In LA

I was just paging through a bunch of photos I shot with my iPhone while in China and came across photos I’d shot of a menu that featured some amazing English translations. I present to you a collection entitled “Customer get angry”:

I really wish I’d asked if I could buy one of these menus, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Although I think many of these translations are hilarious, it is worth noting that I don’t think badly of whoever put it together –it was extremely courteous of them. Very very few English speakers ever pop into the small town of Hengdian, let alone drop into Ai Qi Coffee. So kudos to that establishment for trying (and largely succeeding) to accomodate the occasional English-speaker.
Customer not really angry.

1. Again, those not accustomed to China might also find "Super cows feet pizza" to be noteworthy [↩]
2. I suspect a scientific name crept into their woeful Chinese-English dictionary [↩]

I threw together this little¹ damask pattern, which I’m using as my desktop, iPhone, and iPad background. Figure I’d share in case anyone else would enjoy it.

Click the thumbnail at right to get hold of a png image at the exact resolution required for the iPhone 4G’s “retina” display. 960×540. Perhaps you can spot the game of Pong in it?

If you feel like using it on your phone, click through to the full-size image, then click and hold on the image to save it to your library, then navigate to and choose it in the wallpaper settings. Neato.

To make your own damask pattern, sit yourself down in front of a computer running Adobe Illustrator and check out this great tutorial over at tutsplus.com.

1. Don’t you just love it when people are proud of an achievement, and they express their pride couched in diminutive adjectives and verbs that indicate the achievement took a minimal amount of effort. e.g.: “Oh, those little baubles I tossed off the other day? The full-scale model of the pyramids at Giza? It was nothing.” In this case, I think I’ve come up with a pattern I like (partly due to subject matter) but the pattern will probably please very few, (partly due to subject matter). I’m using the diminutive out of respect for those who hate retrogaming or hate damask patterns or just hate life in general. [↩]

What you see above is an example of the beforeAfter jquery plugin in use. If you drag the controls overlaid on the image to the left or right, click anywhere in the image¹, or click the links just below the image, you’ll be able to compare the graded and ungraded looks of a frame from a short film I graded a couple of months ago.²

beforeAfter was written by admin at catchmyfame.com. You can find the original code, see some demonstration images, and read up on his reasons for developing the plugin in his blog post about beforeAfter.

I was very happy to come across this plugin. I’ve wanted for a while to be able to post before-and-after examples like this to my blog to demonstrate film grading and photo editing work, and this was nearly exactly what I needed. I took the code, wrapped it into a WordPress plugin, and modified it to add a few features. Since I was to benefit from code released freely into the wild by its author, it’s only natural to release the modifications. The beforeAfter wordpress plugin I’ve constructed can be downloaded here:

http://zachfine.com/beforeAfter_wp.tar.gz

I wrote the plugin’s original author to ask for his blessing before releasing this altered version of beforeAfter, and he agreed. Below are excerpts from that email message, which explain my alterations to the code and also contains some instructions on how to use the plugin:

<email message>
On Mon, Jul 19, 2010 at 2:53 PM, Zach wrote:
Hello there,

I was extremely happy to find your jquery beforeAfter script on the net. I’ve wanted for a while to post before and after images to my blog that help show people how to make adjustments to photos or grade video footage, beforeAfter seems like a fantastic way to do that.

I constructed a wordpress plugin based on your script and installed it on my server. It worked very well, but I realized while testing it that the following additional features would be very useful to me (and possibly to others as well):

• the ability to have an arbitrary number of instances of beforeAfter containers per page
• the ability to set custom “Show only before” and “Show only after” text strings via custom attribute in the container’s html.
• the ability to set a custom initial wipe starting point via custom attribute in the container’s html. The reason for this is that I want the beforeAfter controller and its function to be instantly obvious to visitors, so I want to manually place the initial wipe point over the area of greatest between-image contrast — or I might want to place the wipe point over the area I mean to emphasize.

So I read up on javascript and jquery and made a few modifications. It was only after making these modifications that I noticed the script’s license stipulates “No Derivative Works”. I think this means I can’t use the modifications I’ve made unless you give me approval to use my modified version of your script, though I could be wrong. I was planning on sending you these modifications regardless, thinking that in the best-case scenario you might like the modifications and/or make them available to others.

