NYC Is Hot

Global warming is hitting NYC early this year. It's over 90 at home already.

Apple WWDC (iPhone GGG)

Jobs looks gaunt.

I hope it's just the iPhone 3G that's grinding the guy down.

Live from gizmodo.com

iPhone 3G, available July 11, 2008 to an Apple Store or Att Store near you.

Your iPhone just became obsolete.

iPhone 3G is for real and it comes in Black and White (for 16G only). And no iPhone for China and Russia. No video chat, no video function. Same old 2MP camera.

I can't blog better than gizmodo.com, so go there and check it out for yourself. And of course, straight from the source, go to Apple already or check out att.com. Does att.com has 3G coverage where I call? [UPDATE: The answer is an unequivocal yes. Where I live, the map is a sea of blue meaning 3G coverage.]

But Wall Street says, big freaking deal, and hence the stock gave up more than $8. Wall Street doesn't like the gaunt Jobs, it scares Wall Street.

By the way, it's called iPhone 3G, not 3G iPhone for the anal retentive out there.

Random Thoughts

"Life is a series of distractions." - Me.

I aimlessly sleep walk through life as it happens.

Cinelerra

I finally got some success using Cinelerra. And I am glad I don't have to compile from source or buy a new desktop. Previously the video was out of sync, the audio was all right, just that the video was played way slower making editing difficult if not impossible. I tried a a few things but to no avail. It was I think even documented as bug number 482.

Well, it was actually a simple fix. I finally got my act together and got on IRC as suggested by wildhostile. I really have no idea how to use IRC but somehow I managed to get the client to work. And raffa was nice enough to help. All I needed to do was uncheck the Play every frame box. That was it. Now comes the hard part, actually editing some video. I mean to throw together some clips aren't too difficult but to come out something actually good is hard.

Well at least Cinelerra is working and I ran out of excuse not to do anything.

I have to thank wildhostile for his interest and raffa who pointed to me the solution, something seemingly so obvious yet I totally oversaw. Thank you guys.

Roland Garros

Wow, this is live bloging now. Are you excited? I am. I am now watching the live broadcast from NBC.

Nadal's Greenish Hulky ensemble is intimidating Federer big time in Roland Garros red clay.

Greenish, Hulky Nadal is punishing Federer with his two-handed backhands. Federer has no answer yet. On the red clay, Nadals transforms himself to a speedy Hulk, while Federer is reduced to a dodging black dot, trying to return every missile Hulk sends. Nadal's two-handed back hand is now totally and absolutely dominating. It's almost to the point of embarrassing. Federer just lost the last two points by sending the ball to the net. His body language can't be any more negative.

The first set is 1 - 6

UPDATE:
Resistance is futile, Nadal steamrolled Federer in the French Open final. There are still Wimbledon and the US Open, which are more like Federer's playgrounds. Nike turned out to be the winner no matter what.

Coffee Mug

I didn't wash my coffee mug when I left work today. I can't wait to taste that fine layer of flavor when I go back next Monday.

Waiting Game

The title is kind of lame, actually my blog is kind of lame. Actually the fact that I use kind of more than it's necessary is kind of lame already. I am very lame.

Anyway, to continue my dash to insane random postings, I will continue to post whatever I so please. Isn't it pretty much the case all along?

I wonder if Nikon is going to announce its answer to Canon's 5D soon, that is a full frame or what Nikon calls FX format camera that is simply put not as expensive as the D3 but has the same sensor size. If the price point is reasonable enough, I may just go for it. Every now and then, I need to have some new gadgets to give myself a reason to get up in the morning.

The other evening when I was in the PTA fund raising dinner event, I had the fortune of shooting a Canon's point and shoot. In my opinion, I think Canon makes very good point and shoot. But this time, I just found the shutter lag unacceptable. I don't remember the model number but it feels pretty solid and is Made in Japan for me that's something. Perhaps by experience is heavily biased as I shoot DSLR most of the time. So that evening the shutter lag really bothers me, plus the flash just didn't work for me. I know that's pretty unfair as I just picked up the camera and used it. The camera belonged to one of the moms. It's hard to go back to point and shoot sometimes. I do believe it has its use. Just not for me for most of the time.

I am waiting for Nikon's $2000 FX model.

