Gaurav Vaidya

Some tips on screencasting on the Mac

We've made a screencast to promote Sequence Matrix, a genetic sequence concatenation tool I wrote at the Evolutionary Biology lab at the National University of Singapore. This was my first attempt at creating a screencast, so I learned a thing or two I'd like to remember the next time I make one of these.

This video was recorded and edited on a MacBook Pro using ScreenFlow, a piece of screencasting software I chose after surveying screencast products late last year. The audio files were recorded by Prof. Lohman using iMovie and uploaded to a file sharing service. This means that I got them as individual clips, which were much easier to work with instead of a single, large file which I'd have to cut up myself.

Here's what I'll be keeping in mind the next time I need to make a screencast:

• Use a separate account with minimal decoration: create a new user account on your Mac just for recording screencasts. In this user account, get rid of the status decoration on the status bar in the top-right corner of your Mac screen (you can drag them off by ⌘-clicking on them). Reduce your screen resolution: 1024x640 worked well for me. I think YouTube uses a 16:9 ratio on its videos, so this screen ratio (at 16:10) will be stretched slightly, but it won't be too bad. This also means you're using your entire screen, which really shows off the Mac's gorgeous user interface.
• Get rid of the time: beware of the clock in the status bar (upper left corner) and iCal (on your Dock), which will show the effect of your editing by jumping forward and backward in time. Even worse: record on multiple days, and both these apps will be changing days as well. Longtime Mac users might not realise that recent versions of iCal continue to show the correct date even when not running - the days of iCal Day has, it seems, come to pass.
• Pick a homing point to move your mouse pointer to in between clips. For this video, my homing point was about 2/3rd of the way down from the top of the screen and 2/3rd of the way from the left of the screen. I'd start recording a video clip with my mouse pointer there, and end the clip by moving the mouse pointer back there. That way, the mouse doesn't appear to jump around in between spliced cuts. Another added benefit - if you later decide to rearrange your clips, each video will continue to start and end with the mouse at the same place, so they'll all continue to fit neatly together.
• Use speedups to demonstrate something boring: I'm not so sure about this one, but it's something to think about. The first time we export a file in the video, I sped it up slightly (150% or so faster than usual) so as not to bore the viewers. The second time we export a file, I run it at between 300% to 500% normal speed. That way, the viewers can see what's happening (and realise that yes, it's pretty much exactly what they saw earlier), while also moving swiftly along to the interesting bits. I did this a lot towards the end of the video (during the Nexus and TNT exports), and I'd love to look at it again with fresh eyes in a while and see how it came out.

I'll move these tips into the Creating Screencasts WikiBook when I get the time, but for now please feel free to add your comments, suggestions and complaints on the YouTube video itself or on this blog post.

Why I love Henri Cartier-Bresson

Responding to Kim A. Thomas' request for my favourite photographer, I found some fantastic photographs by my favourite, the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, so I thought I'd share them here. If I can find Creative-Commons versions of them, I'd put them up here, otherwise just click the links to go straight to the images. I'm afraid I don't know all their names, so I've just made my own up. Please feel free to correct me (or, even better, point me to higher-resolution images!) in the comments section.

• Woman and dog on a beach
• INDIA. Punjab. Kurukshetra. A refugee camp for 300.000 people. Refugees exercising in the camp to drive away lethargy and despair. Autumn 1947. (larger image)
• A boy with bottles of wine
• A couple kissing as their dog watches

The Mandatory Death Penalty and Vui Kong

... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

-- John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1623), XVII

I'm opposed to the death penalty. My reasons aren't for moral reasons, but economic and jurisprudential. Still, I think it's the right of every state - and particularly every democratic state - to decide how to treat its own people, and based on the few people I've talked to about this, the death penalty against drug traffickers does appear to be popular in Singapore.

The target of several campaigns are the against the Second Schedule of Cap. 185, the Misuse of Drugs Act, which prescribes a mandatory death penalty to certain drug-related offenses. Under this act, judges have no discretion in issuing the death penalty (M. Ravi, 2007): once the prosecution proves that an individual was carrying the minimum prescribed quantity of a particular drug (which is what the Second Schedule lists), the judge has to hand down the death sentence. Unless a Presidential Pardon is granted, the individual will end their life by being hanged at Changi prison, a particularly violent means of execution.

When we say mandatory death sentence means basically judges don’t have discretion. Just close your eyes, and that’s it, and execute. Don’t have to look at the person’s background and all that. You know in a sentencing regime, there’s a plea in mitigation, to mitigate your circumstances, it’s part of the sentencing process, so, it was not only that the death penalty was already harsh, but to impose that, it’s just cruel and unusual punishment.

-- M. Ravi, as reported by Asia Calling

Tomorrow, a twenty-two year old Malaysian kid who brought 47 grams of heroin into this country will be in court to hear out his appeal. Unless this is to his benefit, he can expect to be executed by the Singaporean state. As a certain religious leader once said, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Do read Vui Kong's journey, a description of his life so far.

Last year, the mandatory death penalty was found to be constitutional in Singapore. Thus, the only way for judges to be given the power of discretion in such matters - and the success I hope the We Believe In Second Chances project achieves - will be to convince parliament to change this law. If you are a Singaporean citizen, I hope you will consider this question.

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This post was written as part of the Blogging for Life initiative of the We Believe In Second Chances campaign.

References

• M. Ravi. 2007. Briefing paper: Death Penalty in Singapore. Published by the policy department of the Directorate-General for External Policies of the Union Directorate B. Reference: EXPO/B/DROI/2007/07, PE 348.620