1000 Airplanes on the Roof

We're bizzy drones in San Francisco, though some like SNAFU want to limit willy-nilly building of antennas emitting radiofrequency (RF) radiation. Gavin Newson, Karl Rove's hero of the single issue 2004 election, wants to skip environmental reviews to build a sweetheart-deal wireless network instead of expanding the municipal installed base of fiber to compete with other countries (eg Korea) in internet speeds.

Phillip Glass has a sample of his sci-fi musical drama 1000 Airplanes on the Roof at his website. Wikipedia has a pertinent summary: 'The main character named "M" recalls encounters with extra-terrestrial life forms, including their message, "It is better to forget, it is pointless to remember. No one will believe you. You will have spoken a heresy. You will be outcast."'

But it's better to remember, and technology assessment is not heresy.

AE faster in XP than OS X

At a DMN site, Kevin Schmitt looks at AE rendering speed on an Intel Mac using Windows XP, Vista, and Mac OSX. XP seems to be 5 to 15% faster than OS X even with Boot Camp limitations. (via)

Update: There's probably no conspiracy against the Mac -- which admittedly is a rapidly "evolving" platform. The current Mac version maybe a bit slower because code generated by Apple's Xcode/gcc is not quite as fast as the Windows compiles and/or the AE team has had a lot longer time to optimize things for Windows, which has not undergone so many processor and OS changes as the Mac. Happily, the new Intel Mac platform should allow Intel-specific optimizations to help both platforms.

Update 2: General Specialist adds, "Still, there's one BIG reason why Windows on Mac hardware isn't the ultimate solution; that the Apple hardware only gives the 32-bit versions of XP and Vista access to 2 GB of RAM on Macs. The solution is to use Vista64 or XPx64."

Update 3: Ken Broomfield thinks (AE-List, 16 Aug 2007), "The performance difference here is probably due to Carbon and the MacOS's need to support antique programming interfaces (APIs) on a modern OS, which introduces all kinds of overhead."

The 700 MHz Auction

Splice Here, a blog on editing, has an intro and links on the race to control the existing analog TV spectrum in The 700 MHz Auction — The Biggest Media Story You’ve Never Heard About.

Additional Scripts for AE CS3

Jeff Almasol, host of the redefinery and a member of the AE team, has Additional Scripts for After Effects CS3 on Adobe Exchange. The package contains contains scripts for editing keyboard shortcuts (KeyEd Up), launching scripts (Launch Pad), create project folder hierarchies (Folder Setup), converting Adobe Swatch Exchange (.ase) files (Swatch You Want, kuler Shapes), and modifying a comp's motion blur settings interactively (Active Shutter).

The redefinery released other CS3 script updates a few weeks ago. And about that time new AE product manager Michael Coleman also posted on Adobe Exchange: Additional Presets for After Effects CS3 (for Shape Layer and per-character 3D text) .

PF Hoe, a 3D tracking filter

At last night's SF Cutters, Alex Lindsay showed a bit of PF Hoe, a 3D tracking filter for AE and Motion. It's based on much more expensive software and might not be as full-featured as SynthEyes, but it is cheap and easy to use. To get a sense of how PF Hoe works see the parent app PFHoePro in action at CMI Studios.

The Mystery of Chaco Canyon

Google has the tiny version of the documentary The Mystery of Chaco Canyon, narrated by Robert Redford. This doc has well-integrated 3D animation and examines the archaeoastronomical enigmas amidst the extensive "prehistoric remains found in Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico. It is the summation of 20 years of research. The film reveals that between 850 and 1150 AD, the Chacoan people designed and constructed massive ceremonial buildings in a complex celestial pattern throughout a vast desert region. Aerial and time lapse footage, computer modeling, and interviews with scholars show how the Chacoan culture designed, oriented and located its major buildings in relationship to the sun and moon."

In addition to the great graphical explanations of earth-based astronomy, the fun is the mystery of why Chacoan sites were abandoned, whether explained by undetermined dark forces, climatic instability and deforestation (David Attenborough in "State Of The Planet"), or cannibalism.

10 best Firefox extensions for photographers

from John Nack: Photographer's Journey "has made a list of the 10 best Firefox extensions for photographers, enabling everything from slideshows to uploading to geotagging."