Wow. It's been a busy week. Last week I got an e-mail from my Mum advising they were shifting back from the States. No more vagaries, but actual dates and flights. It was funny, but after years of "Some day", to suddenly be told they would be here in about three weeks! My goodness!
Saturday was the day that is was and we shall speak no more of that. Was a good day though...:-)
Sunday was cool. We bought Nooboo's cot. Pics of all the new baby stuff are of course on Flickr. TradeMe rocks...:-) Last "major" thing to get is a car seat.
Stumbled across a cool piece of software on Digg. It's called Hamachi, and it is basically used to create a password protected, encrypted VPN through the Internet between machines. It's free, and it's simple (My two favourite features) and it runs on Windows and Linux. I can then VNC (Password protected, which of course also runs on Windows or Linux) through the tunnel to remote control machines. Finally the perfect (As far as I can tell), way for me to help remote friends and family with their machines without having to dick around with firewall and router ports. W00t! And I've even thought, if I leave Hamachi and VNC server running on our PVR at home, I can Hamachi/VNC through and set it to tape TV programs if I lean of or forget something I want to record. Cool! Sorry if this is old hat for you.
20051220
20051215
GEEK - Ow, my bleeding scalp
Gott love it:
Using WPA under Mac OS, Windows XP and Linux
...The section for Windows is like part of a page. The section for Linux is page, after page, after page...:-( I'm sure someone somewhere is blaming Sir Bill. Cause it's always his fault, right?
Using WPA under Mac OS, Windows XP and Linux
...The section for Windows is like part of a page. The section for Linux is page, after page, after page...:-( I'm sure someone somewhere is blaming Sir Bill. Cause it's always his fault, right?
Geek - The Linux experiment
Right. This has been done a million times, and now it's been done a million and one. I'll document my progress with this Linux experience, if for no other record than my own.
Day one saw the install of SuSE 10.1. As one would expect after the number of Linux has been around now, the install progress is no longer the total bitch that it used to be. Important things are done for you (Correctly) with the option to change the recommended settings and config as you go. I did a custom install and added a few bits. All the hardware was detected correctly. I've had nightmares in previous years with sound and graphics cards.
The machine is an old HP Omnibook 6000 (PIII 800, 128 MB of RAM at the moment, a 10 GB HDD). I've had it for years but haven't been doing anything with i cause the battery was naff and a replacement was $400 till I found a good laptop battery source on TradeMe (Plug plug! Laptop Battery NZ). $120! Not bad.
Unfortunately after the install, when the machine would boot and X Windows would start, the screen would just fade to solid white (Or grey as I was calling it at the time). Starting with the boot option "vga=normal" would get me in. And all the graphics options seemed correct. I could test at 1024 x 768 in 24-bit colour. But restart and *bleah*! No screen output. I tried Googling, but didn't really know what to look for. Was it a machine problem, a settings problem, a Linux problem, a driver problem, a SuSE problem? I feel stupid as in the end I checked with a work colleague in Dunedin who is a Linux user (And Micro$oft BASHer...;-) and he pointed me to an article mentioning a graphics option in the BOS of the HP Omnibook 6000 that I needed to change. I was annoyed, but also happy to get around the issue.
So the next thing I wanted to do was update Firefox from 1.0.7 to 1.5. Still haven't figured this out. Not as simple as logging in as root, and running SETUP.EXE...:-) Had a quick look at the release notes, and it looks like it might just be a matter of extracting the tarball over the existing copy of 1.0.7. But wouldn't that leave behind old files and stuff, if a newer file has a different name? Looks like I can use RPM (Haven't tried when I've been a home and haven't got the machine's proxy settings working at work (Authentication failure for some reason. Another colleague says there's a trick to it).
Happily plugging in my USB IDE drive works off the whack and auto-runs with Konqueror, and my M3Us play right away with amaroK. Trying to play some other media (Videos) and it seems I'm missing some codecs (Event MPEG2. Would have though that would work out of the box). Get to figure out how to install those.
My colleague also has a little network monitor thing in his system tray which I don't and he doesn't know what it is or how it got there (Need to take a sec to find out what it is).
