Monday, November 26, 2007

Nine Inch Nails - Year Zero[AC3 5.1]beta2-GW99

Just decided to release a second beta of my Dolby Digital 5.1 "Year Zero" DVD...

7 tracks so far...



Changelog:
beta2
-fixed wrong version of "Vessel" in beta1
-much better version of "The Beginning of the End"
-updated to include previously unreleased(by me), "God Given"

Download
More info/links

NYC toddler survives 20-foot fall

Associated Press
Fri Nov 23, 12:25 PM ET


NEW YORK - A toddler who crawled out a third-floor window during his family's Thanksgiving festivities and fell onto a store roof not only survived — he didn't even break a bone.

Brandon Priebe said his 14-month-old son, Bradley, tumbled from a bedroom window in his aunt's Brooklyn apartment on Thursday. His relatives said they thought the window was closed.

Bradley fell about 20 feet onto the roof of a music store next door, police said. Priebe told police that his son wasn't seriously injured in the fall. The boy was in stable condition later Thursday at a local hospital, where no update on his condition was available early Friday.

"It's a miracle," said Anna Priebe, the boy's mother.

Source: Yahoo! News

Friday, May 18, 2007

Nine Inch Nails - "Year Zero"; My 5.1 Surround Project

Update(3-17-13): While looking for a copy of my own 5.1 project, I found one by Erik Maceto that's actually finished. The 5.1 mixes are sweet and the design of the DVD is quite a bit better than I ever envisioned mine being. I got it from the thepiratebay but you can grab it here: 
NIN - "Year Zero" 5.1 Surround DVD mixed by Erik Macedo
https://mega.co.nz/#F!y1xAECxa!W4zZBk8v4PUpkPEgYRSrzw

Update(3-19-13): It gets even better... it turns out Erik also did "The Slip" and "Ghosts I-IV" in 5.1 as well. I haven't been able to get the second part of "Ghosts" yet but there's these awesome links for now :)
NIN - "The Slip" 5.1 Surround DVD mixed by Erik Macedo
https://mega.co.nz/#F!e84V1KpC!GrttljrfAGkXLZc0KgGkqQ

NIN - "Ghosts I-II" 5.1 Surround DVD mixed by Erik Macedo
https://mega.co.nz/#F!XxgSlDCC!G7R2jR6aZnN5Sz-aFW7OcA

Update(7-12-13): Finally, NIN - "Ghosts III-IV" 5.1 Surround DVD mixed by Erik Macedo: https://mega.co.nz/#F!btAHyaYb!aJhdGBz1GokDfPzLQkZJyQ

Follow me at twitter.com/WayAtTheEnd and/or facebook.com/WayAtTheEnd for lots more Trent Reznor stuff :)
One example: I recently discovered this, and it's awesome: Peter Gabriel - Growing Up (Trent Reznor remix)

Original Post(modified): At first I was pretty disappointed that "Year Zero" was not released in 5.1 surround sound right away. Now I'm actually pretty glad, as it inspired me to work on a 5.1 version of the album myself, its been fun and a good learning experience. Back then I went through a long process of getting the Macintosh OS X installed on my PC so I could play around with the GarageBand files Trent provides on his site. I have since moved onto Ableton Live within windows which makes the process significantly faster.

I still have finishing touches to do on the ones I have released so far, but I think they are pretty good the way they are too. After my first couple songs I was listening to the official version of "The Downward Spiral" in 5.1 and realized I need to remove the drum beat from the rear speakers altogether for them to sound more official. Aside from fixing that with the first couple songs, theres only a few minor things I know I intend to change.

The individual songs are in Dolby Digital *.ac3 format, and with the right codec they will just play in windows media player through analog or spdif. Of course they wont help much unless you have at least 4.0 surround on your computer or unless you wanted to make a dvd-video yourself. If you are a fan of NIN and you're able to check them out, I don't think you would regret using the bandwidth.

Update(11-26-07): Long overdue beta2 of my DVD released, grab it from megaupload. Features the correct version of "Vessel" that was previously available in a patch for beta1, a much better version of "The Beginning of The End," and previously unreleased "God Given." Total of 7 tracks. I will have the pre-formatted Ableton Live versions of the remaining 9 tracks and looking forward to working on those :)

Update(11-20-09): I guess I lied about getting the rest done real soon, and I no longer have a shit-load of free time, but I am still hoping to have it all done eventually.

