tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-63087123964938595922024-02-20T21:51:14.109-08:00Brian's Miscellaneous BlogBrianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-10247620691071337372010-04-29T13:45:00.000-07:002010-04-29T13:47:51.087-07:00OpenOffice.org DrawWhy are OpenOffice.org Draw diagram toolbar icons so much better looking than the actual diagrams themselves?<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBvbptdPKA1syh_Nl-XPHvC5VZuK2SmSUHaUk2Vc2BWK7xIEqxgnv_FxaqO_I91YnEik8K1wOgrma6rvPjDKy2oFthaXi66dx48xH-N52gDPWy9PUZjhcCBEEQRn6TT-xQ7NuKIIRcGw/s1600/ooo_draw.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 371px; height: 378px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBvbptdPKA1syh_Nl-XPHvC5VZuK2SmSUHaUk2Vc2BWK7xIEqxgnv_FxaqO_I91YnEik8K1wOgrma6rvPjDKy2oFthaXi66dx48xH-N52gDPWy9PUZjhcCBEEQRn6TT-xQ7NuKIIRcGw/s400/ooo_draw.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5465663799206190002" /></a>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-44115175808112590042010-04-25T14:31:00.000-07:002010-04-25T14:47:02.133-07:00Home File ServerI just ordered one of <a href="http://shop.promise.com/index.php?p=product&id=6&parent=2" title="PROMISE NS2300N SmartStor 2-Bay Network Attached Storage">these</a> and two of <a href="http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148337" title="Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST31500341AS 1.5TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive">these</a>, to get my home storage off my volatile and untrustworthy "PC".<br /><br />- Network file server for the whole house.<br />- Gigabit, 1.5TB, RAID (mirrored)<br />- Built-in FTP server for away-from-home access.<br /><br />I'm in home file server dreamland.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-72189340198767338572010-04-18T21:14:00.000-07:002010-04-18T21:28:48.455-07:00Why, Dad?My daughter started asking "why?" today, suddenly. She's starting with the hard questions.<br /><br />1. "Why [aren't the white shoes good park shoes]?" Dumbfounded, the best I could come up with was "because there are holes in them". (They are sort of like sandal-shoes.) My answer was so unsatisfying (to both of us), I put on the white shoes.<br /><br />2. I was washing my hands tonight, and she walks up to the bathroom and asks, "Why [are your] hands dirty?" I still don't know how to answer that question.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-75826680885730693452010-04-17T11:29:00.000-07:002010-04-18T20:37:41.073-07:00Music From JapanIt's been one year (today) since the beginning of our 6-month tour of Japan. I realized recently that some of our most vivid memories take the form of music. I still can recall some of the jingles that played in the stores in our neighborhood. TV and radio was full of songs we heard routinely, and they bring us right back when we hear them again now. (e.g. I <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQi-zfKLmlo">heard</a> <a href="http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-664493411424324244">these</a> on a children's program practically every day before going to work.)<br /><br />Some songs we had the foresight to take back with us. (Others - it turns out - get deleted when you synchronize your iphone to the wrong computer upon returning. grrr!) I wanted to learn to play some of them myself (e.g. on a piano). We have a toy camera (which makes flash and camera noises, but doesn't take pictures) that plays the <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2010/anpanman_camera/Anpanman%20Camera%20Song%20-%20amplified.mp3">Anpanman theme song</a> in NES-style beeps [<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUGh-7Y5kZA">original</a>]. I converted the music from the camera into sheet music via an open source program called "Lilypond". It works by hand-writing a text file with musical markup that Lilypond knows how to read. It's a rather painstaking process, but the program will automatically create a PDF of sheet music from your source text file, and even a MIDI file.<br /><br />I haven't learned to play it very well yet (like <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5o1__qryj0">this guy</a>), but now I can relearn it when I forget it. Here's the <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2010/anpanman_camera/anpanman3.pdf">PDF of the sheet music</a>, and the ho-hum <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2010/anpanman_camera/anpanman3.mid">MIDI file</a> (sounds like a piano played by a robot). For those curious, here's <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2010/anpanman_camera/anpanman3.ly.txt">the source</a> that generated them.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2010/anpanman_camera/anpanman_music400.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 253px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2010/anpanman_camera/anpanman_music400.png" border="0" alt="" /></a>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-79179521847508598972010-03-07T12:18:00.001-08:002010-03-07T12:19:20.246-08:00FileZilla icon set ("theme")A new version of FileZilla (cross-platform FTP client) just came out, which includes my latest theme. (It's not the default, but it's selectable under Settings > Interface > Themes.)<br /><br />Here's a presentation, of sorts, I made on the theme.