Archives for May 2012

Looking to the Future of AssetHost

May 31, 2012 by Eric Richardson

When I left KPCC earlier this month, I left behind two systems that I was particularly proud of having developed: AssetHost, a Rails engine that serves up all of the station's web image and video assets, and StreamMachine, a Node.JS streaming audio broadcast system.

Both will live on, since the station was generous enough to allow me to open-source them. There's a thin line between a live open-source project and abandonware that just happens to have code online, though, so it remains to be seen whether either generates the kind of momentum needed to create a life beyond KPCC's uses.

Tour of California Zips Past

May 21, 2012 by Eric Richardson

The eighth and final stage of the 2012 Tour of California rolled through Downtown L.A. on Sunday, part of a busy day that included Kings and Clippers playoff games at L.A. Live. Kathy and I didn't go down there for any of that, but we couldn't help but take in a little of the bike race: our apartment was dead in the middle of the five-lap sprint loop that finished out the stage.

Starting a New Chapter and Moving East

May 14, 2012 by Eric Richardson

It has been a whirlwind month for Kathy and me, starting with a vacation back east and culminating with my last day at KPCC just over one week ago. Next month we'll be backing our bags and moving to Atlanta after a decade here in L.A.

Yesterday I bought the plane tickets: our time as Angelenos ends at 1:10pm on June 15.

Making Sense of Numbers

May 3, 2012 by Eric Richardson

After several partial-deployment tests, we launched StreamMachine at KPCC on Tuesday evening, putting online listeners in the hands of a Node.JS app that I barely figured out how to start writing back in January.

There have been a few hiccups—I don't think people with Roku boxes are very happy at the moment—but on the whole it's been a very successful launch.

While audio streaming provides a number of interesting challenges—how do you handle deployment of new app versions when your connections are of indefinite length, for instance—I'm really interested to play with ways of visualizing listener behavior and interactions.