Stocktake of Current Projects in Progress (23 March Edition)

Time for another stocktake of all my various projects currently on the go. I typed this up more for my own benefit than anything.  (Also, considering that my last attempt at such a list from early January ended up being 6 pages in my notebook, this is already the "cut down" version LOL 😅)... 

* 1) Revival of app in HaxeUI for Dad  (Hard Deadline: Mid May) = Stalled. Am facing intractable toolkit related bugs.

* 2) Media Import/Backup from Devices = In progress / partially working. Need another push to complete.   (A blog post was in progress about the state of that from last weekend, but may now hold off until I'm done with it, as finishing it is more important, than ranting about half-progress)

* 3) Picasa Replacement = Not started

* 4) MusicViz = Paused. Haven't had time to start showcqt-hacking phase

* 5) Kea = Paused again. Too many concrete projects to do first. (Had dabbled with the UI language side of things a few months ago, initially starting to work on trying out the 7Guis tasks... that said, satisfying those succinctly may direct things in a bad direction relative to all the "real problems" I encounter in general instead)

* 6) Parus = On hold. Was originally going to use #1 as a testbed for doing it in Haxe + HaxeUI, but I now have to rethink those plans...

* 7) Collagen (i.e. Collage Making Tool) = On hold. Pending Parus being usable in some or other language, so that I can actually build the thing without wasting time doing more plumbing (like I'm doing on #1 currently)!

 

Others (Lower Priority):
* WhioDoc = Spec written. Tooling will have to wait till I have time

* Music Sketch Pad = Comes after Collagen and Maybe After Diagramming Tool (but may need to come first)

* Diagramming Tool = On hold indefinitely, but definitely needed more and more.

 

 

 

 

The Last Lunch

Wow, it's been 5 years ago to the day when this photo was taken.

Yum Cha at "Tai Chi" (Spitfire Square, Christchurch) in March 2020

 

It was from our last "dine in" meal at a restaurant before the first COVID lockdown (that we headed out for shortly after Ardern's first 1pm nationwide address).

This photo then went on to be one that I wound up staring at longingly for *months*, desperately craving some Cheng Fun (and being unable to make any ourselves). You could say it got me through the pandemic...

On "Sci-Fi" and "Fantasy"...

TBH, I personally generally dislike most "Sci-Fi" and "Fantasy" stories / media. Among other reasons... they suck! 😜

[MusicViz Project] Part 3 - Breakdown of FFMPEG "showcqt" Experiment

This is the third installment of my ongoing series of posts on one of my long-term projects to develop a new automated technique for visualising music.

To motivate today's discussion, here is the final video clip rendered from the experimental technique being discussed in this post: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTMpzmdI9qQ

 

And here is the command used to render that:

ffmpeg -y -i 20230803-v02.flac -filter_complex "[0:a]showcqt=s=500x1920:axis=0:cscheme=0.6|0.7|0.1|0.1|0.8|0.5,crop=500:1392:0:4000,setsar=1,transpose=2[vcqt]; [0:a]showwaves=mode=cline:s=1920x100[vs]; [vcqt][vs]overlay=y=H-100[v]" -map "[v]" -map "0:a" -c:a aac "mv_20230803.mp4"

 

Let's annotate that to show the different parts more clearly (see the breakdown following this for a rough description of what each part does):

ffmpeg -y -i 20230803-v02.flac -filter_complex "[0:a]showcqt=s=500x1920:axis=0:cscheme=0.6|0.7|0.1|0.1|0.8|0.5,crop=500:1392:0:4000,setsar=1,transpose=2[vcqt]; [0:a]showwaves=mode=cline:s=1920x100[vs]; [vcqt][vs]overlay=y=H-100[v]" -map "[v]" -map "0:a" -c:a aac "mv_20230803.mp4"

Flow - Blender Animated Feature Film

As many in the Blender world will know by know, Flow - a Latvian animated film created by a small team in Blender, and rendered using Eevee just won this year's Oscar for Best Animated Film!

Woah! What a moment! The first Blender animated Best Animated Feature award winner! WOW!  😱🤯😍🥳

A *VERY* big congratulations to all the team who worked on this!!! A very well deserved win!

Introducing... "WhioDoc" (formerly "Quack!" / "QuackDoc")

I guess this weekend can be considered somewhat successful on the projects front (even though I only really got around to 1 of the 3 projects I'd wanted to work on, though it *was* the most important one I wanted to knock off too)

Following a few sessions of toil, I have successfully put up an initial attempt at formalising all the conventions I've been using for writing inline code docs for all my projects over the years!

While there are still a few small loose ends to tack on, at least I can finally point to this thing and say: Here's the spec!

