The troubles I had with PulseAudio were numerous, and I should really have figured this out sooner, though I think I was too lazy to really think about it properly. I had setup PulseAudio with mpd; that was easy. With MythTV it wasn’t so easy. MythTV doesn’t support PA, and rightly so: compared to ALSA, for what MythTV wants to get done, PA plainly sucks. PA does not support AC3/Dolby Digital/DTS passthrough. PA also adds a lot of latency to the audio – depending on your hardware of course. On my system it was somewhere in the range of 100ms, or a little more. Which was too much for my A/V receivers built-in A/V sync function to deal with, anyway. The result of this? Any audio I got out of MythTV through PA to my A/V receiver worked normally ~80% of the time (though only stereo, so no DVD audio or 5.1 from digital television). The other 20% of the time, you’d get no audio at all, or you’d get extremely loud static hissing. It wasn’t very pleasant. All my Linux-bashing friends made sure to note this problem each and every time it occured while they were trying to watch something on my HTPC.

No more! The solution I have found is simple. After doing a little bit of reading and copying and pasting, ALSA is now correctly configured to handle AC3/DTS passthrough AND all other audio. The only drawback that I can see, which really isn’t that bad at all, is that MythTV cannot be in playback mode while mpd is trying to output, and vice-versa. I can’t think of a usecase of wanting to have music playing while a television show is on, so that’s OK by me.

I’ll dump my various config files below for future reference.

/etc/asound.conf

pcm.dmixer {
type dmix
ipc_key 1024
ipc_key_add_uid false
ipc_perm 0666 # mixing for all users
slave {
pcm “hw:0,1″
period_time 0
period_size 1024
buffer_size 8192
rate 44100
}
bindings {
0 0
1 1
}
}

pcm.dsp0 {
type plug
slave.pcm “dmixer”
}

pcm.!default {
type plug
slave.pcm “dmixer”
}

pcm.default {
type plug
slave.pcm “dmixer”
}

ctl.mixer0 {
type hw
card 0
}

/etc/mpd.conf is simple:

audio_output {
type “alsa”
name “My ALSA Device”
}

And my MythTV settings:

Audio output device: ALSA:default
Speakers configuration: 5.1
Upconvert stereo to 5.1 surround (unticked; this is at your preference however)
Digital output device: ALSA:iec958:{ AES0 0×02 } (autodetected/populated by MythTV, yours should be too, otherwise use ‘aplay -l’ on commandline to get your device name/number)
Dolby Digital and DTS boxes both ticked
Advanced Audio Configuration ticked; Overried SRC quality ticked, Sample Rate Conversion: best
Aggressive Sound card buffering ticked

The other issue I had with MythTV which I fixed today was that the menu button on my remote never seemed to work. I was puzzled and hunted through my MythTV lircrc. This is another thing which I’ve been wanting to fix for ages but never really put any effort into. The fix, again, was simple: the autogenerated lircrc file for MythTV had two identical entries for what MythTV was meant to do when the menu button was pushed. Erasing the duplicate entry in the file made it work. Wha-la!

And all this greatness achieved while being severely hungover. It’s amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it.

Words like “fuck” (OMG!) and “shit” (OMG!) are now garbled messes. Thank-you whoever fuckhead decided this was a good idea. You are a dickhead. A fuckbrain. A no-hoping moron. A fucking lunatic. A spastic deranged moron with a fucking shoe for a brain. Eat a bag of dicks.

*deep breath*

OK, I think I’m over it now. But censored music is still fucking stupid.

You can see in the above picture the three main groupings of plants.

What I did was this:

1. Untie the lead (?) wire keeping the plant stems together at the bottom;
2. Sort the plant stems according to height, and then halve the tallest ones, taking care not to cut away new roots. These are generally easy to identify as pale white strands which protrude from joints in the plant stems;
3. I then removed any leaves which appeared to be dead or dying (easily identified by their lack of colour), and removed any leaves (whether dead or new) near the bottom of the plant; any leaves buried would only burden the plant as they contribute nothing toward photosynthesis;
4. Re-group the new plant cuttings with 2-3 stems per group, and replant, taking care to ensure the roots were covered by the substrate

So, this is what my tank looks like now:

As you can see, there are now plants all across the tank horizontally. Until they grow and thicken the coverage, there is still not a lot of places to hide for my rasboras, so they will continue to hide at the back under the filter until I can provide them some more places to hide. I have read that the more places fish have to hide, the more likely they are to come out, as they know a safe place is not far away.

