...are over here.

Bullet points, since I'm not sure I can write in a proper manner at this time:

• My presentation went pretty well. Did have a problem when my Arduino-powered MIDI sequencer failed to work right, but otherwise everything worked. It even got covered on Hack A Day. I'll get slides online soon. And of course, this nice little Arduino hack gets published today. Though that could come in handy later...
  
• I have been properly chastised into getting proper soldering gear. Now to make that happen.
• At least a few people used the Twitter hashtag aggregator I set up at atea.us. I think I'll switch it for Penguicon use next week.
  
• Jam Session: Much more cohesive than last year. 0% Green Day, though some Collective Soul popped in for a minute (guitarists...). Neat things included a pickup-fitted violin, this cool use of an XBox 360 Guitar Hero controller (brought by the developer), and the return of krue's avrsyn. And bleakenigma didn't come to rock the vocoder, even though he specifically requested it.  He was probably busy, y'know, running the Con or something. Once I make some edits it'll probably get aired.
  
• Sessions (I unfortunately ended up missing a TON of sessions)
  
• Jeri Ellsworth: I missed half of it due to teardown from my presentation and finally checking into my room, but what I saw was really cool. It was also a lot of material I got in the Computer Design Lab class I took way back when (we did VHDL->FPGA stuff).
  
• Virt: Lots of good info on FM. Makes me miss my DX27 a bit. I should SonicBirth up a little 2-operator FM synth to play with.
• Pete Edwards and Fred Owsley: Lots of good information. I ended up working with them on their hands-on workshop (in part since I had tools and they didn't). Fred's breadboard-expanded TR-707 is made of awesome. I think I'm going to have to take another crack at the Buddhist Digital Jukebox.
• The semi-impromptu 4k sound presentation by BarZoule  was pretty cool as well.
• Blockparty
• Ok, my photo entry was kind of lame. I had this idea of doing something with HDR, but haven't had the time to even try doing it. Instead, I trawled my iPhoto library at 3:30am and found something that at least looked "nice".
• Streaming Audio: EPIC FAIL (but not on my part - it basically got lost in the shuffle of getting submissions sorted since partymeister had issues getting up and running) - If nothing else, the debacle has given me a foolhardy idea for Wildcard next year.
  
• Hirez: I did it for the lulz. And they were indeed epic. "Snow" was added in Gimp at 3:30am. Actually, all my entries were finished up at 3:30am.
  
• Oldschool Audio: complete standings aren't out yet that I can find, so I don't know where I'm at in it. Just not 1st-3rd.
  
• Needed more rickrolls. Had a special secret one ready to go, but partymeister's failure to run made a surreptitious upload more complicated. infowidget (who had the idea to begin with) and I decided to skip it. Keep a close watch on NEOelectro. Maybe you'll find it ;-)
  
• And I still believe a demo should be in the demo category regardless of platform(ok, Windows, OS X, and Linux), but that's just my opinion.
• Whoever un-bent the bent "That was easy" button in the NOC by tearing off the potentiometer kind of sucks.
  
• Yum Cherry Guarana Bawls. Yuck Cocaine Energy Drink. Like carbonated Pixy Stix, but worse.

Spöntz Realtime Visuals - runs on OS X and generates intermediate to be run by a cross-platform engine (so I won't have to pressure party organizers into supporting OS X). Looks like there's a bit of a learning curve, but I've got a good year to figure it out.

I wish I'd known about this, oh, at least two weeks ago, though then I probably wouldn't have had time to study for the ham exam...

Next year though...

1. The Jam Session went, um, interestingly. It started with a lot of fairly unstructured noise, and eventually devolved into the worst cover band in the world. However, "Summer of '69" is significantly improved with vocoded vocals. I think the session going to be re-thought (or perhaps split in two) next year. I'd rather see something along the lines of an Analogue Heaven event - more of a show and tell type activity, and maybe a separate session for the rock types.

2. My Blockparty submission (in the Freestyle Music category) came in not last place. w00t!

3. I managed to figure out GoatTracker (a tracker for making SID chiptunes) well enough to make a primitive song about four hours after the deadline for submissions. The best tutorial I found for it was strangely from an older revision of its Wikipedia entry. Maybe next year ;-)

4. N8JKD /AG baby! I passed my General Class exam! Not bad for starting to study on Monday... I took the Extra Class exam too, but failed it by a bit (I got 28/50, and needed 38 - not bad for taking that with no study whatsoever - it's hella hard). Hopefully it won't be another 20 years before I get around to it again!

That's all I've got for now. Maybe more later when I've actually gotten some real sleep.

So, I'm getting gear assembled for the Notacon Jam Session, and decide to test out the vocoder (an Alesis Metavox, if you must know). I plug in the AC adapter, hook everything up, and no juice. To rule out the Metavox itself, I plug the adapter into my MMT8, which takes the same PS. No juice. Double-check the outlet. It's fine. The power supply is dead. Check the PS output with a VOM. Zero VAC. Start hunting around the house for another 9VAC adaptor. No luck and it's getting late (7:30 or so).

Run over to that place I hate to go to - if the event weren't tomorrow, I'd have eBay'd one or something. Pick up an "Answering Machine Adapter" (it's a 120VAC-9/10/12/13.2VAC unit). Was not hassled about cell phone service, but was asked if I needed batteries. Bah.

Run home. The connector doesn't fit, and this little beauty, unlike the rest of their adapters, DOESN'T USE ADAPTAPLUGS! Devise a cunning plan:

1. Chop ends off both adapters.
2. Solder connector of Alesis adapter onto RS adapter
3. Feel lucky that tip/sleeve orientation doesn't matter in this case since this is AC (and relatively low-voltage AC at that)

Implement cunning plan. Try out hacked adapter on MMT8, since its accidental destruction wouldn't affect me nearly as much. Works! Yay!

Still swear at Alesis for using AC-AC adapters unlike, oh, NEARLY EVERYONE ELSE.

Now I just need to keep people from abusing it too much tomorrow...

Current Mood: aggravated