Update(3-15-13): Of course these links went extinct when Kim Dotcom got into that legal trouble, now I don't have a copy of it myself. If/when I finally find it, I'll make it available again.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Tot found high on coke at preschool

ASSOCIATED PRESS

JACKSONVILLE — A toddler was being treated for having cocaine in her system after workers at her church preschool noticed the girl acting unusual, authorities said Wednesday.

The unidentified girl, who is between 18 and 24 months old, was taken to the hospital by her parents after workers at Promise Land Preschool at First Baptist Church of Mandarin noticed she would not eat and was unsteady on her feet Monday, according to a report from the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office. The girl was expected to be fine.

The toddler’s parents tested negative for cocaine, authorities said. Authorities also could not link the drugs to the church, the Rev. Steve Newbill told The Florida Times-Union.

I found ths via: ShoutWire
Full story: BreakingNews(floridatoday.com)

2-year-old allegedly shoots father

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Minneapolis police are trying to find out how a 2-year-old boy allegedly ended up with a gun and shot his father. The 24-year-old man walked into Abbott Northwestern Hospital last Saturday with a gunshot wound to his arm. The man told police that his 2-year-old son had taken the gun from his mother's purse and fired it at him.

"I cannot think of the last time a 2-year-old was involved in a shooting," Lt. Amelia Huffman, a police spokeswoman, said Tuesday. "It's a pretty rare thing, thankfully."

Court strikes down Internet porn law

POSTED: 4:10 p.m. EDT, March 22, 2007

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (AP) -- A federal judge on Thursday dealt another blow to government efforts to control Internet pornography, striking down a 1998 U.S. law that makes it a crime for commercial Web site operators to let children access "harmful" material.

In the ruling, the judge said parents can protect their children through software filters and other less restrictive means that do not limit the rights of others to free speech.

"Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if (free speech) protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection," wrote Senior U.S. District Judge Lowell Reed Jr., who presided over a four-week trial last fall.

The law would have criminalized Web sites that allow children to access material deemed "harmful to minors" by "contemporary community standards." The sites would have been expected to require a credit card number or other proof of age. Penalties included a $50,000 fine and up to six months in prison.

I found this via: neowin.net
Full story: CNN.com

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Video Game Decency Act returns

By Brendan Sinclair Special to CNET News.com
Published: March 21, 2007, 9:31 AM PDT


The Video Game Decency Act of 2006 was one of a handful of pieces of proposed federal legislation that failed to get traction in Congress last year. But it is by no means an abandoned issue.

Much as Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., did with the recently resurrected Truth in Video Game Rating Act, the legislator behind the Video Game Decency Act is taking a second crack at the idea by resubmitting a functionally identical version of the bill to Congress.

As reported by GamePolitics.com, Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., last week introduced the Video Game Decency Act of 2007 to the House of Representatives, where it was quickly referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. The bill aims to criminalize any attempt to obtain a less-restrictive age-related rating on a game by failing to disclose the game's true contents to the Entertainment Software Rating Board.

... Shortly after the Oblivion re-rating, the ESRB revealed that it already has the power to fine companies as much as $1 million for not disclosing objectionable content. The board has also said it could punish repeat offenders by refusing to rate their games at all, effectively preventing their games from being carried by major U.S. retailers.

I found this via: neowin.net
Full story: News.com

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Hackers Promise Month of MySpace Bugs

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
Friday, March 16, 2007 06:00 PM GMT-08:00


They won't divulge their real names, they call their project a "whiny, attention-seeking ploy," and they appear to take their fashion cues from Beastie Boys music videos.

But two hackers going by the names of Mondo Armando and Müstaschio promise to begin disclosing security vulnerabilities in MySpace, News Corp.'s popular social networking site, every day next month.

"The purpose of the exercise is not so much to expose MySpace as a hive of spam and villainy (since everyone knows that already), but to highlight the monoculture-style danger of extremely popular websites," wrote Mondo Armando in an e-mail interview.

