ricardo cabello* feed*

Some new Flash 10 Shaders for realtime effects... and maybe a Shader bug?

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 14:18:00 +0000

Another thing I can get rid from my to-do list. My introduction to the Pixel Bender/Flash10 Shaders world. Yesterday afternoon I decided to give it a try and see how all this worked

First thing was setting up FDT to compile Flash10 movies, something that ended up being quite easy thanks to this post. By the way, in case you're wondering... FDT on Ubuntu seems to be doing very well, no problems so far. Unfortunately I had to go to Windows in order to do the Pixel Bender part.

Dealing with Pixel Bender was kind of fun, although I was missing a timer (incremental) value, something to easily test my filter moving. Maybe there is something for it already but I just didn't find it on the few hours I played with it.

Once the filters were done I tried them with Flash10, and then that Tinic post popped into my mind and realised how slow it was (compared to the Pixel Bender). I'm sure the filters can be optimised but I just left them easier to understand so whoever feels like can start playing with the values. However, they are fast enough for 512x512 action or for fullscreen single frame distortion.

Ok, show time... Before you click in any of these things:

1) Flash Player 10 is needed.
2) There seem to be a bug on Flash 10 Shader code, on Pixel Bender the Shader looks fine, but it doesn't in Flash 10. I hope someone can spot if it's my code's fault or if it's actually a Flash 10 bug, I have no idea :S

EDIT: Tinic confirmed it was a flash player bug and seems to be fixes now. Looking forward to the next beta version available.

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

.pbk (Pixel Bender file)

If you're wondering how I managed to do that many effects in just a couple of hours, here it's a hint... iq.

All the .as, textures and compiled shaders are here.

What to do now? Well, I would suggest you to download Pixel Bender load any of those .pbk files, find the line where it says // This is where the magic happens and play with the formulas there and make your own ones.

Have fun! :)

Service Pack 3 Setup Error

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 18:16:00 +0000

There is not enough disk space on C:\WINDOWS\$NtServicePackUninstall$ to install Service Pack 3. Setup requires a minimum of 4 additional megabytes of free space or if you also want to archive the files for uninstallation, Setup requires 4 additional megabytes of free space. Free additional space on your hard disk and then try again.

That's funny, because I have 72 GB of free space. And lets forget the 30 times Windows Updater tried to install SP3 but magically stopped and disappeared.

It really makes me laugh, is like the first OS that is a comedian, I can wait to read the next joke :D

FDT does work in Linux

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:20:00 +0000

Seeing that FlexBuilder Alpha 4 still didn't have refactoring I had to search once again for solution with FDT on Linux. And well, seems that a solution for my problem has been out there for months!

I managed to register it without problems, but when I was creating a class I had this:

package com {nullimport flash.display.Sprite;/**null * @author Mr.doob */nullpublic class Main extends Sprite {nullpublic function Main(){null}}null}null

Maxim Zaks posted the solution here.

you can check this by going to Menu: "Window/Preferences/General/Workspace" and than in the "New text file line delimiter" Panel change from "Default" to "Other: Unix"

Big Pheeew!!!! Having to swap between FDT and FlexBuilder in some projects were driving me nuts... this really looks like the final "Bye bye Windows!".

Sorry for the delay...

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:02:00 +0000

Well, that was the first line in some emails I decided to answer today. There used to be a time I answered everything and helped everyone that asked for help, but seems like these days are over.

Well, not really, I still reply, only 6 months later ;) But... if I don't reply, please accept my apologies, blame to however invented time! :)

Hi-ReS! Stats

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:44:00 +0000

I've recently seen the class being used in the wild so I guess it was time to properly publish it.

Since the beginnings I've always had a FPS meter class, really basic, but had to be there. Then Carlos came along with one with a nice visualizer of the performance and then I saw Alternativa's one and I though that was the best approach. However, it had some issues, the speed of the graph seemed a bit pointless as the history was of 1 second or so.

So I improved my own one on the direction of the latest, but having a graph history of about 10/15 seconds, having a clearer picture of how your app/site is performing. Theo came along and helped with the graph visualisation too and then it went public.

Anyway... if you need a tiny and easy FPS/MS/MEM control panel, feel free to use it :)

http://code.google.com/p/mrdoob/wiki/stats

Bj�rk - Hidden Place (Knick & The Enemy remix)

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:05:00 +0000

Just listened on a mix. And I'm not finding it anywhere, tried on soulseek, emule and torrent sites. Also tried on google because seems like it was a mp3 released on the web for free.

If anyone has it, please, send it to me :)

Noisia vs Religion

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 14:38:00 +0000

So, so, so funny. It's missing the speech bubbles in the embedded video tho, watch the real thing.

Inspire08 demo log, day 117

Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:53:00 +0000

Status:
-89 days left until Inspire08
Back to production

While people that haven't released anything in years were trying to find the meaning of life and also were creating a rather depressing image for the newcomers to the site partly ruining our promotion job two weeks ago at Euskal, I was fighting once again with Java... er... and having a misery time playing at Mario Kart too (just for 1 hour tho).