I will hopefully soon aquire some drift wood and river rocks to put in the tank. I’ll have to do some ‘research’ (looking at other peoples’ established tanks) to get a feel for tank layouts that not only look nice but also provide plenty of areas for the fish to enjoy.

The hardest part of setting up this fish tank has so far been my lack of patience. Most other personal projects that I work on only happen at the speed I can complete them or at the speed of my computer – this fish tank, however, requires I wait for mother nature (helped along in some respects) to do her thing. Hopefully I will learn to be patient! I will have to, or I risk wasting my time, and money, and worst of all, I risk killing my fish!

So far so good, however.

Nothing much has changed; with the addition of fish, I have added a heater, and a bit of a blingy air stone.

The fish are doing fine. I can’t wait to get more! Though, I’ll have to actually wait a week or so to add any more.

One thing I’m quite annoyed about is that the tank looked clean before I set it up, but now that it’s full of water etc, I can see really very obvious previous high-water marks all through it, it’s gross.

Today I purchased:

• Aqua One 2×24W “T8″ fluorescent lighting ($140, the most expensive part so far)
• Seachem biological stabliser; to combat “new tank syndrome”
• General purpose plant fertiliser/nutrients
• Three plants, of which I forget the names

I’m going to leave the tank sit for a week. I’m going to go to the fish shop today and buy… something. Although I purchased a biological stabliser to reduce the effects of new tank syndrome (tl;dr version: new tank syndrome is the lack of “good” bacteria in the tank which helps to cycle waste products from plants and fish to reusable products by the plants); I really should wait a while before introducing any fish to the tank. Though, if I buy a test kit from the fish shop and everything comes up good, I may as well go ahead and buy myself some fish today. Provided the water has cleared up, anyway.

As I’m in the middle of moving house, the tank is actually at my new place, so I will have to check with my new housemates if they’re able to feed any fish I buy.

All you have to do is go into the Advanced Multiplayer options and tick the box next to “disable HTML MOTDs”; apparently a combination of the awesomeness of Vista 64-bit and IE7/8 causes the game to occasionally crash when trying to load IE in the background to display a HTML MOTD.

Say hello to Sonic, the newest member of my household. He is a male Siamese Fighter (otherwise known as a Betta), and he lives in a novelty oversized wine glass on my coffee table.

When I was a kid, we had a small family fish tank (~60cm if I recall correctly) with a few mollys, snails and some other fish I haven’t been able to identify. I really enjoyed watching the fish go about their business; and the ambient nature of a thriving fish tank has always appealed to me. Though, after we upgraded our little friends to a larger tank, they all died (we suspect the new tank was not cleaned properly), and then I grew up and totally forgot about how much I loved having fish. Until now.

My sister got me this little present for my birthday, and it has re-ignited my interest in fish tanks. I did a little research on the Betta, and I’ve found that in order to live happily, he needs a proper tank. Many people keep these guys in tiny one-litre containers because they can live in them. Of course they can survive, but it’s akin to keeping a large dog in a small yard – they can be kept there, but not happily. So, I intend upon starting small, and if I catch the bug, I’ll get serious on this hobby.

I’m going to buy a second-hand fish tank, about 60cm, with a stand and some accessories, and some fish for Sonic to live with.

This handy-dandy fish compatability chart tells me there are about 4-5 other fish species that should all be able to get along well with each other. Although the Bettas are reknown for their violence toward other Bettas, it is generally accepted that they can live happily in a community tank with other fish as long as those other fish cannot be mistaken for another Betta. In fact, typically in a community tank even with other fish that don’t look like Bettas, the Bettas get the raw end of the deal: their large, flowing fins make them slow, and unable to escape from other fish who make like to nip at them! Even so, as with any community tank, the temperment of the individual fish inside it will ultimately decide their compatability. If it turns out that the fish I buy don’t get along, I can put Sonic back into his oversize wine glass until I upgrade the others to a larger tank, and then Sonic can have the 60cm tank to himself!

