Handbrake 0.9.4 Netbook resolution patched

Handbrake 0.9.4 was finally released some months ago. It’s still an amazingly useful tool, and probably x264’s most active “vehicle”. But, as before, it’s not without its problems. The GUI is still buggy and flaky at times, probably because of a huge amount of patched spaghetti code. IMO it really just needs to be rewritten, just looking over the source. Handbrake itself has gotten significantly more stable, quicker, and more usable. It’s now quite a useful tool to convert DVDs to MPEG-4 with top-of-the-line codecs and amazing compression.

Perhaps most glaring of its issues, despite the fact that the GUI automatically scales and provides a scroll bar to navigate the interface, it refuses to run when the resolution is too low. It flat-out does not allow the program to run due to this arbitrary limitation – no bypass switches, nothing. It needs to be recompiled. But it works just fine at lower resolutions. You can test this functionality by launching Handbrake at 1024×768 (or higher), minimize the GUI, then change the resolution to 800×600. Restore the GUI, and it suddenly grows scroll bars like magic and it’s still usable. The devs have consistently ignored countless requests to remove this limitation so, well, once again, that’s where I come in.

Look closer - shit bricks.

This is a full installation of the Handbrake application, which can be installed over your existing Handbrake install (you shouldn’t need to have both the original, and this patched version, installed at the same time). Install, and voila! Handbrake on your netbook. As per GPL licensing, the source is available as well.

Download the patched version here.

edit: Fixed some versioning discrepancies that caused Handbrake to pop up prompting for an update right off the bat. Hopefully this does it… the way HB-GUI checks versioning is a fucking nightmare of holy-shit spaghetti code. #1 reason why I hate object-oriented programming. *headdesk*

He’s gettin’ ink done

That song’s really painfully cheesy… but that lyric stuck.

So, at least 3 years coming, I finally got that tattoo I’ve been dreaming of.

Please excuse the emo mirror photo. At first I couldn’t think of a good way to get a photo of a tattoo on my arm (with the other? timer?), then I thought of the mirror. Cool deal. So here it is, at least in line form. Not quite finished yet, but it’s already as beautiful as I imagined it. I’m so damn happy…

Okay, a little back story (and/or more reasons to believe I’m insane) is in order. See, I don’t lie, and I’m not your average joe 12-year-old furry – I really believe I am a falcon at heart, stuck in a body I don’t respect, that doesn’t respect me. I’m unusually robotic at a lot of things, avoiding social situations and preferring to stay home perusing Wikipedia or absorbing other knowledge. Hell, the love of my life is arguably a “robot” itself. F-16s don’t have a perceivable conscience, nor would any person other than myself really put an emotional label on them. Something’s different about me. I never felt like I belonged in the body I was given. If anything, I should be a fighter pilot – but if there’s anything my body doesn’t want me to be… it’s a fighter pilot. I’ve got to give it respect for being really immune to motion-sickness, though

So, the tattoo. Like a lot of F-16s have a falcon on the side of them, giving them their name (and, arguably, their personality, liveliness, or “soul”), I wanted the same on me. Maybe I am just a soul deposited into a random body. I really now need something to make it mine. Then, I can actually see the body as “myself”, and perhaps treat myself with a lot more respect than I had in the past…

Perhaps it would also reflect in the work I do outside of my weekend clothes. So often, I use clothes to present a better outward appearance than the shit I’m forced to wear Monday through Friday. Nobody else can see that falcon on my arm, but I still know it’s there. I now remember, I now know who I am, no matter what ridiculous outfit I put on. Rather quite the change from the generic human I’d been before. I’m still the same flesh and blood, but I finally have something permanently engrained in my skin to signify exactly what this body means to me.

And it changes everything.

tl;dr: I got a fucking tattoo, bitches. I’m badass.

