Postverbindungen: March 3, 2010

Some random links from recent internet travels:

• I can only hope that the Zoolander sequel lives up to the original, which still makes me laugh just thinking about it. No word yet on whether Owen Wilson will reprise his role as Hansel, but Jonah Hill is reportedly in talks to play the villain. Justin Theroux (who played the break-dance-fighting "Evil DJ" in the first film) will write the screenplay (his other writing credits include Tropic Thunder and the upcoming Iron Man 2).
• From what my friends tell me about the after-work life of the South Korean salaryman, it's no wonder that scientists in that country are at the forefront of hangover reduction research. Stay thirsty, my scientist friends, or you might find yourself trailing the Japanese, when they begin studying the vodka-snorting phenomenon mentioned by the first commenter on the linked article.
• Meant to post this a while back, but here's a crazy video from the security cameras of a bus whose driver fell asleep and wreaked havoc on a Taiwanese freeway.
• John Gruber pretty much sums up what I have to say about the Apple-HTC Patent Thing. In short, I don't believe that software patents are a bad idea in principle, but the current system is broken, and so it is unfortunate but understandable that companies would stockpile patents for defensive purposes. It's when companies use them offensively (pun intended) that a bad taste is left in everyone's mouths. A friend of the site, Joz, was lamenting recently that Steve Jobs — and, by extension, Apple — would be looked upon much more fondly if he rested on his laurels of good design and constant innovation, rather than always picking fights with or making snide remarks about people/companies/technologies. Unfortunately, life is rarely so simple, and we have to take the bad with the good.

Finally, I'm a sucker for a good Rube Goldberg machine, so I'm happy that OK Go and Synn Labs put in the effort to make this one (available in HD):

Update: Forgot about this video, which may be of some interest to the Japanophiles and yo-yo-o-philes among the Hydrans:

More U.S. Open

I'm sure everyone has seen this shot already, but I figured I'd post it for posterity, and to cancel out the clip of Fed falling. Also, if he needs something to boost his spirits after the outcome of the Final, he can come here and watch the clip again and again.

Finally, here are a couple of interesting blog posts from The New York Times:

What it Takes to String for the Pros

When the string bed of each racket is struck, both should ping at precisely the same pitch, indicating the string tension is identical. But Heydt’s were slightly off.

“I could hear it right away,” he said. “Yat said, ‘Your tensions are different. These may be one pound off, but this is unacceptable.’”

A Speed-of-Serve Snapshot

But how is that 148 miles an hour determined? Rallis Pappas, president of Information & Display Systems and a U.S.T.A. consultant who works in the IBM Statistics room at the Open, says it’s not as simple as putting a radar gun on the court. “It’s Doppler radar, but there’s a lot of software that’s part of the system,” Pappas says. “We really refer to it as a serve speed system because of that.”

Federer's Footwork and Safina's Serve

With the U.S. Open getting into gear, the New York Times comes through with two interesting links.

First, an analysis of Roger Federer's footwork, complete with slow-motion video and animations.

As he elevates off the court to create the split step, watch how he opens his right foot slightly when he sees that the ball will go to his right. This makes for a quick move toward his forehand. When landing on the split step, he quickly pushes off with his left leg and makes a final stride with the right. Notice the exaggerated heel-to-toe foot placement. Federer does this to maintain good balance, as the heel-toe foot strike allows him to slow the acceleration of his body and position himself for the shot.

Second, a piece on some of the top women's players, and their service troubles. An excerpt:

The serve and the free throw share key components: foot placement; body balance; weight shift; toss and follow through. Misses happen when players’ minds are willing but their mechanics are weak, or vice versa.

Update 2009/09/04: The Wills, Arnett and Ferrell, joined the Andys, Roddick and Murray, on court for a celebrity doubles match, with SNL's Kenan Thompson as the "umpire", to do pretty much the opposite of what Roger Federer does:



Update 2009/09/07: I must've jinxed Federer — I caught a portion of his match against Hewitt on Saturday, only to see what commentator Mary Carillo called "the most awkward thing I've ever seen Federer do". It's not as awkward or embarrassing as what this ball boy did, though.

