LifeDrive Notes: ~100MB Videos In LifeDrive

Once I discovered TCPMP could indeed see the LifeDrive partition, I spent two hours last night viewing and renaming video clips ripped from YouTube that I wanted to take up permanent residency in the LifeDrive itself.

After that bit, I decided to be stupid (I won’t let myself off by saving I was being adventurous; it was stupid!). I used Filez (not the built-in Files) to Move (right: Move, not Copy!) the vids from the SD to the innards of the LifeDrive.

Some of you are already laughing.

It took eleven minutes!

Eleven minutes that I wondered how much of the battery was being chewed up. Eleven minutes during which I had no idea if it’d take three, five, or thirty minutes to accomplish. This time element is important because I was not home and not near AC!

Surprisingly, the battery did not seem to take a big hit!

But next time I will use Copy. Then Delete.

Playing them from inside the LifeDrive, the orange light blinks a few seconds, then stops. If I recall correctly, with the MicroDrive the orange light blinks the entire length of a video.

WordPress is hiccuping while I do this. Better publish it while I can!

RealNetworks Tries For Relevancy Again. Might Succeed.

Oy, the techvoid is buzzing with news Real just delivered: a new player that will allow video ripping from sites.

Like YouTube.

Well, I already use Download Helper. It’s integrated into Firefox via plug-in. It works very well.

And I can play the clips in vlc just fine. And vlc loads fast. And vlc has a reputation of not reporting what I play to some goddammed unknown server for unknown reasons — as Real’s (now-prior) player seemed to do.

What might make the Real software a must-have is if it can really get into the news sites that gave me problems when I was gathering video clips about Heather. If it can help me bypass having to go through that torment again, I’ll use it and report about it.

NewTeeVee’s coverage.

Raon Digital Announces Vega Successor

It’s got a lot of buttons. I’ll say that for it.

JK on the Run coverage
Uber Tablet coverage
Raon Digital website

Previously in this blog:
Cheap Is As Cheap Does, So Don’t Buy Cheap!
Lust Lust Lust Device!
It’s Time To Stop Looking At Cheap Devices!
I Blame Him For The Lack Of An Updated Vega
Tech prOn: Digital Cube’s i-Station G43 UMPC
I Ask Myself: Why Not Get A Frikkin Mac?
Vega Gets Another Review
Tech Lust Pains
Vega Gets A Shrug
Hey Microsoft! “Bribe” ME! Puhleeze!! (Those pussies never replied! Pussies!)
TV Is So Dead, Really!
Lusty Vega Gets Anti-Lusted
Finally! Lusty Vega Gets A Blog!
Lust object

Speaking Of Plan 9…

Oh, man, this is the freakiest combination I could ever imagine!

Ed Wood‘s Plan 9 From Outer Space combined with Deltron 3030‘s 3030 (the music of which was the basis for the theme to the late and lamented CBS-TV series Robbery Homicide Division).

Plan 9 from Outer Space mixed with Deltron

Man, this is genius!!

Update: OMG! How I love YouTube! Here’s the title sequence to Robbery Homicide Division!

Update: June 25, 2007: Somehow I lost the link to the video when editing the post! But now it’s back in here.

Mikala Is Hawaiian For Mike

Mahalo Is Hawaiian for Useless

Mahalo is a “human powered search engine”. Translated from Web 2.0 speak, this means “Wikipedia with less content and Google results”. Jason Calacanis dropped this deuce into the world’s toilet bowl yesterday, and I gotta tell ya, I’m fucking glad he did. Otherwise, I’d have to keep looking at Google search results from the boring old white-background google.com. But now, I can see the exact same search results surrounded by green flowers and a bunch of other irrelevant shit! What a time to be alive.

Let’s get our facts straight here. Mahalo is a search engine whereby the results are generated by hand by employees. So far, 40 of these employees have made 4,000 results pages. When you search for something on Mahalo, if there’s a manmade search result for your query, you’ll see it. Otherwise, you’ll see Google search results for the query. What. The. Fuck.