Me + my clone = infinite productivity

If I had a clone, and we worked together, the secrets of the universe would be unlocked, ReactOS would be complete, PC repair shops would become corporations (plural), and dear god, don’t even get me started on the bedroom. *cough*

This is a phenomenon explained thus:

I am lazy.
I accept constructive criticism.
I give constructive criticism. Often, a little too much for most people.
I’m the only person I don’t think is a total tool in most areas. (note both implications there)
I speak my mind, often with an excess of verbosity.
I’m really quite good at organizing a team and dividing tasks.

Therefore, if I had a clone, my weaknesses and strengths would complement each other in an infinitely motivating way. I could take a large task, divide it up evenly, and not only would I agree with myself, I wouldn’t have a problem with trading sub-tasks back and forth, collaborating on ideas, etc.

Just brain candy for the night. Because damnit, I am the proud owner of a flight suit tonight. All that’s left is to dream of if there were another of me that would appreciate it.

On that note…

… You know how you feel when, say, your dog dies?  That’s quite like this for me. I didn’t know this bird. I only knew him because he found his way onto my wallpaper from time to time for good 5-minute windows, and I’d have no choice but to sit there admiring that beautiful bird. I’d sit there for a minute or so each time he popped up, just thinking. What’s he thinking? He’s staring right at the camera. Does he know? Could I ever find this guy? What would it be like to actually be in his presence? Would he trust me, knowing how much I respect, and identify, with him? Curious as I am, I wanted to see more.

I went back to the site I found the guy at, to try to find some more pictures of the guy. I found them, alright, but they weren’t exactly in a place I would like to find them.

Remembering Buckeye 1996 – 2009

Buckeye, or Mr. B, was a 14-year-old Peregrine Falcon. The birds I would like to believe are immortal and timeless. All throughout history, they have never changed a bit. Today we’ve got all sorts of dog and cat breeds, that are pretty much symbols of the age. Falcons, though, are pretty much known for their timeless presence. References to them all throughout history makes them seem indestructible. Clearly, logically, that can’t be the truth for anything. As corny a movie as it came from, “Everything that has a beginning has an end”. And here, reality comes crashing in on me, to read that the bird, sitting on my desktop, has ceased to exist. After living an unusually long and fulfilling life, this bird whom I had dreamed about “meeting” – strange as though it might sound – is no longer with this world.

He will be missed… R.I.P, Buckeye! Maybe we can still meet in my dreams…

… okay, you can stop looking at me like that now. Seriously. Rude. Is it so hard to believe? Sigh… you know, I don’t even care. I’m a weirdo. I know this. I don’t even mind the insults anymore…

Atom 330 Nettop motherboards are perfect for all XP users.

Are you listening, industry? Atom 330 nettop motherboards are the perfect motherboard replacements for EVERY Windows XP machine that I have seen thus far. The dual-core Atom 330 runs circles around even a 2.8GHz single-core Pentium 4, and at about a tenth the power consumption (hence, heat). Not only do these nettop boards provide an extra core (with hyperthreading on each core, so effectively 4 cores), but they can help prolong the life of the existing components, like the PSU and hard drive.

We need more options, though. The current lineup consists of the D945GCLF2/D board from Intel, with an Intel 945 chipset and GMA 950 graphics – the only chip on the board that needs a fan is the power-hungry northbridge. It has 1xDDR2, 2x SATA, 1x ATA100, 1 PCI slot, and a good handful of legacy ports on the back. The other board I just stumbled on is an ECS 945GCD-M board with an Atom 330 (I only look at Atom 330 boards; the 220 is insulting). It solves the slot problem with 2x DDR2 slots, 1 each of PCI-E 16x, PCI-E 1x, and PCI. It also has an additional SATA port.

Both of these boards have a common flaw: for being drop-in replacement boards, they have rather arbitrary requirements and limitations. For example, even though the LPC bus controller (PS/2, serial, parallel) has a floppy controller, there is no header on either of these boards for a floppy drive. Many systems I use these boards to upgrade have a floppy drive, and I end up having to leave a dead floppy drive in the case. Also, there’s a 24-pin + 4-pin 12v connector on these boards. Why? The Atom is super-low-power, and does not need the additional power lines. With a simple adapter, we can get the +12v out of the way (for PSUs without the 4-pin connector), and the 24-pin connector only ever needs a 20-pin plugged in. It’s nice to have the option, but requiring the 4-pin connector is kinda unnecessary. Just take the power from the main 12v bus and spare us the trouble.

