I bet this smells good.
I wonder if any significant portion of the Egyptian populace will hear about this.
Glucosamine and chondroitin shown to be ineffective supplements. How surprising.
Chemistry Ph.D. thesis + dance = cute smart girls edumacating.
Version .2 of my Apple Trailer Downloader is out. Major changes:
--htenfo option. This creates a .nfo file for each trailer for use with the Home Theater Experience XBMC script.--imdb option. This fetches movie information from the IMDB. Currently, it only uses this information to get MPAA ratings for trailers that Apple doesn’t specify a MPAA rating for. Many upcoming movies still don’t have MPAA ratings so this won’t help in those instances.Hit the original post for more info and the download link.
This isn’t currently working because of changes to Apple’s site. I hope to fix it before the end of the year.
I wanted all the movie trailers from Apple in the highest resolution available (1080p for most of them), so I wrote this script in python to fetch them all.
Update: I wasn’t very clear about this before. ATD keeps a database of what it’s already downloaded, so each time you run it, it will just download everything you haven’t downloaded yet.
This works through the command line in a very simple manner.
I’ll start out with some examples and then provide a full option list.
The following example will download 500 megabytes worth of trailers and save them to C:\Trailers.
atd -l 500 -d "C:\Trailers"
The next example will do the same and also append “-trailer” to the filename and change the extension to “.hdmov”.
atd -l 500 -d "C:\Trailers" -a "-trailer" -e "hdmov"
If there is a certain trailer you would like atd to download again (say you deleted the trailer on accident), you can call it as follows. The one downside to this method is that all this does is tell ATD to not skip this trailer when processing the trailer list. If it doesn’t make it to the movie because you’ve used the download limit option it won’t download it again. Changing this behavior is on my todo list.
atd --redown "Iron Man 2"
If you want the maximum resolution it downloads to be 480p you do it like so:
atd --respref "480p"
To get help you do this:
atd -h
Which will ouput:
Usage: atd [options]
If no options passed, it will download all not already downloaded trailers to a
subdir called Trailers.
Options:
--version show program's version number and exit
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-l MB, --downlimit=MB
Approxmiate megabytes to download per session
(default: 0)
-d DIR, --dest=DIR Destination directory. (default: Trailers)
-a TEXT, --append=TEXT
Appends the specified text to the filename. (default:
-trailer)
-r, --rename Rename trailer with movies name.
-e EXTENSION, --ext=EXTENSION
Changes file extension to what is specified
--redown=movie name Redownloads the trailer for the specified movie. Ex:
--redown Iron Man 2
--flush WARNING: This option deletes your download history
which means that all trailers will be downloaded again
--respref=RESPREF Get specified resolution or less. Options are
['1080p', '720p', '480p', '640w', '480']
--reslimit=RESLIMIT Get specified resolution or dont get trailer at all
--mdate=DATE Only get trailers for movies with a release date after
this. (format: YYYY-MM-DD)
--tdate=DATE Only get trailers released after this date. (format:
YYYY-MM-DD)
--fake Don't download, just print list of movies it would
download trailers for with the specified commandline.
(Ignores download limit)
--htenfo Writes an nfo file for use with the Home Theater
Experience XBMC script.
--imdb Fetches missing information like MPAA rating from
IMDB. (Slows down parsing)
Please report any bugs or feature requests you may have. This script is dependent upon how Apple presents it’s trailers on the web. If they change the correct (or incorrect depending on how you look at it) things this script will break. I’ll do my best to keep up with such changes.
Version 0.2.2 is here.
ATD is now on github.
Version 0.2.1 is here.
Version 0.2 for Windows users is here.
Version 0.2 for Linux users or users interested in the source can get it here.
Version 0.1 for Windows users is here.
Version 0.1 for Linux users or users interested in the source can get the source code here.
With this feature, ATD will be able to keep a folder full of only trailers for movies past a certain date (for example, only trailers for movies that haven’t been released yet). It will remove trailers for movies before the date and add/dl trailers for movies with new trailers.
--imdb, ATD fetches info for all trailers even if because of other options like --downlimit we’ve limited the number of trailers that will download.--redown.Someone recently pointed me to an article on Naturalnews.com. It’s idiocy blew my mind.
I probably shouldn’t even dignify it with a rebuttal, but I can’t help myself.
#1) Where are the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies proving flu vaccines are both safe and effective?
Answer: There aren’t any.
The CDC would like to disagree. Even if there weren’t such studies, we have to make decisions based upon the best available evidence and every study that has been done points to the flu vaccine being effective and safe.
#2) Where, then, is the so-called “science” backing the idea that flu vaccines work at all?
Answer: Other than “cohort studies,” there isn’t any. And the cohort studies have been thoroughly debunked. Scientifically speaking, there isn’t a scrap of honest evidence showing flu vaccines work at all.
