I first started at Yahoo! nearly 6 years ago as a contractor working for the web hosting team. Eventually I moved on to doing web development for the data team. I was always impressed by the things people were doing here to push the envelope of what can be done in a web browser. I have been really lucky to work with some of these amazingly talented people. I can’t think of a better place to hone one’s web development chops than Y!.

Anyone who knows me is aware of my passion for all things music. I wasn’t really looking for a new job, but the opportunity came up to get involved with a company that will change how artists market their music to fans. This company is Topspin Media, and I am very excited about the potential of this new opportunity. I will post more about the new gig in a future post.

In the meantime, I will take a much needed vacation before the new job. Cheers to all my friends and colleagues at Yahoo!. I will miss you all.

Here is an example to play with. You might want to turn your speakers down as you play with this since I didn’t hook up a play control. I also noticed some audio latency the more tracks you add. This can create a cool delay effect if you add duplicate tracks. You can add your own tracks by creating an array of Javascript objects with a filepath and name.

For now I will be using this for a personal blog redesign. I would love to build a web app that let’s users share mixes for songwriting purposes. If you have any other useful applications, let me know and feel free to reuse this code.

If you missed the Santa Cruz gig last week, here is a track titled Hip Hop, recorded live at the show. Enjoy it!

Tonight’s show is at Voodoo Lounge in San Jose. Show starts at 10 pm. Cover is $5, 21+ please. Here is a map.

Hope to see you there!

“Together we consist of a mixture of musical backgrounds, regions, and experiences.  Our influences range from an array of hip-hop groups (underground/mainstream) to various jazz, funk and soul legends both local and worldwide. Musical Mutiny brings a funky mix of hip-hop grooves, as well as intellectually stimulating lyrics, all performed live with a 4-piece band, plus 1 live emcee.”

We have been working on some recordings. Nothing yet, but here is a bootleg from a live show at Grant and Green earlier this year.

This month MM, is playing a few live shows:

• Thursday, July 3 - Cypress Lounge, Santa Cruz - 10 pm - No Cover - 21+
• Wednesday, July 9th - Voodoo Lounge, San Jose - 10 pm - $5 - 21+
• Wednesday, July 16th - Grant and Green , San Francisco- No Cover - 21+

Check us out and let me know what you think.

I attended the iPhone Dev Camp this weekend in San Francisco at the Adobe Office in Multimedia Gulch. I had a great time meeting some other developers, learning about the iPhone and developing a little application for it as well.

My app is titled My Music Stuff. The idea is to get photos, images, concert events, and videos based on a list of favorite artists. The favorite artist list is generated from either a last FM user account or by entering a list of individual artist names. For whatever reason, while I was coding and enjoying a beer, a guy with a video camera interviewed me. Check out the iPhone dev camp walk through.

Ideally i wanted to tap into the iPod portion of the phone and get a list of bands based on ratings. Sadly there are no hooks into this that I know of since the iPhone does not have an SDK. The event was very interesting though from a web development point of view. There were many developers there (maybe C or java) who were discovering what a powerful programming language javascript can be in a good web browser such as safari.

I had such an amazing time meeting people and drinking beer that I didn’t quite finish the app! I was able to get the interface together though for a quick demo and people seemed to like the idea.

For now, please take a look at My Music Stuff as a work in progress! I will update this just as soon as I can.

Adios!

DSC_0089

Originally uploaded by justinwdavis.

For the last couple of months, I have been working on a road bike project. After a lot of sanding, filing and ebaying I am nearly done. I recently had the frame powder coated a dark cobalt blue. This is the first fixed gear bicycle I have ever built. It is a bit different to ride compared to freewheel bikes (no coasting), but I have enjoyed it so far.
More pictures here. I will post more here once I finish the final touches!

Saturday January 6th 2007 10PM By Joe Spiezio

I’m on Highway 29, between Calistoga and Middletown returning from Santa Rosa. I’m going over Mt. St Helena cruising at 45 MPH.

Out of nowhere, There are two loud thuds against the passenger side of the car, and I get a glimpse of objects flying into the embankment. Fuck!

There are no other vehicles on the road. I stop and go back to the point of impact. There I find two dead animals! A deer and a mountain lion! Amazing!

The only thing I can surmise is that the deer is being pursued by the mountain lion at high speed and leaps off the embankment onto the road at the exact moment I’m passing. The only thing the lion is thinking about is the deer! The impact took place in back of the headlights, so I never saw a thing till after the impact!

I was so pissed off when I saw the damage to the car that I considered cutting the hearts out of the animals, and having them for breakfast! Then, I thought better of that idea as I saw the fleas jumping off of the bodies. Scary Huh?

So today, I just finished spending four hours beating on sheet metal, the fender primarily, so that I could get the door to open and close. I was finally successful. The door is beat up but works fine, including the operation of the window.

Last week I had to install a new battery! $89.00. The next day I got caught in a rain storm and the wipers wouldn’t work! The circuit was good, but the motor was shot! I checked with Ford and they wanted $389.00 to install a new one! Now that the car is wrecked, I doubt I’ll have that done.

The amazing thing about this car is that it runs very well even with 256,000 miles! I’m going to keep driving it whenever it’s not raining. When it no longer runs, I’ll junk it! I paid $ 3800.00 for it 11 years ago, so how can I complain?

I was lucky enough to see James Brown a few years ago. I went with my grandfather to see him perform, because his music is TIMELESS. James Brown will be missed.

I found myself thankful for time that I make for people that are important to me. I spent a little time prioritizing things in my life. Time is a precious commodity.

I spent some quality time with my family. I felt like I could be in the middle of a documentary movie about diverse families. Everyone had a great Thanksgiving despite their many differences. It was refreshing, and made me feel thankful for my family. I am also thankful there were no family fights this year.

I feel thankful for my girlfriend and that I had some time to relax with her. It was nice to spend some time just doing random things. We played tennis. That was my first time. She kicked my ass of course.

Finally, I feel thankful for having so many fun projects to work on, and the ability to make time for them. I started a bike project. Building a 1962 Carlton road bike. I’m also starting a Yahoo! hack day project (More details on my projects soon). One project I have been putting off for a while, is this blog. So, in the spirit of thankfulness, I am starting it now!

What are you thankful for?