"We could have just as easily gone after Google or Yahoo or MSN or IDG or whatever. MySpace is just more fun, and is becoming notoriously [obnoxious] about responding to security issues," he said.

I found this via: neowin.net
Full story: PC World

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Playing video games improves eyesight

First-person shooters helped subjects improve spatial resolution
Updated: 12:40 p.m. ET March 16, 2007

Playing "Gears of War," "Lost Planet," "Halo" and other action video games that involve firing guns can improve your eyesight, new research claims.

Sedate games like "Tetris" don't work.

People who started out as non-gamers and then received 30 hours of training on first-person action video games showed a substantial increase in their ability to see objects accurately in a cluttered space, compared to non-gamers given the same test, said Daphne Bevelier of the University of Rochester.

... First-person action games helped study subjects improve their spatial resolution, meaning their ability to clearly see small, closely packed together objects, such as letters, she said. Game-playing actually changes the way our brains process visual information.

"These games push the human visual system to the limits and the brain adapts to it," she said, in a prepared statement. "That learning carries over into other activities and possibly everyday life."

I found this via: neowin.net
Full story: MSNBC

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Woman weds corpse...

Mon Mar 12, 2007 8:30AM EDT

AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) - An Indian woman, despairing over her lover's accidental death when he fell down a well soon after their engagement, insisted on ceremonially marrying his corpse just minutes before the cremation.

"It was for just few minutes the girl was dressed as a bride and then as a widow," K.M. Kapadia, a police officer in the town of Anand in western Gujarat state, said on Saturday.

Wedding attendees sat the corpse up by a fire, the traditional center of Hindu wedding ceremonies, and chanted some marriage prayers before cremating the body, police said.

"The girl refused to give away the body of her lover for the cremation till she tied the knot with him," Kapadia said.

The bride's parents opposed the marriage but later attended the wedding ceremony and gave their 22-year-old daughter Tulsi Devipujak clothes and utensils as gifts, according to the Hindu tradition.


Source: CNN.com

Monday, March 12, 2007

Random Links 3-12-07

Double Wires - [via lancerlord]
^^ Cool little game to play around with for a few minutes. Just click the mouse where you want to shoot your hook/rope device, over and over.
Teletubbies. Accidental Pr0n? [via lancerlord]
^^ "What is Tinky Winky doing to Dipsy? What is Dipsy doing with his hand?"
My Family Thinks Im Gay [via BREAK.com]
^^ "This kid named Bo Burnham could be the next Stephen Lynch, he sings a hilarious song about how his whole family thinks hes gay."
50 Amazing Ads You Haven't Seen [via lancerlord]
^^ "50 creative advertisements collected over a 5 month period."
Ryan Vs Dorkman [via lancerlord]
^^ "2 guys battle it out with lightsabres."
Miracle Soccer Goal [via lancerlord]
^^ "Goal scored by goalie in the last 30 seconds."

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Bread Expert

From lancerlord:

Bread Expert: This is one of the funniest interviews on the Conan O'Brien Show. It involves bread expert Steven Kaplan telling Conan O'Brien just how sexy a loaf of bread can be.

Cohen sued for 'libelling friend' on Ali G show

By Matthew Moore
Last Updated: 1:52am GMT 28/02/2007


Sacha Baron Cohen, the British comedian behind the award-winning Borat movie, is being sued by a woman who claims he libelled her in an old Ali G sketch.

Sacha Baron Cohen promoting the Ali G film in 2002
Cohen is alleged to have referred to the woman - a childhood acquaintance - as a "minger" and a "b****" during an interview with the American novelist Gore Vidal in 2004.

He is also accused of falsely claiming he had got her pregnant, according to court papers filed in Los Angeles

I found this via: DRUDGE REPORT
Full story: Telegraph.co.uk

Miracle baby comes back from the dead

by CHRIS BROOKE - More by this author »
Last updated at 22:49pm on 27th February 2007


After trying for 30 minutes to bring two-week-old Woody Lander back to life, doctors decided there was nothing more they could do and called in his parents to say their tearful farewells.

