Tag: personal

Mon, January
28th

Top 15 Albums of 2007: 15-11

Posted by clint
on January 28, 2008
I've been working for about a week now trying to hammer down my top albums of 2007, and it's come down to these fifteen albums. I will present 15 through 11 here today, followed by the remaining ten later this week.

15. Bassnectar - Underground Communication
Underground Communication Bassnectar's first offering, Mesmerizing the Ultra, was a darkish, eclectic type of take on the Breaks genre that, while interesting, was too unsure of itself and where it wanted to be to really stand on its own. With Underground Communication, though, Lorin Ashton seems to have addressed the issue head on, dropping the intentionally overdone minimalism and inaccessibility for a more direct, hard-hitting sound featuring crisper beats, more vocals (with a whole gaggle of guest artists), and a far lusher sound. The album falters a bit in the middle, as can be expected with its running time, but it is book-ended by incredibly strong tracks, the best of which are a number of instrumentals toward the end.
Key tracks: Underground Communication, I Am Back, FSOSF

14. The Nightwatchman - One Man Revolution
One Man Revolution Tom Morello's solo project The Nightwatchman is completely separate of what he put out with Rage and Audioslave (or even Electric Sheep). There are no guitar pyrotechnics to be found here, no groove-driven music to headbang to. Instead, what we find here is solid, wholesome political folk music. Armed with only his nylon-string guitar and a harmonica, Morello sets out to continue the political note in his musical projects, and in doing so assembles a collection of incredibly catchy, heartfelt songs about the various predicaments of our hostile society, sung in a surprisingly pleasant baritone. One Man Revolution proves that Morello's songwriting ability is top-notch even when stripped to the most bare essentials.
Key tracks: The Garden of Gethsemane, Maximum Firepower, No One Left

13. KJ Sawka - Cyclonic Steel
Cyclonic Steel There are few musical experiences in existence today more inspiring than KJ Sawka's live performances. Ripping to shreds most live electronic music shows seems to be what he was born to do, as he literally plays Drum and Bass on his drum kit, with a sampler in tow, constructing and morphing ideas and tracks as he goes on for an hour or more. When he sits down to put something on vinyl, however, he realizes that it's much more difficult to impress people without the visual of him playing along. As a result, the material on his albums tends to be a bit more IDM-inspired than his already highly experimental live sets. Cyclonic Steel is no exception, and in many ways is much more abstract than its predecessor. When a set groove does arise, it doesn't stick around for long, and it's easy to tire of the endlessly dark IDM, but accessibility has never been the reason to listen to KJ Sawka. Much more produced than Synchronized Decompression, Cyclonic Steel is an entirely different, more adventurous album, and it is better for it.
Key tracks: Brotherhood of the Drum, Globalize This, Press Machine

12. Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City
A Weekend in the City There seemed to be a general disappointment with Bloc Party's sophomore effort when it arrived, but as people slowly began to accept that the band is still evolving, and listening with that acceptance, it seems that the general sentiment began to shift, and most people enjoy the album for what it is: something a little more subdued, but no less charming or energetic. A much more melodic effort, A Weekend in the City shows a new side of the band that wasn't entirely necessary just yet (there was much life to be had yet in the more spastic, untethered rawness of Silent Alarm), but isn't altogether unwelcome. Perhaps the band's members have become slightly more world-weary than when they wrote Silent Alarm.
Key tracks: Song for Clay (Disappear Here), Waiting for the 7:18, Sunday

11. Rush - Snakes and Arrows
Snakes and Arrows Rush is one of the most seminal, important bands of all time. Influencing and inspiring a whole generation of prog rockers and bands, Rush's effect on the history of music can only be matched by the length of its own history. As their eighteenth studio album, Snakes and Arrows furthers Rush's incredible and indelible 30+ year mark. The album somewhat furthers the direction Rush diverted upon with its previous album, Vapor Trails, moving away from progressive for progressive's sake, and towards a more balanced state of being. While maintaining Rush's trademark not-quite-dissonance, Vapor Trails was a more full album than previous efforts, and Snakes and Arrows follows suit. Slightly darker and more furious than Vapor Trails, the newest effort seems to be an attempt to push the band's edges even while following this new direction in songwriting, and it largely succeeds. The album's only weak point seems to be a small number of songs which drag on longer than they should have; this point, unfortunately, is rather grave, and cost the album several positions on this list.
Key tracks: Far Cry, Armor and Sword, Malignant Narcissism

To be continued...

