David Glover Archive

Minus 50% off

2007-05-27T21:39:00.001+01:00

Here's a Google Ad I saw recently. (Don't click it, it's just a picture.)

Doesn't that mean that it will be 50% more expensive? And then the text says it will be free!

So not only is it a scam, but it's a stupid scam.

The Big Brother logo. Again.

2007-05-22T21:28:00.000+01:00

Last year's logo was themed on MPEG noise and had secret words in it.

We have yet to see the intro sequence this year but here's the logo:

It's obviously produced by the same designer, someone who has a fetish for TV technology because this one is clearly based on the Philips PM5544 test card, using some kind of polar projection:

Exactly the same colours.

Old Mac Restoration

2007-05-18T21:10:00.000+01:00

A Macintosh SE/30 with 8MB of RAM (soon to be 128MB) running the System 7.5.3 installer off the attached AppleCD 200 drive, sitting on top. (1x speed - and it uses caddies!)

Inside the HD has been upgraded from the original 40MB (yes, that's MB, not GB - it will soon have more RAM than it originally had disk space) to a new 4GB drive, partitioned into two 2GB volumes to avoid the 2GB bug.

Inside is a colour graphics card but I don't have a monitor to connect it to due to the custom connector - I have a VGA adapter but it doesn't seem to work. Around the back is a 10Base2 ethernet card waiting to be connected to the internet.

DIY Slingbox

2007-05-03T23:53:00.001+01:00

Yesterday from a dusty shelf I discovered my Sony DV camera. And after playing with it for a while I discovered (or possibly re-discovered, as I might have just forgotten) that it has analogue video inputs that it will digitise and then spit out of the DV port.

So this gave me an idea - this is essentially what the Slingbox does, except the Slingbox outputs a network stream rather than DV video. But I have a Mac Mini sitting underneath my TV downstairs, and that has a DV port on it...

So, after a lot of bodging and hacking and plugging of cables... I have this:

Patricia Hewitt in a window! Or, more accurately, the output of my Sky box being converted to DV, fed into my Mac Mini, transcoded, and then multicasted (yeah baby) across my house LAN.

And here's how I did it.

My camera came with a video cable ostensibly for spitting out video to your TV - but it works backwards too, so I connect it to the back of my Sky box.

(Dusty, yuck.)

The other end connects to my camera, and another cable feeds DV out from my camera and into the back of my Mac Mini.

On the Mac Mini I download and install QuickTime Broadcaster, which is free. Setting it up, I start with the "LAN" presets for both Video and Audio, then hit "Show details" and do a few modifications. The Audio settings work unchanged except for choosing "DV Audio - first two channels" for the Source. Video settings look like this:

Things I changed are:

Size: 512x288.
288 is half the vertical lines of PAL. If I wanted full resolution I would have chosen 576 lines but the CPU in my Mac Mini isn't capable of encoding that at 25fps. Halving the vertical resolution also has a handy side-effect of deinterlacing the video. 512 pixels wide results in a 16:9 display, for non-widescreen programs I would choose 384, but 99% of all UK TV is widescreen, so I'll never need to change this. NTSC users might choose 427x240 or 320x240.

Quality: High
Frames per second: 25 (30 if my source was NTSC.)
Key frame every: 50 (60 if my source was NTSC.)
Limit data rate: Off (No point on a LAN.)

Network settings:

Things I changed are:

Transmission: Multicast

Then just hit "Generate IP Address" and you're done.

Save the settings as an SDP file and then hit "Broadcast". From another Mac (or PC), load up the SDP file and voila! DIY Slingbox.

Advantages over a Slingbox:
* No extra hardware to buy. (If you already own a DV camera and Mac server of course. You could also use a dedicated DV bridge if you have one.)
* More than one person can watch.
* Better video and audio quality.

Disadvantages over a Slingbox:
* No remote control functionality. (Which I'm doing by using an TV Link and existing RF cabling. Not ideal.)
* Harder to setup.
* Doesn't work over the internet. (Though it could do, if have access to QuickTime Streaming Server or can VPN into your LAN. (Does multicast work over VPN? Not sure. Should do.))

