/var/log/stephen

The Waters of Mars

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 20:02:53 GMT

Time Lord Victorious? "Time Lord Vainglorious" would fit as well.

Silence

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:34:31 GMT

No sound came out of thalassa when I tried to play an MP3. I checked the speakers and cables; everything was fine. There was just nothing coming out of thalassa, either from the speaker socket on the back or the headphone socket on the front. No errors had been logged to syslog, and there was no evidence that the onboard audio was no longer being detected. Just silence.

In time-honoured tradition, I turned it off and on again. It started working.

Better keep an eye on this.

(Or perhaps thalassa just wants me to get some better music. Heh).

System failure

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:57:14 GMT

All the ATMs at the bank were out of order when I went in today. An assistant told me that the network was down across the country, and I wouldn't even be able to withdraw from my account using a machine at a different bank.

My bank's really been losing the plot lately. They recently changed my current account's terms and conditions to favour themselves (lowering the interest rate and charging a fee on arranged overdrafts). My mortgage will be up for renegotiation soon; if they try to charge me an extortionate rate, it'll be time to change banks.

I made it back from town before the weather closed in. It's pretty nasty out there.

I am an anachronism

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:50:49 GMT

I bought a new tea-strainer. They're getting difficult to find. I sometimes think I'm the only person left in the world who still uses loose tea.

Spend! Prove your devotion to the god of capitalism!

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:05:21 GMT

We're only just past Guy Fawkes' Night, but the shops have been carrying Christmas goods for a while already. Retailers are using their TV advertising spots to push their Christmas ranges. Today, I heard Christmas music being played in a shop for the first time this year.

We should just rename it "Mammonmas" and have done with it.

</cynic>

This guy are (still) sick

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:16:47 GMT

I'd feel a lot better after a quiet day at home followed by a good night's sleep, I thought. 'Twas not to be. The good night's sleep didn't happen and I woke up feeling arguably worse than yesterday.

My colleagues who have had this virus had to take two days to recover, so at least I'm not being a total lightweight.

Sick day

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:49:09 GMT

On balance, I could probably have made it in, but felt rough enough this morning to call in sick. I was in full-on cold mode at work yesterday, so the boss wasn't expecting me today anyway.

I'm more achy than anything else.

hub 1-5:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 3

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:23:26 GMT

thalassa has two USB ports on the front panel. Internally, these are actually part of a four-port hub. The other two ports don't have any sockets and aren't connected to anything, but the hub still looks like a four-port hub to the operating system.

For reasons unknown (loose connection? dry joint?) the third port seems to generate bogus signals that Linux interprets as being evidence of some connected device. It tries to communicate with the device, fails, and spams my system log:

usb 1-5.3: new low speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 22
usb 1-5.3: device descriptor read/64, error -32
usb 1-5.3: device descriptor read/64, error -32
usb 1-5.3: new low speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 23
usb 1-5.3: device descriptor read/64, error -32
usb 1-5.3: device descriptor read/64, error -32
usb 1-5.3: new low speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 24
usb 1-5: clear tt 3 (0000) error -32
usb 1-5.3: device not accepting address 24, error -71
hub 1-5:1.0: unable to enumerate USB device on port 3

It's harmless apart from occasionally on startup when the initialization of my keyboard is delayed due to the system trying repeatedly to initialize a nonexistent device.

This has been going on for ages, but I finally got around to hacking Linux to work around the problem. Here's my patch against Linux 2.6.30:

--- a/drivers/usb/core/hub.c	2009-06-10 04:05:27.000000000 +0100
+++ b/drivers/usb/core/hub.c	2009-11-01 11:50:56.000000000 +0000
@@ -2751,6 +2751,12 @@ static void hub_port_connect_change(stru
 	struct usb_device *udev;
 	int status, i;
 
+	if ((port1 == 3) &&
+	    (strcmp(dev_name(hub_dev), "1-5:1.0") == 0)) {
+		/* shonky workaround: ignore the dodgy port */
+		return;
+	}
+
 	dev_dbg (hub_dev,
 		"port %d, status %04x, change %04x, %s\n",
 		port1, portstatus, portchange, portspeed (portstatus));

It's near the top of hub_port_connect_change(), so the machine wastes as few cycles as possible.

