mars at opposition
by lsd on Feb.05, 2010, under Astronomy
I should’ve blogged about this a bit earlier, but what can I say? I blame a combination of general slackness, and being totally addicted to Mass Effect 2. Anyway, on with the show!
Last Friday night, an event occurred that I’ve been looking forward to ever since the day I bought my telescope — Mars came in to opposition. In simple terms, that’s the point at which Mars and Earth come closest to each other in their respective orbits, which means that Mars is far bigger and brighter to look at than at other times. Oppositions with Mars happen only every 26 months or so, but it was definitely worth waiting for!
Even though this was a fairly bad opposition (some oppositions bring Mars and Earth closer together than others), I got a far better view of Mars than I’ve ever had before. Usually it’s just a very small, fuzzy, red disc — clearly not a pin-point star, but too small to see any detail on. On Friday, though, I could clearly see one of the polar ice-caps, a small bit of dark red banding below the cap, and larger areas of dark banding across the rest of the otherwise bright red surface.
The next opposition, in 2012, won’t bring Mars any closer than this one did, but a few after that, in 2018, Mars will be almost twice as close as it was this time. I’ll have to make sure I’m ready for it!
Partners in Lag Podcast, Episode 2
by lsd on Feb.02, 2010, under Partners in Lag
Episode 2 of the Partners in Lag podcast is up! Asz and I check out the news and discuss trends in mobile gaming — the rise of the iPhone, prospects for Palm and Android, and our thoughts on the iPad:
Partners in Lag Ep 2: 2010-01-30 — 47MB, 1:07:40
Links:
Partners in Lag Podcast, Episode 1
by lsd on Jan.24, 2010, under Partners in Lag
Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Partners in Lag Podcast, where my good friend Asz and I discuss the games and other gaming-related things we’re looking forward to in 2010. You can grab it here:
Partners in Lag Ep 1: 2010-01-16 — 61MB, 1:27:31
The podcasts will live here for now, but you can already get an RSS feed of just the podcast posts, ready for use in a podcast downloader, here.
looking back on 2009
by lsd on Jan.15, 2010, under Music, Rants
Around this time last year I said (not on my blog, but on my LJ, for those that are reading this there) that I wanted to do a bit more with myself in 2009, rather than just wasting time online. I can’t say that I spent a lot of time reading or writing (probably a lot less time writing, in fact), and I didn’t spend a whole lot of time outside with my telescope, but I did play a good few games, watched some new TV, and spent a lot of time cooking lunches for work.
Most importantly, though, I actually did something productive musically. Until 2009, the best I’d managed since high school was a couple of minutes of generic techno, but in 2009 I produced two complete tracks, both of which I’m still pretty happy with. My dalliances with music in the past have usually ended in frustration, but this year, through a combination of new hardware, much-improved software (mad props to the Ardour guys), and perseverance, I got over the hump. I now feel like I have the tools I need to make whatever I decide to make, and perhaps most importantly, my desire to make music is just as strong as it was a year ago.
I’m usually not one to set hard goals, but if there’s something I’d like to make this year, it’s a proper song — lyrics, singing, and all of that good stuff.
sketchbook: stylophone!
by lsd on Dec.23, 2009, under Music, Sketchbook
I had a surprise knock on the door just before I left for work this morning — the delivery of a mystery package. The excitement only grew when I ripped open the satchel to reveal a surprise Xmas present: my very own Stylophone! They went back in to production a few years ago, but apart from a few minor additions it’s virtually identical to the classic units of the 60s: it works identically to the old models, and it definitely sounds just as cheesy-good.
In honour of my new toy, here’s a brief bit of Stylophone-infused doof-doof. I couldn’t help but put a filter sweep on the bass line, but apart from that, and copious echoes, the Stylophone sound is untouched. Enjoy! Let me know if you can’t play it, too — I’ve changed the streaming setup a little for this one.
driving miss silvia
by lsd on Dec.14, 2009, under coffee
Here’s the obligatory post about my new coffee machine and grinder, and here’s the obligatory pic:
I’ve had them for about a week and a half now, and I’m super-happy with both — as you’d expect, they’re both nicer to use, and produce better results, than my old Saeco machine and Lux grinder, even though they’re fundamentally fairly similar machines. They’re both built like tanks, and the Silvia has a nice big brass boiler, so its temperature stays quite constant during brewing and it has a tonne of pressure while steaming milk.
