dorren articles

class 02 Pinyin part 2

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 02:38:45 -0000

Class notes

Review pinyin chart, b p m f.
Yi, wu prefixing rule.
Tone mark placement rule.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_table for complete chart.
See http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/ for sound

Homework

A. Pronounce in all 4 tones.

	b	p	m	d	t	n	l	g	k	h
ie	bie	pie	mie	die	tie	nie	lie
iao	biao	piao	miao	diao	tiao	niao	liao
iu			miu	diu		niu	liu
ua								gua	kua	hua
uai								guai	kuai	huai
uo	biao	piao	miao	duo	tuo	nuo	luo	guo	kuo	huo
ui				dui	tui			gui	kui	hui
un				dun	tun		lun	gun	kun	hun

Table-A

1. an/en/in, ang/eng/ing Pronounce in all 4 tones.

	b	p	m	f	d	t	n	l	g	k	h
an	ban	pan	man	fan	dan	tan	nan	lan	gan	kan	han
ang	bang	pang	mang	fang	dang	tang	nang	lang	gang	kang	hang
en	ben	pen	men	fen	den		nen		gen	ken	hen
eng	beng	peng	meng	feng	deng	teng	neng	leng	geng	keng	heng
in	bin	pin	min				nin	lin
ing	bing	ping	ming		ding	ting	ning	ling
ong					dong	tong	nong	long	going	kong	hong

Table-1

2. Pronounce in all 4 tones.

	b	p	m	d	t	n	l	g	k	h
ian	bian	pian	mian	dian	tian	nian	lian	gan	kan	han
iang						niang	liang
uan				duan	tuan	nuan	luan	guan	kuan	huan
uang								guang	kuang	huang

Table-2

3. j/q/x.

	j	q	x
ia	jia	qia	xia
ie	jie	qie	xie
iao	jiao	qiao	xiao
iu	jiu	qiu	xiu
in	jin	qin	xin
ing	jing	qing	xing
ian	jian	qian	xian
iang	jiang	qiang	xiang

Table-3

4. j/q/x.

	j	q	x
ü	ju	qu	xu
üe	jue	que	xue
üan	juan	quan	xuan
ün	jun	qun	xun
iong	jiong	qiong	xiong

Table-4

5. zh/ch/sh/r/z/c/s.

	zh	ch	sh	r	z	c	s
an	zhan	chan	shan	ran	zan	can	san
ang	zhang	chang	shang	rang	zang	cang	sang
en	zhen	chen	shen	ren	zen	cen	sen
eng	zheng	cheng	sheng	reng	zeng	ceng	seng

Table-5

6. zh/ch/sh/r/z/c/s.

	zh	ch	sh	r	z	c	s
u	zhu	chu	shu	ru	zu	cu	su
ua	zhua	chua	shua
uai	zhuai	chuai	shuai
uo	zhuo	chuo	shuo	ruo	zuo	cuo	suo
ui	zhui	chui	shui	rui	zui	cui	sui
uan	zhuan	chuan	shuan	ruan	zuan	cuan	suan
un	zhun	chun	shun	run	zun	cun	sun
uang	zhuang	chuang	shuang
ong	zhong	chong		rong	zong	cong	song

Table-6

Using ffmpeg to split mp4 video file

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:00:25 -0000

Got a flip ultra HD camcorder, and recorded 1 hour video, resulted a 2GB mp4 file. As a video newbie, I naturally thought iMovie was the software to use for all video editing. For uploading to youtube, I need to split 1 hour video into six 10 minutes video. and iMovie was taking FOREVER to do just about anything. Half hour to import the 2GB file, and when I sliced 10 minutes selection and trying to export, it took 1 hour.

Then googling around, realized ffmpeg does the split much easier. on mac, you can install ffmpeg from macport, and read up the doc

ffmpeg -i src.MP4 -ss 00:00:00 -t 00:10:00 outvid.mp4

"-ss" is the starting time, "-t" is the duration. so that command takes the first 10 minutes of video and generate outvid.mp4. it worked, but video bitrate is much lower, so video is blocky.

 ffplay -stats test.mp4

shows the video file stats and play the video. the output video only has 636kb/s, while src video has 5322 kb/s. so we shall try again.

 ffmpeg -i src.MP4 -ss 00:00:00 -t 00:00:30 -b 1200k test2.mp4

I added bitrate param.

so to do all 6 slices. do

ffmpeg -i src.MP4 -ss 00:00:00 -t 00:10:00 -b 1200k out0.mp4
ffmpeg -i src.MP4 -ss 00:10:00 -t 00:10:00 -b 1200k out1.mp4
ffmpeg -i src.MP4 -ss 00:20:00 -t 00:10:00 -b 1200k out2.mp4
ffmpeg -i src.MP4 -ss 00:30:00 -t 00:10:00 -b 1200k out3.mp4
ffmpeg -i src.MP4 -ss 00:40:00 -t 00:10:00 -b 1200k out4.mp4
ffmpeg -i src.MP4 -ss 00:50:00 -t 00:10:00 -b 1200k out5.mp4

or to use a bash script

#!/bin/sh
INPUT_FILE="$1"
if [ -z $INPUT_FILE ]; then
  echo "usage: split.sh my_video.mp4"
  exit
fi

