Cell Phones

I am offering you the ability to hold an electromagnetic transmitter to your head for 500 minutes per month. What? 500 minutes isn't enough?!1 You say you want to hold an electromagnetic transmitter to your head for UNLIMITED minutes each month? Heh heh. Be my guest, just make sure you pay me $100 per month for the privilege! Don't worry, the transmitter has flashy colors, just like you like them. There there, you go talk to your friends.

An article on Information Week today highlighted an increased risk of a type of cancer for frequent cell phone users. I am known as a bit of a crackpot when it comes to cell phones. I don't talk on one unless I absolutely have to as part of my job, and if I am on a call, I will minimize the time I am on as much as possible. If I am sitting at my desk and my cell phone rings, I may not answer if I can see the caller ID and immediately ring them back from my desk phone. If I do answer, I will find a land line phone nearby and try to end the call and call the person back. I aim for less than 1 minute at a time on the cell phone. If I am sitting down and I don't need to have my phone clipped to my waist, it goes on the other side of my desk or in a metal drawer so I don't get residual radiation. Crazy, right? I used to own a cell phone, then I quit, now I have one for my job as a government employee. When I am done with this job, I will not take a job that requires me to carry a cell phone, much less converse regularly on one. I don't need a study to tell me that cell phones are dangerous to your body, my reasons are based on science and common sense.

Cell phones are an electromagnetic transmitter. They radiate information via an omnidirectional antenna which means that when you talk on one, your brain is directly in the path of that radiation. Three variables govern the effect of radiation on living organisms, they are: time, distance, and shielding. The goal is to maximize distance and shielding, while minimizing time. Shielding counts when an object that does not permit electromagnetic radiation (i.e. lead) from passing through is placed between you and the transmitter. Unless you wear a lead hat, much of that radiation is passing right through your skull and into your brain. Distance speaks to the space between the source of radiation and the living organism. Talking on a cell phone places the transmitter and receiver is places as close as it can get to the most critical body organ you have, your brain. Time refers to the duration of exposure to radiation. Judging by the people I know who use cell phones, time is generally maximized whenever practicable. Cell phones, therefore, maximize time, and minimize distance and shielding.

Even when the cell phone is not actively being used for a call, it is still radiating, maintaining contact with the cell phone towers to ensure constant connectivity. While it is doing so, it is usually located next to another highly critical portion of the body, the waist area, if you catch my meaning. If you don't think cell phones emit much radiation, you are correct, the level is relatively low, but it is the cumulative effect of all of that radiation on your cells that is debilitating. Once cigarette won't kill you either, but smoke a pack a day for a few years and see how you are doing. If you like, put your cell phone near your computer speakers your radio and you can hear the radiation when you make or receive a call as interference on your speakers.

Overexposure to radiation of any type is dangerous and cell phones are no exception to this rule. Radiation has a distinctly negative effect on the human body, but because you cannot taste, see, hear, or even feel it, its effects often ignored and are not noticeable until it is too late. Overzealous sunbathers can feel the short-term effects of overexposure in the form of a sunburn, and in the long term, as an increased risk of skin cancer. Nuclear workers can find themselves at increased risk for cancer if their exposure to nuclear radiation in the form of radioactive decay is not strictly regulated. Cell phone radiation different in terms of the frequencies involved, but it is included in electromagnetic spectrum just like sunlight and radioactive nuclear decay.

As a staunch libertarian, I will not tell you that you cannot use your cell phone all you want, nor should legislation be passed to restrict their use in any way. I won't use one, and if you think about it, neither should you, not unless you have to.

One way to save youtube videos.

[MOTIVATION]

There are some very cool videos on youtube such as some of the old Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) videos. Long videos like these are broken up into manageable slices, sometimes as much as 10 parts. It would be nice to save not just the parts of these videos, but to put them back together into one playable movie.

[ASSUMPTIONS]

For this project, as with most of my projects, I will assume a Ubuntu- or Debian-based Linux distribution and that you are familiar with the command line.

