Something To Blog About

I was visiting my friend Wilma’s blog, and she had an awesome post about a conversation she had with her girlfriend about bus fares. It then occurred to me that I have hardly any posts that are of my personal life. Luckily, a piece of parental wisdom bit me on the butt right after I had that thought.

For the third time this week, my mom called for the attention of me and my siblings, and we listened to the following piece of advice:

Mom: Is everyone listening? Okay, computer geniuses, how many times do I have to repeat this? When the toilet paper is almost out, you should take a new one … *displays a roll of toilet paper* … then take this … *displays the wooden frame that holds it* … put it inside the roll, and push on this knob to make it fit back into the holder. DO NOT MAKE ME REPEAT THIS!

Can you tell that I live in a house of more than four?

The Diff of Obama’s Website

A story was run on Wired today about the McCain campaign using Versionista to show the changes in Obama’s website from 11 July to 14 July.

I don’t have time to scour and dissect the changes, but I thought one of the more interesting changes was the label put on how he would bring our troops home. BOTH PAGES show that he wants to foolishly withdraw the troops over a sixteen month period. The difference: the way he described this sixteen month withdrawal. On the 11th, it shows that he wants to “immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq.” On the 14th, he says he wants “a responsible, phased withdrawal.”

I reiterate that both these plans propose to bring troops home in sixteen months.

He’s trying to win over voters by saying he wants to responsibly phase us out, when really he’s just changing the label on his quasi-immediate withdrawal of troops. Nice try, sir.

Random Linux Fact #6

Converting MP4 to MP3 on Linux

This site has some great conversion techniques for audio/video in Linux. I combined two of the one-line bash scripts; this was the only thing that worked for me. Make sure you have lame installed: “sudo apt-get install lame”.

for nam in *.mp4; do nice mplayer -ao pcm “$nam” -ao \
pcm:file=”$nam.wav” && nice lame -h -b 192 “$nam.wav” \
“$(basename “$nam” .mp4).mp3″; rm “$nam.wav”; done

Unfortunately someone decided the quote sign should be formatted to some god-knows-what variant for this theme (it doesn’t work in the <code> tag either =/ ). So don’t forget to change the quotes to.. you know.. the normal kind. =/

The wx.MiniFrame Problem, Updated

See the note at the bottom for the update.

If you ever want to create a cross-platform program with an interface similar to Photoshop’s, i.e. using palettes with different tools, don’t use wxWidgets. The only thing that comes close to that sort of palette is wx’s MiniFrame, which can only minimize / iconize on Windows. In GNOME, the MiniFrame looks terrible, especially with Compiz enabled. It cannot be minimized, maximized, or even closed. It just sits there and looks ugly. I wanted to try redesigning Boa Constructor’s interface with palettes and a common window instead of three separate windows, however I cannot even begin this overhaul as the program is written in wxPython and the MiniFrame does not suffice.

I don’t know who’s at fault: the wxWidgets team for not implementing this feature correctly or GTK for not having such a widget.

I went through the source of wxPython and wxWidgets. wxPython looks like I expected it to, and I can’t make out much of the wxWidgets source. I hate C/C++.

I’m debating whether to submit a bug report. Or would this be a feature request? And who would I report it to?

Update: It seems this is GTK’s problem. A “GTK State of the Union” article was published on OSNews, and one of the features requested was a “Tools Palette”. Hopefully this feature will come to fruition. Also, I realized I had an older version of wx installed. I have a newer version, somewhere in 2.7.x, and the palette is now resizeable and closeable when style=wx.DEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE is passed. It still cannot be minimized (note: I haven’t tested 2.8.x)

Ack

I don’t have anything interesting to say. :(

I think once school starts up, I’ll be able to update more frequently

Right now I’m just sort of off and on. Bear with me :)

Queer as Folk, Episode 101 Music

I figured out whilst re-watching my favorite gay TV series that I like A LOT of the music they play on it, so I’m going to try to find as much of it as possible. I’m using Princess of Babylon as my guide, though I’ve already found out there are some mistakes (for instance, in episode 105, they have Da Hool’s “Eichelruck” as “Eirchelruck”; note the extra “r”). Also, I am using Discogs to try to help me locate the songs (figure out which albums they appear on, what remixes are out there; PoB doesn’t list which are remixes and which are originals).

If you have any of the songs that I couldn’t find, PLEASE upload them to IMEEM, then post here with the link. IMEEM has made deals with all the major record labels, so it won’t be infringement if songs are uploaded there.

Please report any broken links in the comments, no matter how old this article may be.

Here are the songs for season 1, episode 1, along with a description of where in the episode it takes place (not a copy-and-paste of Princess of Babylon). Numbers in bold: I can’t find the song. Numbers in Italics: I can’t find the specific version of the song.

