I've spent the last few days doing development on a Nokia N93 in Python. It's pretty good, for certain things, but the python API is lacking all over the place. Sound is the worst - all you can do is record or play files, and you have no control over format. There is no direct access to an audio buffer. The only way you can, say, synthesize a sine wave is by writing to a.au file (hey, they're simple) and playing it. So forget about realtime.
The module implementation is messed up right now, and has been for a few months. I should be able to code modules and place them in e:\Python\lib, but it doesn't work because that was added to the path incorrectly, as a unicode string, and there's no clear way around it. All the Nokia example code duplicates a Keyboard class in each file. Why wouldn't they just fix that!?
On the other hand, python is a joy in general, and just as much on a phone. I can bring up a bluetooth console on the phone, and $ screen/dev/tty.bt_console and work from my keyboard in an interactive console that's running right on the phone! (If only they had ipython...) I'm having so much more fun doing this than I did a year or so ago doing J2ME and MIDlets and all that crap.
I used to use dual monitors - CRTs years ago, then 17" displays, then dual 20" displays. These days I'm on one 30".
I find that having one giant monitor frees me from thinking about where my windows should go. When I had two, I always had to decide. It's set up either as:
one monitor primary (in front of the keyboard), with the other being off to the side
"display-bezel-centric" where the keyboard is between the two monitors
In the first situation, you always have to move windows off to another place when you want to see them. That requires thinking and action. There's a lot of separation between those two screens. The second case is a bit better, although the OS still considers one monitor as primary, and you don't want to have windows spanning the space.
With one 30" I find that I don't think about which windows go where. The organization happens a bit more naturally.
Still, there are applications where two monitors are great - working in Pro Tools, for instance. That is really a two-window situation, one edit window, one mix window. Still, you have plug-in windows and other stuff, so you have to think about where they go.
When it comes down to thinking about productivity enhancements like this, the little bits of thought it takes to organize your workspace into two compartments really count.
This is certainly not the first. The CNN article even mentions LEMUR, who made GuitarBot years ago (~2003 from memory, their site doesn't say). In addition to performing many pieces composed for it, GuitarBot has also been controlled by interactive software. There were a few notable performances with violinist Mari Kimura in 2003, a few months after it debuted. Interactivity wasn't its specialty, but it's been done.
Still, though, Haile this is a neat thing. You could have it done in a few days - but not the nifty laser-cut wood!
Re:What would be cool...
on
Talking iPods
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· Score: 1
There were talks last summer with AOL about expanding our database massively (millions of songs) for some sort of music downloading service, and a mobile phone application was discussed. Essentially the phone would do the signal processing on the recording of the voice, send a small string to the server to query, and the server would return a list of matches. Phones can do this now, but it's often horribly slow as FFT libraries are in their infancy on phones and differ greatly across models (at least that was the state of affairs a year ago... surely things have changed since).
This isn't the same as an iPod query-by-humming application, though, where the searching would have to be performed on the device itself. I've never developed for the iPod so I can't speak to its speed compared to phones, but the searching part probably wouldn't be too bad. Our database is kdb running on a wimpy P4 2.2 with 512mb ram (!) and though the data set is quite small, searches are very fast and it should scale well. (Heck, k and kdb binaries are so tiny (~200kb) they could just run on the device!)
What do you guys do for a font running Eclipse on OS X? I've been using this setup for java development lately, and I absolutely love it, but I've only come up with a kludge for making it OK to look at: I set the font to Monaco (default) but with a 10pt size and then go in to System Prefs to turn off font anti-aliasing for fonts 10pt or smaller. Then when I'm done with eclipse I set it back to 8pt (otherwise things look ugly).
I find the default Monaco-12pt to be too big - while it's fairly easy on the eyes (actually, this is what I use for web stuff in TextMate) for Java development I need to see more of what's going on at once. And if I set it to 10pt and leave anti-aliasing on, things look blurry and goofy.
So what do other people do?
Slashdot Mirror
Mine's waffledome. I couldn't decide between "wafflehouse" and "thunderdome."