<br /><a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2010/filezilla-icons2.0/demo2.html">http://plurib.us/1shot/2010/filezilla-icons2.0/demo2.html</a>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-45970829141392303522009-12-13T12:41:00.000-08:002009-12-14T08:43:45.794-08:00Trends - python web frameworksOnce in a wile, I need to gauge the popularity of different competing development technologies, and most of the internet tends to be really unhelpful. (i.e. it tends to be over-saturated with 1-sided arguments.) However, the tool that never fails me is Google Trends.<br /><br />I'm currently looking into python development frameworks. I needed to know which one people are gravitating to. The best thing the rest of the internet is going to have is a page like <a href="http://wiki.python.org/moin/WebFrameworks#PopularFull-StackFrameworks">this</a>. At best the author(s) might shed an opinion on their favorite. But armed with a list, Trends makes things a <a href="http://www.google.com/trends?q=django%2C+grok%2C+Pylons%2C+TurboGears%2C+Zope&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0">little more obvious</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2009/python-trends.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 595px; height: 303px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2009/python-trends.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Apparently goodbye Zope, hello Django.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-965046710672476272009-12-01T20:24:00.000-08:002010-01-09T20:19:06.724-08:00ColStr Update - A Few Good MoviesI've been making steady "progress" on my colorstream sound visualization project. Its algorithm for colorizing speech now has two parallel strips. A larger, upper strip represents the "whispering" range. (Even in a whisper, the ear can distinguish most sounds & words, so there's lots of data in there.) And a thinner, lower strip represents the vocal range - a rainbow, from the lowest bass note to the highest soprano note. (With this strip, one could tell apart "z" and "s" sounds for example, as one is voiced and the other is not.)<br /><br />Here are some example movie clips I've been experimenting with.<br /><br />The opening sounds & narration from the Transformers movie (2007) from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdcLFZy8oes">this video</a> can be seen <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2009/colstr_movie1/tf2007.html">colorized here</a>. <span style="font-style:italic;">[Update: source video has been taken off-line. Audio-only is cached <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2009/colstr_movie1/tf_2007_opening.mp3">here</a>, for purposes of this demo.]</span><br /><br />And here's <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2009/colstr_movie1/truth.html">a colorized view</a> of the "You can't handle the Truth!" <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hopNAI8Pefg">scene</a> from A Few Good Men. Enjoy!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2009/colstr_movie1/truth.html"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 780px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2009/colstr_movie1/A%20Few%20Good%20Men%20-%20The%20Truth.mp3.cdb400.png" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Here is something of a <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/blukis/3926020346/sizes/l/">phonetic color key</a> for how different sounds match up with colors.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-27188867345915791362009-07-03T05:48:00.000-07:002009-07-03T06:05:10.619-07:00Size comparisonI've been meaning to get a grip on the scale of the places I've been traveling. Here is an image I made to compare some places I know with places I've been lately. Each box is a constant 50 miles square. Overall, no big surprises.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3JztzcrM6KEc8D00dps55TUmTBPbP5egmaJhyphenhyphenCr7hzWVCt27ywvaXuPYyN7xZVdzO7lW82ICVCzpv4S6YcYK0XtpBbQnCbxgv7za1UB0v0lrSv02fTNq_aTiXnebilv_lJDH9DsORxQ/s1600-h/comparison1.png"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 392px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3JztzcrM6KEc8D00dps55TUmTBPbP5egmaJhyphenhyphenCr7hzWVCt27ywvaXuPYyN7xZVdzO7lW82ICVCzpv4S6YcYK0XtpBbQnCbxgv7za1UB0v0lrSv02fTNq_aTiXnebilv_lJDH9DsORxQ/s400/comparison1.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354215788651014530" /></a><br /><br />One surprise for me though, was the latitude of these places. Tokyo is about the same latitude as southern California, and Guam is just "south of" the southern border of Mexico.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-14790146158544019392009-05-04T04:59:00.000-07:002009-05-04T05:37:52.011-07:00Hon-AtsugiA few misc. updates...<br /><br />Today I watched a man wielding a brief case walk straight into a lamp post.<br /><br />We've been in a new hotel in Atsugi (Loisir Hotel, near Hon-Atsugi station) because our previous hotel in Ebina was booked for Golden Week. Even though Atsugi is just a few train stops away, it has a very different feel from Ebina. Hon-Atsugi is older, perhaps dirtier but bigger and more established than Ebina. There's more going on here. We'll probably be here until we find an apartment, probably back in Ebina.<br /><br />I've been taking the train to work the last few days. 10-minite walk to the station on either end, my commutes have been about 50-minutes door-to-door. But with better planning, I could probably shave that down to 40. Also, there's a connection I have to make at Atsugi station, which there won't be once we're back in Ebina.<br /><br />We were taken on a trip to the Mount Fuji area Yesterday. It was a blast, and I hope to be able to take future visitors there.