Remote control on Linux

I'm giddy. I just got a piece of hardware working with Linux in under a day, and since this is such a rare occurrence (possibly a first for me), I thought I'd write about it. So if you're not into technical mumbo-jumbo, now's your chance to flee.

The motivation:
We listen to music and watch videos and DVDs on our computer, on Linux, using a couple little PyQt media apps I wrote, basically to wrap around mplayer. Trouble is, especially with a baby in the room, yelling over top of key dialogue, you have to have someone sitting at the computer to be able to pause and go back to find out what Bob said to Doug. (If you're wondering, it was "Take off, eh?".)

The proposed solution:
Remote control! Sit on the couch in comfort, pause, rewind, crank the volume up to 11, just like regular people with their fancy television machines. What could be better? So I went to the local computer store, and (high on my inflated sense of Linux's superiority) I cockily picked out a remote control that claimed to only work with Windows (boo) Media Center, and only on machines that came with this remote. ("For distribution only with a new computer" - hogwash!)

The problem:
Although Linux is, in fact, superior, it nevertheless takes an average of two weekends to get any new piece of hardware working with it. Whereas Windows lets you plug the thing in and start using it right away (most likely to cause Windows to crash), Linux often requires you to (a) know what you're doing, and (b) have the extreme patience required to do it.

The details:
- Microsoft/Philips Media Center Remote (Alt), Version 2, Model 1039 (the one in the middle) with a USB infrared receiver
- Linux (Fedora Core 7, kernel 2.6.23.14-64.fc7)
- mplayer 1.0rc2

The procedure:
Bear in mind both that I've had some small amount of previous experience with Linux infrared remote control (lirc) before (thanks, Claude!), and also that I went down a few wrong roads (this is just the condensed list)...

1. Place the receiver in an accessible spot, and plug it into a spare USB slot. Check dmesg to see that it was recognized:
usb 2-1: new full speed USB device using ohci_hcd and address 4
usb 2-1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice

2. Use lsusb to find out (doesn't say on it anywhere) that it actually is a Philips remote:
Bus 002 Device 004: ID 0471:0815 Philips

3. Search Google for "mplayer 0471:0815 Philips" to get this useful page.

4. Download the latest version of lirc, using the instructions on that page:
cd /usr/src
wget http://lirc.sourceforge.net/software/snapshots/lirc-0.8.2pre2.tar.bz2
bunzip2 lirc-0.8.2pre2.tar.bz2
tar -xvf lirc-0.8.2pre2.tar
cd lirc-0.8.2pre2

5. Run ./setup.sh, choose Driver Configuration "8 USB devices" / "o Windows Media Center Remotes (new version, Philips et al.)", leave Software Configuration on default "1 Compile tools for X-Windows", then "3 Save configuration & run configure".

6. When it's done being configured, run make.

7. Panic when it refuses to compile, but then calm down and remember that I compile things for a living. Search Google, discover that a function return value changed (sacrilege!), and edit /usr/src/lirc-0.8.2pre2/drivers/lirc_dev/lirc_dev.c to not bother checking the (now-void) return value of unregister_chrdev(). Re-run make, then make install (as root) when it's done.

8. Copy the lircd.conf into the place my distro wants it, rather than the place specified in the webpage:
cp remotes/mceusb/lircd.conf.mceusb /etc/lircd.conf

9. Load the new lirc_mceusb2 module, and when that works, add it to /etc/rc.local so it'll run on startup:
modprobe lirc_mceusb2

10. Start lircd, and when that works, add it to /etc/rc.local so it'll run on startup:
/etc/init.d/lirc restart

11. Test that the remote control buttons work - run irw and then start hitting buttons on the remote. It should come back with output something like this:
000000037ff07bee 00 VolDown mceusb
000000037ff07bee 01 VolDown mceusb
000000037ff07bef 00 VolUp mceusb
000000037ff07bef 01 VolUp mceusb
000000037ff07be9 00 Play mceusb
000000037ff07be9 01 Play mceusb

12. Now, to get mplayer working. I didn't have the source kicking around, so - download the latest version of mplayer.

13. Unzip and untar the source, and check out the configure options with:
./configure --help

14. Configure mplayer with the GUI and lirc support enabled:
./configure --enable-gui --enable-lirc

15. Once that finishes, run make, and then when that finishes, make install (as root).

16. Read mplayer's manpage to determine that the default lirc configuration file is assumed to be ~/.lircrc, or that you can specify another path with -lircconf <filename>.

17. Google search for mplayer lirc configuration, and find this other helpful page.

18. As mentioned on that page, run mplayer -input cmdlist to get a list of commands that mplayer accepts. For example:
quit                 [Integer]
pause
volume               Float [Integer]
mute                 [Integer]

19. Combine these commands with the output from your remote (from step 11) in your ~/.lircrc file in this format:
begin
   prog = mplayer
   button = VolDown
   repeat = 1
   config = volume -1
end
begin
   prog = mplayer
   button = VolUp
   repeat = 1
   config = volume 1
end
begin
   prog = mplayer
   button = Pause
   config = pause
end
begin
   prog = mplayer
   button = Mute
   config = mute
end
begin
   prog = mplayer
   button = Stop
   config = quit
end

20. Play something in mplayer, and feel like a Linux god when you can actually turn the volume up and down. Strut around the place, take elaborate bows, say stuff like "yes, I am great" until Holly gets tired of it.

And there you have it. A Linux triumph in less than a day. w00t!

Shopkeepers are weird

So I recently had two experiences in stores which just reinforce why I generally avoid shopping.

First, I was in a high-tech store, call it "Shop of the Future", buying a shiny new Adobe software package. When I brought it up to the counter, the guy gave me a bit of a hard time about it - "I don't see many of these up here anymore," he said, "I guess you don't know how to download stuff?" This is a Shop of the Future salesperson, ragging on me (albeit somewhat good-naturedly) for buying something from the store he works at, rather than pirating it. Before this, I have described Shop of the Future employees as "useless", "annoying", "dumber than a bag of really dumb rocks", and "barely able to read the back of the box to you in answer to your questions". I guess I'll add "tactless" and "unable to make logical connections between sales and paycheques". Bizarre.

