| Wow. After upgrading my music server to F12, I spent 1.5 days fighting with PulseAudio just so mpd could play music again. Symptoms: when logged in to X, the local user could play audio just fine, but mpd output was never audible. I was going to do some serious configuration surgery before I stumbled across the answer.
Ultimately the solution was simple. Add mpd to the audio group: usermod -G audio mpd
You can tell if this is your problem by running aplay -l. If it ordinarily lists your card, but says "no soundcards found..." when you run it as the mpd user, this is probably your issue.
( complete logs for people Googling ) | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment   |
| | electronica : hackers :: Eye of the Tiger : athletes | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I just want to give a shout-out to DD-WRT, which is alternate firmware you can install on your home router.
I wanted to avoid putting our TiVo on our wireless network because it would get poor reception in the basement. Our cable modem is also in the basement, but was plugged directly in to the wireless router, so nowhere to plug in the TiVo. I also had a wired-only broadband router to work with, but I wanted just one network, so the TiVo could access wireless IPs and vice versa.
Solution: change DD-WRT's network mode from Gateway to Router (Setup -> Advanced Routing), and plug the wired router into a LAN (not WAN) port on the wireless. Now it's all one subnet, and traffic can flow unobstructed from both sides of the wireless router.
This probably would have been impossible with normal unmodified home routers, but DD-WRT let me piece this all together without needing to run any more cable, so I'm pretty thrilled about that. :)
cable --- wired --- wireless - - - laptop
| \
TiVo - - laptop
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| I discovered to my delight that it's actually really easy to get my laptop on the Internet via my cell phone. I've done it with a USB cable and via Bluetooth, and it's made my life more enjoyable recently.
Cell phones are actually modems, and they respond to normal modem commands. So to connect, I just plug in my phone to my laptop with the USB cable, then configure /dev/ttyACM0 as a modem (PPP connection). The only trick is to use *99# as the magic number to dial. That's all; it just works.
Bluetooth can be a little more tricky to associate your computer with your phone, but after that you can do the exact same thing with /dev/rfcomm0.
(With Windows I think you can install a driver from the phone maker to do the same thing.)
Now, it's not the best thing ever... I only get sustained speeds of 5-6 KBps. In addition to the amount of data to transfer, loading webpages is really slow, because loading a web page these days involves looking up and contacting a dozen different servers. Each of those lookups can take seconds, and that's pretty slow. But it's great for checking email, IM, and emergency web browsing.
I've used this to great effect at ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=88.8) gemini621's house, since we've not found a reliable open wireless network to borrow. I also used it the other day sitting in the AT&T store for an hour and half. Pretty cool, and surprisingly easy.
Edited to add:
Two more points:
- I have an unlimited data plan for my phone, which is what this scheme uses.
- My phone is $0 with contract from AT&T.
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| I've heard that gas mileage significantly drops off somewhere around 55mph. I guess it depends on your car, too. Anyways, as an experiment, I started driving 60mph instead of 70pmh on the highways. Having finished off most of a tank this way, I measured 34.2 miles per gallon. I don't remember exactly what my old around-town mpg was, but I believe it was between 30 and 31 mpg.
(In a habit I picked up from lazerchik, I zero my odometer whenever I fill my tank. The next time I fill up, I can divide that mileage by the number of gallons it took to fill up again, and calculate miles per gallon.)
I try to drive efficiently anyways (e.g. coasting to avoid stop/start at traffic lights). On the other hand, one of my tires has a small leak, so I'm afraid my tires were not well-inflated the whole time... ;)
Of course, this is just me driving my (2007) Corolla. Your mileage may vary. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| I spoke at the MontaVista VISION conference last year. Since then, I have received a lot of spam from many of the sponsors and exhibitors. I actually spoke with a couple of the offending parties and they confirmed that they had gotten my contact information from MontaVista. This culminated yesterday when I received mail at my home address inviting me to the ARM Developer's Conference 2008. I've never had any dealings with ARM, so I believe that once again I have MontaVista to thank.
Other technical conferences treat their speakers differently. I presented at linux.conf.au 2006, and they showered their presenters with trinkets, a nice dinner, and ultimately a short helicopter ride over New Zealand. I'll be presenting at Linux Plumbers Conference next month, and they also have a speakers dinner.
I guess this is the difference between community-organized events and those run by companies who can resell your information as "business leads." | | comments: Leave a comment |
| The rising cost of texting
The price of text messages has always irritated me, especially since we all know that a text consumes way less bandwidth than a minute of voice, but voice costs a fraction of text (even if you didn't already have a plan with lots of minutes). I now have a data plan that includes 200 text messages a month, but only because it came with AT&T's unlimited data plan.
Really, I think the per-text pricing we're seeing must be an attempt to force consumers into monthly plans. I guess businesses like predictable monthly income, and text usage could be very sporadic. I suppose this is the exact same reason that we have fixed number-of-minutes plans with voice too, instead of pay-per-minute. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| There was a recent NPR piece on ultimate frisbee. Since that's one of the few sports I actually enjoy playing, naturally I found it interesting...
For starters, they claim it's a geek sport. I'm not really in a position to judge; I've only played it in Austin, Austin is tech-heavy, and my social circle (including ultimate players) is mostly tech people. When I played in a city league for a couple seasons though, I met some of the UT ultimate players, and let me assure you: these guys are not geeks. Hard core. Of course, Carnegie Mellon has an awesome ultimate team (I found out years after graduating), and any sport that CMU excels at has to raise some questions.
But if that's true, why? The NPR piece claims the self-refereeing part appeals to geeks "liberatarian" sensibilities, and I call B.S. on that. Maybe it's just that jocks have all the other sports, and geeks would just rather not compete on those fields? | | comments: 3 comments or Leave a comment |
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