Contents of the Site
The following list represents most of the pages available on the site at this time, all in all about a dozen pages. I have been through a process of updating and rewriting existing content, as well as culling content that was no longer relevant, and now the focus will be on adding new content. Exciting times for this site which is turning 14 years old this year!
- Urban Myths & the Iliad My sad and lonely effort to counter some common misconceptions about Homer's Iliad. Did you know that Achilles did not die in the Iliad, there was no wooden horse and that in ancient times Achilles was not even really a great Hellenic hero? Written on the tail end of my Ancient Greek studies at Armidale's University of New England this page is still one of my favourites while simultaneously being one of the least visited!
- Using MXE under Slackware Linux... My newest page where I describe the process required to cross compile the great AAC encoder fdkaac using a Slackware Virtual Machine and the amazing set of cross compiling scripts MXE. Cross compiling for a Windows 10 target has always been black magic so hopefully this page will make the whole process a lot clearer.
- Using qaac under Linux... This is a page that aims to promote and facilitate the use of the great AAC/ALAC command line encoder qaac under a Linux environment. qaac is a frontend for Apple AAC that is believed to produced the best quality AAC audio possible in 2019.
- Using Mutt with Gmail This page gives a detailed set of instructions for setting up the Linux email client mutt (together with getmail, maildrop and msmtp) to receive, sort, read and send email using Gmail as a relay. The technique here is POP3 over SSL rather than the standard IMAP instructions, I use the older technique as it has served me well since 2008...
- FFmpeg and Blender's short movie 'Sintel'... This page has a look at video encoding using FFmpeg and an assortment of video and audio codecs that have caught my attention over the years. Covered at the moment is AV1 encoding, hardware H.264 encoding and encoding with an older codec: Theora.
- A story... I was trained as a Satyananda Yoga Teacher in the Mangrove Mountain Ashram and like many others I was devastated when I found out the dark past of the Ashram. Not just the past of course as the rotten core of the Ashram has caused pain over the ensuing decades and still causes pain today. This 'story' is a part of my own healing...
- Retirement: A new beginning... As of the end of 2020 I will have retired from the active workforce after 40 years of full time work. On this set of pages I will be working through what it means to retire and what it means to be retired, how I will fill my days as I slowly discard those skills and pursuits that are no longer needed. Coming soon...
- Building a Threadripper System for Slackware...
I have been building computers for a few years now and my latest build
is a second generation Threadripper build which is aimed fairly and
squarely at supporting my daily computer usage while using Slackware
Linux...
- Slackware -current reloaded... A sequel to the Threadripper page where I demonstrate how Slackware -current is both installed and reinstalled on this latest of my computer builds.
- Using fhgacenc under Linux... This is a page that aims to promote and facilitate the use of the AAC command line encoder fhgaacenc under a Linux environment. fhgaacenc uses the enc_fhgaac.dll of WinAmp to produce all forms of AAC except for xHE-AAC. Of special interest is the creation of the low bitrate, superb quality HE-AAC v2 files with fhgaacenc.
- Compiling and running slrn under Windows 10... In the twilight years of Usenet this page demonstrates how to install the MinGW-64 compiler and build slrn and slrnpull under Windows 10. This page has been completely revised and rebuilt in March 2020.
- Using l3enc in 2020... Installing and running the grandfather of all mp3 encoders l3enc on a modern Linux system. I explore how to still install this ancient encoder as well as give a few tips on how to use it effectively.