Author: harold

Patchwork

Post author By harold
Post date September 23, 2010

Releasing some music always feels like being naked while presenting some architecture project to a group of people.

The workflow in my mind looks like this:

“Good…Mmh ok so there’s a conflict of sound at this moment, what should I do, lower this synthesizer volume or cut through frequencies with the EQ or lower the cycle of that operator? Let’s try and then apply the master compressor to see if it works… Almost… Now if I just get enough of reverb feedback at this moment, that should add to the consistency in the background… Right, so that grooves but because the HPF adds a lot of overhead on this track, I’m going to lower it at the same time… Nice curve, be smooth, less than -4 dB.. OK! Now rewind and PLAY”

Repeat. And that is just the mixing stage, but the point is that I really feel building something, creating it with plans, expectations, failures, progress and some sort of deadline… Daniel Cook did an amazing blog post about visualizing the creative process and it fascinates me how well it defines design, could it be music or a game or even your own way of skateboarding. The creative process is the same. It’s probably the same for a lot of people. Even you.

Anyhoo, here’s the last track:

Patchwork by Harold

I wish it was used in some demoscene stuff… Enough, let’s play some bass.

Me Myself&I

The software rules it all

Post author By harold
Post date September 22, 2010

Or the complicated relationship between software and hardware and how the software is always the most important thing.

The best example of the complexity would be the HTC case. HTC makes phones. They’re so fast at iterating their models that they jumped into the software wagon after witnessing the iPhone’s kick in the mobile butt. HTC started its work on user interface in 2008 with TouchFLO 3D which became HTC Sense, both for Windows Mobile and Android. Really neat integration with social media and stuff that wasn’t available anywhere else in these ancient times, last summer.

iOS/HTC Sense/WP7. I’m totally bored with icons now, so WP7 is really appealing to me UI/UX wise.

These user interfaces (software) really had a huge role on selling phones (hardware). Today, manufacturers all try or do that: customizing the phone’s OS they’re selling. Which is the reason they all embrace Android and are not big fans of Windows Phone 7 which doesn’t allow customization like Windows Mobile 6.5 did. And yeah, they embrace Android now because the next version, Android 3, will not allow that skinning and rebranding shit.

The biggest bad point of this customization craze is that carriers and manufacturers abuse it and basically lock phones on features. Thankfully it’s mostly a US thing. In Europe, laws are behind consumers on that matter and phones can not be locked to carriers, it’s anti-competitive practice. Carriers already fuck us up quite well, thanks.

The second bad point is that having a customized phone software makes you unable to update easily and you all know how much it’s important these days. HTC finally released the update of HTC Sense for Android 2.1, except that Android is now at 2.2 and Google just released a new Gmail app that only works on 2.2… See? What was supposed to be a seemingless experience, is not. And HTC is trying the same with Windows Phone 7: adding a layer of user interface because it used to sell phones.

Manufacturers and carriers, face it: users don’t need your interfaces and widgets anymore because the main OSes of the market are today well mature and are looking good, thanks. Moreover, developers NEED a homogeneous market so that they can focus on the quality of their products and by making special OSes or blocking features, you’re not helping that.

True, the closer the relationship is between the hardware and the software, the better it is for everyone. The problem is that if it works, people will always forget about the hardware: I don’t have a HTC Hero, I have an Android phone. That really sucks for hardware people. How can they differentiate themselves? Yep, software customization and bigger marketing (SamsungGalaxyyy) that’s about all.

Hardware people want to shine like Apple. The problem is Apple works because it’s small, the Apple way cannot work with dozens of hardware makers and multiple OS providers.

Can’t wait to see the output of HP’s Palm critically acclaimed webOS.

Seriously, the tablet market is going to be such a mess especially for developers. That’s not good news, more time spent to try to make an app work everywhere… Like usual right, but I thought we were learning from our mistakes somehow.

This is where a hardware-wise open platform with a widespread OS like the couple x86/Windows, serving everybody quite well from the developer to the user, is pretty remarkable. Because looking at the mobile market and the overall trend in technology from a business standpoint, this kind of balance sounds like a dream.

Audio&Games

The “video game console”, this lousy heritage

Post author By harold
Post date September 18, 2010

I read a lot of comments about Apple’s policies and how they don’t differ from consoles manufacturers policies and how we should be ok with them because we didn’t say anything since the NES.

