Last time I put Mythbuntu onto the entire drive, rendering it useless (Windows can't see a ext3 partition) for data transfer etc. So I had to take it off, and this time I only used up about 18GB. Also used EasyBCD to have the boot manager on the SATA drive and don't have to plug the USB drive in to reboot the machine.
So after all the setup (Nvidia drivers, my version of lircrc, getting Paul's patches) got it all working like before. Unfortunatly TV3 is still the same, so now my mission begins to learn how to edit source code and rebuild mythtv so I can enable skip loop filter. If anyone here can help with that please leave a comment.
I did make one improvement this time around by using a new guide source from nice.net.nz. I have used Reven for ages (and will still use it on Windows) but his grabber is not a xmlTV complaint grabber which means going through the 'mythfilldatabase --file' rigaramole, and I have found that a real hassle with multiple sources and digital TV. The solution is a complaint script, and instructions are given here for how to set this up. This data is from the DVB-S feed and I am told is good data. When I can run mythtv full time I will be able to test that!
Read MoreThis is fantastic, particularly to those subscribing to the current wave of F.U.D.
http://www.lhc-live.com/
Seriously though, I think this is a great project, large international projects like this always restore some of the faith I have in mankind, as I believe our ability to colloborate and work together is definitely the future.
So what does the LHC Actually do?
effectively it uses a 27-od kilometer long tube that is surrounded by electro-magnets that accelerate sub-atomic particles to 99.9999999% of the speed of light in opposite directions and then slam them into each other.
(it works like the rail gun from quake excepted bigger and in a loop)
Why?
By slamming the particles into each other it should break them down into the parts that make them up _hopefully_ recreating conditions that existed nano seconds after the big bang.
What will we find / will happen?
Well the honest answer is we dont know but the hope is that we may be able to discover the Higgs Boson, also nicknamed the "God Particle"
this hopefully would provide the answer as to what causes mass,
We could also discover additional previously unknown dimensions of space - time (- this could be real handy for space travel and other bits and pieces)
Could it actually cause a black hole?
Absolutely. could it cause a black hole that poses a danger to earth and the solar system and everything? well yes, but its not very likely.
When is the _real_ stuff happening? (eg the smashing and bashing) in about 4 weeks to a months time.
What will this give us?
Well the CERN project gave us the World - Wide - Web (not the internet) as a major part of it was created to share information between scientists, thanks to Tim Berners-Lee
So its already (arguably) better the grand total of mankind.
What else?
the applications for the results of the experiment could be endless, or could be not much at all, noone knows till we get some results and experiments done.
Read MoreNew York, Paris, London, Munich
Everyone’s talking about, Slot Music.
At least, it finally hit the NZ Herald today . Beaten by downloads affecting retail store sales, major record companies inlcuindg Sony BMG, Warner and EMI have decided to make their music more accessible by putting it on 1GB Micro SD Cards.
They plan to still put them into CD cases and say that with the extra space, they can include the liner, liner notes and other information. They will be DRM free and you can even play your music on your computer by using the Micro SD Card with a dongle. The music will be in MP3 format at 320kbps they say on the info site, which they say is very high quality music. Really?
The say that hundreds of millions of phones, Personal Computers and in the future lots of car entertainment sytsms will be able to listen to this music.
Well hello! Do you think we consumers are thick? Let’s go back to the future and do a different thing in the same way and charge a premieum for convenience.
So here’s the thing. Back in the day we had audio casettes and vinyl. Audio casettes were cheap because they weren’t going to last long, especially on cheap walkman units that stretched the tape if they got dropped, got hot or for lots of other reasons. Vinyl was great, you got big liner art and photos, quite often big inserts with lyrics, interviews and more photos.
Then came the CD, which they said had far greater sound and extra space to put more information on. In the future, they said, they could include music videos, interviews, games, photos and much more. Of course we had to pay more for this amazing technology but it was going to be worth it. In many cases the quality was superior, even the nice ambience of the needle was no longer there.
But the extras? Well they are the exception rather than the rule. In most cases we got less liner information, because of the size. Inserts happened sometimes but not very often and the additional material? Sometimes there was a hidden track, that was fun. Occassionally someone would add a music video and a few like BB King, put out a CD ROM with interviews, games and lots more. I still have mine, it was cool. Of course I don’t play it any more, but I felt I got my money’s worth and was chuffed that an old timer like The King could do something so modern.
So here’s my take on this. I have large quantities of CD’s and DVD’s pressed, not of my music unfortunately, but for car navigation. I also have large quantities of SD Cards duplicated, also for car navigation. Firstly, even at volume pricing SD Cards are much more expensive than CD’s or DVD’s.
Universal Music is going to release about 30 ‘Slots’ to start with, from their eLabs Digital Music Unit. Sounds more like a test to me, but anyway, I do applaud them for trying new technology. I think it’s a good idea to try new technology, given that CD’s are losing ground rapidly to downloads.
Will they add extra information to the SD Cards? Maybe for some of those first 30, but then it wil be the same old story, new media for a premium price (for the convenience) and nothing more. If they had listened to people like me 10 years ago (Netguide wouldn’t publish my opinion), they could have reinvented a format giving loads of extra value, far more than people could afford to download and created a whole new generation of fans and collectors. But no, they just wanted to increase cash flow and profit. After all, they knew far better than we consumers, what was good for us.
In my humble opinion, they created the monster we have today where people download and share music for free. And it is a monster friends, because what is happening is people are downloading music for free and the poor songwriters and performers are getting ripped off. Sure there are big bands making truckloads of money for themselves and their promotors, but they are the minority. Most of the people in your favorite bands have to work a day job in order to be able to write and perform music at night. This might not be the case if they got fair remuneration for their work.
I ask you this. Do you work for free? Do you expect to go to work and build widgets or whatever you do and expect other people to reproduce them for peanuts and give them to your mates? Will you accept a 90% reduction in your income because people have found a way to clone your products? I didn’t think so.
Anyway, after that minor digression, this is a storm in a slot. Sure they will make some of these. Then they will cry foul when people copy them (if they can be bothered). They will weep when these cards don’t get sold, except on eBay, Craig’s List or Trade Me after people have copied the music onto their computers and shared them with their mates.
I love new technology, but when I can go to iTunes and for a couple of dollars, buy the only song as a track that I like (because I am happy for the band to make some money from it), why would I buy a little SD Card that I will probably lose.
In my humble opinion, the music industry got this one wrong. Can they redeem it? Only if they figure a way to genuinely add value. They want to offer the music on iGB SD Cards. (Interesting that I struggle to even buy 1GB SD Cards anymore.) Why not do something smart and offer us real value. Do what you should have done years ago and you might find a couple of years of legs in this yet. Use 4GB cards. Load it with the music, the live performance video, the interviews, the music video, lyric sheets (the mechanical rights people can still get a share) and a personal spoken message from the band or artist. You could sell that for a premium and create collectors items that people will want to keep.
Of course when real broadband arrives, people are no longer going to buy music in hard copy. I’m sorry but they won’t. Why would you. The other day I sat down in front of YouTube an had a great afternoon watching videos and listening to music of my favourite bands of the past and the present. All it cost me was a bit of internet access (and I do have ADSL 2 from Orcon so speed wasn’t an issue.
I think the future will be:
New York, Paris, London, Munich, Nobody’s talking about Slot Music.
Read MoreMultiple Mozilla products are vulnerable to a stack buffer overflow allowing remote code execution by enticing a user to click on a specially-crafted URL. Read More
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