We know they hate pies, though.
(King's Quest V, anybody? Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder)
The poll of the day, in response to this article, asks mac users about their age. The majority of people are 18-34.
Of course, these polls are completely unscientific and worthless, yadda yadda. Still interesting.
I've spent the last few days doing development on a Nokia N93 in Python. It's pretty good, for certain things, but the python API is lacking all over the place. Sound is the worst - all you can do is record or play files, and you have no control over format. There is no direct access to an audio buffer. The only way you can, say, synthesize a sine wave is by writing to a .au file (hey, they're simple) and playing it. So forget about realtime.
/dev/tty.bt_console and work from my keyboard in an interactive console that's running right on the phone! (If only they had ipython...) I'm having so much more fun doing this than I did a year or so ago doing J2ME and MIDlets and all that crap.
The module implementation is messed up right now, and has been for a few months. I should be able to code modules and place them in e:\Python\lib, but it doesn't work because that was added to the path incorrectly, as a unicode string, and there's no clear way around it. All the Nokia example code duplicates a Keyboard class in each file. Why wouldn't they just fix that!?
On the other hand, python is a joy in general, and just as much on a phone. I can bring up a bluetooth console on the phone, and $ screen
I used to use dual monitors - CRTs years ago, then 17" displays, then dual 20" displays. These days I'm on one 30".
I find that having one giant monitor frees me from thinking about where my windows should go. When I had two, I always had to decide. It's set up either as:
In the first situation, you always have to move windows off to another place when you want to see them. That requires thinking and action. There's a lot of separation between those two screens. The second case is a bit better, although the OS still considers one monitor as primary, and you don't want to have windows spanning the space.
With one 30" I find that I don't think about which windows go where. The organization happens a bit more naturally.
Still, there are applications where two monitors are great - working in Pro Tools, for instance. That is really a two-window situation, one edit window, one mix window. Still, you have plug-in windows and other stuff, so you have to think about where they go.
When it comes down to thinking about productivity enhancements like this, the little bits of thought it takes to organize your workspace into two compartments really count.
This is certainly not the first. The CNN article even mentions LEMUR, who made GuitarBot years ago (~2003 from memory, their site doesn't say). In addition to performing many pieces composed for it, GuitarBot has also been controlled by interactive software. There were a few notable performances with violinist Mari Kimura in 2003, a few months after it debuted. Interactivity wasn't its specialty, but it's been done.
Still, though, Haile this is a neat thing. You could have it done in a few days - but not the nifty laser-cut wood!
We're doing something like this at NYU:
NYU Query by Humming
There were talks last summer with AOL about expanding our database massively (millions of songs) for some sort of music downloading service, and a mobile phone application was discussed. Essentially the phone would do the signal processing on the recording of the voice, send a small string to the server to query, and the server would return a list of matches. Phones can do this now, but it's often horribly slow as FFT libraries are in their infancy on phones and differ greatly across models (at least that was the state of affairs a year ago... surely things have changed since).
This isn't the same as an iPod query-by-humming application, though, where the searching would have to be performed on the device itself. I've never developed for the iPod so I can't speak to its speed compared to phones, but the searching part probably wouldn't be too bad. Our database is kdb running on a wimpy P4 2.2 with 512mb ram (!) and though the data set is quite small, searches are very fast and it should scale well. (Heck, k and kdb binaries are so tiny (~200kb) they could just run on the device!)
What do you guys do for a font running Eclipse on OS X? I've been using this setup for java development lately, and I absolutely love it, but I've only come up with a kludge for making it OK to look at: I set the font to Monaco (default) but with a 10pt size and then go in to System Prefs to turn off font anti-aliasing for fonts 10pt or smaller. Then when I'm done with eclipse I set it back to 8pt (otherwise things look ugly). I find the default Monaco-12pt to be too big - while it's fairly easy on the eyes (actually, this is what I use for web stuff in TextMate) for Java development I need to see more of what's going on at once. And if I set it to 10pt and leave anti-aliasing on, things look blurry and goofy. So what do other people do?