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April 21, 2006

How the THX Noise Was Created

Anyone who knows me, knows I love the THX sound! This article was just posted up on /., and as much as I hate to copy and paste, I don't feel like writing my own summary...;) So now, on to how the THX sound was created!

The blog MusicThing is running an interesting interview with Andy Moorer. Mr. Moorer is the man who created the sound called Deep Note, now heard in every THX-enabled movie theatre. The interview is originally from last year, but the tech-heavy discussion is still a timeless analysis of a great sound." From the article: "The score consists of a C program of about 20,000 lines of code. The output of this program is not the sound itself, but is the sequence of parameters that drives the oscillators on the ASP. That 20,000 lines of code produce about 250,000 lines of statements of the form "set frequency of oscillator X to Y Hertz. The oscillators were not simple - they had 1-pole smoothers on both amplitude and frequency. At the beginning, they form a cluster from 200 to 400 Hz. I randomly assigned and poked the frequencies so they drifted up and down in that range.

April 12, 2006

Are you a child of the 80's?

Someone sent this to me in an email, but it is so good, I didn't want to lose it! So here is the list of how you know if you are a child of the 80s!

1. You've ever ended a sentence with the word SIKE

2. You watched the Pound Puppies.

3. You can sing the rap to the Fresh Prince of Belair and can do the Carlton

4. Girls wore biker shorts under their skirts and felt stylishly sexy.

5. You yearned to be a member of the Baby-sitters club and tried to start a club of your own.

6. You owned those lil' Strawberry Shortcake pals scented dolls.

7. You know that "WOAH" comes from Joey on Blossom

8. Two words: Hammer Pants

9. If you ever watched "Fraggle Rock"

10. You had plastic streamers on your handle bars... and spokey-dokes or playing cards on your spokes for that incredible sound effect.

11. You can sing the entire theme song to "DuckTales" (Woo ooh!)

12. It was actually worth getting up early on a Saturday to watch cartoons.

13. You wore a ponytail on the side of your head.

14. You saw the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the big screen...and still know the turtles names.

15. You got super-excited when it was Oregon Trail day in computer Class at school.

Click below to see the rest!

16. You made your mom buy one of those clips that would hold your Shirt in a knot on the side.

17. You played the game "MASH"(Mansion, Apartment, Shelter, House)

18. You wore stonewashed Jordache jean jackets and were proud of it.

19. L.A. Gear....need I say more?

20. You wanted to change your name to "JEM" in Kindergarten.(She's Truly outrageous.)

21. You remember reading Tales of a fourth grade nothing and all The Ramona books.

22. You know the profound meaning of "WAX ON, WAX OFF"

23. You wanted to be a Goonie.

24. You ever wore fluorescent clothing. (some of us...head-to-toe)

25. You can remember what Michael Jackson looked like before his nose fell off and his cheeks shifted.

26. You have ever pondered why Smurfette was the only female smurf.

27. You took lunch boxes to school... and traded Garbage Pailkids in the schoolyard.

28. You remember the CRAZE, then the BANNING of slap bracelets.

29. You still get the urge to say "NOT" after every sentence.

30. You remember Hypercolor t-shirts.

31. Barbie and the Rockers was your favorite band.

32. You thought She-ra (Princess of Power!) and He-Man should hook up.

33. You thought your childhood friends would never leave because you exchanged handmade friendship bracelets.

34. You ever owned a pair of Jelly-Shoes.

35. After you saw Pee-Wee's Big Adventure you kept saying "I know you are, but what am I?"

36. You remember "I've fallen and I can't get up"

37. You remember going to the skating rink before there were inline skates

38. You ever got seriously ! injured on a Slip and Slide.

39. You have ever played with a Skip-It.

40. You had or attended a birthday party at McDonalds.

41. You've gone through this nodding your head in agreement.

42. You remember Popples.

43. Don't worry, be happy!

44. You wore like, EIGHT pairs of socks over tights with high top Reeboks.

45. You wore socks scrunched down (and sometimes still do...getting yelled at by younger hip members of the family)

46. You remember boom boxes and walking around with one on your shoulder like you were all that.

47. You remember watching both Gremlins movies.

48. You know what it meant to say "Care Bear Stare!!"

49. You remember watching Rainbow Bright and & My Little Pony Tales

50. You thought Doogie Howser/Samantha Micelli was hot.

51. You remember Alf, the lil furry brown alien from Melmac.

52. You remember New Kids on the Block when they were cool... and don't even flinch when people refer to them as "NKOTB"

53. You knew all the characters names and their life stories on "Saved By The Bell," The ORIGINAL class.

54. You know all the words to Bon Jovi - SHOT THROUGH THE HEART.

55. You just sang those words to yourself.

56. You remember watching Magic vs. Bird.

57. Homemade Levi shorts.. (the shorter the better)

58. You remember when mullets were cool!

59. You had a mullet!

60. You still sing "We are the World"

61. You tight rolled your jeans.

62. You owned a banana clip.

63. You remember "Where's the Beef?"

64. You used to (and probably still do) say "What you talkin' about Willis?"

65. You had big hair and you knew how to use it.

66. You're still singing shot through the heart in your head, aren't you?!?!

April 11, 2006

Ron Mueck - Larger than Life Scluptures

Thanks to digg, I ran across some very cool art. Ron Mueck is an Australian hyper-realist sculptor working in Great Britain. He makes ultra detailed larger than life sculptures of people. A very cool gallery of his work shows how intresting his sculptures are. I hope he comes to Denver sometime! That would be awesome. I would love to go take pictures of this stuff.

April 5, 2006

Apple Releases BootCamp

Now we're just talking crazy! Apple is now offically supporting dual booting your Mac with Windows on a second partition!! Today Apple announced a new product called "Boot Camp" Beta which will come standard with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). They also released a new firmware update for all Intel Macs that adds support for BIOS (which was the main hurdle in installing Windows before). BootCamp is mainly a CD that contains drivers for the Mac-specific hardware so you have have things like hardware video acceleration.

I can't decide how I feel about all this. One one hand, WHY would you taint your Mac by installing Windows on it?? But on the other hand, this may get many people to switch to the mac. It also gives those of us who have to support multiple platforms the chance to use just one computer. I would rather see Apple release Virtualization Software, but this is a giant step in that direction.

April 1, 2006

April 1st 2006 - April FOOLS!

Today is April Fools day! I usually really hate April Fools day on the internet because you can never tell what is real and what is fake. We'll this year has been a bit more fun! Slashdot, everyone favorite tech new site, launched a new theme (OMG Ponies!!) aming at gaining a wider audience, the Ladies. There is also a very long list of all the April Fools Jokes over at Wikipedia. But just to pull out a really funny one, check out these public service announcements.