Tardis Labs

You know what’s really sad? Website adverts that pop up over the site you’re trying to...

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:09:35 -0700

You know what’s really sad?

Website adverts that pop up over the site you’re trying to read.

Are there people out there that actually respond to these things? Do people even actually get a chance to see what’s being advertised? Because my immediate response is invariably “WHERE’S THE FUCKING CLOSE BUTTON ON THIS THING SO I CAN GO BACK TO THE THING I WAS TRYING TO READ!!!”

You can pick your friends. And you can pick your nose. But you can’t pick your friend’s...

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 00:27:22 -0700

You can pick your friends. And you can pick your nose. But you can’t pick your friend’s nose.

However, you can pick your friend’s brain.

Argh

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 10:59:00 -0800

Pollen everywhere

*sneeze* *sneeze* *sneeze*

The truck’s replacement. A 2005 Dodge Caravan for...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 16:00:30 -0800

The truck’s replacement.

A 2005 Dodge Caravan for $10900.

It’s big enough to hold me.

Friday afternoon, the president of the homeowners’...

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 15:59:06 -0800

Friday afternoon, the president of the homeowners’ association knocked on my door.

When I opened it, he said, “Your truck just got crushed by a tree.”

I spent the rest of yesterday and today running around looking for a replacement.

Last night I delivered the punchline.

I went up and knocked on the HOA president’s door and said, “Laugh, The association’s maintenance truck got hit by a tree limb.”

I shit you not.

Adventures in Home Theater

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 12:53:49 -0800

I went out and bought a stereo receiver today.

In this case, ‘receiver’ means, ‘amplifier, tuner, and switcher.’ It’s the box you plug your audio sources into, amplifies the audio and sends it out ot speakers, and has a built-in AM/FM tuner.

This one was a Sony brand. It cost about $165. I was considering a slightly cheaper one for $150 (also a Sony) but I decided on the upgrade since it was only $15 more, and the better one had support for 5.1. 5.1 being a fancy term for ‘surround sound’. (The 5 refers to the 5 ‘surround’ speakers — left/right/center in the front, and left/right in the rear — the 1 refers to the single subwoofer.) I’m not even set up for surround at the moment — I only have the standard 2 speakers connected, but it gives me the ability to upgrade later.

Right now I have my DVD player (which doubles as a CD player) and XBox (which doubles as a media center) connected up. The trick was getting everything working together smoothly.

First was to get both the XBox and DVD player connected to the television. Since I have an older TV that doesn’t have ‘Line’ inputs, only the old coax-style connection, I needed an adapter box to plug in the RCA-plug line inputs that everything uses nowadays. Simple enough device, it takes the line inputs in one end, and a coax on the other end, and the coax goes into the TV, which you tune to channel 4.

It also has a coax input, which you plug your antenna or cable TV input into. The box turns on automatically when the connected device (DVD player or whatever) is turned on. So you can go between watching your cable TV and your DVD player without having to manually switch anything — you just turn on the DVD and the adapter kicks in. This feature is important for another reason…

The adapter box only has inputs for one device. So in order to connect both the DVD and the XBox to the TV, I needed either a switchbox or another adapter box. The adapter box turned out to be cheaper (if I had more than 2 devices the switch would have been cheaper), and it had the advantage of being automatic, unlike the switch. So I plugged the DVD into one box, the XBox into the other, and daisy-chained them together by plugging the coax output from one into the coax input of the other. This way, when I turn on either device the appropriate adapter automatically comes on. (If I turn both on, one will override the other.) If both are off, I could watch cable TV normally, if I had cable.

Now that the video side of things is set up, I could tackle the audio.

I’ll start with the XBox, since it’s a little more complicated. I want to be able to run the XBox with audio running to both the stereo and TV (so I could, say, use the XBox without having to turn on the stereo too). So I split the audio signals so that one set of cables went to the adapter box (and ultimately to the TV), and another went to the stereo.

The XBox has Media Center abilities as well. (Not the greatest in the world, but passable.) It has USB ports, and can play music off of a removable device, so I took a large external hard drive that I had lying around disused, dumped my entire music collection onto it, and plugged it into the XBox.

Now I can turn on the XBox, select the music I want, then turn off the TV and just let it play through the stereo. Or I could just turn on the XBox and TV to play a game or something, without turning on the stereo.

