Video playback in google video
Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Well, today I was treated with the pleasant surprise of google video adding fully functional video playing support to their google video service. People have gradually been uploading their videos to google and various television stations have submitted their shows with search able closed captions. Until now this was the extent of the video service, you could see when a show aired, search its script, seen when new shows were going to air and see a simple screen shot taken so far in. All this being pretty useless to someone living in the United Kingdom (although still very cool, I hope for some BBC integration soon). Now however, google video provides video. Google results that have a playable video show up with a little play icon next to them. Upon opening the page there are options to start the video from various 30 second increments, upon clicking, the video plays right there and then in the browser. Now, most in browser video players are fairly bulky, consume considerable resources, load the browser with unneeded hindrances, provide annoying applet controls and require buffering times. However, google video is based upon the popular and utterly fantastic open source "videolan player" open source setup. VLC generally plays all standard codecs with ease and has highly functional streaming options, subtitles, multiple video and audio stream capabilities and much much more (including the option to view a video in ASCII). This google video viewer loads seamlessly, has no nasty button interfaces, does not load the browser or cause over the top cpu usage and has a once click full-screen option (i.e. click the video for fullscreen). The video requires very little buffering time and is of suitable quality and resolution for fullscreen and television playback. I really do love it and I have been playing for the last hour or so.

"The clips play right in the page using the brand new Google Video Viewer, which was created by our engineer Aaron Lee using code from the open source Videolan project. It works great in both Firefox and IE, and we've designed it not to fight with any other video plugins you might have. We're releasing the Windows version first, with Mac coming soon."

"A feature we're especially pleased with is search within a video, which means you will get a result pointing to the precise spot in the video that matches your query. Try looking for sergey brin and you'll see what I mean. There are even more people getting creative with video here. So have fun watching, or shoot your own videos - and keep sending them in!"

Labels: Technical

Current top 50 artists snapshot
Monday, June 27, 2005

Labels: Music

2nd year is over now.
Friday, June 24, 2005

In a sudden bout of enthusiasm for my blog, I decided to create another journal entry. Yes, once again I am going to talk about my life. Over the past week or so I have gradually included all the old cute-news posts I made from 2003 to the end of last year, in doing so I got quite sentimental, reading about the annoying lady on the bus, the pineapple squash adventure and the start of university. I was also sad that I hadn't kept up my writing and written more about my time at university.

Well, as mentioned in a previous post, I have successfully finished my exams and consequentially my second year at Warwick University. The year started off rather slow, I was learning some basic modules that were overly simple and all things I'd done before, i.e. c++ programming and how a diode works. My lectures were dull; I really had no exciting labs and most of the time I was at my Leamington home playing on Xbox live. I'd travel in for a "starting a business" module and travel home an hour later, a round bus trip lasting 3 hours. As winter approached, some half modules ended and my timetable became even less busy, it really did take the piss how little work I had to do that term.

Side NTL rant:
A lot of my spare time was spent sorting out the Xbox live setup my internet service provider had set me up with (NTL). Essentially, I and my housemate had opted for the Xbox live option at a cost of an extra £2 per month. However, come October and there was no sign of what we were actually purchasing, what was this £2 buying? There was also a £50 setup charge on the first bill pertaining to a console related service. What exactly this was we had no idea. Following a good few hours on the phone and no one at their customer service desk knowing what the fuck, we were still confused. The confusion deepened as an Xbox arrived at the door. NTL sent us an Xbox. Why, we have no idea, we already had an Xbox and only wanted some sort of live package. Back on the phone for another few hours, talking to more people who didn't even know what an Xbox was. I initially said I wanted to send this Xbox back and not pay the £50 for it, so the payment was put into dispute until they received the console back. Then I changed my mind, £50 for an Xbox is a very good deal I thought. So I ring back, and continue asking what this live deal should be offering me, telling them to take the money for the Xbox and various other things I don't particularly remember 9 months on. Well, they then send me a long Ethernet cable, a 3 month magazine subscription and a 12 month Xbox live deal; a deal that I should have originally been given according to an outdated page of their website. In sorting this out I tried contacting their console contact line, the initial press one to go here automated service worked, but the redirects went to unknown numbers and a dead end. In trying to explain this to the standard customer services I was greeted with "it's working, I hear the voice" and other stupid responses that proved these people were obviously not listening to exactly what I was trying to tell them. Needless to say, everyone was getting frustrated. Well, now I am coming to the end of my 9 month NTL contract and despite ringing them 4 times and telling them to take my money, they still haven't and the amount is still apparently in dispute. I don't know, their service is a pile of wank and they cap users to 1.5 GB download per day. But other than that we've had no problems. I wish I could have Blue-yonder in my region.

