Everyone seems to be loving the somewhat detail lacking posting about ATI/AMD delivering some open graphics drivers. I'm sure it's great and I look forward to actually seeing them appear, but I'm much happier about the news that Intel have scheduled work on XvMC this year for their recent chipsets, and are thinking about how best to accelerate H.264 as well.

I am currently partially deaf, thanks to a sexy build up of wax in my ears. I have drops (peanut oil, apparently) which are supposed to help, but first they make it worse. So my apologies to anyone at the Nominet AGM today who thought I was blanking them, and indeed for anyone sees me over the next week or so and has to deal with me constantly asking them to repeat themselves. And my sympathy to anyone who has a permanent hearing problem.

As mentioned in the past I got a new TV this year. It's an LG 32LCD2DB with a native panel resolution of 1366x768. As well as the usual SCART/component inputs it has VGA and HDMI. Currently my homebrew PVR outputs to the TV via a full featured DVB card with onboard MPEG2 decoder, but this limits me to 720x576 output and a basic OSD. My current box is a PIII-800 with a basic onboard SiS graphics chipset, so it's not got the grunt to drive the TV directly itself. I'm thus on the lookout for an upgrade. Let's start with my constraints. I have a Silverstone LC-02 case. I'd previously planned to upgrade to something bigger, but the discovery that LinITX can provide a variety of riser cards to suit PCI-E/PCI as needed means I don't have to. The LC-02 will take a MicroATX board and provide me with 2 slots, one of which is taken up by the PCI DVB card. This box lives in my living room, so it needs to be quiet - the current incarnation is a bit too loud but I believe that's mainly due to using a standard heatsink+fan assembly, so I'm hoping that something specifically designed to be quiet will be better. An lirc dongle and wireless keyboard/mouse are already sorted. I'd like to expand the use of the PVR to be a more general PC as well; up until now it's just been a PVR, but being able to check email/IRC would be nice, as would the ability to play games. Up until now I've run VDR, which takes full advantage of the MPEG2 decoder, but I'd like to give MythTV a decent try. All of this points to wanting more than just a HD hardware MPEG2/MPEG4 decoder. First lets start with the graphics chipset options. The contenders seem to be ATI, Intel, nVidia and Via. From my reading ATI lack any form of XvMC support in both their Free and binary blob drivers, so we can discount them. nVidia have support, but only in their binary drivers. The Nouveau project have support on their TODO list, but I can't see any sign of it yet. I'd really rather avoid non-free drivers, so that leaves us with just Intel and Via. I really like the look of the Intel G965/X3000. They've opened up their driver development and it seems to be quite active from reading the Xorg mailing lists. However they don't have any XvMC support; Keith Packard on the xorg list in February says "For media purposes, the current drivers aren't taking full advantage of the hardware yet", though later on does say "XvMC is on several of our lists; I don't know when someone will pick it up and implement it". Unfortunately I get the feeling it's not a high priority; I've seen/heard several comments about the fact that any processor that'll get hooked up to this chipset will be more than fast enough to cope without the assistance. That may be true, but I don't want my CPU to be spending all its time trying to decode MPEG2 or MPEG4 at 1920x1080i while the GPU sits mostly unused. I'd much rather the GPU was used to the full giving me spare CPU cycles, or perhaps the ability to clock it a bit slower for common use cases, reducing power and heat. I'm keeping Intel on my list because I hope they do get round to proper support sooner rather than later. They've also talked about the fact the GPU is programmable which would make it perfectly possible to add MPEG4 acceleration to the chipset; that would be pretty sweet. It's a bit odd to end up with Via on the list. I mainly think of them as associated with MiniITX boards, but they do also produce various motherboards for Intel/AMD CPUs with integrated graphics. They managed to shoot themselves in the foot for a period of time by limiting the maximum accelerated resolution to 1024x1024, but recently they've released the CX700M /P4M900 chipsets which appear to do 2048x2048. The OpenChrome project have these up and running to a basic level from what I can tell, but work on XvMC support appears to be progressing with various patches and reports flying about on the list. So currently it looks like Via has the best option (albeit through the Free software community, rather than a concerted effort on their part), while Intel has something that could be very appealing if the driver was more complete. The other factor is the CPU. 3 contenders this time; AMD Intel and Via. My current PIII-800 is rated at 20.8W TDP. Modern processors are in general a lot hotter, but I need to keep in mind that I'm looking for a quiet machine, and that the case doesn't have a huge amount of room for big cooling systems. AMD's dual core chips all start at 89W or more, though some of their single core lower end CPUs are more like 67W. Of course the Intel graphics won't work with it and I'm not 100% sure Via has a suitable Athlon chipset at present either (the 2 I found were for Intel/Via). Intel's P4 offerings aren't much better for power consumption, with many of the highest end chips being over 100W. Core 2 Duo looks promising; 65W, so more than the current CPU, but a lot more grunt. Via come out tops here; 20W for their 2GHz top end processor. However this is only single core and compares poorly to the equivalent clock speed of Core 2 Duo. A MiniITX board with a 2GHz C7 and a CX700M would probably make a fine PVR, but I'm not convinced about there being enough grunt for anything else. The Via chipsets appear to have more active in-progress support for media acceleration, which suggests a P4M900 + Core 2 Duo. That's contrasted with what looks to be the more powerful X3000, that actually has a manufacturer who seems to want to get full Free support out there. I'm probably a couple of months off actually making a decision; partly because I want to watch how it all plays out in the hope that the Intel chipset will get some more support, or that the Via chipset will be proven to be reliable in operation. And assuming I do make a video chipset/CPU decision I then get the joys of trying to find a motherboard with DVI + SP/DIF. I know the G965 can do DVI out with an ADD2 card in the PCI-E slot, but I don't know if the P4M900 supports the same thing. I can't see an Intel MicroATX 965 board with SP/DIF out - there's an HD audio header, but this doesn't seem to be a direct mapping. Can I get a converter?