Second, I was in a hockey store, picking up a few items necessary for me to continue my reign of supremacy (i.e. accidentally running headfirst into people) during morning hockey games. I needed a new stick, as the one I'm using actually belongs to my wife, and is also partially disintegrating. When I had made my choice, the comment the guy made was something along the lines of, "Whoa. You're going old school, eh?" This is because I chose a hockey stick made of wood, which I note are increasingly hard to find these days. (For you youngsters who haven't heard of wood, it's the same thing they make trees from. A wooden hockey stick is basically a whittled-down tree.) The majority of sticks there are composite sticks, the kind you regularly see shattering during key plays in NHL games. Add to that, the fact that they're 3-4x the price, then yeah, I'll go "old school". I'm bummed enough that I have to pay $28 for a stick, I'm not likely to go over the $100 mark.

Grumble. I think I'll stay out of the stores for another few months.

Sports karma

A week or so ago, I had one of those bring-balance-to-the-Force kind of days. It started off well, with me getting 4 goals and 3 assists in our early morning hockey game. I was feeling so good about this, that I didn't mind getting knocked out of the ping pong tournament at work in my first game, when I fully expected to clobber everyone in the tournament on my way to a ping pong scholarship at Harvard. Oh well, you win some, you lose some.

Back to a perfect record

A few days ago, my record stood at X times being right (where X is any large number, say, 14 billion) and one time being wrong. The one time was in the summer, when Holly and I went to the Island *with* Holly's nerdstick (USB flash drive), and when we came back, it was gone. I forget how, exactly, but I was saddled with the blame for this heinous crime, and stood accused (and condemned) of LOSING Holly's precious (nay, beloved) nerdstick. And did I ever hear the end of this? Even after buying Holly another nerdstick (with more storage)? No sir, I did not. All I heard was exclamation after exclamation of the special bond that had once existed between Holly and her old nerdstick, and how, thanks to my callous and evil negligence, that bond had been forever cast asunder. Something good and pure was gone from this world, because I, doltishly, misplaced this nerdstick of nerdsticks. I was to be forever ridiculed and scorned, and never forgiven.

Until this weekend, when Holly found it in one of her sweatshirts she keeps on the Island. One that only she wears. The look on her face when she felt it in her pocket was ... priceless. The realization of the amount of undeserved heckling she had unleashed on me caught up with her, all in about three seconds. Much hilarity ensued.

And now, my record is unblemished once again. Let's hope I can remain perfect for a while longer, as a shining example to all you aspiring Dean wannabes out there.

Newspaper clipping

Having a hurricane named after you tends to do strange things to your ego, good and bad, especially with headlines like this:

That's one deep canyon

From the Grand Canyon National Park website:
"At its deepest, it is 6000 vertical feet / 1829 km from rim to river."

Holy cats! That's more than 20% of the way to the core of the earth! (In metric, at least.)

Back into hockey!

Well, it's September, and what better way to celebrate than to get back into hockey? I've started playing with a group of people from work, and as hard as it is for a programmer (okay, for me) to exert any effort towards exercise of any kind, I'm going to try to stick with it. It's fun, it's good exercise, it gets easier the more you do it, it's fun, I don't fall down every time I turn around, and did I mention it's fun?

The only tricky part is transportation. Not having a car is fine for almost everything else in my life, but this is a bit of a pain. I'm working around it partly by hitching rides with work people, and partly by booking CAN cars. This will get easier soon, I hope, when the stupid Vancouver strike is over, and we can get back to the (closer) regular rink. This will also be good timewise, as the ice slot we were able to get outside of Vancouver is 7:15-8:15, rather than the usual 8:30-9:30 or so. Since I had to hitch a ride to hockey today, and I had to be at work to get that ride, and I had to bike in to work, I had to get up at 5:20am. Yuck. My only consolation was that Sophie was totally awake, and smiling quietly at me as I got ready. Hol said she hadn't fussed for food by 9am or something, so Holly fed her anyway. Funny girl.

Conclusion: Hockey. Two thumbs up from this wheezing, out of shape, smiling programmer hunched over on the bench.

Band name

Pchairodactyl. I picture some kind of psychodelic hypno-rock. All played sitting down.

Shorts shopping

Buying shorts, sounds boring. Even I, who know the minimally-entertaining story I'm about to divulge, think it's boring. Boring, boring, boring.

Not like it'll get you out of reading my story or anything, though.

So I'm out shopping for clothes. I hadn't done so in a fairly long time (I was wearing a shirt I've had for 9+ years), so I had to rediscover the fine art of purchasing shorts. To start the experience off right, I got lost. I don't easily get turned around, but within three minutes of entering some random floor of some unknown department store, I was completely and hopelessly lost. It was one of those floorplans where the floor is broken up into several hundred islands of clothes displays, broken up by pathways. All the islands look the same, and they all contain every type of clothes, including shorts. So I have to visit each island, looking at shorts, and it's only after I'm on the fifth island that I realize I have no idea where I started. I figure I'd better start picking up shorts to try on, instead of trying to remember where the potentially good ones were. After about half an hour of walking around, I notice that an island that I just looked through (finding no shorts) can, upon leaving, turning around, and coming directly back to, have numerous pairs of shorts that weren't there moments ago. This kind of shorts-centric space-time continuum rift can be pretty annoying, let me tell you. Anyway, after another half-hour or so of non-deterministic meandering, I stumbled upon a fitting room, and tried some shorts on. Here's where I discovered a new criteria in selecting shorts. It used to be: how much do they cost? do they fit? - -> purchase. Now, the shorts-makers have gone out of their way to introduce a new variable: how long does it take to open/close the pockets? With my current shorts, there's a button on each (cargo) pocket. To open the pocket, you undo the button. Easy. With some of these shorts, the pockets had two buttons. Hidden by flaps. On the inside of the pocket flap. That went into the pocket. Hard to describe, but possibly the stupidest pocket design ever. Obviously, no kangaroos were consulted during the design phase. To sum up, here are the stats on the shorts I chose, and the shorts I rejected... Good shorts: time to open both pockets: 4 seconds, time to close both pockets: 6 seconds. Bad shorts: time to open both pockets: 28 seconds, time to close both pockets: 32 seconds. That's right, a full minute, fumbling away with multiple inside-out, upside-down, tucked away buttons. You just lost yourselves a customer, stupid shorts-makers.