Until I get the tank in a few weeks after I move house, this is mainly just an idea on a blog. But I fully intend to make it a reality!

I wrote a short and sweet e-mail to Mr. Atkinson regarding his stance on the matter, and he responded to me with a form letter that was also sent out to other Australians who contacted him (credit to a redditor who scanned and uploaded this copy).

The letter essentially quoted a bunch of the same old tired statistics and was coupled with a healthy dose of Atkinson paranoia, logical fallacies and at the end, a rather roundabout way of saying “fuck you” to gamers Australia-wide.

I wrote a response, which is below, and here.

The Hon Michael Atkinson MP

11th Floor
45 Pirie Street
Adelaide SA 5000

Thank-you for your response to my e-mail concerning the lack of an R18+ classification for video games. It is certainly refreshing to see that an MP is willing to engage in discussion with individual members of the public, even if it is by form letter.

As your response has spanned several pages, I will quote the relevant section of your letter as I respond to it.

“Although some members are advocates of this classification, I believe other Attorneys- General, like me, reject it. Hitherto, Attorneys-General have not agreed to create an R. 18+ category for computer games. Other Attorneys-General who are opposed to introducing an R. 18+ classification for computer games are content to let me be the lightening rod for the gamers.”

If I were in your position, I would be quite annoyed. That aside, your belief that other Attorneys-General support your position is not verifiable by any publicly available information. Indeed, most news reports seem to put the blame for the lack of a discussion paper squarely on your shoulders. There are many, many references to this online, but the most important I think is a direct quote of Victorian Attorney-General Rob Hulls; “I fully support there being consultation on this issue, but ultimately SCAG is waiting for the South Australian attorney to agree to consult on the matter.”

“[...] With people travelling so readily between States and Territories, a State-based classification coding system would be unworkable and useless [...]”

I agree, the only way to properly introduce the rating is nationally through the OFLC.

“I am baffled and worried about why proponents of R. 18+ games are putting up their hands and saying ‘Give us more cruel sex and extreme violence!’”

This is the crux of the argument, and I think the major point of contention between yourself and gamers such as myself. The point of having an R18+ classification is not to allow access to explicit content, the point is to enable adults to make their own decisions about what is and is not suitable for themselves and their children.

In your letter, you go on to cite many examples of games that have been refused classification on the grounds of containing extreme violence or explicit sexual content. The examples cited are relevant to this discussion in an ancillary fashion, but to debate the validity of each and every game between yourself, myself, and the Australian public is obviously not a workable model. The main point of contention as I mentioned earlier is not one game in particular, it is the ability for adults to decide for themselves what games they want to play.

“[...] These are all activities that are illegal for individuals in the real world so why ask governments to give people the right to do them virtually?”

Why ask governments to give people the right to watch films which contain illegal activity, or read books which contain illegal activity? It’s a rhetorical question, and you’re avoiding the issue by posing it.

“Given this data, I cannot fathom what State-enforced safeguards could exist to prevent R. 18+ games being bought by households with children and how children can be stopped from using these games once the games are in the home. If adult gamers are keen to have R. 18+ games, I expect children would be just as keen.”

Your inability to understand is a common theme in your stance on this issue. Here’s an easily enforced safeguard: require proof of age for purchase of games rated R18+. It works for alcohol, cigarettes and everything else, so why not games?

“Access to electronic games, once in the home, cannot be policed and therefore the games are easily accessible to children. If adults think they can devise a lock-out system to defeat children, tell ‘em they’re dreaming.”

Replace the words “electronic games” with anything else (some examples: drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, pornography), and one is lead to ask, whose responsibility is it to protect children from explicit material? You’ve already answered my question:

“It is up to parents and responsible adults to ensure a game is appropriate for a minor whatever age he or she is.”

All modern gaming systems have parental control safeguards in place that allow the restriction of games operation on the device. It is possible to restrict a particular system, using a password, from playing games which are outside a parent-defined safe range. All of these systems require escalation to the relevant customer support agents to have “forgotten” parental control passwords reset (I.e., the child trying to circumvent the system would have to go to some lengths). This nullifies your assertion that parental controls are useless.

