10kg, modern conveniences

OK, down by ten whole kilograms now.

Supermodel status next month. (-:

Thandi’s looking leaner & fitter than ever, too (an achievement by itself, believe me), she doesn’t need a diet to attract blokes so much as a big, sharp, pointy stick to keep them at bay (-: or one to deputise with the task :-)

Getting spoiled by this residence again. Little Adam has done something I wouldn’t have credited as possible: made me go all clucky. (-:

The full-time ADSL has local (traffic not accounted) mirrors for both of the Linux distros I use (Mandriva, Ubuntu) & also wireless, so I’ve updated this laptop & also my desktop machine.

The next person to squark about “the Asian invasion” gets laughed at by me, as yesterday the local Woollies elected to not open, but a little Viet supermarket next door was open & trading by 07:00. To the delight of a Diane at CentreLink, they also stocked Ginger Tea (as do the two in Girrawheen shops) & the usual miscellaneous collection of noodles & biscuits.

Visited the crew back in Doubleview, so now I can tick that last bike tube off the ever-growing to-do list (thank you!). The thorn-proof tube was a bit of a battle to get on, being so thick & stiff, but I think if anyone wants to puncture it now, they’ll need a hammer, a nail, & considerable patience. (-:

Comments

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.

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...

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.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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