Mikael Fernstrom

>On my way to Iceland, stop-over at Copenhagen Airport. I could not resist a “dansk smørrebrød” and a pint…

>Tonight, I’ll be sleeping with this contraption on my hand.

It’s a wrist-worn device from Nonin.
The reason for this is to check how well my CPAP therapy works, and if my parameters needs to be adjusted.

>Ian sent a very interesting link today about Microsoft Windows Vista and their DRM stuff.
If you’re a CREATIVE professional, Microsoft will more or less make sure that you can’t work. If you’re a sound artist or scientist using things like S/PDIF or optical audio i/o, Vista will disable your subsystems. Just think – you’ve invested thousands of euro in your studio, you get Vista, and nothing will ever work again.
So, apparently Microsoft does not want you to be creative. They only want you to be a consumer…

>Mon-Wed was used for going to Brussels to participate in launching the new COST action on Sonic Interaction Design.
Apart from work, we had the opportunity to re-explore food in Brussels. I would strongly recommend:
MANGETSU
(owners Kzutomi & Kyoko Watanabe)
13 Rue de la Fourche
1000 Bruxells
Phone: 02-5118367

>Yesterday, I heard a tune on radio. I had a vague idea about the band. Immediatly searched iTunes shop – about 150 hits. I was then forced by a traditional list-based interface to double-click, listen for two seconds, double-click on next, etc. With a Sonic Browser, I would have found the tune in no time and Apple would have made money faster!

>This Friday night, the famous Bootleggin Band played at Charco’s Pub in Castleconnell. Mr Shortt made an extensive and fantastic guest performance on saxophone. More gigs during summer….

>This evening we watched an old VHS reel, Hrafninn flýgur, to get inspired for my Horzontal Rain piece. While the story is quite theatrical or epic, it is still a very nice film in terms of showing where Icelandic culture is coming from, its people and conflicts.

>After getting yet another thingie, the YPbPr to RGB transcoder, I finally got my AppleTV working. I’m still missing a SCART cable, but I’ve borrowed one from the DVD for the moment. It works, it’s neat. Now the only missing thing is content, i.e. video. It’s great being able to share and stream music and photos from 5 other computers. One disadvantage is that you can’t get Web Radio, as far as I’ve tried, on the thing.
So remedy the lack of content, I’ll have to define a few clever Final Year Projects to convert all kinds of video content to MPEG so that it can be imported into iTunes and played.
I still haven’t tested if it’ll do surround sound. I think I have all the formats enabled on the sound system…

>According to some sources, the IDC is being privatized!

>Yesterday, I got my AppleTV box. As I wanted to connect it to the home cinema system, I thought I’d be OK using the RGB output. I then discovered that the RGB output is actually YPbPr, so I’ve now bought extra cables, ordered a SyncBlaster RGB to Component video Transcoder from Keene Electronics in the UK.
Apple needs to update their documentation!
A postive discovery while going through all possible troubleshooting from Apple was that AppleTV at least uses a simple form of Auditory Display to indicate what it’s doing while going through all its possible screen resolutions and synch options. The AppleTV box goes PING every time it changes screen settings and finally PING-PING when it has completed the cycle and restarts.