Yearly Archives: 2005

Denver Presentation

Thanks again to all the Denver-area folks who came out to see my presentation at the CLUE meeting. I had a great time and, judging by the reaction to all the cheesy multimedia clips, it looks like you all did, as well. Here is a redux of the intro clip:

Lopez, the narcotics king

That’s right! It’s Lopez– Lopez, the narcotics king. Remember: He has the mansion, he has the money, he has the drugs, he has the POWER. To say nothing of the receding hairline. It turns out that Digital Leisure still has the MPEG trailer for this game (Drug Wars) on their downloads page. Check out the whole thing. Always a crowd pleaser!

Just FYI, any other Colorado-area Linux/computer groups who would like a fun presentation on multimedia technology (complete with silly multimedia clips), just drop me an email. Have computer and projector, will travel. I always enjoy doing these talks (in fact, just try to get me to shut up about multimedia technology).

Apple Lossless Audio Codec RE’d (now in FFmpeg)

David Hammerton reports that he has successfully reverse engineered Apple’s custom proprietary lossless audio codec which goes by the fourcc ‘alac’. Source code is here. Hopefully, it will be integrated into FFmpeg in short order and be accessible to all libavcodec-using programs.

And– would you believe it?– it looks an awful lot like other lossless audio codecs in terms of underlying algorithms.

Update, early, early on March 6: It took me the better part of March 5, but ALAC is in FFmpeg’s libavcodec and ready for all the programs that depend on libavcodec.

Denver, CO Multimedia Presentation

I will be doing a presentation about multimedia technology soon. If you are in Denver, CO, USA, or a nearby area, check out my “Multimedia on Linux” presentation for the Colorado Linux Users And Enthusiasts (CLUE) group near the Denver Tech Center. Tuesday, March 8, free to the public. The group congregates around 6:30pm, my presentation is at 7:00pm. See their website for more details and specific directions and maps.

Reverse Engineering Cookies

No, not web cookies– the title refers to reverse engineering cookies and other recipes. I was browsing the catalog of the high-end Harry & David gourmet food shop– you know, the kind of stuff that looks so delectable but is so exorbitantly expensive that you would never consider buying it for yourself. I found these cookies called fruit galettes that looked absolutely delightful but were outrageously priced at $26/lb. They seem to have come down in price to $20/lb since then, which still seems a bit steep for what is apparently 2 round butter cookies glued together with some kind of fruit jelly.

Based on that RE analysis (butter cookies and jelly), I set out to recreate the cookie recipe myself. The reason I bring this up is because Valentine’s Day just came and went and that meant it was time for a big batch of heart-shaped fruit galettes!

See all the juicy details over at another of my blogs, Infinite Flour.

heart-shaped fruit galettes