Comment On Happy July Fourth!

Film is good.

But it's a shame that i had to go to friend of my to watch it.

Closed format, with binary drivers.

Watching it on linux is hard.

Watching it on any non-32bit architecture is impossible.

So, happy july fourth to all of you americans. [<:o)]

(I'm so going to send this video to everyone!) [:-*]

Wow! Are your sparklers the things kids wave around at Bonfire night? Or is that a wacky American name for something else?

bla:

Film is good.

But it's a shame that i had to go to friend of my to watch it.

Closed format, with binary drivers.

Watching it on linux is hard.

Watching it on any non-32bit architecture is impossible.

Guess I'll never know if its good,  I dont know anyone with a windows machine to use.



(Even my wife's using linux)

There's a German word for all the complainers: "Quitcherbitchin"

Wow! That is pretty cool!  Who says sparklers have to suck. :)



    dZ.

Uh, mplayer can play wmv (using MS' libraries i think) and almost anything else, too. ;)

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/

Anonymous:

Uh, mplayer can play wmv (using MS' libraries i think) and almost anything else, too. ;)

http://www.mplayerhq.hu/

Yes, as the OP said, it's "hard", not "impossible" to watch in on Linux, meaning that you can grab the Windows drivers.



However, as the OP also said, watching it on non-x86 (e.g. my x86_64)
is impossible, because the binary Windows drivers won't run.

^I just watched it on my PPC mac

Anonymous:

^I just watched it on my PPC mac

Using MSs poxy player, I assume? Don;t work under my copy of mplayer on OSX, that's for sure.

Anonymous:

^I just watched it on my PPC mac

Ditto!



That's what I love about the Mac, you get the best of both worlds. You
get a shinney and easy to use GUI with lots of software available for
it AND you get the 'under the hood' power and reliablity of Unix thanks
to Darwin (which is open source).



God bless the Apple!

Anonymous:

^I just watched it on my PPC mac

Ditto!



That's what I love about the Mac, you get the best of both worlds. You
get a shinney and easy to use GUI with lots of software available for
it AND you get the 'under the hood' power and reliablity of Unix thanks
to Darwin (which is open source).



God bless the Apple!

I couldn't resist posting this Alex, I saw this on the sparklers link you put up.  Still, I can't imagine using these at a wedding unless it was at night.

2.        Never attempt to light more that one sparkler at a time.  Even one sparkler when it first lights can be rather surprising in that it does not come on slowly but instead bursts to life in a halo of sparks.  Trying to light a bundle of sparklers all at one time can be unsafe.

 

That law is the WTF.



You guys should see New Years day here in Manila. It becomes a warzone!

The "liberal" fireworks laws in the UK used to drive me crazy. Pretty
much every night between late October and the beginning of January it
was like living in Baghdad, with people walking down the street letting
off crackers almost every night, and definately every Friday and
Saturday night.



I didn't mind it so much. It was nice at Christmas to be able to look
out the window and see six different fireworks displays going on all at
once, but my wife had a lot of trouble sleeping through it, and I felt
sorry for all the traumatised pets people must own there.



Now we're back in Australia, and the laws are tighter here, we only get
to hear crackers go off once or twice a year. Much better in my opinion.

the video link seems to want a username and password... care to share?

Anonymous:

the video link seems to want a username and password... care to share?

Fixed ...

Wow is all I can say..I am so glad I was there and had a front row seat to this amazing show (I do hope that we all don't get cancer from that, lol)  I do have to say that it was worth you spending the time to put them all together while I did the not so fun stuff of cleaning the house.

I so will help next year with building a bigger and better sparkler show.

Love you,

Katrina

This was, quite possibly, the coolest thing I've ever seen.  It's inspiration, I'll probably try it later. 

 

People break the fireworks laws all the time.  Around july 4 and new years you get whole bandwagons going down to like virginia to buy fireworks and bringing them up to the states they live in.  Right a moment ago, a person down the street was lighting off big fireworks and one two houses up was doing it too. 

pretty impressive :) you can buy plenty of illegal fireworks in OH, you
just have to sign papers saying you're taking them out of the state...
say, into Pennsylvania (where they're still not quite legal) :P

Sparklers are so much more fun when altered than true fireworks. You can be very creative with them and the cops can not do anything about it.

Those using non-x86 architectures and/or non-Windows OSs, can probably find some luck with VLC.

I just tested the video under win32 (yes, x86, wait a moment before flaming) - and WMA works fine, from the Features List, it should work fine too under any other supported OS too.

Note: "Protected" WMAs and such will probably NOT work.

 

Wow, interative fireworks display... that was some scrum!

Dylan:

Now we're back in Australia, and the laws are tighter here, we only get
to hear crackers go off once or twice a year. Much better in my opinion.

Same for us up here in Canada. We can only buy them a few times a year,
and they are only on sale the week of the event... not just sparklers,
we do get some good ones.



However I can't fathom the kids that run around firing what we call
"roman candles" (narrow tubes that shoot balls of fire) at each
other... dumbasses.



FYI - It was Victoria Day up here on Friday...