I keep having problems with the audio player :(... glitching just at the beginning of the music and creating random delays. It doesn't happen all the time tho. I'll leave the glitch there for now, and concentrate on adding synchronize more stuff here and there (production). Which is what I'm doing, just after cleaning all the code. There were still some Timer.getTime() around...

Things are looking good, I just need to find a effect for the texts. But seems like finally I'm starting to get used to Java and I'm starting to optimise things. People may say that Java sucks and all that, well, based on my experience so far, it's great, it just needs more people working with it and sharing sources.

Inspire08 demo log, day 116

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 14:38:00 +0000

Status:
-88 days left until Inspire08
Released but unfinished

You may already know that the demo was released already two weeks ago at Euskal. Yes, this is how usually goes, you work for a demo for X party, you don't finish it in time and release it on Y party.

In the end it was actually a invitation for D///FEST 2008 as originally intended. Since the last post I didn't do much work on it to be honest, I did most of the part on the hotel while at Bilbao. I still wasn't able to forward/backward the tune so I still had the same problem of having to sync the something in the end of the demo and had to watch the whole demo. Some day... some day... But, tired of having to get the sync times by hand I added a Timer.getBeat() method. On init I sent the length of the beat (which is my tune is about 856ms) and then Timer.getBeat() will just give me back System.currentTimeMilliS() / beat_length. Once I found out the exact length of the beat the rest of the synchronization was much faster to produce. Instead of if (Timer.getTime() > 109568), now I had if (Timer.getBeat() > 128). Much easier to read for sure.

Then added the texts on top of everything, because, after all I had to talk about the event. Unfortunately I had to make the texts by myself too and that took some brain time. Which is something you don't have few hours before the deadline.

Last but not least, managed to do the greetings part/code in about 30min. All thanks to the Timer.getBeat() idea o/.

But this is not the end of the story. After releasing it some people were having problems playing it. I was finishing the demo at the party with WindowsXP at the party because Ubuntu doesn't work well in the macbook pro yet, and I added the fullscreen code in the very last minute, and seemed like on Ubuntu that wasn't working very well. So, some days after the release I updated the .zip which a new version that has a nice Resolution selector window before the demo, powered by java.awt.

No, there is still more. There were other people complaining about audio playback issues on Athlon64. Now, I don't know if this is related to the OGG player I was using or Java itself? Anyway I've switched to a MP3 player because it seems to have more options, easier getPosition and easier to implement the seek feature (backward/forward). I don't know if this will fix the Athlon64 thing in the end tho.

Related to this, I've also implemented a nice beat visualizer which lets me easily control if the visuals are losing synchronization. After some hours on it, seems like the problem was that I was initializing everything way too fast. I was starting the tune even before the video mode had change, that made the music stop for a couple of milliseconds, and everything got unsynced from there. So, that should be fixed now, everything seems to be working fine now, I should synchronize some more things on the visuals and I should be able to call it final version :D

Which is funny, I think I've never done a final version before, usually you don't want to do it after the party, but somehow, in this case I'm really enjoying it :? Anyway, that's all for now. Final version in a few days, and that will be the end of these series, oh, and yeah, I'll release all the sources so anyone can laugh, learn or fix the mess.

Oh yes, you have the current version (v1.1) here:
http://pouet.net/prod.php?which=51075

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Account Services. Part 2

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:46:00 +0000

Dear Ricky,

Have you read what I wrote on the "Additional Information" field? I don't know the birthday I submitted. Why can't Yahoo be like any other services and just send a new password or link to the associated email? If that's not possible I no longer have any reason to bother about Yahoo services anymore.

Answer.

Hello Ricardo,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Account Services.

We have reviewed the verification information that you have provided. However, we were unable to match the zip code that you provided with the information that was entered during registration or when this account was last updated. To protect the security and privacy of all accounts, we are unable to provide login or other account assistance without completely verifying the account.

Please resubmit your request, and remember to match the information as it was entered when you originally established your account, or when you most recently updated your information. We look forward to assisting you with this account once the appropriate verification information has been received.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Account Services.

Regards,

Keith

Yahoo! Account Services Customer Care

What have I learn from this? Try to avoid robot answers in your web-services, otherwise you may sound like a COMPLETELY RETARD. Specially when the robot need to answer user questions. I don't mind having to wait 1 week for a personal answer, better than being answered in 4 hours with stuff like this.

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Account Services.

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 09:53:00 +0000

What happens if you're one of those people that don't like to submit the right birth date to internet services and you forgot your password?

In 99% of the internet services out there that won't be a problem as long as you have access to the associated email address. But the clever guys at Yahoo! needed to be the 1%.

On the appropriated form I wrote this to them:

I can't use the "Forgot your Password" feature on the site because I don't remember birthdate/country/postcode. It's very possible that I didn't submitted the real ones. Would it be possible to just get sent the password or a new password to whichever email address is associated with the ****** account. I'm sure I got access to whichever email account it's.

