Grammerjack

I just bought another Mac Mini to use as a HTPC (home theater PC). I tried this a year ago, but was not happy with the results. But since then I've become more comfortable with using OS X, so today I thought I'd try again. Here's my quick setup notes: I'm using a Mac Mini 1.83 Core 2 Duo with 1 GB of RAM. This is the cheapest Mac Mini that Apple currently sells. I thought about getting an AppleTV, but I think the Mini is easier to modify, has more CPU power for advanced codecs, and can be used as a kid's computer in the future, if I don't like using it as an HTPC. I also have dreams of writing a game for the Mini that uses Wiimotes. I think this would be easier to do on a Mini than an AppleTV, even though the AppleTV has a better GPU. I'm using "Plex" as for viewing problem movies, and I think it may end up becoming my main movie viewing program. It's the OSX version of Xbox Media Center. (Which is a semi-legal program for a hacked original Xbo...

This year's ICFP contest was a traditional one: Write some code that solves an optimization problem with finite resources, debug it using sample data sets, send it in, and the judging team will run it on secret (presumably more difficult) data sets, and see whose program does the best. The problem was to create a control program for an idealized Martian rover that had to drive to home base while avoiding craters, boulders, and moving enemies. I read the problem description at noon on Friday, but didn't have time to work on the contest until Saturday morning. The first task was to choose a language. On the one hand, the strict time limit argued for an easy-to-hack "batteries included" language like Python, for which libraries, IDEs, and cross-platform runtime were all readily available. On the other hand, the requirement for high performance and ability to correctly handle unknown inputs argued for a type safe, compiled language like ML or O'Caml. I spent a half...

The rules for this year's ICFP contest have just been posted. Although the actual problem won't be posted until Friday July 11th, the rules themselves are interesting: Your code will be run on a 1GB RAM 4GB swap 2GHz single-processor 32-bit AMD x86 Linux environment with no access to the Internet. You have to submit source code. You may optionally submit an executable as well (useful if for example you use a language that isn't one of the short list of languages provided by the contest organizers.) Teams are limited to 5 members or less. I have mixed feelings about these rules. The good news is: It should be possible for most interested parties to recreate the contest environment by using the contest-provided Live CD. A computer capable of running the contest could be purchased new for around $350. It seems that the focus will be on writing code in the language of the contestant's choice, rather than writing code in the language of the contest organizer's choice. T...

I just bought a Buffalo LinkStation Mini 500GB Networked Attached Storage (NAS) device. It's a very small fanless Linux file server with two 250 GB hard drives, 128 MB of RAM, a 266 MHz ARM CPU and a gigabit Ethernet port. My reasons for buying a NAS I wanted to provide a reliable backup of family photos and documents, and I was getting tired of burning CDs and DVDs. I wanted a small Linux-based server I could play with. My reason for buying the LinkStation Mini It's fanless. It's tiny. Buffalo has a good reputation for NAS quality. There is a decent sized Buffalo NAS hacking community. Fry's had it on sale. :-) Setting it up Setup was very easy -- I unpacked the box, pluged everything in, and installed a CD of utility programs. The main feature of the utility program is that it helps find the IP address of the NAS. All the actual administration of the NAS is done via a Web UI. To RAID or not to RAID The LinkStation Mini comes with two identical drives...

I went to the Computer History Museum today. I saw the Visual Storage exhibit, which is a collection of famous computers, the Babbage Difference Engine, which is a very elaborate reproduction of a never-actually-built Victorian era mechanical calculator, and the PDP-1 demo. This last demo was very special to me, because I finally got to play the original Spacewar! game, and meet and chat with Steve Russell , the main developer. (Perusing Wikipedia I now realize that Steve was also an early Lisp hacker. D'Oh!, I was going to ask a question about Lisp on the PDP-1, but I got distracted.) There's a Java Spacewar! emulator , but it doesn't properly convey the look of the PDP-1 radar-scope-based display. The scope displays individual dots, 20,000 times per second. Each dot starts as a fuzzy bright blue-white dot, but then fades quickly to a dim yellow-green spot, which takes another 10 seconds to fade to black. This means that dim yell0w-green trails form behind the ships as ...

I recently spent a lot of time using two different in-flight entertainment systems: one on Eva Air, and another on Virgin Atlantic. For people who haven't flown recently, I should explain that these systems consist of a touch-sensitive TV monitor combined with a remote-control-sized controller. The systems typically offer music, TV, movies, flight status, and video games. I believe both systems were based on Linux. I saw the Eva system crash and reboot, and the Virgin Air system has a number of Linux freeware games. The GUI frameworks were pretty weak -- both systems made poor use of the touch screen and had obvious graphical polish issues. The Virgin system was much higher resolution, and was 16:9 aspect ratio. I expect it was running on slightly higher-spec hardware. Both systems worked pretty well for playing music and watching TV or movies. The media controls were pretty limited - neither system allowed seeking to a particular point in a movie, or even reliably fast forwarding....

Here's a very long, quite good post on Nintendo's strategy with the Wii: http://malstrom.50webs.com/birdman.html The thesis is that the mainstream video game market arms race of every-more-complicated games ended up overshooting enough of the potential game market to allow an opening for simpler "down-market" games, and that Wii was able to exploit this opening. The article predicts that Nintendo will now move up-market, producing more complicated games over time, pushing PS3 and Xbox 360 into very up-market niches. Sort of how consoles took over from PC games.