So I decided to join the world of PVR owners. I got some kit, did a mountain of Googling and then started to install and put things together. Things initially went well. I was aiming for a MythTV on Gentoo with free to air initally and then adding Foxtel later. Gentoo install is, as always, fairly smooth. A few little annoying problems – Portage version messes and the like. Why it can’t be like ports I have no idea. Ports compiles JUST WORK. But I got it up and running. Then the tuner cards. That’s when shit started to go pear-shaped. First tuner card – Linux drivers are for an older chipset – no new drivers. So that card – dead. Other card – works but only one tuner (the USB based one) – other tuner? Who knows why – I dmesg’ed and google errors and tried driver after driver after modules etc etc etc. Finally, I decide ‘fuck it’ I’ll get it going with one tuner and come back. Does MythTV want to use that one working tuner? Oh no. It doesn’t. After some considerable mucking around I also went ‘fuck it’.

So Plan B was enacted. Plan B totally betrays my open source roots but I figured it was worth a try. So I installed Microsoft Media Center. And you know what? It fucking worked first time. A little fiddling, considerably less though than MythTV, and it all worked. Guide, tuners, recording … everything. All worked first time.

I have been building a PVR. As a result I have been in new toy mode. I will post soon. Really.

What a surprise. The GG disallowed the ACT’s civil union laws. I am sure he had a logical, rational and highly legal reason for doing so. It would be nothing to do with the fact he’s a fundamentalist Christian. That sort of mixing of Church and State would just be wrong. Who’d impose their personal religious and moral views on people because they are an elected or appointed official?

Johnny! See -> Gay marriage ban fails to pass US Senate. Even the Americans can’t get this passed. And you know why? Because it’s DISCRIMINATORY! Idiot.

Those crazy guys over at NetBSD have removed Sendmail from the core. I had a chat with the NetBSD security officer on the issue. Interesting. The MTA remaining in core will be Postfix (of which I am a big fan). I think it’s an excellent decision. I actually don’t think it goes far enough though – why have an MTA in the core at all? Most hosts simply don’t need the full capaibilities of an SMTP daemon. They simply need to send mail. So use a cut-down binary that does just that and make all the MTAs available as packages.

My cousin Emily died on the weekend. She was 22 years old and her death was after an 8 year battle with cancer. She was a damn tough kid – strong, funny, beautiful. Yesterday was her funeral. Depressing beyond words.

The world is a wide and varied place. The Hutterites are allowed to have photo-less ID papers because the images contravene one of the Commandments – the one about graven images. Must keep this idea in mind and become a Hutterite if Australia introduces an ID card.