a looking-glass book

further sketches

im not sure what kurt and i have about drawing on napkins, but we had a good talk right before thanksgiving about uis. this was right on the heels of a good talk with todd as well.

both of these conversations, along with my own thoughts have led me to several interesting new ideas.

all i have been thinking about the last 48 hours is how to architect them; how to make them flow.

i need to sit down at a white board for 30 minutes real soon to capture it all.

in the meantime, ill ask to the air: is there a(n easy) way to dynamically create an element (either an option in a select box or a div of content) on a page, called from a child iframe?

i think the answer to this must be no, but id like to avoid the reload if possible. cause that will be ugly. but for now, it might not be worth worrying about.

video searching by the big 3

news article outlining how google, msn and yahoo are all working on making video searchable over the web.

well, ill let these guys work this one out for me. ill just keep on making the content for them to search on.

though it does open up another issue - if google is using the closed captioning for the searchable topics, it creates all kinds of hassle for the little guys, like me. what? now i have to not only transcribe my videos but i have to add them in as a close captioned track somehow?

dilemma

(yes, im working on thanksgiving.)

is it better to store all info in the format of seconds? this means that the backend will all be in the same format, but will require some math every time i want to spit it out. (or just once and stored in a variable.)

or...i store in a more human readable format for things (which is the way i have been doing it) but it means that i have to do do conversions the other way to be able to compare timecode.

i guess in the end it doesnt really matter - i have to convert one way to the other regardless. and i suppose since i already have most of the timecode stuff in a human readable format, there isnt any reason to shift it from that. (although, in the db, times would be stored then as largeints, as opposed to 'time'. but i dont think that truly matters either.)

i suppose i could dig around to see if i could find an argument, but im just not caring right now.

i just wanted to reason through it.

also, the page i am writing is getting annoying. i (fear i) am going to have to split it up, though im not sure how yet.

the architecture depends greatly on the functionality. and since that isnt completely defined yet, i imagine itll mean one of two things: 1. lots o rewrites or 2. lots of little pieces that i can plug and replug. (which i think comes down to lots o iframes. oi.)

happy thanksgiving.

movie sync

a little messy perhaps, but ive synced up the thumbnails with the quicktime movie.

here.

the movie is large (50meg), so it might take a few minutes to download. but then you hop back and forth, using some quicktime embed commands and an iframe. (on top of the other javascript and server-side stuff.)

to get the file down, i had to recompress it a bunch and drop sound from it. but then 50 meg for 20 minutes isnt awful i suppose, at least for demo purposes.

this will probably be the last demo i post this semester, since im converting everything over to php/apache/mysql now and the server isnt ready for posting.

'important moments'/timecode patch for max (v1)

i swear, you get rusty with max and it takes some refreshing. but here i have version 1 of my 'important moments' patcher.

right now, it only recognizes a single button press. in the future, i plan to have it allowing for several different types of button presses, to account for different types of moments. its also hardwired for the spacebar and to write to a text file on my desktop. youll have to modify the patch if you want it to do something different.

the max patch

so how is this all wired up?

well, i take the patch and make it an application. i take the powertrip and plug it in. i use the pref pane it comes with to make the global setting single click to send a space bar command.

this means every time i press the thing, a space bar command is sent. i make sure the max app has focus and im off and running.

when i finish my marking/filming, i am left with a text file of timecodes from the time the patch was open. this time should correlate (give or take a second or 2) with the quicktime movie i just filmed.

add the timecode into the database for the movie and bam! moments marked and synced up.

database tables

will, im half-looking in your direction on this one.
ive gotten mysql, php and apache installed on my laptop now.
(i have not yet begun to port my asp code to php though, for the moment that has to wait.)

i have, however, begun to design the tables i am going to need. right now, ive got 3.

major (movies):

-id
-date
-day of the week
-start time (of movie, 24 hour clock)
-length (of movie)
-interval between still frames
-height of movie
-width of movie
-framerate of movie
-root folder for movie and images (different folder for each movie)
-name of the movie file

minor (moments):

-id
-timestamp of moment
-alt tag/notation
-majorid (to connect back to the main table)

comments:

-id
-user email
-user ip
-date
-timestamp of comment
-comment
-majorid (to connect back to the main table)

can anyone think of any other data/metadata that i might want to capture? i think that covers most of it and i think i can extract the rest with some fairly simple math with a lot of the timestamping stuff.

but i'm sure there is something there i have overlooked (anything?) that might be useful to capture.

this isnt set in stone, but i would like to deal with it effeciently.

witnessing

i was on melrose briefly this afternoon. as i walked out of the store where i was picking up a few things, i saw a police car across the street. it had been there when i walked in, 15 minutes earlier. but now, walking out, i noticed the officers were behind their doors, guns drawn and pointed at another car.

people were standing on the sidewalk, on both sides watching. i stopped and decided to gawk as well.

and nothing happened. for about 10 minutes, it was a standoff. i was mildly nervous standing just across the street - if guns started firing, surely i was in a prime position to be hit.

and yet, i didnt move.

after about 10 minutes, another car pulled up. blocking the traffic, he hopped out, covered the officers and began unloading the car. 1 after another, teenage girls piled out - 4 in all. there was no driver by the time i got there (or else the driver had moved to the backseat).

then another car pulled up, right after the last person got out. the driver pulled out a shotgun and cocked it. i thought the car was empty, so this was an interesting turn of events.

they evenually moved in on the car, cleared it and the trunk. (the trunk was a bit nerve-racking, watching them tap and move slowly. i was wondering what would happen if there was a bomb in it. but there wasnt.)

all the girls in handcuffs and being loaded in, i left.

so why post the story here?

well, it was very patholog-y - i would love to know the story behind all this. its not often you get to witness something like this, even in la. so id like to hear the rest of the story.

and then, id like to share what i saw. ive had some dicussions with kurt about the narrative end of my thesis. he thinks i need scripts. i disagree.

and this sort of cinched it for me - not every moment is going to be precious. but without recording all the time, you wont have the stuff like this. and the ability to pick what is important to you (the viewer) is significant. to decide you want to watch me eat dinner vs witness a police showdown - well, thats just personal preference.

it also proves (to me) that you do need several ways to mark moments. i knew this before, but there is a difference between a moment and a scene. between something that has happened and something that will.

just worth noting how the everyday (and not so everyday) changes when you have the data.

quicktime timecode filenames

growl.

as smart as quicktime might be, it seems as if there is no easy way to dump an image sequence from a movie with the filenames containing the timecode.

ive looked at max/jitter, processing, qt itself, applescripts, software programs....

and nothing.

since im dumping at a continious rate, i can get that info back fairly easily. but having it dumped automagically into the filenames (or even a text doc) would be so much easier.

anyone have any clever ideas?

slight mockup

fleshing out the whiteboard from yesterday, this is a clearer basic picture.

yes, it resembles a lot of other programs (video editing). but it is missing a lot of other pieces - comments, queue, etc. but i wanted to get this down. its important to note that you have 3 distinct areas - the 'timeline' at the bottom, the 'preview/mouseover' on the left and the 'movie screen/ video playback' on the right.

gah. screens arent made fo so much concurrent visual data.

scotland yard

as a python coded network game.

this is truly one of the sweetest board games ever, a classic game of hide and seek on a 2d plane.

this i must play, so who is in for a game sometime soon from the comfort of your own connection?

notes

ok, so. the whiteboards notes dont translate so well with a still frame from an isight, but i didnt want to lose the drawings. let me transcribe the notes:

[ images need to be named by timecode because there is no other way to sync them back to the video otherwise. ]

[ click an image, get the filename and pass it as a querystring to iframe movie screen. movie screen reads querystring and starts movie from that point. ]

[ if people can tag/comment their favorite frames, thumbnails should reflect these choices. ]

[ queue system for browsing? takes the chapter idea a bit further...which is both good and bad. it allows for scanning while watching, without worrying that you are missing, but finding the 'end point' of a chapter, presenting it in such a...way might be too...structured. or something. ]

[ look at different movie sizes and formats for a fun experiment. ]

finally, a very basic demo of the 'starttime' flag. just threw this up to test with, figured i might as well share the link. its not exciting, simply taking a qt movie and starting it 2 minutes in instead of at the beginning.

quicktime dev links

posting them here so i dont lose them.

qt dev reference

qt embed tag reference

what is sweet here is that the embed tag allows 4 nice things:
1. 'starttime'
2. 'endtime'

these are timecodes to set the pay times within a larger file. no chapter creation for me - all i have to do is output the timecode of the stills and then link with that start time to the actual qt file.

