Scaling up video with pixelated output using FFmpeg

I was trying to scale up a video of screencast, but the result was blurry after scaling up.

The answer is to use flags=neighbor alongside scale, or -sws_flags-neighbor.

ffmpeg -i infile -vf scale=WIDTH:HEIGHT:flags=neighbor outfile

I was trying to figure out, tried many other flags except that neighbor.

One Cup of Writing

I’m not a writer, but I do, pathetically, attempt to write novels for my own amusements and did try to maintain a constant daily progress about 1,000 words a day. I was curious about how other people -- amaetur or professional -- does it, more precisely, how much other people write in a day.

A few searches and pages, some suggests word quota as I did, other uses pages, there is also by the number of cards. 500 words or 10 pages, they all use fairly precise measurements, although 10 pages really seems a lot.

Meanwhile, in search of the good daily amount, I also tried to find out when is a good time to writing. Instinctively, I’d say around the midnight, but science says it’s in the morning when you get to use concentration from full quota, yes, I read there is a limited amount of concentration for each daily.

Also, music for writing. I found sometimes I can’t write with music, but other times I listen to rock’n’roll. I feel it’s completely environmental. During the day, if the background noise from outside world is too loud, I need something loud; otherwise, instrumental or no music. At night, if close to midnight, if there is no cats fighting outside or trying to do some hinkyhunky 1+ (in cat age) things, I wouldn’t listen to any music.

Back to how much to write in a day. After reading pages of other people’s ways, I suddenly realized that there is already a great countdown timer for me as I sipped the coffee from the cup.

Why not just write by the drink?

When the drink is finished, the day’s writing is done. So, I started to gather some statistics on what and how much I drank -- every cup differs, type of stuff were written, and the times of start and end.

As of this posting published, I’ve recorded 12 cup, from coffee to mint tee to pure water, and hot, cold, or room temperature. The summarized results are

• On average, 1,086 words per cup of about 245cc.
• 1cc of drink lasts about 30.61 seconds, or roughly 250cc for 128 minutes 

For some reason, having a sip after some typings seems to help my concentration, or more practical function, a quick break from the typing to have random thoughts on whatever is written.

Black nightshade berries

I have black nightshade plants, and I didn't want them once I identified them, but after eating a few of berries, I think it's nice to have with just one plant.

They are prolific plant, growing vigorously, they will shoot out new branches from the ground level up to upper branches whenever some fruits are done. Originally, there were probably ten of ten if not more in following small container, I had to thin them out to just five, or it would be like a dark forest.

At this time, I thought they were radish, because I had scattered about twenty-five radish seeds, but they were already way too big, but I still tried to convince myself, even when the flowers was telling me they were not.

Until the berries showed up, those definitely weren't seed pods.

At this point, I began to try to identify. After looking around, I know they are commonly called black nightshade, and I believe these are Solanum americanum according to this. The leaves are all green throughout all stages, and the unripe berries have white flecks.

I was debating with myself if I should try the ripe berries, I don't want to bother with leaves, 15 minute boiling twice, too much work and water and energy. Eventually, I pop one into my mouth. Some pages said they taste like tomato, I can tell you they are not and not overly sweet, but I can't exactly describe it. It has the sweetness, but there is also something probably between sweet and savor, maybe a slight hint of good sour flavor. And those tiny seeds are interesting texture in your mouth.

In about a week, I have eaten 18 berries. Now I check on them daily to see if there is any ripe berries to nibble, nice treat to have.

They grow big and can be about one meter tall, in that small container, one is really enough. By the way, I have no idea how they got into that container in the first place.

Growing onions from bottom cuts (to be updated)

In the beginning of 2016, I've tried to regrow onions from the bottom cuts, although I am still trying to grow a full bulb -- or initially, a flower head -- I do have some thoughts and experiences learned so far.

This post would be tracking one bottom that only re-grows into one bulb.

Steps

1. Cut bottom from root about 1 or 2 cm.
2. Let the bottom dry for a day or two until you can see the rings separate.
3. Plant the bottom, the cut surface just at soil surface level.
4. Dig up and separate each new onion when big enough, then replant.

