Of media PCs, old remotes and Linux

This post will probably be horribly boring for the non-geeks in the audience (which might be everybody...), so I'll apologize to everybody in advance...

It has been a desire of mine for a bit to build up a media/entertainment PC and integrate that into our entertainment center. Partly because I get TIVO-like functionality, partly to allow playing the music that we've downloaded (and isn't on CD), partly to watch all of the home video that we have (which is only on PC - we can watch by hooking the camera to the TV, but it doesn't put out good resolution, what we get is basically the camera display blown up about 200000000 times, so its a little pointilistic...), and mostly because I just want to do something cool and drool over new PC components...

I've managed to pull together a system which should perform adequately - it has higher performance than my current desktop PC, which is able to do OK at recording and playing back video (though using Windows Media Center it can't keep up with a HD broadcast, and drops frames often). For about $400 I get a good motherboad with optical audio out, 500GB hard drive, 4GB of memory, a dual-layer DVD writer and a video card which can feed HD into my TV. I have a WiFi card around, and have a spare license for Windows XP. Should be nice, the parts should be here Jan 6... :(

Of course, having a PC doesn't help much without a remote - I've been spending too much time trying to get a remote that came with a Sony PC to work - finding that it uses a completely proprietary configuration, nobody else in the world has made it work, and it generally causes some interesting problems with the rest of the system... I think that I have enough information to make the remote work under Linux now, but will need to modify some drivers to get things to behave.

I've been trying out different software packages under Windows and Linux on my current PC, trying to see what is able to do the things that we want (play DVDs, play stored videos and music, view and record live TV), and will probably setup the PC with GBPVR under Windows XP, also booting and running MythTV under Linux (Ubunto 8.10, to be exact...). Both give access to everything we need - MythTV is also able to get at videos on the web, so we would be able to watch all of the high-def shows that CBS, ABC, etc. are putting up. Eventually, I'll add in a Blueray drive, and maybe another tuner (or two)... Then we just need to do some work with importing old VHS tapes, cassette tapes, albums, etc, and everything will be available at the touch of a button....

Enough of me showing my geeky side... I'm sure there are some people who are interested in this, I promise that the next post will have cute kids and stuff like that - though those cute kids might be helping me assemble the PC. :)

How many calories?

Last night our church had a potluck dinner to celebrate Christmas. After all the eating was done (way too much by yours truly) all the tables and chairs were cleared from the sanctuary, and kids started running in circles in the big open spaces.
After running for a few minutes, Kyle came up to me, puffing and hot from all the running and asked how many calories he had burned off. My answer "more than 10" didn't satisfy him - he wanted to know the actual number... So, I had to say "I don't know - you don't have a calorie counter on your forehead." Some of the other parents near by though that was immensely funny...

I don't like Las Vegas

I finished up a week of meetings in Las Vegas, as part of some software standards activity that is part of my job. Mostly, these meetings involve spending a long day in a conference room, so I don't get to see much of whatever city we're in - except for the evenings which are usually open. Usually these are place I haven't been, so there is some exploring to do. I've been to Las Vegas before, though, so not as much to do that's new - not to mention the various other problems with the current marketing of the city. A few reasons that I especially don't like travel to Vegas:

1) The city is focused on separating you from your money, in lots of unbiblical ways. Gambling is everywhere. You have to walk through a casino to get from the hotel entrance to the elevators. I'm sitting in the airport right now, and there is a huge bank of slot machines 20 feet away. Shows are incredibly expensive - at least $50, for bad seats in a show with a 'nobody' - want to see Better Midler in good seats? Get ready to cough up $400 per person...

2) After gambling, sex seems to be the primary business. You can't walk down the street (at least 'The Strip" - Las Vegas Boulevard) without having a huge number of cards for 'girls' pushed at you. About half of the shows involve dancing girls, with or without all the normal clothing. Billboards and advertising trucks are everywhere hyping strip clubs. I'm not intereseting in this stuff, but would rather not have to see it constantly.

3) There are earthquakes here. Last night, about 8:18 there was an earthquake in Lowell California, which was felt in Vegas. I noticed it mostly from feeling the building swaying back and forth, about 4 inches or so based on seeing the curtains swinging. It felt generally like I was really dizzy. Not dangerous, but a little disturbing and I try to avoid earthquakes.

4) I'm away from my awesom family, and not in a place where I can have as much seeing new things...

That's enough of my rant. I'm on my way home, they've announced that the plane will be boarding in a few minutes, so I'm getting free of Sin City.

Still at Motorola

This was a sorta tough week at work. Bad earnings came out, and management decided to cancel a bunch of projects and lay off around 2000 people. I am not one of the people laid off, though it looks like my projects have been killed. My team was pretty affected though, going from 11 to 5. Don't know what comes next - supposedly more announcements on reorganization will be coming up, and I'll figure out what I'm supposed to be doing. At least I still have a job.

Not sure whether I'm completely glad about escaping though - half of the people who worked for me are being laid off, and I had no notification about it, nor did I know until the end of the day, and knew who was 'safe'. Its tough to see people you've worked with for 3-5 years be let go...