All this can be accomplished with a Micro/MiniATX form factor, which I’d really like to see more of on the market. With a MiniATX form factor to work with, it should be possible to cram a lot more into an Atom board than what we’re stuck with now.

You build it, I’ll buy it.

Let there be PHOTOS!

I’d recently noticed that in moving to WordPress from Blogger, I lost all my uploaded photos, mainly because Blogger was FAR too broken to work with. tl;dr Google refused to give me control over my own subdomain, so I ditched them, but couldn’t export in a compatible format.

Anyway, digging through the crusty cracks of my server’s falconfour.com domain, I found an old working copy of my blog posted there. And, wonder of all wonders, it had a copy of my old photos in it!

Now, you can go to the old August 2007 archive (a quite dark period of my life, as you may read), and have some photos to go with the wall of text

p.s.: Yes, I’m watching… and no, I never have stopped believing…

[06:50] [dynaflash] I like the part where he explains to his “case worker” that he is really a bird trapped in a humans body

Hey, Godaddy! This is why you’re losing customers.

Pending Account Change

This is why. “Pending Account Change”. Make a simple change to your hosting account, like moving to a different server (something that’s usually done transparently), and the action becomes not only painfully intrusive, but ridiculously slow, and it makes you totally unable to access the hosting control panel at all until it deems the action “completed”!

Worst part – and the particular deal-breaker – is that the action actually completed TWENTY THREE HOURS AGO. I requested that the Windows hosting be switched to Linux (via the web interface, hence no interaction with demented support reps) and that completed about 4 hours later that same night. Even 4 hours is a ridiculous amount of time to wait for something like this. Now, I’m still locked out 23 hours later.

Why 23? I don’t know. I called up GoDaddy support earlier today (and it was a relatively pleasant experience except for the wacky hold music) and the rep told me it would take “24 hours” to complete the action after the time it actually… you know… completed. Whatever. 24 hours it is.

The root of the problem I’m having is that I can’t seem to access any sort of error or diagnostic information from the site. Could you imagine why? By a call I had previously made with GoDaddy support, I was told that – yes – error messages are a feature of deluxe hosting packages, not the Economy one the site is using. wat.

Needless to say, THIS organization will not be renewing their web hosting with GoDaddy.

Hello, Internet. I bring you an ASCII line-art circle.

                      ╔══════════════╗
                 ╔════╝              ╚════╗
             ╔═══╝                        ╚═══╗
           ╔═╝                                ╚═╗
         ╔═╝                                    ╚═╗
       ╔═╝                                        ╚═╗
     ╔═╝                                            ╚═╗
    ╔╝                                                ╚╗
   ╔╝                                                  ╚╗
  ╔╝                                                    ╚╗
 ╔╝                                                      ╚╗
 ║                                                        ║
╔╝                                                        ╚╗
║                                                          ║
║                                                          ║
║                                                          ║
║                                                          ║
╚╗                                                        ╔╝
 ║                                                        ║
 ╚╗                                                      ╔╝
  ╚╗                                                    ╔╝
   ╚╗                                                  ╔╝
    ╚╗                                                ╔╝
     ╚═╗                                            ╔═╝
       ╚═╗                                        ╔═╝
         ╚═╗                                    ╔═╝
           ╚═╗                                ╔═╝
             ╚═══╗                        ╔═══╝
                 ╚════╗              ╔════╝
                      ╚══════════════╝

Great for printable CD label border art. Copypasta into Notepad or something, and bam, instant awesome.

I couldn’t find a good ASCII circle online using box-drawing characters, so I Shooped a 60×30px monochrome circle, then filled it in with the box characters one by one. Pretty cool result, IMO.