Thoughts

• Each set of rings grow into one onion.
• Cut each set of rings into section, so you don't need to separate later onion, if want to grow into bulbs. Need to experiment.
• Without drying, it seems to have higher rate to fail.
• Separation could damage if inexperienced.

Example (ongoing)

May 11, 2016, planted after drying, you can see separate rings. This bottom only has one set of rings.

May 19, 2016, 8 days after planting, the green is a few cm tall.

May 23, 2016, 12 days, 13 cm.

To be updated.

One sweet potato coming up

Last week, I bagged one sweet potato and one potato. The latter has a portion rotted, but sweet potato is doing well.

The very same sweet potato was actually suspended in a jar of water back in February, but it didn't go well, so I cut the rotted bottom and threw it into compost. Little did I know I would try again in a bag, but I didn't have any other sweet potato until I recalled there was one in the compost. I dug it out and it had grown some roots and slips, but all in white, because the lack of sun.

Anywho, I put some potting soil in the bag, which now is proved not enough, should be more so the potatoes wouldn't sit in wet soil. The sweet one on the top side of photo, the other on the bottom.

I added another layer of soil and replaced with a new potato, and kept its side of soil a bit of dry.

Not entirely sure if sweet potato can be grown in toweling method, but a quick search did get some results, although I didn't look into it.

I planned on harvesting sweet potato greens, I have seen they could easily take over a bed with their vigorous vines. The bag is really small, so I don't actually have any hopes for good tubers, but we will see.

I actually have another potato in a small container and it has five or six big stems, and it's at flowering stages, for which, I snipped of flower buds, even it doesn't seem to give much bigger tubers, just up to about 10%.

Also looking forward to ginger, which I've grown before about two years ago alongside turmeric. The ginger didn't have any new rhizomes even it had big leaves, but the turmeric produced a handful of rhizomes. They were grown in small box container, it's not a big harvest, but it's enough.

Right now, little beans are everywhere, some tomatoes are slowly growing. I don't trim most of the plants, so it takes really long time to set fruits, but I don't think I planted them for the eating or cooking.

Baby cabbage unexpectedly tasted like wasabi

I was drinking my second cup of coffee and my throat got a bit dry, which happens sometimes. I wanted to have something to take away that feeling.

Snacks? Nope, it would only make my throat dryer. Believe or not, I had that baby cabbage on my desk and I was staring at it for a few seconds.

'Why not?' I thought.

I peeled the first leaf and ate it, the first taste came to me was a surprising spicy flavor. Only a couple of seconds later, my brain registered it as wasabi or horseradish, that kind of peppery flavor. Needless to say, I was taken by surprise, I didn't not expect that but a cabbage taste. More particularly, cooked cabbage flavor.

But it was nothing tasting like that at all. Beside the wasabi taste, which seemed only with the green leaves, the inner white ones didn't have that, and slightly bitter, still there was a spicy component in them.

I looked up the wasabi and horseradish online, and learned that they are also in Brassicaceae family with cabbage, also including mustard, that probably explains why this baby cabbage tasted like wasabi.

I began to wonder why we bother to cook a vegetable that is okay to eat raw. Maybe not the whole meal, but it's nice to have that green ball of baby cabbage as a quick snack.

Blog number?

I've probably had created more than 20 blogs, but usually only has one active. Over the years, some abandoned, some merged, some forgotten, some transferred to another account so that I would not see them.

Now, I just created this one, don't know why, but I don't seem to be able to leave blogging behind. But this one would be different, because I won't be bother with settings or template, even the editor. Everything default, and click, click, and click.

The most difficult step of creating a new blog is to decide a name, a name that is not taken. I was thinking "One Last Blog," sounds fine, and hoping it would truly be my last blog, but it's really a common blog name.

After many tries, looking up for synonyms for 'last' or 'final,' I finally came up with a nice name, "Name, Overrated." Perfect name, because of 20 blogs, names have become fairly meaning less, especially, virtually all my blogs are personal blogs, I wrote everything.

Although I like it, the URL would be dragging too long, 13 letters. In the end, I decided to go with a bit of chatty-spelling and went for "Waht Plog." Blog, plog, nice right?

In the end, and the final, is "Waht Blug?" The question mark is necessary.

(Actually, O was under consideration, unfortunately, O's taken.)