Ray Davis‘ newsletter/zine/journal/blog the Bellona Times is amazing. I feel twice as smart just having read the front page.
Category: Legacy
The Nimo Codecs Pack V5.0 Build 7 content : ----------------------------------------------- - Coder & decoder Divx 4.12 Build 307 (Project Mayo)(DivX). - Coder & decoder DivX V3.11a (3.11Alpha Low Motion)(Div3) for playing old compressed movies. - Coder & decoder DivX v3.11a (3.11Alpha Fast Motion)(Div4) for playing old compressed movies. - Coder & decoder DivX WMA Audio V4.2 (Standard)(divxa32). - Coder & decoder MPEG-Layer 3 Audio V4.2 (Professional)(l3acm), With control panel icon. - Decoder for AC3 Audio V2.2. - Coder & decoder MS MPEG-4 (For ASF/DivX Conversion)(mpg4,mp42,mp43). - Filters for Vob playback in Windows Media Player: MPEG Parser ActiveX filter MPEG Decoder ActiveX filter - MS-MPEG4 ActiveX filter - DivX V3.2 ActiveX filter - DivX V4.0 ActiveX filter - DivX AC3 Prologic ActiveX filter - The iviaudio.ax : InterVideo Audio Decoder ActiveX filter (No limit time) - The MS Mpeg Original codec (Microsoft) - The New MPEG-2 Splitter AC3 XForm - The New Ligos MPEG-2 Splitter 3.0.0.17 - The Morgan Multimedia Stream Switcher (To change the audio stream in WMP) - I-Media Multi-MPEG2-Source - MPEG Layer-2 Audio Decoder - MPEG Layer-3 Audio Codec for MSACM - DivX AntiFreeze Filter (No more freezed movies) - DirectSound 3D Renderer (with help files) - Cyberlink PowerDVD 3.0 Audio Decoder - Ogg Vorbis Audio codec for MSACM - Lame_dshow.ax (Lame mp3) - Wavdest.ax - Dump.ax - Windows Media Audio Codec - Lame MP3 Encoder ACM Codec - 3ivx Delta 3.5 Codec for QuickTime Windows and the pluging for flask - Plug-ins for Flask: Panasonic MPEG 1, LSX MPEG 1 or MPEG2 - The New Mpeg2dec DLL And the New Avisynth 1.05 MMX Dll for fast Frameserving - The New SimpleResize filter for Avisynth - The New Lame MP3 Encoder ACM 0.3.0 - The New Directshow Bicubic Resizer 1.3 - The New Playa 0.6.6 - The New DivX AntiFreeze Filter 0.4 - The New Sub Station Alpha v2.x/4.x - The New Moonlight Odio Dekoda - The New Moonlight Scalar Filter - The New Subtitle Picture Decoder - The New DynEQ DirectShow filter - The New DivX G400 Filter ver 2.7 - The New DivFix 1.06 with Source Code - The Logo plug-in for VirtualDub and Nandub - The New Fraunhofer Vob Filters - The New Fraunhofer Mp3 codec
I finally got around to finishing up Drugstore Cowboy and Blow. While related by topic, another interesting connection is that Max Perlich is in both movies, and not only that, but the character he plays sorta has similarities as far as function within the story structure.
Nice.
System Configuration: Sun Microsystems sun4u Sun Fire 880
System clock frequency: 150 MHz
Memory size: 32768 Megabytes
Run E$ CPU CPU
Brd CPU MHz MB Impl. Mask
--- --- ---- ---- ------- ----
A 0 750 8.0 US-III 5.4
B 1 750 8.0 US-III 5.4
A 2 750 8.0 US-III 5.4
B 3 750 8.0 US-III 5.4
C 4 750 8.0 US-III 5.4
D 5 750 8.0 US-III 5.4
C 6 750 8.0 US-III 5.4
D 7 750 8.0 US-III 5.4
Sure a cluster might give you failover, but nothing gives the warm fuzzies like some big iron.
Andy @ surfMind.com comments on the DHTML menus at the new USC site, and mouse trajectories, which we noticed, but unfortunately, by that time, it was rather late in the development process, and due to various delays we were unfortunately already far behind schedule on implementation.
