tl:dr for the last two years, just after Corona started up, I started playing guitar again, (mostly The Smiths) and then took up the hobby of ‘looping’ Looping is creating a song using a digital sampling device. Basically playing a riff or pattern, and then repeat it over and over, Then adding more and more riffs or patterns on top.

Sept update: Finished ‘There There’ by Radiohead. This took a LONG time because I had to change my workflow a bit. Also created a video the way I wanted to do it.

I need to create a part II for ‘There There’ where I explain the break down and the new things I got working to do this project. For example, using MIDI to play drums and fire events to Quantiloop on the IPad. I’ll get to that later. But for now, here is the new video!

When I first started looping, I was using an Boss RC30, however over this time I ended up changing to an iPad, new guitar, new effects pedal, learning post production using a computer, and wasting lots of time trying to figure how to film this using a cell phone. All while still working, so basically finding buckets of time here and there. However, 1.5 years later, finally ready to post some of the results.

I will update this over time but for now, consider this post a placeholder for the videos.

I recommend you open in YouTube. Also ‘Why PeriVision Loops’ is pretty long, so unless you are interested in looping, you can skip after the first part.

Update: I may just put the link to youtube instead of putting the player in the blog directly.

For example, here is just the playthrough of ‘Shoplifters of the World…’ currently my favorite of the 3 released so far.

https://youtu.be/2SbzWgEelmQ

Video List:

• Why PeriVision Loops: How and why for this hobby.
• The Smiths – Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others
• The Smiths – Shoplifters of the World, Unite and Take Over
• The Smiths – Last night I Dreamt

This is the first video. Its ok, but I may redo it. I also want to figure out how to bass as I’m playing. Future effort.

This is my favorite so far. Really happy with the sound. My only regret is I figure out how to get a good sound out of my holo-body guitar AFTER this was done. Oh well.

This is my second song. I was still learning how to do these, and really did not get the sound I wanted. After this was done, I was planning on creating another version, but I wanted a dark 1950s tube amp sound and a feeling like you are hearing this in some dank pup somewhere where smoking is not allowed but happens anyway. Go figure, I recently found a version of this sound that pretty much hits what I was after.

Check it out: https://youtu.be/hp-Ic3wZrGM

New Cat in the house

So keep in mind, there was not a lot of thought as to how were going to deal with Cha-san. This is a cat that has lived its life outside. Can he live in a house? Will it drive him nuts? I bought a really large dog cage in case he could not handle being indoors. Eventually we decided he should stay in my office until we see how he reacts. When we got him, he was exhausted. Completely shaved and shivering. We had an extra cat bed and put it out. We also carpeted my office with puppy pads in case he did not know how to use a cat liter box… he didn’t. He stayed in the cage at first, but after a few hours, he ventured out and discovered the cat bed. Guess he never seen one before but it was instant love for him! He immediately curled into the bed, and my wife covered him with a blanket. He was asleep in minuets. This is still his favorite place. Perhaps 23 hours of the day. (Picture)

With exception to getting water and food, as well as being spoon fed, he never left the bed, meaning we had to clean it three times a day. Sigh.. However, after the 3rd day, he figured out the litter box.. Kinda. He would keep stepping in his mess after he made it, so still twice daily cleaning. However, he was still weak, so we were able to move him around to fix his bed up. Soon he remembered we were one of the people who would feed him. He also connected that we were the ones fixing up the bed he so loved. So much, the unthinkable happened. We could pet him! And he purred!

The bird must leave the nest

I guess a week went by and he recovered quickly. Started to explore the room, got better at the litter box, and did not need to be spoon fed anymore. However, my office is not that big, so we had to move things out to make room for him. He still does not leave the office, but we need to get him to walk more. The first sacrifice was moving the cat tree. Both my wife and I work in my office which is the brightest room in the morning. So the cats like to be here with us. Now the cat tree is in the small dining area in the middle of the house. I kept a guest bed in the office, both for guests, and when I nap. That’s gone too. Have to build shelves to store the bed parts. We needed to make the space as large as we could so we could put his food/water, and litter box away from his bed. All that is left is my desk, so at least I can still work there. (Picture)

Eventually, slowly, he started to venture out of the office. Normally quick explorations of the house and then right back to the safety of his bed. At night we still keep the door closed because the other cats are afraid of him, and we are not sure how he will react to the other cats. At some point though, he meet Mochi our white 11year old female. At first Mochi gave him lots of space or would just run out of the house. However, she started to figure out as long as she was not on the floor, he could not reach her. It was at this time we decided, we need to leave the door open at night. Cha-san like to be active at night, like most cats and being stuck in a small room at night was starting to get to him. Even found him growing and biting his tail. We have to give him more space.