Yep, even after I read that... boring. I have to have some more interesting adventures.

Attack of the giant brains!

I was walking by Science World early this morning (as Deans are wont to do), and I stumbled upon a rig pulled up to the back door, unloading a delivery of one half of a giant brain, probably about 10 feet tall and 30 feet long. Cool. Gotta love that early-morning, unexpected giant brain - no better way to start your day, not even Wheaties.

Improvements to the system

Okay, let's see if I can set this one up properly...

In my professional capacity, I work with computers. Specifically, I'm a programmer - I deal with a wide range of software development tasks, such as designing web-based systems. One of the webpages I've been working on recently was a pretty dry pipeline page - lots of rows of information, lots of words, not a lot of pictures. It needed a bit of tweaking, so I was industriously working away on a local copy of it. This means I had my computer (named Honeydew) running a Spyce server, which means it can serve Python-based webpages. (I'm sure I've lost 95% of my audience by this point.)

To sum up that last paragraph in more understandable terms, I was working on a webpage, which was being served by my computer, Honeydew.

This means that the address to the local copy of the webpage I was working on was something like http://Honeydew:8000/blah/blah/blah. This was fine for my machine, because I had set up my browser to not look externally for a server named Honeydew.

But I forgot this fact when I finished my work, and sent an email along these lines to my co-workers:

"Hey guys, I was doing a bit of work on the pipeline page, I think I managed to make such-and-such page look a little better, take a look and let me know what you think. Here's the link: http://Honeydew:8000/blah/blah/blah."

So when I click that link on my machine, I get the dry pipeline page I expect, because I have that browser option set. When my co-workers clicked the link, because their computers weren't set up this way, their browsers translated Honeydew:8000 into some kind of automatic Google search for "Honeydew", and they ended up with this page. Everyone agreed that it did look much better.

Bus etiquette

As a veteran bus rider, I've seen it all. I've been shoulder to shoulder in a jam-packed bus going to school, I've been the sole rider of a double-length bus for miles and miles, I've seen people fall over, throw up, get thrown out, try to get a cello to the back of a crowded bus... the list goes on and on. And with all this experience comes a strong understanding of the unwritten rules - the bus etiquette, as it were. Quite specific, but no less binding than having to excuse yourself after a resounding belch at the dinner table. Since I live in Canada, most of the bus etiquette rules aren't enforced (or even discussed), but make no mistake, transgressors will feel the disapproving stares of the surrounding passengers on them.

I figured I'd write some of these unwritten rules down, just to see what would happen. Here are a few key tidbits to try to remember, should you ever find yourself taking public transit.

And I hope this doesn't come off as bitter - take it more as a cross between a scientific study and an instructional lesson.

1. Be aware that other people exist.
You're not the only person on the planet, or even (usually) on the bus. This is more of a meta-rule than an actual rule - it's the basis for most other rules, but still merits mentioning on its own. You can easily spot the people who don't follow this - lost in their own head, sporting a vacant stare, refusing to see other people, even if they're standing right in front of them.

2. Don't block the aisle.
If you can move back or sit down, do it. True, sometimes you want to talk to your friend who has just sat in the last seat, but if space is short, you should either find an out-of-the-way nook and let people past, or just tell your friend you'll talk to them soon, and move back. What you don't want to do is just stand there, oblivious to the front-of-the-bus crush.

3. Give up your seat.
This goes not only for the courtesy seats at the front, but for all seats. If you see someone who is elderly, pregnant, laden with kids (or packages) (or both), or who just looks like they could use a seat, offer it to them! The entire atmosphere of the bus will noticeably improve.

4. Ask before messing with windows.
There's nothing like the single person who is too hot on a cold, rainy night, who yanks open a window above you (letting it rain on you), and then who moves on down the bus. Usually, if you want to open/close a window, everyone else wants you to too, but make sure to ask whoever's sitting right there if it's okay with them.

5. Make seats available.
If it's even vaguely crowded, seat real estate is too valuable to squander. Pick up your bag and put it under your seat or on your lap. Don't sprawl out over two seats, and certainly don't lie down across five of them. One of the sneakiest (and most inexplicable) ways of squandering a seat is to sit on the aisle seat of a two-seater so no one can sit with you. This is almost always done by prim little old ladies with a distinctly sour expression. [lemon-tasting expression] "I may have to take the bus, but I certainly don't have to sit next to one of them." Guess what, ladies? You do. Move over.

That's lots for now. There are many more unwritten rules, but I'll leave them for another day. Until then, happy riding!

Late night madman

Here's a hint that you've lived in the big city too long...

We were awaked a couple nights ago around 4:00 in the morning by a crazy guy out on the street. For what seemed like a good 15 minutes, he was wandering up and down the street, absolutely screaming his head off - swearing, vigourous death threats, the whole nine yards. If this had happened to us back in the day when we had just moved to the big city, we would have been wide awake, calling the cops, fearing for our lives, that kind of thing. As seasoned veterans of the city life, however, we had a different reaction.

First off, we didn't even fully wake up. (Usually, that sort of thing is reserved for fire alarms only - and they'd have to be pretty skookum alarms, too.) We kind of heard him, listened for a minute or so, and then started simultaneously critiquing his technique. "Oh no, that's no good, he's screaming far too loudly, he's going to wear himself out." "Yeah, unless he takes a breath, he's going to pass out and wake up with such a sore throat." "And you call those death threats? Hardly. He's just saying the same thing over and over again - no imagination whatsoever." "He could learn a lot from crazy swearing guy." (Crazy swearing guy is our local regular.) "There's no modulation, it's just full volume the whole time. He's got to learn to capture people's attention."

At least, that's what I remember. I'm sure we weren't quite so eloquent, it was likely more along the lines of "Stupid loud man, too loud, no imagination, needs to pace himself, stupid stupid. *snore*" But still, it amuses me that our first instinct was to grade him on his performance.

