Thoughts
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New Episodes Up July 9, 2012
Looking for a podcast fix? Got you covered:
Comics Coast To Coast: This week we talk to Carter Reid of The Zombie Nation
http://comicscoasttocoast.com/episode-143-the-carter-reid-interview
FilmSack: The One About Barb Wire: Pamela Anderson movie. Sacked.
http://filmsack.com/2012/07/122-the-one-about-barb-wire
New Episodes Up May 14, 2012
Looking for a podcast fix? Got you covered:
Comics Coast To Coast: This week we talk to Mark Stokes of Zombie Boy Comics.
http://comicscoasttocoast.com/episode-138-the-mark-stokes-interview
FourCast 118: No Ultrabooks, Just Paper Books: While the name ultrabook will become meaningless, eBooks will not replace the dead trees entirely.
New Episodes Up
Looking for a podcast fix? Got you covered:
Filmsack: Hard Target – Join me, Scott, Randy and Ibbott as we dissect John Woo’s first American film. I wanna see it again…but this time in super slow mo and up close. http://filmsack.com/2012/05/116-the-one-about-hard-target/
The Final Score: It’s the video game podcast for the rest of us. Join me, Scott and Nicole as we skim the surface of what’s going on in our gaming world. I think I remember Scott rapping in this one. Hmmm… http://finalscoreshow.com/2012/05/final-score-85-punch-kick-jump/
Comics Coast To Coast: This week we record in Canada! Join me, Joel, Matthew and Denver (in spirit) as we hit a quick episode to talk about this Superhero Summer with all the movies. http://comicscoasttocoast.com/episode-137-the-summer-movie-episode
Wheelchair Accessible?
Wheelchair people. This way!
Good luck!
Banking Some Food
About a week ago, a plea went out from one of our church members that our local food bank was running out of supplies. Although the community always donates around holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, etc., donations were currently down and the food bank was suffering due to the shortage. While we donated at church, I felt there was more we could be doing to help.After speaking to my wife Suzanne about what our family could do, I came up with an idea. If we were the ones needing help and we didn’t have any extras such as milk, butter or any other perishable foods, what would we want to receive? What could we donate that would be a complete meal for a needy family, not just a can of this or a box of that?
Then I took it a step further. Could we take our weekly food budget, split it in half and purchase a week’s worth of groceries for our family and give duplicates to the food bank? Things we would actually eat ourselves, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
At first, my family wasn’t exactly thrilled about the idea. But the more we discussed it, we all began to get excited and the ideas started flowing. The initial problem was trying to come up with complete non-perishable meals. No spaghetti since we couldn’t donate hamburger meat. No mashed potatoes since we couldn’t donate milk and butter.
Our creativity kicked in, and we found new ways to solve problems. Breakfast was easy – Pop tarts or oatmeal. Lunches weren’t so hard – tuna, rice, Chef Boyardee or ramen noodles. After school snacks for the boys – applesauce or pudding cups. We even purchased chips and cookies, along with olive oil and salt & pepper.
Dinners were a little harder. We came across some canned chili that looks as good as homemade. Pair that up with cornbread mix that only needs water added and you have your first meal. Fettuccine and alfredo sauce with canned white meat chicken and cheesy parmesan biscuits for our next meal. We decided on three complete boxed meals for our last meals of the week – chicken and potatoes, Asian stir fry and pizza pasta.
By this point, even the boys were ready to give. They used their allowance to purchase a big bag of gummy bears and candy bars – one for them and one for the food bank. I’m so proud of them. I think they are starting to get the hang of it. They are excitingly awaiting donation day.
By the way, we came in .98 cent under budget. So buy a stick of gum.
NoTube
On the podcast The Final Score I do a gameplay review segment called The Odd Mod. Each week I pick a weird modification of a game and I review it during the show. On show 25 of The Final Score I chose the mod QuickFlip for Quake 1. I recorded my gameplay and posted it on YouTube and linked to it for everyone to see. This has worked great in the past.
