Crude Technologies

Gary Stix, in his March 2006 Scientific American article The Elusive Goal of Machine Translation, writes:

Natrium Nepal Asia legend: The lion, the sorceress, the evil spirit wardrobe "already lack" the evil spirit abstains the trilogy "rich in poetic and artistic flavor, also has not let" the Harley baud "the series novel have the infinite pleasure the undercurrent to be turbulent.

Technorati Tags: AI, translation

The preceding gibberish was brought to you by a Chinese-to-English translation carried out by Altavista's Babelfish, the popular Internet-based translator. In coherent English, from a bilingual page on the Web site of Taiwan's China Post, it reads:

"The Chronicles of Narnia" doesn't come near the poetic vision of "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, and it doesn't have the dark undercurrents that makes the "Harry Potter" series endlessly fascinating.

This reminds me of an email in English that I once received from a Russian programmer, and not having the slightest idea what it said. And I know Russian! Moral of the story: if you want a human to read it, have a human write it.

Posted by MVA at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

AP reports that there is a new computer virus that finds files on Winny users' PCs and makes them available to others by sharing them:

The malware, called Antinny, finds random files on Winny users' PCs and makes them available on the file-sharing network. So far, the data leaked have been varied and plentiful: passwords for restricted areas at airports, police investigations, customer information, sales reports, staff lists.

The constantly updated virus seems to have spared no one — airlines, local police forces, mobile phone companies, the National Defense Agency. Even an antivirus software manufacturer has suffered.

Who in their right mind would put file-sharing software on the same machine that has secret investigation documents?

Posted by MVA at 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The download package includes:

• wvc1dmoe.dll - WMV9 Advanced Profile Encoder DMO BETA
• wvc1dmod.dll - WMV9 Advanced Profile Decoder DMO
• WMCmd.vbs - Updated WME9 command-line encoder script

Install requirements:

• Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 SP1
• Windows Media Format SDK 9.5 or Windows Media Player 10

As you can see, this release is aimed primarily at XP users who want to try the new WVC1 encoder beta but don't want to install the full WMP11 beta, and Server 2003 users who can't install WMP11 beta anyway. You can't install this update over WMP11 (XP or Vista) - nor do you want to. WVC1 encoder is already a part of WMF11 runtime.

The package also includes an update to WMCmd.vbs, the first since Windows Media Encoder 9 Series was released 3.5 years ago. The update to WMCmd.vbs will only be installed if you already have WME9 installed on your system! It will overwrite your existing WMCmd.vbs in your WME9 folder, so if you really really really want to keep the old one for some reason - make a backup of it prior to installation.

If you have already installed WMP11 beta and would only like to get the WMCmd.vbs update, I have made it available as a separate download:

http://www.citizeninsomniac.com/WMV/WMCmd_20060519.zip

So what's new about the WMCmd.vbs? Here's the changelog:

5-19-2006:

• Added support for WVC1 encoding (WMV9 Advanced Profile video codec).
• Added support for WMA10 Professional low-bitrate encoding and changed WMA codec identifiers to be version-agnostic (i.e. WMASTD instead of WMA9STD)
• Added command-line parameters for advanced video settings otherwise exposed only through the registry. For details, see: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/codecadvancedsettings.aspx
• Added support for Avisynth (.avs) script sources and worked around a related duration bug in the source plugin.
• Rewrote the encoding progress screen so that it estimates encoding time, ETA and encoding speed.
• Added command-line parameters for music centric metadata such as album, track number, release year, genre, etc.
• Added metadata summary to the output screen.
• Added documentation for the new advanced video settings to the inline help.
• Reorganized inline help documentation and grouped settings in a more intuitive way.
• Fixed bug where encoder script would sometimes hang at the end of encoding process.
• Improved error handling for bad source files.

Yep, the encoder script now supports .avs inputs. The truth of the matter is that it always did. You see, WME9 has a concept of source plugins which allows it to treat file inputs, screen captures and device captures in a very similar fashion. It uses its own AVI source plugin to read AVI files, and that plugin cannot retrieve the duration property from AVS scripts - for one reason or another. So the AVS workaround was to retrieve the duration using some other method. Wmcmd being VBScript based, it wasn't possible to use DirectShow or VfW, so I used the next best thing: WMP ActiveX control. So the first time you use WMCmd.vbs to encode an Avisynth script you might get a dialog box from WMP asking you if you're sure you want to open an .avs file in WMP. Just click the 'Don't ask me again' check box, say Yes, and you'll never be bothered by the question again. If for some reason the duration can't be retrieved again (i.e. XP with absolutely no WMP present), you'll still be able to encode - you just won't have the pretty progress bar to tell you how long you need to take the lunch break for. :)

Finally... If you have questions or comments regarding either this install package, this specific encoder DLL (wvc1dmoe.dll) or the updated WMCmd.vbs - please post them here. If you have comments and questions about WMV9 AP encoding in general, they might be better suited for this thread.

Posted by MST at 06:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A YouTube video (18:08) that narrates the history of the "Amen Break," a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music -- a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures...
watch the video | digg story

I love Digg, but it's depressing how frequently readers get off topic. Digg thought this was saying hip-hop made the beat famous, and digressed into a discussion of the authenticity of hip-hop versus the artistry that came before.

Even the blurb calls this a "video" missing the point that you're listening to an acetate, a transient pressing of an original work likely to last only about 50 plays in the analog world.

If you're interested in his "point", skip to 14:45, and listen to something often discussed on Digg but rarely illustrated so artistically.

Although the Digg story links to YouTube, the original piece is called "Can I Get an Amen?" by Nate Harrison, 2004.  Here, let me "sample" it for you:

"I'm talking about [the Amen Break] here because I think its story is a good example illustrating the rise and subsequent problematic of digital sampling in relation to today's increasingly stringent copyright and trademark laws.

"To trace the history of the Amen Break is to trace the history of a brief period of time when it seemed digital tools offered a potentially unlimited amount of new forms of expression. Where cultural production, at least musically, was full of possibilities by virture of being able to freely appropriate from the musical past, to make new combinations, and thus, new meanings.

"The story demonstrates that a society 'free to borrow and build upon the past is culturally richer than a controlled one.'"

The last 5 minutes riff on this theme.

Posted by MST at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Digg says, "A simple little tutorial shows you how you can format ANY harddrive using good ole' Notepad!" -- [ originally dugg article | digg story ]

Well, 1's and 0's in notepad do not binary make. So, for the community at large, here's something that's actually helpful.

The following code snippet will destroy the partition tables on a HDD so it looks like it has never been partitioned. You can use this if Windows refuses to repartition a BSD drive, for example.

In DOS debug mode:

 
-a 100
int 13
int 3
[press return again]
-rax
:380
-rbx
:1000
-rcx
:1
-rdx
:80 (for first drive or 81 for second drive)
-f 1000 L e000 0
-g=100
-q

Thats it. HDD is smoked. Reboot and you're ready to repartition.

 

Posted by MST at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)