broadcaster

do you like the moments when you see impossible happening?

i'm preparing for quicktime streaming of a concert. while part of the audience is from the third world, i was looking for a cheap way how to stream more streams in different qualities. i have one dv camera with analog input, and a powerbook to run quicktime broadcaster and darwin streaming server while using automatic unicast (very easy installation and setup, btw).

1. i made a copy of the broadcaster in applications folder and run both. to my surprise, i was able to broadcast two streams from one computer! only one could be from the dv camera, but i can hook up audio to the line in and stream only music as a slow connection (mono in 48 kbps) alternative to the hi-fi stream in h.264 (about 250 kbps). just make sure you give the streams different names.
2. inspired, i got courage to hook up my ol' ibook g3. how? using firewire hub in apple cinema display. i have to say this setup looks weird: two computers and one camera on one hub... but when i launched broadcaster on the ibook, i found out i can broadcast two streams from one camera!! so now i have three streams: hi-fi one, sound only and the third one, sound with hi-res pictures as a "slide show", all announced on the same streaming server.
3. for the third stream, i wanted very low frame rate, let's say one picture every ten seconds. the broadcaster doesn't let me enter lower value than 1 in "frames per second:" field. so i saved the broadcast settings (in file menu) and open the file (it's in xml format) in textedit or property list editor. it was just too easy to locate and change the desired real number value root: video: compression: framerate: 0.1 so, after launching broadcaster by opening this saved file, i am streaming at .1 fps! enough for the audience to see what's going on on stage in 640x480 while still maintaining isdn speed.

i know i could probably do all this and even more with wirecast, but it costs $500 and no clue if new version has still texas size bugs.

maps

as an excersise for a reader: would you try to find your hometown on google maps?

tricky and quite entertaining especially in (eastern) europe - here in boston i just type in the address and it shows the house's roof. but to find my hometown, i have to start from finding the closest big river and a dam...

365

so it's the end of the year and i came close to an anniversary - it's been one year i started to write this blog. the reason to start was simple - to keep in touch with online friends (i also wanted to share some wisdom but it hasn't happened so often or even far).

so what's up? i'm just importing some movies from this year and some leftovers from 2004 (right now a theatre play Speak Truth to Power by Ariel Dorfman performed by volunteers, in between them my dear anne). if you never did it... it's time-eater and it's a tricky job in kicking myself to do it (i'm not the only one with the problem... see third and half episode of four eyed monsters, it's all great stuff). i decided to take tapes with me hoping that i find some time between holidays to go through, import, edit and export about seven hours of material. mostly shots of family, friends and travels. actually, the strongest impulse was christmas phone call with my mum, who got herself a new dvd player.



how i finally found a time? i'm sick with flu. it came so fast. i was visiting friends at christmas eve and stayed a few days at iicd in williamstown, ma. i had a great time, and the dog i am... dogsitting right now had one too, i hope. it's a place on a hill, a few miles from civilization, very peaceful. i made a bunch of nice new friends and had another deja-vu - installing tiger on an old powerbook of a man with beard in mountains (hi caliph). but just the last morning woke up with sore throat.

i managed to drive back to the work three hours on mass pike but left earlier in the afternoon to get to bed. but it was already too late. i was all ill with flu the next morning. but i had to get the next day to an apple store, about thirty miles far. of course i underestimate traffic, got there late, had to wait, and then left somewhere (that cafe i bought green tea which i all spilled when opening car doors? i called them. or was it the car's roof?) the cool neoprene pocket with repair receipt inside (which i hopefully won't need as the powerbook is already on the way back by dhl to my work place).

yeah it's best to be in bed, with tea and some great stuff to listen or watch like the channel frederator - cartoons, on my ipod, for free. the guys have great sense for humor and for background colors, too.

it's time to post this words. i had visit from the new friends. we had nice dinner together and now they took (free, today) train downtown boston. it's just fresh snow falling.

