeuvres were excellent. =)
www.presentationzen.com/presen…wi.html
I can really get into this guy’s methodology and i wish more companies would embrace the less-is-more philosophy… You usually end up with the “make my logo bigger” crowd and the end result is like poop in your zen garden. har har.
One of the reasons i feel that this place is such a good fit for me is because i have strong visual story-telling skills… that’s one of the main points we try to push here… we’re not in the business of making talking points pretty… we’re in the business of engaging audiences… design, not decoration.
I attended a lecture by this guy: www.edwardtufte.com before starting work here and even though he’s an authority on quantitative information graphics, his views on powerpoint are incredibly angry and negative… even going so far as to blame powerpoint for the Columbia disaster. His belief is that powerpoint is making people stupider… that people tend to stick to the font size/resolution limitations and linear nature of powerpoint and they forget how to really communicate… that the presentation itself ends up replacing the content somehow. I am not quite sure how he can make such arching statements when he knows damn well that powerpoint can be treated like a container for whatever the hell you want to stick in there. I have never felt compelled to use ppt templates but he seems to think the world is doing it as a shortcut to thinking.
In the case of school kids being told to make powerpoint presentations for homework assignments i can see how this can be true. Instead of doing real work, they are sort of having fun decorating their assignment with cheesy clip art and somehow the medium becomes the focus instead of the content… Tufte argues “Your method of delivery should always be invisible… ” and most powerpoint presentations end up being more of an advertisement for powerpoint than anything else.
And in the case of the Colmubia incident i can see his qualms too… The Columbia Accident Investigation Board says “At many points during it’s investigation, the Board was surprised to receive similar presentation slides from NASA officials in place of technical reports. The Board views the endemic use of powerpoint briefing slides instead of technical papers as an illustration of the problematic methods of technical communication at NASA — Other professional organizations have also noted the increased use of this presentation software as a substitute for technical reports and other meaningful documentation. Powerpoint (and simliar products by other vendors), as a method to provide talking points and present limited data to assembled groups, has it’s place in the engineering community; however, these presentation should never be allowed to replacec, or even supplement, formal documentation.”
Agreed. But to go off of this and say that ppt is making the presenters, consumer, and everyone witness to it dumber by forcing them into a 1st grade level of communication is a stretch. Tufte, you’re great at what you do… but something tells me that your advisory role on the Columbia Accident Investigation Board made you take the tragedy personally and you are looking for someone to blame…
Just like anything else… HOW you use it is where the art lies. Ableton alone doesn’t write good music. Owning a ferrari doesn’t make you a race car driver. Using powerpoint does not make you a good presenter.
Help Me Understand iTunes
Most of you know me as the guy that hates on iCulture… Well at work they’re trying to convince me to use iTunes because everybody shares their playlists here through iTunes. I fiddle-fucked around with it this morning and i have some questions now:
1) a. does every mp3 you play from your hard drive get copied into the iTunes music folder as an m4a?
b. doesn’t this pretty much DOUBLE the amount of space your music library takes up on your hard drive?
c. is there a way to turn that stupid feature OFF?
2) a. If i listen to music from someone else’s shared playlist, is it coming to me from their hard drive or is it coming to me from the iTunes store?
b. If you create a shared playlist and you have rare music that isn’t available at the iTunes store, do other people even get to hear it?
c. If you create a shared playlist and you have rare music that isn’t available at the iTunes store, do other people even see it on your shared playist?
3) Aside from podcasting, does iTunes offer any intrinsic value to anyone other than apple and the copyrights they are protecting?
Gina Fant-Saez Can Kiss My Ass
About.com featured this article:
Engineer Gina Fant-Saez Defines Her Ultimate Portable Studio
Engineer Gina Fant-Saez defines her ultimate portable studio in part 1 and part 2 of this article. It’s a fact packed read from a knowledgable source, with specific gear selections and suggestions. Some have carped about the price of the total package, but GFS counters with this: “. . . what did you spend on your last professional recording? And how many flaws did you let slide because the studio time was adding up?”
Look how right away they say “a fact-packed read from a knowedgable source”… like anyone’s ever heard of this bitch. If you check out the “fact-packed read” itself:
http://digitalmedia.oreilly.com/2005/06/29/portable1.html
… you will discover that this article is completely full of shit… sure everyone knows that you can fit a budget recording studio into a backpack these days but this “fact-packed” shit is nothing but an advertorial for Apple, Digidesign and M-Audio….
Here again is a perfect example of how Apple is becoming the antichrist. This woman is actually recommending portable ipod speakers instead of real studio monitors??? or what about the fact that she spends several paragraphs telling you not to wait… just hurry up and buy a mac. Her reasoning is absolute bullshit. She is a paid spokesperson. And not to mention… take a look at that pair of hardware racks on wheels in the photograph… you really expect me to believe that a woman THAT involved in studio recording would tell me to go buy the bottom-of-the-line midi controller from M-Audio???
Sorry give me a fucking break
Yes this is an advertorial… the definition of which is an advertisement that is made to appear as an article.
She also pitches her website in this article… suggesting that a “virtual session” is made possible exclusively by her website and it’s “unique functionality”… guess what? I can do it over gmail for free.
Gina… thanks for the disinformation and straight-up lies… kiss my ass… seriously…
you too Steve Jobs…
~S
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