The other great thing about the Silvia is that it has a standard 58mm group, just like a commercial machine — indeed, a number of the Silvia’s parts are shared with Rancilio’s commercial machines. That means that, in future, I can look at getting myself a naked portafilter, which I’m sure would be a lot of fun to play with.
more podcasting
by lsd on Dec.11, 2009, under Linux
Episode 28 of the Open Source Musicians Podcast is up, and as I mentioned yesterday, I’m once again on it! Skype garbled me a bit, but overall it turned out surprisingly well quality-wise, and it was great fun to record. I’ll have to be a bit more careful if I podcast again, though — at one point I got up for a few seconds, and while I thought to mute my mic on my mixer before I did, I must’ve dropped my headphones on my synth keyboard, which was still patched in, so everyone got a few seconds of synth sound action.
coming up milhouse
by lsd on Dec.10, 2009, under Rants
Feels like time for another bullet-point update!
- We got a house! Well, provisionally anyway — we sign the lease on Saturday. It’s a cute little renovated two-bedroom place in Footscray, so it’s got a bit of that same old house charm that our Surrey Hills place had. Living west-side is going to be quite a change, but it’s a quiet spot, and it’s not far from Kensington or Yarraville, which both seem like awesome places to hang out. The timing is great too — we get the keys on January 5th, so we have plenty of time to give notice here and start packing and cleaning.
- Royal Crown Revue tonight! Last week, Kat spotted that they were touring, so we grabbed some tickets. It was going to be a pain heading off to two house inspections this afternoon, then heading home and having to head back in to the city for the gig, but now that we’ve been approved we don’t have to worry about those inspections now.
- I have a new coffee machine! I had been using a plunger at home since my old machine died a couple of months back, so I’m very glad to have a new one. It’s a Rancilio Silvia, and I got a new grinder (the matching Rancilio Rocky) as well. Perhaps now wasn’t the best time to buy new toys, but I got a great deal on it, and I sure as hell need my coffee right now!
- I ended up on the Open Source Musicians podcast again on the weekend; one of the usual hosts couldn’t make it, so the other host, and a few of us that were online at the time, jumped in to a Skype conference call and talked crap for a bit instead. That episode isn’t online yet, but I’ll link to it when it is.
iss success
by lsd on Dec.03, 2009, under Astronomy
Conditions were perfect for watching last night’s overhead pass of the ISS, and I got a great view of it through my telescope. I think it could’ve been better, though — I used my 13mm Nagler eyepiece, so the magnification was perhaps a little high, which made tracking the ISS as it (very quickly) moved through the field of view very difficult. Even when I did get it in view and keep it there for a bit, it was still moving so fast across the field that it was all a bit of a blur. Next time, I think I’ll stick with my less powerful 21mm Stratus eyepiece, which should make it easier to both track the ISS, and to hold it still long enough to make out some good detail.
Speaking of next time, there’s actually another really good pass tomorrow night (the 4th), starting about 9:08pm. Here’s hoping today’s clouds have disappeared by then!
iss overhead tonight!
by lsd on Dec.02, 2009, under Astronomy
It’s a beautifully clear day outside today, and if it stays that way, I’ll be watching the ISS pass overhead tonight. The ISS passes overhead fairly often, but tonight’s showing is going to be particularly good, since it’s at a nice, easy viewing time (around 10pm), and it’ll be riding very high up in the sky, so it’ll be a great sight.
If you’re in Melbourne, and you want to check it out, head outside at 9:58PM and look north-west — you should very soon see a bright dot, climbing steadily up in to the sky, and growing brighter as it does. It’ll reach its highest point in the sky at 10:01, in the south-west, and then head back down to set in the south-east at 10:04. If you have a small telescope, or even binoculars, you should be able to make out some structure. Tracking it in a telescope will require quick movements, though!
