June 1, 2008

There were 3 posts published on June 1, 2008 (this is page 1 of 1).

The Pentagon’s ray gun

60 Minutes featured a new nonlethal weapon the Pentagon is testing. Dubbed the “Ray Gun,” it transmits a painful beam of microwave energy to disperse crowds. The 60 Minutes reporter said it felt like being put in scalding water.

While I’m all for nonlethal weapons, I take offense at how they demonstrated it. A group of soldiers playing the role of “peaceful” protesters (complete with “world peace” signs), began attacking uniformed soldiers – only to be cooked by the Ray Gun.

Hey, guys? You’re U.S. soldiers. Your enemy isn’t your peace-loving fellow Americans, its the terrorists of the world. How about suiting up as North Koreans? Or Hamas militants? Or Somali pirate gunboats? How about something a bit closer to the real threats you face?

To show this weapon being used against peace activists shows how low our military has sunk in its original mission to support and defend our Constitution. As a veteran I am ashamed and insulted.

in Rant | 158 Words

Interfacing MythTV and Google Calendar

As you know, I’ve been tinkering with MythTV. I also have an interest in the Raleigh community television station: the Raleigh Television Network. SchedulesDirect, the program listings part of MythTV, does not carry the schedules for the community television channels.

Fortunately, I found today that RTN makes their schedules available through a Google Calendar (and an ICS link). Now the challenge is to figure out a good way to interface this calendar to MythTV so I can begin scheduling RTN programs just like they were on commercial channels. Since I have a working knowledge of the iCal scheduling format, I don’t think it will be too hard to parse out the elements. Its mainly a matter of seeing how Myth handles its schedules and making the data fit.