Random YouTube video

Okay, I'm about to try an experiment. I want to find a random YouTube video, watch it, and then discuss it. Sadly, it looks like YouTube doesn't have a "random" feature, but I'm getting around this by using a random word generator to give me two random words ("reflects" and "contributed") and watch the first video that returns from a search of these two words.

...

Oh. Great. I got this guy: Share the Wealth. I think he's drunk, or stupid, or maybe just greedy. His basic premise: "Hey, YouTube just got bought for $1.65 billion, YouTube would be nothing without its members (like me and my dog), I think we should get our cut of the money." Funny how this only became an issue after Google paid gigantic wads of cash for YouTube. I haven't posted to YouTube, but I suspect there's some kind of agreement that you have to agree to that says you're not going to get paid for posting your stupid videos.

Anyway, that was fairly lame, so I'm going to try again. "lenses" and "counter" Huh, that's better. I ended up with a French rap music video by Carpe Diem. Very nice - very catchy. I think rapping in French brings new oomph to the phrase "spitting it". Good jorb. I'm inspired by the success of that one to try a third and final one...

"obeyed" and "behave". Oh oh. Let's see what we get. ... Huh. Actually, nothing. That's a relief. Let's try again... "induced" and "mouse"? Hey, it came up with something... Hmmm. "Something" indeed. I don't know quite what to make of this, except to say that I doubt this is why Google shelled out the big bucks. axelswife1, you're pretty crazy...

And thus ends the experiment. YouTube: 1, crazy people: 2.

Tune in next time. (Preferably demanding money.)

White and Nerdy?

[Disclaimer: This has potential to be a very embarrassing and revealing post, not to mention a ridiculously long and stupid post. My apologies in advance for the blatant use of self-deprecation for the purposes of entertainment, both mine and (hopefully) yours.]

So I just saw the video for Weird Al's latest hit, "White and Nerdy". Wow. I'm continually amazed by his talent for imitation and humour. Anyway, after watching this video, I was half laughing, half worriedly thinking to myself, "Wow, that hit pretty close to home." So in an (admittedly nerdy) attempt to discover exactly how close to home it hit, I decided to go through the references and apparent signs of nerdosity, and see how many of them apply to me. This will give me some kind of percentage. At the time of writing this, I haven't yet discovered my nerd grade - I guess I'm hoping it will be somewhere around 65% - fairly nerdy, but not without hope. To make this more fair, I'll rank each reference out of, say, three. 0 = not applicable, 1 = a little bit, 2 = yeah, pretty much, 3 = bang on. Also, I won't include all of the lyrics here, but I will quote them where appropriate.

1. "Mowin' my front lawn" - I currently have no lawn, but even if I did, I doubt I'd be out there mowing it. 0/3
   
   
2. (Pac-man reference, picked out in flares) - I've played lots of Pac-man. It was one of three table-top video games (along with Galaga and Dig-Dug) in the lounge in our community centre. I think the ghosts were named Inky, Blinky, and ... ah yes, Pinky and Clyde, although I had to look the last two up. I think to get a full three, though, I'd have to have it set up as my screen saver at work, like a friend of mine has. 2/3
   
   
3. "First in my class here at MIT" - Wasn't first in my class, didn't go to MIT, but I did go to a university somewhat known for its comp sci program, which I took. 1/3
   
   
4. "I'm a champion at D&D" - Haven't played D&D (except maybe an kind of intro game once or twice, and of course the electronic game versions), but I know more about it than I let on. 1/3
   
   
5. "M. C. Escher, that's my favorite M.C." - I do like M. C. Escher, I think I had a calendar of his drawings a while back. But, there are lots of other good M.C.s out there... 1/3
   
   
6. "Keep your 40, I'll just have an Earl Grey tea" - Okay, the last three times I've been out to lunch, I've had Earl Grey tea, and have ordered it "hot" in my mind. And I don't drink. 3/3
   
   
7. "My rims ... they're quite stationary" - Referring of course to the pimped out car wheels. I have no car, but if I did, I'd like to have a Toyota Prius like depicted in the video, with - yes, stationary rims. 1/3
   
   
8. "All of my action figures are cherry" - Sort of - I have action figures, and they're in pretty good condition, although not to the extent shown in the video - I don't mind if people pick them up and place them in funny/rude positions. 2/3
   
   
9. "Stephen Hawking's in my library" - Well, yes, although I'm sad to report that I only have one of his books, and it isn't the one shown. However, I guess I do meet the criteria. 2/3
   
   
10. "My MySpace page is all totally pimped out" - I don't have a MySpace page, although I'm considering looking into it after this video. 0/3
    
    
11. "I know pi to a thousand places" - I know pi to 7 places, which isn't that much, but maybe enough to get me one mark? 1/3
    
    
12. "I still wear braces" - I had extensive orthodonture committed on me as a child, although I don't wear braces anymore. However, that may be changing, at least for night time use. We'll see, but it's probably enough to warrant... 2/3
    
    
13. "I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise" - This is true. Whenever I order or make a sandwich, it has mayo on it. 3/3
    
    
14. "I'm a wiz at Minesweeper, I could play for days" - I am, I could, and I have. My records: 3 seconds for beginner, 26ish seconds for intermediate, and 89 seconds for expert. 3/3
    
    
15. "My fingers movin' so fast" (on the keyboard) - Well, I do make a living with a keyboard, so yeah, I'm pretty fast by now. It's only taken me 14 seconds to type this far into the post. 3/3
    
    
16. "No killer app I haven't run" - Well, vaguely true. Kind of. Definitely more on the Linux side of things, but still somewhat on Windows. I'm no stranger to bittorrent, I know a bunch of graphics packages, I've dealt with lots of system-twiddling programs... 2/3
    
    
17. "At Pascal, well I'm number one" - This one is outdated. Who uses Pascal anymore? I was number one at it, back in high school, but get with the times, Weird Al! Try Ajax or Python or at least C++... But I digress - if I were to brush off my Pascal skills, I'd probably still be decent. 2/3
    
    
18. "Do vector calculus just for fun" - I've done lots of linear algebra with vectors, and I've done lots of calculus, but I can't remember doing vector calculus. 1/3
    
    
19. "I got a soldering gun" - I wish. That'd be sweet. I could totally ruin my old motherboards by attempting to stick batteries and stuff onto them. 0/3
    
