mario August 31st, 2010
 Have I told you about Blue? I probably should have mentioned Blue sooner. Blue is the guitarist that plays over at HELLO, THE FUTURE! She sits on her dining room table and plays songs about webcomics and Mathnet and feelings into her webcam for all her fans to enjoy from the comfort of their homes. Last month she did a Webcomics Webconcert via Ustream and played live OVER THE INTERNET, and it was made of amazing!
Why am I talking about this obviously awesome Internet musicianista? Because I’ll be hosting her next Webcomics Webconcert at my apartment!
She’ll be flying to California in September to attend w00tstock (oh geez, have I not blogged about w00tstock either? I’m rapidly losing my blog cred), and while she’s in town she’ll be doing another live performance from my apartment!
“How,” you ask, “how can I ever hope to attend this epic event when I am nowhere near Mario’s apartment?!” Well it just so happens that this Webconcert will be streamed OVER THE INTERNET JUST LIKE THE OTHER ONE from my house to all of yourses!
All you need to do is jump on the Webcomics Webconcert Ustream page on Saturday, September 18th at 6pm Pacific Time. I will also have an open invitation to any of my friends that live sufficiently locally to attend, and we’ll all go get dinner after the show!
While you’re waiting for the big event, go watch Blue’s past performances and get sufficiently pumped!
[discuss]
mario July 18th, 2010
 Yesterday Geoff posted the following Facebook update:
This inspired us to come up with other titles for 3D movie remakes. A sampling:
- Inglorious Basterds: The 3rD Reich
- Back to the Future Part III-D
- 2 Fast 3D Furious
- Live 3D or Die Hard
- 3D Men and a Baby
- 3D0 (300)
- 3D Ninjas
- Independence Day – I3D:4
- Dragon Wars: 3D War
- The 3D Amigos
- D3D The Mighty Ducks: “The quack attack is back Jack… IN 3D!”
- Numb3Drs (technically a TV show, but still awesome)
Got any more?
[discuss]
mario June 1st, 2010
 Twitter buddy @adecelle issued a challenge:
The listing in question describes how to replace an HTML5 video source in sequence; basically, it lets a single <video> tag change its movie in the course of playing the video, resulting in a YouTube-style playlist. Problem was, in the form presented on the site, there was no intuitive way to add x more videos, and the second video in the sequence would loop forever. It had been awhile since I had gotten to practice some coding, so I figured I’d give it a go.
As it turns out, this was a difficult nut to crack. My repeated Google searches on how to construct an HTML5 video playlist yielded a handful of code examples from various sources, but these examples were apparently written completely off the cuff and were more broken than the Apple code. Eventually I had to cobble snippets from multiple sources to make a functional output with the desired capabilities:
<script type="text/javascript">
function myEndedListener(){
var myVideo = document.getElementsByTagName('video')[0];
myVideo.addEventListener('ended',myNewSrc,false);
}
function myNewSrc() {
var myVideo = document.getElementsByTagName('video')[0];
myVideo.src="videoplaylisttest2.m4v";
myVideo.removeEventListener('ended',myNewSrc,false);
myVideo.load();
myVideo.play();
myVideo.addEventListener('ended',myNewSrc2,false);
}
function myNewSrc2() {
var myVideo = document.getElementsByTagName('video')[0];
myVideo.src="videoplaylisttest3.m4v";
myVideo.removeEventListener('ended',myNewSrc2,false);
myVideo.load();
myVideo.play();
myVideo.addEventListener('ended',myNewSrc3,false);
}
function myNewSrc3() {
var myVideo = document.getElementsByTagName('video')[0];
myVideo.src="videoplaylisttest4.m4v";
myVideo.removeEventListener('ended',myNewSrc3,false);
myVideo.load();
myVideo.play();
}
</script>
<video controls src="videoplaylisttest1.m4v">
</video>
Example site (H.264 videos in MP4 containers; YMMV)
I was particularly proud of finding the bug on the Apple developer page: the event listener keeping tabs on the ‘ended’ state of video playback (when the video reaches its end) was reloading the same video over and over again when playback concluded. It was on the Opera Developer Community page that I found the solution in removeEventListener() (their multiple video example, for the record, was fairly unusable as well, but I appreciate their help in coming up with a solution).
The end result is messy code, to be certain. I’m fairly confident that someone more technically savvy and JavaScript-fluent could come up with a cleaner solution, but as Paul told me, the important thing is that it fulfills the function (tested on Safari 4.0.5 for Mac OS X Snow Leopard and MobileSafari 3.1.3 for iPhone 3GS; the initial autoplay doesn’t work on the iPhone but the sequential JavaScript fu works like a charm on both).
“Why post all this JavaScript/HTML5 stuff on your sporadically-updated blog about video games and stuff?”, I hear you ask? Simply put, I wanted to add something to the search results pool in the hope that someone else can stumble upon this tiny corner of the Internet and benefit from all this legwork. Good luck, wayward e-vagrant!
