Future Plans for Comics?
on
Ask Larry Niven
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I've recently read and enjoyed Ganthet's Tale, your collaboration with John Byrne about the origins of the Green Lantern Corps as well as the DC Universe. With all the attention comic books have been getting in Hollywood lately, with movies from Road to Perdition to Daredevil being produced from comic stories, and screenwriters such as Kevin Smith writing comics, do you have any plans to return to this media?
heh, that's exactly right. If I don't use, I'll lose it, so there's no time like the present. Luckily it happens to coincide with one of my favorite RPG series, as well as some movie everyone's been clamoring about.
I've played with a lot of different ways to "scratch" music, and the old 2 turntables and a mixer setup still always comes out on top.
Why? It's all about the interface. All of the trick routines and techniques are built around this interface. I've seen several programs that allow one to "scratch" the music they are listening to, but they usually leave out one important part: the crossfader. The crossfader is just as important to mixing and scratching as the turntable is. There's no way one could do a Transformer, much less a Crab or a Flare without a crossfader.
Now, a CD-based system might be able to replicate this. The problem then comes with record selection. Since most real DJs still use turntables, no one makes CDs that are full of breakbeats and scratch sentences. The best battle records are still on, well, records.
To a lesser extent, it also has to do with needle dropping. I don't know of a single CD player on the market that will let one start playing the CD, anywhere on the CD, instantly. I don't mean just cueing up a song or fast forward. Vinyl gives one the opportunity to look at a record, see where the break is on the record, drop the needle, and play, almost instanteously. If one is in the middle of a battle routine, this is imperative, because the clock is ticking, and no one wants to watch you sit there and find the part you're looking for.
Also, don't think that new advances aren't being made in vinyl turntable technology. At the most recent NAMM show, Vestax unveiled their vinyl cutter for personal use, and it can create 12" records that last just as long as professionally-mastered records, giving the DJ the freedom to combine his/her favorite breaks, samples, loops, sentences, etc. into one record. Most modern mixers also have a crossfader curve adjustment. The crossfader curve is a key part to any complex scratch pattern. The latest mixers from Vestax also feature a setting which can automatically double and triple up one's crossfader clicks. This means that new DJs can fake doing Crab Scratches, but those of us who can already do them naturally will probably be able to exploit the feature to make a new sound. --
We had an Alteon in use when we first moved to digital Nation last summer. No. Never again will we use an Alteon. It caused horrendous problems under high loads by munging the tcp headers on the packet that closes a socket, and only after taking the Alteon out of the equation did we ever get sleep. --
This is actually an undocumented feature. It was meant so that you could arbitrarily spawn new discussions that may have been off-topic from the current story, and give Slashdot the power to host discussions for other sites.
Just because we haven't gotten around to putting a pretty face on it doesn't mean it's a bug yet. Spawning a new sid on the fly is pretty handy for testing comment posting as well. --
It's not actually a lock. portald get fired up every half an hour to update the slashboxes and do assorted odds and ends. However, there's no way to tell if it crashed or not (usually the XML parser barfs), so this function just keeps track if it's running or not. And emails me if it crashes, the next time it starts up. So if a slashbox URL breaks (which happens about once a day), I get an email reminder to fix it.
And even though it's way old and needs to be rewritten, it's never been an issue with locking. But how would I know, I only try to keep things running... --
I'm not God. In fact, I'm really far from it, but the Technics SL-1200 M3Ds ARE my tables. *grin* Sure, it's not the ultra high grade phonographs, and my cartridges are less than a grand, so it's not audiophile quality by any means, but the feel of vinyl is what it's all about. At times a CD feels just too perfect.
I use Miguel's code every day, and I'm not even referring to his work w/ GNOME. Significant portions of the Linux kernel port to SPARC were done by Miguel, most notably the Sun Lance ethernet driver.
A lot of people are reporting login problems. Please quit your browser, delete your/. cookies and restart. This/should/ help fix it. Email me if you're still having problems.
A lot of what this stems from is computers being put into applications where they may not be needed. Case in point: my father's gardening. My father grew up on a farm, and even today keeps a large vegetable garden and maintains many farm implements.
Years ago, when my father needed a part, he simply went to the dealership, told them the part number, they got one out of the bin, he paid, and then he left. Now, he goes to the same dealership, and tells them the part number. They punch it into a computer, and everyone waits while the computer searches the dealership's inventory, and finally prints out a page of information at the end of the counter. Then, whoever is working at the dealership reads the printout, goes to the bin, and finally gets the part.
It doesn't someone with a stopwatch to see that this is clearly an extra step. Now the dealership is happy because they can track their sales, and make all kinds of cutesy graphs, but my father now has to wait longer in line, and productivity hasn't gone up a bit.
First, the mics are input into a 4-channel mixer, which signal is put through a compressor (to give us a nice "radio"-esque sound) and finally the whole mess is recorded on a Dell Inspiron 3000 (Crystal Sound card) running the "Potato" release of Debian. We use SoundStudio, a freely available Tcl/Tk program to do the actual recording, and compress it with whatever mp3 encoder we have handy. Then, it's shipped off to The Sync for post-production, which is done in Sound Forge under win9x, IIRC.
Any other questions about our process? Feel free to email me at pater@slashdot.org.
I've used several of the cards to set up a wireless masquerading firewall for a bunch of laptops. I've actually found the linux support to be better than the Win9x support for these cards, but they have problems with nfs mounts, and sometimes will break an ssh connection. Also, I've run into problems using the cards with a 2.2 kernel, so I'd recommend using 2.0.37 if you use these cards.
