1. Clean the air filter!

Turn off the AC, it should not run without the filter in place.  Using a vacuum (ideally a shop vac), suck out all the dust from the side the dust is on, not the clean side.  No sense in pulling the dust farther into the filter.

After the vacuum can pull out no more, use a hose and shoot water through it with as much pressure as possible to help release any dust left behind.  Leave it out in the sun for a bit to dry off.

2. Clean the drip line!

(This is adapted from reading through a post on Frugal Dad, paired with what the house builder told me to do, but I never wrote down and couldn’t recall exactly what it was.)  Remove the cap for the drip line next to the AC unit inside.  Pour a half cup of vinegar down the line to kill any mold and mildew that’s been growing in there.  Replace the cap.

If you are attempting to diagnose a bug in an ActionScript program with the following properties:

• It is unpredictable
• Appears to happen after a certain period of time
• Relates to expected behavior not being performed

Then you likely have a weak event listener that needs to be strong.  The garbage collector is coming through and deleting objects because it thinks they are no longer in use.  I’m now reading through Adobe’s event listener documentation to refresh myself on this sort of bug.  While I do not believe I wrote the offending code, I want to make sure that I’m still sharp and do not commit such an act in the future.

This week I’ve been trying to track down a bug in one of the games I’m in charge of, but at seemingly every turn I would run into mysterious problems that appeared to be caused by uncaught exceptions — yet there was never any notification of these.  I blamed the code in the game for silently catching these and not logging them, since it has certainly happened in the past with this project.  (Nobody I know worked on the original code base, which is quite poor.)

Today, I finally found the real reason that I was not getting notification of the uncaught exceptions: Chrome updated its version of the Flash player without my approval and without notification.  This has wasted many hours of effort, and I am tempted to send them a bill for it.  (Though I wouldn’t expect to be reimbursed.)

It is my understanding that this is how you would prevent this from happening in the future, though time will tell if this is indeed a valid solution:

1. In your address bar (you might want to open a new tab for this), type “chrome://plugins”.
2. Disable the “Google Update” plugin.

1. Install HandBrake.  The version I am presently using is 0.9.6.
2. Install AnyDVD.  The version I am presently using is 7.0.1.0.  This is a trial, and I’ll likely have to buy it, though non-free software makes me leery.
3. For encode settings, I started with the “Universal” settings, then, because I’m not overflowing with disc space, reduced the video’s average bitrate to 1200 kbps and selected “2-Pass Encoding”.
4. Add the first English subtitle track and set it as the default (so that when you start playing you know if there are subs or not).
5. Save as an MKV file.

My experience is that encoding goes very fast and does not get in the way of you using your computer at the same time.

An alternative to AnyDVD which I have heard of but not yet tested is downloading libdvdcss and placing the dll in the same directory as HandBrake, then in the options panel disabling the default DVD decoder LibDVDNav so that it uses libdvdread instead.

Before getting into things, I would like to point out that I am not a professional researcher and do not have the kind of time to devote to writing a proper summary of my findings.  I have not thoroughly summarized the research, but instead have hand picked examples which could be easily summarized.  There is a lot of other data out there to look at, which I encourage you to do.  I am a secondary source and am providing no new data, so do not take anything I say here as fact without performing your own investigations.

When I began my research into the theory that vaccinations can cause autism, the bulk of what I was finding related to the MMR vaccine, though late in my research I also discovered that there was fear with regard to the preservative thimerosal, which contains mercury, that has been in use in the vaccines since, to my recollection, the 40′s (don’t take this at face value: I have no citation for it because I did not think it was important enough to note before I wrote this). Having already spent an entire day working on this subject, I did not wish to dig into the existing research around this preservative, because I determined that since 2001 there has been no cause for concern in the United States.

According to the FDA, there is insufficient evidence to support the claim that thimerosal causes autism. “However, depending on the vaccine formulations used and the weight of the infant, some infants could have been exposed to cumulative levels of mercury during the first six months of life that exceeded EPA recommended guidelines for safe intake of methylmercury.” As a precautionary measure, since 2001, “all vaccines manufactured for the U.S. Market and routinely recommended for children <= 6 years of age have contained either no thimerosal or only trace amounts (<= 1 microgram of mercury per dose).”[1] In other words, as this is no longer used, investigating the research available is, for the most part, a moot point.

However, there still exists the theory that the MMR vaccine causes autism. This notion seems to have been created by Andrew Wakefield and 11 of his peers in a 1998 article titled Illeal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children, published in The Lancet[2]. This study examined 12 children in depth and among other claims, it was suggested that within days of administration of the MMR vaccine, these children were demonstrating signs of autism.

