Archive | September, 2003

There are a bunch of sites offering the LOTR:Return Of The King Trailer.  Check the Slashdot links for the nearest and faster for you. Again, BitTorrent makes the files fly. From a posting on Slashdot.

Laura sends along this great article from the local paper: Think your job is hard? Try tagging angry moose. I’ve had some challenging jobs, but…

Elia Kazan, Influential Director, Is Dead at 94. “Elia Kazan was one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history.”

 By Mervyn Rothstein. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Canadian Insurer to Acquire John Hancock in Stock Swap.
John Hancock Financial Services, the 141-year-old Boston-based life
insurer, agreed to be acquired by Manulife Financial of Canada for $11
billion. By Andrew Ross Sorkin and Joseph B. Treaster. [New York Times: NYT HomePage]

Okay, a really bad choice of names, but Slashdot features links to a new fan film
about the Matrix universe. I hope the bigwigs will recognize this for
what it is – fan art – and not stop its distribution.  Check out
the BitTorrent feed, if you can, and note that there is a new
BitTorrent client available. I downloaded the trailer and movie in no
time flat, and left my BT clients running, serving the files, until I
had supplied twice what I had taken. Consider doing the same.

Remembering the People Who Give Back to the Net, and All of Us.
“The Internet has become a grossly commercialized Wild West in so many
ways. But the community spirit on which it was founded is alive and
well. The Net depends on the same spirit that motivates volunteers in
the physical world: a commitment to solve problems and make life better
for those who might otherwise not have the resources or expertise.”
from Dan Gillmor’s eJournal

It looks like RSS News Ticker needs the .NET framework as well as the GDI+ runtimes to work.
“RSS News Ticker looks interesting. Windows.” From Scripting News.

I’m not even ready for the 101 course, yet. My sister Anne asked me if
there was any way I could make a DVD of one of her videos for her. I
don’t (yet) have a DVD recorder, but I offered to try to do the
equivalent with a Video CD (VCD) or Super VideoCD. My ThinkPad has a
firewire cable, and it only took a few weeks to find one with the right
connectors for that and the video camera. Windows XP cheerfully
volunteers to record off the camera, but I thought I’d try the MGI
VideoWave 4 that came bundled with the laptop. First try shows promise
– a 4.9 gigabyte AVI file. Need to clean another 10 gig off my laptop
and defrag it to ensure I have room to capture the whole thing – there
was another 10 minutes to go when I stopped it. After that, I’ll try
Dr. DivX or Nero to see what I can produce. A first attempt with Nero
to create an SVCD resulted in a CD that sounded like an aircraft taking
off in the laptop and a really jittery picture, and nothing from the
DVD player but a “Check disc” message. Don’t know if it was bad media
or not the right format, or perhaps there are other options I need to
select. Will have to try again later.

Hope our network downtime didn’t cause concern. Laura and I
disassembled the office and did some serious rearranging to make room
for the new furniture, due soon. Rewiring cable internet, DSL, the
house ethernet, the wireless, the web site, ftp site, the printers,…
man! Lots of stuff to reconfigure. Still got to figure out how to wire
the dual line phone and fax machine.  As a reward, we went to Gould Hill Orchards for a half peck of MacIntosh apples and an afternoon snack of cheddar cheese and apples. Mmmm…..