Author archives: Mike

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Screencasting via Gstreamer from Python (Playing with streaming media on Linux...)


Rather than charge back into doing work on Cinemon when it's late, I decided to focus instead on one of the side projects that's been sitting there in the project for a while, namely producing a screencast of basic usage for Cinemon. I'm considering one for the VoIP project as well.

What I want is ...

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Change is as good as a rest (As old men like me are want to say...)


Spent the entire day on importing CAD maps into Cinemon. I don't know whether it's just being back in a Twisted-based environment with full sessions, persistent state, a full ORM and the rest, but it seems like it was a far more pleasant 9 hours than 9 hours coding raw CGI with no templating system, ...

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Sometimes it's just easier to code something new (That's a bad thing...)


I finally got time today to work seriously on Cinemon again. Spent the time working on a remoted SNMP query server (i.e. something that can be put in a remote network to do the actual querying while the Cinemon server is outside the network). I initially tried using Twisted's jelly module (via pb), but couldn't ...

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Quick hint for running Gentoo stable (Without constantly having to upgrade...)


I realise this is probably covered somewhere in the documentation, but it's something I only figured out a few weeks ago, so here ya go:

When you want to merge an unstable package onto your Gentoo stable system, you often have to set unstable keywords on that package and half a dozen dependencies. Now, I've ...

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It's always the code that's a PITA to code... (That turns out to be superfluous)


I just ripped out one of those annoying little bits of code; the ones where you check 3 or 4 times saying "are you absolutely sure you want this, it really seems like a bad idea, it's going to cause this problem and that problem and be a pain to implement". It's not that it's ...

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Bit of practice with Inkscape (A little guardian lion for the Open Clip-art peoples...)


PNG output of the SVG graphicFelt like producing something pretty, but not quite awake enough to do anything complex, so created a piece of clip-art for the Open Clip-art project. Inkscape really doesn't like zooming in too far to an image, it becomes basically unusable and I wind up having to zoom out again. It also really needs a ...

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Dinner at the house of pure love (Tre Fontane on Bloor...)


I've been to Tre Fontane before, many years ago, and remembered it mostly as a gelato bar with a very friendly owner. For the past few months I've been getting recommendations from Shane, and now from Jazz and Brendan to give their buffet a try, but mostly to go see Nico (the owner), who was ...

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Reworking the Perception Section (Rewrite long overdue...)


Finally got around to working on the rewrite for the rough draft I bashed out a month ago (or so). Considerably longer now. Am in the middle of the section exploring heightening/leveling and learning. Anyway, due to various interruptions where the other job poked in I'm not ready to publish that yet, but I need ...

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String Theory


Within the chambers of our heart
Are strings that make us whole
Taut as wires on a well tuned bridge
They wait for other strings
They vibrate when they find their mate

Each vibration makes them shorter
That is what constricts the walls
Lets us know that they've been plucked
Or stroked by passing strings ...

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