My mods to the script:

Example of container html:³

<div class="container" data-wipeto="35" data-beforetext="original" data-aftertext="graded" data-animateintro="true" data-introdelay="3000" data-introduration="3000"> <div><img alt="ungraded" src="http://zachfine.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/LB-01-00-57-05-original.jpg" height="254" width="450" /></div> <div><img alt="graded" src="http://zachfine.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/LB-01-00-57-05-graded.jpg" height="254" width="450" /></div> </div&

Note that I’ve set the user configuration settings above using valid html5 custom attributes. In this manner each container can have its own settings. The html5 spec requires that custom attributes be lowercase and begin with “data-”. Unfortunately this means no camelCasing, which cuts down on the readability of variable names. Maybe underscores are allowed?

Because my goal was to allow an arbitrary number of beforeAfter containers on a page, I’ve changed the jquery selectors in the script to look for divs of class “container”, rather than id “container”. I’ve always used id’s to single out individual design elements on a page, and classes for a class of elements. I could be wrong about this paradigm.

This html produces the following

Redundant image removed –see demo at top of this blog post, it’s a working example of the result of that container’s html.

Any beforeAfter settings not set by the user in the html will get the defaults. The “wipeto” point will be set to “50″ (out of 100), the “beforetext” will be set to “Show only before”, etc.

Here’s the jquery code I use to iterate through each of the the divs of class “container” in the DOM, iterating through each div’s custom attributes to construct an object of options, and then calling the beforeAfter plugin on that div and passing it the set of user-set options:

<script type="text/javascript">
$(function(){
   $('div.container').each(function (index) {
      var $div = $(this);

      var userOptions = {};
      $.each(this.attributes, function(i, attrib) {
             if( /^data-/.test(attrib.name) ) {
              userOptions[attrib.name.replace(/data-/g, '')] = attrib.value;
              }
      });

// Adding just one more option to the object of arguments:                      
      userOptions['imagepath'] = '<?php echo WP_PLUGIN_URL . "/beforeafter/js/"; ?>';

      $div.beforeAfter(userOptions);
   });
});
</script>

This bit of script is in my wordpress plugin, with more comments, here: http://zachfine.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/beforeafter/beforeAfter-source.php

I made a few of changes to the jquery.beforeafter.js script to make use of the new “wipeto”, “beforetext”, and “aftertext” vars, and to remove camelCasing from the options/defaults vars to be consistent with the html5 custom attributes. My altered version is available here: http://zachfine.com/blog/wp-content/plugins/beforeafter/js/jquery.beforeafterZ.js
</email message>

I plan to use this plugin quite a bit in the near future. I hope you all enjoy using it as well. Thanks again to admin at catchmyfame.com for writing the original plugin and allowing me to distribute and use this modified version.

1. Clicking rather than dragging the controls works just fine on iPhone/iPad. [↩]
2. Yes, I really did track a “power window” to the actress’s face, matte-ing a selective color adjustment, to restore/enhance the blue color of her eyes. Thanks for asking. [↩]
3. Yeah, the formatting doesn’t look so hot after it’s wrapped by your web browser, but you should have seen it before! The demo of the plugin at the top of this blog post can serve as a more readable example –see the html code of the post. [↩]

Edit 9/21/2010: This deal now dead. They’re now selling on Amazon for $74.99.

Because I’ve bought or browsed similar items in the past, Amazon.com just sent me an email to let me know that the “Deal of the Day” is the Ultimate Ears SuperFi 4 Noise Isolating Earphones, which they’re selling today for $39.99. The email says this is 69% off the list price. I don’t know what Amazon’s regular price for these is as they’ve already changed their price for today’s deal, but I do know that these same earbuds go for $121.10 at buy.com, and they have sold for around $80 new on eBay¹. So this really is a significant price drop for what is normally an expensive item.²

The market has gotten pretty crowded since I first started using high-quality earbuds, and this particular pair is one of many I’ve never tried, but the reviews for the SuperFi 4′s look to be promising. For half price or less they may be a good choice if you’ve been considering a set of better earbuds than those which come with the iPod/iPhone/Zune/etc.

