January 30, 2019

Saaay. I Have a Tech Question

Say you have a .wav file.

Say it is not capturing the sounds of a conversation between two bats reviewing a performance of the Moscow Philharmonic doing a fusion mash-up performance of Chinese opera and baroque classical.
Say instead its just something of lower bandwidth and complexity, like industrial  or dance.
Say its run time is an hour and a half long. 
Would there be any non-worrisome reason that, say,1.58 gigabytes would be a reasonable size for that file?


Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:30 PM | Comments (7) | Add Comment
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So...

...I'm lookin' at Crunchyroll and seeing a vast wasteland. Heck, even the slime show is pretty much painting by numbers now. 


Any recommendations from my loyal readers? 

ISTR there was supposed to be a show about cute girls doing air mercenary work in Ki-43s (cutely) but searches for variations on [cute girls flying Hayabusas anime] turns up zilch. Perhaps it's a movie or a game. Perhaps I imagined it. 

Oh well. Enough of my 1st world weeb problems. Back to homework. 

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January 29, 2019

OK. This is Going to Annoy Some People

Apparently having learned A lesson from his magazine's recent defenestration of some high-schoolers and the resulting blowback, Kyle Smith over at NRO decides to go after less formidable prey; a fellow who can't defend himself because he's dead. 


You see, there's a new documentary out now that has premiered at Sundance, that regurgitates all the vile allegations against the late Michael Jackson. 

Now, I am very open to believing just about any horrific tale of predation coming out of Big Media. Such atrocities, particularly against children are a real issue that warrants attention and implacable sanction. However, these allegations against Jackson have been pretty much debunked. 

Somewhat to my astonishment, Razorfist of all people seems to consider this matter a personal crusade and has been doing the research the press won't do for at least two years. if you are interested in WHY these allegations are complete BS, well the prime paragon of profanity has got you covered here as well as in the embedded video below which he posted yesterday. 

 Trigger Warning: Rated T for Tourettes 

Here's the thing...
While acknowledging that he was extremely talented, I'm actually not a particular fan of Michael Jackson and, frankly, his effete mannerisms give me hives. However, I also think its important that my hangups not be someone else's problem. 

Something is truly whacked in our society when I (a bit of a social conservative) have to be the one speaking up for whackadoodle eccentrics  and the libertarian blog Instapundit, has as I type this, 131 comments on the matter almost universally supportive of what appears to be a meritless hit piece.

It is crucial to the health of our culture that our society allow eccentric oddballs to exist. That was Michael Jackson's REAL crime. He was a goofy loon who didn't give a tinkers damn about how the scolds and meangrrls thought he should comport himself. I think that he showed poor judgement at times and if there were actual proof of these allegations I'd be on board with digging up his grave and desecrating his corpse. But, there's no proof and a lot of evidence to the contrary. Jackson's good name is being sullied by a bunch of lying lampreys who are, in turn, being facilitated by a culture that has, even more than usual, become the implacable foe of zany bohemians. 

And I'm sick of it.

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January 28, 2019

33 Years On

They dared to ride fire. 

We do not honor their memories by embracing timidity. 


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January 27, 2019

A Bullet Hell Side-Scroller Re-imagined in 3-D

An atypical but kind of fun use of MMD.




For those wondering "What the Hell an I looking at?" This is what Touhou actually looks like.
 


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January 24, 2019

Meanwhile, at SHOT Show....


"So much tactical. So very fierceness."

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January 22, 2019

Meanwhile In Space

An interview by John Michael Godier with the same Dr. Avi Loeb who we noted previously had suggested that the bizarre acceleration of the interstellar object might be due to its being artificial. While this was the last of the list of possibilities listed in the short paper, it was (not unexpectedly) the only hypothesis of his that really made it into the headlines.

It appears now that they've effectively lost Omuamua, which turns out to be even weirder than originally thought. 




  "It's probably much smaller than initially thought." 
"And it's SHINY."

