Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

Long day at work, starting with a 6-week old crapping herself while I was feeding her before I even left.

I get home and the wife informs me that she only wants to be held and any effort to set her down to sleep, results in pitching a fit.

Of course I had the car and in it was the baby carrier, so her wrist is killing her and she hasn't gotten any of the stuff done she wanted.

Ok, let me settle down with a cold beverage and the baby.....

Sigh. Great-Grandma is visiting and is using my 60" 4K UHD tv for crappy and sappy Filipino movies with atrocious story lines.

Ok, take the baby upstairs to watch something on the tiny TV and eventually I'll be chastised for being "antisocial"

She'll be gone by the 13th, but it's going to be a long week until then :/

Duke wrote:

Wall-e wrote: After a month of working here I've found 5 places I can buy live eels out of barrels on the sidewalk and not a single place I can get a Diet Pepsi. I guess I should have developed an eel addiction.

That's because Diet Pepsi is the Miracle Whip of sodas - unacceptable for human consumption. They're really just saving you from yourself.

They're selling bottled water from China. I'd bet Diet Pepsi has fewer chemicals in it.

In reply to mad_machine:

Can you just pull the memory card out and plug that into the computer or tablet? I've long found that to be far less of a hassle than trying to hook up a camera (or any stripe) to the computer.

I've been trying for the last week and a half or so since getting back from vacation to edit together the footage from SWMBO's non-profit dance company's annual performance- and it's a cluster-berk of the highest order... and sadly still a bit of an improvement over last year (though only because of a last-minute experiment on my part).

The show was primarily recorded by (ostensibly- in theory people pay her to do this... WHY anyone would is beyond me- thankfully we didn't and she was doing it as a donation of her time) a professional videographer with two cameras positioned at the back of the theater- one was set focused and supposed to be capturing the whole stage (it didn't- she missed about 20% of the stage on the sides), and the other she was somewhat trying to follow the action. For the evening show I on a whim rigged up a mount for my GoPro on the overhead lighting rig and recorded everything with it because one of the pieces has some elements that I figured (correctly) would look quite cool from an overhead view.

There are three acts to this show, with two intermissions (one between each act). You would think that the way you would record this would be to just start the camera before each act- there was plenty of warning that the show was starting- and let it run until the intermission/end of show and then stop and re-start for each act. In reality, the only camera where that happened was my GoPro- the videographer inexplicably stopped the cameras at least once during each act and then re-started them- and not quickly enough since she lost a split second of the pieces that followed the stop. In addition to the lost footage (on both cameras of course), this makes trying to synchronize everything together on a video timeline a royal pain in the ass.

Just when I thought I'd finally gotten enough of a hang of FCP's multicamera editing to be able to get things rolling and synced up, I realized one last (I hope) issue: the two cameras were not recording at anywhere near the same framerate. And not something simple like 'one was running at 60p and the other at 30p'... no, one was running at 29.97p (not uncommon, and what FCP defaults to in NTSC) and the other was for some completely unexplained reason running at 25p (standard only in PAL- i.e., in Europe). This required me to re-encode all of the footage from the 25p camera into 29.97p because after 20 minutes it was off by enough to make trying to sync anything up completely impossible.

Next year, I'm going to insist the we either actually pay someone who has at least the remotest berkeleying clue of how to record a show or I'm going to rent and set up cameras myself. The time I have to spend at the show recording (or at least setting up- I will likely have to be up in the booth running video playback again) will be MORE than saved in being able to quickly and easily edit everything together after the show.

tl;dr- I hate dealing with people who loudly claim to be professionals and that they know better than you what they're doing but in the end only berk things up royally and I have to find a way to fix it.

Picked up a cheap tablet (Thanks Amazon Prime!) in preparation for Racecapture to maybe eventually sometime this year ship out, trying to get it all set up for assorted random use until then.
Adblock isn't a thing for tablets?
All I want is to watch Youtube videos through Chrome without waiting through ads.
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

In reply to SnowMongoose:

Ad Block pro needs to be google searched. If it's android based, and you can get root easily, install Xposed framework and there is both youtube adblock and a great standalone. Mother of all Ad Blocking works well too.