However, this time after I uploaded my gameplay I noticed that the audio was missing from my video and I received this email from YouTube shortly thereafter:
Dear thebriandunaway,
Your video, output, may have content that is owned or licensed by WMG.
No action is required on your part; however, if you are interested in learning how this affects your video, please visit the Content ID Matches section of your account for more information.
Sincerely,
- The YouTube Team
It is true that the Quake mod has embedded the song “Hit The Road Jack” performed by Ray Charles which you can obviously hear in my gameplay review.
The video is a little over 1 minute long and contains a mix of the song in question, Quake audio effects and KickFlip audio effects. So my question is this: Technically speaking this is a review of gameplay. The song is embedded in the game. Legally shouldn’t I be able to post such a review without getting permission from the creators?
Once again, I am asking legally. I’m not asking whether youtube has the right to refuse service to anyone.
Also, this seemed to be pretty automated. The audio was cut almost immediately. I wonder what kind of AI they are running over there to catch all this or if there is some guy there watching all the videos. Weirdo.
By the way, you can hear the audio if you go to my page on YouTube http://youtube.com/thebriandunaway but not on the direct link for the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZKJW1ccuf0
UPDATE: Thanks for the heads up from Aaron Spain in the comments about contesting the ruling on YouTube. I dug a little further and was able to fill out a form for contesting that the video was Fair Use and YouTube turned the audio back on. Now let’s see if it stays on.
OCD overload
Hmmm…I started drafting a blog post back in May 2010 about my OCD. I stopped for some reason and can’t remember where I was going with it…now I’m concerned about my ADD.
Here is where I started:
When most people hear the words Obsessive Compulsive Disorder they most likely think of the physical compulsion of doing repetitive rituals, such as checking that the doors of your home are locked 12 times before going to bed. To varying degrees this can be quite debilitating in someone’s life. But that’s just one side of the coin. I have OCD and the primary source of my troubles are the obsessive thoughts or desires to understand, to completion, the answers to questions.
I think it might have had to do with the creative process. Your guess is as good as mine.
Brian D.
Dragon Con 2010
It’s that time again. Time to pack up my stuff and head out to Atlanta, GA and hang out with my people. A pasty bunch overall but some of the smartest most obsessed people I have ever known.
Where Will I Be:
I will be milling around the con and attending events as usual but if you really want to know an exact place and time…I’ll be at the TWIT/Sword & Laser table at some designated times. The table will be in the Hilton near the podcasting, space, science, and skeptics stuff. It is also RIGHT outside the Walk of Fame.
I will be there at these times*
Friday: 3pm-5pm
Saturday: 1pm-2pm
Sunday: 10am-Noon
*Things happen and things change. If I’m not there during those times just check with someone at the table and they will let you know what time I may be there if other than the listed.
Stop by the TWiT/Sword & Laser table even when I’m not there. In addition to Tom Merritt, Veronica Belmont and TWiT alums, there will be rotating guests from the podcasting and blogging community. Such as Nicole Spag, Kim (@randysmolly), Brian Ibbott, Len Peralta, Jonathan Strickland and many more.
-Brian D
MacBook Air Keyboard Problem
I have a Macbook Air (1st gen) in my possession with a keyboard layout problem.
When I get to the login screen I can select the user I would like to log in as but can not type anything into the password box. I can hit the caps lock and the icon for the uppercase comes up in the login box.
Same thing when I go into safe mode (holding down the shift button after the startup chime.)
I added a usb keyboard. Same results.
I was able to log into single user mode by holding down Command+S. While in single user mode the keyboard works fine.
So I tried removing /var/db/.AppleSetupDone to go through the setup steps like a new user. I was able to reboot and start the setup process. When it came to setting my Keyboard Type the list was blank. I chose to show all and I had other languages (Chinese and the such) but no English. I also tried telling setup my location was United Kingdom and Canada and I still had blank entries.
Any other guesses? I’ve googled my butt off.
Specs:
Macbook Air 1,1
OS: 10.5.8
Kernel: 9.8.0
CPU: 1.6 ghz
Memory: 2gb
Me Being Social