Incidents and Accidents, Hints and Allegations

Video management help sought

2009-07-06T07:07:21Z

I'm posting this on behalf of a friend:

=-=-=-=-=

C. was playing back some of our little Digital8 videos from her childhood to a friend today, and some of them are getting choppy and bad. It is clear that we have an extremely urgent situation and need to archive all the videos as quickly and as professionally as possible, while not on a professional budget.

We are thinking that, cost-wise, putting the NOT-compressed raw data onto a lot of giant hard drives would be best, then re-archiving them to new drives every few years to maintain the archive.

We have located only one playback machine for this format: Sony GV-D200 but we are not sure if it will be higher quality and able to send the video smoothly to a computer.

We also don't know if there is a more appropriate software than iMovie for archiving on the computer side. Maybe something that can help patch together the choppiness? Like a video Photoshop kind of thing?

We really need to salvage what we can as soon as possible, and we want to make sure that what we actually archive ends up being usable.

Money is tight, but this obviously can't wait. :( There are several hundred tapes, and we need to just do this around the clock once we find something that will reliably and accurately transcribe them.

I'm really stressed out about having all these tapes lost permanently--we had no idea they were failing already. :(

Thanks for any help locating a solution.

=-=-=-=-=

Crunch time, of a sort: going quiet

2009-06-29T06:07:34Z

"Gafiate" is one of my favorite words out of sf fandom. It stands for Getting Away From It All. That's what I'm going to do for a couple weeks, maybe longer. Here's how I figure it...

I've been online more or less continuously since the early '90s, and in that time I've built up a lot of expectations—both in my mind and in others'—about who I am and what role I play. I've been that guy who doesn't have much of a life going on, who's around kind of all the time and at erratic hours, who's sometimes giddy and sometimes despairing, on and on. If you're one of my regular readers, you know the drill. By no means all of these expectations are bad, you understand, as I see them now.

It's just that they're anchored in states of mind and body I have been in, rather than what I'm in now.

This last week was full of big surprises, from great to horrible. This coming week will be, too. And probably the week after that. And then the pace of shocks will settle down, I hope, but there'll be consequences and correlaries and all sorts of other stuff too. This is, it's dawned on me, my work right now: this is my obligation, to myself and to all the people who've helped and cared about me over the years, to take the fullest, smartest advantage of the opportunities I have right now to understand what's going on and what I can and should do about it.

Lots of you go quiet in crunch time and its equivalents—getting a big program done, finishing a thesis or dissertation, traveling, and like that. I generally don't for more than a day or so...but then I haven't had an opportunity like this in many years, either.

I may write some journal entries, comments on others' journals, and like that. Or maybe I won't. I will share important personal developments when they're ready to share. Beyond that? I'm off to the injecting, inspecting, detecting, infecting, neglecting, and selecting, as Arlo so rightly puts it. :)

PS: I will be dealing with e-mail more or less as usual, and if you want to know what's up, share funny links, or anything like that, my mailbox welcomes your correspondence.

iPhone/iPod Touch wishlist: mail clients

2009-06-28T15:19:59Z

Anyone know of an iPhone mail client that lets you choose the address to send mail from? I've got a couple I keep for specialty purposes and it would be very handy to be able to dump them all into one mailbox. GMail makes it tidy to choose a reply address, but I have yet to see an iPhone OS client that'll do it. Am I missing one?

New Horizons status, special edition

2009-06-28T05:42:18Z

Back when I set up the New Horizons research, writing, and playtesting schedule, I built in a month's worth of slack time, figuring that inevitably I'd have health-related or other troubles that would keep me from work some weeks. Well, this is that.
If you just read the New Horizons reports, you can bounce back and catch my general health news in this public entry

I'm really just not thinking very much about pulp or history this week, because I'm busy preparing for the overall goals discussion with my counselor and waiting for test results and researching specialists to discuss with the doctor. And then next week I'll be dealing with what I learn this week. So I figured, don't fret it, just take the time off. I'm going to take the current crop of research reading back to the library and take some time to get my bibliography updated, and figure out where to proceed once I'm through this medical-focus stretch.

