Tag: english

HDMI underscan

May 5, 2012
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The other day I was translating late night and I had to use my headphones to catch a few lines. However the output from the jack of my speakers was so crappy that I rather decided to rather fetch my HDMI cable and connect my screen using that, then use the screen’s audio output. Why didn’t I use HDMI until now, even though it’s supposed to be superior?

That’s quite simple. I tried connecting it once, then this quite big black frame showed up. I couldn’t fix it instantly so I just gave up and rather connected using the analog cable. This time I didn’t give up so easily and googled. It took me a while to figure out what this black frame thing was called at all, and then how to solve it.

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Make me laugh

March 22, 2012
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You know not blogging for months would be funny if I didn’t have anything to write about. But I do. I just simply can’t find the time to sit down and write blogposts about movies I watched, places I went, stuff I did…

It takes too much determination and I could use that determination for more creative purposes. And when I’m done with those, I’m back to the point where my brain is so numb i’d rather not write anything with the purpose of publishing it. Tough luck. Maybe when school starts this will change. Or get worse.

Encoding

March 5, 2012
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No, i’m not an encoder. And it’s apparent. Not to mention i’m using linux, so it’s not even as simple as grabbing a random Free MPEG-2 To H264 (30 days trial) (not malware) (confirmed download) and hope it works.

Problem is that when i record Phi Brain, sometimes there’s this weird show before it, and i end up recording a few minutes of that as well because of the safety margin. However, that show is aired in 4:3 instead of 16:9 and i think even the audio encoding might be different, not to mention the switch messes up all the headers possible, so no players are willing to open it (the only one that could open it was actually WMP and honestly, i’d prefer not having to reboot to Windows or using a virtual machine).

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Record

March 4, 2012
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Okay, I think that was a record. A whole of 5 posts in a month? I’ve never been so lazy before. Or cared so little, actually. There’s not much going on in my life anyway, except for translating lots of anime, going to the gym and running every day, and playing my guitar and bass.

Actually i learned a song, the opening song for Thermae Romae by Chatmonchy on guitar, but i need to practice it some more before i would dare to record a video and upload it. I’ve been also practicing RHCP songs (Dani California, Factory of Faith, Emit Remmus, Snow), because I really want to get on stage with it next semester.

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Starbucks Brazil

February 24, 2012
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I was a bit surprised the other day when i went to the local Starbucks and saw that they have a new special coffee out-it’s been i-don’t-even-know-how-long since they last had one. The Brazil roast or blend or whatever you want to call it is supposedly a mild blend, so i didn’t really have high expectations for it.

I prefer dark, full bodied roasts. Brazil is definitely not one of those, but it smells sweet, almost like honey, and freshly brewed it doesn’t even feel all too mild. Of course it’s not a stinging harsh thing like the French roast, but there’s a however quickly fading touch that i consider the real face of every coffee, that moment when you can feel its aroma all at once.

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Opeth

February 18, 2012
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The other day i went to Osaka for the second Opeth gig since i’m in Japan (the first was back in 2009), and it was awesome. Although back when the Heritage album came out, i wasn’t exactly happy with it, since then it grew on me, and i didn’t mind all that much that many of the songs at the show were from that album.

It was nice to have more quiet songs, songs when the people around me didn’t want to mosh (i don’t think Opeth is the kind of music you’re supposed to mosh to), but when i heard the first sounds of Face of Melinda, Heir Apparent or the Grand Conjuration, my heart skipped a beat. Ghost Reveries is still my favorite Opeth album, so i was very happy that they played at least one song off it.

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As for SOPA

January 18, 2012
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That’s the big topic now on the net. The american government and their stupid laws trying to stop people from violating flawed copyright regulations. Copyright and the whole patent system as it is now is fundamentally flawed, because their purpose is different from what it should be.

It might not have been that apparent before, but now that the internet increased the world’s information flow many many times, it’s obvious that regulations are not written to protect intellectual property (eg someone else claiming that they created something that you created) but to protect the profits of the people owning that property.

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Me the fansubber

January 13, 2012
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It’s been a year since after a discussion about what would worth subbing in the winter season, iMon suggested that i help out with Tokimeki‘s Gosick release. Back then i didn’t even know that there was a thing called CrunchyRoll and what simulcasts are, so i joined and translated six episodes for the group, of which 5 were released (and also two of the Megane Kanojo something ova, which never got released).

Even though the slowsub business was obviously not for me (i’d been translating Xros Wars for half a year then, trying to compete with the speed and quality of RyRo), it got me on track, and i applied to gg, one of the few groups that i knew by name, and got in. Then applied to and got in Commie and got recruited to WhyNot, and that’s pretty much how it stayed for a year now.

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Credit

January 11, 2012
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Are you familiar with the phrase “subprime loan”? It means a loan to someone who “may have a difficulty of paying it back”. Thus, a loan that has a really high risk of default.

Underrating the risks on mortgages and/or lying about the risks to the investors is one of the primary causes behind the 2008 financial collapse in the US, triggered by the burst of the housing bubble. That is the crisis that shook the whole world economy, made investors re-evaluate their investments and could even be blamed partly for the current crisis in Europe.

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That body

January 11, 2012
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For all the eager and starved guys out there, no girl pics are waiting here. Just a rant about how i hate my body. For all the people who almost got scared away by the disgusting emo tone in the previous sentence, i’m not going to write about how i want to cut my wrists because my hair is oily or because i got a spot on my chin or other perceived faults, as i’m not 13, and even if i were, i’m not a stupid whiny bitch. I’m just pissed off by the biology of my body every now and then.

Sometimes it does things that i can’t make any sense of. You know that after a certain age you just know how much your next moon’s blood will be, sleep you need, how much you can drink, and in general how much your body can take. And then my body sometimes just decides that it will ignore my statistics and assumptions about it and do something totally unexpected. The best of it is that that usually happens at the worst possible time. For example today this lump of cells housing/generating/manifesting my soul and conscience (underline appropriate according to your beliefs) decided that attending a class and the orientation about next term’s seminar isn’t important, and ignored the wake-up alarm (twice). This is not the first time i oversleep without any particular reason at an important time, and it really pisses me off. (Really.) (Really.)

And if you add that to the obscene idiocy that evolution displayed when human teeth evolved and other minor annoyances, i think you understand when i say i want technology to evolve so far so that i could replace parts of my body. Without looking different.