Conan does anime voiceovers

Hilarious!


Via Japanator.

Transforminators

Pretty good mashup with Transformers and Terminator: Salvation.



From IGN via Gizmodo.

Creation of the original PlayStation

This article has a retrospective on how the original PlayStation was conceived. Pretty interesting stuff.

From Edge Online via Gizmodo.

ioDrive Duo SSD

Words cannot describe how much I want this thing.

From HotHardware, via Engadget/Gizmodo.

Bob Barker says "FAIL!"

In the grand tradition of Sad Trombone and Instant Rimshot comes Bom Bom Bom Bom Wooooo.

I had this sound stuck in my head all last week, and even hummed it to myself a few times when things went wrong and others were out of earshot, so it's no wonder that the site found me as I surfed the web this weekend.

Awesome Game Wallpapers

Here are some awesome looking game wallpapers from deviantArt.

Via Kotaku.

No-keyboard Apple Notebook

I'd so buy one.

From the Onion via DF.

Big Ideas (Radiohead remix)

This is awesome!


Big Ideas (Don't get any) from 1030 on Vimeo.

Ars Technica gets acquired

Talk about breaking news.

Simplicity in Software Products

This comic is both funny and true at the same time.

Wheel of Lunch

ECK pointed this out to me today.  If ever we were stuck on deciding for a place to go to lunch, this nifty web applet can help out.

Transcoding MKV/OGM to MP4

After endlessly mucking around with transcoding MKV files to MP4 and going through many false leads from various Google searches, I've finally figured out a decent way to transcode from MKV to MP4 without too much of a problem. Here are the prerequisites in order to do the following task:

• Some Unix variant. In this case, I used Mac OS X Leopard. This should definitely work in Linux, though.
• x264/XviD codec libraries. For this example, I will be using x264, so be sure that the required libraries and binaries are available.
• faac/faad audio codec libraries. We want to be able to create a video file that is playable in both QuickTime and on the PSP/PS3, so using the AAC audio codec is a must.
  
• mplayer/mencoder binaries. The newer, the better. SSA/ASS support needs to be compiled for embedded font support for subtitles.
• (Optional) Multiple processors. This will definitely speed things up, so it is a must if you have a bunch of stuff to transcode.

After the prerequisites are met, you can do the following in order to transcode between formats:

1. Open two terminal windows.
   
2. In one terminal, create a work directory. I created a folder in my home directory called encoding.
3. In that directory, create a fifo pipe: mkfifo stream.yuv.
4. Dump the audio from the video file to a .wav file:
   # mplayer FILENAME -vo null -vc null -ao pcm:file=audiodump.wav
   
5. Start playback of the video file that needs to be transcoded within your work directory:
   # mplayer FILENAME -vo yuv4mpeg -ao null -nosound -noframedrop
6. In the other terminal, cd into your work directory and start the transcoding with the following:
   # cat stream.yuv | mencoder - -o OUTFILENAME.mp4 -mc 0 \
   -ovc x264 -x264encopts global_header:bitrate=400:\
   vbv_maxrate=768:vbv_bufsize=2000:partitions=all:\
   trellis=1:level_idc=30:threads=auto \
   -vf harddup,scale=480:-10,expand=480:272 \
   -sws 9 -audiofile audiodump.wav -oac faac \
   -faacopts br=128:mpeg=4:object=2:raw \
   -channels 2 -srate 48000 -ofps 24000/1001 \
   -of lavf -lavfopts format=psp
7. Wait for completion.

In this case, the mencoder command specifically creates a file that is playable on the PSP/PS3. As a consequence of the settings though, it is also playable in QuickTime. These settings are completely tunable, depending on what is needed. An entirely different codec, e.g. XviD/DivX, can be used instead in order to fit whatever requirements you may have.