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January 21, 2019

Do Not Forget That The Three Day Weekend Some Enjoy is Here For a Reason

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More on "Ultima Thule"

Well, the high-rez images are starting to come in. It looks like it's pretty much what we'd expect a typical proto-comet to be, aside from the contact binary aspect (though as Wikipedia notes  67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko, the Shirtstorm comet, is one as well).



The fact that they are able to get pictures like this from a probe the size of a grand piano over a light day away is absolutely incredible. In spite of all the idiocy happening down here we can take pride in this amazing accomplishment of science and engineering and rejoice that its celebration is untainted by any of our contemporary stupidities, giving us all hope that... 


"You do know the next video on the page is Richard C. Hoagland 
explaining that this is an abandoned alien spaceship right?"

Well, crap.


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So There's an Ap. for EVERYTHING Now



Clearing out my tabs I encountered...this.


I don't know what I clicked on to take me there, but I find it strangely compelling.



Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:16 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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About Air


Air should not hurt.


That is all.

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January 20, 2019

Gell-Man Effect



Neo has a good piece on the attempted defenestration of the boys from Covington. 

 Way too many people reporting this sort of thing and making it go viral on Twitter are uninterested in getting the facts right or telling the truth. They know from previous experience that a lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on. They count on it, and they know that most of the people ranting and raving about this and wanting to punch that Covington kid in the mouth and ruin his life will never, never ever, believe that the first story wasn’t the real story.
Read the whole thing.

 
There is an abnormally long post at Instapundit covering it as well.   

The Gell Mann Amnesia Effect is real and it is toxic. 


Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

— Michael Crichton

There are people foreign and domestic who want us to fall upon each other without mercy. A huge amount of what passes as news is intended to facilitate this. Double check everything you can. 

Related: Styxenhammer666 has a video on this, but its on Bitchute now because YouTube declared defending these kids to be racist and pulled it from You Tube

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 09:52 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Well Here's the Headline of the Day.




I thought this sort of thing only happened in cartoons. 



Well now we all know better. 



No word yet on whether there was any collusion with the Zeon Archduchy.

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January 19, 2019

A Troubling Conversation

One of the advantages of being on a College Campus is that there will often be some sort of academic shindig which will bring together a bunch of people at the top of their field who are, for a brief time, accessible to us interested laymen. I recently had a conversation with an academic who specializes in China. I asked what said academic thought about the situation in The Middle Kingdom and where it was headed over the next 5-10 years.  I mentioned things that I'd heard regarding the economy, social credit system, consolidation of power under Xi Jinping and the analogies to Germany in the lead up to WW1. This can be gleaned from reading the news or the output of any think tank (not purchased by China). However, Chinese culture is so very different from ours that I don't feel very confident about what can be gleaned from such analogies. I'm old enough to remember the U.S.S.R. (a rather less inscrutable organization) just collapsed to the utter astonishment of all the best experts and we're 4 years past the centenial of a previous group of experts being amazed at how some damned fool thing in the Balkans suddenly became rather consequential. 

    
     To my surprise the academic in question pulled me aside partially closed a door and spoke to me in hushed tones. Now I should note that this individual has a reputation for being very positive and optimistic about the P.R.C. and had been doing research in China last month. What they'd seen had caused a reassessment of the academic's premises. China outlawed Christmas this past year. I'd heard something about this but its significance had been lost on me because I was unaware that China celebrated Christmas at all. Aparently it was, until this year, a fairly big deal in the cities. More significant to the China Hand I was speaking to is the fact that the Yuletide festivities were replaced with a celebration of another birthday; That of Mao Zedong

The academic in question was even more concerned about the recent Provincial elections.  There's now a colonel or a general on the provincial politburos. I'm told there's also a political officer and that neither of these positions have existed  in the civilian government since the cultural revolution. The Historian I was talking to says that this is a very recent (past several months) development and indicates that the C.C.P. may be preparing to deal with something along the lines of civil unrest, or a major war. 

