RedBeard’s Curious Life

My hair is unruly and impossible to manage when allowed to grow beyond a half-inch in length. Perhaps I’ll go get it cut real short so it has no opportunity to defy my attempts at styling.

So after thinking about the problems mentioned in my previous blogpost, I’ve come up with an idea for avoiding the volume-knob-twiddling. Essentially, it goes something like this:

1. Decompress an MP3
2. Calculate the RMS of the raw sound data
3. Store the RMS value in an unused field in the MP3’s ID3 tag, perhaps the ‘comment’ field
4. When Winamp loads the song, have a plugin read the field
5. Automatically adjust the Winamp volume to place the RMS as close to an expected RMS as possible.

That last item will probably make it easier to quieten loud songs than to louden quiet songs, although it should really do both if a reasonable expected RMS is chosen. Unfortunately, the decompression and ID3 handling are not trivial tasks, so the details of this idea are a bit more complex than the above list makes it sound.

For a while I’ve been noticing a trend for new musics CDs to be released with an ever-increasing average loudness. Now, loudness is a psychological construct, but it’s linked quite directly to sound wave amplitude, which in turn is related to the magnitude of the values stored in the tracks of a CD. By tweaking the values in the CD track, you can adjust the amplitude of the emitted sound. It seems that a lot of CDs lately are raising the values in the name of increasing loudness, but it comes at the cost of sound quality and consistency.

(more…)

My dad was apparently big into rock concerts as a youngster, but as a result of some encounters with gigantic speakers, he is now what you might refer to as “hearing impaired”. More recently, this has caused the immediate family a fair bit of consternation, as Dad tends to guess at what we’re saying when he can’t actually make out the words. Other times, he just plain doesn’t hear, such as yesterday when he closed the door after Mom and I stepped out to watch some fireworks. When I returned, I stood there ringing the doorbell constantly for over a minute, and eventually my brother answered, but Dad claimed complete ignorance of any doorbell-ringing at all.

Mom has resorted to calling him Deaf-o instead of Bob in an attempt to goad him into action, after urging him for quite some time to seek assistance, likely in the form of a hearing aid. So far, no dice. I think he imagines that getting a hearing aid will mark him as elderly, but perhaps he’ll realize at some point that it’s better to accept that image and be able to communicate.

On top of the house and humans being rather jostled, my dog is also in poor shape. Before my trip to England, she had developed a recurring hematoma in her ear, likely due to excessive head-shaking, which can rupture the blood vessels in the floppy ears of a golden retriever. Dad was instructed to check for more hematomas and to treat them if any arose. Big surprise when we get back from our two-week trip – the dog has a massive hematoma containing clots, and needs surgery to remove it. Way to go, Dad.

The dog had surgery yesterday, and now has one of those big plastic cone things around her neck, to prevent her from scratching off the bandages and causing further damage to the surgery site. Side effect of this monstrous contraption is that she gets caught on things very easily. Things such as rearranged furniture, wall spackling, door frames, steps, carpet. And when she does run into such things, she just kinda stops and stands there, hoping that someone will come to her aid and free her from the predicament. And she’s meant to wear this thing for the next three weeks, which is the duration until the sutures are removed from her ear, and also happens to be the duration until we go off on a cruise to Hawaii. So we’re gonna have a mishap-prone dog for three weeks, then we’re gonna dump her in a kennel so we can go sail across the ocean. You’d hardly think we care about the dog, but she really is a precious member of the family.

My folks decided a while ago that they want a new kitchen, and more recently that they want it fairly soon. And while they’re tearing out the kitchen, why not redo the window & door in the kitchen. And while they’re at that, why not all the other windows in the general vicinity of the kitchen, which is to say the entire rear facade of the house.

As a result of this activity, pretty much the entire house is in a state of disarray. The garage is filled with boxes containing windows, doors, and kitchen cabinets. The kitchen has a distinct lack of floor tiles, counter space, appliances, and basically everything you’d associate with a kitchen. The things that were in the kitchen are now spread haphazardly around the surrounding rooms – dishwasher, microwave, drawer & cabinet contents, plates & silverware, etc. The fridge is still in operating condition, although that is apparently soon to change also. Most furniture in the house is covered with plastic or cotton sheets, and my room is filled with boxes from my recent move away from Atlanta.

The dust generated from the various destruction/construction tasks has no trouble in spreading throughout the house and lightly dusting all exposed surfaces. This doesn’t really bother me, as I’ve lived in a college dorm for the last 4 years and had roommates that neglected their abode to a much higher degree than simply failing to dust. However, my mother is a total clean freak and makes every effort to sweep up the dust, wood chippings, chunks of concrete, and various other detritus at the end of the day before she can rest. Even then, she’s stressing out the whole time, saying that if she’d known how messy it would be then it could have waited until later, such as after I’m moved away to Seattle/Redmond.

A couple of contracted carpenters are performing the window & door installation, and are doing a fairly good job, from what I can tell. My dad is away at work all day, but when he gets home the night shift begins; last night he was up til 10 chipping off the countertop tiles in the kitchen. Nice having a new kitchen, but you can’t appreciate it from the grave, Dad.

I’ve noticed that a number of musicians tend to mellow once they make it big. Especially prominent in my mind are Alanis Morissette and No Doubt. Their respective albums, “Jagged Little Pill” and “Tragic Kingdom”, were their major entry into the mainstream consciousness, and their subsequent releases have been relatively mellow. No longer screaming “you oughta know” or “excuse me, mister”, their music has reflected their transition from starving artist with tales to tell of their rough life into coddled, and ultimately boring celebrities. They no longer have stories to which the general populace can really relate. Perhaps I’m just out of it enough to miss the boat on their trip to an enlightened state.

Are they now happy? If so, perhaps it’s a result of their previous angst, or perhaps of their creativity in dealing with it.

RedBeard has graduated from Georgia Tech, just barely missing an Honors designation for his bachelor’s degree in computer science. In the lull of summer, he is attempting to garner relaxation before the everlasting death march of employment begins. To these ends, he has seen fit to visit relatives in England, and will soon be departing on a cruise to Hawaii. Post-relaxation, RedBeard plans to reside in the quiet Seattle suburb of Redmond, working dilligently to ensure computers everywhere may have the finest software possible.

The journey thus far has been long and relatively uneventful. A youth in England, a relocation to Houston, four years at gatech. Many friends left behind, but not forgotten. Numerous opportunities missed, and sorely regretted. Now a lonesome adult with a group of close friends that extends barely beyond a small online clique. We shall follow the tale of this individual on his journey through tribulations and tranquilities.

Trying out the WordPress. Still got the default theme, it looks decent enough for now. I just need to decide about what I want to write, that belongs nowhere else on my site…