Essentially, some people complained that with certain files the audio came out as static. I came across a reported solution to this problem and implemented it in the script. Basically, instead of doing mkv audio to aac, it does mkv audio to wav to aac. So, it takes longer and requires more HD space, but the audio reportedly comes out fine.

The other things that were done are under the hood (though it may help some people). What the Python people did was put out a warning that they are going to get rid of a function that I used. So, I changed that to the replacement. As such, people who had problems with ‘command not found’ errors (sorry, can’t reproduce the error means can’t fix it) should try this update and see if it works.

So, in summary, a new feature and increased longevity. Hope you guys like and let me know via the issues page if something goes horribly wrong.

Have a happy holidays!

Mpeg4ip is now back in MacPorts! So, a ‘sudo port -v selfupdate’ should bring things in order. For those that used the tgz from the ticket or the project page, no further action should be needed. I did the same and no uninstall/install was required.

Thanks to jmr@ for committing the submission. My users and I appreciate it!

Corrupt files required moving the tgz file elsewhere. See above link to get it if you haven’t already. Instructions on using it are in the striked link if you don’t know how.

This marks a milestone in the scripts development. So, instead of having revision numbers, we’ve finally reached version 0.1. It can be downloaded here.

Hope you like your gift. Have a happy holidays.

He has damaged Canada’s reputation on the world stage. He’s sent our troops into combat without so much as a debate in the house. He’s not allowed his MPs to speak in public nor have there own opinions. He has no plan for Canada’s part in the current economic crisis. I could go on. Basically, he whacks people over the head with his personal agenda until they push back. In that case, he back-pedals vigorously.

An example of the back-peddling is his thought to remove unions from government workers. This had many bad implications such as being laid off and losing pensions, etc, etc, etc. All without repercussions. Kind of pissed people off and now he’s saying he’s not going to do it in the hopes that he won’t get ousted.

All I have to say is, THANK YOU Dion, Layton and Duceppe. Thank you for finally ending the tyrannical rule of Harper (hopefully… *knocks on wood to scare Murphy away*).

To those that think that this is a bad idea. Well, Germany has had Coalition Governments for about five decades now and they seem to be doing just fine. And, if this goes through, we’ll have a government which represents more Canadians than the current one does. So, as for Democracy, kind of a better one, don’t you think!

Driving while doing “stuff”

This is known to be a problem. I’m not going to argue the generality of this statement. But, there is, arguably, at least one thing that doesn’t belong here. That being smoking.

This is because, to a smoker, smoking is “second nature” (btw, I’m a former smoker). So, smoking while driving is done without thought. There really isn’t any looking away to do anything as the movements and where things are known subconsciously. So, smoking while driving isn’t necessarily the pitfall that the show makes it out to be.

There is a little addendum to that though. The above assumes that one doesn’t do anything as stupid as lighting up, or putting one out, while actually driving. Luckily, there are stop lights and traffic jams where these things can be done safely.

One could make the argument that if one looks down for a split second things can go awry. Well, how is that different from looking away for any other number of reasons? Because, if we’re all honest, we know that this happens regularly while just driving and not smoking. People are distracted for no reason all the time. So, practically speaking, there is no difference. As in, it isn’t reasonable/practical to require/expect people to pay attention to driving 100% of the time while driving.

This brings us to the problem with how this “driving distracted” problem was done on the show. It was very dishonest.

What they did was drive around in a tight lane, in a figure eight. Then they had to reach in there purse, backpack or glove box and try to to “stuff”. Some of this was putting on lipstick, drinking and smoking. Well, in all my years, I don’t know one person that would have done this while driving in the conditions that these people were under. Perhaps functionally retarded people might, but I call bullshit on normal people doing it.

I’ll also point out that unlike this “course”, Canadian roads are far from that curvy. In fact, most are rather straight. Just thought I’d point that out.

Down on teenagers

First off, I’m going to point out that the teenager on the show is being made out to be the “poster child” for the reason why governments are creating new laws restricting teenagers ability to drive. This is pure nonsense. This teenager has nowhere near the ability of the “average” teen out there. Hell, when I recall what I did when I first got my license, I definitely did some stupid stuff (while other cars were not around). That was/is pretty common. But, most of the time, I was a good driver and so was everyone that I drove with (save 1). If this weren’t the case, we’d have a hell of a lot more problems than we do now. Age is not such a significant factor as it’s made out to be.

On the distraction front, one of the judges said (paraphrase), “It has been statistically proven that with each teen aged passenger you add to the car with a teen aged driver, the chance of getting in an accident goes up 100%.” I actually laughed out loud when he said this. Let’s go over why.

I’ll point out first, that one cannot prove anything with statistics. One can show what is likely or unlikely to happen, “probabilities” if you will, but not proof. This is chances. Think of it like this, when you roll a 6 sided die, your chances of getting any one number is 1/6. But, do you actually get those numbers in those ratios? No. Well, over time if you keep rolling and rolling and rolling and… you will. But, not practically speaking. There will be long runs where one number doesn’t show up at all, etc, etc, etc. That is the nature of statistics. Mix that with the fact that as people drive more, there skill increases and as such, there chances of getting into an accident decreases, and the above statement makes less and less sense.

