Atomictumor

I really like that if you buy two, they give you a discount.

Just wanted to shout out to anybody with nothing better to do than watch ER tonight (is it still even on?) that the Walkmen will be playing Bluecats tonight, and tickets are still hella available.  The Walkmen are, in my learned opinion, one of the the best damn bands making music today, and the fact that they’re playing Knoxville for $12.50 a ticket almost made me buy two tickets so I could enjoy it twice as much.

Seriously, if you’re in Oak Ridge, or Knoxville, or whatever, swing by and treat yourself to a good show.  7:30, people.  I’ll be the tall guy with the beer. 

While I had the flu a few weeks ago, I had a vision of how I want to wire up our house. It is a mighty vision, and not for the faint of heart. I’m going to document here the entire process, good and bad.

And no, dammit, I’m not talking about this. This is something else entirely, and the fact that I have wires hanging out of my wall along with holes in the drywall are inmaterial to this conversation.

It was a lack of planning that caused this problem, so I’m going to plan this whole thing out. While I drink beer. Mmmm, beer. Today GAC and I are sampling some kind of nut beer, and it doesn’t really taste nutty.

I digress.

Now, this is how we have it working right now in the living room…

Obviously, this is all for the video. Audio is something different, but it all comes from the amp anyway, so it won’t be that hard to figure out. The video is goofy because we’ve had to mix and match all sort of old assed stuff.

So, the TV (50 something inch, but damn near as old as me) gets its signal from the amp through a component wire, because the coax barrel on the TV is broken. I took the bastard apart last Sunday, but only managed to get it put back together again. No saving it through DIY means that I can see. The amp distributes nearly all the info, which is nice because we just set the remote (oh yeah) to set the amp to the proper channel, blah blah blah. Recently, a problem has popped up in that my bitchin new video card only has an S-Video TV out, where in my current scheme the only S-Video input is on the TV myself. However, the TV doesn’t have an easy way to switch to the s-video mode from the component (aux 1) mode, which has been a bone of contention betwixt GAC and myself.

OK, so everything but the computer feeds to the amp. Why would we need the computer displayed on the TV, you ask? Ask me later.

The cable input from the outside world comes into the VCR, so we use it as a cable box, which it sucks at. Oh well, we don’t watch much TV anyway. The DVD player feeds into the amp through RCA wires for the video and optical (for the 5.1) for the audio. I could hook it up through composite wires, but the picture on the TV sucks so bad that any incremental increase in quality between the components would be lost in the quagmire that is the Magnavox 50something 20 odd year display. The CD player and record player feed into the amp through RCA (although the CD could do optical also, the amp only has one optical connection).

So, I’ve layed out the way it is. Thing is, we have the TV in the playroom, and eventually that bastards going to be in my bedroom (as soon as the kids aren’t looking). I want to be able to access the information in here, particuarly the TV-out feed from the computer, on the TV on the other side of the house. How to do that?

My plan is a signal splitter. When I was looking for a way to filter the s-video to the amp one solution they had was a splitter that would essentially do what the amp does. I could drop everything into one composite or s-video cable (or more than one, if I ever want multiple TVs in the bedroom. Who doesn’t?) and run it from right before it hits the amp over to the other rooms. Sweet.

Damn, this is getting long winded. I’ll buy a beer for anybody who can answer a 10 question quiz about what I just wrote.

The audio, tho, is where I really want to get up. I want to have every room hooked up to the amp, with individual volume controls on the wall controlling ceiling mounted two way speakers. I worked (briefly) for a structured wiring company, and the only problem with installing this stuff is cost and having a ready fishhook for fishing those wires through the wall…

Ultimately, the master plan is to have all of the functions running through a master control system. The technology exists in home theater PC’s, but what I need is a good terabyte or two of storage in a monster computer that could do everything from turning lights and AC on to giving me (vocally) the time of day. I’d love to rig up a system that would accept voice commands (already existing software, just not applied this way yet) and respond vocally. I’d mount a flat screen monitor at eye level in the hall for monitoring the system, and would be able to tunnel into it from this machine, but that’d be sweet.

Of course, I’d have to call it HAL…

Maybe I’m starting out on the wrong foot today because I have to face the justice of The Man regarding my speeding incident a while back, but all I have to write about today is how much Whitey is planning on bringing us all down. 

First, from ArsTechnica, a report on how Intel is working on technology to go crazy on DRM protection.  DRM (Digital Rights Management) is what the intellectual content industries (RIAA, MPAA, etc) whipped up to stop those dirty pirate downloaders from sending them all to the poorhouse.  Problem is, as ArsTechnica has been good at keeping up with, the DRM is going a lot farther than keeping computers from downloading and using software illegally in a direction that will put money in Big Content’s pocket. 

As ArsTechnica pointed out in their report, Intel’s new plan is to build into licensing agreements (required to build hardware that would use future technologies, thanks to the convoluted copyright laws in this country) a fail-safe that would cause the device (TV, DVD Player, etc) to actually stop working permanently if users find a way around these DRM protections.  On top of that, the manufacturer would be on the line to get up to an $8 million dollar fine from Intel for the trouble.  Lets go, cutting edge!  Just as long as nobody uses it for an unintended use, that is…

I don’t really have a problem with companies trying to protect their content (music, movies, software, etc) from casual downloaders.  They’re never going to protect it from committed downloaders, because the pirate and warez community is composed of the same people they hire to create the protections, and there’s just too many smart people out there with nothing better to do.  C’est la vie. 
What I do have a problem with are these companies using DRM as a trojan horse to get rid of consumer’s rights to fair use.  Remember the VCR?  They have a new one now called the DVR, but you’re going to have to pay just a bit to record cousin Jim’s appearance on American Idol, because if you don’t the DVR will automatically delete it in 30 minutes.  Sucks huh?  Thats fair use, 2006.  

I’d tell you what else I’m seeing bringing me down, but this garbage took too much space.  Heres something cool, instead… 

Despite the Keanu Reevesness of the movie (whoa), it should kick some major ass.   I like being oppressed, as long as they make entertaining art out of it. 

A band called Phonograph will be opening for Wilco at the Tenn. Theater. They sound pretty good at first listen. Looking forward to that show.