life ends at 27
World Tour!
Excuse me while I hyperventilate and do a happy dance.
Titans will stride the Earth once more.
Please consider making a new album.
And oh, we are not worthy.
Here’s a little something from the little 2003 reunion for their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
Kubrick is, of course, the default theme of WordPress. I have been working on it on and off, and I figure I should release it before the imminent release of the first beta of CS3.
Includes variant ChinaRed by BigheaD (大头绿豆).
Yet another adaptation of a minimalist WordPress theme, “White as Milk” by Azeem Azeez.
I did the variant with the dark background by request. Not quite happy with it, but I think its usable.
Please comment if you are planning to use it, together with the URL of your blog, as Azeem requested to see it in action.
The CSS, XHTML and design is released under GPL.
Duh Magnet
http://www.houstonpress.com/Issues/2007-01-04/news/feature_full.html
“..only places CDs actually sold well were stores like Target, Best Buy and Wal-Mart.”
I’m sure the conclusion escapes the RIAA.
Loser-X
“In the 19th century, music was seen as a highly valued treasure with fundamental and near-mystical powers of human communication,” North told the BBC. No more: “The degree of accessibility and choice has arguably led to a rather passive attitude towards music heard in everyday life.
“The accessibility of music has meant that it is taken for granted and does not require a deep emotional commitment once associated with music appreciation.”
I know i’m old fashioned, but I didn’t know I was a throwback to the bloody 19th century.
The Sky I Scrape is hosting an MP3 of Pearl Jam’s cover of Love, Reign O’er Me. As I have mentioned in an earlier post, it seems Pearl Jam is recording the song for the new Adam Sandler movie “Reign Over Me”.
Mashups featuring the Beatles have come fast and thick since the unveiling of “The Grey Album” by DJ Danger Mouse, who has since gone on to achieve great fame as one half of Gnarls Barkley.
“Hate” was apparently released in December 2006 though I have just found out about it, and it is a both homage and parody of so far the only official Beatles mashup album “Love” (which is brilliant by the way). Downloads of MP3 files still available from the website now, but given how touchy EMI was over previous Beatles mashups, I will not be surprised to find them gone very soon.
There are of course purists who have expressed outrage over it, but turn off your mind, relax and you will find that it is quite good.
Otherwise known as 大闹天宫 (Da Nao Tian Gong). This was shown on television just about every year during the Lunar New Year when I was a child, and was a favourite of mine.
Found out there was a DVD release in 2004 but did not manage to find a copy of the 40th anniversary edition for sale on eCommerce sites. The cover of the standard edition is just… butt ugly.
Finally managed to snag a new copy on eBay, for only S$25. Just look at that beautiful packaging. The character art sheets are a very nice touch. The video quality is a disappointment though. Scratches, dust, even some pen marks are visible. Obviously there was no effort made to clean up the source.
That said, this is probably the best that is available at this point of time, and I am very happy with this purchase.
I was planning to go on a major skinning exercise for That Stupid Club, but seeing this, and actually reading about it, I am salivating at The Power that will be available.
Eagerly waiting for the first beta…
Update: link to Ben Tiedt’s series of posts introducing Chameleon for own future reference.
New version of Halite released with a snazzy new icon. Changes from 0.27 to 0.28:
Long time readers of my blog (yes, all two of you!) will know that since BitTorrent Inc announced the acquisition of µTorrent, I have been keeping an eye on the development of Halite, and the library it was based on, libtorrent.
The major stumbling block to more widespread adoption is, I believe, the lack of support for protocol encryption (PE) in libtorrent. Well, the bad news is there is still no support. There is good news though. Eóin, author of Halite, is considering implementation of PE and contributing it to libtorrent. Most excellent. Pity that I am no C++ hacker, or I would have given it a shot myself.
I cannot recommend replacing µTorrent with Halite right now, but once PE is implemented, add features and polish from a few more iterations and I should be all over it.
I see the K-Lite codec pack bandied about anywhere anytime anybody asks for recommendations for a codec pack, or as a solution to playback problems. Sometimes the monstrous “ACE Mega CoDecS Pack” makes an appearance.
When it comes to codec packs less is definitely more, as exemplified by my pack of choice, the Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP). Originally developed for playing fansubbed anime, it is tweaked and tested for maximum quality and reliability and is able to handle just about anything I care to throw at it. That one of the players included in the pack is the excellent Media Player Classic is just a bonus.
Make sure to read the installation instructions.
The only major formats lacking are RealMedia and Quicktime, and that is easily fixed by installing Real Alternative and Quicktime Alternative (both are designed by KL Software, creator of the K-Lite pack, so they are doing something right). Also, CoreAVC (not free) is an option for slower PCs for decoding H264 content.
Satsuki’s Decoder Pack seem pretty nice, and XP Codec Pack is another viable alternative. They decode more audio formats than the CCCP, so they may be more suitable for some people. Me, I have QMP for all my audio needs, but that’s a topic for another day.
Note: K-Lite has a “CCCP” profile, but it does not work well, and with none of the tweaks, so what is the point? Get the best, accept no substitutes.
Note 2: Graphic shamelessly ripped from the official CCCP wiki.
Update (12-Jan-07)
The latest betas of CCCP contain newer builds of ffdshow with some impressive gains in speed, by up to 20% it seems. Of course CoreAVC is still that little bit faster, but I can now play most hi-definition (1280 x 768) H264 content without slow downs on my 1.5 GHz Pentium M laptop. Excellent!