Birds of a feather.

Karsten and I are so much alike in some ways it’s scary. On the other hand, he’s probably skinny as a rail, thanks to that healthy California lifestyle. Curse you, surfer dude! I am, however, a little worried by our mutual tendency to get bored; I hope that doesn’t bode poorly for the whole docs thing. It sure isn’t helpful for my day job.

Prime mover.

Seth, you’re doing an AMAZING job. It’s people like you that keep Fedora moving forward by leaps and bounds.

Practicing what I preach.

When I first tried Ogg Vorbis, the free and open-source codec for compressed audio files (think “like MP3″), I was unimpressed. That was several years ago. At the time, even many MP3 compression utilities were using a substandard version of the MP3 codec — Xing springs to mind. These versions would literally cut off all frequency response over 14kHz to concentrate on “more important” (the term’s not my idea) material to which most people pay more attention.

The LAME codec made great strides in taking care of this problem by taking the ISO MP3 code and building thereon. In the latest versions, the ––preset standard option produces very good results, but still uses a low-pass filter between 18.8 and 19.2kHz to similarly concentrate on more audible material. (The higher the frequency in MP3, the more of the file is required to address the audio compression, so it’s possible to compromise the audio at low frequencies if the codec concentrates on reproducing higher ones more faithfully.)

In those days, Ogg Vorbis was more useful for very low-bandwidth applications, when it performed better than MP3. This was a boon for people on dialup Internet, but not as good if you had significant hard disk space to devote to an audio library.

Now all that has changed. I sat down at the computer and did some cross-comparisons of MP3 and Ogg Vorbis, and can say with a great degree of certainty that at similar file sizes to MP3 using ––preset standard, Ogg Vorbis kicks LAME’s hindquarters. I find that a quality level of 0.65 results in files that are roughly the same size — a fraction smaller, actually — as an MP3 at the aforementioned preset, but with far better high frequency reproduction and no apparent loss of quality at more fundamental frequencies.

The MP3 format was one of my last reliances on non-free codecs, and I still have to keep it around to support my wife’s Philips Nike PSA portable audio player, which only supports that format. However, the next purchase we make will be of an audio player that supports Ogg, and I’ll be converting my audio library to that format. The switch is of little consequence to me (other than the time spent re-ripping), since I still get my music the legal, old-fashioned way.

I’ve updated my gstreamer plugin configuration page under the Fedora Fun section to reflect this change. I’ll no longer encourage people to use proprietary plugins for this application, since it’s now unwarranted as far as I can tell.

God, damn them.

The bastards are at it again in London… fire and smoke are reported in the London Underground. It appears that terrorists have struck the heart of London again. I don’t think they realize how this steels the British resolve. At least this time it appears casualties are nil.

Update: Appears there have been some injuries, but no deaths reported.

Slave to the rigor.

I was not really astonished to read this article about people who throw out their computers rather than keep cleaning spyware, virii and worms off their systems. Wow, come to think of it… how much time did I spend doing that in the last year?

Zero.

I feel honest pity and sadness for people so afflicted. I use a far better alternative which protects my data, my family, and my sanity.

Extras, read all about it.

I got my first package into Fedora Extras, nautilus-open-terminal. From mailing list traffic, it seems like this might make it into Fedora Core 5 in order to placate traditionalists who shun keyboard shortcuts.

Heck week.

Pushmi-pullyu.

Next week is going to be a Fedora Documentation Project “push to publish” endeavor. I have a few things I’ve been nipping on by the morsel, but I’m going to take some hefty bites this weekend. (Or, alternately, they will bite back.)

Best. Reply. Ever.

There has been a huge thread on fedora-devel-list regarding a recent change upstream in GNOME. The “Open Terminal” shortcut has been removed from the Desktop quick menu provided by nautilus. Currently, if you right-click the Desktop, “Open Terminal” is one of the choices. For the GNOME target audience of general computer users — which is not the same as “general Linux users” — this makes absolutely no sense.

Trying to pitch in, I notified the list, as well as fedora-extras-list, that I had packaged the GNOME “PowerTool” which solves this problem. When FC5 is issued, a so-called “power user” will be able to yum install nautilus-open-terminal to restore this tool, assuming they are too blinded by tradition to simply make a shortcut key that brings up a terminal (which, incidentally, is much faster than having to remove one’s hands from the keyboard to use the mouse to open one).

The debate raged on all day, but the best response by far came from Colin Walters. If you wonder why it is I like Red Hat so much, the best explanation is that they hire people with this kind of insight. I once lusted after a job at Red Hat; the more I see of how some of their folks think, the more I worry that I couldn’t keep up.

It’s a Mr. Klein; he says he’s come about the reaping.

Ed Klein is best known for his years as an editor at the New York Times Magazine, but his new book on Hillary Clinton rarely rises above tabloid journalism. Klein has been largely shunned by MSM outlets, which has caused him to cry “wolf” and some other folks to at least arch an eyebrow. Thankfully, attentive blog readers are finding the real story buried in the detritus (largely composed, incidentally, of decaying journalistic ethics primers; please watch your step).

Klein (or at least his publisher) seems to think this book will have some effect on the 2008 Presidential race. My prediction is that this book will fade out quickly; the best political water-cooler talk in 2008 will center around Howard Dean’s pratfalls, bumbling around the Clinton II campaign. Watching him botch the meticulous set design that covers up ultra-leftist slogans with carefully concocted nothingspeak, designed to appeal to moderates and soccer moms, will be the highlight of the next Presidential election cycle. Get a good seat early!

London calling.

I contacted my friends who live and work around downtown London this morning and they and their loved ones are, fortunately, all in good health. I want to post here the comments of Prime Minister Blair:

It’s important… that those engaged in terrorism realize that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world. Whatever they do, it is our determination that they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear in this country and in other civilized nations around the world.

…and the Mayor of London’s comments to the terrorists. His directness, while causing him some problems locally over the past few years, more closely mirrors my own sentiments:

I know that you personally do not fear to give your own life in exchange to taking others … but I know you do fear you may fail in your long-term objective to destroy our free society … in the days that follow, look at our airports, look at our seaports and look at our railway stations … you will see that people from the rest of Britain, people from around the world, will arrive in London to become Londoners, to fulfill their dream and achieve their potential … whatever you do, however many you kill, you will fail.

Even a broken clock.

Even if you’re a righty like me, you can respect something the EU has done recently.

Update: It’s final.