Week In Review

This Dow ended the week with a thud. It went down like a million points because of what else, the economy. Both the oil price and unemployment rate skyrocketed to $300 a barrel and 50% respectively. So we are doomed and over the weekend the price of gas is going to hit $20 a gallon, who knows? We may as well just stay home and stare at our TV or the French Open. That wouldn't be a bad idea actually, or learning Cinelerra or compiling from source ... or watching paint dry.

Bye now.

One more thingy ...
Between June 9 and 13, Apple is going to announce its next generation totally pimped out iPhone 3G. It's like the second second coming of the Christ. So sit tight. With Apple stock down more than 3 dollars on Friday, there is even more potential on the upside when Monday comes next week.

Cinelerra ...

This is not working for me. I tried for a few hours and things weren't getting any better. In fact it got worse. The program got flaky and I had to force quit the thing more than once. I don't like it one bit but I am not giving up yet.

My Friend

My friend just got his LASIK operation. Before he was a bespectacled handsome man, now he is just a handsome (blind) man. Once he got his vision back, barely, he wastes no time. He fires up his MSN right away to have cybersex with all his girl friends, mostly imaginary.

As a friend, I can only be happy for him and I send my best regards,

"The glasses won't get in the way when kissing or doing carpet munching. Good for you.

Please report back your first hand or mouth experience."

My Song Collection

The my part is not exactly correct but... They are what got played on my gum stick iPod. For the most part I don't know what's what. And I understand vaguely what is being sung. Does it matter? Not really.

BS continued

The thing with blog is you can do anything you want. So I am not going to talk about Cinelerra because I really can't do much with at at this point...plus I am not at my dungeon.

I was at a PTA fund raising dinner party last night. 90% of the attendees were women. Being a somewhat responsible father and husband, I somewhat support the PTA not only by saying so but actually participated in their activities like by taking a whole day off so I can go to some trips with the kids and also this dinner party.

The venue was in some country club golf course setting somewhere on Long Island. If you take the LIE, it would be on exit 37. Nice place, very decent. We had raffles, auctions, buffet and dancing. I won two auctions, a basket of tea, and another basket of coffee. I guess it just shows how much I love caffeine. I got this addictive personality which is actually not very good. I was somewhat enjoying the dance too. Just some exercise. I wasn't much of a dancer but who cares, the bottomline to me is since I went I might enjoy myself as well, and who really really gives a flying fuck how good or bad you are dancing anyway. Most of the people there are just having fun. And what fun we all had.

Byrant Park And Other Random Bull Shit From Me

Bryant Park is soon to be overrun by office drones. Let's bring back the drug dealers and crack whores. And Times Square too.

Apple is up more than 3 dollars at 188. The stock is freaking awesome. You got to believe in the Apple brand. People are going to pay a premium just to look like Justin Long. You know even movie mogul Drew Barrymore is attracted to this Mac guy. Apple's propaganda machine is working in full throttle. What can I tell you? The new 3G iPhone's debut is imminent and Jobs can't do no harm. I expect the stock to reach $200 later this year. But if you lose your shirt and underwear don't blame it on me. In the interest of full disclosure, like I even have my pictures somewhere here, I personally own a few shares of Apple stock because I believe people are generally gullible (no, because I like the idea of living dangerously as in owning stocks).

I finally was able to install Cinelerra. This is some piece of software. Looks to me it's some hardcore video editor designed by engineers for engineers. If you have some room temperature IQ that's really not for you. My very first impression is fuck, this shit is overwhelming. Anyway, my initial founding is this is unlike other Linux video editors which are like too easily broken toys, I wasn't able to crash it by randomly selecting a feature. My major problem though was when I load a dv (from my previous capture from Kino), the video and audio aren't playing in synchronization. The video to my aging eyes looked slower. So I have this huge problem right off the bat. I am not even talking about editing, cutting and pasting, or making Star War IX. I mean this shit doesn't play my dv right. I am an humble person, I tend to blame anything on my own shortcomings. And I don't know if I have to configure something to make it right. As in Kino, I didn't have to do shit to capture and play the dv with audio and video in sync. I don't know if there is anything to do with the fact that the dv was captured in Kino but not in Cinelerra, my hunch is it shouldn't matter. But what do I know?

