Pointless Ramblings

The new Team Canada: Calgary Flames

Fri, 04 Jun 2004 04:01:05 GMT

Call them "Team Canada" or "Cinderella" (the C's have to be written like the logo), the Calgary Flames are one win away from hoisting Lord Stanley's cup. They return home on Saturday to possibly clench the cup in the Sea of Red (19,000+ packed into the Pengrowth Saddledome). The city will be a buzz no doubt, whether they win or lose. The story is quite amazing; fledgling gritty team with a $26 Million USD payroll and heart to replace talent. The Flames have knocked off the 3rd, 1st and 2nd seed in the West, Vancouver, Detroit and San Jose respectively. Now, the improbable will come true if they can knock off the first in the East as well, Tampa. The one constant for the Flames has been their Captain, Jarome Iginla. He has shown clearly why he was the Hart Trophy Winner from a few years back and I truly wish he wins the Conn Smythe (I'm betting that if Calgary wins it, it'll be a tie between Jiggy and Miika Kiprussoff). The downside of this story is the lack of coverage in the States. Sports writers are vicious there and worse than stock traders at identifying who's going to be hot or not. They generally dislike hockey to begin with, rather preferring the bore that is baseball. They aren't appeased unless it is Detroit/Colorado vs New York in the finals. The epitomy of their profession seems to be those two old men on Pardon The Interruption. Maybe it's related to the possiblity that Calgary might win. Hyping a Tampa Bay team that may not win it all, would be bruise to the American ego. A Tampa loss in the finals can easily be covered as a flash in the pan (Florida in 95 and Washington in 98?). Whatever the case, Canada is watching the Flames and it's never quite too late to jump on the bandwagon. Of course, the easiest time to jump on the bandwagon is when it's stopped trying to cross 17th Avenue during a Flame Cup parade.

Speaking of Revolutions...

Mon, 31 May 2004 06:42:11 GMT

Whatever happened to the information revolution? The internet was hyped ("It's on computers now") as a fountain of free textual information - the digital Guttenberg. Ironically, it has been closed formats like Adobe's PDF that are making this dream a reality. Sites like The Assayer are few and far apart. Know of any other good sources? I would love to get ACM membership again (my "permanent" U of T CS account expired).

The New Age of TV

Mon, 31 May 2004 04:12:57 GMT

What I've realized over the last few months is that the American/Canadian TV landscape has changed. Reality TV shows and long running series are at an end and very few contenders to go even 5 years have showed up. Shows that I would have been interested in watching have been pulled (Undeclared/Undergrads) or screwed over by Studio Execs (Futurama/Family Guy). I used to watch a lot of TV, but only in the last few years have I removed myself from the bondage of watching it on dictated times. Two years ago, I used to religiously use my ATI AiW to tape shows digitally and watch them. But recently, even that hasn't been enough. I've been underexposed to good shows because they don't air here (Sopranos) or don't air simultaneously as the US (Smallville). The last half season, I have watched TV shows at my leisure by downloading them (Torrents/MiRC). The shackles of timeslots and staggered scheduling across the border have been broken! This is why I really wish to write a small plugin for MyHTPC to allow Torrents of TV shows to be downloaded from the onscreen menu. After reviewing MyHTPC's plugin structure, one would think this is not the place to create such a plugin, but the medium requires it and should be worth the struggle. It's very unfortunate that MyHTPC's plugin module is so weak. Apparently, the next software from the creators will be a redesigned Media Center called Meedio (or maybe that's their company name) and will feature much better plugin support.

I figure my plugin would do the following:
-Download the last two days of "TV Shows" from suprnova.org and a few other sites
-Display the downloaded list and have the ability to choose a torrent to download
-An application will run simultaneously as MyHTPC and will allow download torrents handed to it and then download the files associated with the Torrent
-Display all current downloads and their completion percentage
-Stop/Pause/Delete a Torrent file and it's corresponding media
-Configuration will set a maximum download message
-Regular Expressions/Wildcard Matching can be added to highlight torrents from the downloaded list or automatically download if they match (ex. Sopranos*.avi)

The specification above should be consistent with the Audio playback User Interface.

