timepiececlock | Entries tagged with technical stuff

In a moment of serendipity and extreme boredom this afternoon I began thinking up names for a DWth account, so I wouldn't be blank-minded when April 30th rolled around. I basically decided to try a new name, though I intend to still associate the name Rashaka with that journal, and to keep posting here. But I've had Rashaka since 2001...it's time to try something new.
Much to my delight, when I got home, I'd gotten an invite from the DWth staff! It's probably because I joined the mailing lists. If I get extra ones, I'll be sure to pass them on. After long deliberation, I went with this name:

starboard!

It's a single word, it's nautical, it has the word 'star' in it, it's easy to remember, and it's not too complicated. I am still torn about some of my other names... 'coolbeans' would have been a truly fantastic fandom name. But, alas and alack, the sailor in me wins.

( Rejected DWth names! Pockets, Petrichor, Trundle, and Almond were close back-ups. )

If we know each other here on livejournal, you have a DWth account, or an openID, I'd love to subscribe to you over on DWth as well! I've already added some of you through my OpenID account, but unfortunately there doesn't look to be a way to combine my OpenID with my actual account yet.

Note: if you add me and your name is different than on LJ, please send me a comment or a message so I know where I know you from. =)

Television Streaming Sites

1. http://www.Hulu.com - If you've never heard of Hulu, you a) didn't watch Doctor Horrible online last year, or b) haven't seen the laughable Alien Alec Baldwin commercial from the superbowl. Hulu is great, though you may be asked to watch the same car commercial six times in one episode. Unfortunately, it's difficult to predict what episodes or seasons will be available, and what won't. Note: only available in the U.S.

2. http://www.surfthechannel.com/ - SurfTheChannel doesn't host episodes; it lists shows and, by individual episode, links you to an array of different streaming websites. I watched the entire first three seasons of How I Met Your Mother on this website, linked to funky Japanese and Korean servers that sometimes had Chinese subs, but I was a happy cat.

Websites with Direct Download Resources/Archives

Anime

1. http://www.cyber12.com/ - [Anime Download Resource Archive] - TONS! mostly linked via MegaUpload and similar file sending websites, and you don't need to register for it. Mostly recent stuff and some old stuff.

2. http://www.narutoengdub.co.nr/ - [JustDubs] - download complete dubbed series!

3. http://www.anime-eden.com/ - [Anime Eden] - huge archive of many series, usually complete, download from servers two at a time, also music, free registration necessary. They have a lot of older series as well as new ones, and anime movies.

4. http://www.boontan.net/ - [Boontan] - several series, download from servers, free registration necessary, lots of recent obscure series.

6. http://mesmerisz.livejournal.com/3570.html - a livejournal masterpost list with a few hundred series linked through megaupload, well organized. Only recent stuff from the last two years.

[from

hakeber]
7. http://www.anikat.com - Large archive, linked via MegaUpload and similar sites, no registration necessary.

8. http://www.lolipower.org/

Manga

1. http://www.onemanga.com/directory/ - [OneManga] - This is where I get my Naruto updates; there's a huge database, no sign-up necessary. I view online.

2. http://stoptazmo.com/ - [StopTazmo] - Another large database, direct downloading of zip files. This site was created as a hate-letter to another download site [NarutFan], apparently.

Here's the updated list. If it weren't for these websites, I'd probably have more friends. They will corrupt your fannish soul...

Current Mood: cheerful

674. Because if you drop it for the thirtieth time and it freezes and starts making whirring clicking noises in its tiny moving hard drive, you can set it down for twenty six hours, come back, wipe it, re-upload the software, and POOF LIKE MAGIC IT WORKS AGAIN! This is significantly different from my first iPod (a mini) which broke and bled to death internally after only the second time I dropped it. On carpet.

Current Music: watching Big Bang Theory 2x08

anime websites with direct download resources/archives

1. http://www.cyber12.com/ - TONS! mostly linked via megaupload and similar file sending websites, and I don't think you need to register for it.

2. http://www.anime-eden.com/ - huge archive of many series, usually complete, download from servers two at a time, also music, free registration necessary. They have a lot of older series as well as new ones.

3. http://www.boontan.net/ - several series, download from servers, free registration necessary, lots of recent series.

4. http://chauthanh.info/animeDownload/?ami - several series, a lot of the more obscure ones that other sites miss, download from servers, no registration necessary, but a limited number of downloads per 24 hours.

5. http://mesmerisz.livejournal.com/3570.html - a livejournal masterpost list with a few hundred series linked through megaupload, well organized.

