David Fisher : What is Noise Blog

Does anyone have any clue as to why the New York Times video streaming is simply the worst on the internet?

The Problems:

• It doesn’t pre-buffer the entire video if there is additional bandwidth
• You can’t make it full-screen
• Skipping around in the clip is hit or miss.
• The pre-roll advertisements don’t work great either and seem erratic.
• And worst of all, the bandwidth that the NYT puts towards this is simply insufficient. I have a fairly fast connection and it skips nonstop. This never happens on YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo, or Blip.tv. This is a them problem, not a me problem.
• Ok I lied, something that pisses me off even more than the above is that the pre-roll advertisements always have enough bandwidth to play. They don’t skip. I don’t know if there’s some weird optimization going on, or if they simply allocate more bandwidth, but while the videos skip, the ads never do.

Thankfully the NYT does post many of it’s videos to Youtube, but they aren’t always up there quickly and not all of them. It’s sad when YouTube is the higher quality/more stable alternative since YouTube’s compression is generally really bad looking.

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Some days I almost forget the 5 years I spent in music school and it seems a distant memory. I still of course play regularly but I forget about the wealth of knowledge that I picked up and somewhat assume that everyone is walking around with a massive musical education in their heads and that it is not simply ingrained into everyone. It’s just something I do and no longer have to think about consciously.

I have too many musical ideas in my head however and really need to get them out at some point. Go play in a band again, write a symphony, or just make noise for thousands to hear. So what’s been actually happening with me musically lately? Sadly not incredibly much when it comes to recorded music. I think that Logic Pro has been killing my creativity. I don’t think I’ve actually recorded anything decent on it yet and I’m considering switching back to Protools. Logic is technically so much better, but Protools just had a tape-deck like workflow that just instantly worked nonstop. I recorded so much stuff in PT and almost nothing in Logic, regardless of it’s power. Plus, over the past while Protools has gotten significantly better. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens on this front. The only thing I hate is Digidesign’s audio interfaces. They sound horrid and I hate them.

I’ve been messing with alternate tunings lately. I have one of my guitars tuned in Open D, which is rather fun. I recently put on monsterous .11-.70mm strings on my 335-copy and tuned it down to B, but slowly brought it up to C. It’s beastly and I need to re-intonate it as anything above the 4th fret gets really screwed up sounding (esp 3rds).

I am still plotting a way to get a polyphonic sustainer system going. Rich thinks it’s not possible. People have tried and failed. I don’t care and I want one on my mustang. The mustang is feeling that it needs some upgrades and love. I think a Bigsby system is in order rather soon.

I am going to work a bit on my x0xb0x tonight and finish up a few lose ends. Might add in CV/gate inputs to it. Some day I’ll put new LEDs on it for some prettier colors, but for now the red works. I’m kinda burnt out on working with the C64 and Prophet 64. It’s a great idea, but I honestly got so many more killer sounds out of the Sidstation. Time to build a Midibox Sid as there’s no way in hell I’m paying a grand for a Sidstation.

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I want to have a 2TB NAS at home with room to grow. The closest things I have found are like this LaCie drive, which still retails for almost a grand. It’s one of the better ones out there. The Apple solution doesn’t seem to exist anymore and it was far too expensive anyway. Looks like Apple has someone else building them now.

I keep thinking, “This should be cheaper!” but yet I cannot find anything cheaper. 500gb drives can be found for under $80/each, so that should run just over $300. Some sort of case/power supply which can’t cost too much. I can find PC cases for $20 witha  $20 power supply. Then I just basically need a really simple SATA to Gigabit interface/controller. Really, it doesn’t have to be anything fancy. I’m sure some intel or similar embedded processor with 64mb of ram could do the trick. Not expensive. Makers of hardware (Dell, Apple, etc) build this stuff for far cheaper than I can from NewEgg or whatever, but yet they don’t!

I’m not sure if it’s because most people don’t yet “need” large amount of hard drive space and they still see multiple terrabyte solutions as “business only” which means they screw you on price? I personally want to get into HD video, ripping every video I get from Netflix (about 6 a week), etc… lots of space.

I think sadly my only/best solution is to go and build a super-barebones PC, throw two gigabit ethernet cards in it, and get 4 or more drives to put in there? I can build it then for around $400. For the grand that other companies want I could probably build a 4TB solution with Raid 5.

