Ax0n's Den

PS3

Ax0n — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:37:49 +0000

So after my Sharp Bluray player died, i’ve decided to break down and just get a PS3. I already have a HTPC, so it took a bit to rationalize getting one, but I’ve finally decided.

It’s suppose to arrive tomorrow: http://bit.ly/13UxpU

Aside from Folding@Home and Bluray playback, what is there to do with the PS3? I have a 360 for games, and a HTPC for video/audio playback. It’s going to get Linux on it because I put Linux on everything. What else?

2nd Street Bar and Grill

Ax0n — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:21:44 +0000

So I went out with some friends Friday night, and who do I run into? Tito Ortiz AND my 7th grade biology teacher.

The world is too small, and Yakima is even smaller.

Test Post

Ax0n — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:32:52 +0000

Test post to check linkedin.com and morcant.net goodness.

Clock: inserting leap second 23:59:60 UTC

Ax0n — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 06:39:37 +0000

Yay!

Dishwasher Repair

Ax0n — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 11:40:43 +0000

So about a week ago, my dishwasher decided that it was no longer going to drain. This was a minor inconvience at the time, as it still washed dishes… it just didn’t drain. It turns out that you can only do a few loads before to water is no longer fit to drain into the public sewer system, let alone come in contact with your dishes.

Google told me that the most likely problem was the piston and nut assembly. Upon inspecting it, the washer/gaskey on the piston was severely worn. For around $15+shipping I could get a whole new assembly. But I didn’t need a new assembly… just the washer.

So I called my local dishwasher repair dudes. They also would not sell me a single washer thinggie, but wanted a completely new piston and nut assembly… for $30.

I went to Lowes hoping that maybe they sold some sort of generic thinggie that might work. The high school kid there told me they didn’t sell appliance parts and that I should contact an appliance repair person.

After wandering a bit, I found myself in the plumbing section. I was eyeing the faucet gaskgets. The 1/2L gasket looked like an awfully close fit.

I pulled out my pocket knife in the middle of the store and cut the old gasket off the piston and nut assembly. I then cracked open the package for the new gasket. After a little bit of gental massaging, it fit almost perfectly. It is slightly larger in diamater than the old gasket and thusly wont let the piston fully compress. For less than a dollar I was willing to give it a shot.

I took it home, put all my screens and filters back in and ran an empty cycle. Within minutes I could hear the machine draining.

If you have the same problem, don’t spend $20+ on a complete new assembly. Go to your local hardware store and get a faucet washer/gasket.. 1/2L for less than a $1 and spend the rest on some beer and kick back and relax!

FOX ATSC

Ax0n — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:27:57 +0000

So I emailed our local fox station, after find out that we only have a low power repeater here in Yakima, and that LP repeaters are not governed by the same set of regulations regarding implementation by Feb ‘09 that the full power stations are. Here is his response for those in Yakima whom are interested:

From: Lonnie Eaton
To: Morgan Collins
Subject: RE: Digital Conversion
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 2008 18:57:04 -0700

Hello; our company is going ahead with our digital conversion, even though we are not held to the Feb ’09 deadline; our engineering department says we will be digital and HD before the end of this year; I’m trying to hold them to their word!! The sooner the better, so we can at least see the college bowl games, NFL post-season and the start of NASCAR in all their digital/HD glory!

Thanks for watching;

Lonnie Eaton

Station Manager

509-574-4141

EDIT: According to this post on Fox’s website, they will be converting the KCYU-LP transmitter to digital the week of Dec 15th.

EDIT: As of Dec 15th, KCYU is now being broadcast digitally!

Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid

Ax0n — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 06:09:13 +0000

So, after reading a post about NTSC tuner support in 2.6.26 I decided to upgrade my HTPC to Ubuntu 8.10 which is the development release of Ubuntu. So, after a seamingly smooth upgrade, I found out that Ubuntu 8.10 comes with 2.6.27 not 2.6.26… even better.

Nvidia drivers have previously required kernel headers, but not source. The new DKMS build system tells me that they now require source. I should have known better and not listened to it, but I spent I dunno how long trying to get a compiled kernel source tree to match my running system. After complaints about not being able to run under Xen, and misaligned struct_module and various other issues, I realised that I needed to apt-get install kernel-headers-2.6.27-2-generic, not kernel-headers-2.6.27-2. This is very important. Without the -generic bit, you don’t get a configured header tree, just a stock one. After realising this, I have had no problems with the development release. Everything works at lease as good as it did before, or better. The new X+nvidia drivers are WAY FASTER than on 8.04. My ATSC tuner is at least recognised now, but still isn’t really working.