The correct solution would be to perform some minor surgery on thalassa to completely disconnect the nonexistent port, if that's possible. But at least this workaround keeps the logs and error console clear.

And so it begins

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:23:19 GMT

Two people at work called in sick. Their GPs have confirmed that it's 'flu. Lots of other people are coughing and sneezing all over the place.

It's only a matter of time before I succumb to something nasty.

Hooray

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:07:57 GMT

I found a dead wasp in my bath.

Fall back

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:29:03 GMT

There are a fair few clocks around here. I have manually corrected the time on:

two wristwatches
the kitchen clock
the central heating timer
the GameCube
EDIT: my alarm clock. Did that last night and forgot to mention it

and have cleared the daylight saving flag on:

the mobile telephone
the PS2 (well, I would have done, but it wasn't actually set...)

Nothing to do on the computers or television because they're timezone-aware and thus self-correcting.

The clocks on my microwave and video recorder didn't need adjusting because they weren't set in the first place; I switch both appliances off at the wall when I'm not using them. (Timer recording on the VCR is accomplished by setting a timer on the television which wakes the VCR up at the correct time).

Channelling Captain Fanzone

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:16:23 GMT

There's gotta be a market for mobile telephones with rotary dials.

I don't mean desktop rotary telephones modified with cellular insides; I mean a mobile-sized one with a little dial instead of a keypad. Bonus points if the casing is made from Bakelite and the screen has a Fresnel lens. Emulation of the old-style "prrrrrrrrrrr" dialtone would be a nice touch as well. Oh, and a little physical bell instead of a ringtone.

Text messages might be a bit awkward; perhaps it could be connected to a typewriter...

Reusing NPCs

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:51:34 GMT

A couple I know just had their second child, a boy whom they have named Benjamin. Their older child is a daughter, Isabel. This is notable because one of my work colleagues also has a young family: his preschool children are also a younger son called Benjamin and an older daughter called Isabel.

It's this sort of thing that makes me wonder if something is wrong with the Matrix.

Fundamental misunderstanding

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:41:16 GMT

Rupert Murdoch wants search engines and news aggregators, which he denounces as "plagiarists" and "content kleptomaniacs", to pay for the privilege of linking to his news articles.

Has anyone tried taking him to one side and explaining how this fangled World Wide Web thingummybob works?

Musical chairs

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:58:53 GMT

At work, our technical director's workload finally tipped over from "crazy" to "impossible", so a new post of chief technical officer has been created to assist her. The development manager has been promoted into that position; my team leader (aka "the boss") has in turn been promoted to development manager.

This means that there's now a team lead position vacant.

No, I don't think it's going to be me.

But then again, it could be.

Eeeek.

Out with the old, in with the Who

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:52:18 GMT

I figured we'd be getting a new title sequence next year. It's going further than that, though: we're getting a new logo as well.

Given that it looks rather low-key compared with the RTD version, I wonder if the title graphics will be toned down as well, and the theme music returned to something closer to the original Delia Derbyshire arrangement?

Well, that was a waste of a prescription charge

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:26:11 GMT

I've only been taking the amitriptyline for a few days, but the side-effects are sufficiently unpleasant that I'm giving up. I've spent the whole day at the office feeling sleepy, at times finding it hard to focus on my screen. I've also developed a sore throat (worse today than yesterday) and sensitivity to light.

It's possible that the meds aren't to blame; perhaps I've coincidentally picked up some virus. I'll know in a couple of days if the aforesaid symptoms clear up.