Comments are on for this one, since it's an unusual and unexpected entry.

Extending my IM break, and a health thought

2009-06-27T18:27:37Z

I've decided to go ahead and leave iChat off on an ongoing basis for a while. The absence of pressure to be alert to stuff coming in on other people's schedules is a noticeable relief to me right now. I notice myself feeling much more at liberty to go off and rest whenever the urge strikes, for one thing—it's not that I think any of you were demanding my presence at the keyboard, but expectations build up and become a confinement of their own sometime. I'm just happier right now exchanging both fluff and substance via e-mail rather than via a long buddy list.

I'm also doing some more LJ friends list pruning, and like that. The more I learn about the nature and magnitude of my current situation's problems, the gladder I am of energy and attention harvested to focus on it.

And that brings me to what is, in its odd way, good news.

I wouldn't rush to call life-threatening vascular problems good news. Nor any of the other things they're testing for. But here's the deal. They're not all manifestations of my existing immune trouble. To the extent that bad circulation is causing my fatigue, for instance, autoimmune reactions and lymphatic disfunction are not causing it. And so on down the list. Each thing that has a separate cause becomes not part of the Big Problem, and the Big Problem becomes that much Smaller. It means that as we can tackle and remove or address the separate issues, what remains will be more manageable than I have thought.

I still don't see a cure anywhere on my horizon. (That is to say, in the next decade or two.) But what I see this week is the possibility of much greater containment than I'd suspected for a very long time.

Everybody needs a little time away, just for the day

2009-06-26T08:22:35Z

Given my own stress, having two celebrity deaths that invite a lot of tawdry humor the very next day is a bit much, on top of everything else. I'm taking some time off instant messaging and a lot of my usual blog/forum presence. E-mail still works fine—I'm not so much in a crisis here as trying to stay out of one.

A general health update

2009-06-25T21:05:35Z

I've had some really happy-making developments lately, most of which I've been sharing only with select folks. But this is a good time to do an update for the rest of the world.

A lead from anaka led me to a counseling service here in Seattle that turns out to be just what I need for help with my psychological backlog. And a referral from them led me to a physicians service that will do the same for my physical health. In my first session at the latter, the nurse practitioner said that he was frankly surprised I haven't had a stroke yet, once he looked at my blood pressure and some other symptoms. I'm now on medication for hypertension, and waiting to hear the results of testing for diabetes and some other stuff, and about to contact some recommended vascular consultants for what's apparently bad circulatory problems in my chronically weak left leg.

Not to get melodramatic about this, but it looks like the chain of contacts Michelle set in motion has saved my life. Everyone who's happy to have me around, say some thanks to Michelle. :)

Under the circumstances, I'm freshly appreciative also for the impulse of recent months to disengage from sources of stress and distraction. Expect me to do more of that as I see what else is coming up. There's going to be more testing and then new treatments, and also coming to terms with legacy. (For instance, I have to reevaluate symptoms I've thought of as indications of allergic reaction and see which of them were actually hypertension manifestations. And there'll be more of that.) Not to put too a fine a point on it, too, there's a lot of emotion involved in this—I'm accustomed to being sick and miserable, but not to having anything that is urgently life-threatening. That's a whole new mess to reckon with, and has had me in rather the emotional yo-yoing all by itself.

In this situation, I just do not need to spend any time or feeling at all on twits ranting about disliked games and movies in terms of rape, or expressing their unhappiness in terms of assault and battery, or whining about how requests to warn readers when their ventures into fiction contain things that tend to trigger memories of physical and mental trauma are eeeevul politically correct censorship, or any of that stuff. I'm sticking to people I find interesting and not alarming or revolting. But I'm drawing my boundaries really tight just right now, and if you notice me not responding to you, all it means right now is that I just didn't feel up to dealing with it, not that I think you are also one of those gratuitiously stupid and vile fools. I'm pulling back from things that would usually be fine, too, but that just aren't for me at the moment.

