Nonzero

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The title of this book, Nonzero, refers to the concept of the “non-zero-sum,” which comes from game theory.  Looking at human history–and for that matter the whole history of life on earth–through the lenses of game theory can change your view of life. At least, that is a premise of this book.  What exactly is meant by “change your view of life”? That is a question with a book-length answer.  But there is enough material on this website  to give you the general idea.

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Nonzero

looky

The title of this book, Nonzero, refers to the concept of the “non-zero-sum,” which comes from game theory.  Looking at human history–and for that matter the whole history of life on earth–through the lenses of game theory can change your view of life. At least, that is a premise of this book.  What exactly is meant by “change your view of life”? That is a question with a book-length answer.  But there is enough material on this website  to give you the general idea.

Web link of note: Nonzero
(At http://www.nonzero.org/)

Bitrate Problem

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So, I finally finished my DVD with my short film, Xtremely Xtreme.

However, when I tried burning my masterpiece to DVD- uh oh! it said “bitrate exceeded”! What the heck does that mean?
It turns out I had skipped a crucial step- crucial to my DVD anyway: encoding the audio.

When I converted the video to MPEG2 video and AIFF audio, I chose the Quicktime conversions- Variable Bit Rate with a two-pass algorithm, rendering for NTSC. The result was a .m2v file for each video track and a .aiff file for the accompanying audio.

This might have worked by itself… However, my movie has commentary tracks. Four of them. That means that a single DVD track had five audios to go with the video. Good thing I didn’t have multiple video angles!

As it turns out, somewhere there is a “bitrate settings” slider near the one pass/two pass conversion chooser. Good luck finding it; I couldn’t. I found out that every information stream, such as the video tracks or audio tracks, have a bitrate associated with them, and in total they cannot exceed a number somewhere around 10. “PCM is around 1.5” I was told. Still don’t really know what that advice means.

However, something I did figure out is how to use A.Pack. What A.Pack does is convert AIFF sound files to a much smaller DVD-compatible format called AC3. Using the numbers provided by Ken Stone, I encoded at a much lower bitrate (192; my friend recommended 448 for single audio tracks) and fit all the audio tracks onto the track! Whew!

Links:

The Eating Leet Diet

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BRIAN: I just ate a dinner of mochi, pepino melon, and lemon cucumbers
BRIAN: none of the things I ate would be recognizable by the average american
BRIAN: or the average californian even
BRIAN: or even… the average bay area resident!
BRIAN: I AM LEET!!!
SHAC: and then

Avenue Q

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It’s a musical with Sesame Street-like puppets.
Not as edgy as Meet the Feebles though!

AVENUE Q is the story of Princeton, a bright-eyed college grad who comes to New York City with big dreams and a tiny bank account. He soon discovers that the only neighborhood in his price range is Avenue Q; still, the neighbors seem nice. There’s Brian the out-of-work comedian and his therapist fianceé Christmas Eve; Nicky the good-hearted slacker and his roommate Rod — a Republican investment banker who seems to have some sort of secret; an Internet addict called Trekkie Monster; and a very cute kindergarten teaching assistant named Kate. And would you believe the building’s superintendent is Gary Coleman?!? (Yes, that Gary Coleman.) Together, Princeton and his newfound friends struggle to find jobs, dates, and their ever-elusive purpose in life.

Web link of note: Avenue Q
(At http://www.avenueq.com/)