this holidays i won't send any common neither personalized letters to the whole address book as last year. on contrary, i will only reply on letters to people who send me greetings already. this end of the year i realized i should stop reminding myself to people who don't care about me, and focus on those who do. so, dear voky, verena, elisa, monika, alena, valli, shane, vanessa, kaci, meda, krvinkaxxx, ewance, maja, chlanovi, laala, michal, adelka, michaela, anne lene, and of course anne, thanks very much and same to you! kouckovi and chlanovi, thanks for lovely letters (i forgot to check mailbox so i found out later)!

while most of the people in czechia goes already sleep, in africa soon sun is going to rise. people in china are going to eat their lunch, but... their have their own year and lunchtime. and on aotearoa it's already afternoon.



it's about last 80 minutes left of this year here on east coast. i'm going to have a think about you my friends.

take care,
josef

ps: as i watch some rumors about intel apples, i came across the register quoting a guy from sony:

"Ultimately, Kutaragi suggested, we'll see 16 teraflop supercomputer 'cabinets' and one petaflop (a million billion flops, in other words) server rooms - the latter delivering enough raw power for true AI systems, he said."

wait a minute. the same company who made my car stereo, handycam and phone (well that one together with some vikings) is going to create the real terminator and agent smith?

oh no vember

oh, i missed to blog in november. i wanted to blog every day! i was quite busy tho'. falling in love,  finishing a movie from moz, preparing for another trip... so now here i am, in estados unidades again.

this is a bar at an airport in boston, massachussets. or was it still beria, mozambique? ;)



it's colder here than in moz, for sure. and enough snow. i like it.



this one i discovered when getting some orders of sushi for lazy weekend. i had it the first time of my life, every day can bring a surprise! i'm green tea lover.



remembering prague band toyen with their song "following the disappeared railroads"... this is shot from a country where big corporations making cars and teaming with oil companies desintegrated a well working network of public transport. now only good for walks with boss'es dog...



here she is, funny b*tch (female dog, you!)

very funny widget

Carpenters Level

But I encourage readers lucky enough to have the newest hardware to give it a try, if only so they can ask their Windows-laptop-using friends, “Yeah, well can your laptop be used to hang a painting straight?” (Dan Frakes in Mac Gems Weblog)

africa

so after several shots in my shoulder, swallowing a couple of pills in advance and 24 hours in air or transit areas, i'm here, again. after of a couple of months of working routine, now i'm again close to really see what is and what is not important.

it is important to know how to save peoples' lives. the best is to make life saving course. no, the best best is to be a nurse, to be on duty all the times. then i would just scream - stop that car. we were passing an accident, a child - girl aged about ten - lying on the road, on one of the worse parts from an airport to a project place, in strange position, and arguing people around, an older african woman surprisingly sitting on a front seat of a not so old 4wd. i could just check her heartbeat... but i just looked, hearing mumbling of the driver, guide and my colleague, mmm what we can do. stop that car, was in my head long after i convinced myself that now it's too late to ask them to stop that bloody car and go back.

it is not important to look after things in africa, it's people we're going to look after. a new car will become older anyway, and a couple of little fingers drawing on car's cowling won't send it to wreck earlier than a few hours.

it's important to slow down. it takes more planning, and for new comers it means to be late often. one has to plan better, because even the same distance takes five minutes in europe so fifteen minutes should be okay, another five minutes would avoid taking over a truck overloaded with people and throwing red soft dust in their faces with big wheels of our a/c off-road limo.

it's important to surround with same thinking people when doing development work. in some way, the best could be the same age group. i don't want to generalize, but it seems with an age people tend to become less willing to share and more comfortable. sometimes even selfish. experiences are not the only curriculum.

i'm pleased to link my friend ester's blog and photos. she's going to africa soon and so far her posts are promising to have very interesting point of view.

in love

um, i again haven't been posting anything, perhaps because there's so many things going on. i'm learning to edit movies in that grrreat final cut, and soon i will have the first practical experience.

autumn is coming quite fast, there are still sunny days but darkness comes so fast now... every day much faster.

