Windows Media Center, OGM and MKV
So, I’m setting up a HTPC (Home Theater PC), and a lot of my video files are in OGM or MKV because they tend to be of higher quality than most AVI. By default, of course, Windows Media Center (and Windows Media Player) will not play these types of files. In order to remedy that, I installed K-Lite Codec Pack Mega followed by K-Lite Codec Pack x64. Read more
Tags: media center, mkv, ogm, windows media center
User Deletion, iPhone Friendly, Facebook Updates
A number of changes today. I deleted all the users that appeared to be spam users (which was all of them). I added a plugin that enabled a special skin to be used for smartphones (particularly the iPhone). I also added a plugin that will post to facebook when I’ve made a new post here.
Automatically Run and Minimize iTunes
So, more people now are having servers at home, which they’re using to run iTunes and stream to various speakers plugged into Airport Express routers. Myself included. Read more
Lunarpages Name Server Spoof
So it looks like sometime yesterday morning, the Lunarpages name servers in Vegas were spoofed and many of the websites hosted by Lunarpages were being redirected all over the place. It seems to be mostly fixed now, but there appears to be some propagation issues still, at least with the Comcast “domain helper” DNS servers. Hopefully it’ll stabilize soon.
WordPress Blog Hijackings
I’ve noticed that mine and other WordPress based blogs have been hijacked by someone injecting some script into the header.php of the template. It forces the blog to redirect to other websites after a few seconds. I think I’ve temporarily fixed it for now, and am in the process of plugging up the security hole.
Of Rings and Other Things.
I have a silver ring with alchemical symbols on it. It was given to me by a friend. Not a whole lot of particular sentimental value really. I haven’t seen that person in years nor did I know her very long. But we were similar ilk, so she felt it necessary to give it to me. These days it represents a part of me — the alchemist. The mixer, experimenter, explorer. I wear this on my left hand pinky finger. Because it fits well. It sort of fits on the right hand, but I worked for Disney, and they required that you have no more than one ring per hand. Also, two rings on one hand and none on the other feels very misbalanced.
I have a black / “silver” ring with skulls and crossbones on it. It was once a mood ring, but the mood plastic came off because I played with it too much. I bought it for a few bucks at a hot topic a few years back. It didn’t really mean anything, except that it was cool looking. These days it represents a part of me — the pirate. The freedom loving, free thinking, anime downloading, anarchist. I wear this on my right hand ring finger, also because it fits. It sort of fits on the left hand, but that is reserved for my wedding band. As you can tell, they are not currently symmetrical, but are balanced. Eventually I’ll need to wear four rings, or give up the alchemy one. The only way that is happening is if my wedding band has alchemy and other important symbols on it.
Together these appeal to my goth-steampunk self, and along with my “silver” pocket watch and brass chain, represent (and display to the world) a part of me that I cannot always otherwise show.
Silver appears in quotes in places where I do not believe it to be silver and it may be some other metal.
Mnemonics: Cross Product
There are two ways to multiply vectors. One of these is the “cross product”. The cross product always yields a third vector perpendicular to both of the two vectors, whose magnitude is equal to the area of the parallelogram defined by the two vectors. The cross product is defined as:
A x B = [ a3b2 + a2b3 , a1b3 + a3b1 , a2b1 + a1b2 ]
Where A and B are vectors in 3-space.
There are three difficult to remember things about the cross product:
The direction of the resulting vector.
How to calculate the numerical value of the cross product from the two vectors’ components.
And what it means.
Mnemonic #1:
If in 3-space, positive k points forward (away from you), your first vector is your index finger, your second vector is your thumb, and your resulting vector is your middle finger. In this case, remember that when admonishing demons, you hold the CROSS in your RIGHT hand as well as that you point your MIDDLE FINGER at other people, AWAY FROM YOU.
If in 3-space, positive k points backward (towards you), your first vector is your index finger, your second vector is your middle finger, and your resulting vector is your thumb. In this case, also remember that when admonishing demons, you hold the CROSS in your RIGHT hand but that you do a THUMBs up TOWARDS YOU when you succeed.
Mnemonic #2
Above, you can see how to calculate the cross product. To remember the pattern, know this:
The third child (the baby) always comes first, the first child (first born) always comes second, but the second child (middle child) always comes last. So, you remember, 3 1 2. Placing each of these in our vector, we get:
[ 3 , 1 , 2 ]
Next remember that what comes next in each is what is not there and not the position it is in. So in the first one, there is a three and it is first, so what goes there is 2. Doing this for all three positions yields:
[ 3 2 , 1 3 , 2 1 ]
Next, take what you have, reverse it, and append it so that you have three palindromes.
[ 3 2 2 3, 1 3 3 1 , 2 1 1 2 ]
Next place a’s and b’s alternating before the numbers.
[ a3 b2 a2 b3 , a1 b3 a3 b1 , a2 b1 a1 b2 ]
Now, place an additional symbol (+) in the middle of each section.
[ a3 b2 + a2 b3 , a1 b3 + a3 b1 , a2 b1 + a1 b2 ]
In the remaining spots for operations, place a multiplication symbol (*).
[ a3 * b2 + a2 * b3 , a1 * b3 + a3 * b1 , a2 * b1 + a1 * b2 ]
If, negative k points away from you, you need to place a minus symbol (-) at the beginning of each section.
[ -a3 * b2 + a2 * b3 , -a1 * b3 + a3 * b1 , -a2 * b1 + a1 * b2 ]
And that’s the cross product. So, 5 simple patterns will yield the complex equation for the cross product.
Dr. Horrible is Awesome
Ok, everyone must watch this.
Finding (Steampunk) Stuff on eBay
Lizabeta tells us how she finds stuff on eBay, and while she gears it towards steampunk (which of course I love), her tips can be used to find just about anything.
http://steampunkbitz.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/steampunk_resources/
Learning About htaccess Files
Today I learned about the htaccess file. The htaccess file is used to override default configuration of a web server. For example, many web servers will have a default file or files set as to be displayed when typing in a folder path. Usually this default file list consists of something like “index.html,index.htm,index.shtml”. In other cases it may just be “index.htm”, or it may include a number of other files such as “index.php,index.asp,index.jsp” and could even contain “my_weird_file.my_weird_extension” if you really wanted.
The htaccess file is very very powerful. You can use it to redirect paths (perhaps if a file has moved), or if you want to change a hard to remember path into something a user might be able to remember easier.
Something to remember: a directory is affected by all of its parent directories’ htaccess files, not just its own. Order of effect is from its htaccess, up the path, towards /.
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Also, apparently either WordPress or Apache do not like you to literally type “(dot)htaccess”, where “(dot)” is a “.”. The error returned is not very useful either: “You do not have permission to access post.php”. Ah well, it’s a good security feature of one or the other I suppose.