-oOo-
Bizarre dream last night: I dreamed it was almost Christmas, and I'd gone to Cromer to visit my parents. My mother had just collected the turkey from the butcher's shop; but when she unpacked it, she found it wasn't a turkey. It was a parrot.

It hadn't been plucked and prepared in any way. It was a whole, dead parrot, with white plumage. Y'know how farmyard ducks and geese are often white? This was apparently a domesticated, farm-reared parrot.

It rather scuppered our plans for Christmas dinner. Not much meat on a parrot.

Happy tablets

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 18:13:49 GMT

Over the past few months, I've been suffering some mild discomfort. I've been to the doctor a couple of times; he ordered tests, and performed physical and ultrasound examinations. He can't find anything wrong.

Given that my symptoms come and go, and went away completely when I was on holiday a few weeks ago, the doctor suspects that the problem is anxiety-related. He's prescribed 10mg per day of amitriptyline, an antidepressant.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about being prescribed antidepressants, even in a very low dose.

Science with stop-motion cats

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:02:15 GMT

It's not a new song, but I think it's a new video. And it's fantastic.

Your name's not down, you're not coming in

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:24:23 GMT

Couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke. Though I'm somewhat surprised that he didn't just use Force Lightning on the security guard.

I've been spending a little time with a playable demo of X2. Fun, but I don't think I want to drop £20 on the full game. The controls felt too awkward, though this is mostly to do with my mouse being eight years old and my mousing surface being five inches square.

I wonder...

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 18:03:38 GMT

Yesterday's news has put me in an Elite type of mood. I wouldn't mind playing a modern (or modern-ish, anyway) space trading/combat game.

Some Googling indicates that Linux ports of X2 and X3 exist.

Hmmmmmm...

Byline

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 20:40:17 GMT

My brother wrote the cover story for last week's issue of Public Finance magazine. He even has his name on the cover. Woot!

Lave, Riedquat, Diso, Leesti

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:03:30 GMT

Classic videogame Elite is 25 years old. The article includes a nice video showing co-author David Braben playing the original game.

To fit such a huge game into only a few kilobytes of memory was a fantastic achivement; not only that, but Elite pretty much invented both the space sim and the open-ended sim. I didn't play much Elite, but the sequel, Frontier, totally sucked me in. (Just thinking about it, I now have the Frontier title music in my head. Heh. I found a nice remake of the Frontier title sequence, complete with music, so you can enjoy it too).

If you'd like to play Elite, there's a decent open-source remake called Oolite. I tried it a while ago; it has a steep difficulty curve.

ldc.i4 47

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:01:30 GMT

Yesterday's xkcd comic mentioned a new Nintendo DS game called Scribblenauts, which I hadn't heard of before. It looks fascinating. flabio is right, I need to get my hands on a DS sometime soonish.

I've been doing a little dynamic code generation at work, which has meant a small amount of coding in CIL. Nothing major, just class constructors and array access. Still, that sort of hackery is right up my street.

Volkswagen did not sponsor this journal entry

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:20:30 GMT

TV shows made by commercial British networks will be permitted to use product placement.

Oh, goody. Just what we needed. The product placement in American shows is so blatant these days, particularly the car advertising (e.g. in Heroes, just about everybody drives a Nissan, with model names inserted into dialogue where appropriate).

I'm glad that the BBC is still banned from all commercial sponsorship, I'd hate for this kind of thing to happen in Doctor Who:

Doctor: "Hey, I fixed the chameleon circuit! The TARDIS can now look like anything we want."
Companion: "How about this?" *fiddles with controls; the TARDIS changes shape*
Doctor: "A sports car?"
Companion: "A Volkswagen Scirocco."
Doctor: "Pretty stylish."
Companion: "It's the latest model. Two litre engine, 200 horsepower, seven-speed gearbox. Sweet."
Doctor: "Fantastic! What did you say it's called, again?"
Companion: "A Volkswagen Scirocco."