<br /><br />This is all probably better documented in photos (mine <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/brian.lukis/Week2Updated#">here</a>), though I missed the guy walking into the lamp post.<br /><br />Lisa has been updating her albums incrementally. So those not getting picasa emails are probably missing out.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-30119224609938717292009-04-28T04:55:00.000-07:002009-04-28T05:39:50.957-07:00Elusive things<table style="width: auto;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/brian.lukis/MachidaYokohamaWeekend?feat=embedwebsite#5329706851858037090"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiewPPERHVCD-I7ybxqhMCXa67msKsktww1swWBCHeOU5s3luhsLVvEhcG0ccMuX43j6UvYFQVDgejOy6W6ylNv0xrdpF8AuXJa2itgbDOGtHwmvmvl319PIroRRCgTMpnl55PVsewm2w/s400/IMG_3463.JPG" /></a></td></tr><tr><td style="font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 11px; text-align: right;"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Well, I finally <a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/brian.lukis/MachidaYokohamaWeekend#5329706854423776114">hit the big time</a>. <a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/brian.lukis/MachidaYokohamaWeekend#5329706839988369250">My image</a> finally landed in the hands of engineers and business people all over Japan. I'm told a grainy photocopy of this newspaper article even made its way back home. The article basically explains that we're starting up in Japan, and that we make plastic parts, etc. I mean, that a crazed American is on the run reconfiguring mills for his own unexplained purposes.<br /><br />Mt. Fuji:<br />There's a line-of-sight from where I live and work to Mt. Fuji. But unfortunately it is usually shrouded in fog or clouds, and only reveals itself after a day of rain. I had a nice view of its snowy peak the other morning, but didn't have my camera handy. So you'll have to believe me that this is an <a href="http://picasaweb.google.co.jp/brian.lukis/MachidaYokohamaWeekend#5329706860163510866">image of Mount Fuji</a>. It's the thing in the background with a cloud hang to the side.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-66093306528434604132009-04-25T05:02:00.000-07:002009-04-25T14:20:55.361-07:00Trains to Minami-MachidaToday, we took the trains in Japan, a first time for me. (Lisa had already, with her "new friend".) We went to Minami-Machida or as I'm told, "south" Machida. This is complicated enough to warrant a little documentation:<br /><br />We first went from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebina_Station">Ebina</a> station to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machida_Station_%28Odakyu%29">Machida station</a>, over the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odaky%C5%AB_Odawara_Line">Odakyū Odawara line</a>. Then from Machida to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagatsuta_Station">Nagatsuta station</a> over the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Line">JR East Yokohama line</a>, and finally, the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C5%8Dky%C5%AB_Den-en-toshi_Line">Tōkyū Den-en-toshi line</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minami-Machida_Station">Minami-Machida</a>, home of a Cold Stone which has become famous to us in pictures.<br /><br />For those keeping track, that's three different rail companies. Trains seem to be really organized and documented here, but you won't find a map that's got connection info of more than one train company at a time. A print-out (or, a saved photo in my camera of a laptop screen, as it were) of <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=ebina+station+japan&sll=35.498133,139.436417&sspn=0.092239,0.155697&ie=UTF8&ll=35.510291,139.452896&spn=0.088871,0.155697&z=13&iwloc=A">google maps screenshots</a> were the best guide I could find to bring along.<br /><br />On the way back, we took a different route. We took the Tōkyū Den-en-toshi to its end-point, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C5%AB%C5%8D-Rinkan_Station">Chūō-Rinkan station</a>, then the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odakyu_Enoshima_Line">Odakyū Enoshima</a> to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagami-%C5%8Cno_Station">Sagami-Ōno</a> station, and finally the Odakyū Odawara line back "home" to Ebina. [Correction: we purposely went past Ebina a few stops to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hon-Atsugi_Station">Hon-Atsugi station</a>, where our next hotel will be. Then back to Ebina.]<br /><br />Tomorrow, we plan to take a simpler ride: the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagami_Railway_Main_Line">Sagami Railway Main Line</a> all the way to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama_Station">Yokohama station</a>.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-71648721467284375772009-04-20T04:35:00.000-07:002009-04-20T13:47:38.165-07:00Way to Ebina, JPLeft home in greater Minneapolis 3 days ago, and now in Ebina, Japan. Our adventure so far...<br /><br />The flight - direct from Minneapolis to Narita JP - was uneventful, except for the uncomfortable 1 1/2 year old sitting next to me. I guess Mirah does not like 12 hour plane rides. Who would have thought?<br /><br />There were a lot of forms to fill out getting ourselves and our things here. That was expected, and it payed off. (Entering the country was smooth.) Since being here, there have been some more forms, notably, a form to exchange cash (get Yen from Dollars), where I was asked my hotel and its phone number. I think perhaps the more info is on a form, the less language-barrier-type-mistakes might be made, but still it feels a little like big brother is following my paper trail.