It’s a sin, the Matshita DVD-RAM drive is not supported by DVD Idle Pronor do they ever plan to, according to their web site. This means that I can’t watch arbitrary DVD’s on the laptop – which relaly tees me off. Intervideo has already eaten 3 region changes, it changed to region 1 last night while I was watching the great irken invasion (all hail invader zim!). I need to find out more about this mysterious drive and why it’s not supported – DVD Idles ability is unaffected on my desktop – I can read DVD’s without any problem, it’s just the bloody laptop that’s an issue. Time to go crawling the web in a big way.
Well that’s a kick in the knuts, it looks like the dvd firmware is encrypted, based on the information from Cynikal’s superdrive page. With that piece of news I officially declare shenanigans on Matsushita/Panasonic shame on you for really driving me insane with this. Mind you, I think there is some form of history in the drive – I changed the region to region 4, and I was able to still read all my region 2 disks, however when I changed it to region 1, I lost the ability to read my region 2 disks, unfortunately I’ve not got access to my region 4 disks this weekend, so I can’t check them.
I’m just gong to have to stick to my dell laptop for reading DVD’s then, which sucks rocks, as it’s just not as nice.
Games for phones
I got myself a new phone, It’s really really shiny. It’s a Sony Ericsson V800, which of course means that it’s a vodafone item (I wonder how many company names can I drop in a single post). I have already downloaded one game for it – worms, and will probably download quite a few more. They make for a good diversion on the train into the office, or when I’m just idling. The thing that I’ve a bit of a complaint about is that the games are €5 each, which can add up. I should write a few games myself, or adapt some of the openly available linux games that are sitting around (they’re C, and you really really need to use java for games on the phones for the most compatibility).
It makes for an interesting challenge – could I convert an aspect of pocketcity into a phone-based one, mind you I need to get the damned game past the alpha level. I’ve been so busy in the office over the last year that I’ve not had much time to work on it. I’m getting complaints from developers who would be interested in doing more development on it. I’m not stopping them – hell I’ve given them full read/write CVS access to the source, but since I’ve given them access to it, I’ve not seen one commit to the source. I feel all left out as if I’m the only person working on this.
Ouch my aching livers
Well, it’s after Warpcon and I’m feeling a bit better – my livers no longer hurt as much and I think my kidney should be feeling better too. After all The liver is evil and must be punished.
The perils of undo
Aaargh! I just lost 10 pictures from my holiday because windows deleted the files permanently when I selected an undo operation from explorer!
Windows must die the partially helping piece of shite that it is, at least with UNIX you know you’re operating without a safety net, and while you may mess up at least you know it’s not because the OS was being too helpful with it’s undo operations.
kinsey – worth the watch
Fox Searchlight: Kinsey
Great acting, well told story with the correct finish. It did inspire quite a few immature giggles from the audience (myself included).
Battery life
The last time I set a clock it was to recover from a flat battery on my PDA. That was about 6 months ago, and the PDA has languished in my desk for that time period, I’ll probably have to repeat the process, but that’s the punishment I get for not using it. The reason I don’t use it anymore is that I’ve upgraded from PDA’s to laptops. This has been quite a step for me, the changes in what I am able to do once I’m out of the office are considerable, I can now work anywhere I feel like, with the biggest stubling block being the battery life.
But, on to the actual reason why I am writing about video timers and complexity, several years ago there was a company called VideoPlus+, which produced a little remote control gizmo that could be used to set a video recorder to the appropriate time and channel and start recording you programs when you wanted it, the only thing you needed was the special sequence of numbers on the TV guide, and providing the video plus remote control was close enough to the video recorded and satellite receiver, it would change the channels and start the video recorder by using infra-red beams.
The problem was the hidden complexity of this machine. You had to inform it what brand of satellite receiver and video recorder you had. Then you had to program in the correct date and time on the remote control. If you didn’t then the system would not work correctly.
Now we have the TiVo, and Sky+, both of which allow you to record your shows. They have reduced the cost of learning to use the systems quite significantly, you don’t need to set the date and time on the boxes – this information is pulled remotely. You don’t need to type in some magical number sequence, you choose the item you want from the list of programs.
How does this change things? Well quite simply it means that none of my family are harassed by my parents every time they come over – set the video for this, can you make sure thay this is recorded while we’re on holiday.
What a huge change this little thing has had on us!
Sunny Auckland
Oh well, the holiday is nearly over. I’m in the auckand office – I spent more than a few minutes ploughing through over 3000 new email messages. I judiciously ignored anything non-project related, which means that I only had about 1000 project messages to filter on top of the 3000 in my inbox. Buried in email? you bet.
During Bungie shots
During
Side – During
Jump Wave
This is the pre bungie jump photograph of me about to jump off the Kawarau Bridge. Fun all round for me.
Pulling a wookie
Ok,
first time ever I’ve missed a flight because I was too pissed to wake up in the morning. Let’s recap, I went drinking with fintan and lester in sydney, and left them at about 12.30 in the morning to get back to home. Of course, I got mega mega sidetracked getting back to the accommodation – I was giving ego advice to a bunch of goths – being drunk, I’m sure they appreciated it for what it was – drunken advice. I was woken in the morning by a thumping on the door – didn’t I have a flight to get and I was supposed to be checking out – they never talk to you except to throw you out.
What did I forget? my shampoo and conditioner. I now have to go find the bloody stuff again before my hair turns into a tangled mess. Maybe it’s time to get it cut – Liz’s input at this stage would be a resounding yes!
Of course, I’m sitting in the airport thinking… should I check my work email or not. This is of course rhetorical – the next time I expect to look at it is between the 25th and the 31st of December.