[discuss]
mario May 11th, 2010
 On a recent trip to Seattle, I once again realized just how amazing it is to live in The Friggin’ Future. With an iPhone 3GS (basically an extension of my arm at this point), I was able to:
•get walking directions from airport to hotel, around the city and back again, including light rail and bus routes with scheduled times (Maps, OneBusAway)
•consult user-submitted restaurant recommendations (Yelp)
•track spending (iBank)
•record the entirety of a concert (Camera) (don’t worry, it was w00tstock and was released under a Creative Commons license)
•keep hundreds of friends and well-wishers up to date up to the minute on happenings (Tweetie)
(I didn’t even get into really fancy stuff like geotracking the whole trip via Dopplr, mostly because I only just discovered Dopplr today. I TOTALLY would have though)
As much as this sort of thing has become commonplace, I can’t help but stop and marvel at times. It wasn’t terribly long ago that the notion of a pocket-sized device that could accomplish all these feats was in the realm of science fiction. But even the tricorders of Star Trek future history are primitive when compared to what has actually been created. The creators of that program could not have conceived of a worldwide network with virtually unlimited information at our fingertips (if you recall, most Treks had all their data stored locally on computers onboard their starships, basically servers with warp drive; I suppose if your ship can outrun data transfer speeds, a long-range Wi-Fi network might become a thing of novelty… but as is so often the case when Star Trek comes up, I digress).
Though I didn’t realize it when I bought my first iPhone in 2007, the device has become an absolute necessity in my life. It is my lifeline to the outside world on a level of profundity that a landline telephone could never hope to achieve. True, it has been a steady source of content consumption as my portable car stereo and TV (though the iPad has taken over the latter function with gusto), but it’s also the primary connection through which I socialize with a myriad of friends and well-wishers online. Some might express concern at eschewing real relationships for so-called “fake” ones with Internet folk, but I fail to see the distinction when the only difference is the means with which we communicate.
I’ve been obsessing a bit lately over one Amber Case, cyborg anthropologist, futurist and Singularity enthusiast (so perhaps you can understand my obsession). She argues that everyone in this modern age is a cyborg, as we all utilize technology to some degree to augment our physical bodies. It’s a compelling thought experiment (see more in her entertaining and informative lecture on prosthetic culture), and I hope it makes everyone realize the importance of devices like the iPhone (or your brand of choice) in their daily lives. Technology interconnects us on a deep level, and connects us all to something much bigger than ourselves.
And it’s exciting to live in a time where we can take it for granted. That’s when you know it’s The Friggin’ Future.
Oh yeah, add another bullet point for:
•update blog (WordPress)
[discuss]
mario January 2nd, 2010
 In the interest of combining stuff I’ve made in the past for posterity’s sake, I have imported all of my posts from my defunct LiveJournal account into Dot Matrix’s archives. The posts have been grouped together in the handy “LiveJournal Archive” category for anyone interested in seeing my random musings from all the way back in ’03! Or you can be sane and ignore them completely. Still, nice to see that WordPress is so capable; the process was quick and easy, and even carried over comments!
[discuss]
mario September 12th, 2009
 Picking up the epic Apple Cow comic series right where it left off! To all six of you who have read the other episodes of this comic: welcome to its new home! To everyone who is thoroughly confused about what the hell is going on: I’ll upload the other episodes shortly! Now everyone is in the proverbial loop. Good!
Continue Reading »
mario September 12th, 2009
Warehouse 13 sucks.
Uh… that’s really the only one I guess. Probably others I haven’t checked out yet. I’ll keep you posted.
mario June 1st, 2009
 I feel like I’ve put this HUR thing off for far too long! Luckily, I kept copious iPhone notes of the last few movies I went to see in terms of their trailers, so I should be able to piece a few together. I’ll be backdating these to the dates I saw the movies, so these posts will fall behind more recent Apple Cow-related fare, but whatEVS!
The movie was Up! I’m up with Up. Up was friggin’ awesome, y’see. Like with WALL•E, this did not surprise me in the slightest since it’s a Pixar flick. This particular movie was notable for a jarringly sad introductory sequence. Sometimes I think such moments are missing in family films these days, so it was nice to see Pixar continuing to take its all-ages audience seriously for the sake of good storytelling.
T-t-trailers!
—
-The Princess and the Frog
ADAPTATION it may be, but I’m still excited! I haven’t honestly seen all that much footage yet, since this trailer uses up almost a third of its runtime for introspective retrospectives on past Disney successes (ooh, going for success by association! Clever girl), but I’m mostly excited for the idea of a new Disney musical with traditional-style animation. It very well may bomb, but I’m just glad to see Disney supporting old-school animation again.
-G-Force
I get the feeling they don’t even know enough funny things about guinea pigs. I don’t want to confess that this is ORIGINAL.
