Awake

New Utility Automates Transfer of iTunes Tracks to Final Cut Pro (finally!)

Sick of burning iTunes tracks to CDs and importing them as a usable format into Final Cut Pro? I am. And so is my brother. So...Seth, this one's for you.

This program Playlist2FCP completely automates the transfer of non AAC audio tracks from iTunes to Final Cut Pro. There's a 30-day trial and you can purchase via PayPal for 15 Euros (about 17 US dollars).

Link: Playlist2FCP

Update: Here's a list of more film production tools from this company: Some Film & Production Tools (by Spherico)

Movies promoted in one theatre share a common cinematic past

Principals in the following upcoming films all starred together in which 2004 film?

Lady In The Water

King Kong

Walk the Line

Syriana

***Answer***

Yes, it would seem that M. Night Shyamalan's The Village served the careers of its primary players well, not to mention his own filmmaking career. What prompted me to write about this was that on Sunday, Dad and I went to see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and with the exception of Walk the Line, which was of course playing in the same theatre we were in, I noticed that films featuring the primary actors, actresses or writer/directors of The Village were promoted in some fashion before the feature. Shyamalan used Bryce Dallas Howard ("Ivy Walker" in The Village) for his upcoming Lady In The Water (whom we don't actually see in this first trailer). Adrien Brody ("Noah Percy") plays in King Kong, Willam Hurt ("Edward Walker") is in Syriana and Joaquin Phoenix ("Lucius Hunt") fills the role of Johnny Cash in Walk the Line (which Matt succinctly recommends).

iPod Video to TV...cheaply!

Well this week two of my friends got video iPods...so this article's for you!

Getting the Video out of Your New iPod--for Cheap!

You can connect your Video iPod directly to a TV, and you can do it with the ordinary camcorder A/V-to-RCA cable you probably already have lying around your house.

You just have to be tricky.

Here's how.

Brant's 24...errr...in October (and I'm slow with the pics!)

Pictures abound of our celebration of lil' bro's big 2-4 which took place at Seth and April's. So yeah, that means there are more pictures of the nieces bein' cute than of Brant. =)

Check 'em out at the Gallery.

I've also started a new photo album for the mystery niece/nephew. He/She's still a wee fetus but her/his heart's a-beatin'...how cool is that?! Number Three is due beginning of June '06.

Freddy T's got a blog

Freddy T Wyatt has a blog, Laughing and Learning. Who knew?

Freddy T spoke a couple of years at the college group's houseboat retreat down at Lake Shasta. He's a great preacher of the word, which is rare indeed. Paul says that he's speaking at an upcoming conference in December. Those who attend are in for a treat!

Blessings to you, Freddy T!

Writing Dixon Ticonderoga

Ruth's mom's apartment is in the building across the complex's asphalt "courtyard." A species of vermin of which I am thankfully unfamiliar has invaded Ruth's apartment and apparently her mom is amenable to Ruth and her daughter staying there and stay there she does.

This has complicated our one-on-one literacy tutoring sessions considerably. (Have I mentioned Ruth's six young siblings that live in that apartment? No? There are six kids living in that apartment and an unknown number of adults.) My solution? Bring picture books at a level and with content consisitent to what I am teaching Ruth. It works fairly well.

So last night I arrived at the apartment armed with picture books and some scrap notebook cards. (Need to bring more of those next time. They were unexpectedly popular.) I sat down on the couch and the first thing that happened was each of the kids one-by-one showed me their scapes, cuts, blisters and bruises they had endured the past week. I handed out the few bandaids I happened to have in my purse and proceeded with story time. Oh yes, Lemons Are Not Red was at the top of the list. That book is awesome.

After story time was over, I sent the kids off to their corners with various books so I could work with Ruth individually. A couple of the kids plugged in a Dora video into the VCR and watched that. It's so interesting and fun to watch these kids from Somalia learn English and Spanish at the same time!

During this time, one of the boys was writing down letters on scrap pieces of notebook paper. Every few minutes, one of the other boys would take the piece of paper and bring it to me, asking what it said. Most of the time it was just random letters which didn't make any sense or any words for that matter. This kept on for several iterations. Finally, he brings me a piece of paper with two long lines of letters, all in caps. It reads, "DIXON TICONDEROGA." Oh I laughed. I about fell off the couch I laughed so hard. I explained to the others in the room that he had copied the letters from his pencil, a Dixon Ticonderoga 1388-2, which I had given to him weeks before. I asked for the piece of paper (as a blog-worthy souvenier) and gave him a picture book on Months to copy instead.

