Month: September 2007

Science allows for it’s demise

history media politics technology

This ‘news’ about generating energy from burning saltwater is ridicolous bullshit.

Here we are, using those internets, which are run on computers (just ask Homer) and other products of science to mock it’s very contents and basic laws.

Of course it is an extreme example. But the same principle seem to apply frequently: Those creationists should be consequent and stop using the products and merits of science. All of them. If they don’t like what science has discovered.

Two hundred years ago when people even in the more developed countries were dying left right and center on odd diseases and epidemics there simply was no question: Science was good. Now, that we are reaping all those benefits and so many of us have these careless existences some people think, that the current state of society and wellfare would just be ‘normal’, or god given.Well, it is not. The default is much much more grim. Over the last four hundred years people worked really really hard to make all this possible. It was not easy to harvest all this knowledge our econimies and factories run on. All these efforts were based on the absence of stupity. Now it seems as if some people start to take stupid stuff serious. Since it seems that they can afford to. People living in Rome two thousand years ago were in a similar position. Why would they care? Of all Shakespear plays I liked Coriolanus the least. Now that’s starting to change. Somehow I think that it’s message is not that off after all.

camouflage

history

How to hide an Airplane factory

I have this creeping feeling that -although everything seems to be more advanced than ever- certain things that people did back in the day seem to be impossible now.

Now on an more upbeat note: Check out the urban myth in the bottom of the images. As funny as it is, it actually links to a book. And that is really really exciting to me!
So, now people can reference passages in Books via links. There is quiet a bit of information in those things, called Books. Being able to reference this information is
huge. The average book has certainly more content, meaning, honesty and relevance than the average web page.

convert: Non-conforming drawing primitive definition `image’.

confessions of a pixel pusher internet

ImageMagick is a nice collection of image manipulation routines. It’s free, and somehow it should be. It’s powerful, but also works and fails in miracolous ways. It just wasted twenty minutes. My Minutes. It would have taken the person writing the code probably 2 to make the error message a little bit more meaningful. To cut to the chase: When ImageMagick tells you:

convert: Non-conforming drawing primitive definition `image'.

then it’s probably only telling you that it can not open the image you like to draw. In plain command line that would be:

convert -size 700x500 xc:black -draw 'image Over 0,0 400,300 directory/image.jpg' output.jpg

This will fail. It turns out that ImageMagick needs to have a local file NOT with a path component. To sucessfully do what you wanted to do you would have to:

cd directory ; convert -size 700x500 xc:black -draw 'image Over 0,0 400,300 image.jpg' ../output.jpg ; cd ..

Possible, sure. But a hint like “can not open file directory/image.jpg” would have been nice. The best would be path support as suspected. It works everywhere else.

Of course it turned out that this is supposed to be a feature. In the end things start to work when you quote the filename, like in:


convert -size 700x500 xc:black -draw 'image Over 0,0 400,300 "directory/image.jpg"' output.jpg

Otherwise a filename like 123_3x4.jpg would also get you in trouble.

iPod touch compatible with Interdubs

Apple interdubs technology

Good thing that the new iPod touch from Apple is compatible with Interdubs. Quiet a nice player for all those commercials being made that are hosted in Interdubs. And, upside: you get to see how things will look on this player from day one.

at&t is a waste of time

Apple marketing

So, trying to talk to AT&T about those outragous data charges is a complete waste of time. Their client service is as nightmarish as it always has been. I will now start telling Apple at all possible moments how badle AT&T sucks. After all, they forced me to deal with them. AT&T does not care. They never did, and will never. But Apple got where they are by caring. One would like to think.

monkey business

misc

read
or
watch

The advantage with reading is, that you can do it without stuttering. What a shame that one of the better virals (a bad word in itself most of the time) has such a poor delivery and encoding. Flash still sucks. I hate that stupid stuttering effect. Quicktime used to do that as well. 1999.

born in 1989

history internet

Of course everybody has seen Miss South Carolina. Here she is a week later on TV Skip to 3:46 to find out what her future plans are. If she should ever work where I do, I will make sure to wear this.

Nothing wrong with stupid people. But when they start to be on TV or try to do jobs that they are not fit for (like Prez) then they are a problem.

usb necktie cooler

daily life free of any reason

innovation has no limits

out there

history technology

Voyager still has contact with earth.

It looks like there is all sorts of stuff flying arond out there.

The other day I saw an image of the Pioneer Plaque and wondered if Nasa would be free to send almost authentical depections of naked people into space these days.

I thought this day would never come

confessions of a pixel pusher history technology

NAB 2006 Red announced a new camera, and I wrote that it would never be a reality. Well, not quiet that, but I thought it would not go anywhere. I was wrong. Cameras up to serial number 25 have been shipped and there are an amazing number of orders. Fxguide has anice article about the delivery of Red Camera #22.

I find it very impressive that a couple of dedicated people were able to pull this off. The deadlines announced during the launch of the brand did slip. But keeping those would have been a miracle. It seems that the way RED handled the delay and other modification to their initial plans was what saved the day. People are still happy and excited about the device.

Now comes the interesting part: How will the images intergrate. How much of difference does the real life existence of the RED camera actually make.

Of course I can not resist to follow a failed prophecy with another one: It’s not gonna change that much. It’s not only the camera that makes a movie a movie.