Awesome NASA Image
I don’t have a source for this one, and I haven’t found it on the NASA site, but I got it in an email this morning. If anyone can let me know the source that’d be great.
Possible New Years Resolutions, but probably not, I mean come on who the crap keeps those things.
As new years approaches, people start to panic about what they sucked at the previous year and how they can try to improve themselves.
Being me, I don’t normally make resolutions mainly because you can’t improve on perfection. However, I thought that purely for this article I’d suggest some of the things I might do if I can be bothered to remember them.
1. I will go on longer ego trips.
2. I will stop using “I thought I was invisible” as a reason to take off all my clothes and walk around the house.
3. I WILL be able to complete a full cart-wheel without suffering a groin injury each time.
4. I wont laugh at kids when they fall over or get smacked by there parents (100% sure not to even last 1 day).
5. I will do less laundry and wear more deodorant.
6. Watch heaps more movies with car chases and banjo music.
7. Listen to less Ashlee Simpson and The Veronicas, and more of The Baha Men’ classic – who let the dogs out.
8. Use the phrase “Don’t Go There Girlfriend” wherever possible.
9. Stop Writing analysis as ANAL ysis.
10. Try to stop using “I have Harry Potter bed sheets” as an icebreaker with girls.
Hopefully this will help you think of some ideas if you’re stuck.
Copying CD’s and Recording TV Shows to be Legal in Oz
MILLIONS of Australians who tape TV shows and copy CDs will soon get the right to do it with a clear conscience.
The Federal Government will next year legalise the video recording of television shows for personal use, and the transfer of songs from CDs to MP3 players, in a bid to overturn a ban which has made criminals of much of the population.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock has flagged tidying up copyright laws by adding fair-use loopholes that will clear the way for private citizens to copy the content without breaking the law. But yet to be decided is whether a levy will be slapped on the store price of blank CDs and MP3 players, such as iPods, to compensate artists for the revenue they stand to lose under the new laws.
Though the practice is widespread, it remains illegal to convert a CD to MP3 format for playing on an iPod. There are more than 100,000 Australian iPod owners, all of whom have broken the law by uploading music. It is also against the law to tape a television program. A spokeswoman for Mr Ruddock said the Government was close to completing draft laws that would allow people to copy their CDs on to iPods and tape television programs. Mr Ruddock foreshadowed the changes this month. ”
[Link]
Great DVD Ripping Guide
I’m incredibly busy at the moment at work and I’m spending only a few secs a day at home on the computer just to check my email. But Here’s a quick post, its a great guide to DVD ripping…
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Ripping a DVD to xvid or divx avi is really quite easy, if you have the right tools. You’ll first need to download DVD decrypter and auto gordian knot (autogk). DVD decrypter allows you to rip the raw DVD video and audio data off of your disk drive, decrypt the CSS protection, and finally remove any other protection schemes, such as Macrovision. AutoGK is a package of codecs and a GUI interface that will take the raw DVD data through an AV processing pipeline to produce a single windows video file.
[Link]
Merry Christmas From Sandstorming
From Doc, Julz and myself, have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I’ll do a roundup of the year on sandstorming for new years, but needless to say it’s just been great! This is a little writeup that resurfaces every year, so as old as it is, I thought I might add it for some Christmas Eve fun. Merry Xmas!
Music Industry Wants Jail Time for Lyrics and Tabalature Websites
As someone who plays guitar, websites such as mxtabs.net or tabcrawler.com come in handy when I want to learn a new song by any of my favourite bands. And as someone who listens to music, I often find myself visiting azlyrics.com to know what the artists are saying, however it seems that these sites are under attack from legal action.
The Music Publishers’ Association (MPA) says such unlicensed publication is illegal and that closing websites and fining their owners is insufficient punishment.
MPA president Lauren Keise said: ‘throw in some jail time I think we’ll be a little more effective’.
Keise added that the photocopier had hit songwriters and composers’ incomes but that the Internet ‘is taking more of a bite’.
Keise’s remarks follow legal action earlier this week against the developers of software that searches the Web for lyrics. Walter Ritter was forced to withdraw one such application, pearLyrics, after receiving a cease and desist notice from record company Warner/Chappell Music.
The president of the National Music Publishers’ Association, another US body, backed Keise’s call.
‘Unauthorised use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing,’ he said.
Personally I find this to be the most pathetic and inept way to stop something that isn’t really a problem.
Firefox for Music?
Using the technology from Mozilla’s Open Source movement, a new media player is set to hit the market. It’s called songbird and it well… looks just like iTunes. Being open source though, suggests there will be much more room for growth and improvement, not seen in the tightly locked down source of Apple’s iTunes.
Songbird’s underlying programming technology is called XML User Interface Language, or XUL. Along with letting people create their own look for the software, this will allow music services or developers to write their own plug-ins, letting them add features or tap directly into their own digital-download stores.
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2005 Google Zeitgeist Released
The 2005 Google Zeitgeist has been released and as always it’s fascinating. With billions of search queries every year, the Google Zeitgeist graphs the data and shows interesting trends and graphs from throughout the past year. This year looks at topics including The Tsunami, Huricanes, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Bird Flu, London Bombings and a heap of other interesting events that have created search trends throughout the year.
Interesting Take On Lebs in Sydney
I thought this was a great insite into what is going on in Sydney at the moment:
I BELIEVE that the rise of Middle Eastern organised crime in Sydney will have an impact on society unlike anything we have ever seen.
In the early 1980s, as a young detective I was attached to the Drug Squad at the old CIB. I remember executing a search warrant at Croydon, where we found nearly a pound of heroin. I know that now sounds very familiar; however, what set this heroin apart was that it was Beaker Valley Heroin, markedly different from any heroin I had seen. Number Four heroin from the golden triangle of South-East Asia is nearly always off-white, almost pure diamorphine. This heroin was almost brown.
But more remarkable were the occupants of the house. They were very recent arrivals from Lebanon, and from the moment we entered the premises, we wrestled and fought with the male occupants, were abused and spat at by the women and children, and our search took five times longer because of the impediments placed before us by the occupants, including the women hiding heroin in baby nappies and on themselves and refusing to be searched by policewomen because of religious beliefs. We had never encountered these problems before.
What is the Secret?
Noone loves a good viral marketing campaign more then me, and that why this one has me so excited. It claims to be leading up to a ‘global television event’ called ‘The Secret’. The site is very mysterious and talks about a secret passed down through great business men and politicians. Go right now and check out the trailer here. Then watch the second trailer here and become incredibly fascinated with it just like me.
[Link]