In news that has shocked the logo obsessed (like me!), HP have revised their long held logo again.
On the whole I'm a fan of simplifying things, and I like the fact they kept the legendary typeface of the letters, but I hope there's a glossy-Web-2.0-free version as well.
For about a year now my MacBook Pro exhibited horrible grinding, rattling sounds on the right hand side of the unit, just below the power button. After doing a bit of research I realised that I had a damaged fan (Apple unit number 922-7194), and while I could have tried lubricating the existing one, I decided to play it safe and just buy a replacement. PBParts.com had the best overall price for the unit and international shipping to Australia, and had the unit to me in less than 2 weeks with economy mail.
Rather than take photos as I usually do for such projects, I decided to edit together a crappy little video showing what I did, and so you could hear the difference yourself! I just can't believe how whisper quiet this MacBook Pro is again, I literally cannot hear it unless I turn off every other appliance and peripheral in the room!
Apologies to my readers on BSD, alas because my current host's bandwidth quota is almost used up, I've had to uploaded the video on YouTube.
Solo advertisement on a tram, by Ian Green
My sister Elke refused to buy Solo (an Aussie brand of lemon soft drink) at the supermarket yesterday because she says she hates it. Instead, she chose to purchase a 2 litre bottle of… Lift Lemon?
In related news, oat porridge tastes fantastic, but muesli made from oats and fruit tastes repulsive. You read it here first!
ASIDE: Every small screenshot in this post is linked to the full sized screenshot in uncompressed PNG format so you can see exactly what I can see. The file sizes are almost 1MiB each, so don’t click if you’re on dialup… unless you have lots of free time!
I claim no ownership over the programming presented in the player itself, I’m merely showing them for the purpose of review.
The mighty little EyeTV
For some reason I've had really bad luck with computer hardware over the last few years. Faulty external hard drives literally burning out the internal FireWire port on my MacBook Pro, D-Link routers failing more times than I can count on one hand, new batteries barely holding a charge, ExpressCards that only work when they want to, not being able to use a brand new headset… I was starting to think electronic gremlins had it in for me.
I belabor all this to put in context the thrill I felt today when I went to the NextByte Apple store in Rundle Mall, bought myself a USB EyeTV Digital TV tuner, plugged it into my terrestrial antenna, and it worked the instant I plugged it in! They've definitely come a long way from the first TV tuner card I bought back in 2002 that plugged into a PCI slot on my desktop and was more temperamental than I am without coffee!
An example of a HD signal compared to the resolution of my MBP. The show is Q & A, a fascinating political debate show on ABC1. They really need a show like this back in Singapore!
For those who haven't seen this device before, the USB EyeTV Digital TV Tuner is a small device barely larger than a regular USB memory key but with a coaxial cable plug on the other side which you plug the cable leading to your antenna into. I bought the most basic version for AUS$120.00 that comes bundled with a small desktop antenna, a USB extention cable for those using a MacBook Air, and the EyeTV software that lets you view shows, make recordings and skip advertisements.
There are many different models with different capabilities; there are dual signal switching versions which will pick the best signal out of two inputs in realtime (useful for in cars I've been told) and there's even a so-called Deluxe version which comes with a fancier annena and other goodies. Both of these also let you record a channel which watching another, but I didn't feel I really needed this, or that the extra cost justified it.
After dragging the EyeTV.app application over to my /Applications folder and launching it for the first time I was presented with a setup wizard that told me to plug the antenna into the EyeTV device, then plug the device itself into the Mac. Then it was simply a matter of scanning for the digital versions of all the free-to-air Aussie channels, and then I was watching them. The whole process took less than 10 minutes!
An example of a regular digital TV signal showing the quality of the graphics on the commercial Channel 10. Don't worry, I watch SBS World News and ABC News!
