Satellite Myth

Last night I took another hack at getting MythTV working with my DVB card. This time I was much more successful! The key was configuring Myth to use the LNB, which was hidden in the mythtv-setup under “capture cards-DiSEqC options. An LNB is not a DiSEqC, so I would’ve never thought to look there, but there it was.
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Shuttle pass

According to this space shuttle tracking site, the space shuttle and ISS will be passing over NC at 60 degrees elevation at 19:36 local time. It may not be dark enough for a sighting but it may be in range to receive radio signals. Cool.

I just watched the shuttle crew enter the ISS, with the familiar nautical ringing the bell and the words “space shuttle discovering, arriving.”

Rocket Roll

Rocket Roll (YouTube)
The Phenomenauts

Spent some time on Rigel 9,
Walkin’ waist deep in the Rigel slime,
Slid fifty feet into a Rigel hole,
Bent my fender but I still know how to

Rocket Roll
–(Rocket Roll!)
Rocket Roll!
–(Rocket Roll!)
Rocket Roll.
–(Rocket Roll)

Some of you people may be out of control,
But I wanna see the rest of you Rocket Roll!
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Mystery spot

poole-road-mystery-spot
Anyone know what this is? It’s a spot between Poole Road and New Bern Avenue.

It looks like a remnant of some now-defunct factory or something.

Rain doubt

Could it be that the non-stop rain of the past four days is coming to an end? One can only hope. I’m ready for the sun!

Chinese athletes lied about age

This is just shocking, I tell you. Shocking! Who would’ve thought it?

Bone tests on teenage Chinese athletes have shown that thousands had faked their age, often in order to keep competing in junior events.

A study in the southern province of Guangdong found one in five had lied, with some discovered to be seven years older than their registered age.

On another note, maybe I need to have a “China” category on MT.Net.

Signals from space

Yesterday’s space shuttle launch finally motivated me to dust off my DVB-S card and set up satellite reception in our new home. I’d put it off for almost a year, thinking the tree cover in our back yard was too extensive to find a good shot at the sky. It turns out I discovered a very nice spot right on our back deck, so Travis and I spent a little time building a temporary stand for a dish, aiming it, and threading the cable back into our network closet. After a few duh moments where I shook off the cobwebs covering my knowledge of DVB-S, I got reception of the NASA channel – only three hours after the shuttle launched! Better late than never.

Even so, I wasn’t able to get Myth to pull down video for some reason. The dvb-utils applications can tune (and capture) the streams just fine, but Myth just shows a blank screen – even though it can tune the channel and see a signal from the transponder. I don’t know what else I can tinker with to get Myth working with it but I’ll keep hacking at it.

Greener by the minute

The total lack of sunshine this weekend has made things look darker than they usually do, but I swear this non-stop rain is doing more than that. I swear I can practically see the leaves popping out on the trees and bushes. I think last week’s warm spell coupled with this rain is waking nature from its long winter slumber.