Featured

Blog?

About

This computer, which predated Apple & the TRS-80, was instrumental to the beginning of “personal computers” and resulted in the creation of Microsoft. This in turn resulted in Linus Torvalds wanting something better so he created Linux.

Kdenlive output video resolution

I had problems combining different videos (different resolutions). I was able to solve the problem however I’m not sure I can explain it, but I will try. So this description may change every now and then, as I figure better or more correct ways to do things. I may also not describe the best way but a way I found that… works for me.

I started out adding videos fine then on playback I noticed certain clips were small and not filling most of the screen.

OK I had 2 videos to combine…
Video 1 1920×1080
Video 2 1080×1920

If I open the 1080×1920 first… then the 1920×1080 video looks small
If I open the 1920×1080 first… then they both look normal (like they do if I play them individually)

It turns out I didn’t need this command to accomplish my goal. But I’ll document it anyway… because I may need it in the future.

ffmpeg -i “input.mp4” -vf “scale=1920:1080” output.mp4

This command displays the resolution for a video

exiftool “video.mp4” | grep “Image Size”

Omarchy Linux

I might have to take a look at Arch based Omarchy Linux. I had already been hearing good things about it. I recently watched Network Chuck give it a good review. Now The Lunduke Journal is reporting to my surprise that it’s a non-woke distribution. Network Chuck didn’t say any thing political about it, however he ends his podcast with a prayer. So it’s not surprising.

Landuke pointed to this interesting article about it from right winged and non-tech Daily Wire. Looks like it’s got some big backers too.

Wings annoying Season groupings

Wings DVD combines Seasons 1 and 2 into 3 discs (also seasons 3-4). But I will describe Seasons 1 and 2. Season 1 only has 6 episodes, but they put 9 episodes on Disc 1, meaning Season 1 and the 1st 3 episodes of Season 2 are both on Disc 1. Season 2 has 22 episodes total so the 3 on Disc 1 (that also has season 1) plus 9 episodes on disc 2 and 10 episodes on disc 3. Why didn’t they just put 6 episodes on disc 1 for Season 1 and 11 episodes each on disc 2 and disc 3. Same amount of discs… 3. It’s not that they can’t fit 11 episodes on a disc, because they put 14 episodes of season 6 on 1 disc. So you end up with this strange menu… IMHO for the 1st disc.

It creates more work for properly separating the seasons for renaming for my media player software (Kodi).

Seasons 3 and 4 are even stranger. Each season has 22 episodes so if you put 11 episodes on a disc… each season would take 2 discs, 4 discs total for 2 seasons. But that would make too much sense. Instead they use 5 discs split into episodes as follows 9, 9, 9, 11, 8.

Using my power station as a UPS

OK in keeping with my previous post, it seems like the best use for my power station is to use it as a UPS for my computer. Below it is being so used. The computer is plugged into the AC output The power station is plugged into the wall. I has pass-thru charging so in this case the power is going directly from the wall (grid) to the computer. However in the event of a power failure it will switch to the power station within 20 milliseconds.

I haven’t had a computer UPS in a very long time. The last UPS I had would provide enough power to finish up your tasks the shut everything down in a orderly manner. This power station, acting as a UPS will keep my computer running over 3 hrs.

What the app looks like. Obviously I can’t snap the picture on both at the exact same time, which accounts for the slight difference in wattage.

However I didn’t buy it for a UPS, I bought it for sleeping purposes so I can run a fan and a small radio for at least 2 nights for extended power outages in the summer. So I actually would finish up and shutdown fairly quickly. I can do minor computer activities on my phone. It just turns out it’s best to use is as a UPS. It’s the healthiest way to keep the battery at 100%.

If I was shopping for a computer UPS today before any of my new found portable power station knowledge, I would no doubt have bought a small unit with only 10-15 min of reserve.

I just did some searching on Amazon, and it appears that UPSs now have very similar technologies to power stations. Including using the superior LiFePO4 batteries.The biggest difference I see is power stations have the ability to charge by solar. And the UPS has surge protection, however my Anker power strip also provides surge protection.

For this test I have power cords running off the front of my desk. I need to buy a small hole saw so I can run these cords out the back of the table that is attached flush against the wall.

Don’t store Power Stations at 100% charge

I bought my power station for emergencies when I unexpectedly lose AC power. Everybody has their own requirements. For many it’s refrigeration, for me it was for tolerable sleeping. In hurricane prone South Florida, where I’ve gone weeks without power. Trying to sleep in humid high temperatures is miserable. So I was kinda shocked to hear you’re not supposed to store your power station long term at 100%, but more like 60%. So if my power goes down I basically only have half the power on reserve that I planned on.

The first thing I thought of was then why do you say it can act as a UPS? That would require it to be on all the time. So I did a little digging. I found their FAQ.

I had to look up 100% SoC…

100% SoC means the battery is fully charged, indicating that it has the maximum amount of usable energy available at that moment. Conversely, 0% SoC means the battery is completely depleted.

Note: if it’s plugged into a active AC outlet… you can’t turn it off. So at the minimum you have the green power button light on.

It almost sound’s like using it as a computer UPS is the best way to use it. Or perhaps store it off for 5-6 months at 60%, then use it as a UPS in the summer when you’re more likely to loose power.

To a certain extent… I’ve lost interest in programming

That’s not something I ever thought I’d say. I use to think I’d be writing programs into my old age. Which at this point isn’t that far off. Maybe it’s already here, but in my mind old age is always at least 10 years past my current age. I really enjoyed writing programs. The challenge of it. I could always come up with some project to work on. But for the last several years I really have had a hard coming up with projects.

AI plays a huge factor regarding the title of this post. Today it seems you can just ask AI to write your program. I’m making assumptions based on what I’ve read. In the past I had to write programs to do my projects.

Mind you, I personally haven’t asked AI to write me a program. But I’ve seen it done on video.

At one point I felt I got into computers, a little too late. Because only a few years later small Intel based computers started replacing mini and mainframe computers. I felt I’m missing all these new opportunities. In retrospect, I feel I entered the computer field at great time. I have all this historical background working with mini (DEC PDP-11) and mainframe (IBM 360/370). I had access to computers the general public never did. I did things the hard way. Typed programs onto cards, looked at results on paper listings. No Google or YouTube videos with countless examples.

Back then, I was a computer programmer, and proud of it. Today people are software engineers. Later I became a Systems programmer which allowed me to become even more anti-social.

Today almost everyone has access to a computer with most of the abilities that big business have.

Regardless of AI, a huge factor to a loner like me, is how social computing has become. Everything revolves around the team and collaboration. This is largely because of the Internet. I don’t think l my personality, would fit into the field today. Back in my day I could just shut the door and work on a program until it was done. There was very little interaction with others. Many companies were like a world unto themselves.

WordPress export

When my account was suspended, due to my own fault. I thought what if I can’t resolve this and want to restore my log (WordPress), elsewhere. I occasionally export the data using “All content”. I looked at the xml export it was only ~11MB and I started wondering if media was also exported. I started having doubts because of the small size. I have over 2K posts. However looking at the export screen below you can see that Media is an option. I should have know I wrote a program a few years that read the XML export and created static web pages. Still it doesn’t seem quite possible due to the small file size.