Brent's Ironic Blog

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2

2011-07-25T02:50:00.000-07:00

As most of you are more than probably aware, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 (HR2) is quite certainly the greatest piece of piano music ever written. Unfortunately, as you are also likely aware, this statement is extremely difficult to prove due to its inherently subjective nature.*

As some of you are also possibly aware, I have not updated my blog in about a billion years.**

And here we are. We seem to have arrived at the crossroads of two quite serious*** problems, with only one obvious solution: I should create the best possible arrangement of HR2 and post it on my blog!

Turns out I can't actually play the whole thing, so I went a different route. I have listened to literally**** thousands of midi transcriptions of HR2, and figuratively***** dozens of YouTube and other recordings of HR2, and they all suck for any number of reasons including audio quality (for audio recordings) and interpretation (for midis). Except one. This one. This is my own arrangement of HR2 assembled from a broad scope of midis (two in total) from across the internet.

In order to seem pretentious I have split this recording of Au Comte Ladislas Teleky, Rhapsodie Hongroise No.2, into two sections: 1) intro/Lassan and 2) Friska.

To somewhat counteract that pretention I have also posted the complete recording as well. To completely counteract that pretention I shall mention: Donald and Daffy played it (Kleinmichel or Acme arrangement?) as a duet in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" (Albeit to a lack of critical acclaim for their interpretation, possibly due to the unfortunate and unnecessary use of a cannon, which Liszt did not originally include.) Also, Tom & Jerry had a nuanced interpretation as well.

Note: This recording still has a number of very minor mistakes in it, but who doesn't? If you would like a perfectly clean recording at a higher bit rate please send a self-addressed stamped-envelope (SASE) and a blank DVD-R to my address care of "Liszt Roolz."
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* It is important as a culture that we not take these things too terribly seriously. Life is after all quite short.
** Hyperbole. Read about it at your local library.
*** Yet unimportant
**** Figuratively
***** Literally

My Augmented Reality: Project AR2

2010-06-03T00:02:00.000-07:00

As most of you are very probably aware, I am extremely excited about Augmented Reality (AR). In fact, I have been so excited about AR that I came full circle to not caring about it at all for the last 3 years.

Then, last weekend at the Lego store [flickr.com], when a crowd of enthused onlookers were enjoying the augmented reality "Digital Boxes" on the shelves, I realized that I simply could not ignore AR any more. If the mall has this technology, so too then shall I.

So I put together Project AR2 and am hosting it on my research site for all to enjoy. Pictured above, my two boys playing around with the Project AR2 UI, which (in a nutshell) projects a digital R2D2* onto a marker in video captured by your average run-of-the-mill webcam. (In this case, my bargain basement ColorMangle DistortionCam 5000.)

The Project AR2 Augmented Reality Marker:
(Note: This is not narcissistic, just amazingly good branding.)

PDF | DOCX | PNG

If you want to try it you will need to print out the marker and (for best results) stick it to a piece of cardboard. (It works best if the marker is flat.) Then mosey over to the Project AR2 Webpage and let it access your webcam when it asks for permission. Lighting makes all the difference. Webcams generally don't have the best image quality, so your mileage may vary.

Oh, and speaking of old technology that I have been ignoring; here is the QR code and the Microsoft Tag for this blog post:

_________________
* Until George Lucas sues me.

Meat Buster: A Mashup of Perfect Storm Proportion

2010-05-06T19:37:00.000-07:00

As most of you are more than certainly aware, I like web mashups. They are always practical, and never a waste of time.

For some time now I have searched the Internet for what I consider to be the "perfect storm" of mashups: a combination of 1) Google, 2) Facebook, 3) Bubble Breaker and, of course, 4) Meat. It would appear that this particular breed of mashup is indeed a niche market, for I have been unsuccessful in my quest thus far. Truly, the dearth of availability has been disheartening to say the least.

Until now! I have implemented and present to you now the only known mashup* of Google, Facebook, Bubble Breaker and Meat: Meat Buster: The Embedded Public Wave Gadget Of The Game

What you are looking at is a beef-themed version of Bubble Breaker, running as a Google Wave gadget inside an embedded public Wave, with separate Facebook "like" buttons on the gadget and the container page. And quite frankly, what's not to "like?" <---Clever.

The Embedded Google Wave of the game**:
http://www.compuglobalhypermeganet.biz/MeatBuster/wave.html

The Wave Gadget URL:
http://www.compuglobalhypermeganet.biz/MeatBuster/mb.xml

The stand-alone version of the game:
http://www.compuglobalhypermeganet.biz/MeatBuster/
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* I actually didn't look very hard. If Google and Bing can't find one, what chance do I have?