For newer fansubbed anime, this has become the preferred way of distribution. Bittorrent is becoming a thing of the past. I hesitate to wonder what would happen to all of the anime fans (and all of the television fans too) if one day all the file sending sites on the internet collapsed and vanished?

I still haven't figured out how to take a black and white line drawing on white in Adobe Photoshop and convert the white to transparency, with the gray "transition" pixels in between turning into degrees of black opacity instead of degrees of gray.

If I try select color range or the magic wand, I always have that gray line in between. And if I "contract" the selection back to the pure black, I lose detail.

Likewise, I can't figure how to turn it totally black and white without having the black get all thick and fuzzy, losing the finer lines.

I have this nice line art that I would love to make into a transparent layer, but the white background is killing me and I could do with advice.

Sample:

About two weeks ago I fixed our toilet. It was leaking and I had to replace the valve. I was kind of excited to do it, actually, sort of to prove to myself I still could. I learned basic plumbing for six weeks in August 2007 while doing New Orleans reconstruction work with AmeriCorps and the St. Bernard Project; I was on their plumbing team. But I haven't really done anything with that since then... luckily because nothing until now has broken down and need fixing.

But this time the valve was shot in the downstairs bathroom, and someone had to fix it, so I had a little nostalgia doing that. The process was ridiculously easy (plumbing is not that complicated, when you understand the basic concept of pipes being under pressure), just within a small space and hard to reach or maneuver the tools.

I had to turn the water off first, of course. I said, "Well, it's probably this valve here that's the problem, but we can't know for sure until I take it apart. It could be the hose, or where the hose connects to the tank, or even the pip that's coming out of the wall. I'm pretty sure it's the valve, though. If it leaks, then we'll know. I'll be able to tell by where it leaks from. After I replace the valve, I'll leave a pan underneath to catch water if it does leak."

My mom asked "Why do assume it's going to leak? Or not work when you replace it?"

That was a difficult question to answer, since the answer basically amounts to "Because it's ALWAYS something else and it's NEVER just the valve," but explaining why I'm pessimistic from the start and also why I feel the need to detail my pessimistic theories of "all the ways it could go wrong" before even starting the fixing process... really only makes sense if you've ever done a major plumbing practice. Or, possibly, an electrician's job. Or something to the equivalent. It's hardly EVER the first thing, and there's always another problem, and at worst you might have to solder something behind a wall, or you might flood your house, and either way it's going to take two and a half times as long as you originally estimated.

Since I've had the memorable experience of being working on a copper pipe when the pressure sent a metal valve shooting past my ear at about 3 quadbillion miles an hour (and proceeded to flood the bathroom in a long-suffering client's house), explaining why plumbing is ABOUT being pessimistic, how it becomes second nature, is a bit weird. It just is. I had to memorize the four rules of the trade:

1. Cold on the right.
2. Hot on the left.
3. Shit goes down.
4. The boss is an asshole.

That's the rules of plumbing, verbatim. I was lucky because the guy supervising me wasn't an asshole...he was a Canadian whose RL job when not doing Katrina reconstruction was to be a professional golfer. I actually chose to be the plumbing team rather than to lead volunteers in things like drywall or paint, because I wanted a useful skill, and one that I didn't already know. I figure that it's got to be worth something to know that, should the need arise, I can fix my own shower. Even if I have to tear out my wall to get to the pipes do it, I can fix or replace my own shower until I get hot running water. I hope I never forget that, either.Now, a year later, it looks like most of it stuck with me.

This is an interesting LJ supplementary tool:

http://fawx.com/software/ljarchive/

I might download for kicks when I get home. Then I'll probably get paranoid and delete it plus all its results.

I wonder if it works for communities?

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/jaws-life1.htm

It's an explanation about how jaws of life, the tools used to extricate people from damaged cars, work and how they are used. To my embarrassment, I'll admit that I always imagined the jaws of life to look more like jaws, perhaps on a giant tractor arm with teeth where it would normally scoop up stuff. Rationally, some corner of my brain had an inkling that a giant tractor with jaws on it couldn't possibly be useful for anything except picking up the damaged car and shaking the injured person out-- which wouldn't do the crash victim any favors. I'm glad to know that my strange imaginings are in this case grossly incorrect.

I learned another thing in reading the article-- what a hydraulic system is. Reading the article made it quite evident that I actually had no idea what a hydraulic system was-- it's just one of those things that you here in conversation or in ads or on tv so many times that you THINK you know what it means... but really you've got no idea. So I followed the link on the page and read about hydraulic systems too. This website, www.howstuffworks.com, is pretty useful.