III I IV ER IL NO

2007-04-22T18:44:00.000+01:00

TIGDKV CRAZKC OMRLMX OKUIHS EVNYHL
DIWGQD MDUPAO IOCYAF JPFFJB ILELJC
JGELYS KLNPBY XCRKJP NDZJQL RAZJAG
JLVPCX LAOBZS VZIBEH YFNRQQ

Wii Play Shooting Range

2007-04-18T18:04:00.001+01:00

My new high score: 557!

Beat that. :)

Fractal Artwork

2007-04-10T19:33:00.000+01:00

Back in 2003, I rendered a whole bunch of fractals to sell on zazzle.com as posters.

See them all here

You can even still buy one if you want.

Please mind my dust

2007-02-21T22:02:00.000Z

I'm making a few changes to this site, please excuse any weirdness in the process. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Wii Weather

2006-12-19T19:29:00.000Z

Nintendo enabled the "weather channel" on the Wii console today - here is its five-day prediction for Oxford in the UK:

Now I can tell you now that this is completely rubbish. Without even looking at another forecast I can tell you that it's going to be cold, cloudy, and foggy. Let's see what the Met Office says, shall we?

Told you so.

This is the one thing that bugs me the most about weather forecasting software - whether it's for your games console or for your mobile phone, they're only as good as the data source used, and invariably they go for the lowest bidder, which makes the whole thing completely pointless as the forecasts are simply wrong!

Scientology: It's Fucking Scary

2006-12-01T19:02:00.000Z

Remember guys. It's not a religion. It's an unethical (and would be criminal if properly investigated) money-making organisation with cult-like qualities. And if you join it, this is what you're joining:

Wii would like to play

2006-11-21T15:56:00.000Z

Amazon UK "...sold out of reserve orders for Nintendo's new games console ... in just seven minutes. Amazon.co.uk said a rush of buyers for the Wii made it the site's fastest selling pre-order item."

Update 9:52 PM: This has really made the news!

I knew this would happen.They were supposed to start selling them at 9am - the plan was that I would get up, order one at 9, and then go to work.

So at 9:30am they're still not on sale. Disaster - I have to go to work! So, a very geeky solution. While Ed drives, I sit with my laptop living up to its name, connected to the internet through my mobile phone.

At 9:40, half way to work, the "Add to basket" button finally lights up! And after frantic clicking... I got one! Despite my internet connection not exactly being terribly fast or reliable, I obviously managed it in less than seven minutes. Sometimes being a geek pays off.

That's probably the first time I've ever bought something while actually in a moving car.

I am slightly concerned that I never received the promised e-mail from Amazon telling me that they were finally on sale - I wonder how many people missed out because they were waiting for the e-mail?

Spam! Spam! Spam!

2006-11-18T19:52:00.000Z

I'm sure you're familiar with those image-based stock spams going around at the moment, but I wonder if this particular spammer spotted the irony of the layout when pushing this particular one:

Do you reckon he's even seen the film?

Things for sale on eBay

2006-11-18T17:51:00.000Z

Power Mac G5

Sky Plus box

Collection only.

Down under... and left a bit

2006-11-15T23:26:00.000Z

As a kid, I was always told that if I dug straight down far enough, I would emerge in Australia.

Well, this is almost true - but not quite. It turns out that the exact other side of the world from my home is here:

It turns out that Australia is only exactly opposite you if you happen to live in the middle of the Atlantic - right on the ridge, as it happens.

If you live in the USA, the Indian Ocean is on the other side of the world to you. Not very exciting, huh? Don't bother digging.

Zune

2006-11-14T23:53:00.001Z

So Microsoft has released it's Zune player. As an Apple fanboy, I am of course bound by law to criticize it and explain why it's so crap.

Perhaps surprisingly, this is going to be really easy.

Things the Zune doesn't have:

* Games
* Clock or stopwatch
* Password-protection
* Volume limiter
* Equalizer
* Calendar
* Address book
* Notes

OK, so, fair enough - it's a music player and not a PDA, but the iPod gets a lot of flak for lacking in features - and it does all of the above!