Despite the tone of some of this, I'm actually really glad to be getting good help, and I look forward to having more good news to report in weeks and months to come.

New Horizons weekly report, 23 June 2009

2009-06-23T21:22:27Z

Been a good week! The research has been productive, and I've had some small but useful conceptual breakthroughs which I'll write up.

But that'll be delayed, because I have to get set to see a new doctor tomorrow. This is work-related, really, in that getting my long-term health crud in order will make the project go better. So, more stuff later this week: "extraordinary heroism" rather than "pulp" as an anchor, preliminary thoughts on the roles white people have played in the lives of adventurous people of color of the sort who'd be good inspirations for New Horizons, and the truth vs. truths.

Weight Watchers progress, week 5

2009-06-23T14:39:57Z

*sigh* Up a pound.

I do have a cold at the moment, so I'll see if it comes back down during the week. I'm eating right and getting as much exercise as is feasible.

Weight Watcher, supplemental

2009-06-20T06:33:51Z

I'm taking a break from daily tallies of my weight. I noticed that I'm sort of obsessing over fairly small variations, and after all, Weight Watchers encourages taking weekly figures as more useful and significant anyway.

iPod Touch/iPhone recharging

2009-06-17T06:51:09Z

This odd device works very much the way the ad copy says it will. I'm quite pleased.

Weight Watchers progress, week 4

2009-06-16T13:34:41Z

Down 0.4 pounds, after a lot of yo-yo-ing. I need some stability in this routine, and hope that stress relief on other fronts will help.

Hey, socializing! blows off dust

2009-06-15T16:55:36Z

Several weeks back, I got an invitation from iamnikchick to come to a surprise-ish party for freeport_pirate's 40th birthday. Nicole, bless her, has never taken me off her list of contacts despite years of my having to decline them all. This time I thought about it, gulped, and accepted. And sure enough, I was able to go to the shindig this last Saturday, and had a great time.

Good conversation with people you've missed is at least as much about the act of being together as it is about specific things said. So there's not a lot that I would want to repeat as particularly funny or interesting to anyone who wasn't there for it. There is, though, one quip of mine I'll repeat. A couple of the other guests played 2-person Lego Indiana Jones for a while, and, this being that sort of an afternoon, spent a good chunk of it hitting each other and falling off cliffs, while Kate Lindroos gave them amused and exasperated instructions. My line "This is Two-Fisted Waiting For Godot" went over well.

The most amazing thing about the day for me is that nothing went wrong at all. I was well prepared in advance. My new clothes all fit. The bus ride down went according to schedule, and with pleasant company. It was a beautiful day, and not as hot as some forecast had led me to worry about. I had lots of good conversations, and some brief but satisfying hellos. I was starting to feel a little tired and a little spacey from BBQ smoke, and then robheinsoo was leaving and asked if I'd like a lift, so I got to skip the bus ride and go home with some of my favorite company.

No zonks, no seizure-like episodes, nothin'. I was really tired yesterday and still am today, but I've rest adequately and am set for the week's challenges.

And I wanna do it again. :)

Looking back

2009-06-11T14:36:18Z

Nature: not just your subject, bub. I love this picture. (No, I don't know its provenance; a friend tells me it's from an RPG Net image thread.)

Walkies!

2009-06-09T15:58:32Z

I've been wanting to take another daytime walk already, and now I have. Behold the proofs! (17 pictures.)

New Horizons weekly report, 9 June 2009

2009-06-09T13:42:38Z

Quiet week. We're just beginning the discussion about what to use as a test campaign setting, and that'll take a while to make sure everyone likes what they're dealing with. Research continues apace. I hope to have some interesting stuff to share for general discussion this week; we'll see if it happens.

