I hate undocumented features

[elfs]

Well, I have a lot to be annoyed about. Maria-Sama is at an end for the year, and while the ending was touching and beautiful I'm now hooked for more. I wonder if Yami to Boushi to Hon no Tabibito will match it for intensity.

My car needed a new water pump and a new fuel system. Pricey. And the rattling noise was a loose flange covering where exhaust entered the engine block. Replacing that was cheap. But still, the overall bill added up. I won't be going to many cons or buying many toys over the next couple of months.

I got an (automated, but still) email from the anime meetup system asking me if I went and did I enjoy it? Of course I didn't go, so I didn't enjoy it. But, according to the machine's own records, nobody else went either.

And, while hacking at the code for mkdvd, I discovered the undocumented feature that lets me pre-transcode my files for NTSC (the US broadcast standard) rather than live with the internal (and terrible) PAL-to-NTSC translator. I hate undocumented features. The .vob argument ought to be front and center in the usage page, never mind it's necessity in the documentation!

Comments

Can you expand...

[norikos-author.livejournal.com]

on the feature? I'm currently making dvds of stuff...

Re: Can you expand...

[elfs.livejournal.com]

mkdvd.pike is a great program. A shame it's written in pike. One of the features it promises is that if the file is in a "DVD-ready format," it won't reprocess it, so I ran transcode by hand to create DVD-compliant MPG files, and then tried to generate the menu using mkdvd-- and it still tried to run transcode again on them.

The undocumented secret is that, when you're done transcoding, change the extension to .vob. mkdvd will only complain then if the files aren't consistent, but it won't try to transcode them, assuming they're ready to be compiled into a DVD filesystem.

Note that I haven't tried this yet. I only found it this morning while hacking on the bus ride. But if it works, I'm going to be really mad. Still, it might kill the fansub stuttering...

Car repairs...

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Ouch. I had to replace the water pump in the truck when I realized that the entire contents of the cooling system were spread over the garage floor, so I have an idea of how much that costs. But the fuel system? Eek.

Maria-Sama

[(Anonymous)]

There is a second season that his current airing in Japan and the first 6 episodes are already avliable on Bit Torrent here is a site with access to the BT links: http://animesuki.com/series.php/453.html

Re: Maria-Sama

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Found it, thanks. I'm a little disappointed; it's a different fansubbing group, and the raws they get are just awful. Still, it's nice to be able to follow the rest of the story.

[fallenpegasus]

Ouch. I once replaced the fuel pump and water pump in my old `81 Subi, because I couldnt afford to have a shop do it.

It wasn't too terribly hard, with Chilton's in hand, but it was annoying as hell.

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

Trouble is, '81 engine tech still pre-dates the really fancy stuff, with electronics and stuff. Electronic control of fuelling gets horribly expensive to fix. And there's been some really dumb design of the ECU systems, Lose electrical power on some early ECUs, and lose _all_ the programming.

On the other paw, the differential gears aren't so heavy.