These systems are easy to use and setting them up is straightforward. There is no reason at all for parents not to make use of these systems if they are concerned about the material their children are able to access while playing electronic games. More to the point, introduction of an R18+ rating should have absolutely no effect on children what-so-ever. The Australian gaming public cannot understand how you are so ignorant of this fact. By definition, a person over the age of 18 is not a child, therefore the introduction of such a rating will have no effect upon children, as they are not legally allowed to view the material.

What happens if the safeguard does fail? You’ve answered that question:

“It is up to parents and responsible adults to ensure a game is appropriate for a minor whatever age he or she is.”

A parent intervening in their child’s entertainment is normal; indeed it is expected of every responsible parent. You trying to govern in such a way as to protect the few children of irresponsible parents at the liberty of adults is unfair. “One bad apple spoils the cart” is an extreme oversimplification of the issue.

“What the present law does is to keep the most extreme material off the shelves. It is true that this restricts the adult liberty to a small degree, however, I am prepared to accept this infringement in the circumstances.”

Once again we touch upon the crux of the argument: this is not about granting access to explicit material, it is about allowing adults to make their own decisions. You say that you are prepared to accept this infringement upon the liberty of an adult in order to protect children, despite the fact that this discussion and its potential outcome has no relevance at all to children.

“[...] There may be games some people consider too violent for M.A. 15+ but the solution is not to create a classification to permit even more violent games in Australia. [...]”

This kind of blanketing of the ratings system does not serve the best interests of parents or young children. I would say, and many would agree with me, that the OFLC having to shoe-horn games into a smaller number of classification categories would only serve to make decisions more difficult which would lead to a higher rate of poor decisions. Essentially, games which should receive an R18+ style rating may indeed be passed as MA15+ even though there are elements of said games which are not suitable for this rating. An example recently discussed is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2: during one scene the player takes on the role of a terrorist who is participating in an attack upon a commercial airport and has the option to kill innocent civilians. The fact that killing civilians is not required to fulfill the mission objectives is relevant, but despite that, this type of gameplay scenario really is better suited to adults.

“It is up to members of the Classification Board to apply the Guidelines correctly and not to try to defeat the Guidelines because they disagree with the outcome of the deliberations of elected officials in a democratic rule-of-law society.”

Your lack of confidence in the OFLC is well-known after your interview with the Peter Mares of the ABC recently. Your approach to this is confusing. You say that the OFLC does not make correct decisions, as you admitted that the MA15+ rating of Modern Warfare 2 was inappropriate. Your criticism of the OFLC is unfounded: it is similar to asking a carpenter to produce a smooth wooden surface without using any high-grit sandpaper, or asking a painter to draw fine lines without a fine-tipped brush. Without the correct tools, neither the OFLC nor the carpenter and painter can do their job properly. Your argument here is circular: ‘the OFLC makes incorrect decisions with the current ratings system, therefore the OFLC will continue to make incorrect decisions with a new ratings system’. You are committing a logical fallacy.

You mentioned in your letter that recently the game Left 4 Dead 2 was given an RC rating. A resubmitted version in which much of the violence and gore was removed has been approved by the OFLC at MA15+. Do you know that the majority of Australian gamers who play this game today are actually playing the RC version? This has been achieved using two popular methods: buying the overseas version (typically with a credit card, so under 18’s need not apply), or, using a small computer programme to modify the game to enable the restricted content. This programme was created by an Australian gamer who was unhappy with the OFLCs decision and wanted to get the “full” version of the game. Any child with five minutes to spare can download this programme and enable the banned version of the game. What is my point? My point is that parents who made their decision about buying Left 4 Dead 2 for their children based on the rating MA15+ have done so under a false pretense provided for them by OFLC; the OFLC has failed in this instance.

You repeatedly contradict yourself.

“[...] I am particularly concerned about the impact of this extreme content on children and vulnerable adults. […]

But then you go on to state:

“It is up to parents and responsible adults to ensure a game is appropriate for a minor whatever age he or she is.”

So, which is it? Can adults make decisions for themselves or not? Please note that “adults” and “parents” are not mutually exclusive groups as your language seems to imply.

“I am next up for election in March, 2010. The State District I represent is called Croydon. I would welcome advocates of R. 18+ computer games testing public acceptance of my policy by standing a candidate against me in that general election. I think you will find this issue has little traction with my constituents who are more concerned with real-life issues than home entertainment in imaginary worlds.”