My main bank is Cahoot. I'm reasonably happy with them - they pay a good rate of interest on a current account which is what drew me to them, but I like the fact I can do basically everything I need in their web interface at any time. However they seem to frequently announce periods of unavailability for card use or simliar. The latest announcement is:

Important update regarding use of your cahoot card: On Wednesday the 11th April between 21:00 and 22:00 there will be no service for cahoot card holders at Abbey, Link, and VISA ATM's. All point of sale transactions will be subject to a limit of 500 during this period. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this essential maintenance.

This isn't the first time they've said I'd been unable to use my card for a certain period. They also seem to do (pre-announced) work on their website that causes it to be unavailable. While none of this has ever caused me a problem (yet), I do find it quite surprising. I never have any such announcements from other banks that I use. Are Cahoot just more honest about when they're doing potentially service affecting work? Or do other banks just have systems that don't result in any downtime during upgrades? Does anyone elses bank do announcements in the same fashion?

I bought an Airkey wireless keyboard from eBay; £11.50, IR, presents as PS/2, range of up to 30ft. Seems to do the job; the trackpad thingy isn't perfect, but good enough for basic X use which is all I want. Surprisingly no one seemed to comment on my query about RF wireless keyboard security. It seems like the sort of thing someone like Adam Laurie would have had a look at, but I couldn't find anything obvious. Anyone got any pointers to research about these? Oh, and tonight I had to fight interrupt conflicts to make the IR PS/2 mouse work - that machine hadn't had a mouse before and it turned out several things were sharing IRQ 12, leading to Linux not even finding the port. So I rejigged things around in the BIOS so it was saved for just the mouse port and that managed to make things work. SiS 630E chipset for anyone else seeing a similar issue. It felt like I was back in the 90s.

I need a wireless keyboard for the media box, suitable for use while sitting on the sofa. I currently have an RF Logitech device which I picked up for free at an ALUG meet. It lacks a mouse (it supports one, but as a separate device that I don't have) and the range is such that it's a bit flaky when I sit on the sofa. I'd like something that has a range of at least 4m and has a built in trackball (or I'm sure I'd cope with a trackpad). This seems easy enough to find, but everything seems to be RF and I'm a bit wary. How good is the security on these? Does it even exist? Or will my neighbours be able to sniff my every keystroke? I'd much prefer an IR keyboard, but finding one that's available in the UK for a reasonable price (I found one for £69.99 plus VAT + P&P) seems tricky. LinITX sell an MCE Wireless Keyboard that apparently I might be able to get working with lirc and my existing receiver, but something that just plugs into USB or PS/2 ports and means I can access the BIOS etc would be preferable. Anyone got any pointers?

A while back I decided that I needed my CD collection needed something for every letter. I've managed them all except X. Anyone any suggestions? My last.fm profile should hopefully give an idea of what I like.