Thu, December
20th

Side Note: A good OS X browser

Posted by clint
on December 20, 2007
I've been running 10.4.9 for a good long while now, refusing to install either the 10.4.10 or 10.4.11 updates that have rolled along in the past few months. Something just didn't seem... necessary about them. iWork, however, begs to differ with my delusions and in fact requires the .10 update in order to install, thus rendering the whole sordid affair altogether too unavoidably necessary. As it turns out, my hesitation to take the plunge wasn't without merits, though I had no rational explanations at the time.

Some of you may recall that I stubbornly stick to Shiira, an alternative web browser on OS X based on the same WebCore technology as Safari. Though it crashed every so often, and the bookmark experience left a bit to be desired (not to mention the overall grammar), I stuck to it because the core experience was nearly exactly how I wanted it to be, because without the rough edges, the promise of what the browser was supposed to be was worth it. However, Shiira 2 didn't really fix what was wrong with Shiira 1.2 and move on, instead introducing a slew of very questionable issues, including the lack of any sort of documented method of renaming bookmarks. The least that can be said for it is that it is stable. Thus, I've been sticking to Shiira 1.2 far past its support period.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, the .10 update in face comes pre-packaged with Safari 3, and thus a new version of WebKit. A radically new version. One Shiira has issues coping with. It's fine for the basic needs, but throw nearly any AJAX-laden Google app at it and it balks. Well, I thought, it's a bit late to go back now, so it's time to pack up my things and move onto some other browser, I suppose. A little sleuthing drops me onto Demeter, a branch of Shiira 1.2 that's still supported. Hey! Things are looking up. A download and a few package contents modifications to replace the icon with that of Shiira later, I find myself staring at essentially Shiira resurrected, with working support for the latest WebCore! Well, not quite.

Clicking on links in emails seems to raise Demeter's wrath, leaving it to deposit you on a blank page. Searches in Google Maps work smoothly with AutoComplete and all, right up to the point where you actually hit Search, at which point all hell breaks loose. Not to mention the small issue that it seems even more unstable than Shiira 1.2.

And so now I'm stuck without a solid browser for my OS X setup. Safari isn't flexible for my needs, Shiira 1.2 is no longer functional, Demeter only works most of the time, Shiira 2 is just a joke, and Firefox is too ludicrously slow on OS X to even consider (though Firefox 3.0 beta 2 makes small strides) and fails to respect OS X conventions (hitting the up arrow in a single-line edit should result in going to the beginning of the line, etc). I've become slowly accustomed in the past week to opening increasingly "safer" browsers each time I run into a compatibility issue on the web, and I found this morning to my utmost horror that I had every single browser mentioned in this paragraph opened with various pages without even realizing it.

I'm tempted to write my own browser just to solve this once and for all, but all the issues mentioned above make the whole ordeal seem strangely understandable.

Tue, October
23rd

T plus 15 hours...

Posted by clint
on October 23, 2007
My College Apps

So we launched our facebook app, My College Apps, about 15 hours ago. Since then we've accumulated some number of users, which is vaguely amusing to watch. I'm actually working right now on some sort of flash fireworks that can go off every time we have a new user. Essentially, the application allows users to list and track what colleges they are applying to, as well as discuss the schools in question. Wish us luck!


Fri, October
12th

I want to incinerate every last bit of Windows Vista

Posted by clint
on October 12, 2007
Here I was, minding my own business, and I need to shut my computer down. Vista decides to install 8 updates.