I just got a perfectly USELESS reply from customer support at Creative (home of my Zen Vision mp3 player). All the stupid person did was a pick out a few keyword terms in my message and listed three links to help explain it. All of which I'd already read BEFORE emailing customer support. There wasn't even an explanation-- just a "sorry for your trouble, hope this helps" and the list. It was signed by a "Cher" but I think it was either an automated response or "Cher" is a generic customer support person and not a technical support person-- like she can only point me to links instead of actually comprehending my questions and needs.

For some reason (possibly that I spent all day today trying to figure out how this fucking device even works) this is making me very angry--out of proportion angry. I seriously could yell at someone if anyone were awake for me to yell at. @#$&*()#$!!!!. I AM NOT ZEN.

I sent a frustrated message back to them and signed it "Highly unsatisfied", and asked "Cher" to forward my message to a person who could answer my questions if she could not. Here's what I originally wanted help with:

----

I would like to know how to take previously made m3u playlist files
(such as from winamp player) and put them as playlists on my ZVM player.
I am also very confused by the whole music library concept. I keep all
my music in carefully organized filing system on a separate drive; I
have too little space to keep it in the My Music folder on my C drive.
If I add music to the music library, what happens? Does it duplicate my
file onto the My Music folder on my C drive? Why can't it just load
directly from the folder I keep it in, onto the ZVM player? If I am in
windows explorer, I can't drag and drop files from my compuer directly
to the player. Why not? I used an iPod mini for nearly two years and I
never used the library system; I merely dragged and dropped files and
playlists onto the player and then unplugged it. This seems so much more
complicated, and I'm very confused.

Current Mood: very not zen

I'm thinking about changing my profile bio description.

I'd like to do what I did last time: open it up to you guys on my friends list!

What should my profile bio say?

Last time I asked this, someone (I'm pretty sure it was

circe_tigana) wrote what has been my bio for probably two years now, maybe more:

A fierce warrior girl, leader of a renegade Bedouin-type justice-demon clan. She is all heroic and stuff and rides around the desert on a black horse. She wears black desert clothes, filmy and airy, but utilitarian. Also there are gold bits, and it's always breezy.

As for what the new one will be or say, I leave it to you. Length or size is not an issue, neither is style or format or amount of mature language. Teh Funny is always appreciated, since I might be looking at it for a while. You guys know me by now, or know some internet doppleganger version of me, and I'm sure anything you come up with will about forty times more interesting than anything I can think of.

So...help a girl out?

Does anyone know the code for making those text boxes you see in the userinfo pages of communities like

album_love or

teh_music?

Is there any way to search a community for individual words or phrases?

This is a neat toy:

http://www.livejournal.com/tools/recent_comments.bml

I realized that I had, previously, installed this "root kit" software when I used my new Foo Fighters CD in my computer. Since then my computer crashed because of a virus (as far as I know, unrelated) and had to be wiped clean, so I don't have the stuff there any more. On the other hand, this means I can't put my discs in for fear of getting this shit on my computer.

Here's a list of links I've gotten via LJ over the last week or more on all that stuff you've been hearing about Sony and music CDs and malicious root kit software:

USA TODAY on the story:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2005-11-02-sony-patch_x.htm

A step-by-step look at what the rootkit software does and how to find it on your computer, with helpful pictures:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html

Same site discussing the quality of the so-called patches Sony made:
http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/11/more-on-sony-dangerous-decloaking.html

Sony's website, where you can find a list of their music labels: http://www.sonybmg.com/

How hackers can use the software Sony puts on your computer:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/10/sony_drm_trojan/

And now Sony's being hit by a class action law suit in California and soon to be New York as well:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4424254.stm - from BBC news
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/10/0024259 - lists the California laws Sony allegedly violated

If the class action law suit passes, I'm returning my fucking CD. I'd have returned it anyway except that I got it at a discount no-return price. Meanwhile, I've warned my family and friends about it. Only my gamer friend seemed to care, but my dad was very interested too.

I actually forked over money for the Foo Fighters double CD. And this is what they give me in appreciation for not stealing? Put software on there that holds my computer hostage in order for me to hear the music?

Shit like this makes me want to steal music, not buy it.

The Short Version

Do see this icon I'm using?

This icon is emblamatic of my attempts to use the VCR to record the mindless brain-eating shite called "television."

The VCR (anybody's, not just my own) is King Arthur. I am the Black Knight. I go at the VCR. It hurts me and doesn't record my shows.

So I try again. It hurts me more.

I try again. For a moment it looks like I'm winning cause maybe it gets one episode recorded, but then it beats me down again.

Until there is nothing left of me, just a pathetic joke of a human being, broken but determined, being mercilessly taunted by piece of oh-so-smug-Look-At-Me machinery.

( The Long Version )