The "music sharing" feature that has been so heavily promoted turns out to completely suck. Music beamed to another Zune can only be played three times (even playing a tiny bit of a track counts as one "play"), and even then it will get wiped after three days even if you don't play it. This applies to all music, even that which might be freely distributable. No distinction is made.

The PC-side software seems to be pretty awful. You can't subscribe to podcasts, you can't use Windows Media Player, you can't play "PlaysForSure" music (haha, ironic), you have to have a "Live ID" and some kind of Zune account, and you may not even be able to get the damn thing installed! Oh, and it's not Mac compatible. It's not even world-compatible, for now, it's only available in the USA.

This is actually all quite annoying, even for me. All competition is good, I don't want Apple to get lazy.

And finally, the Zune's "slogan" (plastered all over the packaging and the web site) is: "Welcome to the social."

The social... what?! Someone tell Microsoft that "social" is an adjective, not a noun.

Update: I just learned that they're not compatible with Vista, either. Brilliant.

Update 2: The bad news just keeps coming. You can't use it as an external hard disk, and despite the long list of supported video formats on the box, all video is transcoded to WMV when copied to the Zune, which is in fact the only format video it supports. Blegh.

No Commentary Needed

2006-11-13T23:15:00.000Z

From a flyer for Richard Dawkin's new book, The God Delusion.

Planet Oxford

2006-11-12T19:58:00.001Z

Planet Oxford

I made this in Photoshop - an interesting way of displaying a 360 degree panorama.

View the original panorama

Photos

2006-11-05T20:18:00.000Z

Over the past few weeks I've taken a bunch of photos. Here are some of them all glued together.

Don't Vote

2006-11-05T20:17:00.000Z

Even though I'm not American, I took the test at dontvote.org. (The idea is that if you don't know who you're voting for, you shouldn't vote. I would perhaps change the "don't vote" to "find out!", but meh.) I scored 49.71%, getting an "F". (I should apparently consider moving to France. ;)

So consider this a baseline. If you take this test and are American, if you get less than 50% then you're dumber than a stupid Brit who doesn't even live there. ;)

Rubbish fireworks

2006-11-05T20:16:00.000Z

Ed and me went to Tesco and found some very cheap fireworks, which we promptly bought.

And, risking melting my lovely cameraphone, we discovered that when it comes to fireworks, cheap does indeed mean bad.

Game On!

2006-10-22T20:51:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I visited to the Game On exhibition, a history of video games, at the Science Museum in London. You can see me playing Galaga and Star Wars, and my friend Ed playing Xevious.

Here are some photos.

iTunes mashup

2006-09-24T00:03:00.000+01:00

I made one of these about a year ago, but my iTunes library was a bit smaller than and my ratings weren't entirely complete, so I'm doing it again.

Below are links to MP3s which contain tiny chunks of the highest-rated tracks in my (fairly large) iTunes library, all mixed together in some kind of audio nightmare. The idea, originally, is to better answer the question: "What kind of music do you like?" which, at least for me, would have a very long answer.

I did two versions this time. The "complex" one I did first, which has up to six track portions playing at the same time, but it's kinda headache-inducing, so then I did another "simple" one, which only has up to three pieces playing at the same time.

As last time, serious bonus points if you actually recognise anything from these jumbles.

The "complex" mashup
The "simple" mashup

Enjoy... or try to, at least.

Dear Apple

2006-09-15T20:34:00.000+01:00

I hate you.

Date iMac ordered: Sep 6
Availability before checkout: "7 days"
Shipping date after checkout: Sep 15
Delivery date after checkout: Sep 19

...

Shipping date on Sep 15: Sep 21
Delivery date on Sep 15: Sep 25

WTF? :(

Dear BBC

2006-09-14T22:34:00.000+01:00

Why oh why...

D'oh.

Finally!

2006-09-12T20:39:00.000+01:00

Of all the cool new things that Apple announced today, new iPods, movies, etc, there's one tiny feature they didn't even mention that is the best thing ever.

Thank you Apple!