1) Opening scene, Babylon: The Tamperer — Feel It [unknown remix] // I found the original and some remixes, but none of them fit this short clip. Possible candidates are “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Voyerism Vocal Remix”, “Klubbheads Klubb Dub”, “Mike Ski Remix”, or the mix from this cd. Comment if you know which remix it is.

2) Michael begins narrating who each of the main characters are, Emmit, Tod and he are admiring the men walking by their position at the bar at Babylon: Katty B. — Let’s Here it for the Boy // This is an excellent cover/remix of the original.

3) Brian is introduced by Michael’s narration, the “I’m just gonna give him my number”/”Whatchya do, write it on your dick?” lines are delivered: Junkie XL — Synasthesia // I *cannot* find this song anywhere [except a small preview]; Discogs is reporting that only two albums carry this track, but last.fm reports 11,000+ people have played it. If it ever becomes available at that link, please snatch it up with that famous Firefox addon. I thought it might have been a remix of Thrillseeker’s Synaesthesia (note the spelling difference), however that song is sung by a girl, and there are male vocals in this song.

EDIT: I finally found the song, and uploaded it to IMEEM. I also went back and put the link in the title.

EDIT 2: The version I had found was horrible, and I’m not sure what I was smoking, but the song was already on imeem. You have to have an account to hear it, however. I think all the Junkie XL songs get plagued with that — you need to sign in to hear the one I uploaded as well.

4) Justin steps onto the scene, asking an old&ugly man where to go: Ruff Drivers — Deeper Love [unknown remix] // I linked to the “Ruff Mix” of the song, but that’s not the remix in the episode. I’ve listened to the “Deeper Dub Thing” remix, and that’s not it either. The only other remixes of the song are the “Tall Paul Remix” and the “Social Security Remix”, according to Discogs. Please comment if you know which remix it is.

5) Brian meets Justin after leaving the club: Darude — Sandstorm

6) Brian and Justin make out in Brian’s loft: Full Frontal — You Think You’re a Man

7) Brian and Michael have a moment on the ledge of the hospital after Brain sees his newborn son: Heather Small — Proud

8) Brian, Justin, and Michael race to see the baby at the hospital: ?? — ?? // There isn’t any mention of the song on Princess of Babylon, as it’s just a short clip; I’ve included it here to draw attention that there isn’t any info. If you know what this song is, please comment on this post. You can listen to the segment here, it starts at 2:34.

9) Michael drives Brian and Justin home, swerves to “avoid hitting the dog”, keeping Brian from sucking on Justin: Bootsy McQueen — X-hale Slowly

10) Brian and Justin do it on the bed. Yeah.. : The Aloof — So Good

11) Michael is in Brian’s apartment picking him and Justin up on the way to work: Meg Lee Chin — Heavy Scene // I have this song, and can upload it to imeem if the song becomes unavailable on last.fm.

12) Brian drives Michael in the jeep, marked with the word “FAGGOT” in pink spray paint: Robin Black — More Effeminate Than You // Youtube doesn’t have the best quality, but it’s acceptable for now. Here’s the last.fm link if it becomes available; again, use the magic links to share with us, and don’t forget to comment here with the link!

13) Ending credits: Barry Harris feat. Pepper Meshay — Dive in the Pool

Don’t Ever…

When your sinuses kick in and you get that bit of mucus stuck in your throat that tastes like the pepperoni pizza you ate last night, don’t swallow an ice cube to make the burning sensation go away. It’s a very bad idea.

That’s all.

Movie Recommendation

I don’t have lots of time to blog about it, but if you haven’t seen “Edge of Seventeen”, you should. It’s an excellent movie about a teenager learning about himself and eventually coming out. One guess as to where I found it ;)

Transexual Brutally Beaten by Police in Memphis, TN

A relative in Memphis, TN sent me this link.

This makes me sick. The police officer who beat the girl didn’t get fired: he got suspended. The man who held her to the chair got fired because he was on probation.

He hit her with his handcuffs around his knuckes and then maced her.

The FBI is investigating if a civil rights violation occurred. INVESTIGATING?? It’s pretty clear to me that’s what happened. The officer should have been arrested on the spot, as well as the nurse, who completely ignored her while she sat in the chair bleeding.

Police are supposed to protect and serve. When they abuse their power, they should be punished more harshly than regular citizens.

Justice needs to be served to these people.

Boycott Associated Press

I’m way too mad to blog about this.
BoingBoing said it all.
I have to pay 12.50 to quote a series of five words?? Bite me.
Please boycott the Associated Press, and sign the petition asking them to halt their outrageous efforts.