First there was a big bang, and the universe was formed, then god created earth and the dinosaurs roamed free. Then a comet came and annihilated them all, and humans showed up with music. Then we invented pieces of silicon that could chirp. And so 8bit music was born!

Well, maybe i skipped a few steps, but here is what you need to know: couple decades past it still kicks major ass. Plenty of folks on the intrawebs are into it and so should you. It’s also typically refered to as chiptune music (as in music created with a soundchip). Nowdays it’s all sample based and software synthethised sounds but the style remains fresh and it’s scene kicking.

In case you can’t google for “8bit music” here is a little list i have quickly prepared for you of what’s worth checking out in order to get your daily dosage of sweet 8bit / chiptune sounds:
- 8bit collective
- 8bitpeoples
- AY Riders
- Chipmusic
- Da ! Heard It Records
- Kohina
- Micromusic
- Pause
- Pterodactyl Squad
- True Chip Till Death
- Ubiktune
- VORC

We now have a Swap Shop Bag at xDA!

Only for books and cds at this point, but we have it and you’re free to use it. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept let us explain further: You put one, you take one. That’s it. Yep. That’s all there is to it. We have a swap shop bag here at xDA waiting for you to come and use it, you can take whatever you want from within the bag as long as you put something replacing it. You can also just consume it while you’re at the xDA lab if you prefer. Open to members and non members alike.

At this point in time the xDA Swap Shop Bag contains, in order of arrival:
- Neil Gaiman – Odd and the Frost Giants (book x4) (link)
- Movimento Zeitgeist – Zeitgeist Addendum e Trailer (dvd x2) (site)
- António Piedade – Íris Científica (book x3) (link)
- Violet & The Mutants – Violet EP (cdr x1) (link)
- Structura – Karawane (cdr x1) (link)
- Josué, O Salvador em Busca da Perdição & Profan – split (k7 x1) (link)
- Josué, O Salvador em Busca da Perdição & Profan – split (cdr x1) (link)
- V/A – Enough Dubs 2 (cdr x1) link)
- V/A – This is Industrial [PT] (cd x1) (link)

This week it’s Open Access Week. Not just at xDA, it’s worldwide. A week dedicated to push forward open acess ideology in scholarship and research. There is even some Portuguese representation (http://www.acessolivre.pt/). Which is very nice. If all data, courses and publications were open access things would be alot easier to replicate, understand and innovate.

In fact, if Open Data was as common as Open Source and Creative Commons are already, things would be much better for everyone. Except for our corrupt government perhaps.

But it seems some Anonymous folks took Open Access Week too literaly over here and decided to not only deface ACAPOR site, but now also leak their internal emails (magnet link), part of “Operation: Payback” as reported at acapor.com, unite the cows and torrentfreak. It seems only fair, if they demand all internet consumers to have no privacy anymore, they should be transparent first. After all, those who did nothing wrong, have nothing to fear and thus should waive their right to privacy. Right?

Another tuesday meeting of xDA took place today. No spaghetti monster sightings lately but we haven’t lost faith.

It seems we finally got a decent movie video camera for the lab, courtesy of our new honorary member Cristina Gaspar. Both of the batteries it came with seem rather dead and will probably be returned for recycling. Plus we still have to install drivers on our server for the Dazzle DVC80 we had lying around in the hardware junk pile, then we’ll be able to convert super8 to digital and dominate the world! Wondering if the server can handle it without a BSOD.

Celebration is also in order since we just opened our free / swap shop with a few EnoughRecords CDRs Neil Gaiman books and Zeitgeist DVDs! Feel free to bring some lowcost media to swap or donate.

Meanwhile we proceed with our usual business:
- Tiago shown us some cool showreels of some other peoples work out of vimeo. And discussed some app projects for DEI’s SenseWall.
- Our Brazilian guest Filipe was playing around with his fish-eye lens snapping some sequences which might or might not end up on a xDA video sequence.
- Vic working on some more digital graffiti rendering effects.

I recently won an iPod. “iPod Classic 160Gb” the box read as i opened it and drooled at the fancy Apple packaging. It comes with it’s own usb cable, earplug phones, and a white piece of plastic which i have no bloody clue what it could be useful for, maybe resting the thing vertically.. which i failde to see how to support it and the manual provided to reference to. “Oh well, who cares about pieces of white plastic” i thought to myself. “Let’s see what this baby can do!”

Never having owned one and detesting to use bloatware such as iTunes i started looking for alternatives to update my iPod. Google and some friends on twitter provided me with some solutions that supposedly handle this hassle:
- iPod Linux, a firmware replacer, which seemed discontinued since 2004.
- Rockbox, a sync app which seemed to be what all the cool kids use.
- GTKPod, a sync app which seemed to be what all the linux kids use.