Well, as Christmas approached, the days got shorter and colder. Our old Victorian seven birth house does not fair particularly well in cold conditions. In fact, at times you could see your breath when breathing inside. We needed radiators on permanently and additional electric heaters just to melt the ice blocks that were our feet. The land-lord had also painted the downstairs bathroom with a non-bathroom paint directly onto the walls. This meant that mould began growing. Not all that delightful and it took the cake when there was a lovely little mushroom sticking out of the corner of the room. This was my house in winter, mouldy, cold and draughty. We gave the land-lord a list of needed fixes for the house over the Christmas period and hoped they would get done, luckily they were and our house was much more pleasant and liveable during the second term.

The first term saw a lot of drama in the house, two housemates split up with their boyfriends from long term relationships, there were family illnesses and it was all very taxing, but we stuck together and carried ourselves through all the problems. Things perked up towards the end and we were happy at our Christmas dinner where, once again, Sam delighted us all with a fantastic meal that was far too large for our tiny wobbly kitchen table. Other noteworthy events were Sam's birthday party in which we crammed into a small Mexican restaurant and ate burritos, our lovely anniversary trip around Leamington park and meal at Thai restaurant.

Well, moving on into term 2, it remained cold and our heaters stayed on constantly. My course introduced me to a new set of modules for the following ten weeks; finally I would be doing some work and something interesting. I also had a few timetabled labs to attend in which I played with microprocessors, breadboards and wrote some simple c++ code for a simple c++ project. My birthday came and went and I turned 20. We all packed together and played ultraviolet ten pin bowling and enjoyed the luxuries of Frankie and Benny's menu. I opted for the steak and also finished off other people's meals while bullying a helium balloon. Sadly my day was cut short when I had to take Sam home via taxi, she'd become violently ill and it was extremely distressing, particularly as there was no obvious reason for it. It was made up for by the prestigious gifts and candlelit meal she prepared for me. We also went bowling and had pizza for Steven's birthday and all was relatively merry in the Tachbrook camp.

Sam's just called me so I'm going to have to cut this blog short. I'll probably carry it on when I next have some free time. This shouldn't be too long away.

Labels: Life

MIT physicists create new form of matter
Friday, June 24, 2005

MIT News Office: "CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- MIT scientists have brought a supercool end to a heated race among physicists: They have become the first to create a new type of matter, a gas of atoms that shows high-temperature superfluidity."

"In superfluids, as well as in superconductors, particles move in lockstep. They form one big quantum-mechanical wave," explained Ketterle. "Such a movement allows superconductors to carry electrical currents without resistance."

For those who know not of superfluidity:

Answers.com: Superfluidity is a phase of matter characterised by the complete absence of viscosity. Thus superfluids, placed in a closed loop, can flow endlessly without friction.

Labels: External

Some lovely random images I collected
Tuesday, June 21, 2005

It's a party!

Bunny Bunny!

Labels: Random

Site updates
Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Now that I have some free time I have been tinkering with the site a little bit. The most obvious addition is the post below, fully integrated 2003-2004 archives with blogger. This allows ease of browsing, searching and reading of these old old posts without having to resort to an out of date v4.0 or v5.0 template. All old templates and since been removed. I have also removed the horizontal dividers between posts and left out the header.jpg lightning image, as although it looked nice, it didn't suit the theme of the site. Similarly, the bulky welcome text has been demoted to a simple click to view link. The previous posts and archives links have been moved to the top of the page and also made as "click to view". Link colours have changed from blue to orange also.

