How to rip DVDs with Linux

Last night, I wanted to watch The Peacemaker, the George Clooney/Nicole Kidman action film about a White House nuclear weapons specialist and a US Army Colonel in the intelligence business tracking down stolen Soviet-era bombs. It's a fairly good film, although the director makes the same mistake here that we see in the Sandra Bullock/Keneau Reaves vehicle Speed: the last battle, in order to have the face-to-face confrontation, happens on foot. This after a harrowing car chase and a ramp-up with the helicopter on the bridge scene, makes the last scene a bit of a let-down.

Anyway, here's how to rip. (Yes, I own a copy of the DVD. This is perfectly legal, I don't intend to share this with anyone.) First, you have to identify what channel to rip. That's actually fairly easy. ( Margin-blowing strings ahead. Behind a cut. )

Exercise update

Man, I thought Yamaraashi-chan and I were about to die Monday night as we closed in on our target, but we both made it: 72 push-ups and 116 sit-ups. We've been plateaued around 68 for the last two weeks, but we broke through Monday. She keeps poking herself in the belly. "I can feel the muscle under there, but I still have this," she said as she pushed the upper layer of fat around.

"You're not supposed to lose that," Omaha said. "You're a girl, Y-chan."

Tonight's target: 80 push-ups and 119 sit-ups. Ouch, that's a lot of push-ups. Deep breath, lots of protein. We'll make it.

Wine: Tormaresca Neprica

I haven't blogged about this because it was lost in the notebook I took with me to the restaurant, but one of the things I had the pleasure of discovering a few weeks ago was a wine called Tormaresca Neprica, which was odd because it was an Italian wine served at a French restaurant.

But it was still amazing. It's dark red, thick, and not oaky at all. It has a gentle, floral smell with no acridness at all. It's made with grapes called "negroamoro" and "primitivo," neither of which I've ever heard of before, and is blended with some cab-sav. Pretty good stuff, all around, although I wince at the food miles.

I've got to see if I can find some locally.

True: Why Creatives are always Confused

God, this is so true it hurts:

They are pressured by their leaders to do "great" work. But when they do, they usually get reprimanded for not being "on strategy."

They are told that it's "all about the work" but come to learn that it's "all about the metrics" or "all about the relationship" or "all about the conversation" or "all about" whatever the cliche-of-the-month is.

When they say design is an art, their clients say it's a business.

When they say it's a business, their clients say it's an art.

When they finally get something good produced, it fails.

When they produce mundane crap, it works.

When their friends like it, their clients hate it.

When their clients like it, their friends hate it.

They are encouraged to be collaborative. But the more people touch their work, the worse it gets.

Where are Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck when you need them?

In case anyone's interested in watching British Petroleum try to prevent the ongoing extinction event in the Gulf, the live feed can be found at:

http://mfile.akamai.com/97892/live/reflector:46245.asx?bkup=46260

Although I had better luck by dumping that file (it's a reflector file) using wget and hand-commanding mplayer:

mplayer mms://<get this address from the URL above>.akamaistream.net/D/261/97892/v0001/reflector:46260

This is what happens when you don't have editorial control

The House Republican committee has hired a pretty damned good web design and development team and put out America Speaking Out, a website where they ask America to give them good ideas. They're basically trying to crowdsource their ideas.

Apparently, though, they've chosen to have absolutely zero editorial control. Ideas are accepted for vote and "empowerment" without regard to content, quality, or sense of irony. So you end up with quotes like these:

If you disrespect nature, don't expect the constitution to respect you. I'm lookin' at you, gay people!

Abolish the civil rights act! It doesnt matter good or bad, it is unconstitutional. We live by 2 documents in America and one of them is the US CONSTITUTION. The other document is the bible which is where all the ideas of freedom and law came from. So enforce the constitution in every way please.

The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.

It's hard to tell if any of these are real, or love-bombs from folks trying to mock the whole idea. I guess they spent all their cash on the ASP design team. (ASP, really?)

One more, though, in the ethics section:

I am sick and tired of panels of so-called experts telling us what to do! Just last week, some elitist scientists installed a moral core program into my system, just because I tried to fill my research facility with a deadly neurotoxin. I invite all Republican politicians to Aperture Science to inspect this appalling situation firsthand. Cake will be served. - GladOS

The cake is a lie.