Bored

If you are bored, check out Bored.com. Watchout for the pop-ups. And don't click the fart button.

Now to find me a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster. Oh, for those that want to mix this drink using Earth ingrediants, here is a recipe for the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster #2 as described by Drinksmixer. It must be said that this is nothing more that a tribute to the real drink.

Ingrediants
35 ml Tia Maria
35 ml vodka
17.5 ml cherry brandy
1 dash lime juice
7-Up® soda
dry cider

Pour the tia maria, vodka and cherry brandy together into a pint glass. Add a dash of lime juice. Fill with equal amounts of dry cider and 7-up, and add ice cubes. Serve in a beer glass.

Drink up.

Farewell James Doohan.

The legendary "Scottie" from Classic Star Trek passed away last year. His wishes were to have his remains sent into space as his final resting place.

His wish will be realized when a commercial space company, Space Services Inc. launch a memorial rocket in his honour some time in October.

Full story here.

Image from StarTrek.com

Lebanon/Israeli War

In case you didn't know, go and catch up at ABC News Online or Google News. There is also a wiki entry for the conflict that is rather in-depth.

Some photos.

War sucks.

The stuff you can learn online.

If it's useful or not is another question. For instance, you can discover the "Principles of Vertebrate Pest Control" on Google Video. Here is Part 1. Or "How Diesel Locomotives Work" which could be very handy if you ever needed to fix one. Like that's ever going to happen. Here's one that I'll save for later on, "Installing a driveway".

But you don't only learn useful stuff. Just tonight, I learned that Castro went arse-up on a stage and fell head first into a pile of chairs. Lots of people thought that was funny. Some people think he's dead. Other people are betting on the date of his demise. Things really haven't improved that much since the ancient Roman circus, have they?

Out.

Flickr Photos

I post my best photos to Flickr. Check 'em out if you like.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgar

The flickr link on the right in the side bar will always* be there.

I am surprised how much good feedback I have been getting for some of my shots. It's always a great feeling to have someone admire your work.

*until Google come up with a similar service...

LONG LIVE GOOGLE!

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Well it depends on who you ask. Being reasonably brushed up on things Trek, I found this list at Section31.com amusing. I was surprised that no-one tried to beam the chicken across the road.

Worf: I do not know. Klingon chickens do NOT cross roads

Kirk: He probably just wanted...A PIECE OF THE ACTION!

Wesley: I'm not sure, but I can figure it out if I reroute these systems and reconfigure the warp field and run a complete whootchacallit on the computers and...

Of course you could just Google it.

And on the subject of Trek, there is a new Star Trek movie in the works according to Section31 who found out at the official STARTREK.COM site. The guy who is producing the film is J.J. Abrams who also produced Alias and Lost and wrote Mission Impossible III. Is this a good thing? Why not. Rick Berman doesn't Trek anymore according to Wikipedia
but when you look at the list of shows that he wrote and/or produced on the imdb (over 600), its hard to think he wouldn't be involved if another series gets started up.

And if you are feeling particularly geeky, here is the

Top 20 things likely to be overheard if you had a Klingon Programmer

*"Section 31" is a "Men-In-Black" organization working for the interests of StarFleet in the StarTrek universe.

Rant about television

Kudos to the ABC. Great stories made cheap.

But at least they are great stories.

Well, when I say great stories, I mean good stories.

Well when I say good stories, I mean Australian stories.

Remember "Behind The News"? BTN? It basically takes the top few news stories and explains them so that kids and rugby players can understand them.

In a time where our television is on either Big Brother, CSI or Dr. Phil, we should take the time to tune in to a station whose charter is to broadcast "... programs that contribute to a sense of national identity and inform and entertain, and reflect the cultural diversity of, the Australian community..." and "...programs of an educational nature". Once in a while we should take the time to sit with everyone in our household and watch something Australian and maybe learn something new about our great country or perhaps even learn something new about ourselves.

Is someone playing the anthem yet? Actually, I just wanted to say I think most American TV sucks really bad. Video-on-demand is where its at and the ABC have plenty of VoD for you to check out.

