I bottled my porter project yesterday! FG was 1.019, which gives an absurdly low ABV of 2.944%? I don't believe it. Anyway, I tasted the very last bit of gritty stuff at the bottom of the bucket and it was delicious! I just hope I didn't bottle too early!

eyeCalendar

eyeCalendar is my WordPress plugin project. It fetches iCalendar format files and merges the contents together, allowing totally custom formatting on the part of the site administrator. Until recently, it featured on the sidebar over yonder → aggregating Hydrogen Economy events with many other Boston events sucked down from Facebook, Going.com, a number of public Google calendars, and Upcoming.

A bug in eyeCalendar resulted in my PHP installation consuming all available CPU on its server. As of now, it's disabled until I fix the problem. I think the root cause is in the fetch code, but I can't be sure until I test and test some more. As such the widget is disabled until I fix that problem. Since the project has not seen an actual release, I'm sure nobody actually cares except me! There is one other developer attached to the SourceForge project but he hasn't done anything.

LoopCollector

LoopCollector is an audio effect inspired by an event described by The Custodian. It cuts source audio into arbitrarily long chunks and rearranges those chunks to form a rhythmic pattern. I created this project mostly to teach myself how to program AudioUnits and VST plugins.

I began by prototyping the algorithm in a Perl script. A second version of the Perl script followed. Neither was satisfactory. Currently I'm implementing a command line version in C++. These three are all totally dependent on sox to decode and encode audio. The perl scripts open up pipes to sox and I'm pretty sure the C++ version will too. I originally wrote the code so that it could eventually form the basis of both the VST and AudioUnit versions, so I used all manner of wacky C++ template crap so that I could write code that handles floats and ints and chars and shorts without rewriting anything. I've scaled back on the wacky templates since I realized that this all a prototype anyway and probably would require massive work to fit into a VST plug-in!

I haven't got any sound samples yet, because I haven't had any satisfactory results, but as soon as I do, I will probably post them.

Music

I have radio shows on May 29th (covering NCP part 1 from 7PM to 10PM) and June 5th (Test Pattern the subject matter of which I have not yet decided, so 6PM to 7PM)

Susanna from Rare Frequency is doing a Raster-Noton Test Pattern May 29th as a preview for the Alva Noto/Byetone appearance at Middlesex.

I have some actual ideas for some actual productions bouncing around in my head. I will get them out on some format if it takes me years. The InfiniteStateMachine series on the creation of the ISM label has only helped fuel my musical aspirations.

fs1rgen

I bought a Yamaha FS1r a number of years ago and I still don't have a clue how to program the damn thing. I originally bought as the sound module to a wind controller I never bought (although maybe some day I will purchase one of the new Akai EWI USB units). The front panel is far too tiny for all the options in a single patch, and the only available Mac OS X editor is complicated despite the larger screen. What I have decided to do is use the MIDI implementation described in the manual to create a genetic algorithm of sorts that can generate patches.

Because I haven't started coding yet, I'm going to write up a design here. I'll even put it under a cut so you can skip it. Continue reading "Assorted Projects Update" »

Last Saturday, I brewed the porter kit my parents bought me for my birthday. I decided once again to tweak it, this time by adding molasses (just shy of 1/4 cup) to the boil right from the start, then a bag of cracked coffee beans for 30 minutes and 1/4 cup of cocoa powder for 5 minutes. OG was just about 1.042. Should be tasty!

Yesterday was my birthday. I ended up sleeping poorly Tuesday night and had a long day planned Wednesday. After work was to be the capoeira open house followed by dinner out with my wife and then on to see Dietrich Schonemann and Miro Pajic at the Phoenix Landing in Cambridge.

Apparently it is a Brazilian tradition that on your birthday you have fight everybody. So, after we trained a number of difficult movements for the first time (aù macaco, aù compasso, and queda de rins) Coreba taught us all how to sing Happy Birthday in Portuguese, then we started the roda. I don't think quite everyone played with me, because we had some arrivals for the following class who weren't warmed up, and a few brand new people. I played better than I have in a long time, and I think this is due to the new physical therapy regime I've been following. I don't have the pain I was experiencing after class and I have a lot more stamina as a result. Unfortunately I smacked poor Chinesinha in the nose with my foot!

Dinner was at the East Coast Grill. I would like to say that everything was delicious, but unfortunately I decided to try their "Extremely Hot Crispy Hell Bone." This is a dry-rubbed smoked pork spare rib treated with some brutal ungodly compound. It completely scoured my taste buds and sinuses. I think my brisket sandwich was tasty, but I actually could not taste the baked beans served with it, nor the watermelon! All they had was texture.

The Phoenix was kind of empty, possibly because the Crystal Method was playing last night. (ick) Schoenemann was good. We didn't stay for much of Miro's set because we were too tired and old! It took us an hour to get home because all roads out of Boston close at midnight, apparently, and the clerk at the convenience store decided to take a half hour to harangue the girl in front of us to not accidentally touch his hand while taking her change or something.

Other things that happened on my birthday:

• Maine legalizes gay marriage: hurray!


• 3DRealms, developer of the running joke Duke Nukem Forever, goes under: meh