The First 100 Years Are The Hardest

Homebrew PVR - Intermediate Progress With the birth of my daughter Ava last week time is running short... so I've taken the dreaded Windows shortcut till I can get the remaining parts ordered. I purchased a V-Stream USB2800 Xpert DVD Maker video capture card from newegg for $50. It was cheap enough and supported MPEG 2 video with stereo audio encoding (44.1 or 48Khz). I didn't think it would work on Linux (it didn't) but I figured it would be ok on WinXP for capturing some VCDs (320x240) of Ava for the grand parents (it did). Even though the USB2800 technically supports 720x480 mpeg capture, the encoding is done all in software and the USB 2.0 interface significantly restricts the video capture bandwidth (6-8 mb/s variable bitrate (VBR) is required for DVD quality captures). I believe a hardware encoder simliar to the ones used in the Haupguage WinTV 250 PVR cards would produce better quality videos. After several test runs I've determined I'm better ...

DVD-V Resources : DVD Authoring HowTO VCDimager article describes how authoring DVD-V may be realized with GNU/Linux and other unices (brief and a bit dated). MJPEG Tools The mjpeg programs are a set of tools that can do recording of videos and playback, simple cut-and-paste editing and the MPEG compression of audio and video under Linux. MJPEG HOWTO - An introduction to the MJPEG-tools MJPEG capture/editting/replay and MPEG encoding toolset description. For those who REALLY want to start at the beginning... DVD Author (Great links to other projects, some of which I've linked to directly below) DVDRTOOLS Q-DVD-Author Qt front end for DVD Author DVD-Styler DVDStyler is a crossplatform GUI frontend to the dvd authoring and recording programs dvdauthor and dvdrecord. Polidori Gnome front end- no releases yet! DVD-Create (looks like this project is not active)

Thinking Small: Small Form Factor (SSF) Mini PC Resources Small Form Factor Pentium 4 PC Roundup - March 2003 Top 5 Small Form Factor PC Barebone Kits - January 2004 Shuttle Biostar CPU Parts International CappuccinoPC iMicros Ebay Store NewEgg The HTPC Store

DVD-Recording Status I successfully installed the new NEC DVD±RW from newegg and burned a sample VCD using 300mb worth of Star Trek Enterprise episode teasers from Mr. Video Productions . I used K3b 0.11 witht the VCDImager v0.7.14. Although the vcd didn't work in my old RCA DVD player, I was able to enjoy the teasers on my son's e-machine running WinXP. I had to compile and install k3b and vcdimager from the source since there were runtime issues with the latest versions of vdcimager. Note: The vcdimager website was down for several days. Keep trying if the link doesn't work. Also, I had to upgrade to College Linux 2.5 because vcdxbuild kept dying under CL 2.3. I wanted to add a second disk and upgrade sound support to ALSA anywat. Unfortunately ALSA didn't work out of the box (configuration at install time caused a kernel panic). aRTs didn't work either for some reason. Guess I'll have to become a Linux Sound support expert to fix this....

MPEG RECORDING SAMPLES I stumbled across the Library of Congress' American Memory digital library collection while searching for usable MPEG video recording samples to test various video formats for my PVR project. I was happily distracted for an hour while I downloaded and watched silent films from over 100 years ago! Of special interest is the collection on the Theodore Roosevelt .

Homebrew Project: Linux PVR Today its time to put my money on the table and go all in. I ordered an NEC 2500A DVD±RW burner today! YEAH! cdfreaks gave it their "best value" award. Unfutunately I forgot to followup on the Hauppauge WinTV card I was planning to buy this morning. It's just as well because I can't tell for sure that it supports stereo audio encoding (verify the part number TBS) and the seller never responded to my query. Oh well, there are hundreds more to be had for the same great price! But Patience, Daniel Sun. Make sure the card has a well supported Video for Linux driver! Other Resources: MySetTopBox (KnoppMyth- a Knoppix based Linux Distro customized for MythTV) DVD FAQ The State of Home-Brew PVRs on Linux DVD-Recording Home

Is there Anyboby Out there? I just received by first Harvested DVD - I'm really enjoying the Roger Waters video anthology. Thanks!

The Lathe of Heaven (Ursula K. LeGuin, 1971) "Those whom heaven helps we call the sons of heaven. They do not learn this by learning. They do not work it by working. They do not reason it by using reason. To let understanding stop at what cannot be understood is a high attainment. Those who cannot do it will be destroyed on the lathe of heaven." - Chuang Tse: XXIII Original Dustcover Artwork The Lathe of Heaven (Synopsis + Analysis) Academic Analysis Sci-Fi Channel Review A&E Site with cool downloads and links to Movie Trailer TLOH on PBS 'Jor Jor, please forgive warranted interruption. You are human capable of iahklu as previously noted. This troubles self... We also have been variously disturbed. Concepts cross in mist. Perception is difficult. Volcanoes emit fire. Help is offered : refusably. Snakebite serum is not prescribed for all. Before following directions leading in wrong directions, auxiliary forces may be summoned, in immediately foll...

