Jan. 28, 2011
Google as a game console giant

How Google could become a game console heavyweight to rival the likes of Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony:

  • Supply USB gamepad drivers for Android OS (this code is actually already in the GNU/Linux kernel underneath Android OS).
  • Put joystick hooks into the Android Java API and market this fact to developers.
  • Encourage TV retailers to sell branded USB gamepads as add-ons with their Android based set-top boxes and TVs.

Atari by Great Beyond - tonyjcase on flickr

Developers could then put joystick support in their games, and people could play said games on their TVs through their Android OS set-top boxes. USB Gamepads are a stable, cheap, and robust technology which everyone understands.

This may result in a new indie console gaming golden age, with all of the wonderful new indie games of recent years running in peoples' lounge rooms on their TVs just like in the 80s. Admit it, wouldn't you love to sit cross legged together under the TV and return to the days of Sonic the Hedgehog, Mario Bros., Alex Kidd, Commander Keen, and friends? Only newer, and cheaper, and open, and network multiplayer. Oh boy, that is a vision I find irresistable!

A guy can dream, right?

Jan. 26, 2011
Pselodux - Walk Like An Equation

In 2004 my friend Rob gave me a CD containing his latest work, a chiptune style album he had just written called Walk Like An Equation. I stuck it on my mp3 player and it stayed there all summer. It was the summer of quitting my dreary office job to go freelance, returning to computer studies, riding my BMX around the city in the sun, drinking beer, and listening to this album. It is still one of my favorite albums of all time, and he has now uploaded it for everyone to enjoy on Bandcamp. It's absolutely killer, so go download it now!

Jan. 16, 2011
Drawing is the new writing

I have started a new blog here which is basically just images straight from my phone. I figured out the fastest way to get things from my eyeballs straight onto the internet. It goes like this:

  • Take photos with phone.
  • Email photos from phone to an address on my server, which forwards:
  • To a gmail address, where it goes to Google Buzz.
  • To a special Wordpress email address which posts the pictures to the blog.
  • The Wordpress thing also posts the pictures on Twitter and Facebook.

What I love about this was I didn't have to write any code to make it happen, but it still uses open source components and my own server. It's also ridiculously convenient which is very important when you have a newborn. I don't have to rely on some horrible corporation (they are just some of the end-points where the stuff arrives). I am a pretty huge fan of things which involve writing less code.

If you like images, feel free to subscribe to the RSS feed. I promise it won't all be photos of my wonderful daughter. :)

Now I am going to post some drawings I scribbled.

PS Here is another cool internet thing someone did for selling stuff on the internet without writing any code. It came from Warren Ellis' blog.

PPS another thing is what I am reading and sharing on Google Reader, which is here.

Dec. 17, 2010
Seriously Sound System Interviews

Here are a couple of interviews I did in preparation for playing squeakyshoecore at the Seriously Sound System festival at Hyde Park, Western Australia, this Saturday the 18th of December, 2010 at 12:40pm.

This is an mp3 of the radio interview I did with Peter Barr for local radio station RTRFM

This is a magazine interview I did for Drum Media Perth; sorry it is a graphic. here is the Flash applet source of this excerpt.

Enjoy!

More links:

Dec. 9, 2010
squeakyshoecore: New tunes, interview, live set

Hello! I've uploaded two new tunes to the squeakyshoecore album of algorithmic acid. They are called ring singularity and prolate spheroid. Get yr rave on here. Incidentally, you might like to type the names of the squeakyshoecore songs into the search bar of Wikipedia. They are all named after fascinating science and mathematics topics.

upside down squeakyshoecore shoe

On the 18th of December, I will also be playing a live gig in Hyde Park, Perth. I will be using the GarageAcidLab algorithms that I use to make squeakyshoecore here in Perth, Western Australia as part of the Seriously Sound System music festival organised by the local radio station, RTRFM. I am on just after midday at 12.40 in the afternoon. It should be a lot of fun!

Leading up to that I will be interviewed on that radio station at 8am local time this Friday the 10th of December. If you are not awake for it (like me), or you don't live in Western Australia, you can listen to the podcast, which I'll post here afterwards if I can figure out where it is.

Kampai!