Google Earth Satellites

Ax0n — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 18:35:10 +0000

So I have always been fascinated by satellites. So when I wokeup this morning, and was glancing at Slashdot while eating breakfast I was really excited to see an article about Every Satellite Tracked In Realtime Via Google Earth.

It took me a bit to figure out how to turn off all the Debris and Spacejunk, and track down my favorite multimedia satellites. All I can say is… bad… fucking… ass…

Dell Studio 1735

Ax0n — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:01:30 +0000

So my laptop has finally kicked the bucket. Wont power up, wont anything. Because I haven’t been updating my blog, you wouldn’t know that is lacks any internal fans. You also wouldn’t know that the battery wont charge and the power brick has an after market capacitor in it, because it blew up a while back. Oh and did I mention that it like to turn off randomly by itself?

In anycase, I have decided that it’s time for a new one. My choice? The Dell Studio 17″.

Intel Core 2 Duo T8100, 2.1GHz, 800Mhz, 3M L2 Cache
3GB DDR2 RAM
17.0″ WLED 1920×1200 Display
ATI MOBILITY RADEON HD 3650
250G 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive
8X Slot Load Burner
Dell Wireless 1397 802.11g Half Mini Card
Integrated High Definition Audio 2.0
Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam
56 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Dell Wireless 370 Bluetooth Module (2.0)
Dell Wireless 5720 EV-DO Revision A

They are telling me that it’s going to be 3 weeks before it gets here. A co-worker of mine just ordered a laptop from Dell a month back, and they told him like 3 weeks too but it only took a week to show up on his doorstep, so I am hoping the same happens for me.

I am concerned about driver support in Linux. From what I can tell, the video card looks to be supported by the proprietary ATI(AMD) drivers. The last time I used an ATI card in linux was back before ATI was releasing drivers and the FOSS drivers were not mature.

There isn’t much information on the chipset for the wireless card or sound card. I am guessing the soundcard is supported by the Intel HD Audio driver for Linux. The wireless card will be some sort of Broadcom black box. Hopefully the b43 driver will work.

The internal bluetooth and EV-DO radio are less pressing. I have a USB dongle I can use until I get the internal one working. From what I have read about the EV-DO Radios, they are basically a chuck of programmable ROM and a radio. You have to flash the ROM in Windows for your carrier, and then you connect to it like a dumb modem. Since I don’t even have a plan right now, I’m not concerned about it.

Coat Hanger UHF Antenna

Ax0n — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:14:57 +0000

So I have decided to add an ATSC tuner to my HTPC machine. My choice, the WinTV 1800. I have a few extra PCIe slots and aside from USB devices, this appears to be the only other device supported. In fact, it appears to be the only PCIe device supported. Only the ATSC tuner is supported at this point, though it looks like people are working on the analog tuner, which drives the Svideo in and the FM tuner as well.

So my device arrived and I realised that my rabbit ear antenna probably isn’t going to be work well. After a few scans with dvbscan, I am actually picking up everything except KIMA and FOX, according to antennaweb. Fox apparently isn’t broadcasting on ATSC yet ;/

A quick google search for HDTV antenna tells me not to waste my money on expensive internal antennas, that I should either get a good external UHF antenna or build one myself for cheap.

I looked locally for a DB4 or DB2 external antenna. I have an extra coax run from my roof, so this would have been idea. However, no one in town sells them apparently.

On to option B i guess. So I find two sites that describe how to build a custom DB2 antenna. The first describes how to make it out of coat hangers for less than $10. Upon reading, I already have everything needed except the matching transformer and spare metal coat hangers. In the comments, people talk about using romex… now that is something I have spare of. The second site describes pretty much the same design, only the demensions are a little off.. 7″ instead of 5 3/4″ between Vs and it’s build using a 2×4″ instead of a 2×1″, but is ment to include a deflector and a rotor.

Ultimately, I wind up using a spare piece of 3×1″ with 5 3/4″ spacing and romex. I got the matching transformer from Radio Shack, because I was sure they would have it. However it was $6! I found out later they have them at Bimart for $1.30.

After rescanning, I am now getting KIMA and much better signal on all the other transponders.

I’ll upload pictures when I get a chance.