Kourosh Dini's Blog, page 27

A Review of the iPhone Field Guide by David Sparks

David Sparks is a productivity legend. And it’s not just about productivity – it’s about meaningful productivity. David churns out field guides, maintains a podcast, creates youtube videos, works as a full time attorney, and still spends time with his family.

Productivity is not just about finding some system and then sitting with it. It’s about continually reflecting on what is meaningful and then arranging your world to develop that. I enjoy our periodic get togethers to hear how he is modi...

Struggles & Ease in Creativity – A Comparison of Two Music Tracks

I continue taking a Udemy course by Karleen Heong on Game Music Composition. This assignment required writing music for mobile games. I was supposed to write one track, but I got so frustrated with the assignment in the middle of composing one track that I just made another. That one went super smoothly, even though in some ways it’s more complicated. I then returned to the first to finish it off.  So now there are two tracks.  They’re just examples of how the creative process can be simple,...

Art in OmniFocus

Untitled Piano in G-minor

Untitled

Piano – G minor

March 27, 2018

John Keats on Achievement

John Keats (1795-1821)

“… several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in Literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously—I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.”

Performance at 9:30a CST this Saturday

For over 10 years now, I’ve been performing live music every weekend (more or less) on Saturday mornings at 10am in the world of Second Life. But, this weekend, we’re doing something different. I’m talking way different. I’ll be performing at 9:30am instead. Oh yeah.

 

8-Bit Chase Scene for a Non-Existent Video Game

Somehow I envision this as being part of a chase scene.  I composed it for a class assignment in a Udemy Video Game Music Course.

There are 2 square waves running the main melody with a triangle wave acting as bass. These 3 channels hopefully mimic the old Nintendo Entertainment System audio capabilities.  The NES could actually also have a drum and sample track, but I left them out. I had tried a drum layer on top of it, but just wasn’t happy with it.

Since it’s for a video game, it nee...

Mac Power Users meetup

I’m excited to be attending the Mac Power Users meetup in Chicago this Wednesday. The Mac Power Users is, among other things, a really well done podcast about all things Mac, run by Katie Floyd and David Sparks. If you’re up for chatting with fellow Mac-heads, check out the meeting!

Check out the episodes where I spoke with David and Katie here:

Rethinking Task Management with Kourosh Dini Workflows with Kourosh Dini

Procrastination, Play and Workflow Lecture

If you’re up for a live presentation, sign up for my talk at the Institute for Psychoanalysis in Chicago on April 21st from 1-4pm. I’ll be presenting the Being Productive course with psychoanalytic concepts along the way.

It’s good for 3.0 continuing education credits and will set you back $60 in pre-registration or $70 at the door. Here’s the flyer: Procrastination Play Workflow – Kourosh Dini (pdf)

The Institute for Psychoanalysis is where I did my psychoanalytic training after finishing fe...

Alternate Music for the Marvellous Miss Take

I’m currently taking an Udemy composition course for video game music. One of the assignments is to take a character from an existing game, consider his/her characteristics, and come up with some alternate music composition to work as character music.

I’ve chosen the main protagonist from the Marvelous Miss Take, made by Wonderstruck and published by Rising Star Games. It’s a fun sort of stealth game. The protagonist, Sophia Take, plays as a thief who steals back the art that had been stolen...