2007

Fri, Sep 21

<23:25 EEST> In order to do those Soppi exercises smoothly, I wrote a simple wrapper to play videos straight from the webpage. I considered installing mplayerplug-in but it would have been a rather heavy emergence. The links at Soppi being one-line XML files with the video URL, I simply wrote a sed one-liner to extract the address and play it with MPlayer. With the script associated with QTL in the browser, things work as expected.

I guess the idea could be extended to pages with embedded video URLs. I hate Youtube-style pages where you have a tiny screen within the browser window, I'd rather use a dedicated player to view things fullscreen like FSM intended.

Tue, Sep 18

<17:43 EEST> I've just solved a minor technical issue that's probably worth a mention. In the past few days I've been trying to watch video streams from Soppi that haven't worked with MPlayer, even though the URLs look like standard RTSP streams. MPlayer initiates a connection, but it always fails as temporarily unavailable. VLC isn't any better. Since the videos are important for a writeup due this Sunday and I don't have much free tinkering time, I'm running out of options, but the MPlayer docs led me to a simple solution. They mentioned the Live555 library that apparently implements an enhanced and/or more standards-compliant version of RTSP, compared to vanilla MPlayer or VLC. After "emerge live", MPlayer autodetects the library upon ./configure, and it works fine. VLC also has a USE=live option, but who needs that when you have a working MPlayer :)

Fri, Sep 7

<16:59 EEST> Thanks to naula who mentioned this week's MaDhouse hardware giveaway, I got myself a laser printer for free :) It's a HP Laserjet 5L with only slight mechanical problems. I couldn't get it started until I found a hidden paper jam: a complete A4 sheet was inside, compressed into a short and thick accordion, and it took some disassembly to get it out. I managed to print a couple of these myself, and it seems there is something wrong with the output tray selector. The top/main tray seems like a bad idea anyway, unless you like curly sheets.

The other exit meant for thick sheets and letters seems to work fine, but it has another problem in case you do a lot of unattended printing, and the stack of printouts accumulates in front of it. Shouldn't be a problem for my limited use. It's ironic though, as laser printers are good for huge workloads, that they are also better than inkjets (with their drying ink) for occasional use.

At the giveaway, there was also a big color laser printer, Tektronix Phaser 740, that was obviously quite attractive. They're pretty expensive to use, and I decided not to even try and haul it away, but hopefully it'll find a new home.

Wed, Sep 5

<21:30 EEST> School started on Monday, and I feel like the fresher I was back in 1998, with Fresher's Flu and all :-/ I'm starting the year of the actual teacher training, and in addition to the exciting-but-exhausting workload, there's the practical work at the high school that really gets one into the 'back to school' mode :)

So far the courses are looking fine, and I have no qualms about becoming a teacher. In fact quite the opposite, as I see that the strengths I want in my life coincide pretty much with the ones of a teacher. I also feel particularly strong with the two-year teaching background, which apparently is quite rare here -- an overwhelming majority of the students are still in their early undergrad years. Feeling special among them is slightly pressurizing, but on the other hand I'll probably have an easier time in some respects. At least when it comes to a later field training course which is counted as completed for me.

On with the usual movie reviews, Sunshine was a disappointment, Transamerica a very pleasant surprise, and 28 Weeks Later good but nothing special. I had high hopes for Sunshine, but the actual story behind the nice classical-SF references turned out weak and messy. On the contrary, Transamerica was an indie film with no particular expectations, which ended up a solid and well-told family drama with intriguing queer themes.