The watermelon party
July 31, 2010
Green or red, it is not necessarily the Greens' political colours that should interest voters, but their economic philosophy, write Nick O'Malley and David Humphries.
via smh.com.au
Given the SMH isn't allowing comments on this article, I have to comment here.
Nick O'Malley seems to be the Herald's industrial relations blogger.
David Humphries seems to be the husband of ALP MP Diane Beaver.
Nice one Fairfax running comment as news, without giving us any background on who's slinging the mud or their agenda. One of the reasons I don't tend to read Fairfax media.
Note the breadcrumb showing the section gives no indication that this is comment or opinion. Sloppy.
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And whoever subbed the article, WTF?
If they sat with Brown and really talked to him, if they asked him what his core philosophy was, the one big idea that drives the Greens over any other, he'd tell them a story that would make their hair curl.
The article then goes on to talk about Brown tracing his political awakening to a hike along the length of the Franklin River. Hair curling stuff!
And just in case the SMH goes and modifies or removes the article, here's a screenshot.
I bought the Beyonwiz DP-Lite PVR a few weeks ago so I thought I'd write up my impressions of it. It's important to understand that I bought this after having used MythTV mostly happily for about 4 years. MythTV's problem is that it relies on PC hardware and digital TV tuner cards, and so I've had various hardware issues over the years. I've also had lots of problems during upgrades. My hope here was that a dedicated hardware PVR would reduce some of these shortcomings. So far it's reduced those, but at some costs.
User interface
The user interface is absolutely abysmal. Designed by, scratch that not designed so much as knocked together. Then clearly not tested on any mere humans. Part of the reason for buying this was to test out a hardware PVR to see if I'd recommend it to my folks yet, and on the strength of this I certainly wouldn't.
Here's an example of the retarded UI. To get to recordings you've made, you press a "folder" icon on the remote. This then takes you to the screen above with three levels of navigation, all visible at once.
To navigate the first level, as you see with the icons across the top, you use the left and right arrow keys on the remote. This shifts you between "Media" (which seems to be all media types) "Movie" (which is, strangely, where your recordings go), "Music", "Photos". Essentially it filters the file list, I think.
By default the focus is on the second level, on the left, which represents the device from which you'll view files. To then move focus to the file list, you click "Enter" on the remote. Don't make the mistake of going right, because that moves the always-focussed icons in the row above.
Finally you're in the file list and you can navigate to a file name. No matter that these are recordings of TV programmes with lots of EPG information, no you get whatever arbitrary filename it gave it, including the file extension. Useful that.
This is just one example of boneheadedness in the UI, but it's appallingly bad. MythTV's interface, written by amateurs, is vastly superior. Many of the MythTV developers talk about the Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF) and I suspect this had a lot to do with the ease of use of the UI. T-Box is also much better for the "my parents" target market in terms of UI. (Note: I work for Telstra Media and have done a fair chunk of using its UI.)
Scheduling
The scheduling interface on the device itself is a nightmare. The better option is to use IceTV's much nicer UI, by signing up (and paying for) their EPG service. The EPG is good. Their scheduling interface isn't perfect, but not bad. They could do with some user testing on people like my parents though.
The biggest downside for me, though, and something I really miss from MythTV, is the ability to set scheduling priorities. In this screenshot you'll see the little red "record" icon next to "French News". In MythTV I had a bunch of shows I'd record that I'd only infrequently like this. I record the French news in case something important happens in France so I can quickly see how they're reporting it there. I also used to record 7:30 Report, Lateline, those kinds of things even though I'd only occasionally watch them. The beauty of Myth's priorities was that I could say record these, but only if there's an available tuner and isn't something more important to record.
IceTV and Beyonwiz don't have this concept. If you say you want to record something, it's as important as any other recording. This can be very very bad. For example, if I record nothing else I want the ABC's 19:00 news bulletin. Nope, IceTV will bump that sometimes when something else you've set to record comes up. You have to continuously be logging into the IceTV web site and checking upcoming recordings to make sure something you really want recorded doesn't get bumped. This sucks big time.
