Falling Asleep
I just want you to know that I try really, really hard. In fact, when I fell asleep one time in class, I disciplined myself by not sleeping again for two nights in a row. I do that quite often.
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Blabberbox: | Random blog-like posts from pftq. |  |
Why Not to Concentrate
I was walking home from school one day. It was a bright and sunny afternoon. The birds were chirping; the air smelled crisp and clean. And then I stubbed my toe. It was a painful stub. The agony of my tiny toe scrubbing against the abrasive concrete, the concentration of all that pain in such a tiny insignificant stub on my foot, was more than I could bear. I never wore sandals again.
Yet that moment sparked a curious interest in me. It made me realize that concentration, such as the concentration of all that pain in my toe, was not a good thing. When one is trapped in a cell, concentrated in a small space, he is not happy. When one is told how and what to think, to concentrate and narrow his mind, he is not happy. Even in politics, concentration is not a good thing; Americans don’t like concentration of power. Concentration means communism, dictatorship - all the things we fought to eliminate in past wars. Just...[More]
Yet that moment sparked a curious interest in me. It made me realize that concentration, such as the concentration of all that pain in my toe, was not a good thing. When one is trapped in a cell, concentrated in a small space, he is not happy. When one is told how and what to think, to concentrate and narrow his mind, he is not happy. Even in politics, concentration is not a good thing; Americans don’t like concentration of power. Concentration means communism, dictatorship - all the things we fought to eliminate in past wars. Just...[More]
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Doing What Counts
Pete wiped his forehead and stepped back. He had just finished helping an elderly woman pack luggage into her car.
"Thank you so much," the woman said, standing back in amazement. "You kids are doing so much these days."
"It's no big deal," Pete chuckled, pulling out a sheet of paper from his pocket. "Really, I should be thanking you instead."
"What's...[More]
"Thank you so much," the woman said, standing back in amazement. "You kids are doing so much these days."
"It's no big deal," Pete chuckled, pulling out a sheet of paper from his pocket. "Really, I should be thanking you instead."
"What's...[More]
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Adobe Premiere - Slow Motion Flicker
Strangely enough, I only just recently started noticing flicker when I slowed clips down in Adobe Premiere. This is with interlaced video clips. Generally you don’t notice them until after exporting to DVD and playing back.
Did a bit of research online, and from what I gather, it’s due to the fact the interlacing is affected by the change in speed. To solve this issue, you’ll want to make sure you de-interlace the clip you are slowing down.
1) Right-click the clip in the timeline.
2) Select…[More]
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Open Doors
They say one doesn’t realize what he has until it’s gone. When I broke my wrist two years ago, I not only realized that I had almost lost my hand completely, I realized how little I’d done, how much more I wanted to do, how close I came to losing the opportunity altogether. As I spent the following summer bound to my chair with the injury, I taught myself web design and learned to program in six different languages. The following year, as my friends and I began making videos but could find no outlet for our new hobby, we founded our own club, within months finishing three movies, hosting monthly Theater Days, and starting a VHS-DVD conversion service. When I later reflected upon the events, after having made twelve websites for schools and organizations, after having had classmates join my club and become paid to teach our video editing to an afterschool class, I realized that opportunities are not sought but created, that it is not the opportunity that is...[More]
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Doors and Windows
Goals are open doors to those who pursue them, but they become only windows to those who don't.
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Encore CS4 - Invalid MPEG Error
Been using the new Encore CS4 for a DVD the last few weeks, and just when I finished the editing and was ready to burn, the program returned an error claiming there was an invalid MPEG. This happens during the build process (creating the DVD). Took several days and many wasted discs for me to figure this out so I thought I might share.
Things to check for:
- Red frames in MPEG video. Even those exported from Premiere can end up with problems. Sometimes you just end up with a bad file and need to re-render the file.
- Bad Import. …[More]
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Ambitious Perfection
People say I am ambitious. I seek objectives; I hunger for accomplishment. But to simply call me ambitious is an understatement. I am not hungry; I am starved, ravenous. I do not seek objectives; I make them. I cannot remain satisfied without a goal, a purpose, cannot remain satisfied even if I did have a goal or purpose. I must always have results, excitement, change. I must see the world blaze about me, hear the thunder of progress roar past me. I must smell achievement at every corner. I must taste the power of drive and anxiety.
I am also a perfectionist. I attain to every niche and detail of all that I do. If it holds but a single flaw, it must be fixed, redone, or scrapped from existence. My tolerance for the world is high, just not for myself. Everything I do must meet my expectations. No. Everything I do must exceed my expectations, must breathe and echo success.
I am also a perfectionist. I attain to every niche and detail of all that I do. If it holds but a single flaw, it must be fixed, redone, or scrapped from existence. My tolerance for the world is high, just not for myself. Everything I do must meet my expectations. No. Everything I do must exceed my expectations, must breathe and echo success.
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Crackling Audio in Premiere Pro CS3
This has been a problem for as long as I remember (even in Premiere 6.5), but it’s only beginning to bug me again after CS3. Not sure if it’s because of the version or if I’m starting to use audio effects more often. In any case, I’m finding that exporting video with even slight audio enhancements (highpass, pitch, etc) often causes crackling. It doesn’t happen all the time; usually it occurs with more complicated timelines (nested sequences).
Although it may help to lower volume or lessen the effects, an easier method I’ve found is to export the audio by itself first (Export > Audio). You’ll end up with a wav file (uncompressed I believe) which you can re-import into your timeline and use. You’ll notice your wav file has no crackling; this you can use to replace your video’s audio.
It’s a bit of a hassle, but at least you don’t have to get rid of your effects or lower the volume of your video. Bit strange that it exports audio just fine but messes up when…[More]
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Increase in Phishing Emails
Been noticing an increase in phishing/scam emails the past few days (5 in last 3 days..). Thing that bothers me is they have my real email address, so not sure what that would signify. It’s also coming from a lot of major sites, so that’s something to be aware of - including hotscripts.com, cnet, amazon, ebay. Makes me worry if they have my real email - why they bother to send fake ones.
Quick way to check is to see who it’s from - the name right before .com or .net or anything like that should be the actual site. Many times, if it’s fake, it won’t be correct (though some go as far as to spoof that as well).
Another way to tell it’s a scam email is to hover your mouse over the links (don’t click though). Pretty darn obvious if the links don’t go back to the website (cnet, ebay, etc). It’s also obvious when all the links are the same - which has happened on most scam emails I get.
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