Mike Austin's Blog

Alesis Compressor/limiter

2010-01-03T17:32:00.000-08:00

I got tired of continuously changing the volume in movies I watch - from quiet whispers to huge explosions and gunfire, so I tried using a compressor/limiter usually used for recording. The Alesis 3630 is relatively inexpensive, and is easy to set up. It also has blinking lights, and I like blinking lights :) I've watched a few action movies so far, and it works great. It's transparent in that you don't notice that it's working.

Mag+: a beautiful concept digital magazine reader

2009-12-19T14:23:00.000-08:00

Mag+: a beautiful concept digital magazine reader

Loading local web resources on iPhone

2009-12-09T11:24:00.000-08:00

I wanted to learn how to load web resources locally, so I finally found how:

NSString *path = [[NSBundle mainBundle] pathForResource: "test.html" ofType: @""];
[self.webView loadRequest: [NSURLRequest requestWithURL: [NSURL fileURLWithPath: path]]];

Objective-C is pretty convoluted sometimes!
Also, you have to make your javascript resources non-executable

Stevie play the drums

2009-11-29T11:45:00.000-08:00

QWERTY makes a comeback on Dvorak

2009-11-23T21:44:00.001-08:00

Link

Quite possibly true

What Killed Smalltalk Could Kill Ruby, Too

2009-11-16T18:57:00.000-08:00

Video

i.e., don't put walls up around your "perfect system", and always write tests. I have found unit tests helpful while developing Impulse, a dynamic language. Any time I changed something and ran it, the tests would show if I broke something. The more detailed the tests, the better.

Genetic algorithms for code

2009-11-03T21:56:00.000-08:00

Acovea
Using Natural Selection to Investigate Software Complexities

Microsoft brainwashing

2009-11-01T00:14:00.000-07:00

"Internet Explorer 8 is the latest version of the familiar Web browser that you are most comfortable using."

Ummm, I guess I can't have my own oppinion??

2009-09-22T00:35:00.000-07:00

Are Apple developers high?

2009-07-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

[options titleForSegmentAtIndex: [segment selectedSegmentIndex]];

...is beyond verbose, it's insane! Why not this:

[[options currentSegment] title];

???

Graphical df: Disk Inventory X

2009-07-09T23:14:00.000-07:00

I'm running out of room on my Mac Mini (iPhone SDK is huge!), so I found this program to help clean it up:

Disk Inventory X

The Nissan 370z has a fiving ugly face?

2009-07-01T00:57:00.000-07:00

"It looks like a catfish with Down's Syndrome got clubbed in the face with a 9-iron. What the crap?"

The Nissan 370z has a fiving ugly face.

Hmmm, yes, it does. Long live the 350z!

The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme

2009-06-14T14:59:00.000-07:00

The iTunes 5 Announcement From the Perspective of an Anthropomorphized Brushed Metal User Interface Theme

Disk Drop

2009-05-31T21:50:00.000-07:00

Disk Drop

Wild Wild Firefly?

2009-05-24T23:51:00.001-07:00

I just tried watching Firefly - what's up with the western theme??

Hmmm

2009-05-19T23:16:00.001-07:00

> I just realized Jeff Bridges aka The Dude, was in Tron. It will never be the same again.
>> XD
>> that reminds me: I need more Kahlua
> lol
> no no no no no no no no
>> what.
> yes

Add regular expression search to Firefox

2009-05-17T14:45:00.000-07:00

/Find Bar/ 1.0.1
A souped up findbar with regular expression capabilities

Language amusements

2009-05-16T22:48:00.000-07:00

I've been working on my language, Impulse, and can now finally evaluate somewhat amusing expressions:

Impulse

f = x -> (1..x) each: n -> puts: x + n
f eval: 5

Ruby

f = lambda { |x| (1..x).each { |n| puts n * n } }
f.call 5

The Ruby version isn't bad, but it's sure got lots of curlies and bars. Ultimately I want to support predicate blocks, which only evaluate if the predicate is true:

(1..10) map: n [n is-even?] -> n * n

Gprof2Dot: Convert profiling output to a dot graph

2009-05-15T14:53:00.000-07:00

Gprof2Dot

MinGW runs under Wine!

2009-05-13T19:03:00.000-07:00

No need for a Windows machine to compile Windows apps! :)

Shoes graphics toolkit

2009-05-12T17:33:00.000-07:00

Shoes is a tiny graphics toolkit, designed for beginners. But make no mistake: this is real programming. You can make real, colorful apps in Shoes.

Top 10 Most Memorable Movie Cars

2009-05-11T14:05:00.000-07:00

Top 10 Most Memorable Movie Cars

Windows to Ubuntu 9.04

2009-05-11T13:28:00.000-07:00

My Windows box is slowly dying, so I decided to try using my Linux box as my main machine. I copied over my Thunderbird and Firefox profiles and viola - my e-mail, feeds and newgroups are working! There were a couple hiccups, like Yahoo! News is "99b0bbe5", which I just have to rename.

Here are a few simple things I did to customize it to my liking:

System > Preferences > Appearance
Theme: Clearlooks

/usr/share/themes/Clearlooks/gtk-2.0/gtkrc
style "default" {
GtkScrollbar::slider-width = 18 # Make scrollbars a touch larger
GtkMenu::vertical-padding = 4 # Even out spacing for top and bottom menu items
}

/home/Mike/.inputrc
"\e[A": history-search-backward # simply begin typing and press up-arrow to search history
"\e[B": history-search-forward
set show-all-if-ambiguous on # Stop having to pres tab twice to see all command completions

If I can get Photoshop working in Wine, that would be the ultimate.

Why do people keep saying "emails"??

2009-04-29T13:41:00.000-07:00

Do you read your snail "mails"? I don't think so. Stop it! :)

Matt Aimonetti - narcissist?

2009-04-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

“GoGaRuCo attendees who were offended, I’m sorry for offending you, I didn’t have that intention at all”

He keeps saying he's apologized to everyone he's offended, but the above is not an apology, it's a twisted insult. Either he has no empathy, or he can't admit he's wrong.

On Engendering Strong Reactions