musings of the ill-informed

@baz1860

2009-12-20T00:03:10Z

13:27 @sepinwall damn, when I misread something, i really misread it... #
13:32 I has many Google Wave invites to share - does anyone want one? #

@baz1860

2009-12-19T00:03:43Z

23:15 @sepinwall I share your distaste - LeBatard on PTI is akin to the distress i felt when a friend said she preferred One Tree Hill to The OC #

@baz1860

2009-12-17T00:00:49Z

16:09 @sethmeyers21 I wonder if I can refuse delivery of that issue. #
16:12 Ben Bernanke - Time Person of the Year - must be a lifetime achievement nomination #

@baz1860

2009-12-11T00:01:33Z

22:29 @jolicloud how does one sign up for an account/invite? I can only find a login page, but no link to signup... #

@baz1860

2009-12-07T00:01:02Z

02:23 @sepinwall Westen, but only just. The sunglasses would have to come off... #
18:07 @campbeltonian If its dark, maybe they're not invisible, just able to morph colour to suit their surroundings. This seems way more likely. #
18:20 @campbeltonian surely this cunning disguise could be easily counteracted with the simple use fo a match. #
19:21 I got Voice Candy for Mac for free from tap tap tap. They just released Voices for iPhone bit.ly/i56Un #

@baz1860

2009-12-06T00:00:26Z

18:04 @slmandel Winner of the dodgiest 80s porn mustache competition in Div 1A: Dave Wannstedt for sure... #

@baz1860

2009-11-30T00:03:03Z

17:42 great commercial decision to stay open late today. haven't seen a soul since 4.30pm well done thistle centre... #

@baz1860

2009-11-29T00:02:51Z

11:10 I earned the Lone Wolf sticker on #GetGlue! bit.ly/8SSipZ #
11:14 I earned the Movie Buff(50) sticker on #GetGlue! bit.ly/7HFR1Z #
11:32 I earned the Geek(50) sticker on #GetGlue! bit.ly/7a6lcH #
11:34 I earned the Radiohead(50) sticker on #GetGlue! bit.ly/83WXjS #
14:43 @campbeltonian twitpic.com/raz96 - With a name like Kilkerran should it not be spelled Whiskey?! Even if it was distilled in Scotland #

@baz1860

2009-11-26T00:03:07Z

16:21 The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody - vdh.bz/1XI Awesomeness in a browser... #

@baz1860

2009-11-20T00:03:10Z

12:57 should the bbc news mobile site have adverts for airbus on it? #
13:33 RT @sethmeyers21 Just saw highlights from WC qualifier. Haven't seen the Irish treated that badly since "In the Name of the Father." #

@baz1860

2009-11-18T00:02:16Z

17:21 @slmandel bcs exec is a bad job? u get to watch top 10 teams every week and that's 'work'. sign me up... #

@baz1860

2009-11-15T00:03:51Z

01:00 The new Biffy album is barely keeping me sane through the hassles of creating a working HTPC using HDMI and XBMC. bit.ly/2KqV0U #

Building a HTPC/Media Centre...

2009-11-14T00:37:13Z

This is going to be quite a geeky post, for which i apologise in advance. It may also hold some humour for those of you who find the frustrations of others to be funny... I must admit, if I wasn't the one suffering through it, I too would be laughing at the stupidity of anyone thinking this was a good idea.

Twas recently my birthday, and well, as is the way when you're a geek, such occasions are prime opportunities to acquire interesting and new gadgets/toys at no expense to yourself...

So, as part of said acquisition process, Emma bought me a Acer Aspire Revo, since I'd seen a post on Lifehacker.com which seemed to suggest that, with minimal effort the 1.6Ghz Atom processor and Nvidia Ion GPU would make wonderful partners in order to playback HD content with minimal noise.

This much is true. Indeed, the initial problem with this is that, even following the instructions provided to the letter, gives silence. I can get picture via hdmi (and god, what a picture.... So, so, so crisp and pretty) however, I have absolutely no way of getting sound to passthrough the hdmi port.

I've played with new versions of alsa, I've played with the alsa mixer. I've installed XBMCLive, Ubuntu Minimal 9.04, Ubuntu Minimal 9.10, Ubuntu Desktop 9.04 and Ubuntu Desktop 9.10.

I've started with Ubuntu 9.04, installed XBMC and upgraded the distro to 9.10, added the SVN PPAs and upgraded to the XBMC 9.11 Alpha.

I've created dozens upon dozens of .asoundrc files, which tell xbmc where to send the audio.