3. 'qtnext'

which lets you specify the next movie to be shown after the one playing. apparently you can link up to 256 movies in a row.

this is cool for several reasons: if i split files up for playback, itll let you hop from one 'chapter' to the next without any fancy wrangling.
also, if we do start talking some kind of composite reel or queue system for watching the best bits, it can be done pretty dynamically. i think. maybe.

4. 'enablejavascript'

which says it lets you control a movie through javascript. could be very very useful and i need to find some more info on this.

(kurt and i have been talking about my project a lot. time-code based comments is a no brainer. but then it could be pretty trivial to get the 'greatest hits' based on comments/views and link those chapters together. [the trick there maybe is to figure out a way to branch - to stay with the clip and see more or to branch to the next interesting bit.] 'greatest hits' could be a number of things - most commented, important moments, most viewed...im all about skipping around, as long as it remains easy to get to the original material. i dont want to end up with a system where the data is less accessible once you apply these types of filters.)

iam teaser trailer

Download file (quicktime, 3.5 meg, 2 minutes)

another mention

just got an email from rudy rucker.
it seems he mentioned me in an interview for the italian version of 'vanity fair'. i am not clear right now which issue/if it is being published. but really cool.

this is what he sent (emphasis mine):

For: Italian edition of Vanity Fair magazine.

Q 161. Uploading our mind, are we able to reach a sort of immortality?

A 161. Uploading your mind into any kind of more permanent form would be a kind of immortality. The big questions about this is how much of my mind can I actually upload. Sights, memories, feelings, thoughts, personality, soul...?
The memories are like a data base, while the feelings and personality is more like the operating system. But I don't think the operating system is very complicated. So I think that, if we could upload enough memories and (big if) we could build a "human conscoiusness operating system," then the upload would be a good model of your mind.
The feelings and personality are quite closely related to the physical connections and biochemistry of the brain. You might think you'd almost need to make a model of the actual brain. But my guess is that in fact there are only a few basic kinds of personality types, akin to the phlegmatic, sanguine, bilious,and choleric categories of the Middle Ages. So then, you just add a person’s memories to, say, a standard choleric operating system, and they’re back. A lot of what we view as our "self" really just has to do with the brain observing a model of itself observing itself. And this can be emulated.

Q 162. Do you think it will be possible? In this case, when?

A 162. To a limited degree its already possible to upload your ideas to society’s information network --- this is what we do in creating books or paintings. In the next ten years it will be possible for even non-artistic people to record fairly exhaustive memoirs about themselves by using a little device that I call a lifebox. The lifebox is like a cell phone that asks you lots of questions.

Q 163. Which are the most interesting experiments in this field?

A 163. This is a time-relative answer.
As of Fall, 2004. Microsoft has conducted an experiment called MyLifeBits
http://research.microsoft.com/barc/mediapresence/MyLifeBits.aspx
in which a researcher named Gordon Bell has digitally stored all of the paper memoirs accumulated during his life.
The cell phone company Nokia is preparing to market a system called Lifeblog http://www.nokia.com/nokia/0,1522,,00.html?orig=/lifeblog
in which a person can link and record all of their daily activities by using a cell phone. This is quite similar to what I call a lifebox.
A student named Tripp Millican at USC is writing a thesis about an interface for a filmed life blog. http://interactive.usc.edu/members/tripp/

Q 164. If our mind could be uploaded, what could happen? We could store it forever (but, why?) or transplant it into another body. Or what?

A 164. I like that you ask “why?” Why indeed! There’s enough people anyway!
But, still, most people would enjoy being able to talk to some kind of simulacrum of their ancestors. This would be a useful thing for ones sense of personal identity and continuity.
And, yes, the ultimate dream is that someone might provide your stored mind with a fresh robot body to use. You’d be back in action then.
I think this can happen. I would suggest, however, that machines are going to vanish and that biotechnology will take over, as in my novel Frek and the Elixir . So you would be copying your stored mind not onto a brittle robot, but onto a tank-grown clone of your (or perhaps of someone else's) body. This could happen in about a hundred years. It'll be like getting new clothes. Fashion magazines can market new-body styles.

