Quark Cognition: February 2011

Sunday, February 13, 2011

iPhone video game music and my general collection. CVIS-0001

I would never buy an iPhone or any type of time-wasting hand-held technological curiosity unless it was open source and allowed me to use any file format of my choice. One of the most important factors when I look at portable music players is if it can handle ape. If it can't handle ape, then it's completely useless to me.

I need compatibility with ape because I have approximately 700 gigabytes of video game music in the ape format. It's neat that cell phones also double as portable music players, but if they can't handle ape, then I have to convert everything to mp3 (and I should not have to do that).

I recently purchased a SATA 1 terabyte internal hard drive, manufactured by Western Digital, for $72 shipped. This price also included the necessary SATA connecting cable. The rotation speed is 7200 RPM and the cache is 64 MB. A few years ago, such a purchase could not have been done for less than several hundred dollars. For $72, I purchased a device that can hold my entire music collection.

The total number of game music albums I have numbers above 1650. But the amount I don't have is increasing far more rapidly than what I am able to obtain. Twenty years ago, back in 1991, there were less than 900 game music albums. As of right now (February 2011), 18,626 game music albums have been released. This means I have approximately 8% of all the game music albums that have been released.

How do I currently listen to music? Obviously, my computer is the most useful listening device, since it can hold everything and offers the most convenient access. For critical listening, I use a Marantz CD player, along with amplifier powered headphones. For on-the-go, I use a 16 gigabyte thumb drive in my car stereo.

I recently purchased an iPhone video game soundtrack, published by CAVE. Here are some scans of it:

The catalog number is CVIS-0001, which implies there will be more. Normally, CAVE uses CVST or CVAS for their music albums, and CVIS is a new one. CVST = CAVE Sound Track, CVAS = CAVE Arrange Soundtrack, and CVIS = CAVE iPhone Soundtrack.

As far as I know this is the very first iPhone soundtrack to be published (officially) and it reminds me of Twinbee (happy music), Mega Man (cool music), and is more similar to Pinksweets ~After Ibara~ than the other Do-Don-Pachi soundtracks. I had no idea what to expect concerning sound quality, but I can say that the iPhone is comparable to the PSP. In other words, the quality is phenomenal.

Why would I buy an iPhone soundtrack if I would never buy an iPhone? The developer makes the difference. If this were a soundtrack by an unfamiliar company, then I would be hesitant. But this is music by CAVE, a company I have been familiar with for the past 8 years. And they consistently produce the most soul-rending and interesting music I have ever heard. Never mind that I don't have a soul; it's just that the music increases my happiness, since it's so good.

Now, Manabu Namiki normally handles the Do-Don-Pachi soundtracks. A new guy, Kenichi Maeyamada, composed the iPhone version. As I stated, he brings a little Twinbee flavoring to the DDP world. My favorites on this are Rush to the Future and Back to the Dream.

About Me

I am made of particles, known as quarks and electrons, that are at least 13.72 billion years old. Although my body is very young, the constituents are very old and come and go as they please. It's astonishing that individuality exists when each one of us are made of the same basic parts. It's even more astonishing that self-awareness exists, since even objects as simple as paper clips are made of the same parts as human beings.

My body was here before I was born and it will be here after I die.

So while I am in this brief configuration known as life I try to learn as much as possible, since my personality enjoys it. My first fascination in this short life was dinosaurs; I won a Dinosaur Expert Award in kindergarten. For most of my childhood, I read about the Animal Kingdom. I also read more than 100 Choose Your Own Adventure books and numerous other young adult fiction from my school library. Since age 5, I have been reading at a sometimes voracious pace. I didn't start seriously reading science fiction until age 19, though.

My interest in politics is as great as my interest in professional sports and I drink alcohol as often as I get lung surgery. I am heterosexual, but I rarely date women and prefer to read a tale, rather than chase some tail.

Qool Quotes

"The brain, knowing that a person can't live forever in this world, rationalizes a future, or other-dimensional, world in which immortality is possible. In other words, religion is the earliest form of science fiction."
-Philip Jose Farmer (1977)

"Forget Jesus, the stars died so you could be born."
-Lawrence M. Krauss (2009)

"When you ask what are protons and electrons I ought to answer that this question is not a profitable one to ask and does not really have a meaning. The important thing about electrons and protons is not what they are but how they behave - how they move. I can describe the situation by comparing it to a game of chess. In chess, we have various chessmen, kings, knights, pawns and so on. If you ask what a chessmen is, the answer would be that it is a piece of wood, or a piece of ivory, or perhaps just a sign written on a paper, or anything whatever. It does not matter. Each chessmen has a characteristic way of moving and this is all that matters about it. The whole game of chess follows from this way of moving the various chessmen."
-Paul Dirac, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1933

"You will be astonished when I tell you what this curious play of carbon amounts to. A candle will burn some four, five, six, or seven hours. What, then, must be the daily amount of carbon going up into the air in the way of carbonic acid! What a quantity of carbon must go from each of us in respiration! What a wonderful change of carbon must take place under these circumstances of combustion or respiration! A man in twenty-four hours converts as much as seven ounces of carbon into carbonic acid; a milch cow will convert seventy ounces, and a horse seventy-nine ounces, solely by the act of respiration. That is, the horse in twenty-four hours burns seventy-nine ounces of charcoal, or carbon, in his organs of respiration to supply his natural warmth in this way, by the conversion of carbon, not in a free state, but in a state of combination. And what an extraordinary notion this gives us of the alterations going on in our atmosphere. As much as 5,000,000 pounds, or 548 tons, of carbonic acid is formed by respiration in London alone in twenty-four hours. And where does all this go? Up into the air."
-Michael Faraday (1860)

"In modern war, one individual can cause the destruction of hundreds of thousands of men, women and children. He could do so by pushing a button; he may not feel the emotional impact of what he is doing, since he does not see, does not know the people whom he kills; it is almost as if his act of pushing the button and their death had no real connection. The same man would probably be incapable of even slapping, not to speak of killing, a helpless person."
-Eric Fromm (1955)

“Technology is a way of organizing the universe so that people don’t have to experience it."
-Max Frisch

Quark Cognition

I may not seem like it, but I am a human.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

iPhone video game music and my general collection. CVIS-0001

Labels

Total Pageviews

Links

Followers