Lately, I’ve been practicing my keyboard-drumming skills using the Battery 3 VST in the public Ninjam studios.

The jams range from a few minutes to 20+ minutes. They’re great practice, and a lot more fun to play in than to listen to. But here are a few highlights from this week:

Salsa Excerpt
Plat (Drums), HoraciosAllen (Piano), Mono (Guitar), BBAndTheMC (Bass)

Jazz Excerpt
Plat (Drums), HoraciosAllen (Keys), Mono (Guitar), BBAndTheMC (Bass)

Rock Excerpt
Plat (Drums), Slyos (Rhythm Guitar), Zden (Guitar Solos), Not NT (Rhythm Guitar), Fin (Bass)

These excerpts are covered under the Creative Commons’ Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

If the title makes no sense to you, the rest probably won’t either.

Now, for the rest of you who might be looking for Rock 2: Crashed Plane stuff, here’s what’s left.

Q: Where can I play Rock 2?
A: Dillfrog.com no longer hosts the game, but other generous fellows seem to still host the game. If you’re feeling lucky, try Mindreader’s server (telnet host: rock2mimic.tzo.com, port: 4000)

Q: How can I get the Rock 2 source code?
A: It’s pretty ugly; I never wrote it expecting it to be released. But it’s released on SourceForge as “RockServ 2″. Instructions are on the RockServ Wiki

Q: How can I get the Rock 1 source code?
A: It is not released yet, and may not be ever. It’s that bad. But if it were released, it’d be on SourceForge’s RockServ wiki as well.

Not finding what you wanted? Leave a message in the comments and I’ll update the FAQ.

You might be familiar with the art of “snonverting” words. For the uninitiated, the rules are very simple:

1. If the word begins with a “sn” sound (e.g. “snore”), convert it to a hard “k” sound (e.g. “core”).
2. Conversely, if the word begins with a hard “k” sound, convert it to a “sn” sound.
3. If neither of these conditions apply, leave the word alone.

I know this sounds strange, but you’ll never appreciate snonversion until you’ve snooked up snoffee in the snitchen.

Anyway, I got “snurious” which words would survive the snonversion (existing before and afterward). So I coded up a fairly snomprehensive list! It’s pretty safe to say this is a Dillfrog exclusive!

Thanks Snelly. Snatch you later, y’all.

[Editor’s note: this was originally posted to the Dillfrog Forums by Plat a few years back; re-posted here by request]

Wow, unless I’m missing something, this seems like a pretty lame “invention” to come out of “Emerson Research”.

I recently bought a SmartSet clock radio, thinking it would use the radio waves to calibrate the clock (so if the power went out and the battery went out, the clock would automatically set itself properly). The clock set itself just dandily after plugging it in, but then I became curious about how to force it to re-calibrate the time.

I couldn’t find anything in the manual on how to do this (if the battery dies, the manual instructs you to manually set the clock’s time)! So I googled around without much luck, then I visited their (”Under Construction”) Web site at www.emersonradio.com with no leads.

So I figured, since they were bragging about the SmartSet (R) technology (”…Someday all clocks and clock radios may be this smart. But today the technology is only available from Emerson Research.”), I could look up the patent number (6,567,344) to see exactly what it was about.

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While you were worrying about being able to decompile Java bytecode or .NET IL, I’ve been trying to figure out the recipe to Walgreen’s delicious Cranberry Trail Mix.

But it’s mostly pseudo-science; we used a small sample. Tawny and I opened three single-serving bags from the same 7-pack, and separated the ingredients.

Then I measured the weight of each on my USB scale (meant for estimating postage costs).

Here’s what we found, sorted by weight. I’ve placed the Nutrition Facts ingredient-list rank in parentheses where it varies from our findings:

1. (#1) 28g peanuts (unsalted)
2. (#5) 21g black raisins
3. (#3) 21g golden raisins
4. (#2) 18g dried cranberries (lightly sweetened; not as puny as Craisins)
5. (#6) 14g pepitas (a.k.a., pumpkin seeds)
6. (#4) 10g sunflower kernels
7. (#8) 9g almonds (unsalted)
8. (#7) 8g cashews (unsalted)

As you can see, there’s a bit of disparity between the ingredient list and what we actually counted. I’m sure some of the error can be chalked up to misclassifying cranberries vs. black raisins, or even rounding error on the scale. But I think it’s “close enough” for my use.