From my limited experience, two-pass encoding with x264 is almost always better than only doing one-pass, even if it is more time consuming. I am not sure whether or not the resultant video stream that is piped into the fifo will be the same for both passes, but it should be a good estimation regardless. You probably do a two-pass encoding as follows, given that you have performed steps 1-4 beforehand:

# mplayer FILENAME -ass -embedded-fonts -sid 0 -correct-pts -vo yuv4mpeg -ao null -noframedrop -benchmark -nosound -really-quiet &; cat stream.yuv | mencoder - -o /dev/null -mc 0 -ovc x264 \
-x264encopts pass=1:turbo:global_header:\
bitrate=400:vbv_maxrate=768:vbv_bufsize=2000:\
partitions=all:trellis=1:level_idc=30:threads=auto \
-vf harddup,scale=480:-10,expand=480:272 \
-sws 9 -audiofile audiodump.wav -oac faac \
-faacopts br=128:mpeg=4:object=2:raw \
-channels 2 -srate 48000 -ofps 24000/1001 \
-of lavf -lavfopts format=psp
# mplayer FILENAME -ass -embedded-fonts -sid 0 -correct-pts -vo yuv4mpeg -ao null -noframedrop -benchmark -nosound -really-quiet &; cat stream.yuv | mencoder - -o OUTFILENAME.mp4 -mc 0 -ovc x264 \
-x264encopts pass=2:subq=7:me=umh:global_header:\
bitrate=400:vbv_maxrate=768:vbv_bufsize=2000:\
partitions=all:trellis=1:level_idc=30:threads=auto \
-vf harddup,scale=480:-10,expand=480:272 \
-sws 9 -audiofile audiodump.wav -oac faac \
-faacopts br=128:mpeg=4:object=2:raw \
-channels 2 -srate 48000 -ofps 24000/1001 \
-of lavf -lavfopts format=psp

Two new options for the x264 encoder: subq and me. These options will make the encoding significantly longer, so be forewarned. I prefer that the video to be of good quality, so I usually use them for the second pass. Which is why the recommendation for a multicore/multiprocessor system. Also, the quiet flag will completely squelch the output from mplayer, so take this out if you don't want this. For more information about any of the mplayer/mencoder options, please refer to the Mplayer documentation or man page.

Hopefully, this has been somewhat informative. So, get on with some transcoding now, eh?

2007 Lists

Fimoculous has published its annual year-end list of lists, with all the usual suspects — books, movies, music — but also stuff like: the world's most expensive homes (mine just missed the list, again!), best UFO photographs (if it were really the best UFO, it couldn't be photographed!), and Japanese buzzwords (there's a fine line between motepuyo and just plain chubby!).

Detailed Ars Technica review of OS X Leopard

As usual, Ars Technica has a very detailed review of the new Apple OS X Leopard that came out. In (a very brief) summary:

• Lots of potentially good backend changes
• System speedups all around
• Good overall UI interface changes
• Bad Dock
• Stacks doesn't work as well as it should
• WTF did they do with the old icons
• Finder still sucks in some ways

Maybe I'll put up my impressions sooner or later about Leopard.

someecards

someecards "may or may not be the greatest thing since ecards"

Postverbindungen: October 7, 2007

The Batman TV series of the 1960s was known for its campiness and deus ex utility belt, but how soon we forget the wisdom of the caped crusader:

Batman: "Cattail Lane and Nine Lives Alley. The Grimalkin Novelty Company is on that corner."
Robin: "Grimalkin? What kind of a name is that?"
Batman: "An obscure but nevertheless acceptable synonym for cat, Robin."

If I had a glass of milk, a webcam, and some Legos, I'd drink the milk, re-enact the Chocolate Rain video, and construct a wall. Friedrich Kirschner's 3-D Scanner shows that he is clearly smarter and more resourceful than I am.

Set your phasers on stun: Raytheon's Silent Guardian, a.k.a. the pain-ray gun.

Finally, what kid wouldn't love to have these plush toys as friends?

Bungie Splits from Microsoft

Apparently, it has been announced that Bungie will be splitting from Microsoft. Quite a move after releasing one of the most anticipated games of the year.