Labels: Website

Old Archives (August 2003 - December 2004)
Tuesday, June 21, 2005

The FofR portion of the server was a little messy with all the old v4.0 and v5.0 files lying around. So I decided to import all the old cutenews entries into blogger. It took a good long while adding 211 new posts to a blog, especially when blogger likes to render various html characters wrong and needs to upload each invididual entry. But I got there in the end and here is the old posts list, consisting of journal entires, images and articles dating back to August 2003.

Old Archived Entries:

2004:
Veronica Mars & Kristen Bell
Scarlett Johansson - A stylish alternative
Gershwin and Zatoichi
Fear and Trembling
My Anniversary
Sam...
Sony vs Nikon camera comparisons
Leon (The Professional) cut to buggery
My own student house
An update, university year 2
My storm image
Macro of a spider
Sony Cybershot D93 5M
Current movie vote list
A theory of perfection and religion
Look Harry!
Portugal Holiday
Time to get writing
Saul sells his business
New Desktop
School of Rock
Water fountain spray
Bowling with the Sun
Fell down the stairs, went into shock
Serial Killer Movies
Water soaked imagery
Networking joys
Desktop for 2004, a snow capped peak
IE PNG transparency fix
A late night summary of my day
FofR Version 5.0
Why do people think Finding Nemo was good?
2am here tonight
Satan prepares to attack a small church
Time to make ground
Evangelion Statistics through the roof
Watching TV from above
John Tavolta's House
Shaun of the Dead preview
First Week back at Uni
My cat, Cleo
My army of female walkers
Macworld Keynote '04
Copyright Infringement Story
Puppet Master Record Company of Avril Lavigne
New Year's over and into 2004

2003:
According to Erdos
Christmas is Near
What happened to this Mercedes?
Anathema Album art
Home Sweet Home
New Desktop
DVDs, Kill Bill watching, Posters, LOTR Marathon
Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughter House 5
Look Around You DVD
Look Around You
Amsterdam Holiday Image
A Matrix Revolution and Steak
Thundercat Animation
Confusion Realm
Pile on the work
Works sucks like a lolly would in an act of revenge
Lack of updates and uni life
Pikah Pika Chu Pikachuchu! Pikachu!
University Adventures Commence
Leaving Time
Fast and the furious rice
Angel Feature from FofR v3.0
Today a package came
Integrated a simple javascript action
Kate Beckinsale (again)
Dead like me and a hot bank clerk
An image leeching bug
Kate Beckinsale
Underworld Review
Eva Redesigned
Let's go deep sea
Eastenders
Dead Like Me
HDD arrived finally
The Hollywood Analogy and Silent Hill
Courier Lameness Thrice
Amber Tamblyn
XP randomly fixes
Shutup Listen Boy Sleep
Scarlett Johansson
Dream of a google
Agent Smith Photochop
Bookcase Scenario
Shovel That
Missy!
The filesharing argument
Desktop: Crow Lady
Sitcom Phucks
RIAA
Louise Nurding / Redknapp
Elephant
Metal Night
Shopping for Pineapples
A guy I don't know
Willow & Tara Fun
Asylum Browsing
Foxy Alyson Hannigan
Solve this, a logic problem
When I was a young boy growing up in the ghetto
Hannibal the 4th
Bill Paxton is Jeff Tracy
Enter the Underworld!
Ukitakumuki
The new links!
Dance my dear!
The web host and Voltaire
Doulbe Photoshop of mine
More Monica Keena
Last Samurai
Miike looks for fur-nature
Trivial Being (.com)
More Hotty with Monica Keena
Blade 3 Trinity
Webhost update and one2host suck
Keira Knightly
Japanese Water Slide
JVF et SA account et HA3
To See: To Do: To Remember the movie
Punch-Drunk Love
Equilibrium
Why Brazil was not as good as I hoped
MMC problems continue
Movie Flops at Box Office
Cook a nice meal
4pm defragathon
This site needs more...
The Computer Problem
Evil story damned for life
Heights
Goethe was a good man
File swapper fights RIAA subpoena
Promenade Projection
Uni, Site, Day, ONE2HOST
Zombie Simulator
Sonic is cool
Talented young fellow
Anne Hathaway is hot!
Darkness and Miss Sparky
Computer Stats
Ego Es5 takes on MPAA
Console Wars
Bush Beats the Junkies!
Heidi Klum Makeover
One Hour Photo Review
That Bus Woman
Drunkard Reasoning?
Evangelion Live Action Movie
Europe Tour 2003
My tastes, part 1
FofR Version 4.0
test

