codergeek42

One of the simple reasons I love F/OSS so much is that - in general- It Just F***ing Works(tm). Today, for the first time in as long as I can remember using it, this has failed me quite miserably.

Part of my gift this year to all of my friends this year is an audio CD - a custom compilation of various holiday-themed music. One thing I'd love to be able to do is add CD-Text to the tracks, so that their players (if capable) as well as their computer - should they choose to import it so - will easily have the metadata already in-place, and the tedium of having to enter that information manually from the decoratively printed track-list is substantially eliminated.

Well, this is proving to be far more difficult than I thought it would be. Rhythmbox, my favorite music player, currently just does not support this functionality, though it is under development. I've also tried Banshee, which uses Brasero for its CD-burning functionality, and that also fails quite epically. Next up in my attempts was K3b, which correctly burned the CD, did not add the CD-Text as I wanted it to. (It would not display any metadata in Rhythmbox on my Fedora desktop, and also failed on both my stand-alone CD player and my mom's Windows XP machine with both iTunes and WMP.) Lastly, I searched on Google and found a way to do it with cdrdao, but that attempt also went quite unsatisfactorily:

Writing lead-in and gap...
ERROR: Write data failed.
ERROR: Writing failed.

Oh Great Lazyweb, is there a straightforward way to accomplish this feat? Or am I doomed to copy the songs to my dad's PC and burn them with Nero (which I really don't want to need to do...)? For the record, my burner is a Pioneer DVR-110D.

Thanks!

(Also posted on the Fedora Forums.) Hi, all. [...]
Since upstream has decided to no longer support the 0.5.x series (and also by popular demand ), I've begun to build official F-9 packages for recent Deluge releases. An update is currently enqueued and should hit updates-testing on a mirror near you soon.

Please note that these updates will likely stay in the testing repositories indefinitely though, as the 1.0 series is a near-complete rewrite and thus requires recreation of many aspects of a user's configuration - and I do not wish to intentionally break existing configurations for those users who are happy and comfortable with 0.5.9.3 (the latest stable update for F-9).

That said, however, I intend to continue pushing new updates to the F9-updates-testing repositories as they come out and I as push them to F10-updates, so whenever you need to update it on Fedora 9, it should in theory be as simple as:

yum --enablerepo=updates-testing-newkey update deluge

Another benefit to this is that you can verify that it is an "official" and far more trustworthy package to install/use, through Yum's use of package-signing and whatnot.

Regards...

I've decided against this; and will shortly push the packages to my personal webspace instead.

I didn't get a chance to watch it live due to classwork; but thanks to C-SPAN's YouTube channel, I was able to watch it recorded online when I got home last night. I'd like to make a few comments about John McCain's demeanor and stated plans, if I may.

The first question to both of them was, essentially: Why is your economic plan better than his? Senator Obama clearly - I felt - explained his plan to cut taxes for the lower 95% of people and raise them a bit for the remaining large businesses and whatnot that could afford to pay such taxes, citing examples of Exxon Mobile and other oil companies which intake multi-billion dollar annual profits already. Yet, in your mention of the "Joe" that Obama spoke with, you assure Joe that Obama's plan would create fines and levy more taxes on him as a small business owner...immediately after Obama had already stated that small businesses were "the drivers of this economy" and would likely receive a decrease in taxes and be exempt from these fines. "Decrease" and "increase" are antonyms. (That means the words' meanings are opposites.) Please don't confuse the two; thank you. Twice later you state that Obama wants to increase the average family's taxes again. Oy!

Secondly, Obama (near the middle of the debate) specifically explained his affiliations with Ayers and ACORN and why they should not be held against him as a presedential candidate. Yet, a short time later, you go on to claim that all the details about Obama's relationship with Ayers and ACORN need to be known. RIght after he just told you those details. Are you not even listening to what Obama is saying? If you can't even pay proper attention to what one person is saying for 90 minutes, then how are we supposed to trust you to pay attention to what the 200-plus million voters¹ of our Public are saying for a full four years?