That being said, as Andy Mentions, there are a number of post-fixes that can greatly increase usability. A delay at the very least (or for a more complete solution a sticky-bit triggered delay and perhaps even a vector mouse-tracking algorithm), and a wider mouseover area (right now one must traverse the mouse horizontally within a 25-pixel band – it’s positutely rsi-inducing) would help greatly.
That’s actually currently on my post-launch todo list. There are a few things above it right now, but the menu needs a rejiggering to be be more S.508 friendly anyway (currently, the inactive submenus will all show up at the end of a page on Lynx – if they’re written out w/ JS, that should fix it).
In the long run, my personal opinion (months ago, and now) is that if a dynamic menu is used, it should probably be a vertical one. The horizontal tracking problems disappear completely, and it’s a more familar paradigm anyway. Of course, the DHTML meus, while a usability concern, is actually the least of the website’s usability errors. When I get a chance to take a breather at work, I’ll be writing up an analysis, and will probably post some thoughts on the ol’ blog as well.
I’ve also run some preliminary traffic analysis on the first three days of logs (3.5GB). While one might not think so immediately, there’s actually quite a bit of usability data that can be mined from there.
I haven’t been following my U2 news much lately. Those who know me well know that I’m a huge fan. They are practically the only band I’ve listened to consistently since I was a kid, and if I was forced to pick one, they’d easily top my list of “favorite band ever.” That being said, I had no idea they had a new single, coming out, but they do, and it’s very cool. Sorta Doves-like.
There are apparently 5 versions of the song, but I’ve only gotten my hands on three four of them:
- Electrical Storm (Radio1 Demo) [6,280KB] – my fave version right now
- Electrical Storm (Album Version) [6,100KB]
- Electrical Storm (Single Version) [5,116KB]
- Electrical_Storm_Orbit.mp3 [6,014KB] – this is William Orbit Mix (Radio Edit)
Hmm, it’s been a while since I post up some MP3s, so here’s some stuff I’ve been listening to recently:
- 01 – Ben Gibbard – Plans Get Complex.mp3 [3,780KB] – All Time Quarterback, a bunch of Death Cab for Cutie front-man Ben Gibbard’s old low-fi recordings. Reissue available from Barsuk. Short album, but some great little tunes.
- 06 – Desaparecidos – The Happiest Place on Earth.mp3 [5,360KB] – Earlier this year Connor Oberst fronted this politico-rock side project. This song is my favorite from the album; if you like it, you’ll probably like the rest of album.
- 11 – Bright Eyes – From A Balance Beam.mp3 [5,284KB] – Ok, so this came out earlier this year on the There Is No Beginning to the Story EP, but it’s still one of my favorite (and one of the more accessible) tracks on the new Lifted album.
Now this was a sweet hack. Check out the screenshot to see what you missed.
MSNBC has an article reporting the most recent speculation about AIDS and chimps (SIV is apparently very rare in chimps in the wild and seems to have no deleterious effects when contracted [by chimpanzees]), but the most sobering part of the report is the attached AIDS epidemic Flash infographic. Very depressing stuff.
In a slightly related vein, I noticed the Auto Focus trailer hit the Apple Trailer Park recently. This is a biopic on behind-the-scenes life of Hogan’s Hero star Bob Crane (reviewed in depth at AICN a while back). Also interesting is that his son, Scotty Crane, runs BobCrane.com, which sells a subscription to see his father’s amateur photos, and has also published a book, entitled Faces of Bob Crane (Seattle Times article). There’s an interesting interview with of Scotty Crane on BobCrane.com where he defends himself and talks about Auto Focus and his (lack of) involvement with it.
Chris learns the first life lesson from doing Mozilla front-end work. Buck up, there’s more where that came from! For my old experiments, see: July 2002 selectionStart test, Winter 2000 key event tests.
On the bright side, Venkman is a godsend. If you do JS development, it will bring a tear to your eye. Seriously.
Netscape 7.0 came out today. The question is, does anyone give a shit?
Here’s a mozillazine talkback post that gives links for installing the NS7 themes in Mozilla.