-Imagine That
This seems awfully familiar for an ORIGINAL story. I should probably be giving these kid movie trailers a break, but come on! Does anyone NOT know how this movie ends? Man, it would really be something to have a movie like this end with the father continuing to be estranged from his quirky-and-sometimes-magical child. One can dream…
-Shorts
I really hope Robert Rodriguez is making mountains of dough from these awful kid movies he keeps churning out. I die a little inside every time a trailer starts by saying “From the director of Spy Kids” and not “From the director of El Mariachi”. At least he’s avoiding the all-too-common trap of adaptations from books with ORIGINAL scripts.
-Planet 51
One might think this ORIGINAL story about a role reversal between humans and aliens might appeal to a sci-fi fan like myself. Well… wrong? After the initial joke has set in, there can’t possibly be anything else to a film like this. So the aliens (instead of humans) are frightened of the human (instead of alien), and… 90 minutes?
-Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
SEQUEL (and a frequent occurrence as trailers go)
TOTAL: 33.33% (2/6)
—
As of a June 1st screening of Up, Hollywood’s kid movie industry scored an impressive 33.33% unoriginality index for trailers! As usual, of course, the stories themselves look plenty unoriginal in their own rights.
Funny thing about letting a backlog pile up: I know what’s coming next! Stay tuned for the HUR of Harry Potter and the Sequel of Adaptationing!
[discuss]
mario May 18th, 2009
 To beat the heat, Michael, Paul, Nicole and I ducked into AMC Saratoga 14 yesterday to watch the latest movie in the Star Trek series. I should probably mention at this point that this was, in fact, my third viewing of the film in theaters. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie in theaters this many times, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a Trek film this good! J.J. Abrams took a franchise that Rick Berman had all but killed and breathed new life into it in the seemingly most ridiculous way possible: by effectively destroying almost all existing canon by hitting the infamous History Eraser Button and starting from scratch. The move was certainly bold, but in my opinion also absolutely necessary for Star Trek to survive. The series was so bound by all that had come before that it could never satisfy anyone: existing fans would complain about every minor diversion from established canon, and new folk would be lost in the dense mythos. As a long-time Trekkie (and Trekker), I fully support Abrams’ new vision for the future, and hope he remains onboard for any future entries in the franchise.
Until the next Trek comes out, though, we might as well enjoy ourselves with various other upcoming film releases! Today’s collection would seem to be proof-positive of successful target marketing, as several of the trailers are themselves reimaginings of existing fiction from my childhood. Allons-y!
—
-Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Why does Michael Bay get to keep on making movies? I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on for the vast majority of this trailer, though I did pick up several explosions and muddy-looking CGI robots punching each other. Maybe that’s all there is to it. SEQUEL of an ADAPTATION… but I did have a great time poking fun at the original, so maybe this one will yield similar enjoyment.
-G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Back-to-back ADAPTATIONs of television shows from my childhood? It’s clear that Hollywood’s pandering to my unfounded sense of nostalgia at this point, but this looks at least slightly more interesting than the previous Michael Bay dreck. Christopher Eccleston’s a fun actor and will probably make for an equally-fun villain. The computer graphics are surprisingly subpar (the green dissolving solution on the Eiffel Tower stands out in my mind), but at least this one features humans more interesting to look at than Shia LeBeouf. That said, the new animated series looks much more interesting to me.
-Land of the Lost
It must be ADAPTATION Christmas or something! Presumably this is a big-screen rendition of the original Sid and Marty Krofft TV show and not the 1990s remake I grew up with. Not that it matters, as they seem to have dropped any semblance of seriousness in favor of slapstick comedy, so I’ll likely give this one a pass.
-Terminator: Salvation
Though I probably will go see this SEQUEL, I’ll still be pissed as all hell. See, I just found out this morning that Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles has been officially cancelled. The show was absolutely brilliant and, much like the new Star Trek, breathed new life into an ailing franchise. On top of that, a movie release would have only helped the show’s ratings! Once again, I must give a wag of the finger to Fox for their poor decision-making skills.
-Year One
I don’t get why Jack Black and Michael Cera are cavemen in the year 1, when civilization had come kind of a long way from hunting-gathering. I don’t get why Cain and Abel are there either! It’s fairly safe to say that historical accuracy is not the aim of a movie like this. ORIGINAL, though they do appear to do a lot of traipsing through biblical stories.
-Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Kind of a crazy-big cast in this movie. I even like a few of these guys! Christopher Guest and Hank Azaria, what are you doing in a movie featuring Ben Stiller getting slapped by monkeys? Your awesomeness is not nearly sufficient enough to make me want to check out this SEQUEL of an ADAPTATION.
TOTAL: 83.33% (5/6)
—
Oy. As of a May 18th screening of Star Trek at AMC Saratoga 14 in Saratoga, CA, Hollywood was preparing itself for a summer of 83.33% unoriginality. If only a handful of these movies end up being anywhere near the calibur of Trek, though, that might not be such a bad thing.
[discuss]
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It’s been a couple of years since I last made themed Valentine’s Day cards in the style of those store-bought franchise tie-in cards they make for kids, so I figured I was long overdue. Enjoy my Back to the Future valentines!