What I learned from the debate

Watching the debate last night (Oct. 7) the only thing that I really learned is that Barak Obama must be a prophet! He knew about the mortgage crisis 2 years ago! He know that Georgia (the country) was in danger from Russia last year! He told people and wrote papers about these!!!! He must be the second coming of Messiah!!! (OK - that one didn't come out in the debate, but listening to some Obama supporters there do seem to be some people who believe that.)

He must not have tried hard enough to make sure that people heard, though, because these things happened... Telling Washington insiders who helped make the mess that there is a mess isn't presidential caliber action. Raising up a grass-roots awareness of the problem and getting America involved in the solution is. (Neither candidate has done that though...)

The only thing that I really learned last night was that I'm not sure either of these two candidates really has a plan for resolving the problems that we face right now. I've said several times that any person who seeks public office should immediately be disqualified from that office. We need the right person in the presidency, not just the best person who happens to be running (and is electable, and popular with the people...).

(In case you missed the dripping sarcasm in the first paragraph, I haven't been converted, I'm still not voting for Obama...)

Why more credit???

Time for me to get shallow, and probably expose how little I know of how finance works and the current economic mess...
It seems that much of the problem came on from banks providing loans to people who really didn't have the means to cover the loan, so that those people could buy houses that they really couldn't afford. The banks did this to get some income - they get interest and hope that the loan doesn't default (which leaves the bank with a house that it has to sell for probably less than the loan amount - causing the bank to lose money). The bank then sells those loans as securities to other people, so that the bank gets in more money that it can loan out. The people buying the loans expect to get income from the interest on the loans, at least, and maybe can sell the securities for more than the loans are worth (which seems stupid to me...).
So, the bank makes a loan, then gives away the income from the loan when it sells the loan. To keep making money, the bank has to get more loans which it can then sell. Essentially, the bank only keeps making money as long as (a) people keep making new loans and (b) they can sell the loans to investors.
So, things have broken down because people started defaulting on loans, making it a risky investment and the banks can't sell the loans anymore. I think that there is a somewhat deeper problem in this - that the whole business model is built on the bank always being able to make and sell more loans. There is a natural limitation in this - eventually we run out of people to loan money to. Even if the bank picks ever riskier people, there are only so many people in the USA, and I don't know about you, but there is a limit to how many loans I need (let alone want) to carry - I only have the mortgage right now and am working hard to save money for the next car so that I don't carry a loan for that. Another 10 years and I won't even have the mortgage.
So, a whole business is collapsing (namely the home mortgage market) because it became a silly and unsustainable business model - namely to make sure that we keep making new loans into infinity. I'm a little surprised that nobody really thought through the long-term business model. Sure, this model looks OK in the short term, but once the pool of people needing money dries up, so does the business. Seems to me that, while we need the government to bail out the banking system and shore up the loan based securities (so that people are willing to buy them again, and restore money to the market) there is a shocking lack of prosecution of the people who thought that this was a valid business model in the first place... I want to see (a) an assurance that banks are going to drop the stupid investment model, and just try to live off the interest on their loans and (b) some of the CEOs of companies following this model will get time in the clink...
So - enough ranting. I don't promise this is accurate, its just what I can see on the surface, and what doesn't seem to be showing up in any of the analysis that I see...

The joys of business travel

This week I've been in Lisbon for a weeks worth of standards meetings with the MIPI alliance - a group establishing microprocessor interfaces (terribly geeky, nerdy stuff to most of you, I'm sure...). There are some good things and some annoying things about these trips (and this one in particular).

Good -

• I get to see some new cities that I otherwise probably wouldn't for quite a while. The meetings don't take all day, so I get to spend a little bit of time looking around and playing tourist, and sometimes finding places I'd like to come back to with my family. Look here for some pictures I took in Lisbon.
• I'm not paying for the trip
• I get to keep lots of airline miles for making the trip
• The work is generally interesting and exciting

Bad -

• I'm away from my family, and never sleep as well when I'm not with my dear wife...
• Most of the time is spent in meeting rooms - the inside of one conference room is pretty much like any other, so it isn't all that glamorous...
• Lisbon does dinner like Spain - really late. Of course the meeting schedule is pretty much like a normal business day everywhere else - no time for a siesta in the afternoon. So I'm up at 6:30 to get ready for the meetings at 8:30, but awake until midnight getting dinner. I don't do well on 6 hours of sleep...
• Europe especially has some jet-lag issues for me coming over, so I'm pretty much tired and messed up for most of the time that I'm here...
  

I have at least two more trips this year, but one will be within the US. Will I be interested in coming back to Lisbon? Probably not - the city, at least what I've seen, isn't all that interesting, and it doesn't feel particularly safe - more pickpocket problems than I've heard in other cities, and more of the businesses seem to be out to rip off the tourists.

If you're interested in seeing where I've been, I have an application on my Facebook page to show the cities I've been to, so become my friend and you can see the full list. I have been to a bunch of places...