<br /><br />Speaking of language barrier, the airport was relatively easily navigable, but in large part because there are people standing around ready to tell you what to do next in English. I imagined the rest of Japan to be just like the airport, but without those helpful people. It turned out our hotel, Nikko Narita, was very English friendly, and convenient. There's a small convenience store where I got some snacks before bed, and - while the thought never crossed my mind - the cashier put a few plastic spoons in my bag with my snacks. They must have done this before.<br /><br />The next morning, we had an arranged ride from the airport to our next hotel in Ebina. Our chief concern about Ebina was that where the airport hotel was international/multilingual (read western), Ebina (being farther out from Tokyo) would be hard to navigate by unpracticed newbies like us. The car ride of about 2 hours took us from the sparser NE outskirts of Tokyo center, into the sea of massive architecture in Tokyo proper, and out into more local streets starting around Machida. From there, the streets got smaller, tighter, and (what seemed) busier, through a few more neighborhoods (probably more properly, cities). And we finally landed in Ebina, our next unknown home.<br /><br />Priority 1: internet. It turns out there's not a lot of English spoken here, but somehow, it's still possible to communicate. Wireless was showing up at the hotel, but encrypted, and no documentation about the WEP key in the room. Went to the front desk armed with the SSID written on paper. "intaneto?", I asked. "intaneto akusessu?", he replied. I pointed to the SSID, then the space below it. Bingo. The guy had the 10 digits memorized.<br /><br />Priority 2: food. If we were to survive this place, we would need to eat supper. Looked up how to get to the mall with the fruits of priority 1, and we were off with the stroller. Walked around, found a food court, and ordered some Italian food by pointing and trying to pronounce our orders. (They were labeled in katakana: na-po-ri-ta-n, and ma-ru-ge-ri-ta. The examples were in view to us, but not to the order taker, so pointing wasn't really effective at this restaurant.) We got our food, but had a little trouble with what we were supposed to do with our garbage after. [It's 2 days later and I still don't know that one.]<br /><br />And with that, we had a home base we could live in for a while. More adventures to come.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-67851171354126412902009-03-31T18:55:00.000-07:002009-03-31T18:57:16.431-07:00Firefox discoverySomething I frequently talk about wanting in Firefox 3:<br /><br />View > Zoom > Zoom Text Only<br /><br />It's been there this whole time. (For the record, I see uses for both zooming methods.)Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-47834408984695798152009-03-19T19:12:00.000-07:002009-03-19T19:58:29.595-07:00Adventures with Customer ServiceI just called the number on the back of my Wells Fargo credit card to inform them I'll be traveling to Japan. You know, so they don't lock my account when I try to use it there. Since my attempts at blogging about Customer Service seemed to go well last time, I thought I'd try it again.<br /><br />First, I typed my complete credit card number into the phone, then the last 4 of my social. I've come to expect this as basically standard. (Though for a second I wondered if I could possibly have accidentally dialed some CC # harvesting operation. I guess I'm paranoid, but isn't that because they drilled it into me?)<br /><br />I navigated my way to a person, and of course, the first thing she asks for are the things I just typed, and my address for verification. Oddly, everyone knows this is relatively standard too. No big surprise. Maybe they'll make the note on my account now. Not so fast! How do they know I'm really me, and not someone who just knows my social security and credit card numbers who wants to go to Japan?<br /><br />Do you have the expiration date on your card handy?<br /><br />I give it to her.<br /><br />What's the 3-digit code on the back?<br /><br />I give it to her.<br /><br />What's you're checking account number?<br /><br />**Alarm Bells** Why are they asking for my checking account number? I told her I wasn't aware that my card was tied to my checking account. She said it's "just another way to verify who you are." It sure is. I happened to have it handy, though.<br /><br />What's you're mother's middle name? [not the more standard Maiden Name]<br /><br />My mother's middle name? I think at this point I laughed. Then I told her. I think it took me an extra second to recall it. In my defense, my mom doesn't like her middle name, and I'm sure she wishes we'd all forget it.<br /><br />Spell it for me.<br /><br />Crap. I actually wasn't positive how to spell it, and I told her that. I guessed, and I got it wrong. (Shame!)<br /><br />It won't take that spelling.<br /><br />I tried again, and this time I got it right. (Whew!) Maybe now they'll finally believe that I'm me, and not some impostor who knows my address, credit card number, social, bank account number, and my mother's middle name.<br /><br />What's your birth date?<br /><br />The crucial datum. They will at last inform their terminal that the man on the other end of the line will soon be traveling. Hooray.