Today I found that eth0 doesn't automatically release/renew its DHCP address when unplug/plug in the network cable. So when I plug in at work it still has my address from home. So I restart and it gets an address. And when get home, it's got the address from work. I only noticed this today. So back to Google to find Linux's equivalent of IPCONFIG. Turns out it's IFCONFIG. But IFCNFIG doesn't have a release or renew switch. Fortunately I found someone pointing out DHCPCD, and -f and -n. Sweet (If annoying. I'm sure this behaviour had be changed in some config file and all the Linux nuts would say "See how powerful it is", and my response is "No. See how annoying it is" and they'd counter with "You're just used to Windows doing everything for you" and I'd be like "Yeah. Saves time for more important things...". Oh. Don't forget to SU first :rolleyes:
Got the right address wherever I go now, rather than dragging around my last IP address when I switch networks, so I'm able to rdesktop to a Windows Terminal Server to get access to the tools I need. Outstanding tasks include:
* Updating Firefox (Will try to update via RPM when I get home)
* Accessing a Windows share
* Authenticating to Active Directory (Either mine at home or at work)
* IMAP address to my Exchange mailbox at work.
* Sourcing a 802.11g NIC that supports Linux (I don't know if I want the hassle of dealing with the ndiswrapper)
* Getting a Telecom T3G (Sierra Wireless CDMA1X/EVDO) PCCard working
Others at work are looking to play with Linux to get their working knowledge up. So they can learn from my pain, and we'll see how we come out the other end...
Day one saw the install of SuSE 10.1. As one would expect after the number of Linux has been around now, the install progress is no longer the total bitch that it used to be. Important things are done for you (Correctly) with the option to change the recommended settings and config as you go. I did a custom install and added a few bits. All the hardware was detected correctly. I've had nightmares in previous years with sound and graphics cards.
The machine is an old HP Omnibook 6000 (PIII 800, 128 MB of RAM at the moment, a 10 GB HDD). I've had it for years but haven't been doing anything with i cause the battery was naff and a replacement was $400 till I found a good laptop battery source on TradeMe (Plug plug! Laptop Battery NZ). $120! Not bad.
Unfortunately after the install, when the machine would boot and X Windows would start, the screen would just fade to solid white (Or grey as I was calling it at the time). Starting with the boot option "vga=normal" would get me in. And all the graphics options seemed correct. I could test at 1024 x 768 in 24-bit colour. But restart and *bleah*! No screen output. I tried Googling, but didn't really know what to look for. Was it a machine problem, a settings problem, a Linux problem, a driver problem, a SuSE problem? I feel stupid as in the end I checked with a work colleague in Dunedin who is a Linux user (And Micro$oft BASHer...;-) and he pointed me to an article mentioning a graphics option in the BOS of the HP Omnibook 6000 that I needed to change. I was annoyed, but also happy to get around the issue.
So the next thing I wanted to do was update Firefox from 1.0.7 to 1.5. Still haven't figured this out. Not as simple as logging in as root, and running SETUP.EXE...:-) Had a quick look at the release notes, and it looks like it might just be a matter of extracting the tarball over the existing copy of 1.0.7. But wouldn't that leave behind old files and stuff, if a newer file has a different name? Looks like I can use RPM (Haven't tried when I've been a home and haven't got the machine's proxy settings working at work (Authentication failure for some reason. Another colleague says there's a trick to it).
Happily plugging in my USB IDE drive works off the whack and auto-runs with Konqueror, and my M3Us play right away with amaroK. Trying to play some other media (Videos) and it seems I'm missing some codecs (Event MPEG2. Would have though that would work out of the box). Get to figure out how to install those.
My colleague also has a little network monitor thing in his system tray which I don't and he doesn't know what it is or how it got there (Need to take a sec to find out what it is).