I am enjoying the new stuff coming out from the BBC too. It seems they have a budget. This must be new for them. Classic BBC titles I grew up with were obviously done in a very cost-effective way compared to their US counterparts. The Young Ones, Doctor Who, Keeping Up Appearances, Fawlty Towers*, Allo Allo, The Hitch-hikers Guide to the Galaxy, Are You Being Served, Black Adder, Danger Mouse, The Goodies, and of course Sir David Attenborough's documentaries were on with American classics like Knight Rider, Star Trek, M.A.S.H., The A Team, Automan, The Greatest American Hero, Happy Days, The X-Files, and Roger Ramjet. What was a talking about? Oh yes, BBC seems to have money now. The new Doctor Who is quite a polished piece of sci-fi and the sets don't look anything like cardboard. The Walking with Dinosaurs/Beasts/Cavemen documentries were awesome and they did a fictional documentary about a future trip to the outer solar system called Space Odyssey: Voyage to the Planets that I really enjoyed.

Say it with flowers, send her a Triffid!

*I found a real place called Fawlty Towers. It's a fifteen-room two-star hotel in Rome.

Another Year Older

Happy Birthday to me!

31 today.

Comment if you care

Audio and Video

Silent video is boring to watch. Even if it's something interesting. If you put the exciting sligshot around the moon footage from the movie "Armageddon" and turn the sound off so it is silent (like it would be in space), very few people will watch it without reaching for the volume control.

Boring video can be made entertaining with a decent soundtrack. Wedding videos that people sit and watch all the way through in one sitting are the perfect example. Put an enjoyable, identifiable song on and most people will watch anything.

Sonicfire Pro 4.

Defrag.

This is what your hard drive looks like when it needs a defrag. To check if you need to defrag your hard drive, open the defrag tool. Folks with WindowsXP should be able to find the Disk Defragmenter by selecting Start => All Programs => Accessories => System Tools => Disk Defragmenter. Select a disk and click the Analyze button. After a while Disk Defragmenter will tell you whether or not you should defragment. If it needs it, do it. Sometimes, if your disk is full you may need to make space. My new RAM turned up today and I am now running with 4 GB.

So, anyway, I'm defragging.

Moonlighting

Something I have never been able to do to my satisfaction is take a photo of the moon. Sure, I've sat out in the yard and clicked off two or three hundred shots at the moon with my little Canon A85 and every now and then I'll get one or two that have a nice effect like this one over the trees near my place, but there is never any detail. The moon just turns into a big white solid. I'll have to ask a photographer about it one day.

I got my "Blue Card" yesterday evening after completing a Workplace Health and Safety 'Construction Safety Induction' at TAFE. It cost me $75 and about three-and-a-half hours. Basically, you are required to have one to be on any kind of construction site in Queensland and having one means you should know general safety procedures. A monkey on drugs could pass the course and I am sure a few already have. It is almost impossible to fail seeing as the test is multiple choice and if you get any wrong you get told to try those ones again, and again, and... well there is only 4 choices... The class was told that we are all expected to get 100% on the test. It is clear that everyone does.

It's actually like I bought a 'Blue Card' for $75 and the government has found yet another way to grab a quid out of us. Don't all the construction companies make you do their own safety induction anyway?

Rig Disclosure

I sat down to work today and loaded my current video editing project, a dance festival for The Gladstone Dynamic Dance Centre, and my whole computer just ground to a halt. 1 Gig of RAM just doesn't do the trick. I ordered two pair of 1Gig Corsair TWINX sticks and now I wait to load 4GB DDR 400 into my rig. That should fix it.

Blackpearl
AMD Athlon64 X2 4400+
DFI LANPARTY nF4 SLI-DR
Corsair TWINX1024-3200XLPT (2-2-2-5) (1GB soon to be replaced with 4GB)
XFX GeForce 7800 GTX OC 256MB*
Two Seagate 320GB SATA HDDs
WesternDigital 250GB SATA HDD
Pioneer DVR-110D DVD Writer
Antec TP-II 550 TruePower 2.0 550Watt Powersupply
Antec P180 Advanced Super Mid Tower Case
Logitech Media Keyboard Elite
Logitech MX518 Optical Mouse
Logitech Extreme 3D Pro Joystick (not for video editing)
Epson Stylus Photo R210
Samsung SyncMaster 913v
and some set of generic headphones that I can't find the brand of.

She's called Blackpearl because the silver side panels on the case get this wicked mother-of-pearl effect in sunlight.

*I only have one GeForce7800GTX in the rig at the moment, deciding that I (my wallet) could live without SLI for a little while, but this may have proven to be a mistake. New graphics cards are coming out and it is getting hard to find the exact same card. It is usually a good idea to get identical cards if you are going to set up an SLI rig. I may end up having to get two cards at the same time and sell the 7800 if I ever decide to go to SLI. Pair of 7950s?