See the previous question. Studies of flu vaccine effectiveness have not been “thoroughly debunked”. If this was so how come the scientific consensus still supports the use of the flu vaccine?
#3) How can methyl mercury (Thimerosal, a preservative used in flu vaccines) be safe for injecting into the human body when mercury is an extremely toxic heavy metal?
Answer: It isn’t safe at all. Methyl mercury is a poison. Along with vaccine adjuvants, it explains why so many people suffer autism or other debilitating neurological side effects after being vaccinated.
Point number one, thimerosal is ethyl mercury, not methyl mercury which is a critical difference as ethyl mercury doesn’t accumulate in the body like methyl mercury. Regardless of that, almost all evidence points to no ill effects from thimerosal in vaccines.
As Wikipedia says:
Most conclusively, eight major studies (as of 2008) examined the effect of reductions or removal of thiomersal from vaccines. All eight demonstrated that autism rates failed to decline despite removal of thiomersal, arguing strongly against a causative role.
On to their next point…
#4) Why do reports keep surfacing of children and teens suffering debilitating neurological disorders, brain swelling, seizures and even death following flu vaccines or HPV vaccines?
Answer: Because vaccines are dangerous. The vaccine industry routinely dismisses all such accounts — no matter how many are reported — as “coincidence.”
I don’t even understand how this is an actual argument.
Correlation is not the same thing as causation. I’m sure hundreds of people have got in car accidents after getting a flu vaccine as well. Is that the flu vaccine’s fault?
#5) Why don’t doctors recommend vitamin D for flu protection, especially when vitamin D activates the immune response far better than a vaccine? (http://www.naturalnews.com/027231_V…)
Answer: Because vitamin D can’t be patented and sold as “medicine.” You can make it yourself. If you want more vitamin D, you don’t even need a doctor, and doctors tend not to recommend things that put them out of business
Oh gosh, a conspiracy theory. Why didn’t I see that coming? It’s not an either/or situation. Vitamin D does strengthen the immune system. However, a strong immune system doesn’t keep you from getting the flu.
I’ll finish up with my rebuttal in my next post.
As Tyler Cowen points out this is quite an interesting time waster:
The email edition of the British Psychological Society’s Research Digest has reached the milestone of its 150th issue. That’s over 900 quality, peer-reviewed psychology journal articles digested since 2003. To mark the occasion, the Digest editor has invited some of the world’s leading psychologists to look inwards and share, in 150 words, one nagging thing they still don’t understand about themselves. Their responses are by turns candid, witty and thought-provoking. Here’s what they had to say…
Here’s one of the answers submitted by Chris McManus, Professor of Psychology and Medical Education at UCL:
Chris McManus: Beauty
What is this thing I call beauty? Not “art” as a social phenomenon based on status or display, or beautiful faces seen merely as biological fitness markers. Rather, the sheer, drawing-in-of-breath beauty of a Handel aria, a Rothko painting, TS Eliot’s poems, or those everyday moments of sun shining through wet, autumn leaves, or even a Powerpoint layout seeming just right. Content itself doesn’t matter – Cezanne’s paintings of apples are not beautiful because one likes apples, and there are beautiful photographs of horrible things. Somewhere there must be something formal, structural, compositional, involving the arrangement of light and shade, of sounds, of words best ordered to say old ideas in new ways. When I see beauty I know it, and others must also see it, or they wouldn’t make the paintings I like or have them hung in galleries. But why then doesn’t everyone see it in the same way?
Get more answers here.
A fascinating visualization of the famous Hubble Deep Field image. By taking the redshift of all the galaxies seen in the image, it’s possible to reconstruct how far they are from Earth. This information allows a computer to construct a 3D model. It’s quite breathtaking. Be sure you watch the HD version. Again, here it is on Youtube.
Image via Wikipedia
There are ways for your brain to lie to you, which pretty much guarantee you’ll never know it. Even if someone points out the exact way in which you’re being lied to, you probably won’t accept it. Even if a being that is proven to be smarter and more right than any human being who has ever lived tells you, the chances are good you won’t believe it.
As Yudkowsky says:
I find it disturbing that the brain has such a simple macro for absolute denial that it can be invoked as a side effect of paralysis. That a single whack on the brain can both disable a left-side motor function, and disable our ability to recognize or accept the disability. Other forms of brain damage also seem to both cause insanity and disallow recognition of that insanity – for example, when people insist that their friends have been replaced by exact duplicates after damage to face-recognizing areas.
The very idea is frightening.
Check out SixtySymbols. A collection of videos from smart people who explain the purpose and ideas behind different scientific symbols. Very interesting!
A random sample:
If you haven’t heard of the nature vs nurture debate, what rock have you been living under? David Friedman points to a book
Apparently, Harris presents