1. Intro to Digital Signal Processing – MWF 10-11
2. Interactive Software Systems – MW 3-415
3. Robotic Vision – TTh 930-1045 CB 406

This is my start into the wide world of bread making (makes 2 loaves):Combine in mixer bowl:

1.  3 cups whole wheat flour
2. 1/2 cup nonfat dry milk
3. some salt (little)
4. 2 pkg. dry yeast (or about 2 tablespoons)

Heat in saucepan until warm:

1.  3 cup water or potato water
2. 1/2 cup honey
3. 2 tablespoons oil

Pour warm (not hot) liquid over flour mixture.  Beat with mixer for 3 minutes.  Stir in

1.  1 additional cup of whole wheat flour
2. 4-4.5 cups of white flour

Knead dough 5 minutes using additional white flour if necessary.  Place in greased bowl, turn, let rise until double in bulk.  Punch down.  Divide dough in half and shape into loaves.  Place in greased 9×5″ bread pans.  Cover and let rise 40-45 minutes.  Bake at 375 for 40-45 minutes. If using glass pans, some say you should reduce the heat to 350.  Also, some variations in cooking time may be due to elevation.

Although there are a few good video formats that almost everyone should be able to play, it seems the only way to guarantee that someone will be able to view your video over the Internet is to use some flash-video based service, such as YouTube or Google Video.  The problem is that these services have a long lead time, slow upload time, and poor quality.  You can do better by rolling your own. The basic components are as follows:

1.  Transcoder (such as ffmpeg)
2. Flash wrapper (such as http://blog.deconcept.com/swfobject/)

The approach is to do the following:

1.  Transcode your video to dv format (it may be possible to go directly to FLV, but with ffmpeg for Mac OS X, this is the only method I found that works)
2. Transcode your dv to flv – if you are going from 16:9 you can set ffmpeg to output at 640×352 to get a good equivalent. 
3. Edit the .html file that comes with the Flash Wrapper so that it points to your video.  Also change the resolution to 640×352
4. Upload the swfobject.js, flvplayer.swf, along with your .html and .flv files

That should do it!  Here’s an example of what I produced from this effort: http://carson.oakenweld.com/leahNature.html  

For those who already go to World’s Gym and enjoy pumping up their physiques, it likely doesn’t cross your mind that there is anything wrong with World’s Gym. The truth, however, is quite different for a large number of people such as me.The problem is that World’s Gym operates, shamelessly, on this principle: that people will join it on contract and then never come. It isn’t that they don’t want people to come and be satisified, its just that they know that most people don’t have time (as is the case with me) to go there. So, in a moment of weakness, a contract is signed, and then for the next six months to a year, money is slowly bled out of the customers pocket.Who does the bleeding? Paramount Acceptance. It isn’t a matter of fairness or honesty – if you sign a contract, you should fulfill it. The problem for me is the notion that they offer no real service, except a heated room with dead weight. Truth is, I admit that I despise contracts; but lets consider other contractual services, such as cell phones: yes, they fine you for terminating your contract early. But all the while, you do have a cell phone that is using the local towers, whether someone calls or not. Or how about renting a house – sure, you have to stick to your contract, but you can live in the house you are renting during the entire duration of your contract. At World’s Gym, you can hope for, at best, a couple hours in a sweaty stinky room – indeed, only a contract could keep me paying for this service.