"Installing update 1 of 8..."

Okay, fine. That's not too bad, I've waited through 26 updates before. An hour later,

"Installing update 1 of 8..."

There's no way. I'm scared to power-cycle this thing, but there's no HD activity, there's no way it's still working... let's see what will happen.
Now I have a half-bricked computer. Aren't updates supposed to fix my computer?

Tue, August
21st

Concert report: Rock the Bells 2007, featuring Rage Against the Machine

Posted by clint
on August 21, 2007
I never really got the chance to update the blog with a "I'm leaving" post, but I have not yet abandoned this blog. I was in fact gone for a few days on a pilgrimage of sorts to go see Rage Against the Machine at Rock the Bells in San Francisco. We (Erik, my roommate; Nicole, his girlfriend; Charles, whom we know from high school; and Aisha and Dylan from our floor) arrived in time to catch Immortal Technique from the ridiculous line to get in and Pharoahe Monch after we were in, who was impressive - very talented backup and singers. We then caught Talib Kweli, Mos Def, The Roots, and part of Public Enemy, at which I saw Flava Flav (who appeared again later with an iPhone in hand). I then went with Erik and Nicole to watch Blackalicious, who blew my mind - I didn't really think that Chemical Calisthenics was physically possible live, but he did it. Along with the fastest rapid fire freestyle ever imagined.

We then took a break and caught Wu-Tang Clan who was really nothing but a self-advertisement machine, but we only watched them to get a decent spot for Rage.

And then there was Rage. I don't need to go into how awesome it was, it should be expected. They tore through songs like you wouldn't believe, and while they were off a couple of times, they were in general very solid. All the songs you would expect them to play were played, with a speech in the middle of the main set closer Wake Up involving how we, as the people, have the true power in this country (sounds like a good topic of debate). After a dubious break (which really wasn't all that dubious given that Tom Morello literally ran off the stage the moment the song was over), they came back on and played a few more, finishing off with Killing in the Name, which drove the crowd insane.

If you've never been among 50,000 people leaving a parking lot in the middle of San Francisco, do try it sometime. It also helps when they're all riled up from just yelling "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" a good number of times. It's somewhat like a giant angry flood of water pouring into a small area. I half expected riots to break out, but the chaos was limited to an utter standstill in traffic as people just spilled over intersections en masse. That was a bit of quite something.

The trip back was a great deal more relaxed, thank goodness.

Fri, August
10th

Cue background

Posted by clint
on August 10, 2007
For the uninitiated, my name is Clint Tseng. I'm a graphics designer/software engineer working at a small software company in Redmond, WA called Sharplogic Software. Over the years I have owned numerous websites, including my now-nonexistent previous blog, \\unload, which ran on Ryan "wonko" Grove's excellent Poseidon CMS engine, which, sadly, is defunct as well.

I am currently a student in the University of Washington's Computer Engineering department, though I still hold that real life development experience is far more valuable than any textbook. I'm in the honors program because through a series of strange circumstances, it's less work for me than the regular program would be.

In my spare time, I like to pretend that I'm actually making progress on the many personal projects I have going on, hopefully some one of which will someday make me rich. I also play copious and potentially unhealthy amounts of Unreal Tournament and Rise of Nations with my friends. I also listen to a great deal of music, which brings me to another thing I often do, which is pretend to be writing music, for which I get the urge whenever I hear a good song.

What I do actually end up making progress on is DJ-ing, which requires far less time commitment. I spin mostly DnB, Chemical Breaks, and Trance, though "spin" is a relative term given that I work mostly with Ableton Live, which I suppose makes me a cheater. I try to make up for it, though, by taking full advantage of Ableton's additional complexity and power.

So that's me in a nutshell. It has taken me about half an hour to type this, because I am forcing myself to use dvorak only, which I haven't used in about a year. Ha.