I run like 3 or 4 on each device so I'm not sure which works the best, it's just kind of a habit for me. Even though I kind of make a living through ad revenue, I DESPISE ads.

In reply to Ashyukun:

The local children's theatre troupe that my brothers are a part of is similar... Not quite as bad, but they hire (paid I think, no positive.) 2 professionals to come in. One has a camera hooked up to the sound board getting sounds board audio and a full stage view. The other has a high powered mic and pans to follow the action. The equipment is really nice, but the execution is horrible. They are 2 part shows with an intermission in the middle, but do they cut out the intermission when they make the dvd? No! Do they cut out the 1-5 minute pauses in between scenes while the stage is set? No! It makes watching the DVD extremely annoying and take about 30 minutes longer. Overall I have been extremely unimpressed with the final product for years.

Me and my friend are considering approaching the troupe this year to see if we can get paid to do it right.

AWSX1686 wrote: In reply to Ashyukun: The local children's theatre troupe that my brothers are a part of is similar... Not quite as bad, but they hire (paid I think, no positive.) 2 professionals to come in. One has a camera hooked up to the sound board getting sounds board audio and a full stage view. The other has a high powered mic and pans to follow the action. The equipment is really nice, but the execution is horrible. They are 2 part shows with an intermission in the middle, but do they cut out the intermission when they make the dvd? No! Do they cut out the 1-5 minute pauses in between scenes while the stage is set? No! It makes watching the DVD extremely annoying and take about 30 minutes longer. Overall I have been extremely unimpressed with the final product for years. Me and my friend are considering approaching the troupe this year to see if we can get paid to do it right.

Thankfully I'm the one responsible for the final DVDs, so can get them as well-put together as possible and as close to professional as I can get in the time I've got available to be doing this one the side (and not getting paid for it).

Honestly I'd have been WAY happier if she'd just let the cameras run through everything without stopping- I can easily cut out the intermissions. SWMBO thought that she may have done it the way she did because she's used to filming the recitals at the dance school SWMBO used to teach at where there is always a few minutes between pieces. But there are issues with that theory- if that's the case, she's always going to miss a second or so of the curtain opening on the recital pieces. Also, she saw the dress run-through and should have known that there was as little of a gap between pieces as possible since the theater we're at doesn't have a curtain to open and close- and even if she thought the show itself would be different you'd have thought she'd have changed how she did things in the evening show after seeing the afternoon one. Nope. Exact same timing. It's like she thought, "Oh, they've faded to black! Must. Stop. Cameras." Because nobody EVER starts music before fading up the lights, right? -_-

I wish I could say I was surprised, but the videographer is the same person who made our lives hell trying to get the poster for the show done because she kept ignoring what SWMBO was telling her she wanted in favor of what she (the 'pro' media person) thought it should have been. There are complicated reasons for not telling them (the videographer & her sister, the photographer) to completely take a hike next year, but I hope a few of those complications go away so we don't have to deal with them. The pair are a piece of work- the photographer flatly refused to give SWMBO a number of pictures from one of the shoots because she wasn't happy with how they looked and they weren't up to her artistic standards. Yeah, great- but you took the photos for our organization, it's not up to you to critique them and decide to not hand over a whole set of them and leave us with no photos of one whole group of performers.

And lest it appear I'm being too petty... they were responsible for putting together the printed program for the show. They drug things out and we didn't get to do as much review of it as usual so some mistakes made it through (including a mistake on the title of one of the pieces >_< )- but in it they insisted adding, "Poster photo compositing" to my credits in the program to make sure that nobody thought they were responsible for the compositing job (which the photographer, again, thought ruined her artistic vision for the photo). The irony of course being that I'll happily take credit for it but didn't see the need to brag about it.

In reply to Ashyukun:

It just get's better and better doesn't it?

In case you misunderstood me, if I was editing the video I would definitely prefer a nonstop single video as it would make syncing things up a lot easier. They just didn't cut anything out once it was dvd time.

AWSX1686 wrote: In reply to Ashyukun: It just get's better and better doesn't it? In case you misunderstood me, if I was editing the video I would definitely prefer a nonstop single video as it would make syncing things up a lot easier. They just didn't cut anything out once it was dvd time.

