Lee McKusick

Ride Your Music

Saturday, September 13th, 2008 | Fun, Gaming, Music | No Comments

So today I reinstalled Windows on my gaming desktop, as it was sorely in need of a little software TLC, much the same way droids get a memory wipe every now and then to keep them from developing abnormal personality quirks.

Sorry, geeked out there for a second. Back on track…

I reinstalled Steam, and also AudioSurf. I wrote a post a while back (it must have been on another blog though) about it, but it’s been a while, and it feels like being reacquainted with an old friend so it deserves another introduction.

AudioSurf is a basically a music visualizer turned into a game. It takes any music file and generates a track from it, and you play as a little ship going along this track and collecting blocks in time to the music. The track is divided into a number of rows, so you’re constantly weaving back and forth trying to collect the right blocks to make combos.

The cool thing about it is that you can use any of your music (AAC files aren’t supported though, so no ITMS stuff), which makes for near limitless replayability.

It’s incredibly addictive, tons of fun, and at only $10, it’s well worth it.

EDIT: OH! I completely forgot: in addition to the game itself, you get the entire Orange Box soundtrack, which includes Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, and yes, ladies and gentleman, Portal. Rock out to two versions of “Still Alive,” the original from the game, and one sung by JoCo himself. Totally worth the $10 even without the game.

Tags: audiosurf, Fun, game, joco, steam, still alive

First Impressions of iTunes 8 and Genius

Wednesday, September 10th, 2008 | Music, Tech, Uncategorized | No Comments

For those who don’t know, iTunes 8 released today, and brought with it some new features: Grid view, HD tv shows, a new visualizer (which I admit is pretty sick.) The biggest news of all, though, is the Genius functionality. There’s two parts to it, the Genius Sidebar and Genius Playlists.

First observation: In order to use Genius, you have to go through Apple. It’s a centralized system, meaning Apple takes your library information, puts it through the algorithm on their servers, and spits the results back at you. (Second observation the first time takes a long time…). So you paranoid types out there might want to avoid the Genius.

The Genius Sidebar looks at both the currently selected song and the iTunes Music Store and shows you some other top songs by that artist, and other recommended tracks. In my opinion, this is a waste of space. It’s interesting to be sure, but as evidenced by the plethora of tiny “BUY” links, just an extension of the store.

Far more intriguing to me are the Genius Playlists. The premise: click a song, click a button, and a related playlist is generated based on that song. Let’s try it, shall we? (All songs tested are sold through the iTunes Store.)

1. Palisades by Visual Cliff. Genius unavailable. FAIL.
2. King Without a Crown by Matisyahu. Genius unavailable. FAIL.
3. Better Life by Keith Urban. Good results; all Country genre. Returned: Chris Cagle, Dierks Bentley, Tim McGraw. WIN.
4. Beyond Measure by Jeremy Camp. Returned: Sanctus Real, Third Day, Kutless. WIN.
5. Follow the Wolves by Demon Hunter. Returned: Pillar, 12 Stones, Flyleaf, Decyfer Down. Also returned a Dropkick Murphys song, which I found rather odd. Overall though: WIN.

That’s 3 to 2 folks. For now, Genius playlists meet my approval, at least for well-known songs. I’m a little irked that the first two didn’t even show up. Even if they weren’t specifically catalogued by Apple (which would be odd, seeings how they’re both sold in the iTunes store), I would have liked it if it still make an attempt at generating a playlist based on track information. Then again, it is new, so I’ll give it some time to improve.

Next on the list is Grid view, which I have very mixed feelings about. I like the concept. In fact, I love the concept, but there’s some things about the implementation that I decidedly don’t like.

• There’s no way to look at the tracks in an album unless you double-click and enter the album. What I Would Like To See: When you select an album, the tracks in that album show up in a sidebar. Perhaps like the new useless sidebar they just added…
• The Play Album/Artist/Etc button is too small. What I Would Like To See: Expand it to cover the whole bottom third of the album you’re hovering over.
• Not part of Grid view, but they took out right-clicking on the albums in Cover Flow! WTF?! What I Would Like To See: Give me back my right-click menu, Jobs!

That’s all I’ve got for now. I need to play around with iTunes 8 before making any more judgements, but for my initial reactions, I give it about a 6.5.

Tags: apple, genius, itunes 8, Music

Stuck In Customs

Wednesday, April 16th, 2008 | Blog, Music, Tv, Uncategorized | No Comments

Have I mentioned I love Desktoptopia?

This is the image it just gave me:

I thought the HDR (High Dynamic Range, it’s what gives it the illustrated look) effect was really cool, so I decided to play my luck and see if they gave a link to the photographer. Sure enough, they did, and the guy, Trey Ratcliff, has a ton of beautiful HDR images.

His site, Stuck in Customs, has both his official portfolio, and a photoblog. It’s definitely worth a look.

Plus, most of his stuff is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike license. Props to him for that!

Tags: photography, hdr

Keeping Time

Wednesday, February 27th, 2008 | Music | No Comments

This is so true. And it’s not just marching band, dancers will do the same thing. At least I do, anyway. Never had this happen, but I might just have to be cruel next time I go to Wal-Mart… >:-D