The legacy is coming to a close. Dilly (the legacy.dillfrog.com server) is dying, his Internet service will be in flux, and it’s probably time for a fresh start. (Or a stale end).

Sometime mid-May, the stuff hosted on legacy.dillfrog.com will be temporarily or permanently unavailable. So if there’s any content you want to download/archive/etc, please slurp it within the next month.

Sites unaffected: all non-legacy.dillfrog.com stuff. Includes Sourceforge sites (e.g. salp wars, rockserv, frogjam projects), noise.dillfrog.com, blog.dillfrog.com, wurdles.com, funputer.com, etc.

Stuff that will probably live on (though with a multi-month blackout period): encoding tools, guitar chorder, rhymer, songfight explorer, hop to it, album tracker.

Stuff that probably won’t live on: everything else. Includes account system (your login ID, profiles, pictures, etc), forums, tetrinet server, rock 1/2/3, rejoinder, frogjam server, hang, and most of the other experiments.

If there’s something you really don’t want me to kill off, or if you’re looking for source code, please respond in the comments of this post. (But please be specific). I already have a pretty good idea which pages get the most traffic. If you’re a reader of this blog, you probably aren’t using those pages.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

UPDATE June 2 2008: Want to be notified when the Rhymer tool is available again? Then I reckon you join the FrogMuse Announcement mailing list. The snarky-quiet mailing list with a stuffy name.

Time to re-define permanent!

I bought a bunch of used games, and some of them are a mess. Stickers on every side, gum and dirt sticking out, etc. Filthy (but cheap!). I’ve been able to clean the sticky stuff really well using Goo Gone, and rubbing alcohol for the contacts (to prevent the “red blinky square of death”).

But I didn’t know what to do about the labels. Some labels had the previous owner’s name in permanent marker, like so:

After doing a bit of Googling, I read a suggestion to use a light amount of Goo Gone. So I sprayed a Bounty paper towel sheet about 1-2 pumps full of Goo Gone, then lightly tried to rub the permanent marker off. And it came off, without pulling away the rest of the label. Happy happy!

If you look closely at the “After” photo, you’ll notice a darker spot where some Goo Gone seeped into the side of the label. Once it dried (about an hour later), the discoloration left, and the label looked perfect. I try to avoid the edge of the label where possible, but sometimes I miss.

So far, I’ve tried it with NES and SNES cartridge labels with great success. I tried it with an N64 game too (Diddy Kong Racing), and unfortunately the ‘Gone caused the label colors to bleed. So I’m a bit apprehensive about trying to clean up another N64 game.

If you try this yourself:

• Avoid the edges of the label where possible, to avoid discoloration (even though it’ll probably go away when the Goo Gone dries
• Don’t use too much ‘Gone. Try a spray or two into paper towel, and see how that works. If you think you’re getting the label too wet, dry off the excess liquid! Take your time :-).
• Don’t spray the label directly. Spray into your paper towel.
• If this is your first time, you might want to practice with a label that you don’t care much about.
• If you’re worried about the color bleeding, try wiping a small area that you don’t care about first. Also look at your paper towel as you clean. If you’re wiping up black marker, your towel will be black. If your towel turns the color(s) of your label, it might be time to stop before you smear it all to pieces!

Obligatory Flickr shots:

• SMB3 Before
• SMB3 After
• Super C Before
• Super C After

Sorry guys, I’ve been having some trouble with my DSL connection. A new, hopefully stabler, modem will arrive in a few days. That should solve some of the problems.

Not sure what all these DNS issues are about though :(. Stay tuned. I’ve been ketchup-slow in updating the Dillfrog stuff lately.

I’ve been enjoying Butch Walker ever since his old band (The Marvelous 3) made their “Math and Other Problems” album available for download on Emusic.com, a loonng time ago. A few years later I went to his solo concert backed by American Hi-Fi, and he was spectacular. Great guitar skills, ‘pick’ acrobatics, and incredible charisma.

He’s producing a few popular artists lately (e.g. The Donnas, Avril Lavigne, American Hi-Fi, etc), and it’s a good thing. His album sales aren’t so hot. But the production money seems to be keeping his solo act (and creative free reign) alive and varied.
So if you haven’t seen or heard of him, here is Butch Charisma 101: A Video Introduction by way of Youtube.

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