This was indeed a shocking revelation, and others sought to perform their own research to investigate this claim. A 1999 article by Brent Taylor et al., titled Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association, describes a study which they carried out by statistically analyzing children with autism who had been born since 1979 in eight North Thames health districts in the UK[3]. 498 cases of autism diagnoses were identified, though only 293 were confirmed based on the criteria laid out by the ICD-10. (The link is provided for convenience to give an overview of the topic, and does not constitute a valid scholarly reference.) Of these confirmed cases, it was concluded that there is no “causal association between MMR vaccine and autism. If such an association occurs, it is so rare that it could not be identified in this large regional sample.” In other words, not only does this study demonstrate that the MMR vaccine did not cause autism, if there is any association between the two, it was not evident with the data collected.

In 2002, Kreesten Madsen et al. published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine titled A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism[4]. In their study, they investigated the records of all children born in Denmark from 1991 through 1998. Of the 537,303 children examined, 82% received the MMR vaccine, and the set of those who were vaccinated was compared against those who were not. There was no statistical difference in the rate of autism among either group. They conclude that they have presented “strong evidence against the hypothesis that MMR vaccination causes autism.”

Despite these additional studies, there still existed debate over the topic. In a 2004 letter to the editor of Lancet, 10 of the 12 authors of the original article clarified that the original article did not demonstrate that the MMR vaccine caused autism, and that it was instead speculating at the possibility of a link which required further research[5]. Of the two who did not participate in this clarification, one was unable to be contacted, and the other was Wakefield, the lead author.

While this should, at the very least, quell any particular furor related to the theories surrounding this vaccine, misinformation had already been ingrained in many people.  Brian Deer, a British investigative reporter, spent many years investigating the claims of Wakefield, and determined that data was both unethically obtained and falsified for his 1998 article[6]. He also exposed that Wakefield was involved in litigation against the makers of the MMR vaccine in which 11 of the 12 children in his study were plaintiffs, posing as a serious conflict of interest. While this data is not presented in a sufficient manner to come to a scientific conclusion, evidence that was presented before a UK court found these accusations to be true, and Wakefield was stripped of his license to practice medicine.

Thus, I have come to the conclusion that, generally speaking, vaccines are not something that people should be afraid of.  Give your children immunity to diseases, they’ll thank you for it later.  (They may night verbally thank you for it, but they will enjoy going through life not developing polio, measles, diphtheria, etc.)  To clarify this, it has not been shown that specific vaccines do not have problems, but rather that the general fear linking autism to vaccines has no merit.

What can we take away from all of this?  When reading the claims of others on the Internet, I always ask myself, “what is the source of this information?” My experience is that most people who post things on the Internet are “armchair experts,” who like to pass along their version of reality and cannot provide citations for anything they say.  I encourage all who read this to perform scholarly research into controversial scientific topic.  To reiterate what was stated at the beginning, that means no blogs and very few websites, but peer-reviewed journals.  Your local university library should have access to many such resources.  You can use the articles summarizing the research of others to find original sources, but don’t put your faith in these secondary sources either.

Note on comments: all comments on this blog must be approved before being publicly visible.  Any comments with claims that are either not backed up or are backed up with non-scholarly resources will not be approved.  Please offer any corrections or suggestions for clarification that can be made here, though again, if you do not properly cite your reasoning your comment will be ignored.

Citations

1. FDA. Thimerosal in vaccines questions and answers. Web site. http://www.fda.gov/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/QuestionsaboutVaccines/UCM070430. Accessed Feb 11, 2012.
2. Andrew J. Wakefield, et al. (1998). Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children. Lancet, 351(9103), 637.
3. Brent Taylor, et al. (1999). Autism and measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine: no epidemiological evidence for a causal association. Lancet, 353(9167), 2026.
4. Kreesten M. Madsen, et al. (2002). A population-based study of measles, mumps, and rubella vaccination and autism. New England Journal of Medicine, 347, 1477.
5. Simon H. Murch, et al. (2004). Retraction of an interpretation. Lancet, 363(9411), 750.
6. Brian Deer. Brian deer: the lancet scandal. Web site. http://briandeer.com/mmr-lancet.htm. Accessed Feb 11 2012.

macromedia.abc.DecoderException: unknown opcode?? 60
        at macromedia.abc.Decoder$Opcodes.decode(Decoder.java:1700)
        at macromedia.abc.Decoder$MethodBodies.decode(Decoder.java:537)
        at macromedia.abc.Optimizer.optimize(Optimizer.java:293)
        at macromedia.abc.Optimizer.optimize(Optimizer.java:83)
        at flex2.linker.DependencyWalker.dump(DependencyWalker.java:266)
        at flex2.linker.FlexMovie.generate(FlexMovie.java:242)
        at flex2.linker.API.link(API.java:41)
        at flex2.tools.oem.Application.link(Application.java:1200)
        at flex2.tools.oem.Application.build(Application.java:433)
        at org.sonatype.flexmojos.compiler.AbstractFlexCompilerMojo.build(AbstractFlexCompilerMojo.java:2473)
        at org.sonatype.flexmojos.compiler.AbstractFlexCompilerMojo.run(AbstractFlexCompilerMojo.java:1282)
        at org.sonatype.flexmojos.AbstractIrvinMojo.execute(AbstractIrvinMojo.java:183)
        at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:490)
        at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:694)
        at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalWithLifecycle(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:556)
        at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:535)
        at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalAndHandleFailures(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:387)
        at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeTaskSegments(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:348)
        at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.execute(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:180)
        at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:328)
        at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:138)
        at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:362)
        at org.apache.maven.cli.compat.CompatibleMain.main(CompatibleMain.java:60)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
        at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315)
        at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255)
        at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430)
        at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375)