I'm not starting today... nor do I know when, but I guess a little after I finish setting up MyHTPC the way I want (MAME included). It hasn't been as easy as I thought it would be unfortunately. The forums are a mish-mash of repetition and filled with other confused users. The odd part was that Audio playback and Video playback doesn't even work "out of the box" - you have to load and configure a plugin.

Family Meetings - Weddings

Sat, 29 May 2004 03:35:28 GMT

Today was the focal point of relatives dripping into my house. They had come from the UK, and NY for my cousin Sumathi's wedding (Vedic Hindu style). Four hundred plus relatives all met in a large banquet hall in upper Scarborough and all I was thinking was "I hope I'm not related to both members of a married couple"... a fear you get when you come from a very small island which has a population of 18 million. My fears were rested when I realized that part of the ceremony requires the priest to recite the names of the last 3 generations of paternals (and their life residence) on both sides. I guess it was our cultures own way to keep a check and balance on that.

My worst problem at these functions/get-togethers is identifying relatives. I either forget names or how someone is related to me but then again it isn't like we average 2 kids to each family (more like 5-6 for previous generations). I still insist these parties would be more enjoyable if everyone wore a name tag. Better yet, if everyone had a RFID tag and submitted their parents names and their kids name (or 2 generations up and down), someone could write simple software to take all that and auto-generate a family tree. The family tree could then be consulted to identify how any two individuals are related and visualized. Attach photos and bios and you are done.

Laptop Impressions

Fri, 28 May 2004 18:16:49 GMT

Sony Vaio PCG-GRZ530 Laptop

Pro:
-Sleek (just over 1.5" tall)
-Sturdy build (metallic like frame)
-Lotsa memory (512 MB)
-Nice screen (15")
-Fast (2.4 GHz)
-ATI 7500
-the vent on the right blows cold air

Con:
-no wifi
-no DVD burner (only a CD+RW/DVD)
-overheats a bit (Pentium 4 2.4GHz not P4-M)
-dust gets into it after a year so it starts shutting down when it overheats
-the vent on the back blows hot air

First Post

Fri, 28 May 2004 05:13:30 GMT

Couldn't resist the subject title; years of Slashdot training i guess. Petrovski got me onto LiveJournal so let's see how long it lasts.

My new laptop came today. It's the first time I've had a new laptop. There was much excitement when I got to rip open the 2.5'x2.5'x2' Staples delivery box, only to reveal a smaller box inside. The box was marked Sony and as such resulted in anticipatory reaction. Within the Sony box was my newest toy: a P4-2.4GHz, 15" LCD, 30 GB HDD, 512 MB RAM, ATI 7500, 7.5 pound beast; the PCG-GRZ530. Playing around with it, I've noticed these new machines ship with tonnes of applications and demo's. I guess it's supposed to be "value-added" software. Initial impressions about the laptop are good. The battery life is somewhere in the 2 hour range with various activities, though I'm sure playing a DVD for 2 hours would kill it. The LCD Screen is sharp and bright. My initial thoughts are to use the laptop for coding wherever I may be and wirelessly in the house, but "dock" it next to the TV and attach it using the A/V Out Jack (not supplied by Sony) to the composite in's on the 27" Wega. I have a Remote Wonder 2 kicking around and I could attach it to the laptop. This setup begs to run MyHTPC and I will oblige. MyHTPC is missing a component that I would like: streamable media from my server (or even my desktop machines). I believe there is a plugin SDK for the application so I might try my hand at writing a bridge that would retrieve a file remotely (Windows Share or FTP) and then allow for viewing. The retrieved file would be deleted the next time a file is requested through the bridge (thereby maintaining only a small cache).