Today I found that eth0 doesn't automatically release/renew its DHCP address when unplug/plug in the network cable. So when I plug in at work it still has my address from home. So I restart and it gets an address. And when get home, it's got the address from work. I only noticed this today. So back to Google to find Linux's equivalent of IPCONFIG. Turns out it's IFCONFIG. But IFCNFIG doesn't have a release or renew switch. Fortunately I found someone pointing out DHCPCD, and -f and -n. Sweet (If annoying. I'm sure this behaviour had be changed in some config file and all the Linux nuts would say "See how powerful it is", and my response is "No. See how annoying it is" and they'd counter with "You're just used to Windows doing everything for you" and I'd be like "Yeah. Saves time for more important things...". Oh. Don't forget to SU first :rolleyes:
Got the right address wherever I go now, rather than dragging around my last IP address when I switch networks, so I'm able to rdesktop to a Windows Terminal Server to get access to the tools I need. Outstanding tasks include:
* Updating Firefox (Will try to update via RPM when I get home)
* Accessing a Windows share
* Authenticating to Active Directory (Either mine at home or at work)
* IMAP address to my Exchange mailbox at work.
* Sourcing a 802.11g NIC that supports Linux (I don't know if I want the hassle of dealing with the ndiswrapper)
* Getting a Telecom T3G (Sierra Wireless CDMA1X/EVDO) PCCard working
Others at work are looking to play with Linux to get their working knowledge up. So they can learn from my pain, and we'll see how we come out the other end...
20051214
GEEK - Ah the nostalgia
My current ownership of an Xbox and a PS2 (As well as being a PC gamer), is long precedented:
...Ah Berzerk. One of my fav games from the early '80s...:-)
...Ah Berzerk. One of my fav games from the early '80s...:-)
20051212
Life - Goodbye to Richard Pryor
I remember one year when I was a little ankle biter (About five or six), and I was watching the Academy Awards with my grandparents. And it came to the part of the show where they remembered those from the entertainment industry who'd passed away that year. And I didn't know any of them. But my grandparents both commented that "...it was a shame to see so-and-so had gone this year". And I specifically remember thinking "One day, I'll be watching TV and saying those same things".
As of late there has been deaths amongst people I've known or known of for a large part of my life. And it's all very real now. Personally I'm very afraid of death. I'll be trying to fall asleep sometimes and I'll just think "I'm going to die some day. Some time I just won't be here any more". And my heart starts racing, and eventually I chill out and fall asleep.
So Richard Pryor has been taken from us. He's made me laugh on more than a few occations. It's funny. So much of his comedy is racially based, and yet during his peak (And admittedly I was young at the time), the race side of his comedy was always transparent to me, like I couldn't understand it. And I don't mean because I'm not black. I mean because I don't see any difference between someone who's black and someone who's white. Unfortunately I don't think humanity is evolving quickly enough to overcome rasism. It will be with us for the forseable future. But anyway. Goodbye Richard. Thank you for the laughs. It is the thing I prize most from entertainers beyond all else. Laughing is the best thing in the whole world.
And to those out there reading this blog. Having lost a family member recently, I'll say one thing. Take a second to appreciate the people around you. Your family and your friends. The vicar at my father-in-law's funeral said:
When we are on our death bed, the important things aren't the money we've made. They're not the things we've bought. It's the people we've known and loved. You don't say "Bring me my plasma telly" or "my expensive car". You say "I want to see my brothers and my sisters and my friends". Appreciate the time you have with your friends and family. Don't waste it.
As of late there has been deaths amongst people I've known or known of for a large part of my life. And it's all very real now. Personally I'm very afraid of death. I'll be trying to fall asleep sometimes and I'll just think "I'm going to die some day. Some time I just won't be here any more". And my heart starts racing, and eventually I chill out and fall asleep.
So Richard Pryor has been taken from us. He's made me laugh on more than a few occations. It's funny. So much of his comedy is racially based, and yet during his peak (And admittedly I was young at the time), the race side of his comedy was always transparent to me, like I couldn't understand it. And I don't mean because I'm not black. I mean because I don't see any difference between someone who's black and someone who's white. Unfortunately I don't think humanity is evolving quickly enough to overcome rasism. It will be with us for the forseable future. But anyway. Goodbye Richard. Thank you for the laughs. It is the thing I prize most from entertainers beyond all else. Laughing is the best thing in the whole world.