** Unfortunately embedded waves do not work properly on IE yet. Please try Chrome or Firefox if you are currently running IE, or use the stand-alone version, or don't bother; it's just Bubble Breaker with beef.

My War on Literacy Continues

2010-04-19T23:56:00.000-07:00

As most of you are more than certainly aware, I work tirelessly and (without a doubt) singularly focused on eliminating the threat of literacy, both pro and con. My recent submission to Urban Dictionary, "disreproachable" (which many of you have noted from my splash page, is arguably not a word) has been accepted, and is actually a word:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=disreproachable

Thank Jebus for Democracy. Without the concept of democracy, any number of randomly authoritative d@@chebags* could have poo-pooed my submission and sh^tbagged it****, like the d@@chebags* they are.

Anyhooz, I think you get the point.
_____________
Footnotes:
* I don't allow profanity on my blog, so I replace them with funny characters like "@."**
** Except for "choad" and/or "chode" (alternate spellings)***
*** Which I do not think are profane, since I've heard and seen both on primetime TV; the last bastion of decency in the US.
**** I don't actually know if "^" is a good alternate for "I" but here we are. You know what it's good for? Laughy eyes like this: ^.^ *****
***** I should submit "laughy eyes" to Urban Dictionary. Problem: people have to know how to spell "laugh" to find it. Ugh. Stupid language.

"Disreproachable" is a word

2010-04-16T02:01:00.000-07:00

Based on an almost ridiculous outpouring of support from a number of blogs, it turns out that "disreproachable" actually IS a word, and I don't have to edit my splash page graphics after all. Whew. Maybe I can spend the THIS weekend with my kids, instead of slaving over this blog like I normally do.

Here's a typical example of people crying out for recognition of the word "disreproachable:"

http://stillcrazyafteralltheseyears-xim.blogspot.com/2010/03/sentence-disconstruction-mind-ya.html

So I sent the following definition to Urban Dictionary. Let's hope they see the wisdom of my post.

disreproachable

Listen up, "disreproachable" is absolutely a word. I am not saying you hear it every day; in fact there is a significant, not-insubstantial chance you won't even hear it in your lifetime. You should get out more.

It's very much like "irreproachable" and its root word "reproach" but in no way similar, other than the obvious similarities.

Obviously similar uses:
"Her grooming was beyond reproach; it was _irreproachable_."
v.
"His groomering was _dispreproachable_; although without question I burned the couch cushion he sat on when he left."

Less similar:
"You know how 'irreproachable' is a word? That's awesome, but I don't think 'disreproachable' is cool like that. Only a choad would say that."
v.
"You know what word I like? 'Disreproachable.' That's an awesome word. I don't think a chode would use that word."

So, they are not completely interchangeable, but you definitely get the picture. Also, New Moon sucked. Where I come from the vampires actually suck blood. Come on.

My First Annual Bi-Weekly Tweet Roundup*

2010-02-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

My first annual posting of this bi-weekly* period's most exciting tweets by me, sorted in reverse-most-exciting (RME®) order:

The tweet of the link to this blog post:
Long: http://twitter.com/dilbrent/statuses/9415171215
Short: http://dilbrent.com/r/Tweet-Roundup-Tweet

Self-recursive tweet of the announcement of my URL shortening service:
Long: http://twitter.com/dilbrent/statuses/9223294945
Short: http://dilbrent.com/r/3

Tweet regarding my "favoriting" of the tweet about my blog update:
Long: http://twitter.com/dilbrent/statuses/9175354849
Short: http://dilbrent.com/r/Blog-Update-Tweet-Favoriting

Tweet announcing my blog update:
Long: http://twitter.com/dilbrent/statuses/9175138393
Short: http://dilbrent.com/r/Blog-Update-Tweet

* Some of you may have noticed a dichotomy regarding the words "annual" and "bi-weekly," possibly due to the fact that they mean incompatible things, like "up" and "down," or "solid parenting" and "Britney Spears."

Before you question whether I proofread my posts prior to posting (hint: I do not) I should explain that I expect to completely forget to do this again for at least a year. Which, let's be honest, is likely how long it will take for me to accumulate enough tweets of the amazing caliber demonstrated above to merit another tweet roundup.

On an unrelated note, look for a very exciting Google Buzz roundup in the near future. Rumor has it that it may reference some of the Tweets from this post.

URL Shortening and your personal security and you

2010-02-16T23:06:00.000-08:00

As most of you who follow security chatter are aware, URL shortening services like bit.ly and tinyurl.com are somewhat frowned upon by the security community:
http://dilbrent.com/r/2 [wikipedia.org]

I won't bore you with the tedious details. I'll let the wikipedia article do that.

