Archive for January, 2004

And on the Seventh Day, He Bitchslapped them: A Manifesto in Rant Form

January 30th, 2004 by peterb

Scalzi identifies an initiative of the Georgia Department of Education to eliminate the word “evolution” from the curriculum as being stupid. And he’s right. He has a bit to say about Creationists, and describes them as “willfully ignorant” rather than stupid. I think I disagree with that distinction: if you’re a Creationist, you are stupid. If you know a Creationist, they are stupid. There is no shame in looking at a drooling idiot moronic pus-filled sack of barely firing synaptic connections and calling them “stupid.”

Even if they are wearing an Armani suit and know how to lobby Congress.
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Posted in Culture | 3 Comments »

Icarus of Pittsburgh and other short films

January 28th, 2004 by peterb

While trying to figure out what the hell, exactly, the lyrics to Aimee Mann’s superb song Red Vines mean, a friend pointed me to the wonderful animated video (Quicktime). The video was done by artist Evan Mather. I was interested in his work and enjoyed it. His animation workflow involves Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro. I especially liked his short film Icarus of Pittsburgh, but perhaps that’s just location-based snobbery.

As is typical in these matters, I’m the last person in the world to know about Mather’s work.

Posted in Final Cut Pro | Comments Off

O Cousin! My Cousin!

January 27th, 2004 by peterb

While hanging out on CMU Zephyr tonight discussing election results, someone painfully pointed a link to the very strange Cousin Couples web site, which is where you go if, apparently, you’re screwing your cousin and want to find a group of idiots who’ll say “You go, girl!” While looking, we quickly discovered the Poetry Forum where people could write awful poems about how humpable their cousins are. This gave me some bad ideas, and of course it was just a few minutes before it all spun out of control. Normally we’d have preserved these in the topbot, but the formatting issues made it ugly. So I present to you, without further ado: Zephyr’s Best Cousin’-Lovin’ poems!

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Posted in Web | 26 Comments »

Startup Envy

January 26th, 2004 by peterb

I’ve been compulsively reading every single article on Andy Hertzfeld’s Folklore page dedicated to the early days of building the Macintosh. I discovered this through a link at Daring Fireball. I can’t stop reading. Part of me is filled with an overwhelming sense of envy; I was only 13 years old when they started building that machine but that was what I wanted to do.
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Posted in Computers | 4 Comments »

When Emulation Goes Bad

January 21st, 2004 by peterb

…because you can never have too many parodies of Mortal Kombat.

Posted in Games | Comments Off

"Editing Offline" in Final Cut Pro 4

January 20th, 2004 by peterb

One of the most misunderstood features in Final Cut Pro — other than all of them — is “offline” mode. This is probably because the word “offline” is overloaded in the program’s GUI. The most common usage is simply that the media is offline, but you can still edit the project.

However, there is another, more useful definition of “offline” in FCP4, sometimes referred to as “Offline RT”: editing in a resolution lower than that which you eventually intend to deliver. It’s not obvious how to do this, or even that it’s possible at all, without a little investigative work. But once you figure it out, it opens up the possibility of a much quicker workflow.
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Posted in Final Cut Pro | 3 Comments »

Wizardry 8

January 18th, 2004 by peterb

Wizardry 8 is a game that succeeds in spite of itself. I’ve been nibbling at this little clunker of a game for over a year now (which seems like a common occurrence — people keep coming back to it) and recently have become engrossed in it once again. It has many, many flaws, yet behind those flaws is an entertaining CRPG that is fun to toy with. Interestingly, it has one of the most dedicated fan communities of recent CRPGs, with pages upon pages of material devoted to how to get the most out of playing and replaying the game.
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Posted in Games | 1 Comment »

Starting in Earnest

January 17th, 2004 by peterb

Now that I actually have my official copy of Final Cut Pro, and its voluminous, ox-stunning manuals, I want to learn how to use the tool better than I have. I find myself wanting to jot down notes all over the place on things I should try, or things that work great (or don’t). I’m setting up this blog as a repository for those notes.
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