Another thing it doesn't do is allow you to define when you want something recorded. Some shows I want recorded when they're first shown, because I want to watch it soon afterwards. Others are less important, so I'm happy for those to be recorded whenever they're run that's convenient for the tuners. This can free up tuners to record something else in prime time, and pick up the show I wanted on a repeat a day or so later. Beyonwiz and IceTV can't do this.
No virtual tuners
MythTV has an awesome feature dubbed "multirec" that was developed through a bounty system. It exploits a feature of the way digital TV works to allow you to record more than one channel from a single tuner where possible.
Digital TV "channels" are actually just groups of MPEG Program Streams (PS) carried within a larger Transport Stream (TS), that is a single combination of "video" and "audio" is a channel. Each Transport Stream is transmitted on a single radio channel (multiplex) and carries multiple Program Streams. So the ABC's multiplex has: ABC News 24, ABC1, ABC2, ABC3, ABC Dig Music and ABC Jazz, those last two being audio-only radio streams (with a static channel logo).
Physically the digital TV tuners capture the entire multiplex, so when you're watching an ABC channel the tuner is actually examining the streams for all those ABC Program Streams and pulling out the bits you want. What MythTV does is allow you to pull out as many of these as you want at the same time. This adds a bit to the scheduling complexity, but brings some big benefits, especially if you live in a household like ours that mostly only watches ABC and SBS channels.
Australian TV rarely follows the schedule you really do need to record at least 5 minutes before and after the scheduled start and finish times, and much longer if you want commercial TV. Beyonwiz has a feature for this. The virtual tuner feature of MythTV, however, means that you can do this without losing a tuner and having it break when there are overlaps. The first show on, say, ABC1 will still be recording when the following show on the same channel starts recording. For free you can also record things on the other ABC channels at the same time, all on one tuner.
What's with the live TV orientation?
When you first turn on the Beyonwiz, it starts playing live TV. Anyone who's used a PVR for any time quickly stops ever watching "live" TV. You just schedule it and have it record whatever you want. The problem with this is it seems the natural "home" of the whole user interface is live TV, and I have a sneaking suspicion that if you left it running in that mode, the tuner it is using would stay tied up if a recording came up. A menu as the home is a much better idea.
Turning off is hard
I hear what you're saying, how can they make turning off hard?
If you try to turn it "off" while it's recording, you get this message. Wait, you want me to think about it and make some choice? Surely you should just do what I ask and blank the screen, keep recording in the background and actually "turn off" when that's done?
Setup
Setup was painful due to the convoluted and non-obvious UI and the fact you have to set up two online services and connect them with the device, which also isn't obvious. That's not a show stopper for my parents as I can always set it up for them.
Conclusion
I'm pretty disappointed at how bad this device is. It can be forced to do what I need, but only with some additional work on my part. Hopefully IceTV will rectify their system to do scheduling a bit better, which would resolve the biggest problem I have with it. I wouldn't recommend the device to anyone who needs to share the device with a non-technical user, least of all the older generation unless you want multiple support calls every night. The UI is just plain broken -- I don't mind ugly but it's stupid as well.
iii) 'Blessed are those who dig in the earth and profiteth from the treasure therein, for they shall see me afterwards.
xiv) For Gough begat Malcolm and Malcolm begat Bob. And Bob begat Paul, although this was attended not by the cherubim or the seraphim but by both argy and bargy.
via abc.net.au
Brilliant!
We finally made it beyond the immediate surrounds of the hotel and out to Ubud where we visited the legendary Ibu Oka for Babi Guling, roast suckling pig. it was... sensational!
A great example of how arbitrary our current Internet censorship is, and it's the model for the new censorship regime. Somehow describing in detail how to make hash brownies is not "detailed instruction in drug use".