I got that the problem was with the final DVD they put out- it's just lazy to have not trimmed out the breaks and intermissions. A concern that they'd screw something up (and my confidence that I could do it better...) is why I've insisted on control over the editing and putting the DVD together (plus I live with the director so it's much less troublesome to coordinate her giving her input on what angles she wants for each piece). It's also ultimately better for my blood pressure too... SWMBO would be livid if they were to put the DVD together and it make her show look like crap, this way I can at least salvage things as much as possible so it looks as good as possible (but will be way better next year if we have videographers with a clue).

I'm rather spoiled when it comes to videography... most of my experience with it comes from working at an event with a pretty hefty budget and an attendance of over 20k where we have at least 3 production-quality cameras with serious glass on platforms with a full video board and a director calling the shots the camera operators should take and cutting the show live to story-and-a-half tall screens so everyone in the venue can see what's going on. Going from that to essentially no production budget is more than a bit jarring.

Our app isn't the reason you missed the bus. The housing project elevator isn't the reason you missed the bus. You missed the bus because you waited until the last minute. Next time come down when the app says the bus is maybe three or four stops away instead of one.

Lucky for you my dad has been a life long scout leader so while we wait I can share one of the many parables about the importance of being ready that have been drummed into my mind....

Ashyukun wrote: tl;dr- I hate dealing with people who loudly claim to be professionals and that they know better than you what they're doing but in the end only berk things up royally and I have to find a way to fix it.

Some of the worst people on the planet are the self-identified artsy-visionaries who in reality have no berkeleying clue what they're doing. You get all the hassle, drama, attitude, and pretentious blather of an artsy visionary but no payoff.

I found a brand new hood for the CRX project. Price? $41.65

Too bad it has to be shipped truck freight which is $165

I'll pass

I'm still awake. Wide freaking awake. Have to be on the road for a 12 hour day 6 hours from now.

At least I'm getting caught back up with the destroyermen series. But I would rather be asleep. And the light on my kindle just died. Dammit.

Right in front of the gas pumps is not a parking place you berkeleying idiots.

If I ever bought a gas station there would be a wall of shame about 10 feet high with everyone's picture that ever stopped in front of the pumps without getting gas.

My N900's earpiece speaker is definitely broken. I can pull one from a scrap N900 I have but it's a legendarily difficult fix that usually results in a broken screen. The workarounds are speakerphone mode, a BT headset (have one but it's troublesome and needs hardware repair, the stupid flimsy ear clip broke almost right out of the box so I have to make a replacement from a piece of coathanger as usual), or the special headphones w/ mic that comes with it, which is what I'm using today.

Battery powered books.

Appleseed wrote: Battery powered books.

Huge bulky books you can't read in the dark.

In reply to GameboyRMH:

My battery powered book is smaller and lighter than a paperback and has a switchable light.

That was my point

In reply to GameboyRMH:

The other nice thing about battery powered books is your physical library size. I'm pushing a new room for the ebooks I have.

Very big change likely coming in the next month or two- I'm frankly pretty scared about it, but honestly it probably should have happened quite a while ago. Will help a lot that SWMBO is behind it 100% (and frankly has been giving me crap about dragging my feet out for a while now)- but still is a level of unknown variables that scare the crap out of me.

In reply to GameboyRMH:

I'm really dumb sometimes. Hehe

Ashyukun wrote: Very big change likely coming in the next month or two- I'm frankly pretty scared about it, but honestly it probably should have happened quite a while ago. Will help a lot that SWMBO is behind it 100% (and frankly has been giving me crap about dragging my feet out for a while now)- but still is a level of unknown variables that scare the crap out of me.

Please tell me you are not "transitioning".

spitfirebill wrote:

Ashyukun wrote: Very big change likely coming in the next month or two- I'm frankly pretty scared about it, but honestly it probably should have happened quite a while ago. Will help a lot that SWMBO is behind it 100% (and frankly has been giving me crap about dragging my feet out for a while now)- but still is a level of unknown variables that scare the crap out of me.

Please tell me you are not "transitioning".

Bwaahahaha! No- not in the sense I assume you're referring to. :P