Soon thereafter, the two candidates were asked why their running mates would be the better president, should something unforeseen happen to either of these senators as president. Mr. McCain, when you were expounding on Governor Sarah Palin's good traits, you mentioned that she "resigned when she saw corruption." How is this a good thing? Running away from a problem is not the proper way to fix it.

Then, you went on to describe Senator Joe Biden's negative attributes; and said, "He voted against it [...] and obviously we had to take Sadam Hussein out of Kuwait [...]"; and, when mentioning Senator Biden's experience on foreign policy and past decisions he has made thereto, you stated that "He's [Biden has] been wrong on a great many of them." Two claims. No supporting evidence: be it demographics, statistics, quotes from other reputable experts, etc. We want to know what makes the Kuwait situation so obvious. We want to know some examples of Biden's wrong foreign policy decisions. Nothing? Seriously, Mr. McCain, 101-level classes in college teach that aspect of critical thinking. (*sigh*) If you don't tell us why you believe that what you're saying is true and valid, then what reason do we as a Public have to believe the same?

On the the other hand, Obama was very positive in his explanation. He did not belittle Sarah Palin; he merely explained why Biden was superior: more qualified, better understands the average family, etc. - specific and precise support for his claim. I feel that this helps show not just the aptitude for clear content in his talking, but the fact that he is skilled in keeping a debate or discussion peaceful when its topics are otherwise quite heated. This moderating ability is exactly a trait that a good leader requires - especially one who is and will undoubtedly play a top role in the governments of and interaction between nations around the world.

Both candidates were also asked about health care. McCain gave an overview for his plan to reform much of what is already in place and give everyone a $5,000 tax break which they should then further use for health costs. Only a few minutes later, he said, "The average cost of a health plan is about $5,800." So, Mr. McCain, you effectively want us to pay eight hundred dollars, all out-of-pocket, for our own health care. Essentially, encouraging people to accrue debt. As it stands, many can barely afford to pay that amount for rent or housing; how can they be expected to pay twice that for the added benefit of their health care plan?

Before concluding the debate, both candidates were also asked about their education policies. (Where to begin?!) Mr. McCain, you declared that we should recruit military veterans and create more teaching positions by allowing or perhaps encouraging them to become teachers while bypassing credentials and competency/qualtification exams. You want men and women who have just come back from fighting, potentially, a major war or battle...to teach our children and future generations of thinkers. ARE YOU BATSHIT INSANE?!

While I don't feel that Obama's plan is entirely right (I'm in agreement with James Cape on this one), I do feel that he has much of it in the right direction: especially the aspects of it that encourage higher pay for better-performing teachers and requiring oft recertifications, with additional and updated training for those who fail these.

Lastly, Mr. McCain, you mentioned that, instead of making college more affordable, we should increase the availability and repayment flexibility for student loans. Again, you're recommending that instead of fixing a problem, we workaround it by accruing debt.

Senator McCain, you truly scare me. Quite a lot. Increasing debt does not fix an economy. Running away from problems does not solve them. Soldiers as-is do not make good teachers. Aside from that, your age means that, purely from a statistical perspective², we can expect you to die within the next decade and even more likely, to die within the next four years - what would be your term of office should you become president. Not only have you shown yourself to be unfit for presidency in this debate, but Governor Palin has done worse against herself in the vice-presidential debates and if she took office...well, I think (quite frankly ) we'd be in an even more horrid position than we were at the lowest of George W. Bush's presidency.

As a final comment, Senator McCain's appearance and attitude versus Senator Obama reminded me quite heavily of the Nixon-Kennedy debates, wherein Nixon looked very unfocused and distant. This paralleled McCain last night with his squirming in the chair, constant interruptions for often-contemptuous remarks, and rarely ever looking directly at the camera (and through it, we, the American Public). He seemed to be in is own little world, as the saying goes.

This contrasted well with Obama's Kennedy-like behavior: he presented himself as very confident and very prepared, with well-thought out plans of action and many statistical, anecdotal, and other reasons for why he believes his views to be correct. He held our eye-contact through his talking. When watching it, I just felt like Obama was almost talking to me directly; while on the other hand, McCain seemed to be talking only to the audience of that university hall.

