Yes I can still play piano and sing.. but is it really music? :)

I hadn't played around with Garage Band (or any musical stuff) on the Mac for quite some time. It's all I can do as of late to sit down and play a few songs on the grand piano downstairs.

The other night after a back and forth on Facebook with Gretchen (high school friends, neighbors back in Rose Hill KS) the subject of that old standard "Perfect Country and Western" song came up.. yeah the one by David Allan Coe? In a fit of desperation.. after I got the song stuck in my head, I plugged in the mic to the Tascam US122 interface and layed down this quick vocal Sometimes singing makes it go away for me :)

Now that your ears have recovered that horrible beating.. prepare yourself for what is to come!

A week or so ago, I noticed that one of my followers on Twitter.. (yes I can say that snoopdogg is one of my followers ;-) was doing an online remix contest.

In the past, Trent Reznor of NIN (nine inch) has done these. The *really* cool thing about what Trent does, is that he makes the original digital datasets available in several different forms. These are the raw tracks in Apple Logic, Garage Band, or Avid's ProTools. You pull the whole shebang down and fire up the application and it's as if you were sitting in the recording studio as the console engineer! Pretty neat learning tool, even if you dont produce anything useful. It is also really cool to see what other people come up with. Sometimes the best part is just hearing the other ideas that people/artists have when given the same starting point.


Snoop had released a track on his new disc called 'That Tree' and he posted the individual audio tracks for download.

I'm such the music nerd from my band and keyboard/synth days that I pulled down the .zip file a few weeks ago, figuring that I'd just have the tracks to play around with.. not really time to edit anything useful.

After hooking up the condensor mic and the Tascam XLR/Midi interface to the Mac, I got fired up to dive back into at least Garage Band. It was a newer version that I'd not ran since I installed iLife 08 several months back.

Garage Band (although lots of pro musicians like to poo poo it) is really an amazing program for what it does, and for how easy it is to use. I wish *any* musical instrument mfg. Yamaha, Roland, and the like, would come up with as intuitive of an interface. That is really why I play my keyboards so little these days. I have to scour the manual of my Yamaha Motif ES88 to remember how to do even the simplest thing. The UI's on most synths leave a *lot* to be desired!

Well I missed the memo on the key signature of the song *and* the beats per minute (tempo) so I just took a guess at it.. besides it's RAP.. how hard is that to pitch bend/time shift etc? We'll.. I was slightly off, not too bad I suppose for a few hours of messing around.

See if I improved the original or not? Frankly I dont really like this song that much, and I tried to at least add some intro music/tracks with organ, and a bit of old school funk and I cut several minutes out of it.. just goes on too long IMHO

Check it out.. you can click on the original and my version on the embed. below :)

-tim

ps: That DAC song is still in my head.. and I keep thinking of a twisted.. 'skapunk' reggae version (with appropriate lyrics ;-) look out.. it just might happen!?



I give you the 'ThathonemasterTreeMix' Peace out G's!

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The Presidents Q&A at the Republican retreat

No matter which side you are on.. this is extremely interesting
to watch. The interaction between the President and members
of congress from the Republican Party. The full text is
here

Contrast this with the 'closed door session' that GWB had
with Democratic leaders in 2007 (transcript here)

In either case.. it's clear that one man (the Pres.) cannot solve
the issues by himself and that Congress is where the solutions
need to come from.

The best take-away after the video... Everyone would all
be better served with a bit more 'civility' less attacks, and
more constructive work towards getting things done.

Check out this guys take on the whole thing...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

On Health Care:
------------------
The component parts of this thing are pretty similar to what Howard Baker, Bob Dole, and Tom Daschle proposed at the beginning of this debate last year.

Now, you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and, certainly you don't agree with Tom Daschle on much, but that's not a radical bunch. But if you were to listen to the debate and, frankly, how some of you went after this bill, you'd think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot. No, I mean, that's how you guys presented it.

And so I'm thinking to myself, well, how does this square with a plan that is pretty centrist -- no, look, I mean, I'm just saying, I know you guys disagree, but if you look at the facts of this bill, most independent observers would say this is actually what many Republicans -- is similar to what many Republicans proposed to Bill Clinton when he was doing his debate on health care.

So all I'm saying is, we've got to close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality. I'm not suggesting that we're going to agree on everything, whether it's on health care or energy or what have you, but if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys then don't have a lot of room to negotiate with me.

I mean, the fact of the matter is, is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable in your own base, in your own party. You've given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you've been telling your constituents is, this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that's going to destroy America.

