deprecated.net

Don't know what happened exactly, but I couldn't fast forward TV shows anymore. But this time the previous fix didn't work.

Went into PHPMyAdmin, went to the mythconverg.recordedseek table and was told that the table had crashed. I clicked on the SQL tab to run an SQL command on this table.

REPAIR TABLE recordedseek;

Then I had to run

mythcommflag --rebuild -f <filename>

on my recordings.

Now it works again.

I was watching a recording the other day and tried to use the "edit recording" function to cut off the commercials andp the beginning and end. Up popped "no seektable" and I couldn't do it. I tried to fast forward, but that wasn't possible, Mythtv acted like I'd zoomed directly to the end.

Using PHPMyAdmin, I checked the "recordedseek" table in the database. It was corrupted.

I entered these commands at a prompt (I'm on ubuntu):

relevant output of mysqlcheck is here:

Then I ran commercial flagging on the recordings in my mythtv directory.

The date of the recording is in the filename.
And now it works for me.

I'm currently running Ubuntu Dapper Drake(6.06). I did it just to try it out, and I don't really like it. Here's another reason:

I needed to go with at least kernel 2.6.18 because of support for my pcHDTV card. (I didn't compile my own driver because compiling stuff on Ubuntu has tended to break things, and this was no exception.)

I thought it was a kernel bug. I got 2.6.19, patched it all the way to 2.6.20rc5 and tried them all.

Then, after even more Googling found out that it was the EVMS package that's screwing things up. It's somehow making /dev/hdb3 available, but unresponsive. I was getting "is already mounted or ... busy"-type errors.

/dev/evms/hdb works.

So I just mount /dev/evms/hdb3 and the like.

I don't even know why this only affected hdb, but not any other drive. If you stay with all Ubuntu packages it works fine, but add anything else and weird stuff starts to happen.

Well, this was driving me nuts. After hours of trying to get a dual monitor setup with my new board and Geforce card, now Flash kept fucking up. The answer I found seemed simple:

1. Set bpp in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to 24.

That's because Flash needs 24bpp? Weird. But won't work for me because I need my Voodoo4 to be at 16bpp.

2. Option "Composite" "0" in xorg.conf

Ok. Sure. I don't know exactly what it does anyway. But restarting X makes me nervous. (All those hours wasted....) Glad some guy left an easier answer somewhere:

3. export XLIB_SKIP_ARGB_VISUALS=1 before running firefox

I found this last advice here. Worked for me.

Is there buzz or hum or noise on the line?

The solution is probably easier than you might think:

Move your device away from any electrical device near to it, especially AC/DC converters.

That's what worked for my Vonage box.

While I was looking for info I also found info that just plugging another phone into line 2, a non-working line 2, got rid of the noise.

[img_assist|nid=25|title=|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=62|height=100]Your mother told you to floss. Your dentist tells you to floss. The American Dental Association says everyone should floss once a day. And you say "whatever".

But did you know this:

• Don't pull the floss side to side. You're supposed to be scraping gunk off the side of your tooth--from below the gumline to the top.
• They say "once a day" because it takes about 24 hours for the gunk to build up, and for your gums to be ready for another session. (So, if you miss a day, it'll take longer to get back to clean, and you can't rush it)
• Your gums will bleed after flossing for up to a week if you haven't flossed in a while.
• If you don't floss you'll never get rid of the food that makes it under your gums, until it's broken down and done its damage. Nothing else can do the job that flossing does.

I didn't really give it much thought. I hated to floss, but then I had a big scare with my teeth, and I started to look around for info. Everyone tells you how much floss to use, how to wrap it around your fingers, but then they assume you know how to use it.

It's like teaching somebody gun safety, handing out a rifle, and watching the poor slob jerk the trigger and miss every target. "Squeeze, don't pull." So simple, yet everyone must be told it.

So it was with me. "Scrape, don't pull." "Up and down, not side to side." That's the info that lit up the lightbulb for me. Now I plan on having these teeth for a good long time.

[img_assist|nid=22|title=baking soda|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=75|height=100]Slow pipes? You don't have to go to the hardware store and pay $6-12 on a bottle of chemicals every month just to make sure that your drains are flowing OK.
Once a month do this:

1. Run the hot water for a little while to warm up the pipes.

2. Save a cup of the hot water.
3. Put 2 or 3 tablespoons of baking soda in the drain.
4. Pour in the cup of hot water.
5. Pour in one cup of vinegar.

It'll foam up a bit, like back in elementary school with the model volcano. Rinse the drain with hot water within an hour.
Do this once a month and it works just like the chemicals do on regular household drains, but definitely won't harm them.

It costs about $2.50 for a gallon of vinegar, and 50-99 cents for a box of baking soda.

Less than a dollar per month with identical results. That's a secret worth sharing.

It's been a couple of days since the White House Correspondent's dinner. (Don't know about this annual love-fest?Read about it here.)

[img_assist|nid=21|link=url,http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/05/01/colbert/index.html|align=left|width=149|height=100]

Salon story about the performance.
Another Salon story about how Colbert is being ignored.


[img_assist|nid=20|title=|desc=|link=url,http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/arts/03colb.html|align=left|width=189|height=100]
New York Times article about how blogs have picked up the story.


The liberal blogs say: Take that!
The conservative blogs say: He wasn't funny!

The mainstream media is getting caught up on the funny thing. Seems like a good way to diffuse it. I think they are confusing themselves. People who haven't seen it should do one of following:

• Read the transcript

• Listen to it. (minimize the video. Video links at Boingboing)
• Add a laugh track to the video, then watch it. (No one's done this yet)

Colbert walked up there with wonderfully on-point, spot-on satire of a Bush supporter.

The uncomfortable feeling everyone gets while watching the video is not unfunniness. The uncomfortableness comes from the fact that the president of the United States was ten feet away. Forget about that fact and see if you think it's funny then.

It doesn't change anything he said, it just rids it of that weird feeling no one can put their finger on.

I was having a problem getting clean url's to work after moving to another hosting provider. I'm using Drupal 4.7rc3 right now and I just couldn[t figure out what the problem was. I knew that ModRwrite was enabled. I had the right commands in my .htaccess file. I was stumped. I found this comment on Drupal.org that solved the problem for me.

The answer: Just add a slash in front of index.php in the rewrite rule like this:

Now it works just fine.

Saturday, June 10th.
Durkin's Tavern (Diversey, west of Halsted). Chicago, of course.
$25, drinks included.
Eighty-five people invited through Evite. (didn't we graduate 248 or something like that?)

Added it to Upcoming.org in case anyone uses that. Link.
Post multiple comments, can't do that with Evite.

I wish there were some kind of forum. (Lot's of questions come to mind...maybe they're best left unasked.) Maybe: von96.deprecated.net? Nah.

Official email is vonsteuben96 at yahoo.com

Who would win in a fight? Von Steuben Metropolitan Science Center or Von Steuben High School?