News You Can Bruise for 2005 December 12

Mon Dec 12 2005 08:07 PST Penguin Update: There have been some great penguin pictures from this person's Flickr feed, especially this penguin picture. Also, Pokey the Penguin is still updating occasionally, and it has an RSS feed, so if you haven't subscribed to it and have therefore forgotten all about Pokey the Penguin, I'm telling you to cut it out.

Mon Dec 12 2005 21:00 PST When I stop the drum machine: Does anyone else get into a fugue state programming a drum machine where it feels like you're playing Space Invaders or using the old TheDraw drawing program?

I like how Hydrogen makes you come up with names for your drum patterns. Never before have I had to name parts of songs. My names for the patterns of the song I'm working on:

• Bass heavy
• Smells Like Teen Spirit
• Cymbal Mania (square)
• Cymbal Mania (swing)
• So there!
• + Snare
• Take it to the bridge
• Cymbal for bridge
• Another dang cymbal
• The bridge seems to be getting angrier!

I also find myself putting down dummy tracks that give a visual picture of the different parts of the song; otherwise I get confused and forget how long things take. Yes, I'm a worse percussionist than George Michael Bluth.

(1) Mon Dec 12 2005 22:42 PST: Playground is a shared space for building things out of virtual click-bricks. Opens up lots of possibilities for games. Are there any networked games with Lego-like mechanics? I'll settle for LEGO-like mechanics.

(5) Mon Dec 12 2005 22:47 PST Nitpick: "Primer really isn't a sci-fi film...what's happening with the characters emotionally is the focus of the film."

Why can't a piece of sci-fi explore peoples' emotional reactions to something that can't happen or has yet to happen? This seems like "it's a graphic novel, dammit!" territory.