Optimizing JPEG files

I have previously written about how to resize all the images in a folder. That script was based on lossy compression of the files. However, there are also tools for optimizing image files losslessly. One approach is to use the.jpgoptim](https://github.com/tjko.jpgoptim) function available on ubuntu. Here is an excellent explanation of how it works. Lossless optimization As part of moving my blog to Hugo, I took the opportunity to optimize all the images in all my image folders....

December 9, 2022 · 1 min · 168 words · ARJ

A new figure of the disciplinarities: intra, cross, multi, inter, trans

Back in 2012, I published what has become my (by far) most-read blog post: Disciplinarities: intra, cross, multi, inter, trans. There I introduced a figure that I regularly receive permission requests to republish (which I always give, in the spirit of open research). The challenge with the previous blog post has been that I based my figure on a combination of a textual description by Stember and a more limited figure by Zeigler....

December 1, 2022 · 2 min · 238 words · ARJ

Moving from WordPress to Hugo

I have been running my blog with a self-hosted WordPress install for almost two decades, and I finally decided to move to a static website solution. The relatively rapid shift was triggered by a WordPress update that caused trouble with the paths to images throughout my blog. However, since my site was hacked a couple of years ago, I have pondered alternative solutions for running the blog. I have been tired of all the updates and security issues with a server-based content management system and figured that a static website solution would be more straightforward in the long run....

December 1, 2022 · 4 min · 826 words · ARJ

Explaining the Norwegian Career Assessment Matrix (NOR-CAM)

The Norwegian Career Assessment Matrix (NOR-CAM) is a toolbox for recognition and rewards in academic careers that was launched by Universities Norway in May 2021. I was part of the working group developing the toolbox and have blogged about this experience previously. There has been much interest in NOR-CAM and I have held numerous presentations about it since it was launched. Most of these presentations have been held live (and often on Zoom)....

November 21, 2022 · 1 min · 128 words · ARJ

Leaving Twitter

Today, I decided to leave Twitter. I have been in doubt for a while; I wanted to see how the platform would develop after Musk’s take-over. Unfortunately, things have been steadily declining, and I am now at a point where I don’t want to support the company any longer. I leave the platform with mixed feelings. I have used Twitter as my primary social media platform after I decided to say Goodbye to Facebook some years ago....

November 19, 2022 · 2 min · 267 words · ARJ

Convert HEIC photos to JPEG

A quick note-to-self about how I managed to download a bunch of photos from an iPhone and convert them to.jpg on my laptop running Ubuntu 22.04. As opposed to Android phones, iPhones do not show up as a regular disk with easy access to the DCIM folder storing photos. Fortunately, Rapid Photo Downloader managed to launch the iPhone and find all the images. Unfortunately, all the files were stored as HEIC files, using the High Efficiency Image File Format....

September 18, 2022 · 1 min · 164 words · ARJ

Starting up the AMBIENT project

Today, I am starting up my new research project AMBIENT: Bodily Entrainment to Audiovisual Rhythms. I have recruited a great team and today we will have our first meeting to discuss how to work together in the coming years. I will surely write much about this project on the blog. For now, here is a quick teaser to explain what it is all about:

September 5, 2022 · 1 min · 64 words · ARJ

Still Standing Manuscript in Preparation

I sent off the final proofs for my Sound Actions book before the summer. I don’t know when it will actually be published, but since it is off my table, I have had time to work on new projects. My new project AMBIENT will start soon, but I still haven’t been able to write up all the results from my two projects on music-related micro-motion: Sverm and MICRO. This will be the topic of the book I have started writing this summer, with the working title Still Standing: Exploring Human Micromotion....

August 24, 2022 · 2 min · 226 words · ARJ

Convert a folder of LibreOffice .ODT files to .DOCX files

I don’t spend much time in traditional “word processors”, but when I do, it is usually in LibreOffice. Then I prefer to save the files in the native .ODT format. But it happens that I need to send a bunch of files to someone that prefers .DOCX files. Instead of manually converting all the files, here is a short one-liner that does the trick using the magical pandoc, the go-to tool for converting text documents....

August 13, 2022 · 1 min · 107 words · ARJ

Add fade-in and fade-out programmatically with FFmpeg

There is always a need to add fade-in and fade-out to audio tracks. Here is a way of doing it for a bunch of video files. It may come in handy with the audio normalization script I have shown previously. That script is based on continuously normalizing the audio, which may result in some noise in the beginning and end (because there is little/no sound in those parts, hence they are normalized more)....

August 9, 2022 · 2 min · 285 words · ARJ