Timelapse Fish

I switched to Vimeo.


Timelapse Fish from Max K.

HUMANS

Here's a movie I made.

PSP Internet Review

2 reviews in a row! This time, I'll be complimenting the PSP's
NetFront internet browser. First, I'll mention everything I like about
it. Then, I'll go over some common criticism it recieves and shut it
down.

My #1 favorite thing about it is features. The PSP can do more than IE
and as much as much as Firefox, with great stuff like bookmarks and
tabs. Attaching to a network is easy and fast, thanks to the ability
to save configurations.

There are also a few common complaints I'd like to adress:

"Most sites aren't compatible."

That's an overstatement. Probably 60% of all sites work fine on the PSP. Of the remaining 40%, 50% have "mobile"  versions that work great. So, 80% of sites are compatible.

"YouTube doesn't work."

Not with the normal browser, but you can install PSPTube (Google it) which works great.

"Text entry sucks."

Text entry is like on a phone, so you'd press "6" three times to type "m." However, for the nitpickety, you can switch to a plain numpad, a full QWERTY keyboard, or a symbols pad. A touch screen would help, but I typed this whole post up to the start of the complaints on my PSP. Then, I reached the maximum amount of characters it would allow. "Text entry sucks" probably is the most true complaint there is.

All in all, the PSP makes a great web browser for on-the-go, but if you can use a computer, I recommend that.

DVD Flick Review

Note how this is not a rant, but a review. DVD Flick is a free and open source DVD creator, if that's the correct term. Basically, it lets you put a bunch of clips together, save them as a DVD Flick project file (.dfproj) and burn them to a DVD using open-source ImgBurn. Or, for the more advanced user, it will create .iso files to be burned with any ISO burner (I like ActiveISO). But the interface itself is incredibly easy to use. Most software has a toolbar at the very top with options like File, Edit, View, and so on. DVD Flick has just 9 big buttons. Although this may sound like an app for 3 year-olds, the settings menu has a lot of advanced features, like creating ISOs, verifying disks, and more. Plus, when it's burning, you'll see a button: [Entertain me.] This brings up a very nice version of Tetris to amuse your soul, probably the nicest download version you can get.

LilyPond Rant

I love ranting. The other night, I was looking for some kind of free musical notation program, like Finale Notepad, but free. I googled it and came across LilyPond. It advertises itself with a warm (and false) slogan: "LilyPond...music notation for everyone." There are two things wrong it this statement. The first one is that it is music notation software. In reality, it is a program that allows one to print out sheet music which can be downloaded from their library. And by the way: "There are now 313 pieces of music avaliable!" In case you didn't catch it, that's nothing. That's only 28% of everything Bach ever wrote or half of all of Mozart's songs. But all that is naught compared to the true lie: "...music notation for everyone." After I downloaded it, it took well over 20 minutes just to install. This must be a nice application, or very graphically based, I think. So I open the folder I installed it to and I can't even find the app itself! I had to look online to find out that it was is ...usr\bin, buried amongst 50 or so .dll files. I open it up and...no GUI! The f***ing app that advertises itself as "...for everyone" has a command line interface! I promptly uninstalled it, a process which took 15-20 minutes. And even still, it didn't even delete anything. I deleted the folder myself, which took more like 15 or 20 seconds.

VLC Rant

I love VLC. It's the best cross-platform media player out there. Except, it sucks on Linux. If you don't have internet, then you can't get it. I know, duh. But what I'm saying is that you have to have internet on the computer you want to install it on. I want to put it on my pitiful laptop that doesn't get internet in order to play DVDs. Yes, it has a DVD drive. On the site, they have no downloadable versions, just how to tell the computer to go fetch it. Not even a URL. I'm in the forums (help if you can) but it could take a while.