i've started to shoot pictures on raw format, after reading this help page. the iphoto support is cool, so is the filter in photoshop. i like the phrase "digital negative". you can really get a lot out of it and the price is not so high, i always thought that raw takes much more space than jpeg but now i can take 160 raw pictures instead of 320 jpegs.

and of course, hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy movie, i laughed through it.

holiweek

went on working holiday to north of cph, every morning and evening a swim in the sea, then picked up a girl space friend in that whoooo place, drove with her to wien in sounds of reggae. hung around for a couple of days. hot! call the beer hotline! smashing experience of chilling out listening to billy holiday verve compilation saturday late night.

then sister's place, parents and friends. too busy to relax. except a cool nite with fire, the best friend and a bottle of wine.

from a new bunch on flickr  shortly about two pictures. the darker one is taken at 11pm, the lighter one at half past eleven. the location matters. click if you don't believe. no gps info included but both are 0ev.

koru

almost a month, nothing happening to write about much at least issues coming thru auto-censor filter.

i shot about five hundred pictures for a calendar but haven't asked yet for permissions to publish them. but it was so far the biggest fun i have had with my friends from teacher's training college i met first 2001.

i shot some pictures testing my friend's new camera and had fun with them.

 

so much that when i got an excellent offer from my friend, i hesitated only half a minute to buy his older slr camera. i'm looking forward to get inspired soon! watch my flicker.




there are still places to enjoy in europa tour. i'm not joining. but i feel i'm on the beginning of changes, hopefully to good.

hit the road

this spring, i noticed that almost every day there's a new dead animal on the road. i'm going those thirty kms there and thirty back, so when is my turn? i'm recently reducing speed to eighty kmph (50 mph) not only forced by law, but reasonable in the countryside even when roads are straight and wide (i can do all the way on fifth gear). that's why (apart from that i don't want to disturb people living around almost parallel country road) i always take a highway when going to a swimming pool in a town only twenty kms east. it's been only once in five months i noticed a dead rabbit there.

dogme

have you read about that crazy dane?

"America is sitting on the world and therefore I am making films about it. I'd say 60% of the things I have experienced in my life are American, so in fact I am an American. But I can't go there and vote. That's why I am making films about America."

digart

nah, just playing a bit...



(click to enlarge. it's made from my eyes from that icon in the up right corner :)



(another brick in the wall. or wanted dead or alive :)

aki

just a quotation from cheering mail from another friend, aki:

"In finland we have a saying that's highly untranslatable but goes something like 'the one who reminds other of the past should be poked into eye with a wooden stick'. yeah we're very primitive. tikulla silmään sitä joka menneitä muistelee... works way better in finnish."

and he's got cool website, too.

a friend

this last weekend taught me a lot about friendship. i was almost becoming a bit bitter about that thingy but thanks to nice reunion with this girl i know again that bounds of friendship lead across the countries and months. thanks.

never was

this is a good one, saw on internet, maybe said by somebody famous, maybe just a line of a raper...

if you love something let it go.
if it comes back to you it's yours.
if it doesn't it never was.

big bro

it seems the big brother is going to be reality, and even in our little town. a company providing water and electricity is offering 100 mbps fibre. um, 90 out of 100 is dedicated for phone and telly. but even 10 left gives speed to download 20 mb in 16 seconds. price? 88 euro monthly, no installation fee.

my favourite three windmills on my way to the work mysteriously disappeared i would swear overnight. this is what is left, a little romantic lake.



um, talking about romantics... got a bit moody last days...

counting days

sunday's trip to west coast.



slushing through l'ecume des jours... i've just restarted my swimming stereotype and found out i can do counting without any tools. i just count up to twenty. the med was not to think about issues i could break my brain from without getting a point.

circle

so the circle has closed, i'm back in europe and there's a couple of thoughts, recommendations and the very last pictures.

dana and andrew are nice people busy with their lifestyle of studies, good work and interesting friends. on friday, i enjoyed them in a group of another active people in tv turn off action (why? "on average, a child witnesses average 8,000 murders on television by age 12"). depois, falei portugues no sabado a tarde com amigas de dana de leccaos de portugues brazil. and in the saturday's evening, we watched the corporation with another bunch of friends.

