When the power supply of our VDR failed 2 months ago that proved to be
the right oppurtunity to inject some hardware upgrades into our VDR
box. So I decided to add a second DVB-S card and a third harddisk
(SATA 250G). Having done a couple of vdr upgrades in the last 6 years
I expected some minor hassles to get it back into working state. But,
oh joy, none of these. Second DVB-S card: plugged it in, booted vdr
box, kernel detected it alright, vdr detected it, tried multiple
concurrent recordings, perfect. Ok, I've got to admit that I run a
relatively recent 2.6.12 kernel and Debian unstable which includes a recent
vdr version, but still. On to the SATA disk, this is a fairly old
mainboard so I added a cheapo SATA controller and recompiled the
kernel because my custom compiled kernel didn't include SATA
support. Plugged in the card, rebooted, kernel detected SATA disk,
created ext3, mounted filesystem and voila: done. Everything works
pretty smoothly since then. And I've got a family of very demanding
vdr users which provides first level support experiences along the
lines of: "Daddy, it doesn't work, please fix it _now_, I _need_ to
watch my daily SpongeBob.".
In the 12 years of using GNU/Linux we're finally getting really close
to plug'n play: not graphics-whiz-bang-wise but functionally-wise for sure ;-)
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Friday, May 5, 2006
Dead Poets Society
Rewatched "Dead Poets Society" recently, another favourite of mine. Two quotes although pretty commonplace can't be mentioned too often ;-)
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." Walden, Henry David Thoreau
"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
The road not taken, Robert Frost
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion." Walden, Henry David Thoreau
"I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
The road not taken, Robert Frost
Still giggling
If you're into black humour you absolutely have got to watch this little french gem. The title ("Serial Lover") reminded me of "Serial Mom" but they are different styles. The story starts very slow, stylish and relaxed but it builds up momemtum pretty fast. Just when you think "ok, it can't get worse" the story will twist again. The camera and underlying soundtrack are _really_ cool and provide this great stylishness to the film. I still giggle about some scenes and probably will for a couple of days (hint: The special version of "Only You" from "The Platters").
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