Went to Texas for my sister’s graduation. Robert Rodriguez was the speaker, which was cool. Now, he and my sister are fellow graduates of the RTF program.

Saw a movie at a DLP movie theatre. I mostly go to a local second-run theatre, so haven’t seen anything digital in a while. I’m not sure what they’ve changed, but seems like they’ve reached the quality level where to replace film for distribution.

The DVD’s arrived. They’re sitting in a box. I’m out of mailers so I’m waiting on a new batch, if you’re wondering where your copy is.

10:08 am

I have released Seven Dead Men under a creative commons license. I’ll be shipping DVD versions in a week or two. If you already have a copy, you’re most likely on the list to get another. If you’re not sure if you’re on the list, just ask.

2:02 am

Played around with the CUDA gpu-accelerated versions of distributed.net and Folding@home. RC5 runs on a core2 at ~7Mkeys/sec (* 2 cpus). A nVidia 260 hits 430Mkeys/sec, roughly thirty times faster. If only a) it could be used with my work applications and b) not periodically crash the computer.

5:03 pm

Edited a documentary-ish thing together for Carla, my neighbor, about last year’s Art Inside the Park.

9:09 pm

I know I shouldn’t get excited over every little bump, but dang.

In other news, been writing. Good for the practice if nothing else.

12:54 pm

Found some red footage on the internet, got it working with Final Cut. The workflow seems to work okay, roughly the same as the HVX with some additional wrapper files. Limited to 2k, but presumably that will come as well in the future.

Which is the real question. Apple has been pretty quiet on the pro app front the past couple of years. The updates that have come out have been bug fixes and codec tweaks for the most part. My hope is that they have been secretly rewriting everything over to 64 bit cocoa and the release is targeted for Snow Leopard. My fear is that video will never match the revenue of iPods/Phones and so the plan is simply to slap another coat of paint on and ship a new version. The first option would be my hope for the new year, but I’ve been wrong many times before.

If so, then perhaps the time has come to part with my faithful little PPC Powerbook. Getting old and behind the curve. It’s not the only one, unfortunately.

11:33 am

Been putting off upgrading to mysql 5 for a long time. Was convinced I’d found a bug in the code where it wouldn’t modify the database under certain circumstances. Finally sat down and went through things to discover some idiot had been sending the updates to the wrong database. Once I went through and corrected his terrible mistake, everything became hunky dory.

Onwards to the next project: putting off upgrading to mysql 6.

1:46 pm

Been doing a little writing on a new script. Decided a while back to reconsider the rantings of all those crazy teachers who wanted me to spend more time in the outline stage. As a result, managed to get to that fifty page “the end is nearer than it is far” point with only a few weeks of writing. It would appear they might have known what they were talking about.

But if anybody asks, I will deny everything. I have a reputation to uphold.

10:08 pm

Used Adobe Encore (DSP doesn’t support it) to create a blu-ray version of the project and then burned it to a dual layer dvd-r disk. Went over to Best Buy, popped it into their display machine, and it worked first try. When that happens I usually assume fate is toying with me, but I’ll take it.

Amongst the other things that happened today, this is very interesting.

9:42 pm

The D word. Rhymes with gub. Saying it might jinx it, though. Gonna take a day or two off and see if there’s anything else I wanna muck with.

In the meantime, started on the subtitles. Subtitles suck.

4:31 pm