[REQUIREMENTS]

For this project, you will need to obtain the following software:

• ffmpeg


• youtube-dl


• cat


• Python

To get ffmpeg, run the following command:

 $ sudo apt-get install ffmpeg 

The cat command should be installed already on your system. To verify, try this:

 $ which cat 

If you see output that looks something like: /bin/cat then you are all set.

The youtube video downloader is a Python script that takes as input a link to a youtube video. Get the script here. The youtube video downloader depends on Python, so make sure you install the Python language.

 $ sudo apt-get install python 

[METHOD]

First, head over to youtube and do a search for Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. This video was broken into 10 parts, and it is one hilarious movie, a true MST3K classic. Find the link to part 1, and right-click to copy the link location. Next, go to the directory where the youtube-dl script is located. First, ensure that the script is executable:

 $ chmod a+x youtube-dl 

Next, execute the following command to begin the download:

 $ ./youtube-dl <videoLink> 

To paste in a link on your terminal (I use gnome-terminal), there are a couple methods you can use. First, you can try doing CTRL+SHIFT+V to paste in the previously copied link. You can also use your mouse. Clicking both the left and right mouse buttons simultaneously will paste whatever you had copied into the terminal. Alternatively, pressing down on the scroll wheel of your mouse will usuall work.

The download should begin, and it will download the video file as a .flv file. This file is not that useful, because it is a flash-formatted file, which can be played using the vlc player, but we want a more platform-indpendent format like .mpg for this project.

Assuming that your flash file is named Flash6xui2, use ffmpeg to convert this file into a .mpg file like this:

 $ ffmpeg -i Flash6xui2 -o part1.mpg 

This step may take a while (and most of your cpu resources) to complete, so be patient and you will be rewarded with a file called part1.mpg which is the mpeg encoded first part of the movie. In the meantime, you can move on to the next part of the movie using the steps described above. Paste the youtube link to part two of the movie into your terminal like you did for part one and so on until you have all of the flash-based videos downloaded. Be careful not to confuse yourself by downloading all the flash-based videos first before convering them. This is because the .flv files may have confusing names (something like FlashJWEse552xa), and you need to know the order of the files for the combining step. So, your pattern should be:

1. Download flash-based movie part.


2. Convert it to .mpg using a predictable naming convention so you know which part is which.


3. Repeat until all parts are downloaded

When complete, you should have in your directory something like 10 movie parts. Perhaps your directory looks something like this:

 $ ls

part1.mpg part2.mpg part3.mpg part4.mpg part5.mpg part6.mpg part7.mpg part8.mpg part9.mpg part10.mpg 

You may also have the original flash files in there, but they are not really needed at this point. Save them anyway, for now, and delete them once you are sure all is well so you do not have to download them again.

Finally, you have all the files you need to build your movie. The cat program is a wonderful little utility that has as one of its attributes the ability to combine files.

Implement the cat command as follows:

 $ cat part1.mpg part2.mpg part3.mpg part4.mpg part5.mpg part6.mpg part7.mpg part8.mpg part9.mpg part10.mpg >  movie.mpg 

This step will combine each of the smaller parts into one seamless movie. Now you can use mplayer, xine, or even put the movie on removable media for transport to a Windows machine.

[PROBLEMS?]
Let's say the youtube-dl script does not work for you, or you are too scared to use it for some reason. You're not too scared, are you? You can still accomplish this task, but it may be more confusing than what I have already described.

Go to youtube and start the video you would like to save. You can pause it once it starts playing and it will continue to buffer. On Linux systems, the flash file buffers in the /tmp directory. Change directories to the /tmp directory and list the files there.

 $ cd /tmp && ls 

You may see a file in there (you may see very many files in there, because the /tmp directory is the scratchpad of the file system) named something like Flash8xsk2IJWEE. It will be the video file in flash format. Wait until the file finishes buffering in your youtube window, then you can execute the ffmpeg steps as described above.

sBosell