Project creep

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So, when I started the media ripping project the idea was simple. Using the cruddy equipment we had (Superpad III, Viewsonic box) I would produce a media system of such awesome and unequaled quality that all would flock to witness it in action. Err, okay, perhaps that’s over stating it. Basically, the aim was to get all the music (or at least, all the digitally available music) onto the media server in fresh clean rips at high quality (and in an open format) such that they could be played back in any room in the house using naught but what we already had kicking around. And all the video on there so it could be played by either laptop, iDevice or viewsonic box.

First there was the problem of how to deal with (bloody) iTunes. If anything makes me contemplate moving away from the iPhone, it’s iTunes (y’hear that apple?). iTunes drives me to despair. It won’t play or deal with FLAC files (despite the fact there’s been a constant stream of people asking apple to introduce it). Hell, even just allow some developer to produce a pay-for plug in, I’d consider it.

But no.

So instead of a nice, clean, simple rip to one file format and everything being in lossless, shiny, shiny, FLAC, it has to be dual encoded, using nearly twice the space, so that iTunes can put music on the phone. The other issue with abandoning iTunes is, obviously, things like Rachel Maddow which are awesome and which are via the iTunes store. Feh.

Anyway. So, the resolution to that was to suck it up basically. Then there came the Superpad III issue. The Superpad III sucks just too hard for me to bother with. I’ve tried upgrading the firmware on it (Tim6) but it’s still crap. Not only is it crap, but a lot of Android Apps just won’t install on it. So things like ‘being able to control it from an app running on either the laptop or the iphone’, that just doesn’t happen. Being able to use VNC to poke it? No. Also won’t work. It’s not that the hardware can’t do it, it’s that the firmware sucks arse. And this experience of Android is perhaps the thing that most puts me off using android. If it were hardware limitations that stopped me running stuff I’d not mind, but a lot of stuff only seems to be available for specific tablets for no terribly obvious reason. I suspect it’s to do with the underlying firmware, and the implementation of the underlying drivers, or somesuch. Or at least, I hope it is, but it makes me think ‘why would I buy an Android device, because the things I want may not work on it’.

Anyhow, so, that, plus its tendancy to get bored in the middle of playlists and wander to the last track then stop. Or just stop. Or decide it’s not going to connect. Or really any number of minor irritants about it. All of them combined make me think ‘p’raps it’s time to not use it’.

Hence the longstanding desire to lay my hands on the logitech squeezebox. But now that’s not happening. There was a brief flirtation with building a serial drivable nixie display (using something like the Burroughs B7971). Then there were thoughts of digging out my pile of my dad’s old seven segment displays (and possibly buying some new ones) and building some sort of serial drivable display using that. Then I remembered that I’ve not done anything like this for a very, very long time, and perhaps doing something a biiiit simpler for a start would be reasonable.

But my deep love of VFDs took a while to overcome. Mainly it’s been overcome by the fact that I can always and easily replace an LCD with a VFD if I chose one with the same driver requirements. So I’ve got a 2 quid HD 47780 LCD en-route (it’s still blue) and if that works then at some point I’ll replace it with the similar VFD. The only reason it’s not a VFD now is it’s 20 quid here, and 14 quid in the states (grump). I’ve also managed to routle up stuff on how to connect them (not exactly hard, apparently). And I’m wondering if I can get away with my pretty (and vintage) ribbon cable – although people have commented on how these are quite sensitive in terms of signal timing – but then equally I’ve seen nice examples (like this one) where they’re driven using individual bits of electric string, and I reckon that the pretty old ribbon cable (made from separate, twisted wires) should be good enough. We’ll see. I’ll also need to routle out some kind of connector (I’m thinking I should have a ribbon cable connector kicking around).

All of this makes me glad my dad was who he was, sad that I threw so much stuff away when he died, and miss him like crazy. He’d love this sort of project. Hell, if he was here, it’d be nixie tubes all the way.

Anyhow. Much of it is ordered and I’ve got that bubbling excitement I feel when I’m doing something new. At the same time I’m still trying to work my way through the music (first) and then the video (later) reencoding. It doesn’t help that my laptop has insufficient space to fit all of it on, so I have to do chunks and copy them across to the media server (obviously, ideal would be a CD changer that could drop each disk in and then dump it when it’s done (like this) – but I don’t have one of them. I have a me, and my hands.

This is basically is a time and space filling thing to do whilst I wait for the freshly ordered Model B to arrive. It prevents me bouncing around the house doing nothing useful. Although the digital caliper has arrived – so I can measure my pens and buy some new pen sacs for my other ink pens. I’ve also run some of them through the alledged ultrasonic cleaner (which just seems to be a vibrating cleaner, I am unimpressed). Also, I need to have another look at the clock. Since it has not restarted itself. I’m still rather unclear on why it’s not working, but might take the time today to make up a better clamp for the clock mechanism and give it another clean out…see if that helps. Although I’m really a bit at a loss. I can’t see anything grungy in there that might be stopping it.

In other news yesterday (when I was at work) was the Dead Bug Jumping podcast release day, so go listen! (iTunes link here). Aaaand iTunes has now, finally, decided to list them in the right order (yay!).

KateWE

Kate's a human mostly built out of spite and overcoming transphobia-racism-and-other-bullshit. Although increasingly right-wing bigots would say otherwise. So she's either a human or a lizard in disguise sent to destroy all of humanity. Either way, it's all good.