Sooooo, which legs were Alex? [:P]

Drak

America. The land of the free.

A place where you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.

Ironic.

Nice video though.

 

It is once again America’s Independence Day.

 

It's strange to see the word "America" there.

I hope that it doesn't become "World's Independence Day" in the future.

use ffmpeg to convert the vid :P

Dylan:

FYI - It was Victoria Day up here on Friday...

Wow -- an embedded WTF -- or temporal distortion



It was Canada Day up here on Friday.



Victoria Day was May 23 (but then so was Memorial Day, down there).

Here's a fix for anyone that can't see the videos:

1. Stop doing this: [:'(]
   
2. Format your hard drive.
   
3. Install Windows.
   
4. Try the link again.

Just kidding - don't jump down my throat.

Anonymous:

bla:

Film is good.
But it's a shame that i had to go to friend of my to watch it.
Closed format, with binary drivers.
Watching it on linux is hard.
Watching it on any non-32bit architecture is impossible.

Guess I'll never know if its good,  I dont know anyone with a windows machine to use.

(Even my wife's using linux)

Well, that's what you goofs get for using Linux.  Just give in and join the dark side.  Run windows.  You know you want to.

"America. The land of the free.

A place where you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.

Ironic.

Nice video though."

Major firearms, eh?  Maybe rifles and a shotgun, possibly a pistol.  But a 'major firearm' is quite a different thing.  Guns are banned in the same way as fireworks here.  Fireworks are perfectly legal if you have a pyrotechnician liscense.  Guns are perfectly legal if you have a gun liscense. 

Dan seems to do it better:
http://www.dansdata.com/personal/Bombs.html

Wow. That is way cool. Thanks for sharing!



It is sad to see 50% of the posts are from people crying and whining about *everything*.



"I don't know anyone who uses
windows, how am I supposed to see the movie?". Yeah right. That is just
your way of saying "I'm soooo Linux and that makes me soooo special and
I like for everyone to know about it because that is just how stuck up
and stupid I am".

No, I will not use Windows, because I prefer Linux. Luckily I had
compiled mplayer with support for WMV, it's really not that hard.
Though I too think you should not have used a closed proprietary format.



Nice and innovative use of sparklers, heh, I didn't know they could generate enough heat to set a grill on fire.



Fireworks are only allowed for 12 hours on new year's here in Finland, evenly divided for both the old and new year.

elnerdo:

People break the fireworks laws all the time.  Around july 4 and new years you get whole bandwagons going down to like virginia to buy fireworks and bringing them up to the states they live in.  Right a moment ago, a person down the street was lighting off big fireworks and one two houses up was doing it too. 

Being born and raised in Virginia, I can assure you that 'good' fireworks are not legal there.  I was once chased by the police for setting off the little firecrackers in the woods near my house.  My buddy got caught and ratted me out so the police confiscated all my Dad's illegal fireworks.  To get the good stuff you have to go to Ohio or South Carolina.

I used to spend the fourth in West Virginia a lot and the good fireworks were not legal there either but people would smuggle in loads of fireworks and the police wouldn't do anything about it.  I remember waking up to what sounded like a cannon going off.  I went down to the other end of the lake and found that it was a bunch of people sitting in lawn chairs drinking and lighting M1000s in the hands and tossing them in the lake.  That was a war zone.  Of course when my Dad was in the army before being shipped out to Vietnam, he collected an artillery simulator after an officer blew off a body part with one and took it to this same lake.  He tossed in into the lake and it killed all the fish.  My Mom's uncle was super pissed.

Ok, those sparklers are some WTF.



I used to take bundles of thirty or so and wrap them in enough
electrical tape to make a percussion bomb out of them.  But it
hadn't occured to me to make a giant sparkler cake.  I'm glad you
didn't melt anyone's car.



Here in NY, it's so easy to drive to PA where fireworks are illegal but
they sell them to out-of-staters, and get lots of really fun stuff, so
I leave the sparklers to the kids.  I do appreciate you making
sure everyone knows how truly unsafe (thousands) of sparklers are.

Enough already. WMV is one of the easiest formats for the majority of
computer users to create simple home movies. If you plan to watch video
clips online in the future, you might as well go ahead and install the
drivers now, because you'll be using them again. I run Linux, MacOSX,
and Windows, and never have a problem getting things done. This is
mostly because instead of bitchin' about something that I can't do, I find a fix and don't complain about it. So, again, enough already.



Cool video.

bla:

Film is good.

But it's a shame that i had to go to friend of my to watch it.

Closed format, with binary drivers.

Watching it on linux is hard.

Watching it on any non-32bit architecture is impossible.

I can watch WMVs and listen to WMAs in Linux. There's two handy little things that help you in two completely different ways:

1) Wine - http://www.winehq.org then just install Windows Media Player in Linux. I'm not too sure, but I think Windows i386 binaries should still work on an x86_64. However if you're using something exotic and non-Intelly like a Sparc, the second option is for you...