What's unusual is that despite the general public's universally near-instantaneous adherence to the advice of the security community, URL shorteners are actually gaining in popularity.

To thwart this growing threat I have written my own URL shortener that not only supports a tiny subset of the functionality of the "big name" shortening services, but still provides basically the same fundamental security flaws.

The difference is that, since I wrote it myself, if it suffers from link rot or torrential virus distribution, or is simply not even responding to basic requests, you can rest assured that these issues are safely being managed by me, rather than some faceless conglomerate that cares more about the bottom line than providing a sub-par service.

My tweet announcing my new URL shortener:
http://dilbrent.com/r/3 [twitter.com]

A link-back to this blog post:
http://dilbrent.com/r/unlike-the-big-name-services-the-dilbrent-url-shortening-service-supports-arbitrarily-long-link-urls/ [blogspot.com]

Notice in my previous example that the shortened URL can be as long as you like. Try getting that from bit.ly. I suspect that they will just laugh at you if you ask.

Anyway, to take advantage of this quantum leap forward in URL shortening, simply send me the URL you wish to shorten and the URL extension you would like, and I will let you know when it's up. Please allow 3-5 days for a response.

I have tweeted about updating my blog!

2010-02-15T23:57:00.000-08:00

Thanks predominantly to the overwhelmingly positive response to my previous blog post, (thank-you Eric S) I became so emboldened as to decide to tweet about it, via the popular social messaging medium "Twitter."

Here's the tweet:
http://twitter.com/dilbrent/statuses/9175138393

And the meta-tweet (please forgive my vanity):
http://twitter.com/dilbrent/statuses/9175354849

Some of you may be thinking, "hey, it kinda seems like Brent's blog is mostly about Brent writing stuff in his blog, and any actual substance feels, well, somewhat stark or even nonexistent."

My reply: I love your in-your-face honesty, and the way you use colloquialisms like "kinda" and, quite frankly, your overuse of commas in quotations. I've heard your feedback, and I've internalized it. Look for more of this quality post in the future.

I have updated my blog!

2010-02-15T01:10:00.000-08:00

Don't let the exclamation mark in the title fool you, this is not simply some sort of punctuation-based hype. I have truly made a change to this blog.

First of all, the splash page has changed completely:
http://www.brenttucker.com/

Second, I made this announcement (that you are reading right now) regarding the fact that the splash page has changed.

In other news, for those of you following my attempt to own the word "irony" the news is quite good. As of this date a Google search for my name (Brent) and the word "ironic" (ironic) now returns the top link to this blog.

The original story is here:
http://dilbrent.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-ironically-circular-irony.html

The Google search is here:
http://www.google.com/search?q=brent+ironic&num=1

Space Invaders - The Google Wave Gadget

2009-11-03T21:30:00.000-08:00

So, because I don’t waste nearly enough time doing unprofitable-but-obsessive nerd stuff, and (thankfully) because my Mafia Wars OCD has finally run its course, I have written a Google Wave Gadget.

Not just any gadget, mind you, but in fact a Space Invaders Gadget (patent pending) that you can drop directly into any Google Wave, share with your many Wave friends, and compete for high scores.

That’s correct. I have somehow managed to tap the incredibly lucrative market that is the intersection of the billions of Google Wave users and those who can’t get enough mini Space Invaders implementations embedded (for some reason) in a communications medium.

You can get the installer or the gadget here:

http://www.compuglobalhypermeganet.biz/si/

Screen shots:

My Ironically Circular Irony

2009-03-26T17:27:00.000-07:00

Earlier today I did a Google search on the words “Brent” and “ironic” with the assumption that my blog would be the first link, only to discover that my blog is the third link, with the first two being to archives of my blog at iterasi.net:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&q=brent%20ironic

Archive of the Google search:

Perma-link to the archive of the Google search:
tiny: http://sqrl.it/?68afq
long: http://www.iterasi.net/openviewer.aspx?sqrlitid=mv6p13mfpkackhlo0hpanq

“So where’s the irony?” you may be asking. Well,
1) I work at iterasi, and I manage the iterasi.net website. We developed the technology that allows the archive to get a higher ranking than my original blog.
2) We periodically get take-down requests (which we always honor) from people who are displeased that our content is ranked higher than theirs (which I am), despite being a dated archive with attribution back to them.

I wondered how circular the references would get before Google would reprioritize my blog above the archive of my blog. So, I embedded two links to iterasi archives of the Google search and a link to the original Google search into this blog entry; like pointing a couple of mirrors at each other, creating an infinite recursion of references. Let's watch.