    
20. "Happy Days is my favorite theme song" - It is a good song, I'll admit that. But there are better theme songs out there, methinks. 1/3
    
    
21. "I could sure kick your butt in a game of ping pong" - Arguable. I'm probably the weakest player in my extended family, but they're all crazy-good. Plus, I've got a pretty good reach, which helps me play a deceptively laid back style of game. 1/3
    
    
22. "I'll ace any trivia quiz" - Probably not. I get the odd tough question, but I'm rubbish at history and ... well, most stuff that isn't science/nature or recent arts/entertainment or hockey. 1/3
    
    
23. "I'm fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon" - I am fluent in JavaScript, but I only know a few phrases in Klingon - not enough to feel confident wearing forehead ridges to a convention, by any means. 2/3
    
    
24. (Segway reference, with helmet and knee/elbow pads) - I think people who ride these are twerps. And against all common sense, I prefer not to wear knee/elbow pads, although I usually wear a helmet for biking. But not rollerblading. 1/3
    
    
25. (Donny Osmond reference) - Pretty funny dancing, but I don't know much about Donny Osmond. 0/3
    
    
26. (Equation behind Donny Osmond) - Looks like physics, but I had to look it up - it's Schrödinger's wave equation for the hydrogen atom, and apparently, there's a mistake in it! Cool. 0/3
    
    
27. (Star Wars kid (link1, link2) reference) - Yeah, I caught it, although it was on the second viewing of the video - I was laughing too hard the first time around. 2/3
    
    
28. (Power bar for a present reference) - I don't think I've given a power bar as a gift before, but I have been pretty happy to buy them for myself, sometimes. And I do own about five or six of them. 2/3
    
    
29. "I been browsin', inspectin' X-Men comics / You know I collect 'em" - Guilty as charged. I've been known to spend a lunch hour down at the comic shop, sifting through the $1 bin for X-anything comics. I've got way too many of them, more than I've read. Although to be fair, I don't really inspect 'em, I'll take them even if they're beat up. 2/3
    
    
30. "The pens in my pocket, I must protect them" - Nope. Never had a pocket protector. Never kept pens in my shirt pocket. (Maybe behind my ear for a short length of time, but that's about it.) 0/3
    
    
31. "My ergonomic keyboard" - I don't think these actually help, rather like trackball mice - I'm betting they do more harm than good. The fact that I've thought about this and have an opinion, even though I don't have a bent keyboard must be enough to grant me... 1/3
    
    
32. "Shoppin' online for deals on some writable media" - Yes, I've done this, and yes, recently. I don't put that much effort into finding great deals though - it's more to find out where the spools of DVDs are available in the quantities I'm after. 2/3
    
    
33. "I edit Wikipedia" - Not yet, but it's probably just a matter of time - I use the darn thing enough. 0/3
    
    
34. "I memorized Holy Grail really well" - I don't know about "really well" - at least, not as well as "Life of Brian", but still to a degree where I could be one half of the Black Knight battle. 2/3
    
    
35. "Have you R-O-T-F-L-O-L" - I've actually made a few people LOL recently, but I don't think anyone has been ROTF doing so. 2/3
    
    
36. "I got a business doing websites" - Almost - I do a bunch of volunteer web work for various people, and am starting to charge for my services. 2/3
    
    
37. "When my friends need some code, who do they call? / I do HTML for 'em all" - Definitely, as above. 3/3
    
    
38. "Even made a homepage for my dog" - My dog never had a website, but my upcoming child has a blog... Does that count? 1/3
    
    
39. "I got myself a fanny pack" - No. Not like that. Not for regular day-to-day use. I do have a money belt for when travelling, I guess that's partway there. 1/3
    
    
40. "They were havin' a sale down at The Gap" - I don't shop at The Gap, if I can at all avoid it. 0/3
    
    
41. "Spend my nights with a roll of bubble wrap / ... gettin' freaky" - Um, no. I enjoy a good bout of bubble wrap popping, but not quite in the manner suggested. 1/3
    
    
42. (Badminton reference) - I'm not that good at badminton - although I once helped paint a very professional -looking badminton court on a driveway. 1/3
    
    
43. "I was in A/V club..." Nope, although it would have been vaguely cool, and I'm at least partly competent with A/V stuff now. 1/3
    
    
44. "... and glee club..." Nope. 0/3
    
    
45. "... and even the chess team" Not on the actual team, although I was chess champion for various grades in elementary school. 1/3
    
    
46. "Do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?" - Picard, baby! Make it so! And of course I've put thought into this question, how could I not? Kirk has never held that much draw for me, so it hasn't been that much of an angst-filled question. 2/3
    
    
47. "Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Faire" - Not every weekend, no. But I knew how to spell "Faire" without looking it up. I have been to a Ren Faire. Dressed up. I tried to pull the sword from the stone. I know the regulars are called Rennies. I've been forwarded pictures of people I know doing crazy stuff in character at the Faire. 2/3
    
    
48. "Got my name on my underwear" - Not for quite some time now, no. I do have a shirt that says "hoser", but that's just not the same. 0/3
    
    
49. (Star Wars holiday special reference) - Not only have I heard about this, I have a copy. It's so terrible it's awesome. 3/3
    
    
50. (Vulcan salute reference) - Yes, I caught this at the end in place of a gang sign. Very nice. I did have to look up the name of it, however. But on the plus side, I can do it without using my other hand to help. 2/3

Okay, I guess that's it. There were probably references that I missed, but what are you gonna do? Let's total them up... 69/150 = 46%. Hmmm. That's not very nerdy. Not even half nerdy! Damn. Guess I'll have to join some clubs, learn about MySpace, and hitch my pants up a bit. Otherwise, my street cred will suffer at work. :P

So until next time... [Vulcan salute]

Ahhhh, finally - proper YouTube video playback...

Big day today. Adobe released a plugin for Flash 9 for Linux. Hooray! Whoever made this gets 20 points! Of course, Linux could play Flash stuff before, but a) we could never play Flash 9, and b) the sound/video sync on Flash videos (e.g. on YouTube.com) suffered from some fairly severe lag. Now, I can actually view the webpage of the company I work for, and I can watch properly sync'd YouTube to my heart's content! Hooray again!

