Politics & Business

In an ongoing sign that our government has no clue, especially during times of recession, they have still failed to return funding to the Belmont Business Enterprise Centre.

At their monthly get-together last night, I won a neat little book: Small Business, Big Opportunity. Numerous small businesses are nurtured by BEC; for example I am giving a free consult to an inventor this morning, last night met an IT consultant who uses their services, originally based his consultancy on my ideas.

The rest of my life has been... interesting.

Much unrelated trauma amongst friends, some very good (hello G & E O), some very bad (hello, K & S D). The best woman in the world is struggling to get a short sale completed but is otherwise irrevocably cute. Accommodation is a bit dodgy-future but looking good at the moment. I should have my MDL back next week (courtesy of an RPH Neurologist, my GP & the DPI, is that enough acronyms?). My son turns 10yo next month, it would be good if I get any contact with his determined self. I may get to retire a SCO server tomorrow or Friday & turn a now-unused box into a sale at the same time.

Comments

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

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.

Plantagenet Penguinista

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