And I would just say that we have to think about tone. It's not just on your side, by the way -- it's on our side, as well. This is part of what's happened in our politics, where we demonize the other side so much that when it comes to actually getting things done, it becomes tough to do.

Build your own "Tiki O Lantern"!

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Okay.. so I was thinking, what could top last years *flaming pumpkin*, which I am doing again BTW.

Got to thinking, it would be cool to have a couple of those smaller pumpkins, on a stick.. kinda all 'Tiki Torch' like, to make the front yard kinda look like an episode of Halloween 'Survivor Island'

So after picking up a can of kerosene, I strolled down the lawn/garden aisle at Lowe's and noticed those 'tiki torches' Picked up a couple, and a jug of fuel for them and stopped by Whitfil Nursery for some smaller $1 pumpkins. Some 'Gorilla Tape' (black gaffers tape, kinda like duct tape on steroids) and carving tools.

The next sequence of photos details the steps.. first arrange all your materials:
(sorry Apricot Ale was the closest I had to 'pumpkin ale' :)




Here is the Tiki Torch pattern


Now the steps. First place the image on the pumpkin, then trace the outline using a small tool to make 'holes' so you can connect the dots with your saw/cutting tool.



Next, connect the dots, then size up the opening on the bottom for the top of the tiki torch.





Finally, assemble and you're done! I'll post some photos from tonight, after dark, of the Tiki O Lantern in action! :)








Flickr Photo Gallery Here:

Bonnie Bassler: Molecular biologist

Why you should listen to her:
In 2002, bearing her microscope on a microbe that lives in the gut of fish, Bonnie Bassler uncovered an elusive molecule called AI-2. Doing so, she vindicated the long-ridiculed idea that bacteria communicate -- through a process called quorum sensing. (Bassler calls the signals "bacterial Esperanto," and they’re the secret behind some fascinating behavior.)

The discovery shows how cell populations use chemical powwows to stage attacks, evade immune systems and forge slimy defenses called biofilms. For that, she's won a MacArthur "genius" grant -- and is giving new hope to frustrated pharmacos seeking new weapons against drug-resistant superbugs.



Bassler teaches molecular biology at Princeton, where she continues her years-long study of V. harveyi, one such social microbe that is mainly responsible for glow-in-the-dark sushi. She also teaches aerobics at the YMCA.

"She's really the one who's shown that this is something that all these bacteria are doing all the time. And if we want to understand them, we have to understand quorum sensing."
- Ned Wingreen, Princeton, on Nova ScienceNOW

Nintendo DSi Teardown Report

Since the kids have the DS Lite (previous generation) versions, it's kinda cool to see what upgrades and new features Nintendo stuffed into the new model.

 - The DSi has an integrated SD/SDHC expansion slot. 
   You can now use a normal SD card for the playback of AAC audio
   files and external storage of pictures or downloaded software. 
   Can anyone say homebrew apps?

 - Two VGA CMOS digital cameras (0.3 megapixels); one on the 
   internal hinge pointed towards the user and the other 
   in the outer shell.

Chips of interest, left to right and a view of the rest of the DSi in pieces, and a teardown of the original version. (NOTE: Clicking on the images will bring up larger versions)

 - Samsung 1st generation MoviNAND KMAPF0000M: 256 MB NAND Flash and MMC controller. 
 - 82DBS08164D-70L: Fujitsu Ltd 128-bit FCRAM (fast-cycle RAM).
 - Nintendo's custom ARM CPU. 

The full step by step teardown report is here.

Canon's new cameras PMA2009

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Check out the new line of Cameras coming from
Canon. Finally HD video across the line..



They have also have added more of a video camera type of
autofocusing technology to the high end powershot
and a CMOS sensor.

Check out all the info on the imaging-resource website

It might be time to start that 'Second Career'!

Thought this was interesting... :)

The City of Edmonton is moving forward on its crackdown on aggressive panhandlers.

These are a group of about 20 or 30 people who police estimate were responsible for 90 per cent of the complaints they received last year.

"I know of one individual that lives in a high-rise downtown," Edmonton police Insp. Brian Nowlan said Monday. "He makes about $400 a day panhandling, so this is a way of making an income."

Could Silicon Valley become the next Detroit?

While Pittsburgh has somewhat recovered from the death of the steel mills in the 1970's, Detroit is a different story. Where will the next dead/dying industry be? Has anyone considered Silicon Valley?