Well, I believe that:

Apple’s devices are not game focused devices. They’re now claiming that it always has been the case, you know, Apple’s classic rewriting of events. Their devices are mobile computers where any software can be made and sold, even stupid ones like fart apps. The software ecosystem is wild and large like the desktop computer market. Developers always have been free to do whatever they want in an environment like that (windows/linux/osx/symbian you name it). It generates innovation. So these policies are a big step back (same with Windows Phone 7).
Consoles are more about 25 years old and they had two advantages over computers: the gamepad and the living room. For some reason gamepads only became common on computers around 2000 and they are still tied to consoles. Computers are more and more in the living room but it’s still early. So Nintendo Sega Sony Microsoft console dictatorship over developers has been ok since 85-86.

Why do we comply nowadays even with Apple who should not do that? Besides having a game specifically thought for an input you can’t find anywhere else (Wiimote, touchscreen), which is the case for a minority of games, it’s only for lousy reasons. Gamedev peeps grew up with dreams of making their own game on the obviously awesome next Nintendo console or next Sony station or because they started on their beloved old ass Apple II, they’re doing iPhone stuff. It’s a fanboy thing. It’s mostly a non-business made decision, sadly.

Never have been a fan of them…Lefty thing?

But with the explosion of budgets game developers increasingly didn’t really like to work with Nintendo/Microsoft/Sony. Dealing with expensive dev kits, verifications, approvals, delays and people having absolute power over the work of a team is unproductive. Who wants to spend thousands of dollars on hardware to develop a game for a console, with a smiling manufacturer pushing your game release for the last month of the quarter or not pushing it enough in the store because it would cannibalize their product? Months, years of hard work to witness that kind of shit? Thanks but no thanks.

Even worse, today if you are a third-party developer and want to make money –at least in the classic AAA business- you have to do it multi-platform which is basically, like making a game for computers, with different configurations… Add the dictatorship hassle. To be successful on a console today is an impossible task (look at how publishers just bleed money like crazy despite using huge marketing campaign for their games). It’s ridiculous.

Now in 2010, if you’re thinking without emotions from your childhood, the platform of choice is the classic Personal Computer, like it or not. Because you have 250 millions of these sold each year. Multi-core and hundreds of stream processors, gigs of RAM and more and more similar inter-connection and architecture (laptop to TV connection as easy as a console). Digital distribution. Link sharing and its virality via emails and boards. Because game developers can use whatever the fuck they want to build a game, can use any topic and let their minds explore ideas without fearing that it’s going to be rejected by some stupid and arbitrary organization or committee. Mind you, that’s critical to make a good game or at least, get a good start at it.

So there.

Me Myself&I

Innerview

Post author By harold
Post date September 16, 2010

I absolutely cannot imagine what it’s like to not choose your parents like 99.99999% of you. I cannot feel what it’s like to be linked to someone by the mighty Randomness of this Universe, to look like him.This feeling doesn’t exist for me.

I’m born through one of the most tragic freedom in this world, which is abandon your child forever. I am the result of a highly improbable fate that would have been impossible to achieve without people believing and people trusting each other, even if they are fundamentally different and wouldn’t share anything if I wasn’t here. I was in the middle of an amazing flow of respect and will to do good between opposites. Nothing too religious, just people making moral contracts that yeah, they’re going to make this work (guys, thanks again).

This made me very sensitive to randomness in life. I don’t like it. It reminds me of the start of my life. But this is how all of you started. You started by being randomly attached to two people by blood while I started by being attached with my consent to five people by moral contracts and paperwork.That’s quite different.

I can’t stop thinking that the way people are born allows societies to allow inconsistent behaviors and say it’s ok. Because I always feel more annoyed by these than anyone so far.

My whole life started badly but quickly went really consistent, like maybe too much. But it made me what I am now and I could have been a much worse person at so many stages…

The most inconsistent thing for me is how you people behave. And I have a hard time to know how to handle it, what to say knowing that my perspective comes from being born in a total chaos followed by an extreme consistency, comes through social barriers inexistent to me but ruling your world… It’s like I understand you very well while I don’t understand you at all at the same time, alternatively.

That makes me socially awkward, silent. Dreamy. Alone.

Exactly. Picture by Cris Dobbins

Music

BREAKING: Music is not relevant with friends

Post author By harold
Post date September 8, 2010
3 Comments on BREAKING: Music is not relevant with friends

So Ping is bad. Shocker!

