Check out this interesting Associated Press story: Bush Insists His Administration Seeking “New Ways to Harm Our Country”
MythTV update
I’ve received two e-mails from people asking for an update on the MythTV project. So here goes.
First, concerning the issue with the Biostar motherboard: the Biostar motherboard was bad. The TV out on it was physicially inoperative. It did not include the TV out in the box, so I had to buy that and the SPDIF out from Biostar. The SPDIF out was coax only, no optical, and the TV out was broken. I returned the motherboard and purchased an Albatron KM18g Pro 2.0 motherboard instead. The Albatron is nice. The TV out adapter is included and works. The SPDIF adapter is still extra, but instead of one port, has three ports: coax in, coax out, and optical out. My only complaint is that the GPU has a cooling fan that sounds like its about to die.
On the digital video (DVI output) side, I purchased an ATI Radeon 9200 card for $64.50. Together with the Gefen cable, I get crystal-clear output to my TV. While the picture is sharper than anything else, the colors are just not quite right somehow. After doing some checking, I am led to believe that this is because the TV does not auto-correct digital sources the way it does analog. I’m still looking into it. The ATI card is nice, and has a TV out too, so I could always fall back to that if need be. I am using the Free Software DRI drivers for the ATI card.
I’ve had a few problems with the MythTV unit overheating. We put it in a new entertainment center, and occasionally it will do a thermal shutdown to prevent damage. I ordered a nice SilenX power supply to try to move more air through there, and at a quieter volume. I also ordered one of their fans to mount on the entertainment center itself for ventilation.
The high-definition TV has been nice overall, but has exhibited discoloration in one corner. A repairman should be out this week to check it out.
And now for something completely different…
This may keep me busy for awhile :-)
John Kerry, senator
There’s a very interesting piece up on Salon: John Kerry, Senator. It takes a deep analysis of his Senate voting record and also manages to catch Dick Cheney in an outright lie.
Ahh, the Dutch
Prostitution and drugs are legal in the Netherlands, but they want to ban toe licking.
Kerry, Edwards Red-Faced in Kansas
Friday morning, I wrote about the trouble getting accurate information about Kerry’s campaign stop in Kansas, and linked to an article that said it was uncertain if it would even happen. Well, it turns out that they said it would happen but it didn’t (CNN.com). Thousands of supports watched Kerry’s train whiz by at speed.
The story is that they planned to make the stop but didn’t tell the conductor. For those of you not familiar with how railroads work, the conductor is the one person that must know because he is the one that is responsible to clearing the train to start and stop.
I suspect that the problem is more deep — a miscommunication, perhaps?
Some Amusing Corporate History
This page is a fun read. Did you know that Kodak got its name because Eastman was enamored with the letter K? Or that Nokia started as a wood pulp mill?
DEF CON Media Archives
There are a bunch of interesting things to be found at DEFCON Media Archives.
We the Media
According to reviews I have read, We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, for the People should make a fascinating read. It’s now available as individual PDFs from its home page. I also used pdftk to combine those into a single large file (1MB). I’ve also then converted that into ASCII text, Plucker, and Palm DOC formats.
Here are some other reviews and discussions about We the Media:
- Smartmobs
- One of several articles at Dan Gillmor’s own blog
- Online HTML version
- Dvorak
Does Kerry Want My Vote?
I had heard through the grapevine that Kerry/Edwards will be traveling through Kansas making campaign stops. But I did not know where or when.
So, I decided to go to johnkerry.com to find out information on campaign stops. Nope. They only have information on events that have already happend. John Kerry’s website provides no information on how to actually see the candidate.
I e-mailed them with their Contact Us option asking when Kerry would be in Kansas, and suggesting they put this info on their site. They ignored my message. (They had several days already.)
I then decided to check out the Kerry Blog. Again, lots of stuff about recent events, but nothing about what’s upcoming. I tried to post a comment. It appeared to require that I register, but simply providing my e-mail address and a random password worked. But — despite a successful confirmation message, my comment never appeared.
Then I decided to try Google. I finally found some information from the Kansas Democratic Party, but about only one stop (in Lawrence). It didn’t mention the event I already knew was happening in Kansas City, nor did it say anything about possible events farther west in Kansas. I tried to post a comment, but this blog requires me to go through a time-consuming account creation process first. Also, their post doesn’t even mention the fact that Kerry might not even stop at all. Talk about screwing with people that might drive hours to see him.
So, it seems to me that the Democrats don’t give a damn what the average voter thinks, or even make an attempt to connect with them honestly. Not that the Republicans are any different, mind you. I just hoped that they may have gotten a little bit of a clue from Howard Dean. Sigh.