When I bought the EyeTV tuner I knew I'd be plugging it into the terrestrial antenna, so I went to Dick Smith (for my American readers, it's basically like Radio Shack) at the Myer Centre in Rundle Mall and purchased a shielded coaxial cable for $12. I thought I'd humour myself by plugging in the bundled antenna and trying it out first, but it couldn't find any channels at all. Plugged into the wall, I got perfect, 100% reception and distortian free images for all the digital versions of the free to air Aussie networks, including all the High Definition channels. Very nice!
The picture quality is ridiculously good! While the regular digital TV pictures come through and take up a sizable part of my MacBook Pro's 1440×900 resolution screen, the high definition versions take up almost the entire screen! Of course you can make them full screen which I'm sure would work great with an external second monitor, but for me I just get a kick out of watching Huey's Cooking Adventures on my Mac desktop!
One of the shows I really missed when I lived in Singapore was Huey's Cooking Adventures! Go Huey!!!
Recording shows is also a snap. As I said before the basic version that I bought doesn't have the capability of viewing other channels while you're recording, but the recordings it generates are indistinguishable from the original! Unfortunately the output is a .eyetv file which has to be played in the EyeTV application, but you can easily export to QuickTime or even sizes for your iPod.
The only thing that I don't like about the EyeTV software itself is that it uses the American Month/Day/Year format instead of the International Day/Month/Year format. I can tell that 08/29/2008 actually means 29/08/2008 because there isn't a 29th month, but I'm worried it might get a bit ambiguous and confusing when it comes to 02/03/2010 or something similar!
Screenshot from the HD signal from SBS, Australia's multicultural station that plays shows, news and movies in foerign languages, as well as local Australian debate shows like Insight. ABC and SBS kick arse over the commercial stations by the way, except for Huey of course ;-).
ASIDE: For what it’s worth, on my sites and on my computers I always use Year.Month.Day to clear up all ambiguity, and so that the computer can sort them properly!
I was going to discuss the different high definition channels that the EyeTV can pick up in Adelaide and what has changed since 2005 when I was hear last, but I've decided to leave that for another post. I'll add the URL here once I've finished it.
The final verdict? TV tuners have come a long way! If you have a modern Mac with at least a G5 or Intel processor and want a quick, easy and affordable way to watch terrestrial TV channels, absolutely look no further! Aside from the date problem and the proprietary recording format which you need to convert from, it's perfect! Four and a half stars :-).
That's a big hot dog! Why did I put this here?
Elliot C. Back clued me onto a NSA test which required people to finish a list of incomplete sentences. Looked like some fun, so here I go:
About a week ago I posted (amongst other ramblings) that I had successfully moved over to the Vim text editor for most of my day to day… editing. I mentioned how I loved the syntax highlighting and how much it improved the readability of code, and how I had got used to the two mode operation and most of what I would consider to be the basic and intermediate commands.
MacVim in the /Applications folder
Unfortunately I also said that I had installed Vim from MacPorts on my MacBook Pro to use in the Terminal and that I failed to see what the point would be of installing the dedicated graphical MacVim application. I've since been proven wrong and have even started using MacVim as my primary editor for everything I do on this machine, and I love it!
ASIDE: Despite what you may think, I was not paid any money to create this post. Isn’t it a sad state of affairs these days when you have to go on record saying that you’re not being paid off? Sheez Lousie!
My incorrect assessment stemmed from my own misunderstanding of what MacVim was capable of; I assumed that it was just an Aqua version of GVim, or in English a Mac OS X native version of graphical Vim that didn't need X11. While this is true, it does have features that put it far ahead of the simple Terminal based Vim I was advocating before.
Firstly, the syntax highlighting which what made me fall in love with Vim from the beginning is far richer in MacVim because it supports full 16bit colour, not 16 colours. Below is a comparison of a simple Ruby script I wrote shown in MacVim and Vim:
Vim (left) compared to MacVim (right)
Now obviously I could go into my Terminal.app preferences to get the same background colour and font size, but the colours definitely look nicer in MacVim. I'm one of those fruitjobs who sees their code as poetry, and as with all art it looks far nicer when presented in a nice frame :-).