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: ACMA Content Assessment <online@acma.gov.au>
Date: 22 July 2010 06:38
Subject: Complaint Reference: ACMA278584515
From: ACMA Content Assessment <online@acma.gov.au>
Date: 22 July 2010 06:38
Subject: Complaint Reference: ACMA278584515
Complaint Reference: ACMA278584515
I refer to the complaint that you lodged with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) on 20 April 2010 about certain content made available at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/you-dont-have-to-smoke-it--you-can-eat-it-1235362.html
At the time of its investigation, the ACMA was satisfied that the above content was not prohibited content or potential prohibited content as defined by the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (the Act).
Under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992, the following categories of online content are prohibited:
- Any online content that is classified RC or X 18+ by the Classification Board. This includes real depictions of actual sexual activity, child pornography, depictions of bestiality, material containing excessive violence or sexual violence, detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use, and/or material that advocates the doing of a terrorist act.
- Content which is classified R 18+ and not subject to a restricted access system that prevents access by children. This includes depictions of simulated sexual activity, material containing strong, realistic violence and other material dealing with intense adult themes.
- Content which is classified MA 15+, provided by a mobile premium service or a service that provides audio or video content upon payment of a fee and that is not subject to a restricted access system. This includes material containing strong depictions of nudity, implied sexual activity, drug use or violence, very frequent or very strong coarse language, and other material that is strong in impact.
The above classifications are set out in the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995, National Classification Code and the Guidelines for the Classification of Films and Computer Games 2005.
Information about the ACMA’s role in regulating online content (including internet and mobile content) is available on the ACMA’s website at www.acma.gov.au/hotline.
Thank you for bringing this matter to the ACMA’s attention. Please contact the Content Classification Section at online@acma.gov.au if you have any further questions about this matter.
Content Classification Section
_____________________________
Australian Communications and Media Authority
E online@acma.gov.au | www.acma.gov.au/hotline
The ACMA is a member of the International Association of Internet Hotlines (INHOPE) www.inhope.org
So the flight to Bali was relatively uneventful. Surprisingly Louis was fine on the flight. He'd developed a snotty nose the night before the flight, so we were expecting the worst, but in the event he slept, played a little and was generally very good.
We haven't ventured out yet. Too knackered last night after the flight, so we ordered room service and went to bed. The hotel is lovely, and I think I might just duck off for a swim while Holly and Louis have a snooze.
Thunderbirds are go! Watching Channel Ten's interview with Bob Hawke and the misses last night it struck me where I'd seen them before...
via Crikey
It's uncanny!
Now we just need International Rescue to save us from the ranga and her (lack of) policies.
Over the last few months I've had a number of hardware problems with my MythTV server. The machine itself locked up fairly regularly, and there's been big problems with the driver for the dual-tuner card that had previously worked flawlessly. I finally got the shits with it and bought a hardware PVR on Saturday, the Beyonwiz DP-Lite.
I've held off buying an off-the-shelf PVR because they've tended to be pretty poor. The UI of the Beyonwiz is quite primitive, and very very confusing in parts, but it's good enough. I wouldn't recommend it for my parents though.
You'll note I didn't buy my employer's PVR product. It has one significant limitation for me: while it has two tuners, only one can be used to schedule recordings. The other is reserved for live TV viewing, which to me is a huge lack of insight into the way you use a PVR. Hopefully that will get fixed in one of the coming software updates. It certainly has a vastly better UI than the Beyonwiz and the movies service is quite attractive.
There's a few things I miss from MythTV beyond the UI. The browser scheduling interface is a lot more flexible than IceTV + Beyonwiz. With MythTV you can ask it to record a single episode of a programme each week, which means it can shuffle the recording to a repeat in a non-peak time if there's a conflict for a tuner. This device doesn't do that at all. I also miss the automatic ad skipping, but that's less of an issue because we only really watch ABC and SBS.