As an added bonus, go to YouTube and search for Takeshi's Castle. Watch a few of those, pretty entertaining.

Winter cleaning

Phew... I'm pretty exhausted. I just cleaned one of our bathrooms. But this was no ordinary cleaning, oh no. This was the last cleaning of our regular bathroom before we switched to using the other one as the main bathroom, and left this one as a guest bathroom. So because it had to be fit for guests, this bathroom got cleaned to within an inch of its life. I cleaned it so well that I'm ---> | | <--- this close to having it hermetically sealed to prevent any errant specs of dust from wandering in there, or possibly putting it on the market, and selling it off while it looks so good. The first guest we have is going to be pretty unpopular in my books, I think...

Old sayings explained I: Two birds with one stone

Welcome to what I hope will be a recurring theme in my blog, but what I fear might become another one-time mega-stupid topic. I will be examining old sayings, and dissecting them, trying to get at what's really going on there, anyway.

Today: "Two birds with one stone."

First off, this is different from "Seven in one blow," which is quite different, and possibly a topic for another day. Here, we're talking birds (two) (2), and stones (one) (1).

Second, one presumes that this is talking about actually throwing stones and birds, and also actually hitting them! Although they're probably even talking about killing these birds, I'm going to sustitute in some kind of stunning. Almost like in the cartoons, when the cat gets an anvil dropped on his head, and all of a sudden, he's got these little birds tweeting around his head... Wait, I can see that this won't work. Tell you what, in my illustrations, I'll represent "being stunned" with a kind of red Spidey-sense thing. That will indicate that the bird has been "gotten". (whisper: "Killed. Shhhh...")

So now the question becomes: Who throws rocks at birds, anyway? No, that's not really it - we know the answer to that - old people, when they were young. They even had a saying about it. Sheesh. No, the question is, how can you throw one (1) rock and "stun" two (2) birds? Obviously, it's something of an accomplishment, because they don't generally make sayings about stuff like "one lake with one stone, from just at the shoreline", but how is it done?

I have a number of theories. Please follow along, and save your questions until after.

Theory 1.
In this theory, the stone is thrown at the first bird at such an angle that it bounces off in a comic manner and clunks the second bird right on the noggin. This theory is unlikely, because if bird the second sees bird the first get clobbered, it's likely to scarper before the stone can reach it. And really, you'd have to bean a lot of first birds before you could get the right kind of bounce. This one can be ruled out.


Theory 2.
This theory requires that the birds in question have their heads kind of huddled together, in order to provide what roughly amounts to a single target. Do birds make out, or even hold whispered conversations? I don't think so, so that kind of rules this one out. Maybe if you crazy-glued their heads together an hour or so before you started hucking rocks around, but then the saying would be "two birds with one stone and some crazy glue beforehand", and it's not. So this one's out.


Theory 3.
This theory is just silly. Basically, you throw the rock at one bird so hard that it (the first bird) careens smack into the second bird with enough force to "stun" it. (Hence the arrow in bird-coloured brown.) This is so obviously faulty that I'm not going to bother refuting it. Stupid theory 3.


Theory 4.
This one is the most plausible. It involves simply what the saying says, two (2) birds and one (gigantic) stone. If the stone is big enough, there's no problem hitting two (or more!) birds. If you consider an asteroid to be just a really big stone, then I wouldn't see a problem with saying something like "2,948,441 birds with one stone." I guess it's then just a problem of how you'd throw the stone, but that's why we have catapults and mangonels and tall cliffs and those big Acme slingshots that never worked for the coyote. I'd elaborate further, but you get the gist.


There we have it. "Two birds with one stone" could be more accurately stated, "two birds with one asteroid". Saying deconstructed, mystery solved. Tune in next time.

Suspension bridges: why?

We recently went up to Lynn Canyon on a half day trip. It was meant to be fun and different and exciting, but it turned out to be fun and different and exciting and horrible. To cut straight to the point of this post, I found myself on a suspension bridge miles above a distant speck of a river, with a bunch of idiot tourists who were (get this) walking almost like normal, not realizing that every step made the bridge sway and creak and undoubtedly inch closer to Situation Plummet. I had all these Indiana Jones-like thoughts careening through my head about how, when I heard the first cable snap, I'd twine my arm around one of the ropes on the opposite side, and hold on tight for the fall and bash into the cliffside. I was ready - advancing along the bridge in a suspicious sort of crab walk, snarling at anyone going faster than a crawl, keeping low in case my body should suddenly betray me and try to hurl me up and over the ankle-high rope railings... After a few hours, I managed to get across. I turned to my darling wife, only to discover that she wasn't darling at all, and was, in fact, still in the middle of the bridge, beckoning me to bring her the camera. I made a face indicating my regret that our marriage should dissolve at such an early age due to irresolvable insanity, and that no bloody way was I bringing her the camera, and that in fact, we would be walking home (several days' hike) on this far side of the bridge, rather than cross back over the bridge to the car. To make things worse, it had started to snow, and the bridge and surrounding area had taken on a Himalayas-type atmosphere, with the idiot tourists playing the part of the Yeti family. To her credit, my wife became darling again, by coming off the bridge and agreeing to find another way across. Have I mentioned how darling she is?

Okay, so I may be exaggerating a bit. But I definitely didn't stick around on that bridge for longer than necessary, let me tell you.

To make up for, ahem, embellishing my story, here's a pic from the visitor centre thingy.

Movie review: Shut Up and Sing

Just saw the Dixie Chicks movie, Shut Up and Sing. It was okay, but for me, not much better than okay. I think I went in expecting something more... I thought there'd be lots of Bush vs. Dixie Chicks politics - there was a bit, but not a lot. I thought it was going to be a great stand-up-and-be-counted battle about deeply-held political opinions, but it came off (for me, at least) as more a case of someone said something off the cuff to get a laugh, and didn't think she ought to have to take it back, which was true. Admirable, definitely, but not the same kind of admirable I was expecting, I suppose. (The one aspect I didn't know about was the reaction of all the radio stations to the statement about Bush. Interesting.)