Q 165. Maybe, could we learn a lot of things just downloading files like a computer?

A 165. I think you’re suggesting that it might be nice to reverse the flow and simply download files directly into the brain without having to laboriously read them. Like the old dream of learning something by putting the book under your pillow. Or by playing a recording of the book while you sleep.
Once we understand the biochemical basis of memory it could be possible to implant memories. The bad thing is that some powerful person might become a disease that other people catch. Like, a Republican sneezes on me, and I start thinking I'm George Bush?!?

ui v3

in my newest attempt to stay at the top of the blogroll, i give you version 3 of my ui, the version i have been thinking about for the past couple of weeks.

link

i think this one has some advantages to previous versions - you mouse horizontally now, not diagonally. pictures are not blocked by other pictures. the big thumbnails are a minute apart, the small slices are 20 seconds of time. you cant make them out, but by mousing over the stream, you can get a nice timelapse thing.

next up is to see if i can figure out how to jump to a point in a quicktime movie with a link/querystring/somehow.

thanks to aaron for hitting me up on im and offering feedback. always appreciated.

zemekis on cbs

the zemekis piece for 'polar express' that i sat around for aired this morning. i got up in the middle of the night and turned on the vcr (see, ancient technology is still good for something). i went to bed.

i got a call at 7am from janeann and one at 10am from my mom. wandered out, watched the piece.

its a shame - they only used 2 pieces of footage. the first is describing 'the next spielberg'. this is sad cause zemekis was talking about it in regards to new media and digital stuff. cbs cut that bit out.

the second is better, because it is me. they didnt make me look stupid (thanks cbs) but instead made me look like one of his graduate students he advises. but there i am with an isight on my head and rocking my fantastic four shirt. go nerdiness!

im not complaining too much - it did get me on national tv, if only for 10 seconds of so. you at least hear part of our dialogue as he wanders away from me.

Download file (quicktime, 1.3 meg, 37 seconds)

i love bees wrapup

through waxy to news.com:
article

covers basics of the game but also reveals the company that has run both i love bees and the beast.

i was surprised to hear that i love bees has had 10 times the traffic of the beast. guess it bodes well for these games in the future when there are thousands upoin thousands of people playing.

i wonder how long before someone tries majestic again? kurt says over 5 years. but when you look at the success of this thing, apply a money-making, subscription model to it...you could be raking in some money.

i said maybe 5 years, id like to revise that to no more than 3 now.

in three years it will become possible to put your body, your space into an ongoing alternative reality game for an extended amount of time.

you will be living in a fictional world.

hello, thesis.

ui with nyc stills

again, not the most beautiful thing in the world (yet), but ive got a slightly improved ui with stills from a nyc subway ride with my sister up and posted.

i want to tweak this one a bit, having gone from the movie to the stills, i know the missing information here. and i know its not exactly the correct interface. yet.

the problem with it is this:
no matter what interval you use, longer movies are going to force you to drop data. there will be info missing. so i need to figure out a way to minimize this. ive got a plan.

taking #3 ui from the sketches posted a couple of weeks ago. use these pics as the boxes that show up on the drawing. take the 'missing' pictures and put them in as 2x2 boxes (or something) along the line. when you mouseover the timeline, you get more info displaying without having to show every picture at once.

i hope i can knock that out this week at least. (along with finishing this short demo movie and digitizing sounds for mobile class.)

if (big if), i have time, ill see if i can knock out some sort of version of #7 too. that would be ideal. but not likely by monday.

oh and here is the link to the nyc images. (again, its not overly exciting yet.)

dumper

got a max patch together (finally) that dumps out frames from quicktime movies. it isnt pretty (yet), which is why im not posting it.

but ive got it dumping out images based on intervals (thank goodness the input allowed for less than 1 frame a second when dumping).

so now, i can take the movies ive made, get image dumps and really start in on some ui work.

i know some of you out there are really into max - if you want to tackle some interesting but small patches, let me know.

id like to clean this one up, make one to recognize lighting changes using matrixes, make one to out put timestamps and then one to read/flag those timestamps back into the completed movie.

none of them are super complicated, i just havent had time to get to them all yet and would love to work with some people if you have time/energy.