Shifting Bits by Patrick Altman: Latest Entries

This was for a number of reasons, but primarily the direction I was heading was just plain ugly and clunky to use. It required to much knowledge about how the underlying API worked in order to be able to use it.

Now you really only have to think about the objects you want to manipulate, namely a Video and a Playlist. You can find examples of how to use it on the project wiki, but one quick one to show you how you would upload a video:

from pybrightcove import Video
video = Video(filename='yourvideo.mov', name='My Video', short_description='My description')
video.tags.append('tag1')
video.tags.append('tag2')
video.save()
print video.id  ## This is now populated with the Brightcove video id

So, download v0.9 today and let me know what you think. Or better yet, fork pybrightcove and help make it better.

Dissolution in a Fractured Network

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:45:34 -0500

Yeah, I have no idea what the title of this post means, but my little sister recently gave a talk on the subject at the National Ground Water Association's 2009 Ground Water Summit.

I love seeing and listening to people pursue their interests with great passion. It's one thing to read about this stuff, it's another thing entirely to hear her talk about it. She lights up and you can tell she really feels deeply about this subject.

Good stuff!

I am trying to encourage her to video blog on the subject to translate abstracts like the following to something her older non-scientist brother can understand.

Dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) present in fractured bedrock settings introduces remediation challenges that are dramatically different from porous media, yet the dissolution characteristics of DNAPL in a fractured network setting have not yet been fully investigated. Accurate characterization dissolution kinetics in a fractured network setting may yield a better understanding of removal both the free and dissolved phases in field settings.

This research investigates dissolution behavior of DNAPL in a three dimensional (3-D), fractured, low porosity sandstone experiment using tertrachlorethylene (PCE) as the contaminant of interest. To understand dissolution in the fractured system, DNAPL was emplaced directly into fractures and effluent concentrations of PCE were monitored over the course of the experiment. Conservative tracer tests were conducted prior to DNAPL emplacement to understand tracer behavior in a “clean” system. The impacts of fractures perpendicular to primary flow paths on conservative tracer transport lead to tailing of breakthrough curves. Earlier studies have attributed this primarily to diffusion into and out of the rock matrix; however, matrix diffusion testing confirmed that small matrix porosity (less than three percent) of the sandstone eliminates the impact of matrix diffusion processes operating in the experimental system while, discrete fracture samples confirmed dead end fractures as the dominant feature for diffusion-based processes observed in the system.

Following DNAPL emplacement conservative (bromide)/non-conservative (sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate) tracer testing was conducted directly following DNAPL emplacement and over the course of the experiment to understand the temporally evolving interfacial area of emplaced DNAPL. Effluent PCE data were used to determine effective dissolution rates and the dependence on DNAPL interfacial area and groundwater velocity. The DNAPL dissolution rates and measured interfacial areas observed in the 3-D experiment are compared to those measured in an analogous experiment performed in a one-dimensional experimental fracture system, and to values measured in porous media systems.

Have I mentioned that I am gushing with pride about his little sister?

Lysine for SQL 2008 Released

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:58:55 -0500

This is just a short announcement to let everyone know that Amino Software has now released a version of Lysine, their EBCDIC SSIS component, that is compatible with SQL 2008.

A number of folks have asked about this, so make sure and go download a fully functional 30-day demo, to see if it meets your needs under SQL 2008 (32-bit). When you decide you want to purchase a copy, there is no need to reinstall, all you need to do is purchase a license key to keep your copy working past 30 days.

Nashvegas Issues

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 10:20:42 -0500

GitHub has added integrated issue tracking:

So, in an effort to sample this awesomeness, I have converted my TODO file to issues for Nashvegas. Please vote on the ones you care about and enter new ones that would be helpful for you.

Stop Spending our Future

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:04:12 -0500

As the nation prepares for some Tea Party action tomorrow, here is a good video to put things in perspective (and hopefully get some folks to wake up and realize that wherever we are headed, it can't be good):

Update: A couple more good ones:

and

Django Compress: New CSS Filter

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 09:25:04 -0500

I added a new filter today for django-compress that allows for arbitrary string find/replace during the compile process on your css groups.

I had a specific use case for the new filter: my css had a lot of root relative urls for background images. I wanted to host my compiled media on a different host than where my images were being hosted from but this tied the two together.

Furthermore, I didn't want to hard code the absolute urls as I want to be able to test the full environment on my laptop, test environments and finally be able to deploy somewhere else in production. I want the process of changing environments to be simple settings file change.

Therefore, my approach was to create a filter that at compile time execute a string find and replace. It's super simple, but useful, at least to me.

I also found what I think were a couple of bugs when you had some groups with external_urls defined. When they were missing source_filenames and output_filenames definitions, exceptions were raised when running the management command to compile the source. I put some simple checks in place to safe guard against these exceptions.

pybrightcove v0.1 Released

Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:12:36 -0500

A few weeks ago, I announced a new project called pybrightcove that would serve as a python binding to the Brightcove API.

Well, with my latest push, I have released v0.1 of pybrightcove. This milestone marks the completion of all of the various Video Read APIs among other commits.

In addition to being able to query your media library via python, the original method I had created for this API, create_video has proven itself in a production environment for several weeks now.

Release Notes

API Methods

find_all_videos
find_video_by_id
find_related_videos
find_videos_by_reference_id
find_videos_by_reference_ids
find_videos_by_user_id
find_videos_by_campaign_id
find_videos_by_text
find_videos_by_tags
create_video

Data Transfer Objects

Video
Playlist
Rendition
CuePoint

Miscellaneous

Typed Exceptions
Related Objects (Enums, Collections, etc.)

Enjoy!

Patch to Django Extensions

Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:11:38 -0500

I am really loving the django-extensions project, especially the sync_media_s3 command to move my media to be hosted on Amazon S3.

I find it increasingly useful when combined with django-compress. However, I ran into a snag today where I wanted to only sync to s3 my compiled scripts from django-compress, instead of my entire MEDIA_ROOT.

Therefore, I added the [a patch to add a --dir optional parameter to the command](http://github.com/paltman/django-extensions/commit/4d1dbb14fb85ee8863cbbef2ef214ffcfcd53758).

New Django Site: Brite Revolution

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:03:31 -0500

Josh Kersey announced tonight a new site built by the folks at Cabedge and it appears to be done in Django.

I love seeing fresh ideas, especially concerning digital media. I have long thought the music industry just doesn't get the last 5 to 10 years of technological innovation and public mood shift.

Now, I am not industry expert, but I don't think it takes a wizard to see that Apple has single handedly been disruptive in this area. Couple that with the ability for individuals to produce very high quality recordings in their basement cheaply and then leverage social media and the Internet to distribute their music. The game has changed.

Brite Revolution is the first thing I have seen that is formerly recognizing that and building a business model around it. From their About page:

Artists need to be able to make music again without going into debt or losing ownership of their music. Fans need more music from their favorite artists on a regular basis and feel like a part of an event again. Philanthropic organizations need more opportunities to connect directly with people to make a difference in the world.

To top it all off, they are committing to supporting non-profit charities to the tune 10% of gross subscriptions. I will certainly be subscribing to this.

What the Heck are NAPLs?

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 16:15:11 -0500

They have something to do with water and pollution. But that is all I know.

My baby sister is studying them at the Colorado School of Mines, and after much encouragement is setting out to blog about them to maybe educate the rest of us about the issue of water purity.

So, check here at at NAPLs and Oranges.

I for one am looking forward to seeing her explain her work in a bit more layman terms as I continue to be confused when she tries to explain Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquids to me.