And this is their answer:

Hello Ricardo,

Thank you for writing to Yahoo! Account Services.

I understand that you would like to reset the password of your Yahoo! account. I'll certainly help you with that.

We have reviewed the verification information that you have provided. However, we were unable to match the date of birth that you provided with the information that was entered during registration or when this account was last updated. To protect the security and privacy of all accounts, we are unable to provide login or other account assistance without completely verifying the account.

Please resubmit your request, and remember to match the information as it was entered when you originally established your account, or when you most recently updated your information. We look forward to assisting you with this account once the appropriate verification information has been received.

Thank you again for contacting Yahoo! Account Services.

Regards,

Ricky

Yahoo! Account Services Customer Care

Which makes me wonder if Ricky is a robot or they just don't know how to read yet. Otherwise, if internet stuff was unnecessary complex already (captchas and co.), they even needed to make it more complex, oh no.. I mean, more secure xD.

Definition of FAIL

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 12:54:00 +0000

If you don't get it... smile, you're not an addict :D

Ronny Pries live @ Alpha Box Jan'08

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 11:09:00 +0000

Part 1, Part 2

Pt.1
01 Jichael Mackson - The Grass Is Always Greener
02 Skoozbot - A Fistful Of Duckets
03 XDB - Descap Live
04 Tadeo - Reflection Nebula 056n
05 Dimi Ang�lis & Jeroen - Lunar
06 Mark Broom - Taken
07 rktic - Orbicle
08 Ben Klock - Similarity
09 Minilogue - Star Command
10 Echospace - Obmx (cv313 Reduction)
11 CV313 - Galaxy313
12 Wishmountain - Radio
13 Andy Stott - Hostile
14 Johannes Heil - 20.000 Leagues Under The Skin Pt. 12
15 Duoteque - Logo
16 Slam - Azure (Radio Slave Remix)
17 Kevin Saunderson - Bassline (Joris Voorn Mix #07)
18 Billy Dalessandro - Blackjack
19 Ronny Pries - Surpries
20 Stereo Jack - Different Aproach
21 Jackmate - Jackmoves
22 N�k�radiomies - Viritys
23 Stefan Tretau - Leere Welten
24 Christian Smith and John Selway - Silver Bullet
25 Marco Carola - Dancing Days

Pt.2
25 Marco Carola - Dancing Days
26 Savas & Remute - Lies (Luke Slater RMX)
27 Stereo Jack - Shortly Before
28 cv313 - Saraya
29 Tony Rohr & Dietrich Schoenemann - Repeat
30 Brian Aneurysm - The End Of Logic (Kai Randy Michel Remix)
31 Hiroshi Oki - Amaterasu
32 Hertz - Destined
33 Plan Tec - Espias Psiquicios (Jonas Kopp Remix)
34 Nicole - A Small Entrance to a large Spectrum
35 Tapwatr - Dirty Things
36 October Rust - Breitseite
37 Tony Rohr - Kaiserpower
38 Sutekh - Unstern
39 Cirez D - Tigerstyle
40 Losoul - Brain Of Glass (Alter Ego Remix)
41 Cari Lekebush - Freak the funk
42 Einmusik - Jittery Heritage
43 Swayzak - By the rub of Love
44 Alic - Icedive
45 Rok - Cycle sluts
46 Adam Beyer - Swedish Silver (Joey Beltram Remix)
47 Quenum - Secret Soul (Tractile Remix)
48 Jussi Pekka - Federal Escape
49 Nick Zero - Venus
50 Minilogue - Inca

source

WALL�E

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:55:00 +0000

So, I was really looking forward to watch this movie, saw very good reviews in all the media. So we went yesterday evening and well, I personally was a bit disappointed.

Having to watch all the silly bbc advertising for kids before the movie had to be a punishment for something I must have done wrong, not sure what, but it sure felt like. Which, it's not like we went at the 11am session, that was 8pm already. But you know, that was a movie for kids, so ADs for kids, that's how advanced the technology is on that field :)

After all the rubbish we finally saw the traditional before-the-movie short, this time Presto, which was nice, but too childish I think. I guess i was pretty influenced by being around a lot of kids laughing about things that weren't that funny, and the worst thing is that there were some adult laughing harder at those things.

And then, the movie, which I think had a very fast rhythm, and the actions were happening in a weird way. If you have seen Idiocracy, you're going to see basically the same story again, but I think Idiocracy was funnier and better story. Having Apple "jokes" was kind of annoying too. Well, 8.8/10 say in imdb. I don't think I'll watch the movie again so, 5/10 for me.

I hope The Dark Night is really as good as they say, otherwise I'll stop listening ;D

Oh, before I forget, on the credits they have a pixelated animation which also felt very cheap, not cute at all, I guess I've been playing too much to Cave Story ;)

Where do we get the time from?

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 15:19:00 +0000

Found an interesting video ob Bit-101 blog. As I also get that question many times. Well... as Keith said, here's the answer :)