# split filename
declare -a ARR
ARR=(`echo ${INPUT_FILE//./ }`)
NAME=${ARR[0]}
EXT=${ARR[1]}

# split video into six 10 minutes part, for youtube.
for ((i=0; i<6; i++ ))
  do ffmpeg -i $INPUT_FILE -ss "00:$i""0:00" -t "00:10:00" -b "1200k" "$NAME""_out$i.$EXT"
done

The first segment will starts right away, after that, ffmpeg seems to stuck for awhile before it starts processing, I assume it takes time to fast forward to the right frame, if anyone knows how to speed it up, that'll be great.

class 01 Pinyin part 1

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 20:59:17 -0000

Never recorded myself, wow, I'm so terrible at this. But, that leaves me lot of room to improve, that's how I look at it.
In this class, we started learning Pinyin system.

If you don't know certain pronounciation, http://www.quickmandarin.com/chinesepinyintable/ has complete pinyin chart. However, it's "O" (2nd) column is pronounced wrong though. Sorry i forgot z c s in class.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinyin_table for complete chart.

Homework

you can't just pronounce consonant without vowel, so ō/ē/ī were placed, just to help pronouncing it. When using it in pin yin, drop the vowel.

ā	ē	ī	ō	ū
bō	pō	mō	fō
dē	tē	nē	lē
gē	kē	hē
jī	qī	xī
zhī	chī	shī	rī
zī	cī	sī
y	w	ü

Remember this pin yin chart. I still do, so should you.
Write this pinyin chart 10 times, pronounce each one while you're writing it.

a	e	i	o	u
b	p	m	f
d	t	n	l
g	k	h
j	q	x
zh	ch	sh	r
z	c	s
y	w	ü

1. Pronounce the following, in all 4 tones.

	b	p	m	f	d	t	n	l	g	k	h
a	ba	pa	ma	fa	da	ta	na	la	ga	ka	ha
e			me^*		de	te	ne	le	ge	ke	he
i	bi	pi	mi		di	ti	ni	li
o	bo	po	mo	fo
u	bu	pu	mu	fu	du	tu	nu	lu	gu	ku	hu

Table-1

*. "me" doesn't have 4 tones, only neutral tone, like "muddy".

2. Now with compound vowels.

	b	p	m	f	d	t	n	l	g	k	h
ai	bai	pai	mai		dai	tai	nai	lai	gai	kai	hai
ei	bei	pei	mei	fei	dei		nei	lei	gei		hei
ao	bao	pao	mao		dao	tao	nao	lao	gao	kao	hao
ou		pou	mou	fou	dou	tou		lou	gou	kou	hou

Table-2

3. Pronounce the following. I forgot z, c, s in class, oops..

	j	q	x	zh	ch	sh	r	z	c	s
a				zha	cha	sha		za	ca	sa
e				zhe	che	she	re	ze	ce	se
i	ji	qi	xi	zhi	chi	shi	ri	zi	ci	si
o
u				zhu	chu	shu	ru	zu	cu	su

Table-3

4. Compound vowels..

	zh	ch	sh	r	z	c	s
ai	zhai	chai	shai		zai	cai	sai
ei					zei
ao	zhao	chao	shao	rao	zao	cao	sao
ou	zhou	chou	shou	rou	zou	cou	sou

Table-4

5. Pronounce following words..

pīn yīn	English
nǐ hǎo ma	how are you?
pú táo	grape
xī guā	watermelon
píng guǒ	apple
fēi jī	airplane
dì tú	map
tiān ān mén	Tian an men (square)
nǐ zài nǎ lǐ ?	Where are you?
wǒ zài jiā lǐ 。	I'm at home.
wǒ bù shū fú 。	I'm not well / I'm sick.

Table-5

Upgrading old apps

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 22:14:32 -0000

It was quite painful to move my apps from a colocated server into Amazon's ec2 server. Apps I wrote years ago, using rails 1.2.5.

newgem won't build

One of the gem I wrote wouldn't even build. had to create whole new code base, and copy over the code, for it to build and install.

No look behind regex in 1.8.7

Look behind regex stopped working in ruby 1.8.7, have to install oniguruma

emerge oniguruma
sudo gem install oniguruma

https redirect loop

in the new server, I use passenger over mongrel, https starts infinite redirect loop. underscore vs hyphen

  proxy_set_header X_FORWARDED_PROTO https;   # works for mongrel
  proxy_set_header X-FORWARDED-PROTO https;   # works for passenger

but finally, everything's working now.

going through tutorial

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 17:33:20 -0000

No module named django.core.management

If you're following django's tutorial, and got stuck here.