Extra references just for fun:

My personal website, that redirects to this blog:
http://www.brenttucker.com/

An archive of this blog entry:

tiny: http://sqrl.it/?f5axk
long: http://www.iterasi.net/openviewer.aspx?sqrlitid=7xemrmucok2cehqw1fkahg

PDF file of the post in case something falls apart somewhere:
http://www.brenttucker.com/MyIronicallyCircularIrony.pdf
archive: http://sqrl.it/?l19p9

My First 3D Self-Portrait

2009-02-11T00:55:00.000-08:00

This is my first successful attempt at a 3D image of me. To see the 3D effect you need the promotional glasses popularized by Super Bowl XLIII (2/1/2009). If you threw yours away before watching a special 3D episode of “Chuck” then you made the right choice, but you won’t be able see any 3D in my picture. I watched that episode of “Chuck” with the glasses on. It was terrible. 3D did not help it at all.

If you are wondering where I am in this picture, I am standing in front of my wife’s 15 linear feet of hanger space in our closet. And that’s only half of it. Not pictured here: my 3 feet of space lodged in a corner behind the dresser. I have to move luggage to get to my suits, but I’m cool with it.

The significantly larger original is here:

http://www.brenttucker.com/Face3dLarge.jpg

Proofreading and sanity checks are overrated

2009-01-16T10:59:00.000-08:00

Verizon FiOS, which I use as my ISP at home, has been a bit of a mixed bag for me. The speed is amazing, but reliability has been on the sketchy side. Verizon also did about $500 damage to my garage while installing the hardware, which they refuse to reimburse me for unless I give them my social security number since I apparently functioned as the “primary contractor” when I had it repaired. But that’s a different story.

Today my home network is completely offline; a problem Verizon acknowledges is on their side, and promise to repair by 6pm tonight. While awaiting the completion of the repairs I received an amusing email at work that I think sums up Verizon’s ability to identify with their customers, the first half of which is pictured here.

To sum up: The next time I can’t connect to the internet I should consult their website, which conveniently has a web page that will help me diagnose my problem, which I can’t access while not being on the internet.

East v. West. Two XKCDs in a row; I know. I'm lazy.

2008-11-13T00:52:00.000-08:00

I instantly identified with this, although it took me a few minutes to realize why. (Easy answer follows the images)

Perma link: http://sqrl.it/?petvc
Original: http://xkcd.com/503/

Perma widget:

Why? "The East" and "The West" were named before anyone knew of the various continents in the actual Western hemisphere. Thanks Europe. That's just great.

The Observable Universe, From Top to Bottom

2008-09-29T19:56:00.000-07:00

I found this comic amusing and impressive:
http://sqrl.it/?vfug4

For some reason I have a Facebook profile

2008-08-16T17:43:00.000-07:00

Too many people were bugging me to get on Facebook, so I did. Yes, I got peer pressured. I am both strong and weak enough to admit that.

What ev. Here are various ways to get to it:
http://profile.to/dilbrent/
http://profile.to/brenttucker/
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1384374689

As long as I am selling out to the social grapharati, here is my LinkedIn public profile:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/brenttucker

And my pathetically unpopulated MySpace page:
http://www.myspace.com/dilbrent

FATS Chorus, plus wtf happened to Haim and Feldman? Remember them?

2008-08-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

As most of you know, I write a lot of choral music; so much, in fact, that I have been awarded the fictional National Institute for the Preservation of Choral Music’s most prestigious award: the “Chory” which, previously, has inexplicably been held by such notables as Cory Haim and Corey Feldman, neither of whom ever show up at the annual reunion.

Anyway, that’s obviously not true. (Haim and Feldman come every year.) However, I did actually write a single piece of music arranged for chorus several years ago which I recently rediscovered on an old backup DVD, and is actually (in my massively un-humble opinion or “IMMUO”) quite listenable.

Here’s the catch: I’m not saying what the lyrics are, but if you understand them you will know that they are NSFW, or NS4W (or “Not Safe for Work” for those far less hip than I), but only if you work at the prudest prude shop on prude alley during prudefest, and are feeling a little prude when you play it.

It’s called “The FATS Chorus” and the first person to tell me why I named it that gets an expired coupon for $5 off an appetizer at participating Chili’s restaurants. (Offer not valid in Alaska and Hawaii, and for some reason Idaho.)