And to those out there reading this blog. Having lost a family member recently, I'll say one thing. Take a second to appreciate the people around you. Your family and your friends. The vicar at my father-in-law's funeral said:
When we are on our death bed, the important things aren't the money we've made. They're not the things we've bought. It's the people we've known and loved. You don't say "Bring me my plasma telly" or "my expensive car". You say "I want to see my brothers and my sisters and my friends". Appreciate the time you have with your friends and family. Don't waste it.
20051211
LIFE - Just a quick follow-up
It cracks me up some times really. The largest critisism I often have for Linux is it is simply too hard to use for most people who have never used it before (Another big critisism is for those that say "With Linux I have such a choice of different utils to use". Too much choice. Keep it simple). I'm reading a man page on MOUNT.CIFS:
"The mount.cifs utility attaches the UNC name (exported network resource) to the local directory mount-point. It is possible to set the mode for mount.cifs to setuid root to allow non-root users to mount shares to directories for which they have write permission".
Now I understand this...But I have enough trouble helping people plug in a USB webcam over the phone withouth dealing with crap like this. Give me a break.
"The mount.cifs utility attaches the UNC name (exported network resource) to the local directory mount-point. It is possible to set the mode for mount.cifs to setuid root to allow non-root users to mount shares to directories for which they have write permission".
Now I understand this...But I have enough trouble helping people plug in a USB webcam over the phone withouth dealing with crap like this. Give me a break.
LIFE - Yeah...I'm still here
Haven't blogged in a while. Two reasons really. I've been busy, but haven't really been busy with anything worth blogging. Life falls in to two camps at the moment. Work, and waiting for Nooboo with other little things to fill the time. Bit of telly. Bit of reading. Some movies. Visiting friends. Just "stuff" stuff really. Not really been playing paintball since the last AXL event. One, all my boys are down in Wellers, and two, well the last AXL event just kinda pissed me off. Hey. It's simple. When we had to win one game, we lost it. So no bitching. But still...
Still reading Judas Unchained. I've enjoyed it, though not as much as Pandora's Star. I think Peter F. Hamilton can waffle on a little some times, which has meant I haven't been as "in" to this book as the previous one.
Work is work. I feel we kinda lack direction at the moment. And by that I mean the whole company. But the team has changed a little over the past month. Some of the team have stepped up and are taking on more of the interesting work, which means I think they're enjoying themselves a little more.
Megz gets a little bigger every day. About a month to go now, and life will change forever. I'm looking forward to it. It's funny, but I've not even seen my son/daughter yet (Other than ultrasound of course), and still I love them very much. I'm looking forward to teaching them about life, and having a new friend in the world. I just hope I do a good job as a dad. I'm under no illusions as to this being an easy task.
I learned over the weekend that my mum and family are nearly committed to returning to NZ. It's funny. I was excited and yet I was overcome with a large feeling of guilt when we spoke. It isn't an easy task to uproot a family and move overseas. Especially when you're leaving behing family and friends. It was just mum and I when we came, so it was easier for us. But Richard and Mardie both have good friends and are doing well in school. I feel awful for asking them to leave that behind. But I do miss them very much.
So this weekend I've been busy'ish. I started installing SuSE Linux (v10.1) on an old PIII laptop of mine (Found a cheap battery on TradeMe to replace a faulty one, so it made using the machine worth while again). I've had a crack at Linux about once a year, every year for the past six years or so. And each time it's been too hard. Windows does what I want. The software is available and the system is familiar. I have no time for Linux zealots with their "Windows sucks because it's made by Microsoft and Microsoft is evil and Bill Gates is the antichrist". Get a flipping life. I think that Linux is to the point where I don't have to spend weeks studying it to make it useful. I can slowly start to use it. The interest is mainly in terms of having Linux work skills.