It was not a fluke: trying a clean rebuild did not solve anything. Searching the web didn’t return much of anything. The purpose of this rebuild was to utilize the latest versions of certain external dependencies. I isolated the dependency which was causing the problem. In this case, my game was two versions behind on the dependency, and bumping it up at all caused this problem.

I do not have any idea what in particular with this dependency is causing the issue. Perhaps the swc was built in an incompatible way?

IBM Personal Computer XT — Probably still ticking, somewhere… (13+ years)
To my knowledge, this is the first computer I touched.  This model was introduced in 1983 and discontinued in 1987.  I last saw it in 2000 and it was still completely functional.  It had a copy of Word Perfect 5.1 on it and a math flash cards game which my dad wrote.  (I re-wrote it in Javascript many years later: see Kids.)  To my knowledge, nothing on this beast ever malfunctioned.

Compaq Portable — Unknown
My dad had some sort of portable Compaq computer that he brought home once upon a time.  We thought it was the coolest thing ever.  I don’t recall seeing it more than once though.

Compaq Deskpro 386 — Probably still ticking, somewhere… (10+ years)
My dad had a lot of these for his business.  After they were retired for work purposes, they made their way to our house.  I know we had at least 3 of them, but in reality it was probably more.  These were introduced in 1986, and I do not know when they were discontinued.  The last time I saw one was in 1998, and it was still operational.  Note, however, that I had dissected and destroyed the two others that I can recall existing.

Packard Bell Legend 386 — Unknown
This computer supplemented the Deskpro’s in my dad’s office.  One day this made it’s way into my brothers’ room, though.   I last recall seeing it last in 1996 or 1997, though the circumstances surrounding it’s disappearance are unknown.  I have no idea how many years of service it provided.

AST Advantage 486DX2/66, 4 MB RAM — Dead (7 years?)
I believe that these machines replaced the Compaq Deskpro 386′s in my dad’s office.  When these were retired as well, they made their way into our house.  This one I recall most vividly.   I used it from 1995 or so until the end of 1999, though I know it had life before that time period.

Compaq Presario 5100en (I think) — Dead (3 years)
This was the first computer that I bought and paid for myself.  It was obtained in 2001 and died in October 2004.

Home-Assembled Computer 1 — Dead (6 years)
After the Compaq above took up the ghost, I replaced all the hardware inside the case with new, more modern equipment in December 2004.  I used this computer through May of 2006, and it then went into my parents’ possession, as I was travelling a lot and could not hold on to it.  It finally bit the dust in 2010 when, due to poor maintenance, the fan broke and the CPU overheated, presumably.  I have not had physical access to this machine in ages, so I have not confirmed this fate.

Home-Assembled Computer 2 — Still running (2+ years)
Built in August 2009 and still running strong.  This blog post was written on it, in fact…

HP Pavilion dv5220us — Still operational (5+ years), actively used as a low-traffic web server
Manufactured:  2006?
Use started: August 2006
Bottom 1/3 of screen broke: 2008

Gateway MX8711 – Dead (5 years)
Manufactured: December 2006
Use started: Same time?  (Bought recertified in August 2007)
Power jack broke: March or April 2008
Died completely: November 2011 (Cannot receive power)

Acer Aspire 4520 — Dead (1.75 years)
Manufactured: July 2009
Use started: August 2009?
Died completely: April 2011 (Power button blinks LEDs, but nothing else happens)

Dell Inspiron 15 (N5040) — Still operational (0+ years)
Manufactured: November 2011
Use started: November 2011

To create a sequence of video files:

1. Copy MP4 files off of camera
2. Extract audio from MP4 files using Avidemux as high bitrate MP3s (sometimes Premiere Pro has trouble with the audio of these files)
3. Create a Premiere Pro CS4 project and mix together the clips as desired

To create a DVD video stream:

1. In Premiere Pro CS4, create a new master project
2. Import the project for each individual sequence
3. Lay out sequences on the timeline in the desired order
4. Add transitions as appropriate

To master a DVD:

1. Export master Premiere Pro CS4 project as MPEG2-DVD
2. Create new Encore CS4 project
3. Import exported MPEG2-DVD file as a new timeline

# tc qdisc add dev eth0 root netem delay 500ms

And to remove the latency:

# tc qdisc del dev eth0 root