I've done a lot of network programming, including a variety of protocols. I can honestly say that CDDB was the dumbest, nost bloated networking protocol I've worked with, yet it's still such a great idea. I think we need to develop an open alternative that provides similar functionality, yet is owned by no one. Think what it'd be like if someone owned the rights to the telnet protocol!
This new album should be a nice continuation of the good vibes from Furthur and something to tide us Deadheads over until the remaining members of the Dead reform to play the Great Pyramids on NYE.
Slashdot Mirror
I've recently read and enjoyed Ganthet's Tale, your collaboration with John Byrne about the origins of the Green Lantern Corps as well as the DC Universe. With all the attention comic books have been getting in Hollywood lately, with movies from Road to Perdition to Daredevil being produced from comic stories, and screenwriters such as Kevin Smith writing comics, do you have any plans to return to this media?
You sure can! It's also staying ad-free, afaik.
We already use it. It's a noticeable amount of bandwidth that we save, but it's far from half.
heh, that's exactly right. If I don't use, I'll lose it, so there's no time like the present. Luckily it happens to coincide with one of my favorite RPG series, as well as some movie everyone's been clamoring about.
Why? It's all about the interface. All of the trick routines and techniques are built around this interface. I've seen several programs that allow one to "scratch" the music they are listening to, but they usually leave out one important part: the crossfader. The crossfader is just as important to mixing and scratching as the turntable is. There's no way one could do a Transformer, much less a Crab or a Flare without a crossfader.
Now, a CD-based system might be able to replicate this. The problem then comes with record selection. Since most real DJs still use turntables, no one makes CDs that are full of breakbeats and scratch sentences. The best battle records are still on, well, records.
To a lesser extent, it also has to do with needle dropping. I don't know of a single CD player on the market that will let one start playing the CD, anywhere on the CD, instantly. I don't mean just cueing up a song or fast forward. Vinyl gives one the opportunity to look at a record, see where the break is on the record, drop the needle, and play, almost instanteously. If one is in the middle of a battle routine, this is imperative, because the clock is ticking, and no one wants to watch you sit there and find the part you're looking for.
Also, don't think that new advances aren't being made in vinyl turntable technology. At the most recent NAMM show, Vestax unveiled their vinyl cutter for personal use, and it can create 12" records that last just as long as professionally-mastered records, giving the DJ the freedom to combine his/her favorite breaks, samples, loops, sentences, etc. into one record. Most modern mixers also have a crossfader curve adjustment. The crossfader curve is a key part to any complex scratch pattern. The latest mixers from Vestax also feature a setting which can automatically double and triple up one's crossfader clicks. This means that new DJs can fake doing Crab Scratches, but those of us who can already do them naturally will probably be able to exploit the feature to make a new sound.
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I did reserve well over 2 months in advance. What did you think, I was sitting outside the local toy store waiting for a shipment to arrive?
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It works. Fortunately, more people run FreeBSD than just me, so you'd be amazed at how well it gets tested before it even gets tagged for release.
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Muhahahahahahaha.
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We had an Alteon in use when we first moved to digital Nation last summer. No. Never again will we use an Alteon. It caused horrendous problems under high loads by munging the tcp headers on the packet that closes a socket, and only after taking the Alteon out of the equation did we ever get sleep.
--
Just because we haven't gotten around to putting a pretty face on it doesn't mean it's a bug yet. Spawning a new sid on the fly is pretty handy for testing comment posting as well.
--
And even though it's way old and needs to be rewritten, it's never been an issue with locking. But how would I know, I only try to keep things running...
--
Whoops. You're right. I've adjusted the story accordingly. Mea Culpa.
Well, that and I can't scratch CD's.
I use Miguel's code every day, and I'm not even referring to his work w/ GNOME. Significant portions of the Linux kernel port to SPARC were done by Miguel, most notably the Sun Lance ethernet driver.
But please, please email me rather than or addition to posting here. Then I can filter the reports to the correct places.
Thanks again.
Thanks.
Years ago, when my father needed a part, he simply went to the dealership, told them the part number, they got one out of the bin, he paid, and then he left. Now, he goes to the same dealership, and tells them the part number. They punch it into a computer, and everyone waits while the computer searches the dealership's inventory, and finally prints out a page of information at the end of the counter. Then, whoever is working at the dealership reads the printout, goes to the bin, and finally gets the part.
It doesn't someone with a stopwatch to see that this is clearly an extra step. Now the dealership is happy because they can track their sales, and make all kinds of cutesy graphs, but my father now has to wait longer in line, and productivity hasn't gone up a bit.
First, the mics are input into a 4-channel mixer, which signal is put through a compressor (to give us a nice "radio"-esque sound) and finally the whole mess is recorded on a Dell Inspiron 3000 (Crystal Sound card) running the "Potato" release of Debian. We use SoundStudio, a freely available Tcl/Tk program to do the actual recording, and compress it with whatever mp3 encoder we have handy. Then, it's shipped off to The Sync for post-production, which is done in Sound Forge under win9x, IIRC.
Any other questions about our process? Feel free to email me at pater@slashdot.org.
I've used several of the cards to set up a wireless masquerading firewall for a bunch of laptops. I've actually found the linux support to be better than the Win9x support for these cards, but they have problems with nfs mounts, and sometimes will break an ssh connection. Also, I've run into problems using the cards with a 2.2 kernel, so I'd recommend using 2.0.37 if you use these cards.
I've done a lot of network programming, including a variety of protocols. I can honestly say that CDDB was the dumbest, nost bloated networking protocol I've worked with, yet it's still such a great idea. I think we need to develop an open alternative that provides similar functionality, yet is owned by no one. Think what it'd be like if someone owned the rights to the telnet protocol!
This new album should be a nice continuation of the good vibes from Furthur and something to tide us Deadheads over until the remaining members of the Dead reform to play the Great Pyramids on NYE.