Now for the DVD player. I faced a similar issue with the setup — I wanted to be able to turn on the DVD and TV to play a video without involving the stereo, or turn on the DVD and stereo and play a CD without involving the TV. This turned out to be simpler than the XBox, as the DVD player has a second audio output — a digital output — so there was no need to use a splitter. I could simply plug the analog outputs into the adapter for the TV, and the digital output into the stereo. Now I can use the DVD player with either the stereo or TV, independent of the other.

The final part is the part I’m still struggling with — getting it all working without a army of remote controls.

The XBox doesn’t come with a remote at all, though it’s capable of using one. Microsoft expects you to buy one separately — theirs, of course. However, any number of universal remotes can control the XBox. Finding one that does a good job of it is the trick.

The first one I tried — a cell-phone style flip-open remote that I had been using for the TV for some time now — had a code listed for the XBox, but it didn’t work. I suspect it was for the original XBox, while the 360 (which is what I have) requires a different one. However, by using a code search, I was able to find a code that could control the 360 — an unlisted code at that; the code I found isn’t on the list of codes anywhere, for any device.

This remote had two issues. First was the usual problem with universal remotes: Since every remote has a slightly different set of functions, a universal will almost always (a) be missing some functions, or (b) have functions labelled in a less than meaningful way.

For example, programming this remote to control the stereo results in the ‘obvious’ functions, such as volume control, working as expected. It has other functions that work but are labelled in a somewhat non-intuitive way, for example the radio tuning function are assigned to the next/previous chapter buttons (intended for DVDs) — a reasonably sensible choice, given the options.

However, some essential functions are assigned completely arbitrarily, such as the input selection being controlled by the number buttons; 1 for CD, 3 for radio, 4 for DVD, and suchlike. This is the result of the universal remote having to support the ‘lowest common denominator’ of functionality. It can’t have individual buttons dedicated to input sources (as the original stereo remote has); there are just too many possibilities. So the functions have to be stuffed into whatever pigeon-holes are available.

The second issue is more specific to this particular remote. It’s designed to be compact, so it has fewer buttons on it. To access most of the possible functions on any given device, it has a ‘shift’ key which, when active, changes the meanings of many of the buttons on the remote. It has, for instance, a set of Channel Up/Down and Volume Up/Down buttons, arranged in a directional-pad. When the shift key is active, these buttons become selection buttons for things like DVD menus, moving the on-screen selection up, down, left or right. This multiple-mode setup makes the remote less intuitive to use.

This remote has other screwball assignments as well. It has no Next/Prev track button, for, say, jumping back and forth between chapters on a video, or tracks on a CD. So the answer to that was for Next/Prev track to be assigned to Shift+Play and Shift+Stop. Very unintuitive for someone that’s used to a CD player, and trying to use the DVD player as such.

While I can deal with this issue with the DVD player by simply using the original DVD remote, I can’t do so with the XBox, because it has no original remote. So I bought another universal remote, hoping for something that worked better.

The second one was better, somewhat. It had more obviously-labelled buttons. However, it still had the “shift key” style setup that the previous remote had, at least for the Channel/Volume/Selection buttons. To use the selection buttons, you first had to press either the “Guide” or “Menu” button, and the remote would change modes. Unfortunately, pressing Guide or Menu in itself will activate a function on the remote, sometimes undesired. Pressing Menu for example will bring up the XBox menu, which is not what you want if all you’re trying to do is activate the selection buttons for the screen you’re already at.

So I tried another remote. This one has both dedicated volume/channel and selection keys, so you doesn’t have to switch modes to switch from one to another. It also seems to control most of the important functions on the XBox. However, it has one glaring omission: there are no buttons for skipping to the next or previous track! This makes it impossible to change music tracks without turning the TV on and selecting a track from the on-screen interface.

So overall, the setup is working pretty well, except that I’m still on the hunt for a remote that satisfactorily controls the XBox.

Geocaching!

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:18:21 -0800

I bought a GPS today.

While it will certainly be useful to me, seeing as I have a natural talent for getting lost, I got it mainly for its hobbyist uses.

Geocaching is a game where someone hides a box, then posts its coordinates online, where others can hunt for it. The box will typically contain a logbook and pen for finders to sign. It might also contain various low-value items that might be exchanged for similar-valued items by finders.

Today I found my first geocache.

