... the new expatriate regime (Exit Tax Provision) requires expatriates to recognise gain on their assets, and imposes a new tax on gifts and bequests by expatriates to Americans, This new provision (styled Section 877A) is an addition to (and not a replacement of) the current expatriation tax rules of Section 877. Under the Exit Tax Provision, certain individuals who renounce their U.S. citizenship or U.S. long-term residents who relinquish their U.S. residence status (collectively covered expatriates) must recognise gain, or otherwise be taxed, on all their assets on the date they expatriate. In addition, gifts or bequests they make to U.S. citizens or residents after expatriation will be subject to tax at onerous estate/gift tax rates.

Tags for this post: travel() usa()

• The PCI 802.11g wireless card didn't work. In fact, the machine wouldn't boot with it installed. I suspect this was a PCI version problem, as I have had pain with this card in the past.
• The PCI 802.11b wireless card I tried next wasn't much better. The connection would drop out randomly, and the machine would occasionally lock up. This was the card I used as my first access point about six years ago (using hostap), so perhaps its just old. It got swapped out as well.
• The Belkin USB 802.11g thingie didn't work reliably. It would stay connected to the network for five minutes before something went wrong. This made me annoyed, especially when it turns out this is because the latest release of Ubuntu (gutsy) installs an old version of the rt73usb driver, which is known not to work with this card. Following these instructions from the canonical wiki which tell you to install drivers from here fixed the problem. Its annoying that Ubuntu ships with known broken drivers though.
• Next, video. The video card built into the mother board sucks. I'm running a t24 inch LCD at 1920x1200, and there was significant ghosting on the monitor. Additionally, I couldn't run at 24 bit, I had to use 16 bit because the video card was running out of RAM bandwidth.
• Not to worry, I installed a Matrox G450 I had lying around, and now the monitor works nicely as well, with no ghosting.
• Finally, the whole thing is much louder than I expected from an Eden machine (there is a fan on the board, a fan in the case, and the hard disk). Then again, given I built the entire machine for $90, I can't complain too much.

Tags for this post: blog() toys()

In total we recorded 23,250,438 valid (i.e., non-failed) HTTP transactions (i.e., request/response pairs). These transactions account for approximately 6.54 TB of data transfer. Only 3% of the HTTP requests were for video files; however, the corresponding HTTP responses accounted for 99% of the total bytes transferred.

Tags for this post: research()

"There is little data on the relative popularity of the various available SMTP server implementations. This data is of interest because it aids the development of systems which interact with these servers. For example, a potential DDoS protection system should be tested with the most common SMTP servers, as these are the ones that it is most likely to encounter in everyday use.

This poster will describe our efforts to measure the deployment of SMTP servers on the Internet, using a combination of passive observation of email traffic, as well as active probing of SMTP servers. A description of the methodology is provided, as well as early results."

Tags for this post: blog()

• Started working harder to ensure video filenames are unique once imported into MythTV, I now prepend video files with epoch seconds at time of import
• DIVX (not divx) doesn't need transcode, added. Check for the existence of the video directory, and return an error if it needs creating.
• Handle storage groups, check for the existence of the data directory
• Updated docs
• Complained about the poor state of SWF support
• WMV support
• FLV support

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv()

I am currently transporting a bounty that has been frozen in carbonite with a device you created. I have been told to direct any questions or comments I might have your way.

Tags for this post: link()

• zap2it shutdown is still slated for September 1, 2007
• MythTV developers, and others, have teamed together to form Schedules Direct as a replacement
• There are forums for Schedules Direct discussion
• Schedules Direct will be charging around $5 US a month, at least initially
• The first 100 beta testers have been added, and bugs found
• Code has been added to the development version of MythTV to start handling Schedules Direct (although you are not forced to upgrade to use the new guide data source)

Tags for this post: mythtv() guidedata() usa() zap2it()

Like all sessions of the Open Source Developers @ Google Speaker Series, Michael's presentation will be open to the public. Doors open at 6:30 PM at our Mountain View campus; guests should plan to sign in at Building 43 reception upon arrival. Refreshments will be served and all are welcome and encouraged to attend. Michael's presentation will also be taped and published along with all of the public Google Tech Talks.