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-48717192046442953572009-01-23T19:56:00.000-08:002009-01-23T20:11:30.543-08:00Parabola strongOne word: FunkadelicBrianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-16802506305210386842008-12-02T21:07:00.000-08:002009-12-01T21:01:23.781-08:00Colorstream FAQ<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_2008-12-03/colorstream_faq.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 134px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_2008-12-03/colorstream_faq_400.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />When people see my color streams, the first question I always get is <span style="font-weight: bold;">"What do you plan to do with them?"</span><br /><br />Truth be told, I'm still trying to figure that out. I'm pursuing a few possible tracks though, and I haven't yet found the end of any of them:<br /><br />- Mapping the sound spectrum "directly" onto the color spectrum, and seeing what it looks like.<br /><br />- Making pretty pictures. Where the first track fails to be colorful, or interesting (which it so far hasn't), I'd like to tweak the algorithm to "see more" of the interesting aspects of the sound, and create interesting visuals.<br /><br />- From nearly the start, it was my hope that I could take advantage of the eye's knack for pattern recognition, and use that to maybe recognize real speech and words, using color. Following this to the extreme, even to allow deaf people to see sound. I'm finding reality might stop this idea short of that end, but I'm seeing how far it goes anyway.<br /><br />The next comment I always get is, <span style="font-weight: bold;">"It would be great if it was a live stream, so you could see it while you heard it."</span><br /><br />I had always pictured this as an eventuality for this project, or at least an ideal. These static strips of color are just approximations of the ideal which is probably a live leftward-scrolling color stream (the right hand edge being "exactly now"). Aside from this being beyond my current programming skills, for now I'm just developing the idea, and finding out what's possible.<br /><br />* Image above: color stream of "color stream FAQ", <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_2008-12-03/colorstream_faq.mp3">spoken</a>.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-8267862806957858712008-12-01T19:08:00.000-08:002009-12-01T21:01:15.382-08:00Lame-Arss-Gimp<img style="width: 377px; height: 134px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_2008-12-03/lame-arss-gimp.png" alt="" border="0" /><br /><br />It's still in development, but I'm finally "releasing" a usable tool to create <a href="http://briansverymiscellaneousblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/colorstream-project.html">color streams</a> from sound files. It's downloadable <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream0.2.zip">here</a>, as a humble zip file. Instructions for setup and use are included. It's really just a simple windows batch script that calls three open source programs in sequence (be it a coincidental and ironic sequence) to do the heavy lifting...<br /><br />LAME: the script takes in a .wav or .mp3 file, and passes it into the <a href="http://lame.sourceforge.net/">LAME MP3 encoder</a>, which outputs a clean .wav file.<br /><br />ARSS: the .wav file is passed into <a href="http://arss.sourceforge.net/">ARSS (Analysis & Resynthesis Sound Spectrograph)</a> with particular parameters which creates a spectrogram image.<br /><br />GIMP: the spectrogram image is passed to a custom <a href="http://www.gimp.org/">GIMP</a> script (included), which applies the color map to the spectrogram, and does the color blending, and saves the final image to disk.<br /><br /><span>(I do not know how these programs got named.</span> I disclaim responsibility.) If anyone would like to try out this tool, I'm interested in general feedback, and finding interesting examples of sounds to demo this thing. The color mapping (which still seems to be in flux) is currently optimized essentially for speech, but is all very hackable in its present state.<br /><br />* Image above: color stream of "Lame-Arss-Gimp", <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_2008-12-03/lame-arss-gimp.mp3">spoken</a>.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-53619475381912811992008-11-17T21:49:00.000-08:002009-12-01T21:00:58.664-08:00Colorstream: Sound into LightThe nice thing about my process for making these color streams (see <a href="http://briansverymiscellaneousblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/colorstream-project.html">previous post</a>) is that it lends itself to visually illustrating each step -- with pretty pictures, no less.<br /><br />We start with a sound file, and create a spectrogram out of it. If you looked at the first page of google results for "spectrogram", you would quickly decide they're only meant to be comprehended by math Ph.D.'s. (This is a shame, because spectrograms are so neat just on their own. There's a lot to them.) But in the end, they're as simple as this: the top of a spectrogram is the high tones (think mosquito in your ear), and the bottom is the low bass tones (think bass singer, singing his lowest note). Here is a spectrogram of me speaking the letters of my name "B-R-I-A-N". (mp3 file <a href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_b-r-i-a-n/b-r-i-a-n.mp3">here</a>.)<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_b-r-i-a-n/b-r-i-a-n_spect1.