I've been watching the Virgin Media and Sky bickering over Virgin's ability to carry Sky's basic channels (Sky One, Sky Two, Sky News etc - the premium movie/sports channels aren't included in this and are safe). And I can't help but think back to the Cogent and Level 3 depeering row. I've no idea how it's going to end, but it seems likely that someone's going to end up backing down rather than Virgin losing the channels and Sky losing the ad revenue.

I've been ill; I had the flu (first time I've ever actually had to take a day off work). And then I spent a week working from Portstewart. Which was a bit odd, as Katherine's living in furnished rented accomodation which means the decor is completely not us (we've always lived in unfurnished places before). Anyway. I went down to London Saturday week ago, and of course there was no direct train from Norwich because Network Rail like to screw over people travelling on weekends. And then I came back from Stansted yesterday and there were no trains from Stansted. So I end up on a replacement bus service to Cambridge (where I'm supposed to pick up a train to Norwich). And the moron driver goes to Audley End (fair enough, we knew it would stop there), reaches J9 of the M11 and decides to go southbound rather than over the junction towards Cambridge. So we end up practically back at Stansted - at J8 he comes off the M11 and rejoins northbound, then drives up to J11 before coming off. I'm not a Cambridge resident, but I'm sure this isn't a sensible route, even factoring in that I don't think you can go northbound at J9. 3 hours of travelling time. I'd have been better on the bus, but I just missed it and the next one wasn't for another 2 hours. And then there's pricing. I'm going to a wedding in Glasgow next month. It was £50 cheaper to fly than take the train (and even given check in times I suspect will be significantly faster). I'm considering a meeting in Manchester at the start of April and flying is cheaper than the train (again by over £50) and in fact given the timings would mean I could actually do it in a day rather than having to sort out accomodation. Flying is even cheaper than driving it seems, and probably faster or at least equal given check in times. I know I'm supposed to be flying less, but it's hard. Give me a viable rail network that's actually competitive on pricing (I'm not even talking about walk on pricing, I'm trying to book in advance with known travel dates/times) and has a decent schedule and I'll use it!

Well, tonights experiment has shown that a 1GHz Via EPIA-M motherboard with 512MB RAM/200GB IDE HD isn't quite fast enough to run MythTV with a USB2 DVB-T stick on a 1280x768 screen. It's close, but there are too many noticeable wibbles in the display. Stock Debian etch install with MythTV packages from http://www.debian-multimedia.org/. Back to VDR it is, until I get round to buying a Core 2 Duo based box. Speaking of which, does anyone have any recommendations for a HTPC case? I currently have a Silverstone LC02, which is nice but I'd need a new riser card to cope with a ADD2 DVI card and a bit more room internally would be nice. I'd love an Antec Fusion but it's just slightly too wide to fit into my TV unit. The Silverstone GD01 looks pretty good, but is about twice the price of the Antec. sigh.

When I built my PVR a few years I bought a OneForAll URC-7562 6in1 remote control; with a surround sound amp, TV, NTL cable box, DVD and PVR the number of remotes around the place was getting a bit ridiculous. The main reason for choosing this remote was its ability to control the NTL box, which uses some odd IrDA based format apparently that even lirc has difficulty making sense of and learning remotes mostly ignore. It also had the ability to be upgraded remotely by phoning up a support line and they'd squirt some noise down the phone that the remote would understand. I had call to use this to enable my Scan DVD player when I first got the remote and it worked fine and I was quite impressed. However the remote also features another neat way to do upgrades. It has a 6 pin header in the battery compartment that is know as the JP1. This exposes the I2C bus that the configuration EEPROM lives on and there is a good amount of information out there about understanding the memory layout and adding support for new remotes etc. I'd been meaning to build the adapter to connect up since getting the remote but until recently hadn't really had a reason. However although my new TV is vaguely supported I'd really like to be able to remap the keys more sanely. So last weekend I discovered I had the appropriate bits lying around and built one. Unfortunately most of the software is for Windows; there's a Java app that will generate the appropriate data to feed to the remote, but the main communication tool is a Windows app. I found a couple of old Linux tools, but then I had a thought: it's just i2c. Why not tie it into the proper i2c subsystem? Turns out the i2c-parport driver makes this sort of thing easy; all you add is a single entry defining the appropriate parallel port lines to wiggle and it all magically works. So now I can talk to my remote using the eeprom driver talking to the i2c subsystem which talks to the remote over the parallel port adaptor I built. Which feels wonderfully sick. :) Now I need to actually have a closer look at getting all the buttons working for my new TV...