Time to meet the family

The dynamics between Mochi and Cha-san were pretty interesting. Mochi, whom was also feral for the first 3 years of her life, was VERY cautious about this this new cat. This was not the first new cat for her though. A little more than a year ago, we got Kenzo. That went more smoothly since Ken grew up with other cats and dogs and was still only a year old. Ken knew to roll over and show his belly when he first meet Mochi, so the adoption time was quite short. Not quite with Cha-san. Cha-san’s first encounter with Mochi was to try to intimidate her by looking straight at her and walking very slowly directly towards her. Each time she would blink and run away. The odd thing is though, after the encounter, Cha-san would return to the office and howl. My guess is he wanted Mochi to know this is his territory now.

Encounters with Kenzo were even shorter. Kenzo was becoming an outdoor cat and has been getting bullied by a cat that lives a block away, so he has enough on his mind and simply did not want to deal with a new cat. So he comes home, eats, leaves. At one point after seeing Kenzo run off, he went to the living room and howled. Guess he felt he could expand his territory.

Just recently though, perhaps 3 nights back, Mochi stopped running from Cha-san. Hissed when he got too close. However, she would meow and hiss, so I’m guessing she is saying ‘hey pal, I do not want any trouble, but Imma dune a run’in.’ This time Cha-san backed down and headed back to the office … and howled. Now seems they are ok with each other. Mochi still keeps off the ground, but does not seem to care about Cha-san so much now that she made her point. Cha-san sees that she will not attach him, so he is a little less cautious. Now just need to Kenzo and Cha-san to come to terms.

No office, no sleep

As all this is going on, the outside drama of Kenzo and the neighborhood Himalayan, called Lovey, became louder, more often, and typically after 1am. So we have run out of the house with a spray water bottle to break up the fight and chase off Lovey-chan. Seems Ken also decided he was dune-a -run’in from his own front yard and started to put up a fight. But he still was not winning.

Add to this, leaving the office door open so Cha-san can explore the house at night. Typically something would happen and he would howl and I would have to come downstairs and escort him back to the office. Last time, 3.30am, I had enough. He was howling downstairs and I got up, turned on the light at the top of the stairs and said; “Cha-san. Knock it off and go to bed.” Well what do you know. That worked.

Well two nights back seems Kenzo finally won a fight with Lovey in the backyard. Still had to get up at 1.30am to break it up, but at least progress. Also today he came into the office, looked at Cha-san and simply left. Again he does not want to deal with him, but perhaps he is getting some confidence. Also, Ken slept in the house yesterday. A change. I expect more fights, more howling, and more times I hear some loud noises and have to come downstairs to see what is going on. All between 1m and 7am. Sigh. Not to mention now Mochi is getting back to normal, meaning she wakes us up at 7 to get more breakfast. Until Ken can keep Lovey at bay, and when I do not need to worry about Ken attacking (in self defense) Cha-san attempts to dominate him, this will keep up.

So where are we then with all this?

Well, Cha-san is mostly recovered. We can pet him and he feels free to walk around the house when he wants. Still only sleeps/naps in the office, but yesterday he discovered the space heater my wife uses when working at the kitchen table and hung out for 30+ min. His hair is growing back and kidneys seem to be ok for now. On special food from the vet. Hopefully he will learn to be comfortable with living inside a house in time. Remember, 16years of being outside only. I know there will be adjustment issues for a long time. Perhaps we can get him used to a cat walker and be able to take him out when his hair is grown back and the weather is nicer.

Mochi seems to be ok with Cha-san, does not follow and play with him like she does with Ken, but he is pretty old so understandable; so Kenzo is more fun for Mochi.