Imaginary Exponents and Euler's Equation

2003 Harrington Elementary Science Fair has come and gone, but alas, after much effort and significant improvement over last year, my son was still only able to place 3rd. He was greatly disappointed, especially after he looked at the projects that one first and second places! Next year we'll we'll try to place 1st by evaluating our project against a science fair " rubric " such as this one published by the Los Angles County Department of Education .

From the Meredith Willson Music Man Album: " Seventy-Six Trombones . Now THIS is music for a celebratory occasion!

Read Paul Boutin's Quicksilver reivew in Slate, " The World Outside the Web ", which includes references to Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach", Todd Garrison's " Cracking the Code " and John Wilkins' "Essay Towards a Real Character and a Philosophical Language" which was published in 1668.

The Quicksilver Metaweb is an online community making use of wiki technology. Like a real community, the metaweb is a living document, an organism that reproduces and multiplies and evolves based on the work of its collaborative authors(villiage idots and highway men included). The web provides a great opportunity for unlimited contributions as readers reflect on the various characters, plots and underlying themes presented in the book. Use the search facility to help navigate through the web; hit the main page if ever you become lost. As Neal is quoted, Quicksilver is not part of a " trilogy" but the first volume of 7-8 interconnected novels he envisions as part of the Baroque Cycle .

The MIT OpenCourseWare project is pretty amazing. The direct URL is http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html From their Announcement: The official "launch" of MIT OpenCourseWare, with the publication of 512 courses, came on September 30, 2003. We hope that you are finding material that interests you among these courses, which come from all 33 of MIT's academic disciplines.

Online resouce for Saul Bellow's novel "Herzog" . Includes study guide, notes on recurring themes, and a nice multiple choice quiz (25 Questions). I scored 95% (missed one) after finishing this "challenging novel". Favorite quote: Moses' paraphrase of the infamous Wilson administration quip that "what the world needs is a five cent synthesis." You don't say that to the masses in the midst of the depression, unless you're anxious to make the kind of mistake akin to Marie Antoinette's ill fated advice to "let them eat cake..." (I won't argue with "History", but this quote is often incorrectly attributed to her ).

"Winter is Coming!" I just finished George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones . Thrones is the first volume of a planned 6 series story arc that is sure to keep me reading for the foreseeable future! The prose is excellent and tThe writting is crisp. The characters fully developed and the action believable. This is Fantasy at its highest form. I don't know why it took 7 years to come to my attention! From the Amazon.com Book Review: Martin's Seven Kingdoms resemble England during the Wars of the Roses, with the Stark and Lannister families standing in for the Yorks and Lancasters. The story of these two families and their struggle to control the Iron Throne dominates the foreground; in the background is a huge, ancient wall marking the northern border, beyond which barbarians, ice vampires, and direwolves menace the south as years-long winter advances. Abroad, a dragon princess lives among horse nomads and dreams of fiery reconquest. There is much b...

Ever Hear of " R.A. Salvatore "? I've spent the Summer reading WOTC Collecor's Editions of " The Dark Elf Trilogy " and " The Icewind Dale Trilogy ". These books recount the tales of Drizzt Do'Urden, Salvatore's famed dark elf set in the D&D Forgotten Realms RPG campaign setting.

Summer 2003 Quotes " In great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small things they show themselves as they are." (Nicholas Chamfort) "It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it." (W. Somerset Maugham) "If you are going through hell, keep going." (Winston Churchill) "I fell asleep reading a dull book, and I dreamed that I was reading on, so I awoke from sheer boredom." (Heinrich Heine) "The Fountainhead is a compelling world where man is not presented as he is, but as he could be: a heroic being with productive achievement as his noblest activity, reason his only absolute." (Ayn Rand paraphrased). "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." (Samuel Johnson) "If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going." (Professor Irwin Corey) "Writing comes more easily if you have som...

Great Quotes Round up for April: "The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible." (Ben Hecht) "Humor is by far the most significant activity of the human brain." (Edward de Bono) "Try to learn something about everything and everything about something." (Thomas H. Huxley) "Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again." (Franklin P. Jones) "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." (Isaac Newton) "The man who says he is willing to meet you halfway is usually a poor judge of distance." (Laurence J. Peter) "I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it." (Pablo Picasso) "Budget, quality or schedule... pick two." (business school maxim) "A work of art is never finished, just finally abandoned." (unknown)

Get Sun Certified for the Java1.4 platform! Now that I've got it, I can recommend it (yes, this is where I've been hiding out for the past few months). I highly recommend this book from Amazon.com to help you study for the Sun Certified Programmer's exam for Java 1.4 (310-035). The book comes with a CD-ROM that includes a PDF version of the book and several simulated exams that will prepare you for official version available at your local Prometric Testing Center . If you already have your java certification, be sure to check out SunEd's other certification programs .