We watched Footrot Flats on DVD on Friday (Thank you sweetie). We also saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire this weekend (Megz, Christopher and I). Chris and I enjoyed it. Megz thought it was so-so. I thought the first two were better. And I finally got round to start watching Farscape on DVD after years of wanting to see it. And we Skype'd with Lou for a while which was cool. Now that Skype (Version 2. Thanks for pointing that out Richard) does video, it's much easier to video conference with friends and family rather than dealing with the grief of routers and firewalls which effect Messenger and other IM/VoIP systems.
Still reading Judas Unchained. I've enjoyed it, though not as much as Pandora's Star. I think Peter F. Hamilton can waffle on a little some times, which has meant I haven't been as "in" to this book as the previous one.
Work is work. I feel we kinda lack direction at the moment. And by that I mean the whole company. But the team has changed a little over the past month. Some of the team have stepped up and are taking on more of the interesting work, which means I think they're enjoying themselves a little more.
Megz gets a little bigger every day. About a month to go now, and life will change forever. I'm looking forward to it. It's funny, but I've not even seen my son/daughter yet (Other than ultrasound of course), and still I love them very much. I'm looking forward to teaching them about life, and having a new friend in the world. I just hope I do a good job as a dad. I'm under no illusions as to this being an easy task.
I learned over the weekend that my mum and family are nearly committed to returning to NZ. It's funny. I was excited and yet I was overcome with a large feeling of guilt when we spoke. It isn't an easy task to uproot a family and move overseas. Especially when you're leaving behing family and friends. It was just mum and I when we came, so it was easier for us. But Richard and Mardie both have good friends and are doing well in school. I feel awful for asking them to leave that behind. But I do miss them very much.
So this weekend I've been busy'ish. I started installing SuSE Linux (v10.1) on an old PIII laptop of mine (Found a cheap battery on TradeMe to replace a faulty one, so it made using the machine worth while again). I've had a crack at Linux about once a year, every year for the past six years or so. And each time it's been too hard. Windows does what I want. The software is available and the system is familiar. I have no time for Linux zealots with their "Windows sucks because it's made by Microsoft and Microsoft is evil and Bill Gates is the antichrist". Get a flipping life. I think that Linux is to the point where I don't have to spend weeks studying it to make it useful. I can slowly start to use it. The interest is mainly in terms of having Linux work skills.
We watched Footrot Flats on DVD on Friday (Thank you sweetie). We also saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire this weekend (Megz, Christopher and I). Chris and I enjoyed it. Megz thought it was so-so. I thought the first two were better. And I finally got round to start watching Farscape on DVD after years of wanting to see it. And we Skype'd with Lou for a while which was cool. Now that Skype (Version 2. Thanks for pointing that out Richard) does video, it's much easier to video conference with friends and family rather than dealing with the grief of routers and firewalls which effect Messenger and other IM/VoIP systems.
20051115
Bryan Gordon Swann
Margaret and I received a call in the evening on Wednesday the 9th of November that her father passed away. It was unexpected, and came as a shock.
We've been in Wellington since Thursday. The funeral service was today. Things have gone beautifully today. People spoke at the funeral, and the things they had to say were just great. Friends and family came from far and wide. A BIG thank you to those who came today, and for all the offers of support and kindness.
Margaret made a wonderful speach, going over Swannie's life in detail. I'm so proud of her. She's a strong woman, and I'm a very lucky man that she is my wife, and soon to be the mother of our little one.
It's been a tough week. I feel useless. I wish I could do more to help, or that I could make things better. Many people say that Swannie's gone to a better place, but we still miss him and we still want him back. I keep hoping I'll wake up. But it hadn't happened yet.
We've been in Wellington since Thursday. The funeral service was today. Things have gone beautifully today. People spoke at the funeral, and the things they had to say were just great. Friends and family came from far and wide. A BIG thank you to those who came today, and for all the offers of support and kindness.
Margaret made a wonderful speach, going over Swannie's life in detail. I'm so proud of her. She's a strong woman, and I'm a very lucky man that she is my wife, and soon to be the mother of our little one.
It's been a tough week. I feel useless. I wish I could do more to help, or that I could make things better. Many people say that Swannie's gone to a better place, but we still miss him and we still want him back. I keep hoping I'll wake up. But it hadn't happened yet.