(And eventually: "Here's all the docs-compiler tools + editor plugins everyone asks for these days")

 

https://github.com/Aligorith/quackdoc

https://github.com/Aligorith/whiodoc

 

Reflections on my time working with Lilypond

Recently, I saw a post from a music student mentioning that they were thinking of writing up some stuff on the techniques they'd learned while using GNU Lilypond - i.e. a LaTeX-like "music typesetter" with its own custom input/programming language (doused / polluted with a heavy dose of Guile-Scheme).

This post gathers up some of my own notes on my own journey with these tools, and how this has tied into where I am today. Come to think of it, this year actually marks something like "just over two decades ago" that I was doing this shit (since IIRC, I probably started doing all this back in 2004!) - jeez... time flies and makes you feel old when put like that!

C17 Landing at NZCH - 2025 02 24

Here are bunch of heavily-edited snaps from the C17 (8202) landing at NZCH earlier this week that I quite like.

I really love the combination of dramatic lighting, tyre smoke, and the funny look on the faces of those sheep - especially on that second one!

Had to heavily edit to improve colour + contrast - mainly to just bring out a bit more colour from all the washed-out / desaturated light and dark areas (which were a consequence of shooting into the sun near sunset... granted, the lighting would conventionally be better considered "better" from the other side, but the roads on that side are scary, and you wouldn't get to see the smoke backlit like this either!)

Nike Eskilstuna Drafting Table

Earlier this evening, I came across the following video on Facebook of a 1950's vintage architect's drafting desk - apparently manufactured by "Nike Eskilstuna" from Sweden.

https://www.facebook.com/reel/2626640980856219

 

Wow! This is so freaking awesome! TBH, if I had the floorspace, I'd probably get one for my office-space / living room, especially if I got hold of one with wheels for easier moving! 😍

Rant About Office Chair Sizing

Sigh... it's looking increasingly like I'm going to have to give up on this new office chair after all, after using it in anger for a few days with an adjustable desk that I can try to work around its height-limitations with.

The problem is that it is ultimately way too low for me.

So, just as it was 3 months ago, I'm back to square one in my search for my next long-term office chair it seems.

 

Trip Down Memory Lane + Resurrecting An Old Project

I know it's technically a "work night", but I just went through my drawer trying to dig out my ancient mockups for a project I've recently revived.

I had originally built it as a thing for Dad to use for outreach activities - Back in the day (i.e. back in 2009, from the comments in the source code I've been porting between machines), I'd managed to get the core engine running, but ultimately ran out of time (+ also, a suitable distribution tech stack back in the day), so had ultimately abandoned that project.

Anyway, recently I've been resurrecting it as a motivating toy app to play with Haxe + HaxeUI. 

 

* This seemed like the perfect project for learning this stack + playing around with it. It was a relatively simple + straightforward little piece of tech that is small enough to be easily implementable / portable (i.e. within constraints of what I can safely manage energy-wise + time-wise on top of long days of fulltime 9-5 weekday job commitments). 

* It was also an almost perfect case for this tech stack (i.e. the HTML5 deployment option is particularly attractive for someone who has never been able to get CSS layouts + Javascript coding to really sit well with my worldview).

 

In other words, this was the PERFECT type of small toy project to tinker around with during the evenings now, as I try to re-establish a small pipeline for me to get a bunch of small fun projects done for myself, where I have full + complete control over every aspect. No questions asked. No input from third parties accepted or needed. 100% owned by me, and for the sole purpose of me having a creative outlet to do fun stuff for myself.

Canon R5 - One Year On Review

Yesterday (or actually two days ago now, if I end up finishing writing this post tonight) marked a year since I got an R5 as the successor for my 7D. Its funny how, earlier this evening, I'd been wondering: "Hah... I wonder what day exactly it was that I got my new camera last new year... I'm sure it was around this time of year-ish"

This is a follow-up to my earlier posts a week in, and a few months in. 

Key Points:

* Overall, I ended up filling 2x 256GBmemory cards (give or take) this year with this camera - Which also means, I've quickly burned through half a TB of disk storage (vs under/around 150 GB a year previously)... More on this in a bit

* By and large, it has now ended up becoming my daily driver. While initially it was just to get used to it under different lighting conditions, later the increased image quality + better performance in a wide range of lighting conditions was a major drawcard.

* I've been on two multi-day trips with this camera now, so can say quite a bit more about how it handles for such usage

* In terms of battery life - I've got a total of 3 batteries, though in practice, I've only really needed 2 (with the third coming into its on those occasions where I'm too lazy to charge the one in use (and forgot to charge the other one, which had gone flat a while earlier). For typical cycles, they usually average around 400-600 (centered around 550 ish), though sometimes that figure can be as high as 1100 - 1300. Lowest would've been around 250 - 300 ish.

* The improved light gathering capabilities have really come in handy with the increased major Aurora storms this past year, meaning that I've been able to see + capture Aurorae for the first time in my life