So alright, let’s see if we can find anything useful on Mahalo. I’d like to learn a bit about Lagrange multipliers. Mahalo results are:

1. Intel (related page result from Mahalo…what the shit?)
2. List of Google search results for “lagrange multipliers”

If I wanted the Google search results, guess where I would have searched?

Oh, that is so funny!

I tried it earlier this morning.

So, OK, I do my vanity search first. Right, no results.

OK, so I do Heather Johnston. No results. Not even Google results. What. The. Fuck?

Then I do the generic Barbie Bandits. Same no results!

And, no, I didn’t ask to be notified when they deign to find the small number of results I expect them to post (unless they use this blog as their starting point!).

Aloha.

Here Come The News CopyNazis!

AP steps up online copyright protection

“What we are trying to say is that if someone wants to use our news, they have to pay for it,” Kasi said in an interview.

Yeah, well, line me up against the wall to get shot first.

I have many (well, OK, then: many, many, many, many!!!) photos of Heather here taken by other sources. I believe that in every instance I have linked back to the original source.

As for my taken-by-me original photos here, I will kill the AP if they copy them for free!

That’s a joke, son.

This is the Internet, dammit. As long as someone isn’t taking something to profit from it, let the linking and copying flow and keep Fair Use alive. I mean, really, how many of the copies do you think will be around in three years? Five years? Ten? Only the original sources will remain.

All of which reminds me that I must put in my will that this blog gets deleted upon my death. (That’s right, baby. I found a way to take it with me after all! See y’all in Hell!)

Reference: Audio Compression

Where’s the Other Half of Your Music File?

Apart from bitrate, the sound quality of digital music is also affected by its format, which is determined by the software used to compress it, known as a codec. MP3 is one of the older techniques for compressing audio and is not widely used by online stores. Apple has chosen a newer format called Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), which plays on iPods and some other devices. Most other online stores use the similarly modern Windows Media Audio, or WMA, which does not play on iPods.

All three of these formats are “lossy,” meaning the encoding software surgically trims out audio information that is not easy to hear, because it is covered up by other sound or is situated at the highest and lowest ranges of human hearing. The Norah Jones track “Come Away With Me” is 33.4 megabytes when stored in an uncompressed format; the lossy compression methods bring that down to 6.1 megabytes at 256 kbps, or 3.1 megabytes at 128 kbps, regardless of the codec used. (When turning your CDs into song files on your PC, you can choose the bitrate you want in the settings of iTunes or Windows Media Player.)

What kills me in this article:

Last fall, Dr. Naresh Patel, a physician in Fort Wayne, Ind., moved into a home he designed with his wife, Valerie. It has a home theater, complete with projector, surround-sound speakers and a high-end amplification system. The sonic centerpiece is two Bowers & Wilkins loudspeakers that cost Dr. Patel $12,000 “with a discount.”

Emphasis added by me.

So, I guess I’m missing out on something using my jWin MP3 player and $3 earbuds? (Dr. Patel runs from his PC screaming in horror!)

Previously in this blog:
How To Buy An MP3 Player

Reference: More HD Video Confusion

Why HD movie downloads are a big lie

Oh sure they might call it HD because it happens to be 1280×720 resolution which sounds awfully high, but you’re talking about an audio/video stream that’s 1.3 mbps (megabits per second) at best. You can call it whatever you like and you can even claim it meets the minimum definition of HD because it’s 720p (1280×720) resolution but it ISN’T HD for the simple reason that the bit rate isn’t enough. A regular 480i DVD is either 2, 5, or 8 mbps and most modern dual-layer 8 GB DVD releases are at least 5 mbps but more likely 8 mbps. A typical DVD movie is approximately 6 GBs of data while a typical “HD” movie you download is only about 1.5 GBs of data. Do you honestly believe you’re getting more image information in that 1.5 GB so-called HD movie you downloaded versus that 6 GB DVD movie?

Yeah, I suspected that was the case. But I’m not a video pro so it was only a gut feeling.