Ken, well Ken has his own neko drama to deal with. We will see what happens in the near future.

Me, well last week happen to be a VERY busy week, so I was already low on sleep. The multiple post midnight neko wake-up events are starting to wear on me. Hopefully things will settle down.

But this is our neko life now. The adventure continues.

More update: Cha-san has started to sleep at my wife’s feet under the dinning room table where the space heater is. A kind of Kotatsu of sorts.

Have not heard any fighting the last two nights. Fingers crossed. Last night I slept 7 hours with no interruptions. First time in a month.

The tl;dr: We adopted a 16 yr old cat that lived in a neighboring parking lot. Our two cats were not thrilled, lost my home office, and have to get up once or twice a night to deal with neko (cat) drama. Due to everyone always asking, we created a blog for the cats; mochi.perivision.net I also link a few times in my post so as not to repost the same images.

The beginning

So lets go back about a year and a half. My wife and I were taking a walk down our street and happened to look into a neighboring condo parking lot. There we saw a scruffy old looking cat. Checked it out and it looked like there were a few bowels of water and food around. The next day we saw it again. Just stilling in parking lot or laying under cars. After a few more days of seeing this, I ask the maintenance people and the person sitting at the condo front office about the cat. They did not seem to know anything about it. Called SPCA and they said that I could borrow a cage, catch it myself and bring it. They would have a look, perhaps clean it up, but I could not adopt it. The policy is to release it back where the cat was found.

Next I thought, ok, I’ll put up some flyers to see who can help. Then I was told I was not allow to post anything. Sigh… Well, I was getting pretty close to simply getting the cage when we ran into someone who is taking care of the cat. Seems there are a number of people who have been feeing him over the last est. 16 years. 16 years living in a parking lot! So the thinking was, ok well, its been 16 or more years of living here, may as well let it finish his life here. And I thought that was the end of the story…

For a year and a half, we joined this rag tag random group of people leaving food and water. My wife would take on the extra task of cleaning up the area since the maintenance people were not happy about all these bowls as you can imagine. I found where he sleeps at night, against a wall where the hot water pipes run. (picture) So I dug down a bit a placed a pad and covered it again to keep him off the wet soil. He was brown so my wife called him Cha-san. Or Mr. Brown in Japanese. Seems everyone that took care of him had a different name: Master, Diamond, MiMi, Kat. I’ve had cats all my life, so I went with Kat as well as Cha-san.

Cha-san likes being around people, and did like another cat that came by, but no one could get closer than 6 feet. (guess he took Covid seriously) Never approached you unless you made a sound of dry food in a container, then he might come by and see what you brought. Otherwise, we have a complete loner and did not want to be touched. Pretty amazing a cat that growled if you got too close to him would develop such a following.

So about a month ago, I guess a new resident decided that the cat was getting worse and needed help. A SVACA volunteers came out to trap the cat. Gave the same answer, they almost never kill the cats; always return them… Turns out this was not one of those times.

The clock starts ticking

When others found out the cat was taken, there were a flurry of calls from various people trying to get answers. The SVACA said they have never seen such interest in a feral cat before. However, they have decided to put the cat down unless someone comes and claims it before 4PM. One of the people who care for the cat, told her friend what was happening. He asked no questions but jumped in the car and headed there. He claimed the cat. However, they would not let him take the cat unless he found a vet who would take the cat under care, again before 4pm. He was on the phone calling every vet in the area until he found one that was willing to take care of him. Next he has to rush to find a cage and get the cat before the clock stuck zero time. He barely made it.

Oh my God

This was the reaction of the vet. He was shocked at the cats age and condition. Said most likely he will not come back from anesthesia. But was given the greenlight anyway. After he was under, they shaved him, ended up making a few deep cuts because of badly matted the hair was, clipped nails including one that was growing into his paw… And amazingly, he came back. But now what? They could not keep the cat, no home for it. Keep in mind, there was not a formal organization for this group, it was a case of one person who know another who knew another. Text messages were flying everywhere. My wife said to pass a message to whomever has the cat, that we would take him in. 36 hours later, the messages finally connected and the people with the cat who have no choice but keep the cat in a garage the night before finally got our address and came by to drop off the cat.

