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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Category: Geekery

  • TV Wonder? Wonder why it sucks, you mean.

    The Project: See if using external USB devices for TV tuning and quality audio I/O is a viable alternative to cramming PCI cards into crowded 2U rackmount computer chassis, so we can intelligently order appropriate gear for the next batch of production studio computers.

    After several workdays during which ATI’s tech support insulted my intelligence by suggesting I try things that I already told them I’d done, they finally came through with a sensible suggestion that helped me get their TV Wonder USB 2.0 device working.

    (James Burke Voice:) Well, sort of.

    I had to dial down the USB bandwidth setting in order to get video that didn’t look like the actors on TV were experiencing severe and prolonged epileptic seizures. And then I made the mistake of actually hooking up the Digigram USB audio device. Bzzzt. That was it, no more ATI television viewing. At all.

    Believe me, I tried a lot of things to make it work (again). No go.

    My verdict? This solution isn’t even remotely ready for prime time. Once again, USB devices fail to live up to their glorious advance billing…

  • Gone Wall-Eyed.

    In a fit of getting-things-done, I’ve finally posted my slowly-growing collection of photographic computer desktop wallpapers in the gallery. While I was at it, I also posted some of my favorite collected anime wallpapers.

    Share and enjoy. Please don’t hotlink, however. I don’t want to have to start doing Stupid Apache Tricks, hmm?

    Photographic Wallpapers
    Favorite Anime Wallpapers

  • Who had the bright idea of putting ME in charge?

    All I was going to do was check email. Then I was just going to check my RSS feeds.

    Suddenly I’m the head of a small nation. What the hell happened, here?

    It’s all her fault, I tell you. Bah.

  • Video, Games, Video, Games…

    The DVD came out half-right. The second half, that is. For some reason the audio sync on the first episode started out correct and then, about a minute into the show, went horribly wrong. I think I know what went wrong (attempting to trim the video within Nerovision Express, which wouldn’t have been a problem except I was replacing the original audio with a reworked separate track), but I suspect the only way to fix it for the next test burn will be to find a way to trim the raw capture file from outside of NVE, demux the audio track from the resulting file, re-tweak the audio, then put those two files into NVE and not worry about trimming.

    Sure, that should only take a couple of hours. Did I mention that remastering the files takes about five hours for the two episodes? Whew. There’s a day’s work.

    So, today, I’m not going to bother. Instead I’m going to bring over to the kids’ place a bunch of UT2004 stuff… the latest patch, some map packs, a couple of new mutators, a mod, some models, and a stats generator. We’re gonna have fun today! Heck yeah.

  • It Can Be Over Now

    The only thing worse than a hot day in late summer is feeling too lousy to go to work on a hot day in summer, and thus missing out on the joys of air conditioning at one’s office. I understand that tomorrow the temperature’s supposed to top out at around 80. That’s a big step in the right direction. Huzzah, and stuff.

    In other news, a VHS-to-DVD project I’ve been working on for a few days now will bear its first fruit some time in the next hour or so, if all goes well. Wish me luck, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

  • Today, I love Google.

    This is awesome. Finally there’s a Jabber server that has widespread name recognition and a huge preinstalled userbase.

    Wow.

    If you use Gaim (like I do) and have a Gmail account (like I do, and if you don’t I have invites to spare), check out these instructions. Otherwise, just follow the link below and either get their software (it includes voice chat, which I don’t specifically need) or find out how to configure your multi-IM program of choice.

    Again I say: Wow.

    (Oh, the Gmail account thing? Apparently you won’t need my invites: “Google Talk requires a Gmail username and password, and starting today, Google is making it easier for anyone in the U.S. with access to a mobile phone to sign up for a Gmail account. When users visit http://gmail.com and enter their mobile phone number, they will receive an invitation code via a text message. This code enables them to open an account.” Go figure…)

    Google Talk

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