I like and recommend using earbuds over headphones when monitoring audio recording in a noisy environment, when watching or listening to a media player on a plane or train, or when listening to media in bed³. I’ve had very good experiences with Shure earbuds and with the Future Sonics Atrios. My Shure e2c’s I bought very cheaply on an earlier deal, and I use them for running⁴. The Atrios are part of my production kit, and I also use them when traveling. The fact that earbuds block a lot of surrounding noise, just as do earplugs, allows me to concentrate on listening at lower volume and without distraction. If you’ve got the need, these might be worth looking into while they’re discounted.⁵

1. My favorite way to determine the going price for an item is to do a search on eBay for completed auctions. [↩]
2. The last sale a search turns up for this item was back in July for $59.99. [↩]
3. I’ve slept with earbuds in and iPhone alarm on before when traveling or when sharing a room to avoid waking others. [↩]
4. Which I really need to get back to doing on a regular basis. [↩]
5. Or as Amazon says, “…while supplies last.” [↩]

The stereo in my friend’s 2010 Prius¹ has a very useful feature: bluetooth audio input. As soon as he steps inside his car, his iPhone connects to the stereo wirelessly, and he can then play music from its library or using Pandora without connecting any cables.

I noticed that DealExtreme sells a bluetooth stereo music receiver for $12.99². This tiny, battery-operated device looks like an ugly cousin of an old iPod shuffle, sporting a big bluetooth symbol in the middle of its control pad. It’s designed to accept wireless transmissions from your iPhone, computer, or other device that supports bluetooth audio streaming, and then play that received audio out headphones connected to its jack. $12.99 falls well within my speculative hacking budget.

So I bought the device and have tested it out. When I plugged a cable between its headphone jack and my car’s audio input jack and streamed audio to it from my iPhone, it worked a treat. It shows up in the iPhone’s bluetooth menu as a device named,”BCK-08″.

There are a few problems. The device’s built-in battery is pathetic, and within an hour or two of use it begins to beep every few minutes to indicate that the battery needs a charge. I also think the audio quality decreases in direct proportion to the battery’s charge, but am not positive about that.

My goal is to take apart this device, wire it to be powered directly from my car, and leave it permanently connected to the car stereo’s auxiliary input jack.

I’ve found a few resources on the net that may be of help:

• The data sheet for the chip used in this device, the ISSC IS1621N. I wish this PDF file were available to simply download. To have to view it in a flash-based viewer feels archaic, and overprotective for information the manufacturer should want to widely disseminate. I do see a button labeled “download” (in Chinese), but to download requires an account on the website and I don’t feel like jumping through account creation hoops in Chinese right now³.
• A page about the chip at its manufacturer’s website.
• The page of someone who has already taken apart the BCK-08 and is planning to do a similar project. He mentions a desire to get line-level output from the device. I think that’d be nice, though I notice no mention of a line out in the chip’s pinout, only an amplified headphone out.
• Wikipedia’s writeup of the LM317 adjustable voltage regulator, which is probably the part I’ll need to use to take my car’s 12V as input and supply 3.7V DC to the BCK-08.
• Or perhaps I could use this constant current-regulated LED driver⁴ to bring my car’s 12V down to 3.7V. It’s designed for high-power Cree LEDs, which take 3.7V input, so I’d guess it might be about right. Would save me some time designing my own circuit with the LM317, and it only costs $2.39.

1. I’m sure many other cars also have this feature. [↩]
2. The device’s full name on DealExtreme’s site is “Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP AVRCP Stereo Music Receiver and Handsfree (Black)” [↩]
3. I’ve been out of China for 3 years now and don’t feel like spending an hour fighting my way through the website with a dictionary in hand [↩]
4. Also from DealExtreme –how about that? [↩]

Rachel and I were driving along Coldwater Canyon Blvd in Studio City this morning when we spotted something that’s a not-infrequent sight around here: Jay Leno driving one of his very cool vintage cars down the road.

I grabbed her cell phone¹ and snapped a couple of pictures. He did the same. I don’t think he has a blog in which he posts photos of people in the act of taking his picture², but if he does you’ll now be able to find a photo of me on it.

1. It’s an iPhone 4G. I’m pretty impressed by its camera’s image quality. I don’t think I gave the phone enough time to properly set its exposure for that 2nd shot, there’s likely have been better highlight detail had I waited a couple of seconds. [↩]
2. which is something I’d definitely do if I were any sort of celebrity [↩]