Posts
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Project Remix: What? Why? How?
It’s been a bit over 3 months since I started working on Mix.byCollab, my stab at building a real-time collaborative video editor.
I am working on this by myself and have nobody to report to or to hold me accountable. And Tax Day just surprised me with the realization that my runway might not last me as long as I thought it would… which is a bummer. I guess that’s my accountability.
So, to not lose motivation and to stay on track, I thought I might as well be transparent and blog about my progress on a regular basis (maybe a weekly blog post, but don’t quote me on it).
What?
Ever since working on ZDO, I have been wanting to create an HTML based online editor for videos that let people upload their shots and stitch them together a la iMovie, Final Cut, and Adobe Premiere. But, I never started on it, because from a UX perspective, I was taking an already complicated experience of a native app and making it shittier by pushing it online.
But then, I started working for Google Docs. And, two realities of the new web dawned upon me:
- A highly complex application such as a word editor or spreadsheet can be fully written in client-side javascript, and perform at an acceptable level within your browser window; and
- Even though Google’s suite of apps wasn’t providing the sleek (debatable) native experience of Microsoft Office, it was miles ahead of it in terms of usability and functionality. All because of its one killer feature: Real-time Collaboration.
If I can get the application to be as collaborative as Google Docs, then it would be worth any degradation in UX performance. And, with the advances being made in WebGL, Socket IO, Web Workers, and FFMPEG.js, it might as well be an app that runs inside the browser. You must have seen the screenshot from my previous posts about what it will look like. If not here it is again:
And yes, that’s the browser experience that I’m shooting for. And if HTML & Javascript aren’t up to par to handle videos, then I could still build a collaborative editor that runs across all the native platforms, but I’m taking a web first approach.
Why?
- A highly complex application such as a word editor or spreadsheet can be fully written in client-side javascript, and perform at an acceptable level within your browser window; and
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Mix.byCollab
Mix.byCollabHappy New Year!!!
My 2018 resolution is to launch the beta by Q2. Sign up to get notified!
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Eject > Side B
This is my first blog post in over a year. I tried to blog a few times in between, but left those posts as drafts, because my nihilism took over :/
What’s the point?
So, I’m repurposing the title from a post I drafted last year after the presidential election to give an update on what’s up.
TL,DR; I am not at Google anymore. I’m now working on my passion project that I’ve personally wanted to work on for over 4 years. Expect more posts on it with details, but here’s a sneak peek.
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"Don't Die on this Mountain Today!"
When I signed up to climb Kilimanjaro, I simply took it for granted that I would summit it. And why not? I have always loved nature, and it has always been kind to me in return. I have hiked up almost all of the high points in Yosemite, and though they were not nearly as high as Kilimanjaro, they were steep and somewhat technically challenging hikes. And on top of that, I had to carry 30lb packs while climbing them.
Kilimanjaro on the other hand, though almost twice as high as Yosemite’s highest point (19,341′ vs. Clouds Rest at 9,990′), was just one long arduous climb up a steady incline. And we had guides and porters with us to help carry our gear (more on that whole colonial era concept in a follow-up post). And if not for anything else, all my long distance training for marathons had prepared me well for winning the mind over matter game needed to endure such long treks.
Of course, there were many times on this trail when my mind had to do just that, and remind my body what it’s really capable of. The route we took was the newly opened Northern-Circuit, which closely follows the well known Lemosho route and takes 8 days to summit and descend, giving us an extra day to acclimatize to the high altitude over the already long 7-day Lemosho route.
The first two days of hike getting through Forest Camp up to Shira 1 Camp were a breeze. But on the critical third day, when we were expected to actually start feeling the effects of altitude, I got hit with a contagious stomach bug that was making its round around our camp. I wasn’t the only one to get sick. In fact there were five of us in our climbing group, and all but one got sick on the mountain. I just happened to be the one with the unfortunate timing of getting hit on acclimatization day when we camped above 4000m for the first time.
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Social Credit
The weirdest thing for me was how all of this didn’t seem like mind-blowing Sci-Fi stuff of the future. VR, AR, Light Field Immersion, and the points-based service economy… We’re already there.
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