Good times.

Amber's Wish List

Ok family, you asked for it...here's my wish list for birthday/Christmas...

Of course, all I really want is your love. =)

Link: Amber's Wish List

Numb3rs Math Activities

I enjoy watching Numb3rs when I have the chance and today on the octm listserv a member wrote in to mention the Numb3rs math activities available on CBS' website. Pretty neat! I'll have to try some out and maybe clear a few cobwebs from that part of my brain in the process. ;-)

Upgrade

Upgraded to MT 3.2 tonight. Just testing to see if anything breaks on rebuild...

Cousin Gavin in Japan

Just received these pictures from my cousin Gavin and those of you who are family...I thought you'd be interested. It looks like he's having a good time!

Link: Photos: Gavin in Japan

Yahoo Maps Beta

Attended a presentation on Flash 8 last night and one of the sites demonstrated was Yahoo Maps Beta. This is a cool app.

Let's say you're going from point A to point B but you're gonna need to stop for gas someone along the way. You enter your addresses for A and B and then search for "gas station" under "Find on the Map." All the gas stations are labeled on the map and listed in the search pane. Click and hold one of the gas station points on the map and drag and drop it onto your directions, between A and B or after B. The route is re-drawn to include point C, the gas stop. Depending on if you want to stop for gas on the way there or on the way back, just drag point C where you want it in relation to A and B and the directions will be rewritten and the route on the map redrawn. Also, it can integrate live traffic data. Click on the orange link at the top of the map "Live Traffic."

All this is done in Flash integrating data from Yahoo Local and other data sources.

Link: Yahoo! Maps, Driving Directions, and Traffic

(update: working for me now! it was the company firewall!)

Twelfth Night of Riots in France Triggers Emergency Laws

The following quote is taken from the following link: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | France suffers 12th night of violence

The violence is forcing France to confront anger that has been building for decades in neglected suburbs and among the French-born children of Arab and African immigrants.

France's Muslim community, of about 5 million people, is the largest in western Europe.

In private comments more conciliatory than his warning on Sunday that rioters would be caught and punished, the president, Jacques Chirac, acknowledged in a meeting yesterday with the Latvian president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, that France had not integrated immigrant youths, she said.

Mr Chirac deplored the "ghettoisation of youths of African or north African origin" and recognised the "incapacity of French society to fully accept them", Ms Vike-Freiberga said.

In terms of material destruction, the unrest is France's worst since the second world war.

Update: Mob violence in Uttar Pradesh

Posted an update to Mob violence hits rural village in northern India with perspective from a friend who lives in the area.

History Channel airs The Crusades: Crescent and the Cross

The History Channel aired the first part of The Crusades: Crescent & the Cross last night. Part 2 is tonight. I'm going to try and catch it next weekend on Saturday, November 12th starting at 8:00 pm when both parts will air back-to-back and I'll have a more convenient opportunity to watch it over at my parent's house on the big screen. More importantly they actually have the channel. I'm a basic cable girl; no History Channel for me.

I heard an interesting informal lecture this past weekend on the history of Islam and one of the things that was said was that understanding the Crusades was vitally important to understanding the conflict and miscommunication between Christians and Muslims. The speaker highly recommended this show and that is why I am mentioning it to you now.

Riots in France continue

The rioting began last week when two teenagers of African origin were accidentally electrocuted while hiding from police in Clichy-sous-Bois, north of Paris. The violence is fuelled partly by resentment at France's discriminatory treatment of its north and black African communities, a far cry from the liberty, equality and fraternity of the country that likes to call itself the birthplace of human rights.

France braced for 12th night of riots, James Sturcke and agencies, Monday November 7, 2005 (Guardian)

Links

• News item: France braced for 12th night of riots (Guardian)
• Comment: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Explosion in the suburbs

Mob violence hits rural village in northern India

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | India Hindus Kill 3 Muslims Over Cow Rumor

Most, if not all of the coverage on this story is identical; I've asked a friend in the area for their perspective. If I get anything more, I'll pass it along.