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 128px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_b-r-i-a-n/b-r-i-a-n_spect1_400.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />[Glossing over some of the fascinating and peculiar things about spectrograms for the time being*,]<br />Now, the low (bottom) pitches should map to the lowest frequency of light the eye can see: Red. The high pitches should map to the highest visible frequency of light: Blue/Violet. In between, should be all the colors of the rainbow (or the closest approximation a computer monitor can make).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_b-r-i-a-n/b-r-i-a-n_spect2.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 128px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_b-r-i-a-n/b-r-i-a-n_spect2_400.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Next, for each vertical slice (pixel) of the image above, we get the average color from bottom to top. Like mixing paint, this is what the eye would see if these colors were seen together. The progression below illustrates this "averaging" step.<br /><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_b-r-i-a-n/blur.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 405px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_b-r-i-a-n/blur.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Finally, we have a completed image, a stream of sound on the spectrum of visible light.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_b-r-i-a-n/b-r-i-a-n_25-10000_log1.4.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 128px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_b-r-i-a-n/b-r-i-a-n_25-10000_log1.4_400.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />* For the mathematicians, the spectrogram above goes from 25 hz sound on the bottom to 10000 hz on top -- on, oddly, <strike>a log base 1.4 scale</strike> a scale blended between linear and logarithmic scale. More on this, in the future.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-72358722714652671052008-11-13T11:21:00.000-08:002009-12-01T21:00:13.191-08:00Colorstream projectYou wouldn't know it from my online activity, but I've been working on a project to visualize sound. Basically, each moment in sound has a certain intensity of low rumbly noises (pitches), medium pitches, high hissy pitches, and all the pitches in between. In "white noise", all these pitches are equally on. It turns out light and color follow a similar pattern. There's a spectrum of color from red to blue (low pitch to high pitch), and a combination of a bunch of colors of the rainbow equates to a color we see with our eyes. All colors on looks white. All colors off, black.<br /><br />Well, the basis of my project is, "What if we looked directly at the sound spectrum as if it were the light spectrum? What if we could see sound as color?" As it happens, when you look at the <a href="http://www.moviewavs.com/Movies/Production_Companies.html">20th Century Fox</a> noise on the color spectrum instead of the sound spectrum, it looks like this (click for larger version):<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_2008-11-13/20thcenturyfox.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 64px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_2008-11-13/20thcenturyfox_400.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Pee Wee Herman saying "<a href="http://graveyard-duck.com/pages/burton.html">Large Marge Sent Me</a>" before some spooky music, like this:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_2008-11-13/large_marge.png"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 64px;" src="http://plurib.us/1shot/2008/colorstream_2008-11-13/large_marge_400.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />The pictures above are the result of a bunch of experimentation to find a useful mapping from sound to color, and learning a few carefully selected programs involved in the process. The steps to do the conversion have been pretty manual, but I've been developing a tool that will automatically generate these "color streams". However, I'll get into that in a future post.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-82044017139559335562008-03-13T18:52:00.000-07:002008-03-13T18:55:09.917-07:00Dear GoogleDear Google,<br /><br />Why won't you let me middle click the links in your "more" expand-o box?Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-78873897435653017312007-12-29T11:18:00.000-08:002007-12-29T13:26:27.521-08:00Getting to know RSSAbout 6 months ago, I started using RSS (rss/atom/feed - I'll use these terms interchangeably). As my RSS using habits become more advanced, I've been meaning to write down my experience of how I started, because I don't think my experience is particularly unique, and it might just push someone over the hump of getting to know RSS.<br /><br />For a frame of reference, here's where I started: I knew about RSS for a long time before I used it at all. My thoughts were something like this: "I like going to web sites to see what's new. If I use an RSS reader, I may be able to efficiently see the content I want, but I'd miss out on seeing what else the site might have, like exploring outside links and such."