I’ve had a tumblr account for a couple of months, but never used it for anything other than following interesting people. That’s changing now- anything that I feel doesn’t qualify as a real “blog update” (things like pictures, articles, random things from the Internet…) will be sent to fraxtil.tumblr.com rather than here.
Change of plans
23Jan2010
I initally intended for Tsunamix to be similar to FlightMix, in that it would be multiple sets of songs that would be released at the same time. This isn’t working out for me the way I had intended, so instead I’m going to publish stepcharts one or two at a time. A positive side-effect of this change is that people can download whatever they want and skip the rest. Less bandwidth consumption for everyone!
Tsunamix beta preview
27Dec2009
This has actually been around for awhile, but here it is now:
25 songs in total. Some are incomplete and bound to be edited at some point. I’m also taking a break from working on this at the moment, so don’t expect the full pack to be released anytime soon. 
After much frustration and pain, I’ve found a way to convert a static image and an audio file into a high-quality YouTube video with the help of ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -loop_input -i image.png -i audio.mp3 -y -b 628k -acodec libmp3lame -ab 320k -vcodec libx264 -s hd720 -shortest output.mp4
Now you can upload mp3s to YouTube from any major operating system without worrying about poor transcoding. Just replace image.png and audio.mp3 with the appropriate files. Thanks to Kuukunen of irc.freenode.net/#ffmpeg for helping me work out an issue with uploading.
Tsunamix alpha preview is here!
12Dec2009
As of today, I have completed eight of the fifty simfiles I want to make for Tsunamix. Get them here! Expect a beta preview within the next month or two, and a complete pack of 50 songs within the first half of 2010.
All artwork and songs copyright their respective owners; I attributed most of the art, but I think I forgot to do so on at least one of the backgrounds.
Things you shouldn’t do on Ubuntu
28Nov2009
Over the last month, I’ve learned the following things about Ubuntu:
- Don’t try to convert an encrypted LVM into a normal partition unless you’re prepared to spend a few full days fixing the boot-up process.
- Make a concerted effort not to screw up file permissions on your home directory. Or any directory, for that matter.
- Some GNU tools like chmod, chown, cp, mv, etc. do not work on hidden files. Running “cp oldDir/* newDir/” followed by “rm -r oldDir” is a recipe for disaster if you have any files/directories that start with a full stop.
- Regularly back up your entire partition. It may seem unnecessary and a waste of time, but it’s a life saver in some situations.
- Be careful when changing your login name, and VERY careful when changing your home directory. You might want to avoid the latter altogether.
Yes, I know all this from experience. It is entirely possible to permanently decrypt an encrypted LVM; if anyone’s interested, I’ll make a tutorial, but considering that there isn’t already one on the Internet, there’s probably not much demand.
Computer issues (update) & Raar
05Nov2009
It looks like Ubuntu 9.10 “Karmic” has fixed the issues with StepMania. That’s just one less reason to boot into Windows now.
On another note, I finally finished stepping and making graphics for Raar by Noisia. This song has the second slowest BPM in Tsunamix so far, but it’s no less awesome than the rest. The stepchart will be released with Tsunamix.
Tsunamix is coming soon
08Oct2009
The StepMania pack I was previously working on, KBcore, has been abandoned/renamed. The new pack will still contain most of the songs that were in KBcore, but the main difference is that there will be pad files in addition to keyboard ones. That means more fun for everyone!
Hopefully there will be an official webpage for it sometime this or next week. We’ll see what happens.