I’m taking an example with Sean. Sean is a friend and when he’s writing stuff on his blog about philosophy of life or feelings about behaviors, I pretty much agree 100% every time to what he says. Because reading about core values like how you see Life or how to take advantage of it, I feel respectful and ready to help or do whatever it is with someone I respect like Sean.

We’re connected through multiple social networks.

We both love music so much that we’ve been deeply involved in it, him from running an indie rock label to designing covers, me creating all my music by myself and self-publishing it since 10 years. We don’t listen to the same music at all. AT ALL.

Our musical tastes are irrelevant in the connected world and I find that amazing looking at how close I feel from his brain you know? And it happens with a lot of friends.

Music doesn’t say anything about who you are now. It says something about what you’ve been through, which is something secondary in friendship and social networks. What you needed as a soundtrack for your Life says quite a lot because in relation on where you were and when, it shows in what spirit you were and music is almost the only thing that can track your mood and feelings. But even if you shared it or that you’re sharing the current one with someone doesn’t mean you value the same things, buy the same stuff etc. Companies can’t use that to market anything, barely some music.

If a friend is recommending some music in a genre I’m not familiar with, I will trust him more than any algorithm or other automatic process. And the more people like music, the less they need recommendation from a software, they have friends and are actively and precisely searching by themselves.

I think it’s really misleading because music is a very personal thing so exposing it should make us able to find some people “like us” where companies could invest on that. But relationship is more than just sharing a spirit/mood for a moment. I believe we all go through the entire palette in our lives, at different moment and with different bands and sounds, but it’s the same: love, rebellion, independence, hedonism, experiment… It’s just something human, we all share that.

So filtering people through this huge common denominator that is music is saying pretty much nothing about people, even if you do it well (last.fm). So if like Ping you’re also doing it wrong… Just die, merci.

Me Myself&I

Pending

Me by Verdell at the Hollywood Bowl

September, Earth Wind & Fire

It’s was the final after three weekends full of music, mostly RnB and Funk. Thanks Los Angeles.

Also, Machete.

MACHETE IS KIND OF LIKE @DRUNKHULK

The story of an illegal immigrant. I am myself now fluent with all that ICE, DHS, illegal alien status stuff.

It ain’t pretty.

Audio&Games

Game design style

Post author By harold
Post date August 26, 2010

Keirsey Temperament	Bartle Type	GNS Theory	Problem-Solving Style	Game example
Artisan	Killer	Experientialist	Power	GTA
Guardian	Achiever	Gamist	Persistence	Pokemon
Rational	Explorer	Simulationist	Perception	Half-life
Idealist	Socializer	Narrativist	Persuasion	WoW

From Bartle’s blog

I added the game example column.

It started with this Gamasutra article about Limbo being a case of bad game design, article I totally agree with.

But Bart Stewart in the comments sums up something important: other than this gaming failing at being fair to the player, it’s really hard to make everybody happy in front of a game. There are types of temperament and unlike non-interactive forms of entertainment, we do play following them.

If you look at the Guardian type in games, it’s the most common –in both gamers and game developer’s heart- type. I hate that kind of game. I loved the Megaman concept but hated this stupid shit that is making it the hardest and the most unfair possible for the player. Like the article says, it feels for me that I’m losing my time and that developers are just crazy: it is not enjoyable (or if enjoying is just a matter of pure luck or pure madness, then I don’t like it because it’s a total rip-off of Life). There’s so many games I could have loved if they weren’t based on this arbitrary game design… That’s why the Mario series recently had strong changes regarding this issue (making it less and less arbitrary, helping the player etc).

Something I noticed with this chart: in problem-solving style, only Perception is not a Brute force technique. Actually, it seems that it’s the only smart problem-solving solution. Of course in games we have a mix of all of these, like in life we change our temperament too, but the main point is no, we don’t change not a lot, not that much…

The Perception problem solving style should be much more promoted in game design. For example FPS games are inherently made to be explorative but companies inject the Power problem-solving style and we end up with loads of killing simulator. Why?

In terms of responsibility for game designers, I’d rather push on the Rational temperament because if games are primary learning tools, well, the Rational temperament trains your perception and teaches you something that you can use in real life: getting better at recognizing patterns, at aggregating data and processing it. On the contrary, favoring the Achiever role, teaching the never ending greed for more, in a world where we’re running out of resources is not a good thing. That’s something we have to think about too. Not so much to show our support for a better world and how concerned we are about the Earth, but because being synchronized with society problems is a good thing to sell stuff. BP knows it (“Look! We’re totally green!”) even if they lie. We need to use this power too (not the lying part, mind you).