Emphasis on science and technology in the US is very inadequate in comparison to countries like India or China. Top executives at Hewlett-Packard, are ringing an alarm bell not just for HP, but for the entire U.S. tech industry. They say that unless we boost government spending on science, technology, engineering and math -- STEM, in industry jargon -- we will be unable to keep up with countries such as China and India.

Williams, a Ph.D. chemist at HP, has spent the past decade pleading with Congress to devote more funding to research and education in the sciences. So far it hasn't happened.

Last year, on a trip to India, he kept running into Indian scientists who earned Ph.D.s in the United States and worked here, but had recently returned to India -- not for sentimental reasons, but because they wanted their kids to grow up in a place with the best opportunities, and, shockingly enough, in their minds the United States was no longer that place.

Soon after, Williams traveled to China, where the government is creating the world's largest nanotechnology research facility and dishing out grants of as much as $100 million to veteran scientists. One woman he met, a 28-year-old fresh out of graduate school, had been given $5 million to pursue nanotech research. "In the United States," he says, "a young assistant professor would struggle to raise $50,000, let alone $5 million."

In Williams's lab at HP, only 18 of the 75 scientists were born in the United States, and 10 of those American-born researchers are over 50 years old; only six are under the age of 35. For now, HP can rely on foreign-born scientists, but "what happens when those people stop wanting to come here?" Williams asks. "That's the scary part."

Williams got through college and grad school in the 1970s thanks to government grants. He reckons he was a good investment. Through taxes, he's paid back the government many times over.

"Technology has been paying the bills in this country," he says. "It's delivering all of the innovation and the profits in the United States. The IT industry has created the wealth that we're enjoying now. But because the industry is doing well, it gets neglected.

I'm going to try and help in my own small way. The IEEE has a set of 'Lesson Plans' for their "Teacher In-Service" Program.

I've looked at several of these and they are quite good. Not sure of the reception, but I may plan on approaching the teacher at my kids school and see if they are open to doing something like this during National Engineering Week (Feb 15th thru 21st)

It will be interesting to see the kind of reception I'll get!? Stay Tuned

The word for today is...

Schwannoma

Also called neurilemoma, is a benign tumor that can arise from any nerve in the body, although it tends to favor certain nerves located in the head and neck along with nerves that are involved with flexing in the upper and lower extremities. ...

This is what the doc surgically removed from my middle finger on my left hand two weeks ago. Benign.. it's a tumor of sorts where the nerve sheath grows unchecked. Was about the size of the head of a Q-Tip, on the left side of the finger, near the nail. Had it for about 10 years, finally got annoyed enough to do something about it. Finger is almost back to normal, stitches out today, prognosis excellent! The tumor is below the skin, but goes all the way to the bone. Hard to see in these photos, just more of a swollen area under the skin.

But wait.. there's more!
The Schwann cell was named after the German physiologist Theodor Schwann. Schwann cells (also referred to as neurolemmocytes) are a variety of glial cell that mainly provide myelin insulation to axons in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) of jawed vertebrates.

You're thinking, "Dude, that's no improvement, it looks worse?" Thats pretty much the left over scar tissue. In another month or so, that will subside and be back to the same level as the rest of the skin. Nothing alarming really, other than it 'could' potentially grow back.

From the Adobe video editing 'skunkworks'

You can do some of these things with
Apple's 'Motion' and Adobe 'After Effects' but we're talking technology here that is much more intuitive to use. Very cool stuff here.. no 'keyframing' required!

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Interactive Video Object Manipulation from Dan Goldman on Vimeo.

Video Codecs Explained (Gizmodo)
This is such a good article, I'm blatantly posting the meat of it here. Kornfused by the multitude of video formats? DVD VCD, Blu-Ray, VHD, SVHS, SVCD, AVI, MP4, Quicktime, WMV, etc:?

Video Standard Standards

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• H.261 is not a term you have to worry about, but it's the technology that most video standards and codecs were originally based on. Originating in 1990, it's the first major digital video compression standard, and like other "H" standards, it was developed by the International Telecommunication Union. This one was primarily for teleconferencing over ISDN lines, and as such, it looks like it (bad).

• MPEG-1 Part 2 is another oldie, developed by the Movie Picture Experts Group and approved in 1991. (BTW, the whole "part" thing is because video is just one "part" of each MPEG standard.) Based quite a bit on H.261, MPEG-1 was designed to take VHS quality video and squeeze it down to a bit rate of about 1.5Mbps, optimized for CD transfers. No surprise, it's the standard used for all VCDs (which can play in most DVD players), still looks bad.