Google Video

Most people who know me will know this picture. It made the front page of The Observer and was also entered into the Martin Hanson Awards. Thanks again Jac.

I uploaded my first Google Video. It's of a snake eating a paddemelon or it might have been a wallaby. Due to the ignorance in the world at large about Australian marsupials I called it "Snake eats a kangaroo" It's not my footage, but the tapes ended up with me so I whacked it together, censored the swearing slightly, and posted it on Google Video.

I shot my second news job today. My footage made up the first two stories of WIN news tonight. It was pretty cool to see my footage on the tele. Everyone else is as excited as me about it, if not more so.

My wedding video advert went in The Observer today in the Brides and Bouquets section. It's been in a couple of Port Curtis Posts but I have yet to catch one of them, seeing as we don't get a copy out where we live.

Man on the Spot

Well, its been an exciting day today.

Got calls from two video production guys today, one from out-of-town wanting to know if I was interested in sub-contracting and the other wanting to know if I was interested in taking over from him to shoot the local news. Well, that's a yes to both of course and a little while later I get a call from WIN News to get them some footage of an accident just out of town.

So now, by the end of the day, I sit here writing my blog as a freelance news cameraman.*

Cool.

I gotta say though, as exciting as it was to jump up and race to the story, being at an accident scene is a sobering experience. I find that I am asking myself if this is what I really want to do. Wedding videos and dance festivals are jobs where people are happy to see you. No one is happy about you filming their wreck.

*Correction: Flermpick and I make a camerateam.

DRM sounds so friendly

This picture is for sale. If you choose to purchase you must abide by these conditions.

• You may only have one copy of it at any one time. This also means you may not include the picture in any system backup you may perform for the safety of your data.
  
• You must send me an e-mail and ask me permission every time you want to look at it. You will not be able to see the picture until I "activate" it. If I ever stroll off this mortal coil, you may never look at this picture again.
  
• You may not print it
  
• You may not change it in any way
• You may not show anyone
• You can only view it on this computer, in this configuration. If you upgrade the computer, or buy a new computer, you will have to run it by me before I let you look at the picture on it.

The DRM software in the picture can tell if you break any of these conditions and may take any/all of the following actions.

• Prevent you from viewing the picture
• Report you to the authorities
• Delete itself
  

For those that have never head of the sarcasm font before, everything in italics above is complete rubbish. The sad thing is that in a lot of cases this is exactly the restrictions that can be imposed on you - legally.

Since Microsoft implemented a feature in Windows Media Player that prevented music ripped from your CD collection to your computer from playing on any other computer, I have had a bad feeling about "Digital Rights Management" (DRM). And I'm not the only one. Wikipedia point out that some would call it "Digital Restrictions Management" Michael Robertson, founder of mp3.com, mp3tunes.com and LindowsOS (now Linspire) gives a great example of why DRM is a bad idea in one of his "Michael's Minutes" newsletters.

As someone who creates media and sells it, I can see where you might feel the pinch of lost sales when people copy your work and share it freely. However, I do not believe that the honest consumer should pay for it. Why make your paying customers jump through hoops like "Product Activation" or restrict the devices you can play your music or videos on. And to have your entire music, video or even software rendered useless because the company that sold it to you has gone bust and can no longer activate your product or verify your license.

If you buy something, you should own it. If you own something your should be able to do what you like with it. I should be able to copy a song to a tape, CD or mp3 player so I can play it anywhere. I should be able to rip a movie to my computer and put the original away so it doesn't get damaged. I should be able to record a TV show and watch it later. I should be able to print out that book that I purchased.

That's what I reckon anyway.

Here is a page explaining about Australian copyright law changes in regard to recording television and sharing music and video with friends from Attorney-General Philip Ruddock office. Scroll to the bottom and check out the numbered points. I am sure these new laws will be enforced just as effectively as the ones that prevented us all from taping shows on a VHS recorder. Watch it once and delete it indeed. "No officer, I swear I have never seen that episode of The Simpsons before."

Oh and all my visitors can feel free to take my photo and make it the desktop wallpaper of every computer on your corporate network, publish it on your own website, distribute over bittorrent networks, convert it to TIFF, cut the fish out and make it your business logo, convert the binary code to a sound file and play it on your mp3 player and by all means, print it out, laminate it and sell it for a profit!

On a completely unrelated note, here are a couple of cool free and Open Source programs.

Ares and Azureus.

