BIT-101
Bill Gates touched my MacBook Pro
Just a general update on what’s been happening since my last ramblings.
Mainly just making music. Still rocking on the DirtyWave M8. Actually, still on the headless version, which runs on a Teensy 4.1 board plugged into my computer. I did manage to get in on the last M8 order window on February 10! So I have an actual hardware unit coming at some point - though they won’t be shipping until early April. Torture.
So many other M8 users express similar love for the device. Many say that they have stopped buying a lot of other musical equipment because this thing just scratches so many itches. I see the same thing in myself. I keep looking at other synths and trackers and devices, but I really just want to get my M8.
I hate to sound dramatic, but this device has changed my life. It’s just so much fun to make music on. Two years ago I said I wanted to make and release a song. I kind of did that in SuperCollider, but most of that was just sound design and generating random (or semi-random) notes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I dreamed of creating a song that was properly put together - all the right pieces handcrafted and thoughfully put in place and all working together. So far this year, I’ve put out twelve songs. I’ve been aiming for one a week. Week 10 of 2025 just wrapped up, so I’m a bit ahead of the game. Not saying my songs are amazing, but I think some of them are pretty catchy. More to the point, I’m enjoying the hell out of the process.
Doing graphics code for 25 years was great, but when I look back at the early days, I was learning something new every damn day and it was so exciting. For the past many years, I’ve been doing a lot of revisiting of old projects, doing them better, combining one technique with another technique to make something new, occasionally learning something new, but not often enough.
But starting in on music, I’m back in that space of constantly discovering something new almost every day. I love it.
For my last song, I dug up a short animation I made last year and extended and expanded it and made a video of that along with the song.
The video is not reactive to the sound, or vice-versa, but I still like how it came out. Also this song has been stuck in my head for a week. I’ve never created my own earworm before.
While I wait for my actual M8, I tried another headless build, using a handheld retro gaming console. You can plug the Teensy into that and run the headless app on the console. I got it working, but I find I actually like working on the computer a bit more.
The device I got was the Anbernic RG40XX V. No big loss on not using it for music though. I’m having a blast gaming on it. My current favorite is an old arcade game, Gravitar.
But also playing other old arcade games and 3D FPSes like the original Quake, Doom and Wolfenstein.
Work’s been OK. We had a company offsite in Ft. Lauderdale, FL in February. It was a cold spell up here in the Boston area, so that was a welcome relief for a few days. Even got to go on a group run with a bunch of coworkers. That was a highlight.
(We were staying at the Hilton you can see in the background.)
I’m working on hiring a senior front end software engineer. The posting got over 1600 applicants in the first few days. That’s pretty scary. Many of them have 10 or more years experience. It’s tough out there. Makes me feel bad that I can only hire one. Expecting this role to be filled this coming week. I just hope I am not in the position of looking for a position myself any time soon.
I guess there is no and. That’s pretty much me over the past month or so. And extrapolate all that out into the next month, and you’re probably on track with what I’ll be doing then. But I’ll let you know.
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