1 == Bernie's brain backup for January 2008 ==
7 Yesterday I had to clear my room, pack my stuff at OneCambridgeCenter, and
8 say goodbye to many, many good friends and colleges. I don't even know when
9 I'll be able to see them again. Not exactly a happy day, you may have guessed.
11 Today, after 22 hours of flight, I started to have visions. At the baggage reclaim,
12 I thought I was talking with the kernel god LinusTorvalds. He said that userspace
13 is easy and that he cannot exactly agree with some of the choices made in Python.
14 We'd really get along if it wasn't just a dream :-)
16 Later on, I reached the hotel and got into the elevator with a ginger guy
17 that looked vaguely familiar. I asked if he was going at LCA.
20 - "Are you a software developer?".
21 - "Hmm... not primarily".
25 - "Oh, my god! You must be JohnathanCorbet, the editor of LinuxWeeklyNews!".
29 Today was a really exciting day! I needed something like this to compensate,
30 at least partially, for leaving Boston.
35 ==== Another trip to NY ====
37 I'm planning to go to NewYorkCity tomorrow with a bunch of friends.
38 But this time I guess we'll catch a different transportation:
39 we were booking the FungWah (aka ShittyBus), when ChrisBall came
40 and looked at us funny. "Are you sure? Those buses have a habit
41 of catching fire on the highway".
43 Apparently, it is really true:
45 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fung_Wah_Bus_Transportation_Inc.#Safety
49 === Bernie the rockstar ====
51 If you were considering hiring me, or entrusting me to do anything serious, you'd better watch this first:
53 * [[BernieIronMaiden.ogg]] - [1.8MB] if you have the free OggTheora codec
54 * [[BernieIronMaiden.mov]] - [3.6MB] if you're stuck with proprietary QuickTime codecs
55 * //nothing// - [0MB] if you're stuck with the proprietary MediaPlayer or RealPlayer codecs
58 **Q:** why doesn't my browser play the link right away rather than asking me to download it? \\
59 **A:** because my wiki doesn't support mime-magic yet
61 **Q:** why don't you just let apache serve media files? \\
62 **A:** because a CGI has no way to "handoff" a file to the web server once they've been invoked
64 ==== Food and Power ====
66 Here's a stupid movie by SamuelKlein, ArjunSarwal and myself:
68 * [[FoodAndPower/FoodAndPowerHigh.ogg]] - [62MB] OggTheora stream, quality 10
69 * [[FoodAndPower/FoodAndPowerMed.ogg]] - [26MB] OggTheora stream, quality 7
70 * [[FoodAndPower/FoodAndPowerLow.ogg]] - [16MB] OggTheora stream, quality 5
72 If your computer cannot play the above links, you should really consider installing
73 a free media player, or just switching to Linux which comes with all the free media
74 players and codecs out of the box. Meanwhile, here's a workaround:
76 * [[FoodAndPower/FoodAndPower.avi]] - [103MB] original AVI stream from our shitty camera
78 These also prove the quality of the OggTheora codec. After seeing this, I think
79 I'd recommend using it for its technical advantages in addition to its legal advantages.
81 In producing these movies, I found out that:
83 * mencoder has bad support for ogg-theora
84 * transcode kinda sucks
85 * ffmpeg seems the best command-line encoder of the three I tried
86 * The easiest solution if all you need is encoding anything to Theora is ffmpeg2theora.
87 All you have to do is:
89 ffmpeg2theora FoodAndPower.avi
97 My good friend ArjunSarwal recently made the [[http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/26/0541205 | Slashdot front page]]
98 with his story about [[http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Cow_Power| Cow Power]]!
102 ==== Crank, Crank! ====
104 Today we got this pleasant surprise.
106 See the movie: [[OlpcCrank/StephenReillyCranking.mov]].
107 The guy cranking is DanielDrake, Gentoo kernel maintainer
110 [[OlpcCrank/ArjunCrankingSmall.jpg | ArjunSarwal cranking]]
111 [[OlpcCrank/ArjunCranking2Small.jpg | ArjunSarwal cranking]]
112 [[OlpcCrank/StephenCrankingSmall.jpg | StephenReilly cranking]]
113 [[OlpcCrank/StephenCranking2Small.jpg | StephenReilly cranking]]
115 Larger versions of these pics are available at OlpcCrank.
119 ==== The little computer that just won't die! ====
121 OneLaptopPerChild is not enough. There should definitely be
122 [[OneAmigaPerChild/OneAmigaPerChild | OneAmigaPerChild]]!
124 [[OneAmigaPerChild/OneAmigaPerChildSmaller.jpg]]
126 Look [[OneAmigaPerChild/OneAmigaPerChild | here]] for additional details.
127 A big thankyou to MicheleConsoleBattilana for providing a free copy of
128 AmigaForever, a fine tribute to the coolest platform ever!
132 ==== The XaoS strikes back! ====
134 I enjoyed bundling this OldSkool activity for the XO:
136 http://wiki.laptop.org/images/8/8c/XaoS-screenshot4.png
138 See: http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XaoS
140 It certainly needs some more sugarization work for which I have no time.
145 ==== Haiku Laptop ====
147 Today we shipped our machine affected by dlo#5575 (touchpad mostly unfunctional)
148 to Japan for further inspection by ALPS. Just before closing up the plastic case,
149 I've left inside a little fortune cookie for them:
153 If you're wondering what it means, it's a piece of japanese poetry called a HaikuPoem.
158 ==== Trip to Walden Pond ====
160 This really happened on Monday 31st Dec, but who'd go read last year's blog entry now?
162 So, Adam, Arjun and myself went to this [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden_Pond|Walden Pond]]
163 place, where the famous American poet [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau|Thoreau]]
164 lived in complete isolation for 2 years in a cabin made of wood.
166 [[WaldenPond1Small.jpg|Arjun (left) and Me (guess who?)]]
168 On this very nice lake, I stupdily tried to run on the ice and fell badly, hitting my jaw
169 and cheek on the hard ice. Little cut, big bump... no permanent consequences. Maybe I
170 should consider a health insurance?
172 [[WaldenPond2Small.jpg|Me (the really crazy one) and Adam (the really worried one)]]
173 [[ThoreauCabinSmall.jpg|The there of us in the site of Thoreau's cabin]]