$ python manage.py startapp polls
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "manage.py", line 2, in <module>
    from django.core.management import execute_manager
ImportError: No module named django.core.management

port contents py25-django

and you'll see django is installed in "/opt/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django". so just link it to osX's python's folder.

cd /Library/Python/2.5/site-packages
ln -s /opt/local/lib/python2.5/site-packages/django django

name 'admin' is not defined

In tutorial page 2, after you setup admin site, I get "name 'admin' is not defined" then a stacktrace.
add line from django.contrib import admin to the urls.py. so the file looks like below:

from django.conf.urls.defaults import *
from django.contrib import admin 

# Uncomment the next two lines to enable the admin:
# from django.contrib import admin
admin.autodiscover()

urlpatterns = patterns('',
    # Example:
    # (r'^django01/', include('django01.foo.urls')),

    # Uncomment the admin/doc line below and add 'django.contrib.admindocs' 
    # to INSTALLED_APPS to enable admin documentation:
    (r'^admin/doc/', include('django.contrib.admindocs.urls')),

    # Uncomment the next line to enable the admin:
    (r'^admin/', include(admin.site.urls)),

)

Getting started

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:59:41 -0000

Just read the book

Install

You can do the old school way, download the gz file, do configure, make, sudo make install. To uninstall, in the downloaded couchdb folder, do sudo make uninstall.

However, on Mac, easiest way is just to use couchdbx

10 10 10

Sat, 16 May 2009 23:05:51 -0000

10-10-10 is new book by Suzy Welch, teaching you how to make big decisions by listing out values and priorities in present, intermediate, and long term timeframe.

The process goes like this, page 10:
* Every 10-10-10 process starts with a question.
* What are the consequences of each decision in 10 minutes, 10 months, or 10 years.
* now, decide.

Ways to extract your own believes and values. page 60
* Proust Questionnaire

or Suzy's questionnaire

* What would make you cry at your seventieth birthday?
* What do I want people to say about me when I'm not in the room?
* What do you love about the way your parents live, and what do you hate?

sms providers

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 21:28:02 -0000

sms tutorial
linux packages
kannel
use kannel

Providers

http://www.kapow.co.uk
http://www.tm4b.com
http://www.esendex.com
http://www.bulksms.co.uk

mysql tuning

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 03:23:11 -0000

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/innodb-tuning.html
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/server-parameters.html
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/server-system-variables.html
On mac, copy macport mysql config file my.cnf to right location

cp /opt/local/share/mysql5/mysql/my-large.cnf /opt/local/etc/mysql5/my.cnf

and add following changes

innodb_buffer_pool_size = 256M
innodb_additional_mem_pool_size = 20M
# Set .._log_file_size to 25 % of buffer pool size
innodb_log_file_size = 64M
innodb_log_buffer_size = 8M
innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 0
#innodb_lock_wait_timeout = 50
innodb_doublewrite=0
innodb_support_xa=0

in /opt/local/var/db/mysql5, delete ib_logfile0 & ib_logfile1, since we changed log file size to 64M.

to start stop server

sudo /opt/local/share/mysql5/mysql/mysql.server start
sudo /opt/local/share/mysql5/mysql/mysql.server stop

Japanese language sites

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 06:21:23 -0000

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/
http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/cover.html
hiragana sound
http://www.nihongoresources.com/media/An%20introduction%20to%20Japanese.pdf
Namasensei's Japanese Course, not for the weaklings. ;)

	b	p	m	f	d	t	n	l	g	k	h
ai	bai	pai	mai		dai	tai	nai	lai	gai	kai	hai
ei	bei	pei	mei	fei	dei		nei	lei	gei		hei
ao	bao	pao	mao		dao	tao	nao	lao	gao	kao	hao
ou		pou	mou	fou	dou	tou		lou	gou	kou	hou

	j	q	x	zh	ch	sh	r	z	c	s
a				zha	cha	sha		za	ca	sa
e				zhe	che	she	re	ze	ce	se
i	ji	qi	xi	zhi	chi	shi	ri	zi	ci	si
o
u				zhu	chu	shu	ru	zu	cu	su

	b	p	m	f	d	t	n	l	g	k	h
ai	bai	pai	mai		dai	tai	nai	lai	gai	kai	hai
ei	bei	pei	mei	fei	dei		nei	lei	gei		hei
ao	bao	pao	mao		dao	tao	nao	lao	gao	kao	hao
ou		pou	mou	fou	dou	tou		lou	gou	kou	hou

	j	q	x	zh	ch	sh	r	z	c	s
a				zha	cha	sha		za	ca	sa
e				zhe	che	she	re	ze	ce	se
i	ji	qi	xi	zhi	chi	shi	ri	zi	ci	si
o
u				zhu	chu	shu	ru	zu	cu	su

	b	p	m	f	d	t	n	l	g	k	h
ai	bai	pai	mai		dai	tai	nai	lai	gai	kai	hai
ei	bei	pei	mei	fei	dei		nei	lei	gei		hei
ao	bao	pao	mao		dao	tao	nao	lao	gao	kao	hao
ou		pou	mou	fou	dou	tou		lou	gou	kou	hou

	j	q	x	zh	ch	sh	r	z	c	s
a				zha	cha	sha		za	ca	sa
e				zhe	che	she	re	ze	ce	se
i	ji	qi	xi	zhi	chi	shi	ri	zi	ci	si
o
u				zhu	chu	shu	ru	zu	cu	su