Look, I know xkcd is great. I have the RSS feed hooked up to Liferea. I do not need people to continually produce blog posts with the latest cartoon in them. This seems to happen every bloody time there's a new cartoon, usually from at least 3 people (and not always the same ones).

I was pleased to recently discover that NTL are actually rolling out HD to non Telewest areas (somewhat belatedly; their press release here is from last November). I can't find any indication of when it might launch in Norwich, but there are various reports of people who have install dates lined up around the country, so I assume soon. All well and good. Until you realise that the only HD content they have is BBC HD (and some OnDemand stuff, but no idea what that is yet) - there's no agreement at present for the Sky HD content and no signs of one from the information I could find. Suddenly it doesn't really seem worth it; TV Drive looks like a nice PVR, but I've got one already TYVM.

Apparently it's a new year. I spent the first week of it in San Francisco, on honeymoon. I spent Christmas with my parents in NI. After ending up driving there (and getting the Holyhead/Dublin ferry) because I was flying home during the period when fog was affecting UK airports. FlyBE cancelled my flight from Norwich on the Thursday, but in their usual fashion it took them several hours after it was due to take off to do so. I hate that. They knew it was unlikely to take off when I was checking in, they cancelled all other flights around it but they kept the Dublin flight until the last minute. I think this is because it had the most people on it and they wanted to try to avoid having to refund people, but it would have been much easier for those of us supposed to be travelling on it if they'd just accepted their losses earlier. Not a lot happening so far this year aside from the trip to the US. I'm without car (Katherine brings it back tomorrow - we flew from Belfast to Heathrow to get the flight to San Francisco so the car got left at my parents'). I might have bought a 32" HD LCD TV, but more on that if it actually arrives. James Puderer sent me a patch for supporting the Dream Cheeky USB missile launcher as well as the M&S one already in usblauncher. Get version 0.0.3 here if you have one of these. A belated Happy New Year, folks.