<br /><br />The problem with RSS is it's just so vague. RSS defined, is basically "It's an XML file, of site content." That means about nothing, to the people involved - internet readers, or site creators. On the publishing (site creator) end, a feed's content can take many forms: headlines only, full articles, intro sentences only, pictures included, pictures excluded. RSS doesn't say "translate your site into a feed this way". Site creators can publish their feed however they want. On the user end (the feed reader end), the experience is just as undefined (and therefore variable): list of healines - click to read; feed description shown with link to original post; the body of the original post shown instead of the feed description; a client program on a computer; an online client. These options make for wildly different experiences. Users, by choosing different feed readers, can "do" RSS however they want.<br /><br />So one day I tried a couple of clients and subscribed to some feeds to see what would happen. There are many readers that technically "read rss files" and "display them to the user", but not as many take the whole experience or the real world into account. Let me skip the boring specifics, and say that Google Reader does things right. Don't even bother with the rest. (Bloglines.com works similarly, and fits the mold too, I should point out.) Most of the others aren't much more practical than using bookmarks/favorites in a web browser.<br /><br />When I started subscribing to a few things in Google Reader, everything clicked for me. G.R. will tell me when a site has an update. As soon as I subscribe to site X's feed, I never again have to go to site X to find that there's nothing new there. Furthermore, G.R. will tell me /how many/ new (unread) things there are at each site. Furthermore, G.R. will do all this for me for 30 different sites simultaneously.<br /><br />Where it shines best is sites that have infrequent updates (my magic threshold is one update a day or less). Have a friend who blogs once every 2 months? Subscribe to the feed, and you'll never have to remember to go look if there's something new. Plus, you'll know within an hour, when they do. A weekly column that posts on /about/ the same day every week? Don't bother reloading for a few days straight; subscribe to the feed and you'll just get notified when it's there. You get the picture. The more I used it, the more I found uses for it that I hadn't considered possible before:<br /><br />- Someone made a retro-fitted feed for homestar runner (a flash comic that I would always have considered outside the scope of RSS).<br />- I can subscribe to my brother's Picasa Web Albums. Whenever he uploads new pictures, I know it.)<br />- Specific ebay searches have feeds. (I know it when a new Transformers [toy] prototype hits ebay.)<br /><br />I did discover that you can go overboard. Particularly for sites that have a lot of updates. When I come back to Google Reader and see a site has 30 updates since I last looked (e.g. BBC news), I feel like I'm behind. I would either avoid subscribing to sites that have a lot of updates, or just keep them separate from the sites you actually want to keep up on. (Google Reader has organizing features that let you do that.)<br /><br />That's about my whole experience. I've since introduced a few people to Google Reader (using a verbal version of the above), and they all use RSS habitually now. I'd like to hear if this post sways anyone else. In the mean time, at least it's written down.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-49285157901215704542007-12-02T14:30:00.000-08:002007-12-29T13:30:15.555-08:00Let's listen to music togetherFriends,<br />I'm back on my I Should Use My Skills To Make Music Fun To Listen To kick again. It's a bit of a misnomer, because this "kick" is nearly perpetual.<br /><br />First, I daydreamed, I should make a site where I can recommend artists/albums/songs to others, in a time-ordered fashion, as in "here's what I'm listening to now, it's great". And everyone else could do the same, and in doing, I would discover new music through friends, socially, conversationally. That was "Phase I". Phase II, I thought, music will be fun again! My friends will say "Listen to this. It's great." And I will, and I will say back, "you know what? You're right. That's great!" Everyone will love it, everyone will use it, it will take over the world with all it's awesome features, and it will only take <span style="font-style: italic;">way more effort than I'm willing to spend on this project</span>; Which brings me to Phase III, but first I have to explain this hypothetical site's biggest un-feature. There's no music sharing going on, just music recommendations. The presumption is, users can easily listen to whatever recommended music on their own, and <span style="font-style: italic;">finding</span> a given artist/song is not a burden. It doesn't matter how. (I happen to through <a href="http://music.yahoo.com/ymu/">Yahoo</a>, which I have to recommend honestly; it's $9/mo or $72/yr. But this is of course, not the only way.)<br /><br />So, Phase III. Really, I don't even know if this idea would even be neat. And I think there are already tools online we could use to try this out, and see what happens. Namely, del.icio.us (or similar), and Google reader (or similar). As I hear new artists/albums I like, I will add them into delicious, tagged as something like "music_recommend". My friends will subscribe to my music_recommend tag in Google reader, and they will see that I have recommended a few artists since last they looked. Of course, my friends will have feeds that I will subscribe to, and we will be merry together.