Hey Microsoft, I’m really sick of the parents-and-two-kids family…

Are you even listening, Microsoft? Seriously, it’s making me sick. _Everything_ in the Windows Home Server product is geared towards the mom, pa, 2 kids, and a dog “American Dream” family. Windows Live is even worse, blowing it all up in your face how “FAMILY!” the product is.

Pardon my spanish, but FUCK the family image. God, I am so sick of the family bullshit commercials, images, and “Features” that make it easy for the nuclear family to share photos of their vacation to the Bahamas with family in the other room. Not everyone’s part of the perfect family. Some people HAVE no family and it’s just a dark reminder of what’s not there. And more often than not, the “Family” bullshit features get in the way, like “Photo Sharing” in Messenger. Let me send them the fucking file, I don’t want to have it sit there and clog up the chat screen with a barely-functional “viewer”. At least OPEN IT IN A NEW FUCKING WINDOW! And who’s going to sit there and “share photos” anyway? Oh, look at this one! Daww! Well, you can’t even see what the other person is saying, because the PHOTO FRAME IS BLOCKING THE CHAT AREA. I just want to send them a picture (or, more often than not, paste a screenshot), and this is nothing more than another reason Messenger fails hard. All in the name of Family!

I feel so damn dirty with a tablet.

So, on Thursday, I got the part needed to complete this awesome new gift that was given to me (by a kickass Air Force vet, I may add). A busted-as-hell convertible tablet PC – an HP Compaq (isn’t… that… uh) tc4400.

My previous computer, the Acer Extensa 4420, well… let’s say I put enough attention into that thing, that it may very well have changed model numbers under my nose with all the changes I’ve made to it. It gets a _lot_ of attention. I’d take it everywhere – to work, then to school, to restaurants, to a friend’s place, to the living room… I went, and it went.

However, for the first time Friday, I left home without it. I only took the tc4400 with me. I’d only had it for a day – I fixed it up and installed Windows on it on Thursday. It’s Sunday now and I’ve found myself only using my “old” Acer in order to get data off it.

A little backstory. A friend gave me this broken-old tablet that evidently was in a bag that fell off his motorcycle while doing 80. Scratched the ever-loving shit out of the top cover, right down to, but not quite into, the display cable. Trashed the hard drive. Cracked the LCD. And, evidently, shorted the power adapter as well. A short trip to eBay and about $11 later, I’ve got a new, questionably-working-but-not-cracked complete display assembly on its way, Another $13 and I’ve got a power adapter. Drop in a new hard drive I had laying around, and an extra stick of RAM (it only had 1×512mb DDR2), and… holy crap, everything worked.

From the moment it turned on and I saw the HP logo gracing the crackling-to-life screen, I loved the thing. It was literally a dream come true. I’d always wanted a tablet PC so I could do paper-like things – like writing and drawing (or at least, trying to) – without paper. Wacom tablets had always intrigued me, but the price tag made me gag. Now, I actually have one built into the screen! A real Wacom tablet (yes, multi-button pen, position-sensing, and it doesn’t detect finger presses). It’s as close to drawing on real paper as it can get, only the paper is backlit.

But the problem is, now my poor Acer is sitting there going “Wtf, mate?”. I’ve all but left it behind with my shiny new tablet. With the only defining difference between the two being that the Acer has an optical drive and Bluetooth (the tablet has neither), and an extra gig of RAM (the tablet has 1gb RAM, the Acer has 2gb), I find myself struggling to find a reason to keep it around! =\

I can’t bring myself to part with it. It’s the first computer I bought brand new, and I’ve put so much time and money into upgrading it – in fact, I’m still in the process of adding a webcam to it, as I find the parts. I’m also fairly certain that if I do sell it, I will sorely regret it in the near future when I tire of the tablet (for anything except its tablet functions, I’m sure). But I don’t see a purpose for it anymore. The tablet fits my work life perfectly, and it’s a godsent for school. It’s light, and it has a pen. What to do with the Acer?!