A nurse passed Woody to his heartbroken father and gently pulled a tube from his mouth so they could kiss him goodbye.

It was then that the miracle happened.

The lifeless baby suddenly coughed and moved. Nurses immediately grabbed Woody back, re-attached the tubes and lifesaving equipment and he came back to life in front of his astonished parents.

No one has been able to explain why Woody, who had suffered a massive heart attack, was able to return from the brink. And despite being starved of oxygen for so long, he appears to have suffered no permanent brain damage.

I found this via: DRUDGE REPORT
Full story: DailyMail

Apple, Samsung, Sandisk sued over MP3

Texas MP3 Technologies claims the companies infringed its patent covering 'an MPEG portable sound reproducing system'
By Martyn Williams, IDG News Service
February 26, 2007


The suit, which came to light over the weekend, was filed on Feb. 16 in Marshall, Texas. The eastern Texas city is fast becoming one of the leading locations of patent infringement lawsuits in the U.S. thanks to speedy trials and juries that more often than not find in favor of the plaintiff.

In the complaint Texas MP3 Technologies alleges infringement on U.S. patent 7,065,417, which was awarded in June 2006 to multimedia chip-maker SigmaTel and covers "an MPEG portable sound reproducing system and a method for reproducing sound data compressed using the MPEG method."

I found this via: neowin.net
Full story: InfoWorld


From neowin.net comments:

Posted by MrA on 27 Feb 2007 - 02:09
Quote - (GP007 said @ #2.1)
That's when they finally got it from the patent office, but when did they file for it? With so many patents placed each year alone, it takes forever for them to look over it, this could've been filed years ago, before the MP3 player market took off.


According to google patent search:

Quote -
Patent number: 7065417
Filing date: Jan 29, 2002
Issue date: Jun 20, 2006
Inventors: Kwang-su Moon, Jung-ha Hwang
Assignee: SigmaTel, Inc.
Primary Examiner: Xu Mei
Attorney: Toler Schaffer, LLP

The iPod was released in 2001. The Creative Nomad before then. Both should count as prior art and hence the patent should be void.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Spyware installer hides in Messenger ad banner

Messed on: 16th of February, 2007

The banner itself appears to advertise and link to a download called Free PC-Secure (which is unfamiliar to us) but the real problem is that its appearance automatically launches a Windows dialog box telling you that "Your system is not clean" and asking you if "you want to download System Doctor to improve it." You know, the typical hoax message that tries to download a malicious ActiveX control even though you click "Cancel" in a fruitless attempt to ignore it.

The conclusion here is that a nasty spyware ad seems to have infiltrated into Microsoft's banner advertising network because one of their clients is making use of some html code trickery.

We advise everyone to pay strict attention when they receive such a message window out of the blue. Cancel any initiated downloads and close the pop-ups/browser instances it launches. The animated banner in the screenshot below (showing two random frames) is the cause of the unsolicited Windows prompt. The bottom image shows the deceitful message on the page that is automatically opened no matter your choice in the dialog window.




I found this via: neowin.net
Original source: Mess.be

Britney's New Look Is Bald

SHERMAN OAKS, February 16, 2007 - Britney Spears is back in the U.S., and she's sporting a brand new look.

Spears was photographed at the valley tattoo shop "Body and Soul" in Sherman Oaks, getting a tattoo reportedly of a pair of red and pink lips on her wrist. But the biggest change to the pop singer's style? She shaved her head bald.

Spears could be seen inside the tattoo parlor with her head fully exposed, but as she left the shop she was led by her bodyguard straight to a waiting SUV. Spears had her head covered with a hooded sweatshirt to hide her new noggin.

The sidewalk outside the shop was filled with fans, onlookers and paparazzi. Some fans that were interviewed after Spears departed declared the new look less than flattering.

Source(with video): abc7.com

Friday, February 16, 2007

Off-Duty cop helped end Utah mall rage

By PAUL FOY, Associated Press Writer
Tue Feb 13, 6:43 PM ET

SALT LAKE CITY - An off-duty police officer having an early Valentine's Day dinner with his wife was credited Tuesday with helping stop a rampage in a crowded shopping mall by an 18-year-old gunman who shot five people to death before he was killed by police.