I'll Tell You Why

There's a reason for everything. My not having posted in a while: I'll tell you why. Windows. These problems have yet to go away. Not that I'm surprised, or anything. And, the Dow is at it's lowest since '03. Right now, it looks like it's at 7552.29. And guess what: I'll tell you why. Windows. You see, Microsoft is in the NASDAQ, with pretty good stocks along with Apple. So what does the Dow have? Dowels. Bad pun. But still. And we all know that most car crashes are caused by younger people. I'll tell you why: (surprise!) Mac. You see, it works like this. College kids tend to get Macs more that old people, because they are smart. Sort of. They have awesome Macs, so they make some awesome home videos and show them to their friends. Their friends like them, so they decide to submit it to the movies. But, since they use Macs, they are obviously more educated, so they search for a way to stream their video to a bigger audience. And, with a Mac, they can get around the internet faster, so they do not grow impatient in their search and find instructions and software to help them hack into NASA's satellites. They then find directions on how to construct an ultra-powerful projector. Once they are done, they wait for a cloudy night. They set up their projector, followed by a pair of speakers directed creatively at an angled Mac Cinema Display, which directs the sound to the world. They start playing the video, both on the sky projector and the Cinema Display, then head to their computer. They tap the satellite, and stream the video to every internet-conncted 'puter in the nation, plus every TV. Meanwhile, John Smith, a really old dude, is driving 30 miles an hour on the freeway, thus slowing down the 927 cars behind him. His vision is distracted for a second, as he sees lights flashing in the sky and monitors lighting up in houses. Faintly, and then louder he begins to hear...the Pokemon theme song! Mr. Smith chuckles to himself, remembering that old show, before he realizes that he's stopped moving. The other cars pile up behind him. One of the radios in another car flies through his back windshield and he hears: On interstate 492 tonight, we have a 928 car collision. Officials are directing traffic onto the other side of the freeway. They have requested us to announce that kids using Macintosh computers for devious purposes are to be shunned.

Linux Rant 2 - What is the World Coming to?

Linux, as I've always thought, is very buggy. I'm trying Ubuntu because it's probably the most reliable, but just downloading it is impossible. I chose my mirror and it started doing 14 Kbps. Fourteen! It said something like 17 hours remaining. So I started over with a new, farther away mirror, and it's pushin' 160 Kbps. But either way, this is the second time I've had to complain about Linux. It's supposed to be awesome! Help!

Let's Talk Politics

So, as we all know, Obama won. That's fabulous. But what, now is his job? It's been said that the president (Bush) is now called a "lame duck," although that seems more like Obama's role currently. And there's that other guy... what's his name? Joe Biden, that's it. What happened to him? It seemed almost, almost, like he was just there to help Obama win. Consider this: what tangible things does the vice president do (besides shoot people, we all know that)? I know, some political fanatic will run off a list of hundreds of thousands of duties, but maybe he is just the backup president. Not that there's anything wrong with that. So, right now, who, in the upper governmental group, is really doing something? Nancy Pawlowski?

Questions, questions.

For once, Windows seems nice

So... to avoid the wrath of Windows lately I've been trying out various other operating systems (it's nice to have a junk laptop that you can do whatever you want with, eh?). So yesterday, I'm cycling through all kinds of Linux distros, trying to find one I like. I started with kUbuntu Hardy Heron, 8.04. It's cool and all, but it doesn't work with wireless internet. And since my laptop has no ethernet port, that doesn't work. Next I try DSL (Damn Small linux, 4.4.8). The scariest part was probably the command line hard disk installation, but I pulled through. I even got the 'net working... for a few hours. Then I spent 2 or three more hours (I was bored, okay?) installing xUbuntu, with Ubuntu's finicky install GUI. So that gets all up and running. I had high hopes for this one, because it already had my WiFi card's drivers and immediately detected our network. I entered the password and it said I was online, with 2 out of 4 bars. But I open Firefox, and it can't connect, despite still having 2 bars. So, I figure, it must be just Firefrox, so I try ping, and (oh, snap!) no response. Software communication failure? I may never know. So today I shift into a new gear: Unix. Not Unix-based Linux, but plain ol' Unix. I go download the "boot only" FreeBSD ISO, burn it with never-failed-me-before Active ISO, pop it in and reboot. I select the kernel and all that, and it starts booting, then prints a peculiar error: "GTX halted." Whatever that means. Which puts me here: all I have to work with is Windows, one blank CD, and an operating system choice.