The joyful shoveler

Kelly’s letter about a highlight of Saturday’s Christmas parade got printed in today’s N&O:

There were lots of highlights to Raleigh’s Christmas parade Nov. 22, but for me the best part came early — and from an unexpected quarter. Behind each group of horseback riders walked someone responsible for cleaning up after the horses. Following Raleigh’s mounted police officers was their clean-up crew — a man in an orange safety vest carrying an enormous shovel. He marched all morning, in front of thousands of people, to clean up horse poop.

This gentleman made the most of his morning. He hammed it up. He played to the crowd. His shovel became a microphone, a guitar, a dance partner. He took an unpleasant job and turned it into a stage from which to entertain thousands.
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Daylight again

Amazing what a good night of sleep can do for you. I fell asleep before 9:30 last night and woke up feeling much better. I think I’ve turned a corner on this head cold.

Now if I could only get some callbacks for these jobs to which I’ve applied everything would be good.

Sapped

I am really beat tonight. Could be too much geeking out last night, lack of good sleep, or anything else. I’ve had this chest cold thing going since the weather changed (which was about the time I got laid off, coincidence or not) and its been dragging me down today.

I think my best plan tonight is to spend the rest of my waking hour(s) in bed with a book.

Clever Craigslist job posting

I was about to flag this job posting on Craigslist when instead I gave it a second look. A puzzle! Can you figure it out?

01101100 00110011 [&&] M3Q= [&&] 103 108 111 [&&] 62 61
Reply to: job-928714601@craigslist.org [?]
Date: 2008-11-21, 3:52PM EST

Ideal candidate for job will determine how to apply for the position.

* Compensation: TBD, as you might guess from the above!
* Telecommuting is ok.
* This is a contract job.
* Principals only. Recruiters, please don’t contact this job poster.
* Please, no phone calls about this job!
* Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID: 928714601

Hint: it is in the “Software Jobs” category (duh). And, no, I haven’t a clue what it says!

Update: Here’s some chitchat on LinkedIn from folks who’ve given it a try. Apparently a few have cracked the code, too.

(Judging by the LinkedIn post, the Craigslist ad has a typo in it.)

Mythstery solved

I posted my last entry meaning it to be the last thing I did yesterday before bed. Of course I couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I continued to tinker with Myth.

It turns out the OS X clients were definitely buggy and needed upgrading, as I posted before. However I never did get a good recording going, especially with the HD channels. There’s just too much data to be moved with a 1080i stereo datastream.
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Partial success with digital MythTV

Looks like I’m getting closer to getting my MythTV box working with ATSC/QAM digital television.

MythTV is a two-part system: the backend (the server) and the frontend (the client). Both are needed to carry the TV pictures from the ether to your eyeballs. When I fired up my Ubuntu MythTV frontend (as opposed to the OS X clients I’d previously been using), I was happy to see video! Upgrading the OS X Myth frontends also provided me the desired digital video. Progress!

However, the Myth backend is still not recording the programs. Instead it creates infuriating zero-length files and displays the show as recorded in the UI. Only when you click on the show do you get told the file doesn’t exist. Its handled very, very sloppily.

The other issue coming up is apparently the slow hardware I’m using for my backend server. A 1 GHz Athlon on a 7 year old motherboard just isn’t cutting it. The video is still throwing junk on occasion and freezing up other times. I know it isn’t the networking as I get the same results whether on a 100Mbps wired connection or a 54 Mbps wireless one.

Its obvious I need to put some more horsepower on the server end, including perhaps upgrading the drives, so that I can get this thing working the way I want it working.

Desk topped

I’m so glad to be back to using Ubuntu Linux for my primary desktop. Most people would consider it a step down to go to a Linux machine from a Mac OS X one, but not me. I was a bit surprised to find myself longing for the freedom of free software.

While GNOME and Ubuntu aren’t perfect, they do suit me.

Mythnomer

A diabolical plan was hatched at MT.Net. A mutiny, really. The rest of the family has been scheming behind my back to force me to fix the broken MythTV server.

Their plan of attack? The daily watching of The Wiggles DVD – and the only one we have – over and over and over. I find no redeeming value whatsoever in The Wiggles. None. Well, they do have some mighty colorful shirts, but that’s it.
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