Tags for this post: mythtv()

• An article on the use of deliberately introduced infections to treat tumours.
• How about a research who uses evolution to improve his FGPA code? In the end, he can't even fully explain why the circuit works, but it does...
• Freezing hamsters and then reanimating them!
• How about a fellow who can't remember anything since he was 15?

Tags for this post: link()

I'm surprised and disappointed that the installation of MythTV through pre-built packages or a CD distributions like KnoppMyth or MythDora were not covered deeper than a sentence or two in passing. This is likely to be a turn off for readers who were hoping for a quick and simple method of getting MythTV up and going.

...

On the whole I consider this a good book that is excellent for the new to intermediate MythTV user, although advanced users may pick a few good pieces of information out of it as well. It was well written and covered most items at just about the right introductory (yes -- practical) level. Once it has taught you the basics, you can then go and look up more details online for features you want to get more information about.

My main concern would be the assumption of prior Linux knowledge. The introduction states you need limited or no experience with Linux or Unix. I think that in this case, some time should have been taken to introduce complete Linux newcomers into the Ubuntu environment, which is something that wasn't touched on an awful lot. The installation of Ubuntu was well-covered and is generally a very simple process, but after that not much time was given to familiarise the user with the Ubuntu environment used throughout the book.

The rest of the book is extremely well written, clear and is a very good companion to MythTV. True to its name, it takes a practical approach to solving problems and if you're a Linux user interested in setting up a MythTV installation, it will make a very good resource.

Tags for this post: mythtv() book()

• Visualisation 1 -- attacks, latency and traffic maps. During the July 4 holiday in the US, traffic levels were 14% below normal!
• Visualisation 2 -- performance comparison. Save nearly 60 milliseconds between Sydney and Cambridge, MA if you use Akamai.
• Visualisation 3 -- at the time I write this, Akamai is serving 1.9 million hits per second.

Akamai's technology at its core, applied mathematics and algorithms - has transformed the chaos of the Internet into a predictable, scalable, and secure platform for business and entertainment. The Akamai EdgePlatform comprises 20,000 servers deployed in 71 countries that continually monitor the Internet traffic, trouble spots and overall conditions. We use that information to intelligently optimize routes and replicate content for faster, more reliable delivery. As Akamai handles 20% of total Internet traffic today, our view of the Internet is the most comprehensive and dynamic collected anywhere.

Tags for this post: blog()

• Initial work on transcoding smaller files to something else
• Better error checking for MySQL configuration and accessibility
• Fixed bug where MythNetTV was unhappy if there were no channels configured in the MySQL database
• Found, and hopefully fixed, a bug where program dates were not always being tracked correctly. Also added a check to make sure this doesn't happen again
• Added --markread, which lets you mark old shows as already downloaded

$ ./mythnettv --statistics
Programs tracked: 735
  Google EngEdu: 350
  Scoble Show: 85
  linux.conf.au 2007: 74
  Mobuzz TV: 82
  dl.tv: 32
  Net Cafe: 2
  Foo: 1
  ABC News: 2
  Australia: 1
  Play School: 1
  Diggnation: 72

Programs still to download: 50
  Google EngEdu: 49
  Diggnation: 1

Data transferred: 103 gb (111017264341 bytes)

Tags for this post: mythtv() mythnettv()

- Continued use of the service to support commercial products, in violation of the agreement.
- Commercial products continued to grow despite previous appeals that this activity stop.
- There are significant changes to the supporting data structure forthcoming and we could not devote resources to the continued upkeep and enhancements of the service.
- Maintenance of the service is impacting our resource pool for other projects.
- We sought alternative options but were unable to find a solution.
- We recognize the hardship this creates for the user community. We are open to alternative solutions and would consider proposals that met the needs of the user community and our company.
- We looked into options to turn this into a paid service however we do not have the infrastructure at this time.

Tags for this post: mythtv() guidedata() usa() zap2it()

IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

For several years we have offered a free TV listings service to hobbyists for their own personal, noncommercial use. In October of 2004 we posted here an open letter saying the future of Zap2it Labs was at risk because of certain growing misuses of the Zap2it Labs data. Unfortunately this misuse has continued and grown. These misuses, combined with other business factors have led to the decision to discontinue Zap2it Labs effective September 1, 2007.