Another feature of MacVim given that it's a native Mac OS X Aqua application is that along with the regular [esc]+[:]+command Vim commands, it also supports native Mac shortcuts. This means to open a file I can enter :o ~/Documents/MyFile.rb or just as easily enter [Command]+[O] and use a regular Mac OS X dialog box.
Then there are the little things that perhaps don't improve usability in the traditional sense, but make the program nicer to use such as native, Safrai like tabs, the utilisation of the Mac menu bar and a native Mac toolbar you can collapse. It also throws errors using native Mac windows:
Mac-like error message
My final concern with using a graphical MacVim application instead of the command line Vim was that I spend most of my life in the Terminal and would hate to have to move to the Dock, click the application icon and navigate to the file I want when I might already be there in the Terminal. Fortunately in the MacVim archive you download there's also a small mvim script you can put in any folder in your shell's $path which will automagically launch the MacVim application whenever you enter mvim filename from the Terminal, just as with TextMate. I chose to put my mvim file in /usr/local/bin given I'm also a FreeBSD guy.
Having used MacVim for just over a week now, I can confidently say it has really made my life much easier. If you're on the hunt for a text editor for Mac OS X and don't like the idea of shelling out an arm and a leg for shareware that isn't even as good anyway, give it a try! I love it so much I'm going to make a donation this afternoon: after all I would think paying for something you don't need to pay for is much higher praise than being told you have to pay or it will cease to work, right?
MacVim is available from it's Google Code project page.
Someone to care for, To be there for;
I have James Woods!Someone to do for, Mortal through for;
You have James Woods!Someone to share, Joy and despair with;
Whichever betides you;
Life becomes a chore, Unless you’re living for…Someone to tend to, Be a friend to;
I have James Woods!Someone to strive for, Do or die for;
You have James Woods!It’s true, We two,
Have a likewise point of view;‘Coz James Woods has you,
And I have James Woods… too!
If you've had your fill of James Woods, may I suggest you build a barbecue pit instead.
This was originally intended as another section to be tacked onto the end of my latest musings post, but I felt so strongly about it and had so much to say, I figure it makes sense to post it separately. I'd post it together you see, but I don't have enough stamps, nor a postal bag big enough. Actually I might have a postal bag big enough, but it's full of wheatberries.
I've been told the Olympics are over. One of my good Twitter friends Mike Sullivan who also bases himself in Singapore said the fireworks from the closing ceremony probably put back our efforts to slow global warming by at least 10 years! I can remember having similar feelings whenever I watched the fireworks in Sydney for New Years each year: all that smoke and burnt up material seemed so wasteful. I guess I'm unromantic in that way!
The Clannad folks playing tennis. Tomoya doesn't look impressed!
I just can't believe it's over already. Part of me feels as though it dragged on forever, but the other part is drinking coffee. Wait, I got sidetracked, let me try that again. The other part of me feels as though it only just started. As a person who feels sustainable development is more important than exponential growth, the Olympics for me has come to stand for wasteful spending and ridiculous extravagance, not least because of the time frame in which it's played and how much money goes into it for such a short amount of time. Sure the facilities that are built can be used later, but realistically can that really be used to justify the cost?
This isn't to say I think Olympic games have always been nauseatingly wasteful, but the last half a dozen have certainly… taken the gold. In China's case though, it wasn't just limited to government spending. My father who does a lot of business in Beijing said numerous times during the lead-up to the games that to cope with the pollution, factories and plants he was overseeing were being told to close, and they weren't even leading offenders! For other firms that benefited from the Olympics, he can name several that defaulted on payments and had to close down as a result of not being able to manufacture their goods. Again there have been new public spaces created, subway lines etc, but one can't help but think there would have been a better way of doing it.
ASIDE: A post about the Chinese Olympics wouldn’t be complete without a Westerner complaining about Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Taiwan, so consider that taken care of! Don’t worry, I voted against John Howard who took Australia to Iraq!
This issue makes my head hurt.