Ofcourse that following Murphy’s Law, none of the above solutions worked for my iPod. Because, as i soon learned, the iPod Classic 160Gb is a 6th? generation iPod (called Classic 3G on some sites, iPod 6g on others), it’s sub-labelled at Classic to distinguish it from the remaining iPod family products (nano, video, touch). It seems Apple decided to encrypt the firmware for this model, perhaps because the display allows you to play some games. Or probably because they want you to buy your music and videos through iTunes.

“Well, i don’t want to use iTunes. I already have my own way or sorting my digital media collection, and have no interest in accomodating to their imposed standards.” I claimed out loud in my empty bedroom as i waved my fist in the air and then proceeded to shrug and decide to install iTunes anyways. “I’m so gonna regret this.”

Atleast now there is no more pending software update notices popping up on my desktop anymore. Just 150megs of wasted diskspace for a media player that doesn’t allow me to play any of the media i have. So i launch the thing, check out the menus, notice they still expect me to pay or re-rip for access to music i already ripped to mp3. No thanks. Headed over to podcasts section and automatically they recognized my nationality and feeded me an eye cancer multitude of popular crap that i never wished for. Tried to find my way around their galleries for relevant stuff, but as soon as arts > music showed me artcovers of bikini tits i knew i was in trouble and should quit imediately. But i persisted desperatly trying to find a search button i could click and check if my favorite podcasts were actually present. Only took me a couple of frustrated growls to realize i should be looking for “Power Search.” Obviously. And if i knew the exact name or author i could find my podcasts. Great public service, for popular crap. One thing they did seem to be getting right though: the radio stations. They were listed, they were alot, they were decently diversed, they were free, and they even worked without much hassle.

So i tried plugging in my iPod and use iTunes to load it with some TED Talks podcasts and such. First thing i get: “you should register your iPod!” No, not really, i shouldn’t. I don’t want you to know what i listen to, when i listen to, just for “free online support” which will never work properly whenever i actually need it. I actually should tell you to sod off and not register my iPod! Sadly no such option was available, only a “Register Later.” Eventually i end up being able to sync the iPod, even if “some of the videos on your iTunes library were not copied to the iPod because they cannot be played on this iPod”, well, thank goodness i have a latest generation iPod then. Oh wait, you mean iTunes actually can’t transcode videos for my iPod despite being the only tool that can upload things to it?

So… I can’t really recommend to anyone that they should get an iPod Classic.
But if anyone who does own one, actually found a way to jailbreak it, i would sure appreciate you getting in touch and brightening my day.

P.S. Seems some folks have been working on it and share their info at freemyipod.org

No passado fim-de-semana decorreu mais um Lab Sprint AZ. Ao contrário do habitual, desta vez saímos do nosso lab e dirigimo-nos de armas e bagagens para a aldeia de Maçal do Chão na região da Serra da Estrela. A nossa equipa era constituída por Mónica Mendes do altLab, João Carvalho, Pedro Ângelo e Ricardo Lobo do LCD e Tiago Serra do xDA (que não pôde participar nesta etapa mas com quem continuamos a contar para desenvolvimento futuros). No Maçal, tinhamos os nossos correspondentes locais a postos, Valter Cruz e André Correia.
O objectivo para este Sprint era dar o pontapé de saída no projecto Hug@ree proposto pela Mónica – para além de ter participado activamente, no Sprint elaborou uma reportagem detalhada sobre o mesmo no seu blog. Este texto é apenas um breve resumo dessa reportagem, de leitura essencial não só pela descrição do trabalho desenvolvido, mas também pelo registo do convívio, de degustação obrigatória.

O objectivo para este Sprint era construir um protótipo da instalação onde, no exterior, as pessoas abraçassem uma árvore, sendo essa interacção registada por uma câmara e enviada para o interior da instalação, onde os participantes poderiam então ver e manipular esse registo numa interface dinâmica.

Fomos recebidos com muita hospitalidade e o Sprint decorreu num ambiente pacífico rodeado de beleza natural.

O primeiro dia foi dedicado ao desenho e testes de um sensor de abraços para colocar na árvore com resultados muito interessantes.

O segundo dia foi dedicado ao desenvolvimento da estrutura base do software da instalação e a testes de disposição espacial dos vários elementos da instalação.

Houve ainda tempo para fazer algum trabalho de campo durante a tarde com um belo passeio pela natureza para recolher material vídeo para documentação e análise

No final do dia, juntámo-nos todos para a demo final e partimos de volta já com saudades. Podem ler o relato completo das nossas aventuras neste Sprint no blog da Mónica:

• Abraçaum@rvore » Sprint AZ [Dia 0]
• Abraçaum@rvore » Sprint AZ [Dia 1]
• Abraçaum@rvore » Sprint AZ [Dia 2]
• Saberes & sabores do Maçal do Chão » Sprint AZ
• Abraçaum@rvore » Sprint AZ: 1 finalFeliz em 2 videos e – de 3′

Podem encontrar as referências, esquemas e o código desenvolvido para este Sprint no nosso wiki

Entretanto já estamos a preparar o próximo Lab Sprint AZ. Fiquem atentos à abertura das inscrições que deve aparecer em breve por aqui.