So I guess the difference between my initial expectations and what was actually in the movie, along with the music (which is obviously of good quality, but not my type of sound), made for a movie which I found disappointing. Not bad, just... not as good as I had hoped for. Meh.

Movie review: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

[Warning: possible spoilers ahead, although I try to keep them small or out altogether.]


So, I just saw the movie called "Borat", the one that's been getting all the (controversial) press recently. Questions are being asked about this movie all over the place, and I'm going to give you my answers to them, as if they mean anything.

Q: Is it crude?
A: Without a doubt. I'm a fan of South Park *and* Kevin Smith movies, so I've seen/heard a few crude jokes in my time. Borat is right up there.

Q: Is it politically incorrect in the extreme?
A: Absolutely. That's part of the intent, and part of the appeal.

Q: Is it horrendously offensive to various races/sexes/countries?
A: That's a tough one. On the surface, yes. Some nasty things are said about Jewish people, gay people, feminists, people with learning disabilities, etc. and the way he portrays Kazakhstani people as so backwards isn't exactly flattering.

HOWEVER (and this is the crux of the issue, I believe), this movie should absolutely not be taken at face value. If you take it as offensive to , you're missing the point. (Of course, the point has been made that many people (including children) WILL miss the point, and that in that case, the movie will do more harm than good. Perhaps, but does that mean the movie shouldn't have be made and aired? No, I don't think so. Maybe it should have had more than 14A rating, but that's not my call.) Anyway, back to my point, which was about the point of this movie...

Sacha Baron Cohen plays Borat, a Kazakhstani reporter tasked with going to America to learn about the "greatest nation in the world" and bringing some knowledge home to Kazakhstan. While in New York, he falls in love with Pamela Anderson by seeing Baywatch on TV, and decides to travel across country to Hollywood to meet her. Borat is an ignorant, uncultured, centuries-out-of-date guy who clashes with American culture all throughout his Pamela-pilgrimage. (Note: Although Cohen is definitely playing a character, he interacts with real people in his trip across country, making them believe he really as a Kazakhstani reporter, much akin to Canadian Rick Mercer's "Talking To Americans".) In playing such a backwards character (e.g. who grins and says "naughty, naughty" to the 'town rapist'), I think Cohen is poking fun at our (North American) stereotypes of middle-eastern / eastern-European / Asian countries. The really offensive stuff is to be found in the (real) reactions of the (real) Americans, who side with his (fake) bigotry, (fake) sexism, (fake) racism, (fake) everything-else-offensive. Some of these people, now realizing that they exposed themselves as less than admirable people (in a nationwide forum, no less), have sued Cohen. Interesting.

Anyway, I think the point is that Cohen is using his offensive character to set up even more offensive reactions from Americans, and therein lies part of the humour of this film - the disbelief aspect of humour, I guess. And of course, I realize that not all Americans share these views - all the Americans I know are extremely kind and extremely enlightened - I'm hopeful that they had to do a LOT of interviews and a LOT of editing before they found people to say these things. (Although I must admit, there is a cynical little part of me that kind of doubts it, in some of the venues they visited...)

Q: Is it funny beyond belief?
A: For my money, yes. Aside from the disbelief aspect I mentioned above, the humour was the kind of humour I yearn for, the wonderful combination of stupidity and wit and slapstick and clever dialogue that seems so hard to find these days. I laughed harder during this movie than I remember laughing during any movie in the last five or ten years. There were a couple cringe-worthy moments during the film, or jokes that didn't quite hit, but for the most part, it was laugh-out-loud funny. I was howling during the extended fight scene, the brief scene at the playground/park had me in stitches, and I snickered at the subtle jokes which were sprinkled throughout the movie like old jelly beans in the sectional couch of my dreams.

Conclusion: Not a movie everyone will enjoy, but if you have a fairly robust sense of humour and aren't offended easily, pick someone you won't get embarrassed with, and go see it. You might just laugh yourself silly.

Random (stupid) He-Man thoughts

My work is a pretty neat place. There are lots of people who are just big kids - it can be like working with the Lost Boys sometimes. Two aspects of this (that relate to my current incoherent ramblings) are a) a love of toys, and b) a short attention span. If you combine the two, what you end up with is a free toy giveaway every once in a while.

During one of the latest free toy grabs, I ended up with some neat new (to me) toys. Among them was a little working skateboard, and a Skeletor action figure. You might remember Skeletor as the ultimate bad guy from the cartoon show, He-Man. He's basically a guy with a bodybuilder physique, a Roman skirt, high boots, and a sort of bib-cowl combo. Plus, his skin is blue. Plus, his head is a bright yellow skull. Plus, he has a high cackling laugh. Totally evil, as you can imagine. What the heck, I'll include a picture of the very toy I'm talking about...



Anyway, it wasn't long before I discovered that I could balance Skeletor on the skateboard, which is where he currently sits, threatening the world in a very skater punk kind of way. Right on. Very cool, right? This brings me to my actual point (which hardly seems worth it by this time), which is that I got bored at work the other day, and started imagining what He-Man would have been like as a show, if all the characters had also been pro skateboarders. Beast-Man would have fallen over a lot, Trap-Jaw would have laughed at him and maybe eaten his skateboard, but wouldn't have been much better... And for some reason, I figure Mer-Man would be the best skater in Eternia. Dunno why, but it seems like he'd be the most bad-ass of the group.

And needless to say, the good guys would all be cruddy skateboarders, but would be plucky, and would therefore win all the skating contests. Prince Adam would probably have to heft his board (or maybe a magic spraycan?) over his head, yell something dumb, and get hit by lightning, making him an awesome skater.

On second thought, this is perhaps one of the stupidest posts I've ever made, and perhaps one of the stupidest trains of thought I've ever had, so maybe I should just apologize and cut my losses.

Dean out.

Unintentional performance art

I kind of wish I had the corresponding video for this story, but them's the breaks...

So to set the stage, I'm at work. (I work with computers, it's all very technical and clever-sounding work, but it mainly boils down to playing table hockey.) I've been sick for a few days, and I'm not feeling 100% better yet. I'm mainly at work so I can take part in a conference call with one of our remote workers, halfway across the country. He's wanting to show me and another co-worker what he's been working on, and go over the details. To facilitate this, we set up a Skype call on a laptop - so we can hear each other, and we can see him, and he can see us. Specifically, he can see me, because that's who the webcam happened to be pointing at.