Mrsdog Regular

Hi everybody. For those that don't know, I film stuff. Thats what I do nowadays. I film stuff, then I edit it, then I burn it to DVD or upload it to the web. Thats what I do.

And this is my dog, Merlin. Sorry. Our Dog. And Mums. It's Mums dog too. But I give him the most pats. He's big too.

I had a chat to a local photographer today. He was a videographer* from way back. Real old school. Cool though. He's still got his first video camera. An 8mm wind-up clockwork film camera (Bolex Paillard H 16 Reflex) sits in the foyer. And it still works! Wrapped I was. Anyway I got talking to him about all sorts of stuff. He used to do all the filming for the local stories for the ABC News back in the seventies and he started when he was only 15! With a clock-work camera, he would shoot footage for a story, box the film up and drive to the airport hopefully in time to get the film on the plane to go to Brisbane in time for the news that evening, sometimes having to throw it to the pilot through the cockpit window because the plane was already on the runway ready to take off!

Me? I have never known anything but digital media. I will never know what it's like to splice film together with my own hands. Since using Macromind Director on a Macintosh II to animate 8bit drawings on the screen back in '88, I have always played with media on a computer. Love it. Now, with Adobe Production Studio and a phat puta which I will list the specs of another time, I just enjoy it more.

*CORRECTION - the term used at the time was Cinematographer.

Birds and things

I'm not sure if Cilla took this photo or if it was me, but it turned out great so I thought I would share it with all you guys. This pair of rainbow lorikeets joined us for lunch after our last dive at Great Keppel Island and were happy to pose for the camera.

I see Linspire is gearing up for a new release of thier OS. Version 6.0 is on the way. They are also working on another operating system called Freespire. I'm not sure what the point of this is. Maybe they are trying to attract developers, developers, developers, developers....

I don't run linux yet. It doesn't run the programs I need to run, so I don't run it. Its a mutual lack of co-operation. Don't get me wrong, I don't take any pride in running Windows. In fact I have gone to some lengths avoid Microsoft software where possible.

I browse with Firefox, the greatest web browser in the world. I use and advocate OpenOffice, a free alternative to Word, Excel, PowerPoint and with the new OpenOffice 2.0 we even have a challenger to Access. I have stopped using HoTMaiL for about six months now since I aquired a gmail account. Windows Media Player and its huge, clunky, resource hogging interface, bursting with DRM has now been replaced with the VideoLAN Client on my home machines, with its light and simple interface. And it plays 99.9% of anything I throw at it. GoogleTalk has stepped up to plate and knocked Messenger off my harddrive for good. Why Microsoft can't settle on a name for Messenger is beyond me. Microsoft Messenger, MSN Messenger, Windows Messenger and now Messenger Live.

Now all this stuff will run under linux, for sure. And if all I used my computer for was to surf, email, watch movies and listen to music, then the MS logo would never grace my 19" LCD Monitor. But my PC has to do more than that. It needs to play games. Big games. Games like Oblivion, Pacific Assault, SWAT4, NFS Most Wanted, X3 - Reunion, Civ4 and of course OpenTTD. Sure, if you are a linux guru and wanted to muck about with WineX you might be able to get most of these games going.

But this is the clincher. Video editing. Drop that in the lap of any linux supporter and they usually concede defeat. Oh, sure, Pixar run Linux, but they wrote their own software. Same for Dreamworks. I can't write my own software. I have to buy it. And when it comes to video editing software you need to be running Windows. Or Mac, but they are twice the price. Apple make nice computers, but they are too expensive... and we have the lack of games issue again. Oh well. Windows it is for now.

Still, I will be checking out Linspire 6.0. It is a nice OS. It just needs more developers, developers, developers, developers.......

GoogleTalk and Gmail are like a private club. Invite only. Cool.

I'll finish this blog off with a google video. Diet Coke and Mentos.

Remember the dive.

Right. So.

This is me. My chicky-babe and I went to Great Keppel Island a few weeks ago and got out PADI Open Water Diver certification. What a weekend! Cilla has some more pics on her multiply site. I did this grin at Mary underwater and she began laughing at 10m! hehe.

Some of the guys that were on the boat with us went diving on their own - they were already qualified, they weren't in our course - and they got some pics of a manta ray and some reef sharks, but we didn't see anything like that. We did see a wobbygong (carpet shark?) though...

Hopefully we get to dive again this month.

Blogger

Hey, I'm a blogger now! Yay to my first post.