Now I will point out that they are saying that this is justification for new laws that different Provinces are trying to pass (probably one of the strings I mentioned). The one that they are alluding to is that teenagers (or new drivers – but that doesn’t really matter for the purposes here) will not be able to have passenger (or limits increasing over time) up to a certain age. This does nothing to improve the situation overall. How is the person supposed to get used to driving with people if they aren’t exposed to that situation? Point of fact, lifting this ability will increase the distraction and thus create a distracted driver each time it is lifted. I’ll point out that if it goes by one person more allowed in the car at each time, then we actually create more chances for problems and thus defeat the entire supposedly purpose of this new law.

But, how is age even a factor here? I’m serious! When one is learning something new, such as driving, they’ll need to pay closer attention to what they are doing at first. But, the Ontario law (as I recall) lifts this restriction at 21 (as I recall). So, implicitly, if someone just gets there license at, say, 30, then this restriction will never be in effect. This kind of defeats the purpose of the law and makes it look rather discriminatory towards the younger ones. If someone was to propose something like this, then wouldn’t it make sense to base it on skill instead of discriminating on age? Because, the way the referenced law is structure, it doesn’t do much to fix anything. In fact, as shown above, there’s a chance it’ll make things worse. Not that this has stop politicians before. Better to do something and look good rather than do something smart.

It’s just his age.

This one really got me. It was explicitly stated (by the host) that this teenagers driving is due solely (or primarily) because of his age. This is absolutely laughable. Again, if this were true, we’d be an a lot more trouble then we already are in.

I will also point out at this time, that teenagers aren’t really a terrible threat. As in, practically looking at things, how far do teenagers actually drive? I know when I was young (and all of the people that I knew), I didn’t drive far at all. In fact, it was rare the I left my “neck of the woods” at all. So, I was usually on residential roads i.e. low speeds. Can anyone say that they know of large groups of teenagers going on regular trips on highways? I think not.

I really think that teenagers get a bum rap because of a select few. Not exactly uncommon in our society. But, let’s not let that fact get in the way of the prevailing “wisdom.”

Are teenagers the only ones?

Teenagers are also not the only ones out there causing problems. They are just the ones that catch the most flack because politicians know that they can’t/won’t put up a successful fight against new discriminatory legislation. The elderly are just as bad if not worse.

I say this because incidents of drunk driving are much higher among the elderly. They are also less likely to wear there seatbelt, be current with traffic laws, have bad reflexes, etc, etc, etc. Not to mention that they are regularly not in the accidents that they cause. All this, but there was one mention of the elderly on the show. That mention being that the elderly have to go in at 80 for a “knowledge assessment.” The judges said that this wasn’t enough and left it at that.

One could make the argument that they actually kicked the elderly woman off the show and it looks like she’s going to loose her license. Well, that is but only one elderly person and they aren’t making constant generalisations about the elderly. The elderly are getting let off scot free on this show.

I could go on, but I’m tired and don’t care that much. But, all in all, I see this show as being a significant platform for justification of the Ontario government’s new plans. And I find that sad.

So, all this was due to someone claiming to be “Prof. Godfrey.” Who on this story posted:

I have to chuckle at the breathtaking ignorance and right-wing fundamentalist nonsense that passes for logical discourse (see mervin, finnegan, Moose, etc.) here. They are clearly trying to compete with a lifetime of my own research and professorship. If you need more ‘convincing’, not only did I graduate from the best linguistics university in the world, but was a “gifted” student in THE MOST DIFFICULT FIELD IN ACADEMIA – LINGUISTICS.Intelligence is based on linguistico-mathematical criteria.

And this is not arrogance or insecurity caused by a “superior intelligence”…hahahahahahahahahahaha. The facts about drugs have been presented in full here by the objective amongst you, but those that wish life into what they like to believe and see, you will not understand even what objectivity is…nor what constitutes “intelligence”.

Not exactly conduct becoming a University Professor. So, the response that I tried to post was:

Prof. Godfrey, from your conduct I highly doubt you’re a Prof. You’re most likely some teenager attempting to usurp authority you don’t have.

Linguistics is certainly not the most difficult of all of Academia. The most difficult are the “holy trinity” of logical thought: Mathematics, Physics and Philosophy. These subjects are the ones that require the highest level of critical thought. You’d be hard pressed to find someone to say otherwise that actually knows what they are talking about.

Yahoo’s reply to the submission was:

Oops! The comment you entered contained abusive language. Please re-enter and try again.

Can anyone tell me what Yahoo is referring to? Because, I just don’t see it. I don’t see how my post gets blocked, but “Prof. Godfrey”s posts, laughing at people, gets his through.

From the address bar, goto: about:config. Then use ‘urlclassifier’ for the filter. What we are looking for is ‘urlclassifier.updatecachemax’. Mine was set to -1 which means unlimited. Set it to 104857600 (100MB).

If this ‘urlclassifier.updatecachemax’ doesn’t exist right-click on any white-space and select new->integer. Put urlclassifier.updatecachemax for the name and 104857600 for the value.