It was an ammo box, hidden in a little itty bitty park near downtown Martinez. It was semi-embedded in the dirt behind a tree, partially covered with dead leaves. Inside was the ubiquitous logbook and pen (which I signed), along with other little bits and piece of stuff, including things like a slinky, a rubber bouncy ball, a plastic fly, stickers, some business cards for a club of some sort, and similar effects. I didn’t take or leave anything; the main purpose of the exercise was just to find the box.

The logbook must have had a good hundred or so messages left by finder, so it’s been discovered pretty frequently in the (according to its entry on the web) 6 years since it was placed.

I’m considering going to the post office and buying a cheap book of stamps with a $20 bill, just to get some dollar coins from the machines, hopefully getting some presidential dollar coins back to use for exchanging.

Amusing Moment At Work

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:25:10 -0700

[My MP3 player is playing next door in the slicing deli while I'm working in rotisserie]
Coworker: F'real?
Me: What?
Coworker: F'real?
Me: F'real what?
Coworker: The Backstreet Boys!?

Philips GoGear Vibe

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 22:04:45 -0700

My trusty old iPod died. It went through the wash. RIP.

I bought a Philips GoGear Vibe to replace it.

It’s about the size of a box of matches.

It’s half the cost of the equivalent iPod, but does the job almost as well. It’s easy to use, the UI is clear and simple. It comes with its own media player software for transferring files, but it’s some fly-by-night operation I’ve never heard of. (Rhapsody Media Player.) I’ve been using WinAmp to copy music to it, which works out-of-the-box.

It has some quirks. If you’ve got a long list of items (artists, albums, songs) to search through, scrolling through them is somewhat slow; there’s not a way to quickly jump through the list like there is with the iPod.

Any metadata (the information that contains things like artist, album and title for a particular file) that contains certain characters, such as slashes or colons, get quietly changed when getting copied to the player, which confuses WinAmp when I try to sync it again later. As a result, I’ve had to go through and massage all my metadata so it doesn’t contain any characters that the player doesn’t like. The media player that came with it might handle it more intelligently.

I’ve had it crash once already; I had to do a restore on it to get it working again, which erased everything on it, and I had to sync all my music again.

Overall rating (on the binary scale, natch): 1

Netbook! An Acer Aspire One. $300 at Fry’s. It’s...

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:41:00 -0700

Netbook!

An Acer Aspire One. $300 at Fry’s.

It’s amazingly tiny and lightweight, at least compared to my old laptop. Despite being a netbook (and therefore inherently low-end) it’s now the most powerful computer I own.

1.6g CPU. 1g memory. 142g solid-state (flash) hard drive.

Built-in ethernet, built-in wireless. Built-in webcam and mic. The keyboard is just barely big enough for me to type on with my great big huge hands. The speakers are rather quiet, even with the volume all the way up.

It has no built-in CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive, though I can get an external one. It’s got a built-in recovery partition so I can reinstall Windows if it gets hosed. I’ve ghosted the recovery partition onto an external drive in case it gets hosed. I can boot Linux from a USB flash stick if the hard drive gets hosed.

The fact that the hard drive is flash memory-based means it will wear out sooner than a standard hard drive, though it’s probably a bit more resistant to being dropped.

It’s got 3 USB connectors, a VGA connector, and audio connectors, so I can connect it up to an external monitor, mouse, keyboard and speakers and use it just like a ‘real’ desktop machine.

I saw a truck spewing more smoke out the tail pipe than I’ve ever seen. It was billowing smoke...

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:41:35 -0700

I saw a truck spewing more smoke out the tail pipe than I’ve ever seen. It was billowing smoke like a house on fire. There was a whole haze all the way down the street after it went by.

Gives new meaning to the term ‘gross polluter.’

ChooChoo (Dad and Stepmom’s new dog)

Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:58:00 -0700

ChooChoo (Dad and Stepmom’s new dog)

Homemade Diet Soda

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:31:05 -0700

Kool-Aid + Splenda + Seltzer water = Not bad!

I think I should call it SplendAid!

The exact measurements I used (on this batch) were:

2 packets of Kool-Aid
2 1/4 cups of Splenda
2 quarts water
1 quart seltzer water

This yields a lightly-carbonated soda. it is a bit more concentrated than ‘standard’ Kool-Aid, and slightly sweeter (to offset the bitterness of the carbonation). For reference, Kool-Aid made ‘by the book’ would call for 4 quarts of water and 2 cups of sugar (or Splenda) to make 2 packets worth.