We thank those users who have honoured the terms of the agreement, and we suggest you consider the many TV listings options offered by the commercial licensees of TMS TV listings data.

If you would like to discuss how to license TV listings for commercial use, please let us know by e-mail (labs@zap2it.com) and include your company name, telephone number and the best time to reach you. We will respond to your inquiry as soon as possible.

We anticipate this decision will generate discussion and invite you to respond via the Zap2it Labs forum. We will do our best to respond to relevant questions posted on this forum in a timely manner.

• Doom! The guide data stops, we all go home. This seems particularly unlikely though. It would take many people ignoring the problem, and just accepting that their MythTV systems are going to stop working.
  
  
• Some sort of scraper using XMLTV is written. This is in fact how guide data is obtained for most other countries at the moment. This technique is discussed in my MythTV book (Amazon), and is well understood. I would expect new XMLTV grabbers for the US to start appearing in the next few days.
  
  
• A conglomerate is formed to buy a commercial license to the guide data, and then sells that in XMLTV form to US based MythTV users. This option seems less likely to me, although not impossible. It would take someone being willing to buy the license for the data, on the assumption that enough people would actually pay for a XML feed. Lots of people have said they would, but there is already arguments over how much they would b willing to pay and it's yet to be seen if those people will actually front up with the cash. It should also be noted that this sort of arrangement has been tried in other countries, and seems to invariably fail.
  
  
• Another company steps up to provide guide data for free. There are lots of companies which have this data for their own uses now. Examples include the various TV guide web sites out there. They might chose to provide the data as a way of generating good will, as well as because providing the XML will cause less load on their systems than being automatically scraped to produce a third party XMLTV feed (the second option). This was the reason that the Zap2IT feed started being provided in the first place after all.

Tags for this post: mythtv() guidedata() usa() zap2it()

The animated thumbnail of the recording appears in the bottom right of this example image.

Enabling a filter

mysql> select distinct(category) from recorded;
+--------------------------+
| category                 |
+--------------------------+
| banana                   | 
|                          | 
| Children                 | 
| Sitcom                   | 
| Holiday-children special | 
| Cooking                  | 
| Crime drama              | 
| Reality                  | 
| Documentary              | 
| House/garden             | 
| Talk                     | 
| Special                  | 
| Comedy                   | 
| Children-special         | 
| Animated                 | 
| Science fiction          | 
| Auto                     | 
| Docudrama                | 
| Travel                   | 
| Science                  | 
| Drama                    | 
| Home improvement         | 
| Fantasy                  | 
| Suspense                 | 
+--------------------------+
24 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Bananas make for good filters

Filtering to only show Children's recordings

No filtering at all

The recordings menu

Entering a password

Selecting a new filter

Tags for this post: mythtv() filter() parental()

#!/usr/bin/python

# Copyright (C) Michael Still (mikal@stillhq.com) 2007
# Released under the terms of the GNU GPL

import MySQLdb
import os
import re

from socket import gethostname

# Connect to the MythTV database based on the MythTV config
config_values = {}
home = os.environ.get('HOME')
config = open(home + '/.mythtv/mysql.txt')
for line in config.readlines():
  if not line.startswith('#') and len(line) > 5:
    (key, value) = line.rstrip('\n').split('=')
    config_values[key] = value

db_connection = MySQLdb.connect(host = config_values['DBHostName'],
                                user = config_values['DBUserName'],
                                passwd = config_values['DBPassword'],
                                db = config_values['DBName'])
cursor = db_connection.cursor(MySQLdb.cursors.DictCursor)

# Regexp for what is allowed in the symlink name
unsafe = re.compile('[^a-zA-Z0-9\-\:_]+')

# Find the recordings directory -- this assumes you haven't used an
# identifier string for this machine...
cursor.execute('select * from settings where value="RecordFilePrefix" and '
               'hostname="%s";' % gethostname())
row = cursor.fetchone()
basedir = row['data']