Now we come to the issue of Australia at the Olympics. When you consider that Australia is a country with just over 20 million people, it is staggering that it appears alongside China and the United States in the medal tallies with hundreds of millions of people. Per capita, Australia is one of the most successful sporting nations on Earth. Whoopty-do. So, what's the catch?
Unfortunately, such an enviable position doesn't come cheap. According to an article published yesterday in the Sydney Morning Herald, a newspaper from Sydney of all places (sometimes I surprise even myself!), the 13 gold medals won by Australian athletes at the Beijing 2008 games cost Australian taxpayers…
Not only that, but the federally funded Australian Institute of Sport costs a few more million a year, not to mention each of the state government sponsored training centres which combined are estimated to blow out that initial figure to over $100 million.
TAXPAYERS have forked out $16.7 million through direct federal grants for each of the 13 gold medals won by Australia’s Olympic team in Beijing.
But sports academic James Connor said even that figure is an underestimate once funding by state governments, and the cost of sporting infrastructure, such as the high-tech $17 million Australian Institute of Sport swimming pool, are taken into account.
“The real price of a gold medal would be three, four or five times higher, up to $100 million,” [told] Dr Connor.
5 minutes at the Whitbury New Town Leisure Centre is all those athletes would need!
So we come to the inevitable, unavoidable question: is it worth it? I'm not sure that it is. Sure I have my own biases against athletes in general, but I honestly can't help but think some of this money could have been put to better use. And I can't stand fuzzy justifications like it boosts moral, national pride etc, that attempt to speak on behalf of everyone, like this paragraph from another article from the Sydney Morning Herald:
When the farmers, public servants, shop assistants, tradesmen, students and motley sporting obsessives are chosen for elite training and then selected to represent their country, an investment has been made in world’s best practice and the social benefits that flow from tangible success on a world stage that can be enjoyed across the social spectrum. As Australians have excelled, out of proportion to their numbers, from generation to generation, it suggests that something powerful, something money can’t buy, comes from wearing the wattle green and gold.
~ Let the medal tallies begin in 1954: Sydney Morning Herald
I don't like being talked about on my behalf, especially with regards to something like this. I feel far more proud when an Australian develops a medical vaccine, or a more efficient way to desalinate water for people in desperately poor countries, or when an Australian comedy team releases a hilarious new TV series. Not only do these things help far more people, but their effects outlast a gold medal.
Yay for athletic government grants!
Australia is often stereotyped as a country full of people who all love watching sport, but talking to people since coming back here, I'd say less than half were interested in watching Olympics, or AFL, or any other sport. Given this, I'm sure there's at least a statistically significant slice of the Australian population that have their priorities somewhere else, but alas as long as some people think it's worth spending millions upon millions of dollars on training athletes, I guess we'll continue to spend money in said fashion. It's not that I'm bitter or anything, it's more to do with the fact that I'm a bit bitter!
So anyway we've finished up with the Olympics for another four years. I was going to say "flash in the pan" but chose not to, because doing so would make me look bitter, and the last thing I want to do is look as though I'm bitter in any way.
Well here we are once again with another useless (or at least somewhat useless) Rubenerd Blog Musings Post. As I've mentioned previously, the justification for this category of posts' existence is that I don't have my audio recording and production equipment with me to record my Rubenerd Show podcast, audio magazine new time radio show, or whatever it is the kids are calling them these days. I'll be going to the city later today and purchasing a headset, a far cry from the mixers and other fancy riff raff I've got back in Singapore, but it'll let me get on the airwaves again and possibly even get Skype up and working again to hopefully interview some people. If the audio quality is less than stellar, I'll be able to encode it with LAME at a lower bitrate, saving space and upload time which here is a more important consideration now that we have usage quotas!
ASIDE: I’d better be careful, this is a Rubenerd Blog musings post but the previous paragraph had a sliver of substance to it.
When I was a kid in early primary school I used to pronouce "silver" as "sliver". I also had trouble remembering which ones were elbows and which ones were shoulders. Good things I can pronounce silver now at least.