Now the problem is… how the hell do I back something like that up frequently? Certainly not burning DVDs. No consumer tape solution exists in that range, and I don’t like the idea of just using more hard drives.

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A few things for sale. I won’t ship the drumkit- sorry. The others can ship. Paypal ok but postal money order preferred. Cash in person super preferred. I have perfect feedback on eBay.

I have a Ludwig Accent Combo drumkit for sale. My neighbors don’t like it. It’s a 5 piece. I personally think it has really nice drum heads on it that have plenty of life and record well. It has a Sabian B8 Ride/Crash and B8 hats (nothing special, but they work). Ludwig kick pedal with extra beater. Wine Red. Evans EC2 tops on all toms. Genera Resonants on bottom. Snare has a Genera dry top, and Remo ambassidor on bottom. The kick has the standard Ludwig titled resonant head, and on the back has an Evans EMAD head and I have all of the dampening rings to go with it. I also have a tamborine to go on the high hat stand and basic ludwig drum throne. These kits are about $450-500 new. I’d love to get $350, since this kit has heads that are 10x better than the stock ones on it. More photos

I have a Yamaha TG-33 at my parents house. $100 shipped. Something is slightly wrong with it (and Yamaha’s tech support sucks) in that on rare occasion by holding down too many notes randomly mutes all. Something weird with the voice stealing. I’ve gotta find the power supply, but it’s around here somewhere. Asides from that it works great. “Vector synthesis”. I just never got into it and it’s a bitch to program imho. Still works ok, just acts oddly on occasion.
And finally the x0xb0x. I built this last summer, and it’s just sat here. I haven’t used it on a single track. It sounds wicked cool, and it’s fun. I simply do my basslines on a Moog Voyager or if I want something weirder on a C64 (or just play my bass). This is very unique and fun. TB303s are selling for way too much recently. I’ve seen them for nearly 3K. That’s nuts. I have no idea what to sell this for as the market is kinda scattered on it. Make an offer. I’m totally into trades for it as well. Again, no idea on what level. Something more than $500 surely, and likely less than $1200 (the range I’ve seen these sell in without crazy mods). I like anything modular, synths, screwy pedals, compressors, etc. I’ll do any basic mods you want (CV in, etc) if you feel you need them.

One thing about the x0xb0x that I’m going to try to diagnose tonight… the sequencer seems 1/16th note behind. Going to try and reload the firmware which hopefully will fix it, but the hard part about that is getting the firmware writer working in Leopard. Might have to use VMWare here. I should have it fixed by the time anyone want to buy it. These guys are very well documented, so it shouldn’t be hard. This one has the USB option and standard round red LEDs. I have the flatpack ones, but didn’t feel like resoldering all 40 10k resistors to make them 1k resistors…

I’ll take and post photos later. The TG-33 looks like a TG-33, the x0xb0x looks like a standard x0xb0x, and the ludwig drumkit looks like one does if you Google it. Nothing special about them that you’ll be able to tell from pix, but i’ll take them.

I live in Boston, MA in Back Bay.

I also have a C64 with Prophet 64 (no longer made)that I may be convinced to sell. I’ve done some minor mods to the C64 to hook it to my HDTV, but that’s just a few tack solders to the board. I have lots of C64 accessories. I even have the orignal box.

Also: I have a 50 foot 16XLR, 4 TRS snake for sale. $120 shipped. Good condition, just not needed in a tiny apartment and without a drumkit

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In case you missed the past year twitter is the new hot group messaging software. Along it comes a lot of Twerd (See #4).

1. Tweet- A twitter message
2. Twoosh- a tweet that is exactly 140 characters
3. Twude- A guy on twitter. Twitter Dude.
4. Twerd- A word used mainly on twitter. Anything in this list.
5. Twat- Same in real world as on twitter.
6. Twarf- A single word tweet
7. Twerk- A jerk or asshole on twitter.
8. Tweetup- Meeting up offline with people from twitter.
9. Twup- Picking up someone via twitter. Also considered a Twup if done at a Tweetup.
10. Twugs- Various meaning depending on tweet. Either a thug on twitter, or reference to drug use on twitter.

So there you have it. Know them, use them. Love them. Follow me on twitter.

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