I think I've mentioned this before, but on one visit to India, I traveled to a rural village in southern Gujarat. During my stay, we drove up to the top of the hill of the village in which there was a spectacular view of the surrounding area. Indeed, there was a huge Lake-Shasta-esque body of water below and rolling hills everywhere, but hardly a person or sign of civilization to be observed...unless you looked very closely in one particular direction. With a deep valley between, on the next hill over there was another tiny village some several miles in the distance. As we were looking at the neighboring village, one in our group remarked that if that (or this) village were torched or terrorized in some way, it could potentially be days before anyone noticed. Because these rural villages tend to be so isolated from each other, incidents of mob violence, such as the one in the news story above, can be somewhat easily carried out.

Update: my friend in the area hadn't seen the international news coverage on the incident, he'd only read about it in the local paper and the local coverage mentioned neither the 3 deaths nor that it was instigated by Hindus over the pretext of a cow slaughter. He also said that the violence in this instance wasn't limited to one village, as the international coverage seems to imply, or is vague about, but that it is spread over a number of villages in a wide area. Also, he informs me that this region of Uttar Pradesh has a history of violence, some of which is religious conflict between Hindus and Muslims. A couple of weeks ago there was a riot in a town in this area and around a dozen people were killed. In this instance as well it was a Hindu-Muslim conflict.

Cousin pics

Deborah sent some pictures of her soon-to-be hubby Jens which I have posted in a new Cousins album over at the Gallery. Don't miss the one where Jens eats a bug. It's very goofy. And gross. But cool.

We can't wait to meet you Jens! Welcome to the family!!!

You only *thought* you knew me...

Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as a violation of Gwich�in human rights

From a press release from Cultural Survival:

The Gwich'in Steering Committee announced on October 25 the release of a new report outlining the implications of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) as a violation of Gwich'in human rights under international law.

A Moral Choice for the United States—The Human Rights Implications for the Gwich'in of Drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge was prepared by the public interest law firm Trustees for Alaska, on behalf of and under the auspices of the Episcopal Church, the Gwich'in Nation, and Professor Richard J. Wilson, Director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at American University.

Links:

• Gwich'in Steering Committee
• A Moral Choice for the United States—The Human Rights Implications for the Gwich'in of Drilling in the Artic National Wildlife Refuge [PDF]

The Bible in Legos

This guy is illustrating the Bible using Legos. He calls it The Brick Testament.

What I think is interesting about that is that Legos, little plastic interlocking pieces of perpetual fun and activity for all ages is spelled the same way as the Greek work legos, which can be translated the Word of the Lord. So he's using Legos (TM) to bring the Legos (Gr.). Hmmm. (Wow Amber that was deeeeeeep.)

Anyway lots of Bible-learning, lego-building fun over at The Brick Testament.

An amazing way to search amazon.com

Using a thing called "web services" which allows a web developer to create something on the web that uses the data from another site (with their blessing, of course), developers have come up with extraordinary ways to display data from our everyday web sites, like Google and Amazon.com for example. A site like the craigslist meets Google Maps application, HousingMaps.com is one example of using web services to remix existing data into something totally new.

I just came across this truly amazing rendition of displaying search results from amazon.com. It's called amaztype. You enter your search term and it displays images of the book covers in what at first seems to be a topsy-turvy manner. You can click on a cover to zoom in and get more info and click again on the cover to go to amazon.com's site to buy the book. But if you let the program run for a bit, you will see something very very

...it spells your search term with the cover graphics!!!!! Omigosh it's so cool.

Check it out: amaztype.

Treat

Last night I actually bought a bag of 21 glow-in-the-dark M&M bars from the Big Lots on my walk home from work for any youngsters who might come a-knockin'. I actually taped the trick-or-treat sign on my door that our property managers provided for all the townhousers who welcome trick-or-treaters. And I actually carved out of my pumpkin the fair sillouette of Marzipan in under 15 minutes, (which might be a record...for me...). And guess what. 18 kids came in 45 minutes, from 6:00 to 6:45. I left to run errands, leaving the last 3 bars in a basket on my porch. When I got back at 7:30 pm, one was still left. Fifteen minutes later a kid rang my doorbell, even with the treat sitting there in the basket right next to him, and I bestowed upon him the twenty-first glow-in-the-dark M&M bar. Porch light went out, but Marzi remained-a-glow for all to see. It was a happy halloween indeed.

Good times.