The front of the Boatdeck Cafe using Google Maps street view
I'm once again sitting at the Boatdeck Cafe in Mawson Lakes once again (including this bracketed area, I've said once again three times) having some pancakes and a Betty Blue Sea of Espresso. If you live around Parafield or other areas around north Adelaide, make your way over to Mawson Lakes in the morning for brekkie here, the view of the lake out the huge windows and the food are just fantastic. I'm so poetic I could stanza myself. Stanza myself?
Unfortunately for me the WiFi doesn't seem to be working today. If you've listened to any of my shows you'd know how much I loathe wireless networking for the simple reason that it's even less reliable than regular networking! I can remember back to 1999 when we first got broadband interent (SingTel Magix, anyone from Singapore remember that?) and I had visions of 2010 where every coffee shop and cafe would have a wired Ethernet port and a power socket on every table. I guess I didn't realise wireless was on the horizon!
Nagisa Furukawa with coffee and breakfast :-)
Despite the WiFi revolution or whatever the kids are calling it thesedays, at home I refuse to use it: the computers in Singapore and here in Adelaide are connected through Category 6 cables to gigabit Ethernet switches. This means when a network connection fails (and it rarely does) I can figure out what the problem is much more quickly. I think it comes down to control: I'm more in control with cables because I have control over the transmission medium. I said control three times in that last sentence, four times including this sentence.
Until I have the capability to create micro-wormholes that my wireless networking beams can travel through without being interrupted by furniture, concrete walls and stale grilled cheese sandwiches, I feel more comfortable with wired Ethernet. Part of me also is concerned about security: the experts claim the WPA encryption standard is unbreakable, but as I recall the previous WEP (wired equivalent privacy!) standard was told to be just as secure. With cables, static IPs and a whitelist of approved MAC addresses, everything just works faster, more reliably and hopefully more securely.
View of the lake from the Boatdeck Cafe using Google Maps street view
ASIDE: I had no idea that this post would turn into a rant about why everyone should stop using WiFi at home. I mean, wired ethernet is the solution to everything: people only complain when they’re houses become jungles with tangled weaved cables running through every hallway and room. I love it, it makes our house look like a place where work gets done! Nothing says "I work my arse off on computers while you sit around doing nothing" than a tangled mess of cables running along every walkway.
On a more serious note, I've been thinking about mummy a lot more again lately. A few days ago I was at the Boatdeck Cafe enjoying a Betty Blue Sea of Espresso while doing some light programming and having a great conversation with a friendly woman about life the universe and everything. She was about the age of my mum and had gone through the rigamarole of breast cancer treatment herself. She couldn't believe that mummy had gone through over a decade of almost non-stop chemotherapy and radiation treatment; most people call it quits and move on after the second course. Upon talking about it, I remember one of the things that stuck with me the most when she passed on that my dad told me: he said the reason why she went through all that pain and suffering for such a long time was that she wanted her kids to have memories of her. Had she passed on after the first round back when we still lived in Australia, Elke and I probably won't have remembered much about her. I've been coping better with the colossal void in my life she's left over the last half year, but talking about it brought back the emotions again. I really, really do miss her.
Another thing I know though, and it is cliche, but the last thing she would want would be for me to still be wallowing in sorrow now. Chin up, moving on! What is it that the gym owner from the Brittas Empire always used to say? I forget, never mind!
End of the Bethel Island road, by Varmint Al
I was originally going to talk about the Olympics finishing up and how grateful I am for the fact, but I'm going to save that for a separate post. I learned something about the Aussie Olympic team that just irritates the hell out of me, though in hindsight I shouldn't have been surprised.
This musings post will be ending now because it's the end of the post, and the best place to end something is either when it's finished, when you've worn out your welcome, or if you've lost the interest of the people who were reading your material. I think I qualify for all three in this circumstance.
Doing some serious cleaning on the back-end here, so the site might be slow for the next few hours. Note to self: delete things you haven't used for 2 years on a more regular basis!