• With MPEG-2 Part 2, approved in 1994, we're finally talking decent vid. Also known as H.262, since it was developed jointly by the ITU-T and ISO, MPEG-2 is an extension of MPEG-1 that delivers better resolution and higher bit rates (3-15Mbps for standard def and 15-30Mbps for HD). It's the video codec used by DVD and digital television, though now it's slowly being replaced by the more efficient MPEG-4, except on DVDs, where it'll ride out that disc format's lifetime.

• H.263 is designed for sending video over poor connections. So it's used to encode most Flash video and to send video over mobile networks.

• MPEG-4 is where we really stand right now. It has a much broader scope than past MPEG standards, aiming to tackle both the low end (cellphones on a slow network) and the high end (Blu-ray). It's still developing, so it's not-so-coincidentally where this whole story gets messier. There are two relevant parts of the MPEG-4 standard for our myopic video purposes: Part 2 and Part 10—which is also known as H.264 or Advanced Video Coding (AVC). To be clear though, even though they're both part of the MPEG-4 standard, they're totally different formats. Nevertheless, both are more efficient at compression than past MPEG codecs, delivering better quality using less space.

• Okay, so if you've ever frequented a Torrent site, you've actually watched tons of videos that use MPEG-4 Part 2, though it's not like they would've had a flashing sign telling you so. MPEG-4 Part 2 actually has different "profiles"—the two that matter being Simple Profile, for low bitrate, low-res stuff, and Advanced Simple Profile. The latter profile is what's used by movies you would download in formats like DivX or XviD or 3ivx—which are all codecs that are essentially just differing implementations of the MPEG-4 Part 2 standard.

• MPEG-4 Part 10, the other part, was actually co-devopled by MPEG and the ITU-T, so it's also known—in fact, more commonly known—as H.264. It's more efficient than MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 Part 2, delivering the same quality video in as little as half the space, making it suitable for the low and high-end. Because of this, it's quickly becoming the standardest standard. It's part of the HD DVD and Blu-ray spec, replacing MPEG-2 in digital TV (like with satellite services and AT&T's U-Verse IPTV) and supported by pretty much every portable video player on the planet from the iPod to the PSP. Apple has a decent, if Kool-Aid flavored, FAQ about H.264.

• VC-1 is essentially a Microsoft developed alternative video codec to H.264 released as a standard by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers, though it descends from the same H.26X/MPEG family. (It essentially started life as WMV9, but then Microsoft shopped it to the SMPTE to make it an industry standard, and now it is.) It too, is part of the mandatory Blu-ray and HD DVD spec, and is the official video codec of the Xbox 360. It's pitch is the same as H.264's—trying to deliver better quality using less space, like HD video in 6-8Mbps.

Free-Floating Codecs
Okay, so all that stuff up there are industry-wide standard video codecs. On top of all of those, various entities love putting out their own spin on those standards. As we mentioned before, DivX (proprietary) and XviD (open source), for instance, use MPEG-4 Part 2 (more specifically, MPEG-4 ASP) compression, meaning stuff that'll natively play back MPEG-4 ASP will also play back DivX. Like the Xbox 360, for instance. There are a ton of MPEG-4 ASP-based codecs, actually, like FFmpeg, 3ivx and others, but DivX and XviD are the most common. Same deal with H.264: Some well known codecs that use it are Apple's Quicktime H.264, x264 and Nero Digital. You've also got Windows Media Video (WMV) codecs, which are Microsoft's proprietary twists on industry standards.

Containers aka Wrappers
Alright, well you've probably noticed that none of your video files have the extension .h264 or .vc1 or the like. That's because videos are packaged in containers or wrappers that stuff things like the audio, navigational info, etc. along with the video in a single pretty file. Naturally, there are about as many of them as there are codecs. To be clear, you would take a video encoded with, say, H.264, and wrap it up as a .mp4 or .avi file.

The majors ones are:
• AVI (Audio Video Interleave) is Windows' standard multimedia container
• MPEG-4 Part 14 (known to you as .mp4) is the standardized container for MPEG-4
• FLV (Flash Video) is the format used to deliver MPEG video through Flash Player
• MOV is Apple's QuickTime container format
• OGG, OGM and OGV are open-standard containers
• MKV (Mastroska) is another open-specification container that you've seen if you've ever downloaded anime
• VOB means DVD Video Object. Guess what? It's DVD's standard container, and what you get when you rip a DVD.
• ASF is a Microsoft format designed for WMV and WMA—files can end in .wmv or .asf

So, in order to play a video file, your setup has to be able to handle both the actual video codec and the container. It's why you can try to play an AVI file and Windows Media Player laughs at you, even though it totally played one a minute ago— the container was no problem, but it didn't have the right codec. Or conversely, even though an iPod could play back an H.264 encoded video, if it was wrapped up in MKV, it won't be able to read it.