Enough BS, let me grab something to eat first. My dear ghost readers, you just have to wait for me, just don't hold your breath now.

Quick Post

Obama clinches the Democratic Party nomination. Clinton is toast.

The French Open or Roland Garros is a non-event in the US, sadly so. American tennis is just dead now, and more dead when it comes to the red clay in Roland Garros.

I just found out lately that a lot of cable channels are now offering HD, including Foodnetwork TV. But most of time they are just widening the picture so Rachael Ray just looks bloated. And Mario Batali in re-run just a bit obese.

Coffee Mug

At work, I drink my coffee using a Made in China coffee mug. I don't clean my mug obsessively, sometimes I just rinse it and sometimes I leave my mug unwashed overnight. I think whatever residue there just adds another layer of flavor or many layers actually to whatever freshly brewed.

That's how I drink my coffee at work. Pretty disgusting, eh?

Windows Vista Service Pack 1

I have the service pack installed for a few days. So far so good.
The below is totally anecdotal without any scientific backing or even tried to be scientific.

My hp 6910p used to be very sleepy, when it slept it didn't wake up the first time I pressed the power button. So I ended up pressing the button three times which was two times too many. The first one which supposedly wake the computer, but it didn't, so I pressed it again, to turn the computer off which was actually in sleep already, and then press the third time to wake it up.
After SP1, the wake up thing works the way it's supposed to work or what I think it should work.

Before SP1, the Wifi was iffy at best. Every too often, the wifi would just stop working for no good reason. It was just terrible. All browsers I have would just refuse to go out to see the web. Anything I tried to fix the problem was futile until I did a reboot. After SP1 for a few days already, the problem disappeared, hopefully for good.

These are the only two things I've noticed.

Video Editor

So far I am not too happy with Kino in Ubuntu. For sometimes peculiar reason, some the dv clips in the project would just speed up. I remember the last time I used it in Ubuntu 7.10 the same thing happened. And the sound mix doesn't work well at all.

I wonder if I did anything wrong. No, I didn't. Wonder what's out there. The last time I tried another editor, it was so bad, every time I opened a clip and the program just closed, it's as if I quit the program, so basically it's unusable.

Look like I have to download another program other than kino. Hope the learning curve won't be steep. Well, if anything, the slow motion with pan and zoom works pretty well.

I may have to try Cinelerra?

UPDATE 6/3/08
Oh yes. So after all AMD is not Intel, it's better. I just needed to pick the right binary for my AMD processor which is cinelerra-k7gl and now I can run the application OK. Before that I tried some other Linux video apps, except for Kino which isn't all that bad, the rest are just simply unusable, the program just closes by itself. Now comes the hard part, actually using the program to edit video. Gosh, I want to edit some HD, but then I need to buy a HD camcorder, a new workstation and oh well, you got the picture.

Blogger Outage

Millions of my readers were welcomed with a 502 Server Error or whatever Google server spilled out and got turned away. My red hot blogger traffic brought Blogger to its knees, again.

Between 9AM to 10AM Eastern standard time, Blogger was suffering some serious gray out and most people can't reach blogspot.

Seems like things are returning to normal now.

From the horse's mouth

Blogger and Blog*Spot had very high page load times and server errors for about an hour this morning, from 6–7 AM PDT. We’ve fixed the problem. Everything should be operating smoothly now.

Taekwondo

note: with repeat slow motion and zoom in.

(52 second video with audio, if you use Firefox 3 or even 2 under Ubuntu 8.04, it may crash your browser. Notice that it takes two guys to hold the board when Harry strikes, he generates so much force with his pint sized body.)

This is done by Kino. Unfortunately the interface and functionalities leave something to be desired. I was trying to mix a sound track, but alas, it wasn't doing it right. The video was slowing down even I didn't check the speed and the sound became garbled. And when I went back to edit mode, the speed of the whole project went up. So that was weird. I closed the entire project and re-opened and it at least then played normal. So forget about mixing a sound track and do the opening and closing credit, I just rendered the the dv to MPEG. I did the first run IN MPEG1, which gave me a smaller file 8MB but longer rendering. And this MPEG2 took shorter to render but got a much bigger file, 23MB. Enjoy.

My Own Private White Peonies