Splenda

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:10:00 -0700

Sucralose (trade name Splenda) is marketed as an artificial sweetener that tastes like sugar, instead of tasting like fake sugar. It’s chemically similar to sugar, and is supposed to not have the bitter taste of fake sugar. It sounds like the perfect artificial sweetener.

Unfortunately, it’s almost utterly impossible to find products made with sucralose.

Sure, there’s tons of shit that emblazons itself with the claim “Made with Splenda!”

But they’re not made with Splenda.

They’re made with Splenda plus fake sugar.

WHICH DEFEATS THE WHOLE FUCKING PURPOSE

The workbench my dad and I built a few weeks ago. I added the...

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 18:51:41 -0700

The workbench my dad and I built a few weeks ago. I added the shelf on the right today.

Today's Music Acquisitions

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:23:01 -0700

David Gilmour
About Face - David Gilmour
On An Island - David Gilmour
Amused to Death - Roger Waters
La Luna - Sarah Brightman

(via Rasputin)

Today's (this weekend's, actually) Music Acquisitions

Thu, 28 May 2009 13:00:31 -0700

Please Please Me
With The Beatles
Magical Mystery Tour

(via Rasputin)

I believe this officially completes my Beatles collection.

Music Review: The Alan Parsons Project

Tue, 19 May 2009 14:46:00 -0700

I used to say that Pink Floyd was my favourite band. Now, I realize that at best they’re a tie with The Alan Parsns Project. The Project has the unique property that I actually really like just about everything they ever did. Even Pink Floyd can’t claim that.

So, in my typical style, on the Binary Scale (which goe from 0 to 1, integral), is my review of the Project discography and related albums.

Project Albums

Tales of Mystery and Imagination
The Project’s debut album, inspired by the works of Edgar Allen Poe. This is one of their best.

Score: 2
Top Picks: The Tell-Tale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether
I Robot
Described as “A look at the future through the eyes of the present,” this is another one of their best

Score: 2
Top Picks: I Robot, Don’t Let It Show, The Voice
Pyramid
The complement to I Robot, described as “A look at the past through the eyes of the present,” this is good, but I don’t like it quite as much as the others.

Score: 1
Top Picks: In The Lap of the Gods, Pyramania
Eve
As the title implies, an album about women, and their effect on men. Generally believed to be their weakest album, meaning that instead of being great, it is merely good.

Score: 1
Top Picks: You Lie Down With Dogs, Damned If I Do
Turn of a Friendly Card
An album about risk, reward, and luck. Another one of their best.

Score: 2
Top Picks: Games People Play, The Ace of Swords, Nothing Left to Lose
Eye In The Sky
Their best selling album, with their biggest hit single as the title track, this album is all great.

Score: 2
Top Picks: Eye In The Sky, Silence and I, Psychobabble
Ammonia Avenue
An album about the disconnect between scientific development and the public perception thereof, this is sometimes cites as their most ‘radio friendly’ album. I didn’t like this one when I first heard it, but it grew on me after subsequent listenings

Score: 2
Top Picks: Prime Time, Dancing on a Highwire, Pipeline, Ammonia Avenue
Vulture Culture
An album about consumerism, originally planned to be part of a double album with Ammonia Avenue, but ultimately released separately. Not one of their very best, but still a great album.

Score: 2
Top Picks: Days are Numbers, Somebody Out There
Stereotomy
An album about the pressures of fame, this is one of my favorites, though not one of their most successful albums.
Score: 2
Top Picks: Stereotomy, In The Real World, Where’s The Walrus, Light of the World
Gaudi
The Project’s final album before the official ‘breakup’, inspired by architect Antoni Gaudi. Again, a great album but not one of their best.
Score: 2
Top Picks: La Sagrada Familia, Too Late, Standing on Higher Ground

Solo Releases

Eric Woolfson - Freudiana
A Project album in all but name, featuring almost all members of the original group, this is half Project-style prog-rock, and half musical soundtrack-style tracks — Woolfson subsequently turned the project into an actual stage musical.