This is one 'creepy' piggy bank... om nom nom nom!

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Those wacky Japanese! If you want it, you can order one here!

Intel's i7 "Nehalem" release event Nov. 17th 2008

With all the bad news about Cali. fires, the tanking economy and such.. here is some good news for us tech-heads, who seem to spend much of our working hours sitting in front of, using, or *waiting* on a computer. It's been on the drawing boards for several years now as many of us that work as suppliers have known. But these are the sorts of things you dont really talk about in your day to day blogging, discussions etc: (nda's and all) if you want to remain gainfully employed :-)

It's also not really a secret that Intel uses software from Synopsys to help design and verify these sorts of ICs.

When will this sucker show up in a Mac Pro Tower system? Jan. @ MacWorld would be my guess? although those machines already have some pretty fast Xeon chips in them.

The guys/gals at ARS technica have the breakdown here:

The Microarchitecture

The Core i7

The making of the i7

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Turbo Boost Technology

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Power Gating Technology.. while not new, it's adding a whole level of complexity to processor design

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5 Year design cycle

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Does a Chinese Pirate say Arrrrgh? or Alllllgh?

Blu-Ray bootlegs.. it was only a matter of time!
As noted in this WSJ story.. pirated Blu-Ray discs are showing up in China.

Law enforcement in Shenzhen, China, raided a warehouse last month that contained HD copies of a number of popular movies. Over 800 discs in fake boxes, and holograms to make them look legit. The Chinese Blu-ray knock-offs run as little as $7 apiece (compared to the typical Blu-ray disc at $30+).

The process involves ripping high-def movies (cracking Blu-ray's AACS and BD+ encryption in the process) and re-encoding them using AVCHD, which offers a 720p picture.


Because of the reduction in resolution, files can be burned to regular DVDs instead of the more costly Blu-ray discs, can you say profit!?.

Interesting, the BD+ encryption scheme has only been out a little more than a year and a half. BD+ is the DRM protocol used to protect Blu-ray discs. It makes use of a small virtual machine environment to enforce compliance. BD+ was considered much harder to crack than the encryption used on HD DVD discs.

Some crafty programmers at work here. Wont bore you with the technical details, but if you're a code/hardware person you'll find the comments in the Slashdot URL thread an interesting read!

Crazy driving! This guys' got some madskillz!

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Yosemite 2008!

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We're back from the fall camping trip to Yosemite Valley.
The boys had a great time, made some new friends and got
lots of hiking and exploring in. While there, we heard the
rockfall from Glacier Point (above Curry Village)



Sounded like the trash truck was up early that morning
(6:45am or so?) but then it kept going, and you could hear
the rushing sound (wind) after the main thunder sound went
away. We were camped all the way at the far end of Upper Pines
(about 200yards from the Happy Isles trail head area. My
thoughts immediately went back to the 1996 rockfall that wiped out
that area, and how close we were camped to that spot, then the 1999 rockfall that took the life of a young climber. Yikes!

Rockfall photos:

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Photos from the trip:

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The incredible surfing rats who were taught to ride 4ft waves
He looks like a drowned rat. But clinging to his very own surfboard, this is simply a pet exploring his wild side.

Tofu, as he is known, and his 14-year-old owner hit the waves twice a week at their local beach in Hawaii.

Along with his fellow rat Fin, Tofu catches waves of up to 4ft and even rides tunnels of water known as 'tubes'.

Princess Taiping docks in the SF bay

After 69 days at sea, the Princess Taiping, a handcrafted Chinese Junk and replica of a Ming Dynasty war ship, arrived in San Francisco yesterday (10/14) and plans to stay on for around a week before proceeding to Long Beach.


Gives some creedence to the 'theory' that explorers from
the Far East arrived in the New World some 70 years prior
to Columbus.

More details on the voyage/craft are here

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Proof that 'transformers' already exist!



First USMC F-35B STOVL Flight
Cool stuff!

Bad news for polar bears. This CNN report gives an update on this
summer's "recovery" (if you can call it that) of the arctic ice cap.
While this summers 'shrinkage' was less, it's still not good news
overall. In relative terms, I suppose you could say it "sucks less"
than the summer of 2007. Lots of raw data and images here:

Link to the embed below.. as of this am it says the video
is not available? Read the first URL to get to the vid.