Part II: A new cat in the house

SOoo much to unpack from yesterday. Ok, lets take this one at a time. First the stock jump to over $1000 a share. In less than a week, TSLA went from $775 to close at $1080 today with a peak at $1094. This 25% jump is pretty crazy. So what is going on? Two things. Tesla made it numbers starting the run and then an unusual run on call options.

“Investors spent $5.11 billion on call options, compared with a total of $279 million on puts, according to an estimate by Nomura Securities. The firm calls the 18-to-1 ratio “unheard of.” And all the spike in calls means options dealers needed to snap up shares to avoid unwanted risk.”

The Motley Fool

Second Hertz placed an order for 100k cars!! Its this second event that is really interesting to me. So yes this is a great marketing move from a back-from-the-dead car rental company, but this also places a lot of pressure on other car rental services to match this offering. Does not necessary mean they will buy Tesla, but most likely that will part of the mix as other car manufactures try to get their EV exposed to the consumer market. As such, I would not be surprised to see other orders from other services in the near future. Does the mean the stock price will go up even more. No idea.

In other Tesla news, FSD started it first large release. Unfortunately, 10.2 had a pretty bad bug, ( I experienced it) and they had to pull it back. But soon after they released 10.3. So far so good! Yes its VERY much a beta so you have to pay very close attention. Big issue I noticed right off is the system does not always understand the concept of driveway slope paving when entering a community. It thinks it still on a road (according to Google Maps) and not only does not slow down, but unless you stop it, it can curb the tires pretty bad as its cuts the turn.

Other issue is when turning right. Often there is space for the car to occupy to bypass other cars in the right hand lane going straight. However, FSD does not understand that. That is an issue when cars behind you get confused that you turned on your blinker but did not get to the far right side of the lane.

Another odd one you will see in the video is when the car thought it was stuck trying to turn right and decided to go around. Only issue is, if you try that, you will not make your right hand turn anymore. I should have let it make the maneuver just to see what happens.

You can check out the video below. I cut most of the dead time out and only did a very short drive, but you can get a sense for its pretty quickly. Key note here. I have a sub 10k vin model 3. So its running on the older camera configuration (I think) so that may or may not play into performance.

So as far as I know, I may be the first person in history to use the new V10 Tesla Smart Summon on the Samsung Galaxy Fold phone. So shameless plug, I work at Samsung and I think the Fold is amazing. Yea it has its issues, its new, but I love it. I’ll write a post about it another day. So, that aside, I also did a few experiments with smart summon and got a mixed bag. So I shot a few vids and posted them. The tl:dr, GPS is not very accurate and if you are in an area with lots of building, it can through it off a few feet. If you are in a parking garage, its far worse. Next it sees many open spaces as an intersection and thus will pause. Better safe than sorry I guess. It also can ‘trap’ itself if it does not back out of the parking spot correctly. This has only happened once, but then again, I have only just started playing with it. That aside, it works most of the time. Sometimes you will have to restart your app because it will get ‘stuck’ after performing a summon.

First experiment went pretty well. The car moved from the parking space to me with only a few pauses. Did not make it all the way. I think it was not sure where I was given how odd the parking is here. I made it easy by backing the car in, which is how I park most of the time anyway. You can see on the large screen that the car is sending back what it ‘sees’, not video mind you. I would LOVE to get video instead, but may need a special encoder on the car for that to get the data load low enough. So test 1 was pretty good.

Test 2. As you can see on the Fold, this time I placed a pin and had the car come to the pin. This worked pretty well as well. But again I made it pretty easy since I backed the car in. Still, pretty cool! There is a distance limit, but hopefully that will get expanded as time goes on.

Test 3. I made this a little harder, and unfortunately, it failed this one. In this test I put it in a parking garage and parked next to a pillar. The pillar got it backing up incorrectly. Its also possible the GPS was messed up and it was thinking I was somewhere else, but either way, once it gets messed up as far as local path-finding, it has a hard time recovering. In this case it tried to leave the garage. I had to stop it since it was about to hit the pillar.

Test 4. In this test, I wanted to get away from the buildings and try to find a more open parking area so that GPS will not have reflection issues. That proved to be accurate, however, it saw each intersection in the parking area as perhaps normal intersections? Paused a few second each time. I do not mind once, but it seems to see far too many intersections. You can see this towards the end of the film.

