Dynamic image resizing (Really, this is impressive!)

Listed on CollegeHumor.com under the boring title “Advanced Photo Resizing”, this is astonishing. Sure, we’ve been able to modify images for quite a few years now. Photoshopping an image to remove, accentuate or beautify the subject matter is nothing new at all. We’ve simply become better at it over the years.

But this video, describing the ability to now allow images to be dynamically resized, including the ability to selectively emphasize what is removed, is truly a giant step forward in this arena.

Of course, the images presented could never be claimed to be a true representation of the original subject. But then, that’s been true since the first wide angle lense and the first filter were applied to still photography.

Reality has always been somewhat subjective, and now it can depend on the size of your viewing screen!  🙂

Remove duplicate tracks from iTunes Playlists on a Windows Machine

There seem to be plenty of utilities available for this kind of housekeeping on MAC systems on which iTunes is a native application. But it took a little digging to find these helpful little utilities. There are about 20 utilities of which I see a use for about 3 of them for my purposes.

Every once in a while I like to re-evaluate some of my playlists and/or create new ones. I don’t necessarily want to throw away my previous work (although sometimes I do that too…), so I wanted to be able to toss songs into, say, my “Driving” playlist without concern for whether or not those songs were already represented there.

Running Teridon’s script allows me to simply purge all the duplicates after I’m done. A handy little time saver.

Star Trek: “Time Warp”

I was put onto this by Phil Plait’s “Bad Astronomy” blog.

Yes, I’ll admit it, I’m a geek and also recognized the lion’s share of the clips shown here. *AND* I like the Rocky Horror Picture show…

I can’t even begin to imagine how much time and effort has to go into deciding on, collecting and then bringing together all the elements required to make something like this. It truly must be a labor of (geek) love…

Internet Commenter Business Meeting

Translating all of the nonsense that goes on in Internet discussion forums to what they would look like if the same sort of behavior happened between live people in a business setting… brilliant!  Irritating, but brilliant!

When I peruse discussion groups – often as a result of a Google search – I usually only read as far as the first one or two trolls and then move on. In unmoderated settings you can almost predict how quickly the discussion will degrade into sophomoric shouting matches.

This doesn’t eliminate the usefulness of these forums but it does cap it.

For anybody who has ever participated or even lurked in these arenas, enjoy! 🙂

Don’t forget to check out the Perseid Meteor Shower Tomorrow night!!

Perseid Meteor ShowerWith a new moon, this most spectacular of annual meteor showers will be even more visible this year!

For my locale the Clear Sky Clock indicates that conditions should be nearly optimal. I’m thinking of popping up to Brasstown Bald for a chance to see this wonder of nature in as pristine conditions as we can get here in Georgia.

The peak meteor frequency is expected to be at about 1:00 am so it won’t be an early night that’s for sure.

For more details check out the Wikipedia entry as well as Space.com’s Sky calendar.

Copy Lotus Notes databases from the Domino Server console command line

I use this blog to remind myself of items now and then so I can just search here and find them. This was pulled from this article and I am reproducing it here for my own edification as it will be really useful going forward. You can just ignore this if Lotus Notes / Domino isn’t your thing…
Copy Lotus Notes databases from the Domino Server console command line
Bruce Elgort
07.19.2007

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Recently I needed to make “copies” of some Lotus Notes databases and didn’t want to do it from my Lotus Notes

client. This would have taken hours considering the Lotus Notes database was 5 GB.I knew that there had to be a way to do this and there is. Thanks to the assistance of my friend Thomas Gumz, I was able to issue a command line from the Domino Server console — and presto, the database was instantly copied. It’s not documented or supported, but it has been around for a long time, at least since R4 according to Thomas.

So let’s look at what you need to do to enable this feature. The Domino Server console commands are turned off by default, so you need to first enable them. Set this server notes.ini variable, like so:

  • set config CLUSTER_ADMIN_ON=1 (even if the server is not in a cluster, it doesn’t matter).

    No need to restart the Domino server, it becomes active immediately. This enables this new command: CL COPY sourcedb targetdb.

    Below, I have listed some examples for the CL COPY command:

  • CL copy serverA!!db1.nsf serverB!!db2.nsf
    This creates a regular non-replica copy of db1.nsf on serverA as db2.nsf on ServerB
  • CL copy serverA!!db1.nsf serverB!!db2.nsf REPLICA
    This creates a replica copy of db1.nsf on serverA as db2.nsf on ServerB
  • CL copy serverA!!db1.nsf serverB!!db2.nsf TEMPLATE
    This creates a template copy (only design, no data) of db1.nsf on serverA as db2.nsf on ServerB
  • CL copy db1.nsf db2.nsf
    This creates a regular non-replica copy of db1.nsf as db2.nsf on the same local server

    		•

    World Clock

    World ClockSent to me by a friend, the World Clock is a sober reminder of the immensity of the reality of our existence on this tiny little planet. Go ahead and click the “Now” button to see these figures zero themselves out and begin counting from the current moment. If you’re like me you will be simply gobsmacked by the rate of births. Even realizing that these are merely statistical expressions (in real life you’d see periodic pauses and the occcasional great leap in the numbers) .

    Of special note I’d like to highlight the deaths due to war and how disproportionately small this number is relative to a great many of the other, less popularly reported causes of death. Firearms aren’t listed but are subsumed by other categories and are far less common than the glaring media reports would lead one to believe, they are merely spectacular due to their infrequency and violence.

    Traffic accidents, meanwhile, one of the most preventable causes of death (proper education, proper testing and then proper review every few years) gets a pass with a death rate (ignoring what must surely be a spectacular toll in injuries) that eclipses war, suicides, drownings, poisoning, falls or any non-disease.

    This emphasizes what is surely one of the greatest ills of the American or any other government today, ignoring the practical, logical and mundane for the popular and the exciting. We can’t get our politicians to sponser and produce legislation that will simply be practical, they must forever be trying to woo us with our emotions and with whatever is simplest in order to keep their incumbencies secure.

    The CO2 emmisions are interesting, but lack the global context of consumption (by plants) and destruction of CO2 by natural processes to help give a perspective – it’s a big planet relative to our conception. More relevant might be the % increase in CO2. The numbers may not be as exciting, but it would be consistent with the Earth’s temperature displayed which gives a much more useful value.

    “Torn” Mime Redux

    I have a soft spot in my heart for “Torn”. It was really big when Mich and I visited Australia back in 1999. All up the gold coast we heard the song again and again as we listened to the radio (and, admittedly a lot on tape too).

    Years later, when I saw the Mime version of “Torn” I thought it was hysterical. I think it takes a great amount of class to accept a humorous interpretation of your work, but to embrace it totally like this puts Natalie in a special category by herself…