Also Perception calls for subtlety. Perception is the fascinating angle that can speak differently to people, without compromising the core design. That’s how Mario/Portal/Braid/Deus Ex/Peggle do, pretty well: you can find it hard or easy, it’s all about your perception and you exploring the game mechanics. The game respects and lets you achieve what you want. I think successful physics-based puzzle games like Angry Birds show how people freaking LOVE that, being challenged, getting smarter, being in control. That’s a rush of good feelings for sure.

And you know, that’s how art touches people, with different angle from the same piece of work.

Me Myself&I

From minimalism to laziness

Post author By harold
Post date August 18, 2010

Pretty much all I (own) need is here. Even the hat.

I’m digging Sean Bonner’s thoughts about things, how they end up to own us, what you really need to be happy etc

I always have been tempted to reduce things. I got this philosophy by starting my home studio in the 2000s. I hadn’t the resources to buy a Fender Rhodes, and a Juno and a Moog or these really expensive bass pedals that you use once in a while.

I always tried to reduce the amount of stuff because I want to be mind-free (fighting the addictiveness of the buying reflex) and not having to deal with a lot of inconveniences of owning things like:

-Room

All that shit takes room, a lot of it.

-Dusting

Dusting is obligatory and I hate it so hard. The less I have things, the easier it is.

-Maintenance

Things can break. Can have to be fixed. Things can be fucking annoying (expensive).

Having less space, more work to do around things I own is not making me happy, it’s making me tired and confused.

So the only things I really want to own are the things I need everyday and other than my music tools reduced to less than a dozen of piece and some funky pants shirts and hats, well I don’t care that much.

I guess I got that from my parents. I grew up watching them invest their money in their business, always. No “little pleasure” like owning a brand new car. My dad has always been using his company’s car as his main vehicle. They always made me aware of inconveniences of ownership. The only thing worth owning for them was a great house to rebuilt and customize. I kind of think the same.

I grew up with libraries in every town with shitload of music movies books to borrow, copy, encode. I quickly learned that access was the important thing. Once you’re in, you’re in. And you can come back anytime you want. Why dusting these things?

Of course I always felt in conflict with the overall feeling that you have to own things and mostly cool things, to shine in social circles. But it wouldn’t matter. If you have access to culture you still can talk about it. You don’t have to own a Picasso to discuss his style do you?

So I’m already at a low level of ownership. What I care more is to live in places feeling good to live in. Moving around or staying at one place is not important –it depends-, but the places you are going to be for some time need to be great!

I wish we would spend more time to make spaces where we live better places. Like how L.A. buildings should all have their rooftops available for residents or how AC should be carefully designed and integrated to reduce noise pollution to the max. Of course moar bikes everywhere. Stuff like that.

Because I don’t want to try to get the best place. I want all of them to be great, like I want to have access to all the culture.

I don’t want to spend time searching for these basics. I’m lazy.

Me Myself&I

This weekend

Post author By harold
Post date August 17, 2010

Hasn’t been too productive. Celebrating Verdell’s birthday in Palm Springs was an experience I’ll never forget. My first time in the desert, mid august, reaching some sweet 46°C. My butt look like I did the Tour de France in two days.

Prototype brainstorm. The gameplay is solidifying, the technical feasibility is more a problem. But maybe I want to do too much at the same time, if I lower the features it’s much more doable. Maybe I should do two little games instead of an ambitious one. That could do. But that’d be better in one. I have to try both I guess and make two first version.. More work. *sigh*

I found its name too and that is important to me. A related, snappy, good sounding name.

*Dave Chappelle voice* THATSRIGHT.

Me Myself&I

Chew on that internet

Does having children make you unhappy? What if you change the word children with love?

Also, monogamy seems to be unnatural for our sexy species. What is interesting is this: “But when people began living in settled agricultural communities, social reality shifted deeply and irrevocably.” Why property has to transform us so much, often in a bad way, even on deep levels like sexuality?

Can I have some tool that makes it easy to convert databases, a sort of Swiss knife so I can convert mysql to csv to xml to mssql to vdb3 to whatever?

???

I know. WHYYYY???