The Australian public is rising to your challenge. A group called “Gamers4Croydon” is in the process of establishing a competing candidate for this very election. Frankly, I am appalled by your lack of candour. Attempting to trivialise the discussion makes an example of your ignorance; summarising your “reasoned and considered” position with one of the most ignorant and illogical statements I’ve yet seen made on this topic only serves to bolster the arguments against your position.

You have demonstrated several times in this letter your lack of understanding of the subject at hand. Let’s take a look at the language you’ve used throughout: “I believe”, “I am baffled and worried”, “I expect”, “I imagine”, “I cannot fathom”, “To my mind”, etc. This type of language indicates that you are following your personal beliefs which I have shown to be created through partial erroneous thought. Worryingly, your use of terms which directly indicate your lack of understanding are also common. If you really have so little comprehension of the topic, then how is it that you can consider yourself suitable for the position of advising on it?

Not only are your arguments logically flawed, your evidence is dubious at best. There have been so many studies conducted on the effect of violent games on children and young adults with none conclusively proving anything on either side of the argument. Your platform stands entirely upon a single study of dubious nature.

I sincerely hope that the Gamers4Croydon group are successful and the next election in the seat of Croydon sees you removed from office. Whatever the outcome of the election, your views as expressed in this correspondence and in news media are outdated and narrow-minded and your methods of enforcing said views are ham-fisted at best.

Yours sincerely,

1. Left-click the icon and select ‘Preferences’; click the checkbox next to ‘Start applet on session login’ and close the dialogue.
2. Next, left-click the icon and select ‘Configure local sound server’; click the ‘Network Server’ tab and check the boxes next to ‘Enable network access to local sound devices’ and then ‘Don’t require authentication’. This allows applications to stream audio data direct to PulseAudio instead of through PulseAudio’s implementation of the ALSA API. This is necessary for all applications that support talking directly to PulseAudio.

Next, you’ll want to open the Volume Control from the tray icon menu and select your output device on the Configuration tab. PulseAudio should have enumerated all of the available combinations on your system, so choose the option you want. If you’re using optical output to your A/V receiver or television, choose digital, SPDIF or IEC958.

Setting up mpd for use with PulseAudio is straightforward. Open your /etc/mpd.conf file and comment out all the configuration related to alsa, then scroll down a bit and you should see a commented-out section related to PulseAudio. Make your config look like the below, and restart mpd.

# An example of an ALSA output:
#
#audio_output {
# type "alsa"
# name "My ALSA Device"
# device "hw:0,1" # optional
# format "44100:16:2" # optional
# mixer_device "default" # optional
# mixer_control "PCM" # optional
# mixer_index "0" # optional
#}
audio_output {
type "pulse"
name "My Pulse Output"
# server "remote_server" # optional
# sink "remote_server_sink" # optional
}

Next, you’ll need to setup MythTV. This is pretty straightforward, all I did was go through the General settings to the audio options menu and set the following options:

Update! MythTV trunk supports PulseAudio, so all you need to do is select ‘PulseAudio:default’ as the audio output device.

• Output:ALSA:plughw:0,1 (0,1 being the card id, device id key, obtainable through the command ‘aplay -l’; you may have something different in your setup but you can freely edit this text field for the correct device)
• Passthrough output device: Default
• Max audio channels: Stereo
• Upmix: passive
• Enable AC3 to SPDIF passthrough: no (force AC3 decoding by MythTV if your receiver can’t do it)
• Enable DTS to SPDIF passthrough: yes (pass Dolby/DTS to your receiver, for DVDs)

And that’s it! All done. You should now have mpd and MythTV routable through PulseAudio which allows you to make use of the excellent projectM audio visualisation suite (basically an implementation of Milkdrop in OpenGL for Linux). Excellent for parties!

A note: This does actually output PCM 44.1Khz correctly. I was previously routing my audio through HDMI cable to the television, then from the television to the receiver. The TV was outputing a 48Khz signal; direct from the computer via optical, it’s a sweet 44.1Khz. Nice!

1. Media Centre Musings: Part 1 – The Theory
2. Media Centre Musings: Part 2 – The Plan
3. Media Centre Musings: Part 3 – Third Time’s the Charm
4. Media Centre Musings: Part 4 – Starting Implementation
5. Media Centre Musings: Part 5 – Putting it all Together

Probably the most epic assembly of consumer electronics I’ve experienced, and still not quite finished.