I've followed dozens of different guides, how-to's, and newbie walkthroughs. I've looked at a dozen more, and I think, my linux knowledge has been increased ten-fold in the last 72 hours. I now understand how to add users to the audio profile. I now understand how to change between a command prompt and a desktop with ease. I understand how to add a GPG key for launchpad PPAs. I understand how to change the splash screen so that instead of displaying an ubuntu image, it shows the pulsing XBMC image instead. I understand how to get XBMC to load automatically on boot.

But I am entirely incapable of getting proper sound out of this fucking HDMI port. Its certainly possible. The guide on Lifehacker has it working, only, the best i've managed is a distorted crackling.

I've found a new guide though. One which seems to go into much greater detail. So, I'm going to try loading that instead. But if it doesn't work this time, I swear to god, I might just have to put Windows 7 on this damned box. Its only £30 for the student license. And presumably the thing will just work. I just didn't want to do it that way. I wanted the satisfaction of getting it to run linux, and using the VDPAU options that XBMC on Linux offers. I want to support open-source, but damn it Ubuntu if you don't make it difficult for me to do so.

See, I told you this post was going to be full of geeky frustration. I'll be back later to tell y'all how the next attempt goes. If nothing else, writing these posts at least takes some of the boredom out of the install process...

@baz1860

2009-11-14T00:04:43Z

00:37 @lostpenguin done and done... #
14:01 @campbeltonian done and done #
19:00 @campbeltonian Yeah, The West Wing's is particularly horrendous - especially weird given that Aaron Sorkin is usually good on the minutia #
19:20 @campbeltonian I can see Toby and Lord Marbury sitting in the bar - its the first thing that springs to mind whenever i hear Islay #
19:20 @campbeltonian I am however, a West Wing geek... #
19:24 @campbeltonian itslucky that bar didnt keep a bottle of Bunnahabhain - that episode might have been 5 mins longer as they stumbled over it #

@baz1860

2009-11-13T00:04:06Z

12:14 @tsaritsyn is this a "good by-election" though? #
12:21 @campbeltonian political populism is almost always the problem with politics. the people almost always don't know best... #
23:20 Anyone want a Google Wave invite? I has some... #
23:32 @tsaritsyn sent... #

@baz1860

2009-11-11T00:04:31Z

13:06 @lostpenguin a dose of pennicillin should clear that right up... #

@baz1860

2009-11-07T00:02:49Z

10:30 Got a Mac? Grab the MacHeist nanoBundle - free apps now, discounted apps later... Awesomeness :D #

@baz1860

2009-11-01T00:01:09Z

11:58 Imminent impact @MacHeist (151.7,174.4) Witness it and get DaisyDisk ($20) for FREE to reclaim GBs of space on your Mac! macheist.com #

@baz1860

2009-10-29T00:02:52Z

15:10 @lostpenguin I'm guessing wildly here, *but* my guess would be MVT = movement and Slomo = Slow-motion. It is however, a complete guess... #
19:48 @lostpenguin then I have literally no guesses... #

@baz1860

2009-10-23T23:01:44Z

14:31 @omfgbunnies I bid £5... you'll get up to a tenner any day now... #
15:13 @campbeltonian remember and empty the coffee machine drip tray before it gets up and walks away #

@baz1860

2009-10-20T23:01:21Z

11:20 @omfgbunnies Genius... You'd think someone would have caught that before they decided to use it, huh... #
11:24 @campbeltonian I wasgonna reply, "Hey grandson" - I wasn't sure you would get why I had though... #
11:35 @campbeltonian I think @lostpenguin already has dibs on "Good Day Sir"... #
22:57 About to start the annual 'format the laptop and the hope everything works better afterwards' game... #

@baz1860

2009-10-15T23:04:00Z

14:30 @tsaritsyn had they asked you if you were Silent Bob, I could have understood it. you'd have had to mime saying no for hilarity to ensue... #

@baz1860

2009-10-14T23:06:22Z

15:20 I'd love a google wave invite if anyone has one to spare. (RT @Spug) #
15:21 @campbeltonian DO IT! DO IT! DO IT! #

@baz1860

2009-10-12T23:03:50Z

11:15 wonders if he can get away with calling the fmr SecGen of Nato, Lord Robertson, "Georgie boy" #

@baz1860

2009-10-10T23:01:03Z

01:46 @TMobileOfficial SK Slide - network unavailable. Seriously, fix this soon... There's no point in this phone without the data connection... #