Monthly Archives: February 2003

Wavelet Fixes

*Small bug fixed (decidedly non-power-of-2 images sometimes had important wavelet-coefficients zeroed out). Thanks, Christian Lange!*
Wavelet code updated to version 2.5.2 (including source). Improved the quantiser-selection for bit-limits (i.e. file-size) a LOT (was a bit stupid before – I only optimised for the smallest difference in maximum and minimum mean square error) -> much better results for same size, changed compile-settings slightly (should be faster) and added a bitplane / quantiser display to the GUI. Get it here!

Nvidia pays Strippers

Had a great time at Nvidia’s Dawn to Dusk conference (I really hope they don’t get around to putting up some of the more embarassing photographs…). Although some of the talks were slightly modified versions of presentations given earlier, most of them were still very interesting (Kevin Bjorke’s talk on cinematic effects and the one on technology used in their demos by Tristan Lorach to mention a few)…

Shivers of Joy

My copy of Yoko Kanno’s “Ghost in the Shell – Stand Alone Complex O.S.T.” arrived, and it is too good to be true… 😉
It contains whole range of styles, one track in particular owes a lot to Björk’s “Hyperballad”, but they all stand very well on their own. The 2nd part of Track 12 – “Silent Cruise” is my absolute favourite though; it mixes strings from the Warsaw Symphony Orchestra with electronic sounds and beats. It’s so good I get a shiver down my spine everytime I listen to it… <sigh>
There are quite a few tracks with English lyrics (even printed in English in the booklet) which are dangerously catchy, so you’ll have to be careful not to get caught singing nonsense-lyrics… 😉
Absolutely recommended!

Not that great

As you can see, I spent my weekend trying to get through at least the set of first episodes of new anime lying around on my HDD (thanks to chris!). Because of the 48h Firemen’s strike, the CTM project deadline has been moved to Wednesday, which opened up this “opportunity”. Watched a lot more, but most of the other series didn’t seem worth mentioning in particular (Stratos4, Happy World, CKCB)…