Score: 2
Top Picks: The Nirvana Principle, I Am A Mirror, Upper Me
Andrew Powell - Ladyhawke Soundtrack
Released as an ostensibly solo album by the Project’s orchestra conductor, this is almost an (instrumental) Project album in its own right. Its style is very much like the synth/rock/orchestra Project tracks of the 80s, though it’s mostly made up of very short songs, being the soundtrack to the movie of the same name.

Score: 1

Alan Parsons Solo Albums

Try Anything Once
Parsons’ first ostensibly ‘solo’ album, in realty every bit an ensemble as a Project album. It has no overarching theme to it, but it is one of his best.

Score: 2
Top Picks: The Three Of Me, Turn It Up, Mr. Time, Oh Life (There Must Be More)
On Air
An album about human flight. This is probably my favorite Parsons solo album. It also marks the beginning of Parsons’ experimentation with Techno-style music with Apollo

Score: 2
Top Picks: Too Close to the Sun, Blown by the Wind, Fall Free, Apollo
The Best Of Live
A live album with three bonus studio tracks, I only review (and indeed, own) the studio tracks here.

The thing about an act like Parsons is, even when they’re bad, they’re good. And these tracks… They’re great.

Score: 2
The Time Macine
I think this is Parsons’ weakest solo album, but it’s still good, and has some really great tracks on it. It continues his experimentation with Techno-esque music, though still mostly Projectesque prog-rock tracks.

Score: 2
Top Picks: The Time Machine Part I, The Call of the Wild
A Valid Path
I heard this album described as (in so many words) “Alan Parsons Goes Techno”, and I knew I had to have it. I went out and bought it new (instead of used like most of what I buy). It’s true. Alan Parsons has gone techno. It’s still Parsons, but it’s Parsons in a whole new genre. And it has all the musical goodness of Alan Parsons. Also features David Gilmour on guitar on Return to Tunguska

Score: 2
Top Picks: Return to Tunguska, Chomolungma

Various ‘Best Of’ Albums

How the hell can you have a ‘best of’ album when damn near every album you ever released is already a ‘best of’ album? I won’t bother to review them as it should be obvious what it would say at this point.

Music Review

Sun, 17 May 2009 07:20:16 -0700

Albums

Metallica - Master of Puppets
Commonly considered to be their best album, this has some great classics, and some lukewarm tracks.

Score: 1
Top Picks: Master of Puppets, Welcome Home, Orion
Metallica - S&M
A live album, recorded with the San Francisco Symphony. While I usually like rock/symphony fusion (witness all the Alan Parsons and ELO in my collection), this one doesn’t really appeal.

Score: .5
Pink Floyd - A Saucerful of Secrets
While I already had this one, I picked it up again as this is a more recent, higher-quality release. Early Floyd, as they were transitioning from their early psychadelic rock sound to progressive rock. Most of it is great, but some of it is merely good.

Score: 1
Top Picks: Let There Be More Light, Remember A Day, Jugband Blues
Alan Parsons - You’re The Voice
Actually there is no such album, I compiled these three tracks as a ‘fictitious EP’ from the three bonus tracks off the Best Of Live CD, since those were the only three tracks I bought.

The thing about an act like Parsons is, even when they’re bad, they’re good. And these tracks… They’re great.

Score: 2

Single Tracks

The Alan Parsons Project - The Naked Robot
A compilation of early edits to the instrumental tracks on I Robot. Very similar to the final releases, but there’s a few differences to be spotted.

Score: 1
Alan Parsons - Antarctica
This is actually “Return to Tunguska” off A Valid Path, minus David Gilmour’s guitar overdubs. It’s a good song on its own, but it’s missing a lot of its power without the guitar.

Score: 1 (The full version would get a 2)
Ozzy Ozbourne - Crazy Train
Classic metal track from Ozzy; there’s not much more to say

Score: 1
3 Doors Down - When I’m Gone
Another favorite 3 Doors Down track of mine, along with Kryptonite and Loser

Score: 1
Theory of a Deadman - Bad Girlfriend
Fun, upbeat metal song about a risque girlfriend.

Score: 1

Today's Music Acquisitions

Sat, 16 May 2009 12:01:16 -0700

Alan Parsons - The Time Machine
Eric Woolfson - Freudiana
Andrew Powell - Ladyhawke

(Stolen off the internet, as they are all out of print)

You hear that, Mr. Music Industry? You just lost THREE SALES because you couldn’t even be bothered to SELL THE DAMN THINGS