Katherine's father bought her mother a laptop for Christmas. I am ashamed to admit that although I was responsible for the specification it was purchased from PC World. There is a lack of shops in Northern Ireland where you can walk in and purchase a reasonably cheap laptop unfortunately. The model we ended up with was an Advent 8111 (Dixons link as it's saner than the PC World one). It's not actually a bad spec; Core Duo 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 80GB HD, wireless/ethernet/modem, 15.4" 1280x800 widescreen TFT. I think it claims up to 3 hours battery life and I certainly had 2+ out of it though not under heavy use. I decided that it was getting Linux; Katherine's mum isn't used to any form of computer so there are no preconceptions about Windows to get over. While I'm a Debian person myself I felt it was time to give Ubuntu a chance; mjg59 (and others I'm sure) has spent a lot of time trying to get it happy on laptops and make sure things Just Work. I didn't have a lot of time to sit fiddling with the setup, so a shiny out-of-the-box distro seemed ideal. I downloaded ubuntu-6.10-desktop-i386.iso and burnt myself a CD. Dropped it in the drive and it booted into the live CD installer fine. The install process was simple and it managed to resize the Windows partition without problems (I would have deleted it but I couldn't convince the Windows rescue CD creator to work and I don't want to burn my bridges until I'm sure Linux works out ok for the owner). Rebooting into the freshly installed system I was surprised at the time the boot process took. It certainly felt a lot longer than it takes my (lower speced) laptop to boot to a GDM prompt under Debian. Also the display looked a bit fuzzy. Further investigation led to the discovery that although X correctly detected a panel size of 1280x800 it was only using 1024x768. Much searching found me i915resolution which did some magic that made things work. However this doesn't appear to be part of Ubuntu proper so I'm not sure if was the correct solution or if I should have done something else? Getting to the point where I could download i915resolution was interesting too. My parents have a WEP encrypted wireless network (to prevent casual use rather than because it's secure). I was expecting Ubuntu (which detected the Intel wireless card fine) to pop up some sort of dialog saying it had found a network and would I like to connect (if I provided the key). Something network-managery. But no. Even when I went to the network control panel and added all the details the connection didn't seem to come up. I gave up and did it manually with iwconfig and dhclient (I needed it to work quickly and at present it won't need wireless usually). Once I had the display working happily my other task was to tame the modem. It's an Intel HDA thing and I'd hoped sl-modem-daemon would drive it. Of course it didn't. Although it's an Intel chipset it has a bloody Conexant codec on it. Which of course there are no free or Free drivers for. I ended up trying the trial Linuxant driver, which did work fine at 14.4k, but that's really painful so I gave up and paid for the full version. I'd really rather have voted with my feet and ended up with some proper modem hardware, but it would have been an extra set of wires and cost more. I hate Conexant. Anyway, the drivers work (though seem to break sound; I haven't had enough time to prod this and the modem is much more important to have working). Hopefully in time I'll convince them they really want ADSL, but at present I think it would be quite hard as they don't have a high expected use. Once the modem was working I needed an easy way to dial up. I started playing with modem monitor, which had been installed by default. However I just couldn't figure out how to get it to allow me to dialup and dial down - the activate/disable options stayed greyed out. So I installed GNOME PPP which seems to work fine and be easy enough to drive - put a nice link to it on the desktop and stored all the details so it's a double click to launch and then a click of the "Connect" button. My final issue was that once I actually took the laptop to Katherine's house to show her mum how to use it it started hanging on boot. Booting into recovery mode showed a soft lockup error message around the point where it was setting up the network interfaces. I think this might have had something to do with me hitting the wireless kill switch (no point having it on when there's no wireless in the house), as disabling the device in the BIOS made the problem go away. I didn't have enough time to do a fully exhaustive check, but will look at it in the future. I wait with interest to see how use of the laptop goes. Expected usage to being with is mainly web and email (provided by the Ubuntu defaults of Firefox and Evolution) so hopefully it shouldn't be too problematic now I've fought the install process. I was really quite surprised at the problems I encountered (well, aside from the modem drivers); I'd expected a much smoother install that would leave me with everything working fine out of the box. I haven't yet filed any bugs or done more investigation - I only had about a day to setup the machine so couldn't prod it more just yet. I will of course try to do so when I get a free moment, but if I missed some obvious stuff please do point it out to me! (As if you wouldn't...) Oh, and here's some lspci output for anyone interested in some more details about the laptop:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/PM/GMS/940GML and 945GT Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #1 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #2 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #3 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI #4 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode])
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) Serial ATA Storage Controller IDE (rev 02) (prog-if 80 [Master])
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
02:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Marvell Technology Group Ltd. 88E8055 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller (rev 10)
05:01.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments Unknown device 8039
05:01.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments Unknown device 803a (prog-if 10 [OHCI])
05:01.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments Unknown device 803b
05:01.3 Class 0805: Texas Instruments Unknown device 803c (prog-if 01)

I've been sitting on this for a while, gradually adding more bits as I think of them. So it's a bit long and rambly, but if I don't post it now I'll never get round to it. First, the details, for anyone who cares. I got married to my partner of 11 years, Katherine, on 1st December. This was actually our 11 year anniversary. We had a civil ceremony in The Assembly House, Norwich with a wine reception afterwards, then moved on to Wolterton Hall for the main reception, with a magnificant feast provided by Brasteds. Afterwards there was a chocolate fountain courtesy of Digby's and Nero thanks to Milton. The wedding cars were provided by American Dream (we had the Excalibur Sedan and the Lincoln Town Car). The bus to/from the reception was from Dolphin Autos. Robin Phillips brought the band. Wonderful purple jacket + the other suits were from John Field Formal Hire. Next, some photos. Burly Dave Ganesh Paddy Steve Tim (Ceremony) Tim (Reception) Finally, some things I've learned. For guests (I wish someone had told me these - Katherine says I sound stroppy but I don't mean to):

• As soon as you know if you're going or not, let the couple know. Especially if you're not going. They will probably be constrained on numbers and there are very few people who can be invited at short notice if you only let them know you're not coming by the RSVP deadline.

• Don't leave buying your present until the last minute. The couple will have lots more important things on their minds in the final week or two than trying to make sure there's enough left on the gift list.

• People really do mean that they'd rather you turned up than gave a gift. I never fully appreciated this; I'd feel bad going to a wedding without having given a gift. However I know that it's not cheap to get to Norwich and (in most cases) have to spend at least one night in a hotel. I'd much rather people did that and I got to see them on the day than they sent a present.

For couples getting married:

• It costs more than you think. Really. I'd always assumed hotels dug their arm in for weddings and upped all the prices, but actually the hotels we looked at were the cheap options, both in terms of the actual cost and also the fact they'd throw extras like a honeymoon suite in for free.