A day after the shooting, investigators struggled to figure out why a trench-coated Sulejmen Talovic opened fire on shoppers with a supremely calm look on his face.

The teenager wanted to "to kill a large number of people" and probably would have killed many more if not for the off-duty officer, Police Chief Chris Burbank said.

... Talovic had a backpack full of ammunition, a shotgun and a .38-caliber pistol, police said. Investigators knew little about Talovic, except than he lived in Salt Lake City with his mother, the police chief said. He was enrolled in numerous city schools before withdrawing in 2004, the school district said.

Talovic's aunt, Ajka Onerovic, emerged briefly from the family's house to say relatives had no idea why the young man attacked so many strangers.

"He was a such a good boy. I don't know what happened," she told Salt Lake City television station KSL.

Source and full story: Yahoo! News

'Miracle' -- teen's heart, stopped for 4 days, beats again

POSTED: 9:39 a.m. EST, February 12, 2007

NEW YORK (AP) -- Daniel Walker was on his final lap jogging in his high school gym class when he collapsed, his flawed heart giving out on him.

More than four days later, his heart at a standstill, kept alive by a bypass machine, it began beating again. The 17-year-old's parents called it divine intervention. His physicians were no less amazed.

"I've been a surgeon for 10 years, and this is probably one of the most incredible things I've ever seen," said Dr. Abeel Mangi, one of Walker's cardiac surgeons at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Columbia.

Walker's father described his son's recovery in spiritual terms. "God turned around, put His hand on my son, and recharged him," said William Walker, 58, a retired sanitation worker.

His son's ordeal began January 19 when he collapsed in gym class. The younger Walker suffered from a rare congenital heart flaw that left his coronary artery pinched, giving him only 10 percent of normal heart capacity. He was shuttled to two hospitals before finding himself at Columbia, waiting for a heart transplant, attached to the bypass machine.

Walker's cardiac surgeons said they could not account for the young man's recovery.

"It's a miracle," Mangi said. "There's really no other way to put it."

Two days after it began to beat on its own, surgeons were able to fix the flaw in Walker's heart, increasing its capacity to 60 percent.

I found this via: ShoutWire
Source: CNN.com

MySpace Tries to Filter Videos for Copyrighted Content

MySpace to filter out both audio and video content
Tuan Nguyen (Blog) - February 13, 2007 5:00 PM

MySpace this week announced that it is experimenting with a video-filtering system that it developed in conjunction with Audible Magic Corp. to block videos that contain copyrighted material. The move comes not too long after YouTube proposed a similar system. MySpace currently has some form of blocking technology already in place which blocks uploading of copyrighted music.

According to representatives from MySpace, the direction the online social networking site is taking with copyright infringement is a serious one. Record labels along with the RIAA and MPAA have gone after many users and websites that host user-uploaded videos. In fact, MySpace faced legal action by Universal Music late last year for allowing users to upload and share music videos.

Source and full story: DailyTech

Google Accused of Helping Pirates

Film studios are going after Google for its alleged aid in film piracy
Marcus Yam (Blog) - February 14, 2007 3:33 PM

Google is coming under fire from big media studios who are accusing the search giant of aiding in film piracy. Setting this headline apart, however, is that the complaints aren’t over YouTube, but rather Google’s advertising.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Brandon Drury and Luke Sample—who ran EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com and are currently being sued by several Hollywood studios—got significant support from Google advertising. The two men said in sworn statements that Google offered them credit as an easy start to advertise on Google's search engine, and that the search company also suggested ad keywords such as "bootleg movie download," "pirated," and "download harry potter movie." According to the report, Google received $809,000 for its advertisements.

I found this via: neowin.net
Full story: DailyTech

PeerGuardian 2.0 Beta 6c released

"PeerGuardian 2 is Phoenix Labs’ premier IP blocker for Windows. PeerGuardian 2 integrates support for multiple lists, list editing, automatic updates, and blocking all of IPv4 (TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc), making it the safest and easiest way to protect your privacy on P2P."

Download: PeerGuardian 2.0 Beta 6c
View: PeerGuardian Homepage
Source: Pheonix Labs Forums