Test 5, final test. I did this one because I read a comment on Reddit that made me want to get a film with our security robot. Two self driving systems living in a harmonious world… or something like that. Worked pretty well again, but this time, I was simply after a nice shot.

So there you go. Pretty impressive so far. The first experiment was actually last night in a different parking lot after shopping. Worked pretty much the same. It reversed out, and headed over. However, it tends to head straight for you and stop in the middle of lane. You need to be quick to get to the car. Do NOT recommend of its busy.

Hopefully at some point I will get time to mix the full video, but … been busy with XR (VR, AR, MR) stuff.

• Quick note.  Look likes it US phones only running the Qualcomm chip for now.

Some games seemed to have a glitch the first time I would try them.  I tried Fallout Shelter first.  Did not load the first time, but worked fine after that.  Not sure what the story is here. Same with Pokemon Go. Did not work the first time, then works fine.  However,  it locks to portrait and when using AR, the camera does not display correctly.  I turned AR off and it was fine after that. few other games seemed locked to one view port or another, but that was not too much of an issue after I got used to it.  I would make the window a bit smaller for portrait games, larger for landscape.

I then tried Monument Valley, a favorite of mine.  This took 3 tried, but again, seems to work after that.  That game play was even nicer with the view port set to the largest setting despite portrait mode.  I have it smaller in my screenshot.  It took a little bit of effort to get used to the controller, but I got it down soon enough.  I do not like this screenshot that much, but for some reason, screen capture and video capture are iffy with PhoneCast.  There is a video of this at the bottom of the post as well.

What was really cool was trying ARCore apps in PhoneCast.  It ‘mostly’ works, and when I say mostly, that is because the viewport is not locked to the head. If you check out the video below you will see what I mean.  Still, VERY cool! I tried the first ARCore app that was released, ‘Atom Visualizer‘ from Signal Garden.   I contacted the good people involved in this project and made a request, we’ll see how it goes.  If they can lock the view port, this would be really fun!  Have a look for the video at the bottom of this post.

Here is a Pro tip for you.  The controller takes a bit of time to get used to, so don’t get put off.  Keep working at it.  BTW, there is not pinch to zoom.  Something I found out on Fallout Shelter.  Hopefully they will find a work around.  I suggested they should map something on the controller for zooming and zoom around the center view.  That could take some work though.

So there you go!  Enjoy.

Technical

The obvious thing is technically what they pulled off.  Using multiple xbox sensors (I’m not sure how many) they are able to do full body tracking.  Because the user’s vision is completely obscured by the HMD, they can place the xbox sensors and light it to provide the maximum effectiveness for body tracking. Hand and head position most likely are sent via closed wifi to the gear.  From there its rendered in (Unity?). As you can see in some of the shots, not only is head positional tracking going on, you can see your hands on the rope as you walk across!

This is great. Now add wind, cold air and sound (notice there we saw no headphones so the sound was most likely piped in), and you have a very deep immersive experience,  Because the Gear VR is wireless, the user is not restricted by cables.  In fact, once you are immersed, and given all the other sensory input, your brain can have a real fight deciding what is real and what is VR.

Even better is the fact that you put on the HMD outside the room, (again as best I can tell) the user never saw the real bridge that was constructed, so the bran has no other cognitive interpretation of what is going on except for what they see. BTW, don’t misunderstand me, with exception to perhaps one person, they KNOW its a simulation and short of flinching and perhaps lowering one’s body, they are enjoying it for what it is.

Marketing

I would guess most people who watch this video, especially those in the VR world would mostly be thinking about how great of an immersive simulation this is, and move on. But what really caught my attention, and what I like and admire just as much about this concept, is how well this works from a marketing point of view. Remember, they are releasing a (new?) instant latte. The sell point for this product is you can enjoy a cafe quality latte anytime, simply by using a microwave.  Ok, so what are the customer scenario where they may want this?   Most likely at home and perhaps the office.  I think most offices offer coffee and if not, typically there is a cafe near most large office complexes.  But at home, not so much.