Labels: Website

Exams are finally over
Saturday, June 18, 2005

Hey guys, whats up? Long time no see. Well, I've just finished my exams. At 11:00am on Saturday June 18th I finished my 2nd year electronic engineering exams. No more revision everyday, no more worry about not revising, no more guilty nagging feeling I should be doing work, it's all over for another year and it's a sunny glorious day. So, I guess I'll fill you all in on the back story of my exams. On May 7th I decided I should start preparing for the eight exams ahead of me, here's the summary:

1. Systems and Control, a look at the theoretical side of systems, stability and feedback.
2. Signals and Processing, how to analyse signals, transform them, create radio receivers, frequency modulation.
3. Ultra Large Scale Integration (ULSI), the physics and science of making 50nm transistors and other nanotechnology.
4. Analogue Design, transistor amplifiers, operational amplifiers, field effect transistors.
5. Digital Design, microprocessor programming, vhdl, assembly, PLDs, FPGAs.
6. Software Development, c++, Object orientated programming and Unified Modelling Language.
7. Applied Linear Algebra, matrix optimisation, solving linear equations, eigenvalues.
8. Electronic Systems, a look at reliability design and the construction and use of micro sensors.

These are the exams I had ahead of me. After playing a lot of Halo 2 and not really working all year I decided I needed to really get down and do some learning. And learning I did, I spent 6 solid weeks revising EVERY DAY for at least 5 hours, my record being 10 hours straight (think about that). I gradually started learning everything I'd covered over the past year but not without problems, from writing so much I would get repetitive strain problems in my hand, I'd never feel like taking a break and it all did get a little taxing. But this last week has been the most depressing of weeks since I have been at university. Everyone in my house had finished their exams by Tuesday whilst I still had three on Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning. YES, I had an exam at 9am on a Saturday morning. Not only this, but I still had not taken the most difficult of the topics, Signals and Processing, essentially two modules packed into one, I had to learn all about frequency, phase and amplitude modulation, their creation, detection, efficiency, benefits, types, uses, etc... and also signal processing, Fourier transforms, Fourier series, discrete Fourier transforms, fast Fourier transforms, auto correlation functions, filter design, anti-aliasing filters and loads of other stuff. Needless to say, it took forever and it took everything out of me and it was while everyone else was relaxing, being bored and playing video games. And on top of it, I had two straight after. Well, last night I missed a free ticket to a Ben Folds gig to revise for my final exam (I'm that dedicated) and now I'm just overjoyed that it's over with. If I had to wait just a few more days before I finished I'm sure I would have cracked, my final exam was on the last possible day I could have an exam.

So now I can begin doing all the things I have wanted to do for a long time in no specific order; I can complete Knights of the Old Republic, play some more Halo 2, visit Alton Towers, spend time with my girlfriend, finish reading Catch 22 and all sorts of little website things.

Oh by the way, my co-webmaster, EndofRadio opened up his first new site for a long time the other day. It's amazing he got a site completed and publically released. Anyway, if you want to see the site, you can find the Mount Eerie Preservation Society over at http://mounteerie.trivialbeing.net

Labels: Life