20051106
LIFE - Goodbye Rod
It came as a shock today to hear that Rod Donald, Co-Leader of the New Zealand Green Party has passed away from a heart attack. Goodbye Rod. Even your opponents had nothing but positive words for you, and you death is a loss to the Greens, to Parliament and to New Zealand.
20051104
LIFE - w00t!
Woohoo! Whitcoulls had Judas Unchained! And Borders can suck it down! :P No sleep for me this weekend...
20051031
LIFE - Phew...
| You Passed 8th Grade Math |
 Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct! |
Thanks for the link Rosie. Nice Mark. Wonder which one we got wrong...
LIFE - Ugh...
Interesting day. Our Internet proxy had a hard drive failure today, and our new load ballanced unit is under construction at the moment for deployment testing of *spit* WebSense (Thanks UTC). So busily rebuiling that. The server's config kinda pre-dates my presense, so there's no RAID in the thing. Just a single disk, which died. Our strategy has always been failover to online spare anyway, so no need for 99.999% reliability. But thanks to AD integrated ISA config, rebuild the box, and she's basically up again in just shy of two hours...:-) I like simple. Just don't ever want to have to do this with a pre-MS Exchange 2003 server (The last Exchange 5.0 box I had to recover, back in '99, cost me a weekend, and a week of teething problems).
20051030
20051027
LIFE - Hmmm....
It's late. I should be going to bed. But I've been changing some newsletters over to the new address, and while reading an old one for a collectable card game I used to play (The Star Trek CCG), I was trying to find current contact details for someone I used to play with in Wellington, but who later went to Otago University and I lost contact with him. Try as I might, I've not been able to find him through Google for years.
So I wondered how hard it would be for someone to find me. I took some of the major things I've done over the years and Googled the following:
"Peter Hamilton" "New Zealand" - Too many hits
"Peter Hamilton" "Star Trek CCG" - Not me
"Peter Hamilton" "New Zealand" "Star Trek CCG" - Nuttin
"Peter Hamilton" Battletech - Too much Peter F. Hamilton stuff
"Peter Hamilton" "New Zealand" Battletech - Not me
"Peter Hamilton" "New Zealand" paintball - See below
...And I've not been able to find Hollis Ross Jr. for years either. I mean you think you'd Google "Hollis Ross (Jr.)" and "Karen" (His wife last we knew) and find something...But nothing. I'm wondering how many people will loose track of me when I change my e-mail address...:-(
But while Googling myself, I found the following at:
"...I appologize for Peter Hamilton, because I always looked at him as a bullshit guy just because everybody around me had that opinion, but after I played besides him I saw how gr8 a player he is and a really nice person as well. Sorry Pete." - Raphx*
* Raph is a Brazilian guy living here in NZ that I played a tournament with over Queen's Birthday 2005. Based on his comments, I wonder what people really think of me. Or perhaps it was just the guys he was hanging around (Menace? I dunno).
So I wondered how hard it would be for someone to find me. I took some of the major things I've done over the years and Googled the following:
"Peter Hamilton" "New Zealand" - Too many hits
"Peter Hamilton" "Star Trek CCG" - Not me
"Peter Hamilton" "New Zealand" "Star Trek CCG" - Nuttin
"Peter Hamilton" Battletech - Too much Peter F. Hamilton stuff
"Peter Hamilton" "New Zealand" Battletech - Not me
"Peter Hamilton" "New Zealand" paintball - See below
...And I've not been able to find Hollis Ross Jr. for years either. I mean you think you'd Google "Hollis Ross (Jr.)" and "Karen" (His wife last we knew) and find something...But nothing. I'm wondering how many people will loose track of me when I change my e-mail address...:-(
But while Googling myself, I found the following at:
"...I appologize for Peter Hamilton, because I always looked at him as a bullshit guy just because everybody around me had that opinion, but after I played besides him I saw how gr8 a player he is and a really nice person as well. Sorry Pete." - Raphx*
* Raph is a Brazilian guy living here in NZ that I played a tournament with over Queen's Birthday 2005. Based on his comments, I wonder what people really think of me. Or perhaps it was just the guys he was hanging around (Menace? I dunno).