• Make sure everyone in the wedding party knows the way to the ceremony venue. Really. Don't rely on them to ask you, or assume that they'll have looked at the directions you've prepared.

• People are far too generous. We received many completely unexpected gifts from relatives or friends who we hadn't invited to the wedding, or those who couldn't make it. (As well as many of the people who came to the wedding buying us far too much.) If you gave us a gift, you will get a thank you card - these are already in progress but it probably won't be until after the New Year before they're all sorted and sent.

• Don't leave booking a honeymoon until after the wedding. We had issues regarding not being sure about Katherine's holidays and we ended up not sorting anything until a couple of weeks later. This reduced our options somewhat.

• So far it doesn't seem to have changed anything much. Katherine and I have already been living together for some time which we consider a bigger step. And we haven't seen a whole lot of each other since the wedding, though we have spent the past week together. But really, we don't feel a lot different yet.

Worship me, for I am perfect.

I have a new fridge freezer. It has a hole in the back of the fridge. I can see through it to the outside world. This is apparently a drainage duct and part of the deicing/condensation thingy-ma-jig. It strikes me as just wrong. Won't all the cold escape? Simon tells me it's only a small hole and his fridge has one too, but I'm not convinced. I'll have to hide it behind some beer so I forget about it.

Having been reading about Small World Phenomenon (which I've been calling Small World Syndrome for some time now, guess I'll have to change) the other day I was vaguely interested in LOST when I was pointed at it. It doesn't really help model the interconnectedness of the matrix as it's a tree structure AFAICT, but I think it's an fun idea with about as much point as most social networking sites and none of the claims to usefulness. :) I'd heard of Milgram before; my Mum did some stuff around Milgram's Experiment. SWP seems quite a different topic to me - are there similarities I'm missing or is it just the social psychologist equivalent of hacking on kernel code one day and a web app the next?

I bought a Sony DCR-HC24E for the purposes of recording my wedding ceremony. I could have borrowed my parents', but it's an ancient analogue thing and although I don't really have a use for a camcorder I talked it through with Katherine (making it clear that part of the appeal was just sheer toy value) and we went ahead with it. (I should point out the driver for recording any of the wedding came from my mother-in-law and I wasn't that fussed about the whole thing, but having experienced the "day was a blur" thing I'm glad we have it. Though I've watched it too many times as I'm about to explain.) The Sony comes with both USB and Firewire. My desktop doesn't do Firewire, but I figured USB would be fine. First issue is that Linux doesn't seem to support it in USB mode. I don't know if this is easily solved, as reading the manual I discovered that Sony claim USB isn't as good quality and Firewire is better. Huh? It's all digital. What gives? The best I could come up with is that Firewire is better at guaranteeing latency/bandwidth so you don't end up with dropped frames. Anyway. I buy a Firewire cable and dig out a Via EPIA-M board which has Firewire. Some poking about leads me to the conclusion that I want dvgrab. I fire it up, it seems to do the right thing, I end up with a huge file. Point mplayer at it and discover it's dropping frames. It appears raw DV is about 30Mb/s. The HD in the Via is an old 6GB one that only does ATA-33. So I find a newer ATA-133 capable one, double the RAM in the box (on Adam's recommendation) and try again. This goes better. So now I have a bunch of AVI files, all of them about 1G in size. avimerge is employed to combine them (I might have been able to just get dvgrab to output a big file, but I was wary of large file support). Then I did ffmpeg -i bigfile.avi -target dvd smallerfile.mpg resulting in a couple of DVD format MPEGs (one for the ceremony, one for the speeches). My first attempt at a DVD image was with DeVeDe. It seemed to work fine, but I ended up with something that the DVD player didn't like and neither did mplayer or xine. So I fell back to qdvdauthor, which I've used in the past but don't deem the most user friendly of programs. I finally end up with something that mplayer and xine seem happy with in terms of a menu and a pretty picture of us signing the register and working video. And so to burning a DVD. I used growisofs for this. Firstly with a DVD-R, which mostly worked but had annoying pauses on my real DVD player. So I tried with a DVD+R and this seems to be much better, however there are some minor pauses. This might be my ancient DVD player not coping well I guess. I'm sure DVD creation shouldn't be this painful. I bet if I ran Windows I could point and drool my way to a DVD with the software Sony supply with the camcorder. All I wanted was a basic menu with a background picture and some video attached to the menu options. I'm pondering doing a version with a picture gallery as well, but can I be bothered with the hassle?