This is the paragraph that just kills me:

But truthfully speaking, the whole BlueRay versus HD-DVD format war is silly because a regular dual-layer DVD can easily store 93 minutes of 12 mbps 1080i or 1080p H.264 or VC-1 encoded video with bare minimum HD quality that looks much better than normal MPEG-2 480i DVDs. This format would have been extremely easy to produce and the players could have cost less than $100. The only thing that HD-DVD gets you is that you can either store 3 hours of that same quality video or 100 hours of good quality 20 mbps H.264 or VC-1 video. BlueRay players for some reason decided to forego the more advanced video codecs like H.264 or VC-1 and they’re using the old MPEG-2 encoding scheme which neutralized the capacity advantage of BlueRay media. But instead, we have a format war where no one is really winning since Sony decided to cede their market in the next generation console wars with the PS3 to salvage the BlueRay format.

Emphasis added by me.

Well, fuck you, Sony. I won’t touch a Blu-Ray player now. You deserve your doom for pulling that kind of shit.

As for HDTV, no matter how many times I see it, no matter what brand or size of set, I can always, always see the compression artifacts. And it drives me up the wall. For the amount of money they want, I shouldn’t have to get “digital grit” in my picture. I’ll put up with outright pixelation on my LifeDrive videos ripped from YouTube, but that’s not costing me several frikkin thousand dollars!

Previously in this blog:
Reference: HDTV And 1080p

As Usual, People Are The Problem, Not Technology

Studies: music industry overstating threat of P2P piracy

Unauthorized sharing of digital music remains a huge issue for the global music business, but is most of that sharing taking place on peer-to-peer networks? For years, peer-to-peer was the bogeyman, the red Communist music monster than was going to devour the industry’s revenues. But new research suggests that sneakernets may be as big a problem as darknets.

And:

Note the reference to “burned CDs.” The EFF points out that NPD thinks this sort of old-fashioned sharing is actually a massive threat. According to NPD, “The ‘social’ ripping and burning of CDs among friends—which takes place offline and almost entirely out of reach of industry policing effort—accounted for 37 percent of all music consumption, more than file-sharing.”

Emphasis added by me.

Hey, RIAA, why not just go and sue Sony and Philips for creating the CD?

Stop picking on P2P, which in my own experience seems to be dying on the vine anyway.

Previously in this blog:
Hey, Thanks Again, Republicans For Neutering Our Regulatory Agencies
They Are Determined To Hijack Your PC!
How Long Before Nielsen Sticks Its Snout In This?
Hypercasting & Hyperdistribution
18 October 2004: The Day TV Died
There Had Better Be A Huge Outrage Over This!
P2P Like 4Evah
New P2P Tool To Help Kill The RIAA And MPAA
Battling The CopyNazis
P2P Alert: CopyNazi Infiltration!
Photo Album: More Bootleg DVDs For Sale In NYC
Photo Album: Bootleg DVDs For Sale In NYC
Hoist That Skull And Crossbones!
Book Him, Danno
The P2P The Suits Fear Above All Else
Well If You’re THAT Stupid, You SHOULD Be Punished!
Except The CopyNazis
P2P Forever And Ever!
P2P2P2P2P2P2P2P2P2P&c…
Reference: CopyNazi Detection
Cancel That Trip To Fantasy Island
Duh!RM
You Can’t Take The Sky From Me
Fantasy Island
CopyNazis Filthier Than Ever
Because This Is The Future
Another Tyrant Not To Luv?
Sweet Dreams Are Made Of These
CopyNazis Enlist Zombies
MPAA/RIAA: Fuck You
CopyNazis Repelled

Spam King Busted: Just Give Him To Me!

‘Spam King’ suspect seized

[…] if he’s found guilty of the fraud, money laundering and identity theft charges in the 35-count indictment, he could spend decades behind bars.

Not good enough.

If this is the guy whose shit was responsible for hijacking this desktop PC, causing me to have to spend a straight week of 12-hour days regaining control from its covert spamming activities, just give him to me.

I will save our government a lot of money.