The Fifth Elephant

Before I found out that Terry Pratchett has an odd variant of egg-timer disease, I acquired (ex Alexander Library shop) a copy of The Fifth Elephant (yes, it is toying with the film, although the connection is quite vague) in hardcover. If anyone (simpler if you’re in Perth) wants to collect it after I finish reading it, reimburse me for the massive ($2) acquisition cost, plus postage or whatever is necessary, & it’s yours.

Comments

sen said…

I've always loved TP.. if you want to borrow any of his books I have the lot of them :-)

15 December, 2007 21:07

Leon RJ Brooks said…

Kev Downes has put dibs down on T5E (via a PLUG list post), so unless something goes horridly wrong, Sam & der kinder will be enjoying it from tomorrow.

senectus: hooraw! Most definitely! You live in mid northern suburbs, yes?

15 December, 2007 21:26

sen said…

e-mail sent :-)

15 December, 2007 22:02

Leon RJ Brooks said…

Kev’s wife Sam also scores a bonus hardcover copy of David Weber’s March Upcountry with John Ringo.

19 December, 2007 23:45

new life for an old (FTX) PSU, improved life for one human

the LEDs on this 5m strip happen to emit light centred on a red that does unexpectedly helpful things to (and surprisingly deeply within) a human routinely exposed to it. it has been soldered to a Molex connector, plugged into a TFX power supply from a (retired: the MoBo is cactus) Small Form Factor PC, the assorted PSU connectors (and loose end from the strip) have been taped over. the LED strip cost $10.24 including postage, the rest cost $0, the PSU is running at 12½% of capacity, consumes less power than a laptop plug-pack despite running a fan. trial runs begin today.

boundaries

pushing the actual boundaries of the physical (not extremes, the boundaries themselves) can often remove barriers not otherwise perceived. one can then often resolve an issue itself, rather than merely stonewalling at the physical consequences of the issue.

every-application-is-part-of-a-toolkit at work

I have a LibreOffice Impress slideshow that I wish to turn into a narrated video. 1. export the slideshow as PNG images (if that is partially broken — as at now — at higher resolutions, Export Directly as PDF then use ‘pdftoppm’ (from the poppler-utils package) to do the same). 2. write a small C program (63 lines including comments) to display those images one at a time, writing a config file entry for Imagination (default transition: ‘cross fade’) based on when the image-viewer application (‘display,’ from the GraphicsMagick suite) is closed on each one; run that, read each image aloud, then close each image in turn. 3. run ‘Imagination’ over the config file to produce a silent MP4 video with the correct timings. 4. run ‘Audacity’ to record speech while using ‘SMPlayer’ to display the silent video, then export that recording as a WAV file. 4a. optionally, use ‘TiMIDIty’ to convert a non-copyright-encumbered MIDI tune to WAV, then import that and blend it with the speech (as a quiet b

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