If McCain wins this election, the American People will lose, and quite drastically. As Forrest Gump would say: "That's all I have to say about that."
 

Footnotes:

[1] This is according to the population pyramid from the 2000 US Census, assuming a significant majority of those in the "20-24" group and above are eligible and registered to vote. \

[2] The CIA World Factbook 2008 gave 2007 estimates of about 78.1 years for life expectancy at birth, with males having it reduced slightly to about 75.3 years. The United Nations also put out a list average for the 2005-2010 expected period, with numbers in approximate agreement: 78.2 years at birth, reduced to 75.6 years for males.

[No pun intended in the title.]

At my college this morning there was a table near the student center building with a bunch of young Proposition 8 supporters attempting to rally passing students into voting yes. Thankfully, nearly all of the students that were asked are vehemently opposed to the proposition; and to make the experience even more fun, we (as a group) we're debating the proposition with the advocates until they got stumped on facts, multiple times. Of the main supporting advocates in attendance, two young men correctly identified the issue as one of Civil Rights. They then went on trying to equate it to slavery (!!) and - as you can imagine - it all went downhill from there.

One young woman proponent (the wife, as we came to understand, of one of the aforementioned two young men) even tried sympathizing with us: telling us that she knows some gay friends and relatives who wish to get married - to which we promptly replied in thanks for her violent opposition of their happiness. Another of her arguments was that it would allow teaching children about homosexual couples and marriage, which are "morally wrong values." Yet, she admitted to being a couple of months pregnant and held a lit cigarette with her. What moral values does that teach our children, miss?

Along the side of the table were taped signs that proclaimed things such as "Protect Marriage!" "Prop 8 = Free Speech" and "Prop 8 = Less Government." For one, how does restricting marriage (especially that between two people who deeply love each other) protect it? Secondly, what the FUCK does Free Speech have anything to with this? The proposed amendment reads as follows:

"Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

Nowhere in this is Free Speech mentioned. Nowhere. Not once. Cluestick, anyone? Last, but not least, is the "Prop 8 = Less Government" spiel. Someone please explain something to me about that. Prop 8, if passed, would add (keyword!) government restrictions to marriage. How does adding to it make it less?!

In conclusion, HOW DAFT ARE YOU PEOPLE, SERIOUSLY?!

The pen may be "mightier than the sword," as is said; but the trained mind is far sharper.

I just briefly explained the etymology of the 言 (words, to say), 時 (time, hour), 間 (interval), 本 (book), and 森 (forest) Kanji to a visiting neighbor...in Spanish.

I'm quite proud of myself for being able to accomplish that. However, I'm a bit embarrassed that I needed to ask my mom about some Spanish vocabulary that I at the time forgot (especially "mouth" and "to ring a bell"). This is stuff I should know already.

I hope my Kanji-a-week study is not making me forget Spanish! Ack!

We just came back from an El Torito restaurant nearby, where I took my dad out for Father's Day, and I cannot help but to think, "What the heck is up with El Torito's chefs?"

My dad and I both had to get our orders switched twice because the dishes they gave us were too spicy, even though we had explicitly told our waiter that we did not want any spices on them at all - which he seemed to comply with at first, since the dishes came with the sauces and salsa on the side, and those are normally the significantly spicy parts of the meal - but this was not a good kind of spicy. This was just spicy for the sake of being spicy. Even the meat had tiny pieces of Jalapeño or something in it.

I can definitely understand adding spice, even very strong if necessary, for the sake of augmenting the food with a specific tang of flavor (such as is done for many east-Asian dishes, and many meats used in Italian cuisine). But this was not it. No addition to taste or anything of the sort. It was just for the purpose of ensuring that one's throat burned sufficiently as the food was swallowed. (As a minor comparison point, those who know me know that my mom is of Spanish descent, and even she had trouble eating it because of the spice.)

But I digress, I suppose it's time for ( another meme! )

File dialogs do not automatically update to reflect new drives, such as inserted USB thumbdrives and similar. Fail, Microsoft. Epically.