Archive.org link:
http://www.archive.org/details/FatsChorus
MP3 file:
http://www.archive.org/download/FatsChorus/FATSChorus.mp3

Deus ex Machina: A Human Excised

2008-08-01T00:27:00.000-07:00

As most of you almost certainly don’t know, I like to arrange music for fun and profit. Mostly fun. Profit would be better. Anyway, the attached audio is from a piano duet I put together about three years ago and just recently rediscovered the midi file for which after I thought I had accidentally deleted it in the great hard drive crash of aught-five. (Kids: save early and often.)

Some interesting notes about this piece (hehe, get it?): I didn’t play a single note of it. At the time I originally made this I was trying to create a song using nothing but my midi sequencer and various utilities designed for improvisation, accompaniment and basically just being lazy about the simple parts. The title is a reference to the fact that it is mostly computer generated, although I did have to put considerable time into post-processing, and I created the chord progression because it turns out that machines suck at that.

As a bonus I have also included the sheet music as a PDF file. If you have any interest in actually performing this with a friend, let me know and I will split the score into two separate pieces of sheet music; one for each piano. (Note to self: figure out how to do that.)

The audio file from Archive.org:
http://www.archive.org/details/DeusExMachina

The sheet music:
http://www.archive.org/download/DeusExMachina/DeusExMachinaByDilbrentgmail.com.pdf

Life imitating art, or vice-versa?

2008-07-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

I am a big Wikipedia fan and an occasional contributor. It’s an amazing resource, but certainly subject to abuse. One of the more trivial but amusing abuses is the frequent overuse of the “In Popular Culture” sections for users to expound upon completely tangential topics, usually because they are a fan of some show, movie, music, etc. Today’s XKCD comic (7/7/08) mocks this by satirizing the pop-culture references of “wood.” I laughed when I read it.

What is truly hilarious about this, however, is that someone reproduced the joke in the actual “wood” article, essentially verbatim. Of course it was marked as vandalism and posts were temporarily disabled, but it lead to a highly ironic and amusing discussion in the Talk:Wood section about what exactly the point of the joke was supposed to be.

XKCD Comic: http://xkcd.com/446/

Wood article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood

Talk:Wood: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wood (you have to scroll down)

This just makes me laugh

2008-04-10T01:20:00.000-07:00

Let's be clear: Sometimes I post stuff here so I won't forget where I found it so when I talk about it at lunch I am not like "uh, well, it was on this site I saw, uh, you know, with the rabbits, or something." When I post these things here I can say it's on "Brent's Ironic Blog" which is at, uh, well, I don't actually remember the URL right now, but if you just go to...

http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/040908/the-eating-spectrum.gif

This is not what I want

2008-02-28T00:01:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to check compatibility with the new Server 2008 install. That's not an option apparently, but I can almost certainly upgrade my current operating system to, um, well, also my current operating system.

Now I am just pandering

2008-02-22T00:01:00.000-08:00

My dog had two surgeries today, so maybe this is funnier to me than it actually should be, but I like how the context clues and the incredibly specific diagnosis play off each other...

Ironic self-referential post #1

2008-02-19T00:26:00.000-08:00

It occurred to me that to maintain credibility as an ironic blogger I must, at some point, post something ironic. Then I looked up the word "ironic" which, it turns out, is more complex than you might have thought.

So let's go with pseudo-self-referential instead.

(http://www.marriedtothesea.com/mtts-archives/mttsarchive-nov07.php)

xkcd: Alice is the real problem

2008-02-13T00:35:00.000-08:00

xkcd is hilarious, but it may not be for everyone. If you read a lot of crypto-related material, which seem to recycle the user names quite a bit by design (Alice, Bob, etc., actually there appear to be only four. :)) then this comic will hit home. Poor Eve, it really isn't her fault:

Bonus: http://www.xkcd.com/202/

Frist Psot

2008-02-08T23:46:00.000-08:00

By now you have almost certainly heard the old axiom that (paraphrasing in improperly used quotes) “if you want to hide a needle you don’t hide it in a haystack, you hide it in a box of needles.”

That’s what the entire blog-o-sphere is. A gigantic box of needles; and the needle I need to find is trapped, buried in the box somewhere, completely overshadowed by the other needles. Every time I search for something I find about 500 blog posts about it, and swirling in the sucking eddy of crap through which I must dive is the one gem of information that solves my problem.

Newsflash to 99.9% of the bloggers in the world: No one cares what you think. Do you care what I think? No. You do not. Neither do I care what you think. And yet here we are writing a bunch of stuff, plugging the tubes of the Internets, sadly assuming that someone wants to read what we have to say.

But here I sit, responding to the siren call of just one more fad.

This blog will rarely be updated, and when it is it will almost certainly be some semi-coherent rant about something fad-like or stupid that I want to get off my chest. You can safely ignore it, and if you do not please note that you were warned.

Your friend,
-Brent