MP3 Players for the Gym Geek

{moszoomimglink:ifp790}So far, I have been using an iRiver iFP 790 at the gym, and it has worked pretty ok for me. Not spectacularly well, not spectacularly poorly. Its 256MB are definitely getting to be a little small; after a year or so, it’s definitely acting up: the headphone plug is noisy and doesn’t grip the jacks any more; the buttons on top (not the best placement anyway) are starting to become insensitive; and the luster on the shiny red exterior is wearing off.

Who is using moszoomimglink?

So, I realized after the upgrade to Joomla 1.0.11 that just *MAYBE* my version 2.1 of zOOm was a *TAD* outdated and upgraded to slick new 2.5.1. Great job, guys!

I made everything work, imported my data into the new zOOm, and everything worked just fine – except for my favorite mambot, the trusted moszoomimglink, that delivers those saucy thumbnails that you have gotten used to in my posts.

Well, I went to work on the problem, quickly found out that the only issue was the invocation of the correct set of include files (which I found quite astonishing), and there we were.

Acts of Faith (P. Caputo)

Sometimes a book can be astonishing. Acts of Faith, a story of relief agency work in the misery of South Sudan, is such a work. In one fell swoop, it clears the mystery surrounding the actual state of affairs in Sudan, and makes a compelling case for the uniqueness of the situation. Nobody comes off as the good guy in this book, and not many as the bad guys.

Sudan is one of those places, like Rwanda a few years ago, where you only hear bits and pieces of a catastrophe unfolding. Whenever you hear something, there is a bit of truth to the lies on both ends, and you are none the wiser. On one end, a repressive regime is trying to ethnically and religiously cleanse the country of blacks and Christians; on the other end, a terrorist militia is recruiting children for the dirty work of attacking a sovereign government.

Fixed moszoomimglink for zOOm 2.5.1

Well, it was easier than expected to port moszoomimglink to the new release of zOOm! All you have to do is install the new mambot after disabling the old one… Well, ok, not that easy, I haven’t had a chance to repackage it yet.

To make your life bearable, though, I can tell you all that needs to be changed is the initiation sequence. In the file moszoomimglink.php, there is a long list of statements like the following:

hugin

It’s been a while I stopped using hugin, an open source panorama stitching tool, because it crashed all the time on me and it was unclear how to work with it.

I just downloaded the latest release (an ominous 0.6.1), and they somehow got it to work just fine! I am impressed! Download it from here

Use is a bit of a problem on first try. You install the application, start it, then add a bunch of pictures that can be stitched together. Now you select two subsequent pictures from the tabs. Select a point on the left, then the corresponding on the right, and then right mouse button: voila!

ZooM broken

Darn it! After upgrading to Joomla 1.0.11, zOOm didn’t allow me to upload images any longer. It just shows me an empty page, no matter what option I select to add images. That’s certainly a security upgrade, but not necessarily the one I was after.

Independently, I went online and found out that there is a brand new version of zOOm available, 2.5.1 (I am still at 2.1.something), and I am deciding whether to upgrade. Follow me on my path to self-immolation on the altar of progress!

[Joke] Submitted to Slashdot

Slashdot was discussing a lobbyist being appointed to the post of Cyber-Security czar at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The dominant mood was that lobbyists are taking over the country / have taken over the country. There was though this little pearl of a comment:

The Department of Homeland Security was originally created using an alloy of Bureaucratritum and Administrontium. Sadly, the amount of alloy used exceeded the critical mass, resulting in a Black Hole of un-imagined proportions. Our only hope now is to collide the DHS with another Black Hole of unimagined proportions such as the SSA.

Stars, stars, stars

I woke up early again, this morning (around 2:15a) and decided I might as well stay on California time for the next week. So I went down to start the generato and realized the sky was perfectly clear.

An anemic sickle of a moon was shining its yellowish light from low on the horizon, and from Hilo an orange cloud poisoned the sky – undoubtedly the city lights, probably much closer Pepe`ekeo and not the real City. Otherwise, the sky was full of nothing but stars.

My little koki

Every night, when I go to bed, there is a little frog singing the praise of the land. It makes a strange sound, first a lower pitched, short vowel, followed by a much higher pitched, longer vowel, that sounds like it has the stress. Low pitch-high pitch. Sounds like ko – ki. And that’s what the little critter is called: a koki.

Unfortunately, koki can be a real pest. They are minuscule (males reach about 40 mm, or tiny), but emit this sound that can easily reach 100dB. Which is to say: really loud. They are endemic to Puerto Rico, but some idiot thought they were cute and imported them to Hawai`i. By now, there is an enormous population in the State, with deleterious consequences to B&B operations and poor chaps trying to sleep at night.

Planning for the next stage

Hau`Oli Mau was a pleasant surprise: the weather is good, the pasture lush, and the house not infested by critters or otherwise damaged. Everything looks grea, and my life here is suddenly easier.

There are a few things that need to be done, though:

• The carport is not even started
• The power situation needs to be addressed
• The windows have to be put in
• The floor needs to be sanded
• The permanent bathroom counters need to be put in
• Furniture?
• Some appliances are missing
• I have to get pasture animals

Aside from the carport, which I need to take care of soon (because the previous owners want the rest of the construction material) and the power situation (because running off the generator is noisy, smelly, and expensive), the other items can take time. Well, getting in the windows would not be bad, either…