In the experience we saw in the video, you are asked to cross this long dangerous bridge on a distant exotic mountain top in a blizzard!  Many dangers face you on your trek to get to the other side where a microwave waits for you.  Each step on this old decrepit bridge becomes more dangerous as the winds increase, and rocks start to fall all round you!  Somehow, through perseverance and a bit of luck, you make it to the end where, you find a microwave, (yes people do randomly leave microwaves in the Himalayan Mountains, just go with it). You open the door and a wonderful hot beverage is waiting for you to warm you up, body and soul.

Now, think about a long snowy winter train ride come where you have to walk the last 3 or 4 blocks.  Not too different eh?  And if you like lattes then knowing you have a nice warm drink waiting for you could be that much better.  So the sell point here is to associate a tough trek with a warm reward.  This experience drives this idea to the customer is a very real and tangible experience. An experience they will not soon forget, and share with their friends, including the idea of the microwave latte and the branding that goes with it.

Execution

I have not experience this but having been doing VR for so long, and having tried everything from the CAVE to the wind bird simulation, its not hard for me to put myself there and have an idea of what this would feel like.  I love the fact that this experience really allows you to ‘walk’ through it.  Yes we have plenty of simulations where you can walk, but typically its flat ground.  But here you have a bridge, you have rope to grab.  As the wind starts to push you back, the IMU on the headset reflects the sublet changes in head position because of it.  As you walk, the scene walks.  With the xbox sensors and the very well lite room, body tracking can be very precise.  I’m sure a dedicated local wifi was running allow the fastest possible update time that can be done with current technology.  Based on the headset graphics it looks like Unity is running this, but again, because of all the various sensors being reinforced with the same cognitive interpretation; you are on a bridge, in a cold wind storm, with the proper sounds, the less than realistic graphics does not matter so much. For some people, its too much!

BTW< this could have been staged, not sure.

A small note here.  Notice no gloves on peoples hands.  They are asked to walk through this cold experience with no gloves.  What that means, and you can tell at the end when people come out, is that they are using the drink to warm themselves.  A GREAT bit a experience detail.  Even after the HMD is off your head, YOU ARE STILL COLD! The experience is still with you, and the reward of the hot latte continues to reinforce the benefits of buying this product.

Appropriateness

So here I want to reinforce something about VR and marketing.  Like I said, I have been around VR for a long time, 20 years plus.  I have seen MANY marking events that try to use a VR experience to create an association of “high tech” or “cutting edge” or “next generation” to a product, some successful, some not so much.  In all cases however the VR experience has little to no association with the value of the product. Further, once the VR experience was over, that was it.  I typically remember what I liked or was annoyed by in the experience, to date I cannot remember a single product from one of those marketing campaigns. This is different.  Even though I did not experience it myself, the whole idea of walking through a blizzard to be rewarded with a hot latte seems to stick.  As the more real the struggle to reward is, the more likely you will have a favorable memory of the reward. What is appropriate about using VR here is that VR has nothing to do with campaign.  It is simply the best tool to achieve the maximum positive reward association with the product. Not trying to be ‘new tech’ or ‘cutting edge’ or ‘cool’.  well ok, a bit cool.  But instead simple marking 101, create a positive association with your product, and VR in this case, was a great choice.

Now, check out the Video.

From Reddit of course: https://www.reddit.com/r/nonononoyes/comments/3qp2h7/tesla_autopilot/

All this talk about self driving cars causing accidents, very little about how they avoid them and save lives.  So here is the first video clip of a real world situation where a Tesla avoided an accident by stopping way faster than I could have.  Also note, its wet.  So if a human was driving, there would be a possibly that the human would swerve the car as well, potentially causing another accident. (click the thumbnail to start the gifv.)

ALSO, the car was smart enough not to follow the idiot driver and ‘teach them a lesson’.  Which does bring me to one concern.  How long will it be until someone decide to hack their car to do just that?  Say someone cuts you off; the car can use object recognition to track and follow the other car and then bump them off the road.

Right now, our autonomous cars do not have a voice, but I already know what to expect having grown up with Eddie Murphy comedy.

Eddie Murphy talking car. ( warning NSFW)!!!

VR and AR is finally coming of age.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnqFdSa5p7w