2) (preferred) look on http://www.sourceforgenet for a *nix media player like Xine. There's a few about that can play M$ formats. If your architecture isn't listed on their download pages, you may as well try to compile the source on your machine. I've never tried compiling it but I can't see why it wouldn't work. Xine seems generally quite stable and reasonable to use, and seems to be able to play anything.

I'm sure I'm at risk of teaching a granny how to suck eggs so I'll stop here! I'm probably insulting your intelligence but as of fairly recently, the only two systems I now use are a Linux PC and a Solaris Sparc terminal, so I thought I'd share my (very limited) experiences.

Hope it helps.

Your picture kinda reminds me of this:







If you don't have a cd drive, you need some way of getting it on there.... xD



Oh yeah, and my cousin who works in a fireworks stand told me the
secret to illegal fireworks (at least in the west): Indian reserations!
=D

Further to my last post...

Forgot to say it... Cool video btw! :D

I refuse to play "mr persecuted" because I can do anything on my Linux box that I used to be able to do on my old Windoze system.

Why the holy wars? The same tool isn't the best one for all jobs. I favour *nixes because my needs are often security- and stability-critical. (I won't get into the controversial issue of code quality here, one security reason is that less exploits get written for Unixes because they're less popular. Stability depends on what you do but they also appear to take more effort to crash). You may prefer Windows, to be able to use a very old scanner or brand-new wireless network card, or because it's what you've always used and find it easiest to work with.

Peace, dudes. Make love, not war. Think happy thoughts... as you surrender to the diabolic powers of the evil penguin of doom!

If anyone replies 'yhbt' to this I'll invoke the powers of the penguin. And, to complete all the cliched terms... "All flames to /dev/null".

Wow, I only intended to say, "Great video btw"! Sorry! Hehe, it's like the old tick of filling a tennis-ball with match-heads... except for multiplied a bit... ME LIKE BURNING THINGS! Stirs the caveman within, eh?

So very FUNNY! I am still laughing 4 hours later and our whole office has been inspired to go to new heights....

Who knew dumb old sparklers had any real potential?

Nicely done!

Once again:



http://www.schend.net/images/funky.jpg



(Not gonna take a new screenshot because it's the same problem as before.)



Please fix your site layout so this doesn't happen.  It's very, very annoying.



And for all the people who are going to tell me how "last year" I am
for using a 1024x768 monitor:  I don't get to buy my own monitor
at work, I have to cope with what they assign me.

Also, it looks like the movie link is broken... it just times out for me.

Anonymous:

Once again:

http://www.schend.net/images/funky.jpg

(Not gonna take a new screenshot because it's the same problem as before.)

Please fix your site layout so this doesn't happen.  It's very, very annoying.

And for all the people who are going to tell me how "last year" I am for using a 1024x768 monitor:  I don't get to buy my own monitor at work, I have to cope with what they assign me.

Looks good in IE. If you can tell me what HTML to change that would fix it, I could do that. Otherwise, I don't have the time to install Firefox, test it, figure it out, and fix it.

I don't know anything about web page design, sorry.  But I know it
doesn't work in any Mozilla browsers (Firefox, Netscape, Camino, etc),
and I know it doesn't work in Safari (presumably, that means it also
doesn't work in KHTML browsers, like Konquerer.)



So IE might be an option for Windows users (not that I'd ever switch to
it for a single site), but MacOS and Linux users don't have that option.

Anonymous:

Once again:



http://www.schend.net/images/funky.jpg



(Not gonna take a new screenshot because it's the same problem as before.)



Please fix your site layout so this doesn't happen.  It's very, very annoying.



And for all the people who are going to tell me how "last year" I am
for using a 1024x768 monitor:  I don't get to buy my own monitor
at work, I have to cope with what they assign me.

What version of Firefox are you using?  I'm using 1.0.4, and when
I just threw my desktop back into 1024x768, I didn't get the weird
overlapping that you're seeing.  Sure, things needed a bit of
scrolling, but otherwise everything looked fine.

You could just post a thumbnail to the image and link that to the
full-size image.  That would solve the problem, if all else fails.

I'm using Firefox 1.0.1.  And, actually, this time when it loaded
the page, it didn't overlap... but the post in that image overlaps
every single time.  So I dunno... like I said, I don't know jack
about web design (last I worked with it, we were using HTML 1.1), I
just know what the site looks wrong.  And yeah, 1.0.1 isn't
cutting edge, but we also have a horribly slow internet connection here
at work and I'm not going to waste bandwidth downloading the *entire*
Firefox browser to go from 1.0.1 to 1.0.4... Mozilla.org needs to come
up with a patching utility.



Anyway, it's not a huge deal except for when it obscures text like in the screenshot I posted there.  It's just annoying.

Anonymous:

Once again:



.

.

.




Please fix your site layout so this doesn't happen.  It's very, very annoying.

Now, please understand that I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything,
but it's not exacly Alex's fault that you don't want to download the
latest version of Firefox.  It doesn't seem that many of his
site's users are having the same problem that you are, so it's a bit
much to expect him that change the entire layout of the site just for
you, especially when a software update on your part may very well make
the problem go away.