Weight Watchers progress, week 3

2009-06-09T13:38:59Z

Down 0.6 pounds. Which I'm content with, given that it was up several pounds just a few days ago, thanks to heat and stomach problems. Onward and upward, or downward, or whatever it is.

This is Virgil Brigman, back on the air

2009-06-07T17:40:08Z

Okay, so, I'm better again today. But I should add a brief note: I've got some fun stuff lined up for this weekend, and if it works, it'll do me all kinds of good. I think it will. I'm sensibly prepared and the circumstances seem good. But because it involves doing things I haven't in years and years, since before the leading edge of my long slump, I'm also nervous and fretful. Pardon me if I'm wibbly this week. It'll pass, and I'm trying to rein it in along the way.

An unpleasant afternoon

2009-06-06T22:07:29Z

So there I was, getting up from an awful attempt at rest. Having resigned myself to not getting any of the sleep I'd benefit from at the moment, I decided to take a look at mail and RSS feeds via the iPod Touch.

It was apparently freak show time. It's been a while since so many people I read felt the urge to post so much about weird deaths and misery all at once. Thursday would have been Dad's 85th birthday, and Mom and I have talked some about missing him lately, and the anniversary of his death is coming up in a few weeks, so I know I'm more unsteady about it than usual, but even so...

I now feel emotionally awful as well as physically. I just didn't need that many ha-ha pile-ons about neglected corpses, auto-erotic asphyxiation, or any other kind of death and misery. I've logged out of everything for now and am going to try reading. Talk to folks tomorrow.

A happy exercise note

2009-06-06T07:02:47Z

This is a graph of steps I've taken each day as measured by my pedometer, from May 15th through June 5th:

I know it's hard to read the shrunk-down scale indicators. The vertical scale is from 0 to 10,000 steps per day, with lines at 2,500-step intervals. The blue is total steps taken each day, and the green bars show the number of steps counted as "aerobic", which is to stay, taken in continuous stretches of 10 minutes or more. It's in those that the real calorie consumption goes on.

What makes me happy about this tonight is that the green bars are going up over time. It's not a huge movement, but it is noticeable, at least to me. I'm walking about the same total distance each time I get out for a walk, but I'm getting more benefit from it.

Good stuff.

Quick movie notes: Prince Caspian (2008)

2009-06-06T05:04:15Z

Saw it this evening, thanks to Netflix and a friend's persistent urging, and I really liked it a lot. It was classic, straight-up adventure fantasy, and spectacular from one end to the other. I saw things I've never seen on screen, heard echoes of the parts I remember happily from the book, and just really felt it all hung together very, very well. There are times when sticking to the fundamentals lets you hit a whole lot of archetypal emotional notes, and for me tonight, at least, the movie hit 'em, and often and well at that.

This is going into the list of movies to get for comfort-food re-viewing. It was exciting, beautiful, dramatic, melodramatic, and fun. Precisely what is wanted.

This issue, a hero jams and/or explodes!

2009-06-05T07:42:35Z

Steve Howe

is the

Jamie Hyneman

of Earth 2.

In not entirely unrelated news, the two-disc DVD of Yes' 35th anniversary tour, Songs from Tsongas, is really, really good. Beautifully made, more Roger Dean set design, and some excellent performances.

Star Trek: The A-Team

2009-06-04T21:43:43Z

Thanks, kynn .

Harmonic converges

2009-06-04T08:59:39Z

The older he gets, the more Peter Gabriel resembles aquamarcia .

1994:

2004:

Chris, how do you account for this?

New clothes! New clothes!

2009-06-04T05:42:09Z

Been a while. Been even longer while since I specifically shopped for things that would look good and be suitable for outdoors, rather than for almost exclusive use only here at Chez Me. Mom introduced me to One Stop Plus, which mostly sells women's things in larger sizes but turns out to have an excellent selection of larger sizes for men. So I could upgrade all sorts of stuff that really needed it.

Happy.