Creative journalism

Oops, an example of creative journalism was caught red-handed this week.

How much of this goes on, unchecked?

"Look! We made an accurate, silicon model of an elephant's foetus. We used a mixture of ultrascans and computer graphics to simulate how it might look for real."

"Wow, real ultrasounds of an elephant foetus!"

"Cool, the first, close ups of an elephant in the womb! Amazing. Tiny cameras, you say... inserted into the rectum?"

"Stunning! Live animal foetuses from cameras mounted in the womb. Crazy... people are going to love this!"

Patch for mythframes

This patch modifies mythframes to handle big files.

--- mythframes.c.orig   2006-11-08 19:13:59.000000000 +0000 
+++ mythframes.c        2006-11-08 19:03:44.000000000 +0000 
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@
   typedef struct seektable_entry
  { 
-   long long file_offset; 
+   double long file_offset;
     int keyframe_number;
  } seektable_entry;

Patch for mkmovie

The following patch removes aspect ratio options from mencoder which causes it to bomb out.

These were some modifications that were needed to get things running on my setup.

--- /usr/bin/mkmovie    2006-11-08 19:00:23.000000000 +0000
+++ mkmovie     2006-11-06 21:15:32.000000000 +0000
@@ -329,7 +329,7 @@
        } while (($retval != 0) and not($stoprun));
        $command = "mencoder -idx " . $files . " -ovc lavc " .
                " -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=" . $vbr . ":keyint=" .
-               $keyint . ":aspect=" . $aspect .
+               $keyint .
                " -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:cbr=" . $abr .
                ":padding=0 -o " . $currfile .
                " -noskip";
@@ -398,7 +398,7 @@
                        $currfile = "seg" . $segcounter . "-" . $$ . ".avi";
                        $command = "mencoder -idx " . $input . " -ovc lavc " .
                                " -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=" . $vbr . ":keyint=" .
-                               $keyint . ":aspect=" . $aspect .
+                               $keyint .
                                " -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:cbr=" . $abr .
                                ":padding=0 -o " . $currfile .
                                " -ss " . $startpos ." -endpos " . $endpos . " -noskip";
@@ -679,7 +679,7 @@

        $command = "mencoder -mf w=" . $width . ":h=" . $height .
                ":fps=" . $fps . " -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=" . $vbr .
-               ":keyint=" . $keyint . ":aspect=" . $aspect .
+               ":keyint=" . $keyint .
                " -o " . $single . " mf://" . $png;
        do {
                unlink $single;

Sun's Project Blackbox

Recently Sun announced a new Project called, "Blackbox".

Basically it's a rapid deployment datacentre - a black, Sun branded, shipping container full of racks and servers that will take up to 8Gs of impact shock. They'll even paint it in camouflage colours in case you need to hide it. ;)

I wonder what the local council would think If I had one of these taking up a parking spot or two in front of the flat.

Firefox 2.0

I know... every man and his dog are writing about how Firefox 2.0 is out. At least I'm not having a Firefox 2.0 party.

Speaking of parties, even Microsoft were nice enough to send cake...

USB recharging without the USB

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a couple of universal USB chargers.

In combination with a 4-way, mini USB hub it makes a fairly compact, portable multi-device charger. They're perfect for travelling as they're 110-240V and come with a bunch of click-in power socket adaptors for different countries.

For the new Nokia-N73 I'll need a power/data cable combo.

Ooo, shiny!

A new phone upgrade and the promise of new beginnings!

This phone is it. The panacea. The gadget to end all gadgets.

Probably.

Maybe not.

Anyway, it's the Nokia N73 smartphone and it's pretty cool on first impressions. The Symbian OS is a little slow but considering the features it packs, it's a small price to pay.

An auto keylock application needed to be installed as the functionality is missing from the default OS and, of course, Google Maps had to go on there too.

All appointments from Autoping have been transferred over and I suspect a rewrite of Autoping will occur now to make it more generic - now that I no longer need it for personal stuff. Things to play with next are:

• Syncing with Linux
• Instant Messaging
• Push Email over SyncML