If you miss tonight’s pass, you can get a list of other upcoming passes at Heavens Above.
dabbling in podcasting, and studio upgrades
by lsd on Dec.01, 2009, under Music
Given that I record my music entirely under Linux, I was very happy to hear of the Open Source Musician Podcast; so much so that I’ve already contributed my own segment to the show. In the recently-released episode 26, I discuss the equipment (hardware and software) I use to record my music, as well as the workflow involved.
In other news, I got an awesome new studio toy on the weekend — I replaced my Singstar mic with a Rode NT1-A condenser mic. While I’ve only had a brief chance to play with it, it sounds very clean and clear, so it’s a revelation compared to the hissy, muddy mess that I got with my old mic. It also came with a shock-mount and pop shield, so it looks très professional in my mic stand:
this one time, at band camp
by lsd on Nov.23, 2009, under Music
Just a quick post to mention that I’ve set up a site for my music on Bandcamp, which is a very neat music streaming/downloading site. Their streaming player is a bit nicer than the one I use here, and they make downloads available in a wider range of formats as well. You can also check out my lame-ass artwork skills on the site banner and cover art!
crisis aversion
by lsd on Nov.23, 2009, under Linux, Technical
I run a RAID array in my home theatre PC to store all of the media I’ve managed to accumulate over the years, and running it as a RAID array has come in handy once again, since I lost a hard drive over the weekend. It was one of the two 500GB drives I’d carried over from my old array, so instead of picking up a new 500GB drive to replace it, I replaced them both with a (sub-$100) 1TB drive.
Compared to the last time I had a drive fail, this replacement was a snap; I just shut down, removed the 500GB drives, added the new drive, and booted up. Once the system was running, it took just another minute or two to partition the new drive and add it in to the array. Total downtime: no more than 10 minutes. I do love it when things work as advertised 
new track: clipper
by lsd on Nov.20, 2009, under Releases
Here’s that new track I was working on — it’s another synthy thing which turned out, not-entirely-deliberately, like something from an old-school arcade game soundtrack. Lots of Blofeld, and a bit of distortion. It came together more quickly than my last track, and I’m pretty happy with the results, especially since I didn’t feel the need to spend hours and hours tweaking EQs and compressor curves to get it to sound alright to my ears. Enjoy!
new mario, new music
by lsd on Nov.15, 2009, under Games, Music
There’s an overwhelming number of new games coming out right now, but despite the pressures to buy Modern Warfare 2 or Borderlands, I caved in to my inner Nintendo fanboy and picked up New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Well, I’ll admit, Toys ‘R’ Us selling it for $70 helped. Either way, it’s time to talk Mario!
NSMBW, much like NSMB on the DS, is a straight-up 2D Mario game, with all the usual trimmings and a smattering of new stuff thrown in. After getting it home I quickly played through the first world-and-a-half, and while it was fun, it was tough, and actually frustrating in a way I hadn’t seen in a Mario game before. A lot of that frustration came from the D-pad on the Wiimote, which seemingly isn’t ideal for pushing diagonally.
Fortunately, NSMBW adds one significant spin to the Mario formula that elevates it far above its minor problems — four player co-op gameplay. Like MediaMolecule’s LittleBigPlanet, Mario’s latest lets four of you run across the map simultaneously, but the character interactions you can perform in the Mario universe multiply the hilarity and confusion of LittleBigPlanet ten-fold. It also avoids some of LittleBigPlanet’s issues by giving players a variety of options for getting through the tricky bits.
This game should come with a warning, though — do not play it with casual acquaintances, or people who might get on your nerves. With the thousands of ways you can end up killing, or just generally griefing, each other mid-game, you might never speak to them again.
In other news, I’ve been working on a new track; in fact, I think it’s nearly finished. Everything’s recorded, but the drums need more work to add a bit more variety. Once it’s finished I’ll be sure to post it!
