Crap. Not that it’s a surprise (we knew this was coming), but still, very sad: Chinese river dolphin almost certainly extinct

Cool. Guido van Rossum is working on a Python refactoring tool, as a possible starting point for conversion between Python 2.x and (the so far hypothetical) Python 3.0. Architecture is worth review, as well.

Clickable Culture: ‘Firefly’ to go MMO in 2008

Could be interesting. I actually have the Multiverse platform
download; I’m trying it for a “personal” worldspace. It’s
kinda cool. Neat that they’re thinking about using it…it’ll be
interesting to see if that sticks. Last I saw, the graphics weren’t
quite top-tier. The danger would be that they spend 9 months with
Multiverse, and then decide to change platforms; that would maul any
schedule.

Actually not a bad idea for a universe, the more I think about
it. We’ve only really seen the barest sketch; there’s lots of room for
players to make their mark, yet already a rabid fanbase to kickstart things. Good thinking on someone’s part; let’s see if they can deliver.

Man, I’m behind the comics times. Or I was, anyway. A month or so back, I was rehashing an old discussion with a friend about how frustrating comics have become. Crazy expensive, and no digital versions available…I could just SEE how cool it would be to have them in a digital format. Man…why isn’t anyone doing that?

Errrr…oops. It appears I’m not exactly up-to-date WRT the online comics scene. A BoingBoing link from a few days back clued me in to a DRM-free comics publisher (Pullbox Online), and I made my first order there almost immediately. And while tracking down the reader software, I discovered that basically EVERYTHING, comics-wise, is being scanned and posted online at pirate sites nowadays. But guess what…I think I’ll give my cash to the folks who are willing to sell it to me. At $0.99 (or less) an issue, I can afford to check things out and experiment. It’s great. I’m definitely digging reading comics again.

The image format itself is worth a mention. Pretty clever..the CBR/CBZ format is DRM-less by design, and consisted of JPG files (either scans or original image files) arranged in a rar or zip archive (indicated by the last letter of the extension). It’s easy, works well, and gives the user some control. The BigCos that HAVE bothered to try digital releases seem to be stuck in the same DRM-obsessed cesspool with most other media companies. They use PDF, primarily, so that they can watermark the images, prevent printing, and generally irritate the crap out of me. Uh…not! I’ll stick with CBR, thanks.

Oh…dear. James Kim was found dead yesterday. Damn. It was a longshot that they would find him alive, but I was definitely hoping. I’m happy that his wife and children were found, of course, but what a sad story.

Woohoo! I sometimes get part of my Christmas presents early, since I have to point them out (ie, make sure the right thing gets bought). Once that’s the case, I figure I might as well just get it…a couple weeks early, but hey, who’s complaining? *grin*

This year, I finally talked myself into asking for a decent camera. I get some sort of imaging device almost every year, as I love a camera…but oftentimes, I lowball it. I end up with something that’s ok, and often interesting in some way, but with some, uh, quirks. Yeah, let’s call them quirks. This year, I found some good reviews, and managed to identify a camera in the $150-200 price range (a little higher than I normally go) that I thought I’d be happy with…the Panasonic DMC-LZ3. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s a couple more megapixels than I had before (5MP), and has a nice 6x optical zoom and image stabilization. It’s not designed for people who want a lot of manual control…but that just means I’m in luck!

It’s quite striking what a climbing up a notch or two in the camera leagues will get you nowadays…I’m really impressed. I don’t have anything worth uploading yet, since I have just been playing around with it, but I’m going to definitely get some sharable shots soon. It’s fun to have a nice camera!

Interesting article on weather cause and effect: The Five-Year Forecast

Just in case you were wondering:

Your SaniTest(TM) Results
Your score is: 132.

For easier understanding, the HPLHS SaniTest assessment algorithm converts your raw score to a scale of 1 to 10. This number is your INSANITY INDEX.

INSANITY INDEX 7.41 Thank you for taking the SaniTest(TM). Your score indicates that you’re somewhat deranged. You may be having difficulty coping with your own emotions, which can lead to frenetic, disorganized, and potentially self-destructive behavior. Other notable deranged people include fitness guru Richard Simmons and Greek philosopher Euclid.

(From the HP Lovecraft Historical Society’s SaniTest)

Here is the blip.tv page, and direct MP3 download link for the November 18th episode.

New audio recorder, same crappy audio! (In fact, worse in some respects.) But this is one step one of a multi-step improvement process, so it should get better.

Quick discussion of an experiment I’m doing using the MP3Tunes premium music locker. Hey…how can you NOT try it for $20/year?

Links:

• MP3Tunes

More podcasts are coming, Hulk, never fear! I just resolved an issue that’s been the holdup for the past couple of weeks. I bought a new little recorder…crappy cheap thing, but a) line-in (for mike), and b) mounts as USB device. Cool.

But…(always a but when I buy something cheap) in the default (low-quality) record mode, the output is one funked-up WAV file. It’s 8Hz, 1 channel IMA ADPCM audio, and my standard podcast management tools (ReZound for editing, lame for encoding) are unable to read the file correctly. And even though there’s a higher quality mode I can set it to for the future, I already had several recording sessions…a cursory listen to the file sounded ok, the USB mount was fine, etc. Dangit!

mplayer (as always) to the rescue, though. You can listen to the entire file w/o issue using it (other tools could listen to about the first 80 secs, and then thought it was corrupt). I knew there was some way to pass that data on to other tools, but I’m no mplayer command line guru, so it took me a couple of passes to figure it out. For those interested (and me, in case I forget *grin*):

mplayer kaz-2006-11-18-01.wav -ao pcm

dumps out the uncompressed raw PCM audio to disk. Everything understands that. Woot! I’m back in business. Thanks again, mplayer! Expect podcasts to start streaming up soon, sportsfans. I have two that are now pretty much ready.