# Now find all the recordings we have at the moment
cursor.execute('select title, subtitle, starttime, basename from recorded;')

for i in range(cursor.rowcount):
  row = cursor.fetchone()

  title = row['title']
  subtitle = row['subtitle']
  if subtitle == '':
    subtitle = str(row['starttime'])

  title = title.replace(' ', '_')
  title = unsafe.sub('', title)

  subtitle = subtitle.replace(' ', '_')
  subtitle = unsafe.sub('', subtitle)

  extn = row['basename'].split('.')[1]

  try:
    os.mkdir(title)
  except:
    pass

  try:
    os.symlink('%s/%s' %(basedir, row['basename']),
               '%s/%s.%s' %(title, subtitle, extn))
  except:
    pass

$ find . -type l
./Masterminds/Air_America
./Tech_Now/Getting_Famous
./Babar/To_Tell_or_Not_to_Tell
./Babar/The_Intruder
./Babar/Special_Delivery
./Babar/Conga_the_Terrible
./Babar/The_Celestville_Enquirer
./The_Backyardigans/Viking_Voyage
./The_Backyardigans/Cops_and_Robots
./The_Backyardigans/Eureka
./The_Backyardigans/Movers_of_Arabia
./The_Backyardigans/Save_the_Day
./Go_Diego_Go/Rainforest_Race
./Go_Diego_Go/Cool_Water_for_Ana_the_Anaconda
./Go_Diego_Go/Great_Jaguar_to_the_Rescue
./Go_Diego_Go/Diego_Saves_the_River_Dolphin
./Go_Diego_Go/Jorge_the_Little_Hawk_Learns_to_Migrate
./How_Its_Made/2007-06-08_09:30:00

Tags for this post: mythtv()

"If you're interested in setting up a PVR, then this is definitely a book to check out. Apress sells the paper version for $30, and offers an eBook for $15. Amazon offers it for $19.79, but I doubt that price will last long. I definitely give this book a 5 out of 5..."

Tags for this post: mythtv() book()

select * from foo where bar rlike '(.*),(.*)';

Tags for this post: mysql()

#!/usr/bin/python2.4
#
# Copyright (c) Michael Still 2007, released under the terms of the GNU GPL v2

"""blather.py -- a very simple replacement for Twitter that works with blosxom
"""

import cPickle
import datetime
import os

# This is the location to write the blog files to, you'll need to customise it
_prefix = '/data/stillhq.com/blather/'

def Verbs():
  """Verbs -- return the verbs which this module supports"""
  return ['b']

def Status():
  """Status -- suggest a message to display as the status string for the bot"""
  return 'Blathering away'

def Help(verb):
  """Help -- display help for a verb"""

  if verb == 'b':
    return 'Use this to have whatever you say blogged in the blather category'
  return ''

def Command(verb, line):
  """Command -- execute a given verb with these arguments"""

  if verb == 'b':
    data = {}
    filename = datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%Y%m%d')
    print 'Blathering %s into %s' %(line, filename)

    # Load the pickle for this day (if it exists)
    p_filename = '%s%s.pkl' %(_prefix, filename)
    if os.path.exists(p_filename):
      p_file = open(p_filename, 'r')
      data = cPickle.load(p_file)
      p_file.close()
    else:
      data['upto'] = 0

    # Append this message to the pickle
    data[data['upto'] + 1] = '>b<%s>/b<: %s>br/<' \
                             %(datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%H:%M'), line)
    data['upto'] += 1

    # Save our state
    p_file = open(p_filename, 'w')
    cPickle.dump(data, p_file)
    p_file.close()

    # And then churn out some HTML
    b_filename = '%s%s.blog' %(_prefix, filename)
    b_file = open(b_filename, 'w')
    b_file.write('Blathering for %s\n'
                 % datetime.datetime.now().strftime('%A, %d %B %Y'))
    for i in range(1, data['upto'] + 1):
      b_file.write('%s\n' % data[i])

    b_file.write('\n[btags: ]')
    b_file.close()

    return "Done"

  return 'Huh?'

def Cleanup():
  """Cleanup -- you're about to be unloaded"""
  return

# Do initialisation here
print u'blather_bot is loading'

Tags for this post: blather()