Inside another video game, this one a haunted house kind of thing -- you
have to retrieve a treasure from a haunted basement, for which you need a
map, infrared goggles, and a light source. (I didn't consider why you
need a light source if you have infrared goggles, but maybe ghosts and
demons don't emit in the infrared because their temperature is near
absolute zero -- we know that ghosts are said to be extremely cold -- but
maybe they still do reflect light.)
It was really scary. There was a better logical sequence to things than
in the last haunted house adventure game dream I had. This time, you
could actually find the things you needed, and understand what they were
there for. You could understand that at a certain point you would go to
the basement, and find this treasure, and then flee. However, there was
always a risk of death, and, as often in dreams, death is not particularly
less scary just because of the suggestion that it might not be final.
I was there with a woman who acted as a kind of non-player character (or
maybe she was being played by someone else who was having the same
dream); she did things with me and was a source of hints about what to do
to stay alive.
A rant.
One interesting thing in my server logs is that people keep finding this
diary through searches for things like "download LinDVD", "LinDVD download",
or "real media save to disk" (and various permutations). This is slightly
ironic.
I'm high up in the list of results for "LinDVD download" on
Google.de.
Unfortunately for people trying these searches, my diary isn't providing
access to copies of the software in question. Instead, I was criticizing
LinDVD as a bad thing (proprietary software technically inferior to its
free software rivals, providing fewer features that users want, and giving
a spurious justification for the motion picture industry's claims).
Maybe it's good that people who want to download LinDVD will find my comments.
Maybe they'll be inspired to write letters to IBM about not wanting to pay
for DVD-CCA licenses (although the "I won't buy computers from customers of
licensees of trade associations that sue my colleagues" argument sounds a
bit convoluted if you're not involved in the issue). Maybe they'll be
inspired to use free
software and avoid arbitrary restrictions like region codes. But
probably people who wanted to download LinDVD will be frustrated by
finding pages of criticism of the program. (There's a reason you can't
download LinDVD, though -- because it's proprietary software, and you
only get it on OEM systems.)
It's a similar situation with the RealMedia thing: I talk about a program
called StreamBox VCR, which I thought was a good and useful program, and
is a program which lets you save streams to disk. However,
the reason I talk about it is not that I know how you can get a copy,
but because there was an important lawsuit in which Real sued StreamBox
and succeeded in suppressing the program. So in this case my point is
again not to tell you how to get a copy of the program, but to complain
about a legal and political situation, and to criticize Real for their
proprietary format and for using litigation to prevent other people from
making interoperable software that provides better features.
If you are looking for these programs, I can't help you find them; my
point is that it should not be difficult to find Linux DVD player
software, or RealMedia "VCR" software, but in practice it can be, because
of copyright interests and astonishing expansions in copyright law.
Therefore, you can write a letter to Real (Rob Glaser, CEO, RealNetworks, Inc.,
PO Box 91123, Seattle, WA 98111-9223, U.S.A.) expressing your displeasure
with their efforts to prevent you from getting software (written by third
parties) which would let you save streams to disk -- an activity which
is comparable to the function of a VCR. You can write to IBM (I haven't
been able to figure out a physical address for people who are responsible
for Linux at IBM) telling them that you want software like LiViD or
Xine or other free DVD players shipped on their laptops, instead of
LinDVD.
You can join the EFF or
volunteer there. If EFF wins
its current trade secret and copyright-related legal cases, you will
have more access to software which will give you more flexibility and
control in the use of media you buy. Otherwise, perhaps you should
move to a non-WIPO country. :-)
I worked for hours and hours on the Bootable Business Card, and ran into
some frustrations, especially in trying to compile the ash shell on Linux.
There really are some differences between a NetBSD build environment and
a Linux build environment! And ash is maintained in NetBSD, a bit, but
not really maintained natively on Linux. Debian grabs the ash source
from NetBSD now and then and ports it, and then Red Hat will take the
Debian port and try to build it there. Ick.
I spent hours working on the build thing without so much luck. I finally
got ash to build, but only with a standard glibc and not with uClibc
or with dietlibc. And the static binary that results is just huge, much
too big to use in the boot floppy.
So I managed to make a new BBC boot disk based on busybox and an older
version of ash than what we had been using (a version Red Hat compiled
statically once upon a time which comes out smaller than the one I produced).
It boots now (after much experimentation) but it chronically produces zombie
processes, which is no good. I still have to figure out what's going wrong
there. I think the older ash's handling of child processes and of forking
children into the background is suspect.
I did almost nothing else on Sunday but work on the BBC, which means I
didn't get particularly far through my to do list.
I talked to Wolfgang in the evening, then to Michelle.
My arms hurt again; I think they would have done a lot better if I had
taken more time this weekend to do errands that didn't involve typing.
I certainly had such errands to do.
My source for ghosts being extremely cold is D. A. Wright, "A Theory of
Ghosts", Worm Runner's Digest 12, 95 (1971), reprinted
in R. L. Weber (compiler), A Random Walk in Science
(New York: Crane, Russak & Co., Inc., 1973), at pp. 112-3:
It has sometimes been thought that ghosts produce a
sensation of cold in their environment. This is perhaps to be
expected if they have just returned from outer space, where
the temperature is believed to be about three degrees absolute
(Penzias and Wilson 1965). It is less obvious why this should
occur if they have been resident for some time, as in an old
castle (unless, indeed, they have internal means of
refrigeration, which seems unlikely, but perhaps not impossible).
If the observation is correct, it implies that ghosts must
have quite a high specific heat. [...] It is evidently important
to obtain more reliable evidence as to the temperature and
specific heat of ghosts.
Just before this, Wright suggests that ghosts scatter infrared light
be re-emission at radiofrequencies. That, together with the ghosts'
low temperature, must be why the infrared goggles in my dream were
not sufficient.
Leonard says that Umberto Eco has a
new book out. I'm running into a bunch of Eco connections recently:
first, re-reading The Name of the Rose (and it shows up
a lot in "Existence and Uniqueness"), then reading The Search
for the Perfect Language (which I mentioned by ISBN in my
constrained writing posted here yesterday -- I couldn't say "Search
for the Perfect Language" directly without using an "e"). Then I
also saw the link to Eco in
Neal Stephenson's home
page. Lots of Eco. He is a genius.
