arnoldcam

What does it say about 80′s music?

arnold — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:53:11 +0000

According to a survey from Tastebuds.fm, a dating site that connects you with people who share your musical preferences, fans of the British soft-rock band best known for hits like “Yellow” and “Viva La Vida” are least likely to have sex on the first date.

Highlights:

Least Likely to Have Sex on the First Date

1. Coldplay
2. Adele
3. Lady Gaga
4. Katy Perry
5. Kings of Leon

Most Likely

1. Nirvana
2. Metallica
3. Linkin Park
4. Kanye West
5. Gorillaz

Even more stats from other tests can be found here at the Men’s Health article.

The one with the awesome lion

arnold — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 15:47:59 +0000

Apparently Frederick I of Sweden had a lion he liked. When it died, they gave the pelt to a taxidermist…. who had never seen a lion. Not too odd for 1731. This was the result. I’m still kind of perplexed why the taxidermist went a human route rather than a cat route but who am I to judge? I have a hard time getting the stuffing in the turkey.

The one with all the edits

arnold — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 17:53:55 +0000

I’m technically a numbers guy… which puts my life in the hard and fast world of data entry, analysis and reporting. So you can imagine why I like doing music and photography and other non-numerical pursuits in my free time. Last night I spent some time working on a neglected skill set… video editing. Boy that’s fun stuff. It’s tedious and monotonous and if you’re like me, there’s tons of nitpicking involved. Just for fun, I made a promo video for a friend who’d been on the second season of The Sing Off and sent it to him. He liked it and asked to post it which I, of course, declined Needed more work…. which I was willing to put in. The added tweaks did a lot to make the video seem more interesting I thought. If you’re interested, you can view it…

If you’re interested (and I only know of one arnoldcam reader who might be), here’s what I did.

On the first text slide, added two sound files, a bit of the chorus from the Sing Off group number “Use Somebody” and crowd noise. The song ends with the slide and the applause fades into the first clip.

Grabbed three clips from the show and cross faded them. A little tricky since I had to use the small screen on the software on the capturing computer since the I was outputting the video from the first computer and was sending all video externally. (I couldn’t look at that first computers screen at all).

Grabbed judge comments from same way. These clips are older than the song clips… you can see the color is less saturated and there’s a little screen lag. I did all these the same way so I’m not sure why there was a difference. What I need is a real video editing station

The next text slide was initially silent. I dropped in a stock sound from iMovie. The result was a more dynamic 2.8 seconds than before. Really cool what just a little sound can do to bring energy to a still slide.

The next bits are the finished song videos. Wish I could take credit for all the multiple screens and quick cuts but they were just part of the finished products. The editing part here is trying to find interesting parts of the songs that can stand alone and yet only be snippets.

So I’m learning a few things. The next step is get Final Cut Pro… then the real challenges begin.

Historically Hardcore

arnold — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:33:33 +0000

I don’t know if these ads are legit or not but they make me want to visit the Smithsonian anyway

A new trailer

arnold — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 01:53:07 +0000

OK. The news is kind of heavy lately. Here’s a little grin for the end of the day… a trailer for Ferris Buehler’s Day Off more suited to today’s tastes.

Ten big ones

arnold — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 18:31:19 +0000

A look at the internet wayback machines tells me my blog is ten years old! Here’s a look 10 years back in time….

Rewind to Aug, 2001

Shaken and not stirred

arnold — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 01:35:25 +0000

Thought some of you might find this interesting. First hand earthquake testimony from a friend that lives in Japan…

“It was shaking pretty hard even though the epicenter was about 240 miles away. Definitely the biggest earthquake I have been in, and I have been in quite a few. It will still be some time before I will see how it will personally affect my life, but for the moment, I lost about a thousand bucks in wine. So far, all of my family and friends are fine. The nuclear reactor may meltdown, but as long as another huge quake doesn’t hit, they should be able to take care of the situation without a major catastrophe. The infrastructure here in Tokyo one the best in the world, so almost every aspect of life is back to normal. Even during some of the major aftershocks, I was able to buy beer at the local supermarket. Coins were falling out of the cashier’s hand as she was giving me my change. I said in Japanese, “Oh, another earthquake.” and she shrugged, more focused on making sure she gave me the proper change. Only in Japan. Go figure.”

View from the side

arnold — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 15:43:56 +0000

There’s beauty everywhere if you take the second to look. Even on a commute.

Return to Sender

arnold — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 22:24:41 +0000

I would like to believe that I could do this but the fact is I’m not spontaneous to just fly to Europe. (Well, once). This is a story of a guy that found a roll of film, posted the developed pictures on the internet, found the owners and returned the pictures in person. In Paris.

Lucy in the Sky

arnold — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 20:50:37 +0000

Maybe not Lucy, but the space shuttle Discovery’s last flight and the International Space Station are going to be pretty spectacular this week.

In Pasadena, look for a pair of brightly lit objects (as bright as Venus) going from NW to SE at these times:

SATELLITE	LOCAL	DURATION	MAX ELEV	APPROACH	DEPARTURE
DATE/TIME	(MIN)	(DEG)	(DEG-DIR)	(DEG-DIR)

ISS	Mon Mar 07/07:02 PM	2	20	11 above NNW	20 above NNE
ISS	Tue Mar 08/07:28 PM	2	44	11 above NW	44 above NW
ISS	Wed Mar 09/06:19 PM	5	23	10 above NNW	11 above E
ISS	Wed Mar 09/07:56 PM	< 1	16	16 above W	16 above W
ISS	Thu Mar 10/06:46 PM	5	82	13 above NW	16 above SE

And as a favor to our Seattle friends:

SATELLITE	LOCAL	DURATION	MAX ELEV	APPROACH	DEPARTURE
DATE/TIME	(MIN)	(DEG)	(DEG-DIR)	(DEG-DIR)

ISS	Fri Mar 04/07:16 PM	2	66	24 above WNW	41 above E
ISS	Sat Mar 05/07:43 PM	1	53	30 above W	51 above SSW
ISS	Sun Mar 06/06:34 PM	4	72	31 above WNW	10 above ESE
ISS	Sun Mar 06/08:09 PM	1	19	15 above WSW	19 above SW
ISS	Mon Mar 07/07:01 PM	3	47	35 above WSW	12 above SE
ISS	Tue Mar 08/07:27 PM	3	18	16 above WSW	10 above S
ISS	Thu Mar 10/06:45 PM	2	16	16 above SW	10 above S

Or… you can just watch the International Space Station’s present position in real time HERE.