I have all these old knitting magazine articles to scan, reformat and post. The duplication house digitized my 3 BOND instructional videos from the original 1-inch masters and they sit on my counter on mini-dv, a format I can edit, but I don’t know how to get them onto the internet. I have at least 200 pictures of food preparation that will go into articles, the writing of which will be relatively quick.
The bottleneck????? Right here. The technology of doing a website. This blog isn’t supposed to be the main part of this site. It’s just the first thing I’ve figured out. This morning I spent couple of hours studying image resolutions and file formats so I could post photos here the best way: small files, good looking. (Mind you, I like learning new things so that could be another part of the slow-up because I do tend to poke around about a subject).
There’s something about the internet that makes me feel like I should be going faster. It does, God knows. But my brain is analog. I still write letters in pen on paper. I’m a tortoise, not a hare. I enjoy the scenery as I pass through. The process is the journey for me. But in this case I’m frustrated that I can’t just throw the whole thing up at once and dazzle you with a ton of useful information that will simplify your life.
So I’m swimming in honey. Every small move requires huge energy. I’ll get it eventually. I always do, but until then I take solace in the fact that I’m not treading gasoline. That was my favorite threat when I was teaching high school English outside of Detroit: “You’re treading gasoline, Mister.” This always evoked a teachable moment because it wasn’t at all like “One more word out of you and you’re going to the principle’s office.” Never give them the satisfaction of making you call in a higher authority to deal with them.
The specific gravity of pure water is 1.0000. The specific gravity of gasoline is .739. Your body is 55% to 65% water. If you fall into a pool of gasoline you’ll sink like a stone and it will be an ugly death unless someone pulls you out. The specific gravity of good honey is around 1.425. This is a benefit only if you behave properly. It could swallow you like quicksand which has a specific gravity of 1.156 . . . except . . . if you fall into quicksand and lie back and relax, you’ll float. It’s physics. It’s only when you panic and flail about that it swallows you.
This leads me to believe that if I just lie back and relax, I can float and taste the sweetness of learning a new set of skills.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Ha! I remember “Treading on gasoline” but it’s taken me 30 years to finally understand it.
The digital age is over-rated. I still like to read actual books and magazines on paper I can hold in my hands and fall asleep with, the night-light glowing overhead. I love 12″ vinyl LP’s with full-size cover art and luxurious liner notes instead of MP3 media. The problem with “floating” in the digital age is that the technology changes and upgrades so quickly that if you wait for it to sink in via osmosis, you’re years behind – releasing your musical demos on 8-track when nobody even has a functioning 8-track deck anymore. It sucks, but some non-panicked flailing might be necessary.
If you plan to put your videos online, you could host them yourself, but it would consume a lot of bandwidth. You’d probably want to find a host for them, which is not very difficult. You could even use YouTube. Will these videos be free, or a pay scheme? If it’s a pay arrangement, the precedent has been set by the online porn trade, but you’d have to get enough business to make it pay off (may have to re-shoot them in the nude).
Which video editing software are you using to capture your video from mini-DV? Mac or PC? and what format is it in once you capture it? Quicktime? MPEG?
I have a school friend in Stockbridge, not far from Dexter, who I owe a visit to – so am considering possibly making a 4th of July trip in that direction. I guess it depends on how energetic I feel at the time. I have to go back to work the very next day, as our regular days off are Monday & Tuesday.
I’m on a Mac with Final Cut. I output to Quicktime, and then use Compressor to get it into MPEG-2 for dvd. I haven’t tried MPEG-4 yet, though I suspect I could slam-dunk a basic version in a hurry. However, and here’s the real hang-up, there are ways to tweak Quicktime movies with custom frame sizes, filters, etc, to optimize clarity on YouTube and friends. Plus I have to chunk them up into 10-minute or less segments to upload to YouTube (and about 20 other sites).
These mini-dvs were duped from the original 1″ masters by the guys at the duplication facility so they’re great quality. I want people to be able to see as much detail as possible. So . . . I’m still the same way . . . picky, picky, picky! I go for quality over quantity and speed every time.
These will be posted for free viewing, though Paragon just instituted a “print-on-demand” service for dvds so I’ll probably make them available through them for pay. As for re-shooting them in the nude . . . let’s just say that gravity and time have had their ways with me (I’ll be 62 in a couple of months). It wouldn’t be a pretty sight.
I’d love to see you in Dexter, but totally understand reserving the commitment until you see how you feel at that day. Given your profession we want you well rested before you pick up your tools in the morning.
Sounds like you have a pretty good grasp of the technology. You made it sound like you were a novice! The segmented nature of the YouTube format is annoying, but that could work in your favor, if it makes people want to buy the complete full-resolution disks.
Don’t be coy – you know that there were students with crushes on you at Wayne High! Regardless of (or maybe because of) gravity and the passage of 30 years, a “natural” approach to a knitting video series would be a sure-fire PUBLICITY STUNT! Subtlety is so 1980′s! The public is jaded from a continuous barrage of media cacophany; Guerrilla marketing is the only way to get through to them, so you need a gonzo publicity agent with connections in the Monster Car rally and Professional Wrestling circuits. And a gimmick. And the willingness to sell out, I assume.
I have the video technology on the ground, but connecting my little laptop to the server in the sky via Cyberduck still gives me the shakes. It’s . . . like . . . dangerous. While I’m beaming stuff up can an alien invader swoop down through that open channel and view my emails to my son, or worse, to my last lover? I’m a Mac person for a reason. I don’t want to know how it works, just make it so.
I am not being coy when I say that I really did NOT know that there were students with crushes on me at Wayne High except for one girl. It took me a long time to figure it out and then it made me very nervous.
As for Nude Knitting . . . puts me in mind of Calendar Girls, one of my favorite movies, along with Juno, of this century. I DID unearth my pearls (as in Calendar Girls) from the bank vault about a year ago when I realized they were worth more than my car (think 20+ year-old car and not a queen’s ransom in pearls) and were languishing from neglect. I wear them with blue jeans and turtlenecks. I’m still a fashion plate.