The China expert was also somewhat freaked out by the Winnie the Pooh thing and the general censoriousness that has become so much more marked in the last two years. 

Anyway, after the conversation I was presented with a big stack of books and was told to return them to a contact person by the end of Spring Break. So I have reading to do on top of my other work. 

Not reading simplified Chinese, I can't confirm anything and I don't want to give the professor's name because I got the distinct impression (from the hushed tone) that discussing this might cause them issues. 

So this whole post is about as well cited as a Buzzfeed article. However, the conversation did drive home the fact that we don't know what we don't know and the few tidbits I gleaned did not give me the warm fuzzies. 

Take with a grain of salt, but I get the distinct impression that china, and perhaps by extension the world are, over the next few years, likely to experience interesting times. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:47 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Yesterday Was a Red Letter Day!

For it marked not only a centennial but one that is likely to have far reaching implications.





In case any on you are unfamiliar with this individual, here is his complete bio. 


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Dispatch From the Dumpster Fire Department

Have you ever wondered what Tumblr really means by "Adult Content"? 

Have you ever wondered what sorts of things will get flagged as such over there now? 



"I am less than edified."

I'm pretty sure any lingering confusion is not the fault of Ms. Doran, who has graciously provided us with the answer to "What will get flagged at Tumblr?".  Note that no attempt was made to address the larger question of "WTF Tumblr?".


Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:22 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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January 18, 2019

Oh Dear

Via Dot Clue: It appears that someone is making a live action version of Gakko Gurashi (School Live).


Warning! SpoilerTrailer! SpoilerTrailer!!

This could be very good or very bad but I don't think that mediocrity is in the cards. 

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:08 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Subscribe Star Status

 I actually managed to secure a Subscribe Star account some weeks ago just under the wire before they shut down subscriptions, so I do get their updates.


It appears that after several false starts, and unhelpfully pollyanish reports from their advocates, they have managed to start processing payments.

Dear Friends,

We are at the point when we start getting back to our normal operations. Starting this Monday, we will begin charging live accounts of the existing subscribers in order to restore money flow to our content creators. Simultaneously, we will enable a few selected profiles to accept new subscribers.

Started with smaller size accounts, we will progress towards the bigger ones, just to keep the load under control while testing everything along the way.

After we done with the processing of all existing billings, we will get back to the long list of applications that are waiting in line for the review and approval. And right after that, we will enable all profiles to accept new subscribers and receive donations. At the same time subscribers, who joined the "free tier” with $0 subscription price may change the subscription tier to ones with real USD values.

Always yours,

SubscribeStar.com Team [ /quote]

Now.

Having looked at the site off and on for a few weeks I think that they need a much better search function to browse their various creators which vary in interests about as broadly as the electromagnetic spectrum. 

It's also a Russian site and all that that implies.

And they're not quite fully up and running yet.  

On the other hand, the site seems to work. The site blog is regularly updated. Anecdotally, people who have moved there seem happy with their overall experience (current unpleasantness notwithstanding). 

Finally, the Subscribe Star team have been Gandalf at the bridge with regards to internet censorship and they took a serious hit for it. Free speech is their only brand now and they will live or die as much by their adherence to that ideal as by more normal market forces. 

If that appeals to you click here and sign up.

Full disclosure: I (theoretically) get a cut of the profits from anyone who subscribes through that "sign up"link. This is theoretical because I'd need to give them  my checking account info regards which I am still "waiting and seeing". Take that for what you will.

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January 17, 2019

And Then More Stuff Happened

Apologies for two consecutive posts concerning the banality of my Walter Mitty lifestyle. Here, as partial compensation is something pleasant by Sukabu.



Additionally, Sukabu still has a Tumbler page...somehow...Infer what you will from that statement.
more...

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January 16, 2019

And Then This Happened



Art by Mocha

My life is over.
Everything was for naught.
Hope has left the building.

more...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 10:42 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
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