The Introduction chapter of the online MythTV book is now ready. This chapter covers the definition of a personal video recorder (PVR), the components of such a system, the various alternatives that are available, why MythTV might be the right choice, and briefly explains the MythTV version number scheme. Thanks to Michael Carden for doing…
Author: mikal
Observations on the Wrest Point hotel
Some simple observations on the Wrest Point hotel… The room is nice, but nothing fancy. The in room internet is free, but doesn’t work. Most importantly, the breakfast place in the hotel plays Weird Al while you’re eating.
Introducing the online MythTV book
When parts of the first edition of the MythTV book became out of date, I decided to take the book online and ask others to help me improve it and bring it up to date. There is a blog for announcements, at http://mythtvbook.com/blog and if you’re interested in helping out, please visit the Help Wanted…
Travelling to Hobart today
After some initial uncertainty because of the economy, I am travelling to Hobart today for linux.conf.au 2009. I’m speaking at the MythTV mini-conf about MythNetTV, as well as a new MythTV book I have been working on for a while. It will be good to get there, although I wont manage that until about 10pm…
The Compleat Bolo
I read this book on flights. This book is a collection of several Bolo short stories, as well as two longer stories. This was a pretty common technique it seems with early science fiction, and it works ok here as long as you remember that the chapters are unlinked short stories. In fact, several of…
Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow
I read this anthology as a child, but when I found a copy on ebay that was cheap I couldn’t resist. This is a collection of short stories focusing on what war might be like in the future. It’s a good read, although a couple of the stories are out of place compared with the…
Calculating a SSH host key with paramiko
I needed to compare a host key from something other than a known_hosts file with what paramiko reports as part of the SSH connection today. If you must know, the host keys for these machines are retrieved a XMLRPC API… It turned out to be a lot easier than I thought. Here’s how I produced…
Bio of a Space Tyrant: Refugee
I’m not really sure what I think about this book. Its well written, and very readable, but depressing. The book starts with a sexual assault, and then moves on to describe what its like to be the minimum wage labor in a space colony. The short answer — its not much fun. Worse than that,…
Books read in December 2008
Death Bringer Earth Thunder Darkspell Polgara the Sorceress Isaac Asimov’s Robot City: Cyborg Isaac Asimov’s Robot City: Prodigy Daughter of the Empire
Daughter of the Empire
This is a really good book. It was a delight to find something so good that it kept me up well past my bed time several nights running. I really enjoyed this one — its set on Kelwan, the planet that invades Midkemia in the Riftwar series, and is written from the perspective of the…