i already wrote about biking around dc on sunday while the guys were doing their studies. more photos.





in the evening, we watched another great movie, invisible children. i heartily recommend this very funny movie about very serious causa to everybody.

then there's time to leave... last shower with three taps, the smallest plane and directions to vienna.



and then i'm back, after hot atlanta, freezing cleveland and blossoming dc back in not-yet-green dinamarka.

sky mall

i'll be soon landing the seventh of eight flights in the last fourteen days and i'm again skimming through the bizarre sky mall magazine. i could order very funny stuff from those 200 pages, like:

• starwars popcorn machine,
• electronic card shuffler,
• digital wine cooler/warmer,
• hedgehog cheerful smile garden sculpture,
• alarm clock with bird chirping,
• "dog off" handheld unit that protects you again hostile dogs,
• automatic self-opening pet food tray,
• flea zapper comb which kills fleas instantly using a low electric charge,
• talking bottle opener,
• dual showerhead,
• touchless trash can, a completely foot- and hands-free waste-disposal system,
• all those crazy baseball and golf computerized tools,
• copyrighted "fishnets & heels" sculptural table (yuck),
• a lamp, life-size woman wih a shade instead of head (yuuuck),
• storage center which holds up to 53 batteries,
• full vga video in startrek-like glases.

i mean, some or even most of the stuff makes sense, like not touching the trash lid by hands, but still, i haven't seen anything like this in europe before...

george

earlier in the afternoon i went to national gallery. so many things to see!

holocaust

i'm having a special time in holocaust museum in d.c. since i went out with andrew's bike this afternoon, i've got a couple of interesting synchronicities, with music, people i think about, paintings in national gallery. my shuffle played zuzana navarovaa, who died of cancer last winter. i saw my birthplace town's name in here on a wall, as there was jewish community once there, too. and i saw the book of esther.

may in april

i know, late time to create another post. sorry guys. so, first i'd like to mention, that i'm reading very interesting book. "what women don't dream about" by olga sommer. stories about relationships, so real, that i'm feeling dizzy. if i ever turn into such a monster making a woman's life so unbearable, i would rather stay single forever or die young.



but i'd still give it a try first. i do miss a girlfriend. especially while traveling. the next week i'm going to take off something like five times or so, again, but it is not funny any more without holding somebody's hand. but also in normal life. to talk. to listen. to cuddle. come on, it's may, very soon!



the country is big, cool, bold, strange, different, green. did i mention it is green?



the town is cool. although, it feels strange to see the afroamerican majority always doing worse jobs.



even the party we went on friday night was 99% white. um, it was a fund raising party. people pay $30 entrance and then they eat yummy mexican and choose from many different brands of, usually locally brewed, beers. actually, one od them was pilsner urquell, and i have to say, although i'm surely good in beers, it was the most boring one. it just tasted only like... a beer.



we went back midnight deciding not to continue in partying to be fresh for saturday's renaissance day in south atlanta. i even did that thing with big hammer hitting it hard to ring a bell (4 times out of 5! movie available soon) and saw really good and funny performances.



sunday we went, although i wasn't too keen in it, into cable news network headquarters. lately i had soem warm moments there, when i went to aotearoa for a while (on a map which was across the mall's floor) and i had salmon sushi there. yumm!



then, in the afternoon, we went for a tour to stone mountain. stone mountain is one big stone, as big as mountain. btw, anybody remembers lubica from jlsmnde?



now, another almost week of work.

shoes

on domestic usa flights one has to take a laptop from a bag and put it through x-rays separately. not only a laptop: shoes, too.

analog

i did some polaroid pictures while easter holiday. the first one was at ester's sister place of her cute li'l girl. the second and third ones with friends in brno, within the time my credit card was left in a stupid cash machine which doesn't force people to take the card first then money.

the fourth was my sister with her family. and then i borrowed it to a new friend and forgot to pick it up :) but it is perfect, as she has a li'l girl, too so they will have another pictures.