LIFE - Busy bee
Just a quick update. Something formal will be broadcast soon. I'm in the process of switching to my hamiltonz.net e-mail address:
...so if you want to start sending to that, that would be cool. Dunno how long it will take me to decommission the RTFM address. Been using it for the best part of 10 years, so it will take a while to switch newsletters and the like.
...so if you want to start sending to that, that would be cool. Dunno how long it will take me to decommission the RTFM address. Been using it for the best part of 10 years, so it will take a while to switch newsletters and the like.
20051017
20051015
LIFE - Movies
It's funny. There are two movies that I have seen on DVD, that I was immediately inspired to watch again with the commentaries after watching the first time. They were Men of Honour (Cuba Gooding Jr. and Robert De Niro) and K:19 The Widowmaker (Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson). Both are movies inspired by true stories (And naval stories at that), and both are movies that received lukewarm receptions from the public and critics. An example being, that K-19 (The first feature film produced by National Geographic - Among other things, best mag in the whole world), cost US$100,000,000.00 to produce and only brought in US$35,000,000.00 at the box office (Hope it’s brought in a bit from DVD sales). Both are movies I'd recommend.
20051013
INTERWEB - Bye bye TV...
DVD killed VHS. For me, PVR killed recording to DVD (Actually PVR came before DVD recorders, so I never bothered). And the Net is quickly killing TV, in our house at least.
A mate flicked me a link to TV.EXE, simple program which aggregates webcasts from sites across the Net. Unlikely to be anything I want to watch any time soon (Mostly religious channels). If only American PBS channels were there. I can even dream of Discovery, the History Channel or National Geographic. Probably just as well these aren't there as the last time I crashed at a mates who had Sky, I was up watching the History Channel till 0200...@_@
The other month I watched NOVA's program on string theory and then spent hours Wiki'ing about theoretical physics. Now thanks to Digg, I've got a link to more of NOVA's programs. When I was young I used to watch NOVA when it was hosted by Peter Ustinov. Those were the days!
And when we were away in Australia, we'd set the first episode of season four of Family Guy to record, but there was a power cut while we were gone, so it didn't record. But thanks to eMule, we were able to watch it less than 24 hours later. I'll often watch something like season two of the new Battlestar Galactica (Not released here in NZ yet) on the bus to work. If it wasn’t for the 10 GB traffic cap on our DSL connection, I probably wouldn’t watch much TV at all. Note that I do not illegally download music and movies through eMule, as that is stealing. I only watch free to air TV programs.
The Internet is the future of TV. The Net is the future of everything. Resistance is futile. And DRM designed to squeeze every last penny out of consumers is arse! People want to be able to watch what they want, when they want, where they want. Get on board, or get left behind.
A mate flicked me a link to TV.EXE, simple program which aggregates webcasts from sites across the Net. Unlikely to be anything I want to watch any time soon (Mostly religious channels). If only American PBS channels were there. I can even dream of Discovery, the History Channel or National Geographic. Probably just as well these aren't there as the last time I crashed at a mates who had Sky, I was up watching the History Channel till 0200...@_@
The other month I watched NOVA's program on string theory and then spent hours Wiki'ing about theoretical physics. Now thanks to Digg, I've got a link to more of NOVA's programs. When I was young I used to watch NOVA when it was hosted by Peter Ustinov. Those were the days!
And when we were away in Australia, we'd set the first episode of season four of Family Guy to record, but there was a power cut while we were gone, so it didn't record. But thanks to eMule, we were able to watch it less than 24 hours later. I'll often watch something like season two of the new Battlestar Galactica (Not released here in NZ yet) on the bus to work. If it wasn’t for the 10 GB traffic cap on our DSL connection, I probably wouldn’t watch much TV at all. Note that I do not illegally download music and movies through eMule, as that is stealing. I only watch free to air TV programs.
The Internet is the future of TV. The Net is the future of everything. Resistance is futile. And DRM designed to squeeze every last penny out of consumers is arse! People want to be able to watch what they want, when they want, where they want. Get on board, or get left behind.
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