Once one of the above is done a restart is needed to apply the changes. Hopefully, this will result in a freeze free Firefox. If not, either the fix doesn’t work or some tweaking with the value setting is needed.

UPDATE: Performance improved and it hasn’t frozen while being used yet. But, while returning from after the screen-saver kicked in, it did freeze. So, this is just a partial fix, or I need to lower the that number more. We’ll see.

UPDATE: I just had a total freeze of FF. Did nothing special beside switching windows. So, this doesn’t seem to fix the issue at all. All it does is give you some control over the frequency of the freezes.

For years, I wanted to get my hands on a console to see what I could do with it. Unfortunately, Linux PS3 is just a toy, not to mention encumbered with the horrid [L]GPL garbage. Then Sony comes out with a “lite” way to get on board. Unfortunately, as I recall, it cost about $10k to get on board. And when I looked into it, I had to apply, including company information, game information, previous successfully completed projects, etc. So, including the possibility of getting rejected, the PS3 hardly offers something for Indie game developers. Or at least those that have yet to become established. Wiiware is somewhat similar. Except the fact that I couldn’t find any real information on it aside from it was cheaper that what Sony was offering.

Basically, both the above have fairly high barriers to get involved. Hardly something a company wants to do if they actually want titles for those systems. I mean, how much resources could it really take to release a “lite” version of a development studio and automate the sign-up process. At that point, who care if a low percentage actually finish a project? Bandwidth is cheap. Especially, when it’s pretty much a download once type thing (or few and far between).

But, M$ has finally made a good decision and in doing so, they’ve clobbered there competition. It’s things like this that make me want to go out and get a XBox 360 and the required membership to get going. That would cost a mere ~$300 (XBox + 1yr membership). Hell, I looked up the requirements and I even have a computer sitting idle that would run XP (doubt it’ll run Vista). Though, I would certainly need a better video card. So, perhaps a $500 investment and I’m developing. That’s a really really tempting thought and if I had that kind of money lying around…

So, all I have to say is this. Kudos MS. You certainly deserve a pat on the back for this one.

Apparently, my score was “12 on Impressionist, higher than 76% of your peers.”, “12 on Islamic, higher than 76% of your peers.”, “8 on Ukiyo-e, higher than 62% of your peers.”, “-12 on Cubist, higher than 45% of your peers.”, “-13 on Abstract, higher than 43% of your peers.”, and “0 on Renaissance, higher than 52% of your peers.” I assume that those number are the comparison of the current base-line and might change over time. Below is a overview and general description of my result.

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test…

Balanced, Secure, and Realistic.

Take What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test at HelloQuizzy

So, today I decided to make it available for those that might want to try it out. It’s available here. Currently, it’s only available as Python source. So, although it is a GUI program, it still needs to be launched from the command line. Launch it by issuing (assuming the file is in the same directory):

Then look in dist/ and you’ll find an Application bundle. I’m not making this available now, as there hasn’t been an official release yet. But, as you can see, you can make it yourself easily.

I must note a few things though. As there has yet to be an official release, there are a couple outstanding issues; none are critical. As long as the “by hand” process would have worked and you have enough HDD space, there shouldn’t be any problems.

I must make a note to avoid probably confusing people; it does not do file splitting a la the second tutorial. It will tell you that it does, but it doesn’t. The program is lying to you. This feature is obviously on the roadmap, but it has yet to be implemented. If this feature is needed before I get around to implementing it, a work around is doing the splitting by hand, and then running this program over those pieces.

If you have any comments, suggestions, etc, don’t hesitate to comment below. If you find any bugs, or whatnot, then please submit that to the project as an issue here.

UPDATE: I’ve just fixed the one thing before I was comfortable releasing a test release. You may now go to the download page to get rev5. Please mind that if you have files called audio.aac, video.h264 or file.mp4 in the same directory as the MKV you’re trying to convert, you’re asking for those files to be overwritten. Also, while converting file.MKV, if you have a file called file.MP4 in that same directory, you’re asking for that file to be overwritten. Those are all the known issues at this time that’ll effect you.

UPDATE: If anyone has any more issues, please submit them to the issues section at the project. I don’t want to clutter this blog with issues when there is a much better facility to use at the project.

UPDATE: Jeffrey Gelens just informed us in the comments below that mpeg4ip has been removed from MacPorts. According to the logs, this happened about 4 days ago as it was obsoleted by another port. Until I have time to look into fixing this issue, I have written a wiki page as an attempt at a stop gap measure.

UPDATE: The mpeg4ip port has been reinstated. So, for those that have downloaded the files off my site and installed mpeg4ip that way, you should uninstall that mpeg4ip and:

sudo port selfupdate

sudo port install mpeg4ip

The reason being that this would bring you in line with the official MacPorts. So, if anything goes wrong, you know it’s not your fault. An example of this would be conflicting files on installing another port.

UPDATE: Embarrassingly, I forgot to say that I/we should thank the people at MacPorts, particularly devans@, for there/his very fast reinstatement of this port. I/We most certainly appreciate it.

UPDATE: A new version is out. The announcement is here.