<br /><br />The magic of rss has a pleasant side effect. If I get lazy (which I will), and don't recommend anything in 6 months straight, my friends won't get angry at me for consuming their attention for nothing. They just won't get notified that I've recommended anything, because I haven't. The magic of delicous is two-faced. There's a spot for a description, which we can explain "I like this because..." (if we want), and I could see that being nice. But then, there's the problem of what we put in the url field. I don't know, but I also don't care. I'm just going to read the title (which should have the artist or album name) and I'll just look it up on my own. I don't need to click on any links. (But maybe to the band's official site, or something. I think it will have to be something unique, so delicious doesn't think its the same entry as some previous one.)<br /><br />Anyway, if anyone thinks this would be neat, I'll need a volunteer, or 2, or more. It's kind of a tall order, with rss knowledge and nearly unlimited music access required. There aren't many people I know who even qualify, but you know who you are. If I get a volunteer, I promise to start such a feed, and update it. I also promise to subscribe to your feed, and listen to at least some of your recommendations. (Probably all of them, but this is an experiment; and I don't like making promises.) If this turns into something neat over time, perhaps I'll build an actual system around it.<br /><br />Comments?<br /><br />Disclaimer 1: as usual I haven't researched if my idea has been implemented by someone else. But perhaps even if it does, my offer still stands.<br /><br />Update: this sub-optimal description of a good idea is <a href="http://plurib.us/musicrecommend/">being implemented right now</a>.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-5961473193482831092007-09-13T06:40:00.000-07:002007-09-15T16:53:19.169-07:00RIP Firefox extensionThere are not many Firefox extensions I can't live without. (Until recently, there weren't any. There's something about extensions that make me feel like I'm messing with "how things are supposed to be".) But now there's one, and I've been using it for at least a few months. So I know it's here to stay. Let me recommend an extension called "Remove It Permanently". It rids your tired eyes of animated distractions while you're trying to read, in an elegant, non-obtrusive way. Something I've never seen another ad-blocker do well.<br /><br /><a href="http://rip.mozdev.org/">http://rip.mozdev.org/</a>Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-42464694810088738662007-09-11T19:40:00.000-07:002007-09-11T20:47:23.503-07:00Another Best Buy experienceEvery time I go to Best Buy, it seems, I have another story to tell. Here it is, as best as I can remember.<br /><br />I put down my hard drive, and my impulse-buy on-sale Nintendo DS game at the checkout counter. The cashier offers me some special rewards thing that I decline, then lets me know about the 1-year guarantee on the game. Just to make sure, I ask if it's for the hard drive. No, it's just for the DS game in case it goes bad, or "starts skipping". Then came the bump in the road.<br /><br />Cashier: "What's your phone number?"<br />Me: "Sorry, I can't give that out."<br />Cashier: "Can you just make something up so I can type it in here?"<br />Me: pausing, giving funny look, "...All 5's?"<br /><br />The cashier types in all 5's. At this point I'm kind of glad that everything's pleasant. I'm actually sort of fond of these ritual conversations. There's just a certain line I won't cross about giving out my personal information. (Related word to the wise: never say, "I'm not going to give you that"; say, "Sorry, I can't give you that." But that's a different story.) The cashier continues filling the on-screen form. "What's your name?" I give her my name, which she misspells. I partially correct her.<br /><br />C: "What's your address"<br />Me: "I can't give that out... You need my address?"<br /><br />She starts filling in a made up address. She keeps prompting me to make things up so she can type them, but I just keep looking stunned. I got my bearings enough to help her make up a zip code. The computer tries to match her nonsense to real addresses, and gives her a list of addresses it thinks are close.<br /><br />C: "I guess I need a real address."<br />Me: still looking stunned.<br /><br />She just selects one, and finishes. Then it says "invalid phone number". She makes up a better number, which the computer is finally happy with. Then, on the credit card swiper, it prompts <span style="font-style: italic;">me</span> that the info is correct. It doesn't just ask if it's correct, though. It says, "Do you agree that the following information is correct:" above a bunch of made up crap. The button I need to click reads "I agree".<br /><br />Me: "What will happen if I agree to this?"<br />C: "Nothing... nothing <span style="font-style: italic;">bad</span>."<br /><br />Then, I clicked it. I swiped my card, which I imagine has all my info embedded in it anyway, and went on my way. But I'll be back.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6308712396493859592.post-25718561415996936242007-04-19T11:13:00.000-07:002007-04-19T12:50:06.023-07:00Email spellingMoved in part by the argument on the bottom of this page,<br /><br /><a href="http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/%7Eknuth/email.html">http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/email.html</a><br /><br />I am dropping the hyphen when I write the word email. Goodbye, brave hyphen that was once in "email". You helped bring a culture into its modern day. I will remember you fondly.Brianhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17947463802636695201noreply@blogger.com1