October 2004 Archives

I finally got some time to sit down and scan some of the slides from the trip to Maui. I'm going to make this post an extended entry, meaning the bulk of it will be accessible from the link below. I did this in order to reduce the size of the main page, since I plan to put many pictures up. That way no one has to unwillingly suffer through a huge download. So, if you're interested in getting the whole story, just click on the link, but be aware that it may take a while to get all the images, and the text is pretty long.

Maui is beautiful. And I have 2 minutes left on this terminal. Back home on Thursday. Unless I decide to just live here and surf all day and smoke pot and live on the beach. It can be done. I've seen it.

...well, you know the rest. I'm turning comments off so I don't have a week's worth of spam comments to delete when I get back. See you guys later.

Well, I was kinda bored tonight so I decided to put some pictures up. This is a picture I took just an hour ago of one of my cats.

Here's one I took a few days ago in my back yard. I was chasing some bugs around and came across this fly. By the way, if you need something to photograph you really don't have to look much further than your own yard. It's amazing the kind of stuff you'll find if you just hang out quietly by some bushes or trees. In about a two hour period I saw a few bees, several mosquitos, two grasshoppers, two jumping spiders and a lizard.

Finally, here's a slide I scanned of a picture taken of me when I was at summer camp as a kid. I think I was 12 or 13 at the time. This particular camp offered several classes and you could take any two for a whole week, so I chose photography and...something else, I don't remember. This was my first experience with an SLR camera and is probably the reason I have picked it up again over the last few years. I'm holding a Pentax, although I can't remember the model.

PhoneMag (via Gizmodo) is reporting that a rough draft of the owners manual for the Motorola MPx has been leaked.

Thanks to Scott for the link.

Students at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette have built a machine that plays the drums based on MIDI signals. The machine, named PEART (Pneumatic and Electronic Actuated RoboT, or after Neil Peart), basically controls sticks and pedals to produce beats fed through a MIDI stream.

The big complaint with drum machines, of course, has been that they don't sound very realistic. I've purchased some entry-level machines and they're fun to play around with, especially considering that setting up my real drum kit takes up so much space and makes a lot of noise, but they never sound quite right. Now you can get real sounds with the ease of using a programmable machine. I'd like to see how it handles some of the more difficult stuff like flams, Swiss triplets and rolls, as opposed to just 8th or 16th notes. Also, consider how many options you can get from a cymbal...you can strike it as usual (crash), or ping on it (ride), or play the bell portion of it. Still, quite a machine.

Links via BoingBoing and Engadget.

Engadget is reporting that the Motorola MPx220 is finally available. I've decided to wait for the MPx, which should be out before the end of the year. Full QWERTY keyboard, integrated WiFi and Bluetooth...it's a no-brainer.

Incidentally, if you ARE thinking about buying one, I'd definitely wait. I made the mistake of buying the 200 when it first came out and paid full price. In a month or two, you'll probably be able to pick one up from Amazon for $50 after rebates.