Killer Amoeba

Something scarier than Mad Cow. Always the brain wasting ones that seem to catch my attention. O_O

Another Report - Reporter on the video seems a little too happy about the issue?

They say that the disease is very hard to get (Disease? It literally eats your brain…) and requires that you actually have damage in the nasal area (a cut or similar for the amoeba to enter) to actually hurt you. Water must also be at 90 degrees F constantly for the amoeba to thrive. Then they go and contradict these by saying most of who reportedly had the disease were “healthy, college-aged adults”. Okay…

Then there’s some rather dramatic headings out there:
“Killer Amoeba PLAGUES Texas Lake” (a very rare plague indeed..)
“Killer Amoeba for the Warming!” (?)

I guess I just won’t go swimming for a while…

Been looking around for a codec to play MPEG2 and AVCHD for a long time now. My computer can play MPEG2, but no thumbnails are visible for the files. AVCHD just comes to a standstill.

I did however, come across a very nice solution.

Review of Sony HDR-SR1…

Scroll down to playback of AVCHD (or search PowerDVD). Basically, you can install the trial of PowerDVD and have all its codecs (playback of MPEG2 and AVCHD + thumbnails) at your disposal.

To use the codecs without keeping the trial installed (which btw, is disgustingly filled with ads asking you to buy the product), go to the PowerDVD directory.

Do a search for CL264dec.ax and copy that to C:\Windows\system32\

Click Start > Run and type C:\windows\system32\regsvr32 CL264dec.ax to register the codec.

You can now play MPEG2 and AVCHD in most players + see its thumbnails.

Recently obtained a camcorder that records to AVCHD video; those wondering about HD Camcorders really ought not to - the prices are relatively the same as standard-def now, no point settling for that. However, for those who wish to edit their video, AVCHD notoriously poses a problem. Few programs support editing for it; Adobe Premiere (what I use) specifically fails to import it.
Not that I doubt I shall be stuck this way for long though; I will be spending the next few days hunting for a way to edit it. I’ve already found some work-arounds, but they do not provide true editing and/or are flawed.
For example:
Editing AVCHD in Premiere without intermediate codec - This is as close to native editing as I’ve found so far (native, meaning no conversions before or after editing). However, the method here loads the files in RAM. What’s the problem with this? Remember that this is an HD format; imagine loading several GB of video into RAM. Many people may not even have more than 1 GB of RAM and will force their programs to shut down.

Editing AVCHD Made Easy - This method is definitely not anywhere close to native editing, but it does the job. It basically has you convert the files to an editable format before importing. The only problems are disc space and conversion time. There’s also that “eRightSoft Super (c)” program that looks pretty darn suspicious. There’s a debate on how safe this program is on Monkeyless’s blog, but it’s pretty inconclusive. The good thing though, is that it allows video players to view AVCHD - this lets you choose which clips to convert to AVCHD - saving you a bit of space and time.

Of course, the ideal solution would be if Adobe supported the format in the first place…

So it goes that the latest ES patch to Age of Empires III has caused the map to stop working. Units do not spawn or something of the sort. I was pretty sure that was going to happen, have quite a good idea of what caused it and how to fix it.

But I think it’s safe to call it a close for now. Given that the 2nd Expansion is due to be released soon, there is no point to create another version, just for it to be abandoned yet again as everyone leaves the 1st x-pack. Then again, I honestly do not feel up to following ES’s every little (but FW-fatal) change with a new version of the map. -_-

One nice thing about this though is the fact that this wipes out all FW clones as well, which were based on FW 1.x and caused OOS. Reason being is that FW 1.x never had its code scrambled or hidden - therefore anyone could freely edit it. Hence why I scrambled the code from 2.x onwards for those wondering or asking for the released source. If I were to release FW again, the modded versions would simply not work in the presence of patch 1.04, thus leaving only the real one standing. That’s a wishful thinking though as I do not even have the game anymore.

On the other hand, there are other maps you can try - from what I can tell in the ladder stats, Castle Blood seems to be taking off fine (it has no spawn or special triggers). AOE3Racer and Cannon Fodder are also not as “trigger-heavy” as Fort Wars and may not have taken the patch changes as hard. If anyone tries these maps on Patch 1.04 - let me know how it goes!