Wings Over the Pyre - January 4th, 2005

08:09 am - [Redoubt] New Request Coding

After having been hacking on things half the night, I'm inordinately pleased with my most recent changes to the Redoubt's systems.

In short, I've completely de-coupled the scheduling of Station IDs and Requests from the purest cycle of the cranking over tracks.

Now station IDs are inserted at the top of the queue every 15min, generally assuring that they'll play within 2min or so on average. Given that we've about 25 IDs in rotation (and I'd like to thank all of the folks who've sent a few in; I much appreciate it), that's a good diversity. I'm very pleased with it, so far, and with the new injector method, they should be much more reasonably rotated through the queue.

Now, as for requests ... My faithful listeners will know that the Redoubt is Request Open pretty much all the time, and the insertion of said requests has been largely haphazard and indistinguishable. You had to watch the web page to know if anything requested was up, etc. Well, no more. Like the IDs, requests are going to be inserted as a block every 20min. If there aren't any, our rotation will be just as usual, a mix of metal and rockabilly with the occasional Broadway musical or other oddity spiced in. Requests blocks even have a special audio bumper proceeding them, drawing attention to the fact that these are special requests. My code allows for the possibility of bumpers on the back end as well, welcoming listeners back to our usual rotation. I have not, as yet, developed any back-end bumpers for the request blocks.

(Again, if anyone out there wants to contribute station IDs or request bumpers for the Redoubt, let me know. I'm now a lot more able to spice up your straight audio with sound effects or even music playing underneath your words if that's what you'd like. Get in touch.)

I apologize for the sparsity of my updates to LJ, lately. As Heather put it to me, the Redoubt is eating up a lot of the creative energy that I used to sink into, well, ranting here. Especially things like writing custom parallel-scripts to insert clips, managing play-lists, and learning other bits of software to do creative and fun things with, I'm burning a lot of calories in my cortex. Further, I just haven't felt much like doing any serious writing on much of any subject. Politics has become the morass it always returns to, I have nothing to add to the commentary on the tsunami (save, perhaps, to suggest you keep your donations and just plan to go there to vacation this summer --- 75%+ of Thailand's national income is from tourism, and spending money on keeping their economy churning is a Hell of a lot more useful than trying to throw mylar blankets over the dead). People are being exactly as annoying and outrageously self-destructive as ever. And with the current goings-on at Guardians of the Order, I'm not even really assured of being paid by them.

Not a good time to be the Squid.

Oh, I threw a killer series of parties. Christmas Night of the Living Dead was a huge hit, and New Year's Revolution was even bigger, burlier, and crazier (especially trying to figure out how Mike goes from 0 to tonsil-hockey in under an hour when he brought two other women with him to the bloody shindig), but being that social takes immense amounts of energy and verve out of me. I'm a profound misanthropist and dealing with humans for extended periods of time eats into my flesh like a particularly effacious acid.

Ah well, its a new year, I have my own broadcast station, I'm moving forward with crazy things in odd directions, and I learn something new every day. What more could an Outer God ask, but a steady diet of sacrificial schoolgirls?

Yes, that was a hint.

Current Mood: grumpy

08:55 am - [Meme] Creatures in Darkness

Mage: You can bend and twist reality to your whims
as long as you are willing to pay the price.
Knowledge fuels you, and spurs you to new and
challenging heights on a regular basis. Magic
is your tool of choice, and no matter how you
invoke its power, you can control and shape it
to your whims. You try to slowly change
consensual reality in order to allow others to
experience your power, as well as lessen the
negative effects of casting your spells. One
day you hope to transcend this mortal husk that
binds you and become something greater.


What type of World of Darkness Creature Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Not really surprising, considering my alter-ego in Judgment Day was well on his way to being consumed by the Nephandi before ... well, really, go read the book. In any case, allowing for the Technocracy and the Nephandi as Mages, I'll bite.

( Of course, there's always #2 ... )

Current Mood: tired

05:48 pm - [Meme] A Fae Twist

You scored as A Too Evil Faerie. Your dark, cruel and you know it! For you, there is nothing cute enough to pity and nothing more valuable than a rich friend. Remember though, evil is very beautiful, may celebrities are totally arrogant and so your personality carries a certain power. You can get what you want in life and as long as not everyone knows your true colours, you can be a very happy person. See All Results/Comment </td> A Too Evil Faerie 85% A Too Lazy Faerie 70% A Too Serious Faerie 65% A Too Kinky Faerie 60% A Too Depressed Faerie 55% A Too Astral Faerie 45% A Too Sporty Faerie 40% A Too Silly Faerie 10% A Too Sweet Faerie 0% Which Dysfunctional Faerie are You? created with QuizFarm.com </tr>

Current Mood: amused