After I picked up the television and the PS3 on Sunday last week, I went out and bought most of the components for my HTPC on Monday. I unfortunately couldn’t assemble it that day because every local PC store had conveniently run out of stock on the case I wanted, so I had to wait for that to be sent to me. It arrived on Wednesday, and I assembled the HTPC, which was pretty straightforward because building PCs is my thing.

The Antec Micro Fusion 350 is, as with all other Antec cases, a very solidly put together affair with all of the things you’d expect and Antec case to have. Even though its name denotes it as being the smaller in Fusion class of HTPC cases, it suffers no functionality or convenience loss, even incorporating Antec’s dual chamber design.

In the above picture you can see pretty much everything: 96×16 LCD just visible on the front, 750Gb Western Digital ‘Green Power’ SATA disk in the foreground inside its own chamber, GeForce 9400GT graphics card and 2×2Gb Corsair TwinX memory in the mid-ground, and the CPU cooler and exhaust fans of the motherboard chamber in the background.

I installed the 9.10RC of Mythbuntu onto the server and was totally lost. I have never used MythTV before, so I really had no idea what I was doing. Thankfully it comes with a lot of sane defaults and most of the functionality worked with minimal setup. I copied all of my media from an external backup disk into the appropriate directories and then started configuring the remote and the LCD.

As mentioned, I’ve no experience with any of this, so I was starting from scratch in all regards. After I spent nearly a half day mucking around with the remote and the LCD, following guides designed for Mythbuntu 9.04, I had aquired enough knowledge to realise that my setup was actually fully functional but was not working because I had selected the wrong presets.

So, now the remote works, but it is a little clumsy in my mind. What buttons from the devices’ original remote do not exist on the Logitech remote are mapped via the softmenu keys which allows you to scroll through a list of functions and then choose what you want to do. The only criticism of the remote itself that I have is that it is very long and slender and the buttons are very hard to push. This means you nearly always need two hands to operate it because you can’t quite reach end-to-end and maintain a good enough grip to support the remote while pushing down the buttons at the extreme ends of the device at the same time. I will have to let loose the newbies to see if they can navigate the system without my assistance, and also to gather from them ideas on how to improve the control scheme. As of yet I have not implemented any direct control of the television from the PC and everything relies solely on the Logitech Harmony remote.

There’s little to say about the speakers and the receiver at this stage – the setup of both was very straightforward, although I did have a problem with the subwoofer not working initially. I took it back to Harvey Norman and they tested it on their demonstation system, where it worked perfectly fine. Confused, I assumed it must have been the cable, or worse, the subwoofer output of the receiver. Thankfully, the helpful sales guy at Harvey Norman gave me the high-quality cable from their demo system and told me to take it with me. “If it works with this cable,” he said as he handed it to me, “you can keep it. Just let me know.” It worked with the new cable.

There’s only been two things so far which my plan failed to account for: the S/PDIF output of the HTPC, and where to place the rear surround speakers. The latter was swimming in the back of my mind at various stages but I never put any solid thought into it. I solved the problem yesterday by going out and buying some universal satellite speaker stands which feel like they’re made from wrought iron. Thankfully though they are just perfect for mounting my speakers; the stands themselves are hollow so the speaker wiring can pass through to the bottom and leave the base unseen. As for the audio on the HTPC problem; the motherboard doesn’t have an onboard connector, only internal jumper pins. Currently I am passing the S/PDIF audio from the internal motherboard connector to the graphics card and through the HDMI cable to the television which then outputs it via optical cable to the receiver. However, in order to listen to music through the HTPC this requires the television to be turned on. Really not a great option considering the television draws about 265 watts of power when on. So I’ve ordered an S/PDIF dongle with both co-axial and optical connectors which should hopefully arrive soon, as when the XBox 360 gets here it’ll need the optical input on the receiver currently in use by the television.

This post is huge already. I think I will write up some reviews of all the components over the next few weeks to save novellising what I already have.

Here’s my working area during setup, the final setup, and the obligatory shot of me playing Team Fortress 2 on the setup. Not seen are the rear satellites just out of shot under the foreground.