So I realized that much of my duty during this conference call was to look the part - nod in the right places, furrow my brows when appropriate, laugh at the jokes, maintain periodic yet meaningful eye contact with the webcam. Fine. We talk for about 45 minutes, going over computer things, looking through code, all that fun stuff. My cold starts to take over, and my mind begins to wander - not bad, just a bit. To keep myself on task, I become more active - I twiddle my goatee, I have a drink of water, I scratch my face with my pen, then back to the goatee, and repeat. It seems to work - I'm able to follow what's going on, and conclude the meeting without missing a beat. Hooray!

However, then I visit the washroom, and as I'm washing my hands, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Turns out that I was expending too much effort concentrating on what was going on in the meeting, and not enough effort noticing whether my pen had its lid on or not. During my 15-30 minutes of face scratching with my pen, I had inadvertedly given myself a rather intricate-looking facial tattoo in blue ink. I looked like a self-decorated Maori warrior with poor motor control.

So now I'm left to wonder... Who saw it? No one said anything... Did I get away Scot-free? Or was the choked-off guffaw from halfway across the country in response to something other than my goofy thumbs-up at one point? I may never know...

Spam, spam, spam, spamity spam

You know how some spam comes with bizarre titles, randomly put together from extensive word lists, in an attempt to avoid junk mail filters? Stuff like "stone marmalade winner green". I mean, who'd delete something like that? It's obviously about something real, maybe I've won some kind of marmalade, you'd think. Anyway, I got one this morning that struck me as pretty darn funny. It was "Better Life, wine butt". I was intrigued. I mean, here's some spam that's not only trying to cozy up to me with the usual promise of goodness ("Better Life"), but is also being distinctly aggressive, with a blatant (and yet completely creative) insult ("wine butt"). If nothing else, it made me smile, before I junked it.

Skunk ahoy

We just went out for a walk around the block, and lo and behold, what do we get to see but a skunk? It's funny, I know they live around here, and that they're often found within the confines of the city, but it is (I believe) the first skunk I've seen in this neck of the woods. I have seen a skunk on the opposite coast, but that's way far away, and therefore, doesn't count.

Now, it was twilight, and we only saw it briefly, but this is my impression of how it looked:


Pretty nice find for a random evening stroll, non?

Why I'm happy that my microphone doesn't work

In a nutshell, it's because I'm on Linux. CentOS4, to be precise. For those of you who are out of the loop, Linux is an type of operating system, like Windows. However, Linux differs from Windows in three major areas:

1. It's free. You can download it. I've done this with various flavours of Linux - you just download some files, burn them to CD, and then you have your installation disks! Who makes it? It depends on the flavour of Linux you're getting, but in general - nerds of the world, who believe that (at least some) software should be free.

2. It's open source. This means that you don't just get the binary files to install it, you also get the code behind it all. So, if you find a problem or an opportunity for improvement or customization (and if you happen to be a raging nerd), you can fix it your own damn self. It's an empowering feeling.

3. It's bloody hard to use. There have been great leaps and bounds in making Linux a more user-friendly operating system, like Windows, but it still has a long way to go. For example, installing a printer on Windows: plug it in - if Windows doesn't automatically recognize it, you may have to put in a CD and click Next for a minute or two. Done! I installed a printer on my Linux machine, and it took me (a fairly competent computer nerd) the better part of a weekend. However, to be fair, once it's installed on Linux, you'll have way fewer problems with it than you would on Windows.

Anyway, it's #3 that's causing me grief right now. I have a microphone that I'm trying to get working, and for whatever reason, it's just not working. It's not even a complicated one. No power, no nothing. Just a sound card plug at one end, and a speak-into thingy at the other. I suspect it'll be another weekend or two of heavy research and unintelligible command line work before I can actually use it to record my voice. Which is exactly what I'm looking for in a computer experience, but that's just me. :)

Post the 2nd

In today's adventure, Seagull Boy waited on the phone, on hold, to be taken off a mailing list. You probably know how aggravating this can be, but I think I've figured out a way around it. I believe I have found a way to make waiting on hold fun. (I fully expect a Nobel prize for this.) What you do is, at the start of the wait time, have a few options for the type of music you want to listen to. "For John Tesh, press 1. For Weird Al Yankovic, press 2. For Anthrax, featuring Celine Dion, press 3. etc." So right off the bat, you're listening to something of your own choosing, which helps. Then, if the music gets interrupted by that jerk saying how important your call is to them, you could press buttons to have things happen to that person, and they wouldn't come back. "Your call is important to us. You are an inherently valuable customer to us. We worship the ground you walk on. We'd do anything for you, your highness, except perhaps pick up the phone. We think you're just wonderf..." (Seagull Boy presses 3: 'pack of hyenas'.) "... oh ... oh no ... my god, not the hyenas again! No, please, anything but the..." (Screams, sounds of smarmy individual getting mauled by a couple dozen hyenas, followed by John Tesh coming back on.) That's also how you'd change the music. (Seagull Boy tires of John Tesh, so presses 7: Godzilla attack...)

All that waiting has made me hungry. I go now, to hunt and to gather. Wish me luck.

First post

Hello world!

(That's a hint as to what I do for a living. Sort it out on your own time.)

Anyway, this is my first post. I haven't really grasped the concept of blogging yet, so I'm going to go eat breakfast while I think about what to post. (Initial guess: a description of what I will have had for breakfast.)

Okay, I'm back, and I've officially had Nibs for breakfast. They're leftover from the movies last night, I went to see V For Vendetta, which was rather good. The only thing is, I sat on the opposite side of the theatre from where I usually sit, and it threw off my equilibrium or something. I now have a sore neck. Curses. I guess I'm one of those people who is best looking left. Kind of like someone who doesn't like turning left in a car, and makes all right turns to get where they're going. I tried that in my apartment the other day (without the car), and it makes you pretty dizzy, if you do it quickly. However, I was told it was at least mildly entertaining, so that's all right.

I forget what the point of this post was now, so I'd better quit.