We don’t do sales very often–this is the second one in the history of the company–so get ’em while they’re hot.
11/11/11
Yes, this is my obligatory wow-what-a-silly-date post. I am fond of mathematics, though, so it can’t be resisted. The date 11/11/11 rolls around only once every 100 years so I fully expect that I won’t blog about it again. Given that nobody could have anticipated blogging, or the technology behind it, on the last 11/11/11, I won’t even attempt to guess how humanity will communicate on the next 11/11/11. (Consider, for instance, that television is less than 100 years old, transistors are a little over 50 years old, and microprocessors are just under 40 years old.)
Snow, and Snow Again
Since I try to keep track of such things, I should mention for the record that Boulder got its first snow of the season on the 25th of October, and more on the 2nd of November. The second storm dumped about eight inches across the city, and I think the first storm brought even more. Luckily, our power was not interrupted, but there were a number of outages in the area. Lots of trees were badly damaged by the first snowfall. We had a long and mild autumn so most trees had not dropped their leaves or even changed color much. Here’s a photo of a cottonwood that got knocked down not far from here:
In Memory of John McCarthy
This is a little strange, considering that it wasn’t long ago that Dennis Ritchie died, but I just learned that John McCarthy has died. Like Ritchie, his wasn’t a household name (unless your household happens to be full of computer geeks), but he also made a number of contributions which changed the nature of computing. He coined the term “artificial intelligence”, invented the LISP programming language, and even anticipated a number of very contemporary network-based technologies such as web-based applications and cloud computing.
Announcing Filterstation
I’ve been remiss in tooting my own horn by mentioning that Audio Damage’s latest product, Filterstation, is now available. It’s a dual filter plug-in with 12 different filter types, three routing modes, a tempo-syncable LFO, and an envelope follower. There’s also a dual XY control for sweeping the frequency and/or resonance of either or both filters. Also of note is this is our first plug-in in Steinberg’s VST3 format, along with the usual VST2 and Audio Unit versions. All have both 32- and 64-bit binaries on both Windows and OS X.
Studies in Perspective: Photos of the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge
I just posted a number of photos here of the bridge I described in a previous entry. It was quite interesting to see such an enormous construction up close, and the perspective formed by the structures was a visual treat.
Some Things Are Better Left Unexplained
These photos, for instance.
Walking in Kyoto
I just posted a few photos from our walk in Kyoto, in the neighborhood roughly between the Yasaka shrine and the Kyomizudera temple. I didn’t take that many photos that day, having photographed the area pretty extensively on previous visits. It’s a remarkably picturesque area, though, so I had to pull out the camera a few times. The Flickr photo set is here.
In Memory of Dennis Ritchie
Just over a week after Steve Jobs died, another extremely significant figure in the world of computing has died. Dennis Ritchie was the creator of the C programming language and a contributor to the creation of the Unix operating system. C (and its immediate successor, C++) is probably the most popular programming language of the 20th century, and has to be among the top five, so far, of the 21st. Unix (in various flavors) was the most common operating system for servers (that is, computers on which the web runs) in the 20th century and among the top three, so far, of the 21st, and is the basis of Apple’s OS X. He was also the co-author of the first book on C, The C Programming Language, known amongst geeks worldwide as “K&R” after its authors Brian Kernighan and Ritchie. My first-edition copy is still in the go-to-first section of my reference bookshelf.
Photos of Tokyo (Mostly) Posted
I’ve put up the first batch of photos from our recent trip. These were taken during our first full day, when we made a whirlwind trip to Tokyo and back via shinkansen. We saw our friend Rafael, did some shopping, visited our usual haunts in Asakusa, and had lunch at Ippudo, the ramen restaurant with incredible gyoza. The photo set is here and there are brief captions, but a couple of things bear special mention. (All of the following photos link to Flickr, so you can click them to see larger versions.)