Picked up a new Optoma PK320 pocket projector after my first one (PK301) broke down after lending it out (colors all green). Maybe for the better - this new one is twice as strong so I don't even need to turn out the lights anymore.


In the future though, if you do borrow it from me, please be more careful with it.

Edit: After some usage, I have to say I prefer the older PK301.  The newer one, while brighter, actually is a little blurier (for when you have to project something of high detail).  It also tends to not detect the correct aspect ratio, forcing you to manually switch from 4:3 to 16:9 and vice versa if your video changes.

Two friends have known each other since childhood.  One has always been a bit weaker and slightly ill with an unknown virus.  The other friend makes the promise to one day find a cure to the other's condition and studies to become a doctor.

Twenty years later, the doctor gets close to understanding the nature of the illness and finding a cure.  Both are excited at the prospect, but as the cure is applied, the friend seems to gradually get weaker.  The doctor scrambles to figure out what went wrong, but each day that passes, the friend seems to slowly lose grasp on the world.  Eventually the friend becomes bedbound and the doctor caring daily for the friend.

Over time, the doctor notices that, although the friend is losing mental capacity, the friend seems physically fine.  In fact, as the friend becomes healthier, the friend becomes less mentally stable, as if gradually fading away.

The doctor...[More]

I don't jinx people.  I just predict their future.

You clamored for freedom, but what you really wanted was power. What good is freedom if you can't actually do anything?

Love, Midna - by ellebirdie23

Not sure what this type of query is actually called.  The basic idea is you have multiple tables linked together, but you want to only grab n rows from Table C per iteration of each row in Table A.

A more illustrative explanation: Suppose you have a table listing 10 albums and a table listing 100 records.  You only want 5 records per each album.

As you might expect, Googling such a solution was pretty hard.  A common solution was:

However, this returns a flat 5 records total, not per album.

Took me a bunch of playing around to finally come up with something like this:

So far this works but I'm not sure whether it's the most efficient way to go about it.  Any improvements are definitely welcome.  Hopefully this helps those of you also looking for the same solution but having trouble find it.

Laruto's Lament by ellebirdy23

There seems to be a trend going on lately that whatever was used back in the 90s must be dated and irrelevant today.  This isn't just on MIDI but more on that maybe some other time.

Some of the more frustrating comments I've heard these days is that somehow MIDI "sounds" dated or cheesy.  There is always so much surprise when someone finds out I use MIDI to record my music but worse is when they suggest *not* using MIDI as a way to improve the quality of the sound.

Now you can say - sure, there's always going to be misconception about various things, especially technology related.  The more troubling thing is this was being taught in a few university classes I took on music and computers.  Hard part is hearing the lecturer rant against MIDI as some old way of making music that sounds cheap to the ear, when really MIDI does not "sound" like anything at all.  It is merely a sequence of recorded notes in digital form (like digital sheet music).

Needless to say, I didn't really take much away from those classes, but this has bothered me a lot.  I wasn't sure if it was just my own misunderstanding of the MIDI issue, but some quick googling brought up similar confusion.  This topic, for example, from Gearslutz.com hits the nail on the head: Realistic Midi?

Glad to know it isn't just me wondering what people are talking about when they refer to MIDI as sounding like anything at all.  Of course there is definitely the aspect of vibrato etc not being recorded but that's where the editing comes in depending on your software.  For now, I guess I'll blame Microsoft for making such a cheesy default soundbank for MIDI in the first place.