libdvdcss bug that is totally undocumented

Summary: libdvdcss will happily keep using settings created for different hardware and fail silently after the user has upgraded to a new system with a different dvd drive.

Steps to Reproduce:

1. play dvds with laptop A
2. upgrade to a new thinkpad!!! with a new dvd drive!!!
3. try to play dvds

Expected results:
1. dvdcss tries and fails to use the old drive code, so it tries to figure out a new one just in case
2. dvd plays

Actual results:
1. motherfucking read errors for two hours, with the only error message being “maybe libdvdcss is not installed?”
2. searching google for firmware updates, css hacks, newer versions of libraries, etc
3. finding nothing.
4. finally running ogle –debug, and seeing it accessing a ~/.dvdcss library
5. deleting the motherfucker
6. everything works now.

jesus christ that sucked.

Announcing PenguinTV

I have made my first release of a project ever, called PenguinTV. It’s an RSS feed reader that supports enclosed media, which means you can download podcasts and video blogs with it. I’m a little worried that there’s going to be tons of problems when other people start using it, but it works well enough for me that I’m letting it out into the wild. I can’t wait for my first flame!

annoying words

“vlog” is the most annoying word since “blog.” When “weblog” was shortened, it wasn’t called “wlog.” So shouldn’t “video blog” be shortened to “olog?” Or maybe “deolog?” Is any of these any less ridiculous than “vlog?”

poker!

Jeff and Joe and I played a little poker yesterday. 5$ buy-in, nickel and dime blinds — nothing big. Toward the end I wasn’t doing so well, but then I caught a dumb-luck three twos after going all-in with T2o (badly trying to bluff a weak pot). I was doing better after a little while of heads-up with Joe, and it was starting to get late.

On what would be the last hand of the night, I said something about having caught my “lucking fuckin’ twos” — without which I would have been out of the game. Then I looked down at my cards: pair of twos. Omens don’t come stronger that that.

“All-in,” I said.

“Call,” he said.

Joe turned over a pair of threes. At this point, I lose unless I get a two. Jeff starts dealing the flop, and the very first card is a 2. Gasps all around. Jeff’s hand freezes, not believing I caught another lucky break. He deals the rest of the cards, 5,6 and then a 7. At this point Joe needs a 3 or a 4 to win. Jeff and Joe groan at my improbable luck.

And he gets his lucky fuckin’ 3 on the river. I ended up with 3 bucks out of my 5$ buy-in, so I give Joe his well-earned two dollars.

Hold ’em is a great game. Lots of psychology, lots of drama. We only played for a couple hours, and there were numerous hands with amazing turnarounds and stupendous pots. I have to say, it makes a huge difference when you’re betting real money, even just five bucks. The tendency to just throw money around and then demand more chips from the bank goes away (unless you want to rebuy!). I don’t plan to play for money regularly, I’m not the gambling type. But it’s still a fun game.

Trimming down Azureus

I just figured out if you right click on an item in Azureus and select “column setup” you can turn off all of the useless junk columns it displays in the main window. By default it displays so much information that the program takes up most of the width of my screen. It’s still a cluttered program, but now it only takes up a quarter of the screen. Azureus is the most option-happy program I’ve used in a long time, and it’s annoying to have to basically simplify their interface for them. But at least it’s possible.

Beating the Heat

Mike MacHenry invited us to his house in Wakefield the other weekend, because his parents have a pool. We did spend time in the pool, but you wouldn’t know it from these photos. We also hung out at a park on what I think was Lake Quannapowitt.

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Serra and Jeff in the other car on the way there

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A bunch of fools on the way to playing frisbee!

at the park, we discovered that Jeff has been keeping a hidden talent from us

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My he’s going awfully high

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uh oh!

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head trauma here we come!

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But he sticks the landing!

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Chillin’ cause it’s damn hot are: Joe, Jeff, Mike, Char, Serra

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Mike and Char are very silly people

Grab Bag for June ’05

look! photos!

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Char in Kendall Square

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Fanueil Hall on a warm day

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Char at a restaurant

Char and I went to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. They have this awesome chinese house there that was brought over plank by plank from a rural part of China, but they didn’t allow photos there. Bastards.

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Char at Peabody Essex Museum. Lots of Char in this update!

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On the train

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Look, someone who’s not Char. Peter being helped putting on a tie.

distro choices

Miguel says:

Mark Shuttleworth announced today at his keynote in Guadec that Mono had been integrated into Ubuntu.

I don’t like the networking setup in Ubuntu right now, but I like having integrated mono more.

a big switch

Moved to ubuntu yesterday. After installing and rsyncing my home directory, most of everything was working. Various tweaks were needed to restore things like some font configuration, and I needed to figure out sources.list and install a ton of packages for non-free things, but in general the install was as smooth as I could want. (Not as smooth as that damned macintosh “just hook up this firewire!” mojo which is so beautiful, but we can’t have everything).

First off, I noticed I now have 9 gigs free instead of 4. I thought that after 4 years (my install was 2001-era, upgraded continuously) I’d have more cruft than that, but redhat upgrades are pretty good quality. The other thing I noticed that does not reflect so well on my old system is how blazing fast my machine is now. I have a feeling there were a lot of crappy libraries littered about, and with them gone (and a much cleaner /usr/bin) operations that should be fast now are. Specifically the Run dialog doesn’t take 20 seconds to cache whatever it is that it cached on my old system. Lastly, synaptic and apt put yum to shame. It’s true. Peter says I’ll learn to hate weird questions upon upgrades, but I’ve only gotten one so far (“SMB: would you like to use WINS for DNS?” uh… no?). Ubuntu should really be called Und: Ubuntu is not debian. There is still some annoying separation between free and non-free which only serves as a barrier to installing software that everyone will want to use, but on the plus side I know they will actually commit to and make releases.

Right now the only things I miss about fedora are NetworkManager (the one for ubuntu crashes) and the system-config-* tree. I’m still having trouble figuring out how to configure certain things.

ok enough rambling. (I hearby announce this blog to be an “installfapper” blog).

ps: got netapplet working. yay!

Laptop fan maintenance

If you notice that your laptop fan sounds really loud, or even worse, if the laptop is baking hot and the fans aren’t running at all, try blowing in the exhaust vent and see what comes out on the fan side. Your laptop could have a giant hairball: