The Wind Through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel by Stephen King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
It has been a while since I finished reading through the dark tower series. I even read a few of the graphic novels that followed. I enjoyed all of it, and I enjoyed this book as well, but I agree with much of the criticism that it shouldn't be considered part of the series. It is hard to create suspense when I already know that the characters must survive since I've already read the following books. This entry in the series includes a brief look at Roland, Eddie, Jake, Susannah, and Oy as they travel along the path of the beam, but then shifts to a story of young Roland on a mission to find a skin-man. This story then leads to young Roland telling a boy a fairy tale that his mother had told him. In the end, we get a bit more detail on Roland's character, but overall it does not add to the DT story arc. Many have commented that this would have been better suited as part of a Tales of the Beam collection of stories detailing other characters in the Dark Tower universe without being considered part of the Dark Tower series itself. I did enjoy this read, and I would recommend it to other DT fans, but with the warning that you won't be filling in any gaps.
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Review: The Wind Through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel
The Wasteland that is the Modern Arcade
What has happened to the arcade? I love games. I love board games, video games, card games...pretty much any kind of game. When I was young I would look forward to trips to the mall so I could head to the arcade with my friends and playing Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, Killer Instinct, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and more! We would spend hours feeding quarters (actual quarters!) into these machines and having a great time. A birthday party at Showbiz Pizza meant playing skeeball, basketball, pac-man, and enjoying the animatronic show.
While much is the same, much has changed. I have children of my own now, and they also want to go to the arcade and have pizza birthday parties. My children are getting a much different experience, however. A walk into a modern arcade will confront you with bank upon bank of skill crane and chance games intended to eat tokens for the scant chance of a payout in tickets. There may be two skeeball machines tucked in a corner, but chances are good they are down for maintenance. Worse, my kids (and their friends) aren't even interested in the rare game we might find. Instead they simply look for who can turn their tokens into the most tickets the most quickly. I haven't even walked away from feeding my $20 into the token machine when the first child is back with an empty token cup and a small handful of tickets. In no time we've run through $60 and the kids are anxiously caching out for stickers, plastic rings, and cheap candy that will probably get lost in the seat cushions on the ride home.
Unfortunately, the only thing that has remained constant about my arcade experience is the quality of the food, which has been consistently and universally bad. We do have a Dave & Busters nearby, and on the one occasion when I took my oldest son we did have a good time challenging each other to top scores in Galaga, Ms. Pac-Man, and Centipede. This was all on a small, multi-game unit tucked away in a corner. Walking around there were plenty of flashing lights and cool graphics on display, but the machines could hardly be considered games. There was a Star Wars AT-AT simulator (cool, but it was more of an experience than a game). There was an immersive 'ride' that had fans and hydraulics to augment the image on the screen. There were dance pads, guitars, and lots and lots of guns in various shapes, sizes and colors. Joysticks, on the other hand, were in short supply. The days of button mashing appear to be behind us.
Of course, I do realize that there are a number of factors that have lead to the sad state of today's arcade. The home gaming console really hurt the small arcade in the mall or the unit at the local pizza shop. Why make the effort to get to an arcade and pump quarters into a machine when you can have the same experience in the comfort of your home? With fewer people coming through the doors arcades had to either close their doors or find an alternative to survive. Enter the skill crane. Cheap to maintain and impossible for a child to avoid. So when a game unit needs repair, just replace it with the crane. Too many cranes? Install some ticket vendors and a small booth full of cheap tchotchkes to help parents turn those $20s into ten cent toys. Some, like Dave & Busters, have made an effort to install modern games, but they feel compelled to offer something you can't get at home. Either a simulator or giant apparatus that you couldn't have at home on your console.
The arcade could be so much more. Sure, I could have my friends over to play games on my home console with graphics that rival anything you might find in the arcade. I could play online with millions of strangers. The arcade is the perfect environment to meet new people face to face. To see the look in their eye as you pummel them, or to stand at the side and learn from a master. It doesn't matter if I could play the same game at home, it is the social element that really makes the arcade appealing. Surprisingly, it is the friendly local game store that has taken over this opportunity from the arcade. My local shop has a weekly game night where the public is invited in to try the latest in table top games and meet other people who enjoy gaming. It is a blast! I look forward to these nights each week. I'm sad that arcades have become the wasteland that they are today, but I'm glad to have an oasis in my local game store.
Review: Shadow and Claw
Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolfe
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
What. a. slog. I was turned on to this book by The Sword and Laser podcast. The description of a dying earth that contains the remnants of technology that people have largely forgotten or spurned really interested me. What I found in the first two volumes of this series was a pretty aimless fantasy tale. I think it was a good move to merge both of these volumes into a single paperback as I would not have been interested enough after The Shadow of the Torturer to pickup The Claw of the Conciliator.
It is not that the book is written poorly. In fact, the imagery is very good. I'm just not interested in Severian and his adventures. He is a wholly unlikable main character. There is very little plot to speak of. Instead, it feels like a quilted patchwork of scenes with no common design. One of Severian's traveling mates even goes so far as to wonder at what his goal is when he has so many goals at once, yet appears to be chasing none of them.
I don't think I'm going to pickup the next two books in the series. I fear that there is some twist in volume three that will change my opinion (this series has a tremendous amount of praise) but I'm just not willing to spend any more time on it.
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Review: Pump Six and Other Stories
Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Wow, these are some dark stories. As far as my reading goes, Bacigalupi is unique in that he paints his dystopias not as places where we kill ourselves with guns and missiles but instead with what we eat. I really enjoyed The Windup Girl which is what prompted me to pick up this book, and I wasn't disappointed. Fair warning however: these are dark stories without much hint of hope.
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Review: Gone Girl
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
My wife had finished reading Gone Girl on the same day that I picked up a copy of Old Man's War from the Humble Bundle program. She was insistent that I read it so we could talk about it (she didn't want to give anything way) and so I read through the first two chapters. I immediately found that neither Nick or Amy appealed to me, so I set it aside and spent the next couple of weeks leisurely reading Scalzi's book. Once finished with that I felt I should take another stab at Gone Girl.
First, I'm not typically a fan of relationship drama or crime fiction. I recognize that there are good works in this genre out there, and I can read them and appreciate them, but it isn't my go to genre. So I was already biased against this book. Secondly, the first few chapters of the book are very slow. Amy's diary entries are frustratingly wimpy and Nick narrative is very self-absorbed. We know from the dust jacket that there is some excitement coming, but we need to pay our penance of getting acquainted with our characters before we get to the fun.
Then Amy is gone, and I'm learning new things a bit at a time about each character. Unlikable things about people I already didn't like. Then, around 200 pages in, whammo, major shift.
In the end, Flynn is to be commended on some exceptional writing here. The characters are extremely well done. So my rating here is less about the quality of the book (it is quite good) but a reflection of my own tastes. I wouldn't read it again, because it isn't the type of book I enjoy. On the other hand, for fans of crime dramas, I would highly recommend it.
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Munchkin
Over the past year I've fallen back in love with board gaming in a big way. I've always enjoyed table top games, but finding a group to play with has been a struggle. Fortunately, I've met several locals that also enjoy games, and I've befriended the owner of our local board game store, which has led to lot better opportunities to game. I have had a chance to play quite a few games that were new to me, and picked up my own copies of some games that I've particularly enjoyed.
One such game is Munchkin, a Steve Jackson game. Munchkin is a card game for three to six players that condenses a Dungeons and Dragons campaign to the core elements of defeating monsters and grabbing treasure. Each player begins as a level one plain old human and is dealt four "door" cards and four "treasure" cards. These cards might allow them to become a class of hero, such as a Cleric or Thief, or change their race to something like an Elf or a Dwarf. In addition, some treasures provide armaments that increase the power of the player. On each player's turn they first setup their items, races, and classes as they like, then they "Kick in a door". This means the top door card is revealed. If it is a monster, the player tries to defeat it by using a combination of levels and items to have a higher power than the monster.
Of course, it isn't that simple. Other players can get involved in combat too, and not just to help you out. The other players can offer to help you defeat the monster by adding their own power to yours, but often they will want a bit of the treasure in return. Defeating a monster awards a level to the player who kicked in the door, and the game is won by reaching level 10. This gives the other players an incentive to mess with you, and the game provides plenty of opportunities to do just that. There are cards that allow players to curse one another and demote them a level or steal items. There are powerful enhancement cards that can either make a player more powerful or make the monster more powerful. There are cards that allow springing additional monsters into combat when they are least expected.
The game is given a light feel by the humor found both in the art style and the flavor text of the cards (i.e. Pantyhose of Giant's Strength). In the box you will find door cards, treasure cards, and a dice. It would have been nice if it included something for tracking player levels, but that is reserved for the Deluxe version of the game.
I've had the occasion to play several games now, and it has left me with a distinct impression of the game. Given the right players, this game can be a lot of fun. The right players are people who have been exposed to the concepts of role playing games and likely have spent time, if not actually role playing, at least playing video games with role playing elements such as item management and leveling. The humor is geared towards players familiar with role playing and fantasy tropes. These types of players will quickly pickup on how the game is played and will likely enjoy themselves quite a lot. On the other hand, playing with the wrong players can be a miserable experience. The wrong players are folks who have never been exposed to role playing or fantasy games, rules lawyers, and jerks. A jerk is going to be painful to play with in any game, but this game intentionally provides opportunities to harass each other. This can bring out the worst in people, especially if two or more of your players have some issues with each other. It can be painful to watch them hate on each other during what can sometimes be a two hour game. Rules lawyers are also painful to deal with because the rules of the game are intentionally terse and open to interpretation. A lot of time can be lost quibbling over how cards might interact and timing elements that the rules simply don't cover. This distracts the focus from the fun of the game and leads to constant refereeing of disagreements over mechanics. Finally, players with no background in role playing or fantasy can feel like the entire game is foreign. I've played with three folks who fit this mold, and I felt bad watching them play because it was clear that everything in the game was alien to them and they were having absolutely no fun. These aren't problems with the game per se. Instead, it is best to know your audience when you consider breaking out the Munchkin box. Be sure the players are going to be right for having a fun time. If in doubt, pick something else.
I've enjoyed playing Munchkin, and while I have had some bad experiences, the good experiences will keep me looking for the right group to play this game with again.
Review: Old Man's War
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Old Man's War is a fun read that was a nice fit for a lot of the themes I enjoy. It isn't breaking any new ground as far as profound thought or mental stretching. I could easily see this becoming a summer blockbuster film (and I believe the process of producing a film version of the story is already underway). I really enjoyed the first Starship Troopers film, and this book has a lot of that flavor to it.
The story centers on John Perry, a former advertising copy writer who is coming up on his 75th birthday. The year is sometime in the future, and for our elderly citizens there is an alternative option to simply passing away of old age; you can sign up for the Colonial Defense Force. The CDF is a military organization that takes on elderly recruits and ships them out into the universe for a minimum two year deployment of fighting. John has already lost his wife to a stroke and has heard the rumors of how the CDF has some flashy tech to make him young again. It has to be better than dying old and lonely, so he enlists. What he discovers is that the CDF is much more alien than he could have ever imagined. What follows is the story of John's second life as a CDF recruit.
I enjoyed Scalzi's style and humor from [b:Fuzzy Nation|9647532|Fuzzy Nation|John Scalzi|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1316132345s/9647532.jpg|18280046], and there is plenty of that on display here as well. Ultimately this book is an amalgamation of many other science fiction story elements, but that is just fine with me. I'll probably be picking up the rest of the books of the series.
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Review: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I think these stories probably do a good job of capturing how mad the real world must feel to a child, especially a child growing up in Carroll's time. I don't know that it is as applicable now as it was then (we tend to coddle our children to a great degree now) but it certainly highlights how the lessons we are taught in elementary school and by our parents leave out much of what we might call "street smarts". People will try to hurt you for any reason at all, and even without one. You will never be sufficiently prepared, so learn to cope as you go along. Rules will often make sense only to the rule maker. I get the message here, but for whatever reason, these stories just didn't appeal to me.
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Review: Lucifer's Hammer
Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I love a good apocalypse book, and this was a good one. I liked how the story was told from a variety of perspectives, and how the same moment in time is retold from several viewpoints in various locations. I think this story may have heavily influenced the screen writers responsible for Deep Impact, but this story doesn't end at the point of impact.
I'm compelled to compare this to [b:One Second After|4922079|One Second After|William R. Forstchen|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1316728333s/4922079.jpg|4987669], a much more recently published apocalypse scenario that I had previously read. I enjoyed One Second After, but I thought it could have been much better. There are some distinct differences in plot. In One Second After, the population has no warning at all of the apocalyptic event. The population of Lucifer's Hammer has months of advance notice, but are not entirely convinced that the comet will hit. The event in One Second After only disabled electronics, while Lucifer's Hammer sunders the earth. Lucifer's Hammer is better in a variety of ways. I felt more connected to the characters. I felt the science had a better foundation. I felt the reaction of the public was more believable. My only gripe with Lucifer's Hammer is the part that women play throughout, and this is likely due to the time the story was written. The story was written in the mid seventies, and you definitely get the "Mad Men" vibe what with alcohol as tonic throughout, and women largely as bedroom furniture. Even so, there are some female characters with strong, constructive roles (watch for Eileen particularly).
I really enjoyed this book, and would recommend to any other fans of post apocalyptic scenarios.
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Journey
Journey is the third video game produced by independent development house thatgamecompany. I really enjoyed their previous games Flow and Flower. These games stretch the definition of "game", and Journey stretches that definition the furthest. In Journey you play as a...well.. who knows. Your character is an armless humanoid dressed in a robe that covers you from head to foot. Your objective is rather vague: there is a mountain in the distance, and you will journey towards it. Your interaction with the world is limited to just a few actions: moving about, vocalizing, and leaping. The world that you move through is really extraordinary, and it is fun to explore and find out just how much you can do with these limited controls. Still, this limited interaction leaves me wondering if "game" is the right term to apply here. In Flow you battled against other organisms to become king of the depths. Flower was more vague, essentially a finding exercise as you searched for enough flowers to bloom in order to open up the next section of the game. Journey offers even less direction. If you wanted, you could just tape the joystick to point forward and come back in two hours to see the credits roll.
There has been a lot of dispute about whether or not video games should be considered art. Acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert has famously said that they are not comparable to film and books as art, while the Smithsonian Institute has created a traveling museum honoring the art of video games. Journey, in my view, is trying very hard to be considered art. It is an interactive experience that each person is going to react to differently. The gaming press has been falling over itself to lavish praise on this game, but I'm not sure that this is necessarily a good thing. Yes, Journey is beautiful and unique, but the "game" element here is pretty weak. Someone looking for the same sort of release that a game like Call of Duty provides isn't going to find it here, and that could create a backlash by the gaming community. The entire experience can be completed in under two hours, and many gamers might feel cheated by that.
I definitely recommend giving Journey a try, but caution to approach this as a piece of interactive art rather than a video game. Consider it a $15 door fee to a private showing at an artist's gallery.
Review: A Princess of Mars
A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Well, now I know what SF pulp is.
I had put this book on my to-read list some time ago, and then forgotten about it. With the movie in theaters and a free digital copy available I decided to finally do something about that. At under 200 pages this is a breeze to get through, and the chapters definitely feel episodic.
A Princess of Mars tells the story of John Carter, a Virginian civil war veteran who headed West to claim his fortune prospecting. He finds himself magically transported to Mars amid barbaric alien races pitched in constant battle.
What follows is combination Axe body spray / Old Spice commercial where John Carter exhibits supreme manliness in the face of danger, dealing death to his foes and leaving a trail of adoring fans in his wake. The story reads a bit breathless. I found the book entertaining overall, but not something I would eagerly recommend.
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Review: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Within a few pages of reading this one I started recommending it to anyone who would sit still long enough to listen. Our image of Jesus is shaped from just brief moments at the beginning of his life and the end. This book provides a humorous back story for the 30 something years we don't know about. Told from the perspective of Joshua's childhood pal Levi bar Alphaeus, also known as Biff, we hear of how Biff and Joshua stumble through adolescence and into their adulthood. The humor here runs the gamut from subtle wink to raunchy blue, and I loved it. It isn't very often that I literally laugh out loud when reading, but I enjoyed several such moments while reading this one. Highly recommend!
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Review: Time Travelers Never Die
Time Travelers Never Die by Jack McDevitt
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Michael Shelbourne mysteriously disappears from his home, sending his son Adrian on a quest to find him. What he discovers is that his father, a reknown physicist, has managed to create a time travel device packaged much like an iPod. Adrian and his friend Dave embark on a quest to discover where in time his father has disappeared to, and why he hasn't returned.
Overall I enjoyed this book, and I would likely have enjoyed it more if I were a history buff. There are all sorts of references to historical events and people that I'm hesitant to admit I know very little about. One thing that frustrated me is that there are points in the story where the solution to a plot point or question are painfully obvious, yet the characters trudge on, completely oblivious to what should be right in front of their face. It would be one thing if these were men thrust into a completely unexpected situation outside of their normal pursuits, but these are a college professor and son of a physics genius. This is a minor quibble though.
The sci-fi element of this story is pretty light, so I would recommend this to historical fiction fans who like to dabble in sci-fi before I would recommend it to science fiction fans with a penchant for history.
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Review: Full Dark, No Stars
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
King is known for striving for high page count, so it is always nice to come across a selection of his short (by King standards) stories. As explained in the acknowledgments at the end of the book, these are stories that ask what would a real person do in this situation. There is very little of the supernatural here.
1922
The longest and possibly most difficult to get through of the stories. A study in how the torment of guilt can ruin your life.
Big Driver
This one reminded me of the exploitation film "I spit on your grave". If you were mildly famous and something tragic happened to you, what would you do?
Fair Extension
I think this is my favorite from this book. A man doomed by cancer meets a salesman who can give him an extension on his life at the price of 15% of his salary for the remainder of his years. Oh, and he has to pick someone else to be saddled with the burden of bad luck that is being lifted from his own shoulders.
A Good Marriage
What would you do if, after decades of marriage, you discovered your spouse was hiding a terrible, terrible secret? Would you be able to live with it? Would you be able to live with yourself?
The paperback edition I read also included an additional short story.
Under the Weather
It's hard not to spoil this one as it is so short, but I did like it. Would you be able to say goodbye to the one you love?
Overall, I think this is an excellent collection of short stories. Many are going to feel familiar, but King's storytelling style keeps them interesting. Also, these are told without the usual gotchas and twists. I'd recommend to anyone who is a fan of King's work, or just looking to see how dark the human soul can be.
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Night Sky Photography
I am not a photographer, but I can certainly appreciate a great photo. I'm also not an astronomer, but I enjoy looking up at the stars. Ever since moving out to the country we've had some great views of the night sky. Planets shine brightly and on a clear night you can see the faint glow of the milky way. I'd really like to be able to capture some of these views, but I'm not willing to spend thousands of dollars on a camera (at least not right now). I'd love to have a high quality telescope too, but that is a pretty low priority right now. So I've been trying to figure out if the things we have around the house might allow me to take a passable picture of the night sky.
I did a little reading to see what I would need, and it turns out you can get a respectable picture with some simple equipment. What I had on hand was my smart phone with camera (Moto DROID v1) and my son's toy telescope (Gallileo 600x50mm refractor). The functions on the Droid's camera are pretty limited. For a night image, the most critical feature is the ability to set the exposure time, followed by setting the focus to infinit. The Droid does allow setting the focus to infiniti, but there are only three exposure settings: 0, +1, and +2. We had a clear night and a bright moon, so I tried to get a shot.
Not what I was hoping for. I mean, sure, you can tell there is some light out there, and it is vaguely crescent shaped, but you can't really say whether it is the moon or a flashlight.
Tonight was another clear night so I decided to try taking a picture through the telescope. I got the telescope setup on the tripod and aimed at the moon, which was again very bright and clear. I had a devil of a time trying to get the phones camera lined up with the eye piece, and absolutely no luck getting anything in focus.
I was pretty frustrated with the results. Then I had the thought to try the Logitech QuickCam Communicate STX web cam sitting on top of my monitor. It has a very low resolution (1.3MP interpolated) vs. my Droid (5MP). I found it was quite a bit easier to align with the eye piece of the telescope and I was able to get the image mostly focused.
I was surprised and very happy with the way this one turned out. The software for the camera allows for automatically adjusting the exposure and gain, but I found I got the best image when I turned that feature off and set the exposure and gain to their lowest setting. There is a bit of ghosting here based on how the camera takes a photo.
I have yet to try this with our point-and-shoot digital camera. I think I'll have to try that next.
UPDATE: I tried my hand at using our point and shoot, both unaided and through the telescope.
DLNA
I've mentioned before that we converted our DVD library so that we could stream it over our home network. One drawback of that setup was that my main development machine had to be online to host the videos. In addition, when anyone in the house wanted to stream that content, it put a small load on my machine. I really wanted to offload those demands. I looked at the various options on the market, and settled on the Western Digital My Book Live (2TB). The WD My Book Live is a single drive NAS that is DLNA certified. We had recently purchased a Samsung SmartTV (UN55D6000) which is also DLNA certified, so I was looking forward to streaming directly from the drive to the TV with no other components in the mix.
I installed the WD My Book Live on our network and set about copying over our music, movies, and pictures to the drive. We have quite a collection, so this was a multi-hour job. When the copy completed, I switched on the Samsung TV and it immediately found the My Book on our network. It streamed our home movies, music, and pictures perfectly, but each time I tried to stream one of our movies the set would stall on the Loading screen for about a minute before giving the message "Not Supported File Format". Even more frustrating, rather than returning to the table of contents, the set immediately attempted to stream the next file in the directory, which hung the machine for another minute until it responded to the request to exit.
I searched to see if this were a known issue, and which product was the culprit. I found that each product has their own slight issues that, combined, resulted in many users complaining about the same problem. It seems that Samsung's DLNA client makes use of the DLNA server in an unusual way, although still keeping within the letter of the DLNA spec. The WD My Book Live uses the Twonky Media Server to stream content. The version of the server on the device (5.1.9) did not respond appropriately to these requests, which resulted in a failure to stream the video. Other DLNA clients, such as my PS3, stream those same videos just fine from the WD MBL.
My first thought was to figure out what file format our home movies used and transcode our movie library to that format. That is a pretty daunting task considering the size of our library though, and if it sacrificed picture quality I wasn't interested. Fortunately, I found that other users with this same issue had found a solution. It seems that Twonky recognized the issue with Samsung sets and corrected it in the latest version of their software (6.0.34). Western Digital doesn't have any plans to release an official firmware with this version of Twonky, but that didn't stop folks from finding a way to do it on their own. This forum posts describes the steps for upgrading from the stock version of Twonky to the latest revision:
http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/forum/t-305396/upgrading-twonky
The Western Digital My Book Live is apparently powered by a PowerPC CPU and runs an embedded version of Linux. After modifying the config file for the machine, it is possible to get a terminal prompt and update the Twonky software. In addition to correcting the streaming issue with Samsung sets, it also includes the ability to display album cover art. Using this new version of Twonky is unsupported, and you have to pay a $20 license fee for the upgrade. I'll gladly pay that fee for working software, although I am disappointed that Western Digital doesn't plan to release this as an official upgrade.
How to Make Your DVD Collection Streamable
If your family is like ours, you probably have a fairly sizable collection of DVDs. You have kids movies, feature films, television show collections, and potentially even home videos. Before Netflix made movie streaming mainstream, you probably thought nothing of keeping a media shelf full of DVD cases and occasionally popping one in your DVD player. It is so much easier now, though, to search for content through that Netflix interface. Wouldn't it be great if all of those DVDs you have around the house were as easy to access as your Netflix content?
Well, with a little time, a PC, and a home network, you can. There are a number of steps involved, though, so I've put together this guide on how to make your DVD collection available on your home network.
DISCLAIMER: This is a guide is intended for use with content that you *own* and have the *right* to use. Distributing copies of copyrighted feature films is against the law. Everybody behave and do good, mmkay?
Ok, with that out of the way, let's talk about the major steps in making your DVD collection available over your home network. First, there are a couple of things you are going to need:
- A Computer with a DVD drive. This guide assumes a Windows machine.
- A home network, wireless or wired
- A gaming console (PS3, Xbox360, Wii) or Home Theater PC (HTPC)
There are three major steps in going from the content on your disc to streaming to your TV, and one optional step.
- Rip the DVD content to your PC
- Transcode the content to a streaming friendly format
- (Optional)"Tag" the file with additional information
- Publish the content on your home network
Step 1 - DVD Rip
The first step is to get the content of the disc and onto your PC (otherwise known as ripping) where you can work with it. For this I recommend DVDFab. DVDFab is actually a swiss army knife when it comes to DVDs and Blu-Ray discs, but we're only interested in one feature: HD Decrypter. If you find the software suite useful, I encourage you to buy a copy, as the suite of tools is really quite nice.
When you open DVDFab you will be presented with a list of options along the left. We are interested in the DVD Copy option at the top. We then get additional options. When ripping a DVD, you can select to copy all of the contents of the disc, which includes the special features, menus, alternative languages, and other content on the disc. Alternatively, you can choose to copy just the main movie feature. Your selection will depend on the content you are ripping, but for most feature films your best option will be Main Movie. On the right hand pane of the window use the source field to select the DVD that you would like to copy from. In the Target field select the folder to copy the content to. DVD content is large, and you will want to have plenty of room on your hard drive. If your PC has two hard drives, I recommend creating a folder on the second drive for storing the DVD rips. In the "Volume Label" field name the content you are ripping. DVDFab will use the name from the source DVD label, but you are free to use whatever you like. The software will create a new folder in the target folder with this name. Finally, for best quality, dropdown the DVD size selector to choose DVD 9. This will retain a perfect bit-for-bit copy of the disc rather than performing compression. We're done here, so click the next button.
This next screen displays the tracks found on the disc and which one will be copied. DVDFab is very good about detecting which track is the feature film on the disc. However, if you are ripping a disc that contains episodes of a television show, you may find that you need to fiddle with some of the options. For now, I'll assume that DVDFab correctly selected the main track. Go ahead and click Start to get the rip going. This is a long process, and the time it takes to rip the disc will depend on the length of the content, the speed of your DVD drive, processor, and hard drive. Usually you can expect an hour of content to take about 10 minutes to rip, but this will vary.
Step 2 - Transcode to H.264
Transcoding is the process of converting from one video file format (or codec) to another. I like the Handbrake software for this step. Handbrake comes with a number of profiles that allow you to tailor the transcoding process to the device you intend to display your content on. For the purpose of this guide I'm going to assume you want to display the content on a high definition television from a gaming console, such as a PlayStation3. Select the High Profile option, as this will give you a good copy of the content for streaming without too much compression. From the menu bar, click the Video Source button and choose Video Folder. Now browse to the folder created by DVDFab when it ripped the disc. You may notice that the folder you selected now has several sub-folders: Main Movie->
Step 3 - Tagging (Optional)
While this step is not required to get your content streaming on your home network, you may find it helpful. Tagging allows you to supply additional information about the video file, such as the actors who perform, the director, date it was published, and cover art. I use a free app called MetaX to do this tagging. It isn't the easiest app to use, but the price is right and it has the features I need. First, open the video file you would like to apply tags to. You'll see it added to the list on the right. Next, select that item from the list. Now, on the left side, enter the name of the video in the search box and click Search. The app will pull up data from several tag databases that match the search term. Clicking search results will populate the fields in the main section of the app. If you don't find what you are looking for you can manually enter the details for your file. Once complete, click the check box next to each box that you would like associated with the file, or click the check mark button in the toolbar to toggle all checks. Finally, click the Apply button (shaped like an arrowhead) to apply these tags to the file. You can add several files to your queue and tag them all at once.
Step 4 - Publish
The final step to making your content available is to publish it on your local network. If you are running Windows 7, the built-in Windows Media Server software can do this for you. I've found the security settings required to get Windows Media Server to work properly to be very frustrating, so I use PlayOn. The PlayOn service runs on your PC and makes content available to your other network devices, such as other PCs, game consoles, and mobile devices. While you need to pay for a license for much of the content, the My Media (beta) feature is free to use without a full license. Again, the PlayOn software is great, and I encourage you to purchase a copy, but if you are looking to stream on the cheap, the free version will get you there. The My Media feature of PlayOn requires that you also install the VLC Media Player, which is a fantastic piece of free software for playing movies.
From the PlayOn control panel you need to configure the software to find your local files. Pull up the PlayOn settings window and go to the MyMedia tab. You need to check the box to enable the My Media feature (beta). You can then add folders to PlayOn that will be made available to your networked devices.
Start Streaming!
Now your content is published, go watch it! If you have a PlayStation3, your PlayOn server will appear as an option in the Video section of the cross bar interface. If you use a Wii you will need to open the Internet Browser and browse to the address of the server on your network. The same works for the Xbox360 or a laptop. You will be presented with a menu that allows you to select content. If you use an iPod Touch, iPhone, or Android device there are PlayOn apps.
The PlayOn interface for streaming is a little quirky, and it can be frustrating to try scrubbing to a specific point in a video. The DLNA support on the PlayStation3 is fantastic, and is a great way for viewing your streamed content.
What is a Fair Tax Rate?
As our representatives in Washington attempt to agree on a budget, one of the topics of discussion is how much tax we should pay. Specifically, should the wealthiest Americans continue to receive the tax cut put in place by President Bush?
Before anyone answers that question, I think it is important to go through the thought experiment of determining what a 'fair' tax would be. Let's say you were suddenly granted the power to decide the rate at which income tax is paid. We'll stick with income tax to focus the discussion, but there are a number of other sources of tax, including social security, medicare/medicaid, and payroll tax to name a few. First, let's look at the spectrum of income in the US. Income is typically divided into quintiles, which is dividing the spectrum into five pieces, each with equal population. The Census Bureau published the mean income for each quintile for the year 2009:
Bottom Quintile: $11,552
Second Quintile: $29,257
Third Quintile: $49,534
Fourth Quintile: $78,694
Top Quintile: $170,844
Within each quintile you will find folks who make more than the mean, and folks who make less than the mean, but the idea is that an equal number of households are making somewhere around this amount. Another thing to keep in mind is that for the year 2009, the threshold for poverty was annual income of less than $11,161 (I covered this in more detail in an earlier post).
So given that $11,161 is the minimum necessary to live, what level of taxation is fair?
One common school of thought is to impose flat tax amount, where each citizen pays the same. After all, we all are equal citizens, so we should all pay the same for that privilege. In 2009 the US government received $1.21 trillion in income tax. We'll ignore the fact that the US ran a $400 billion deficit this year, and assume that this amount of tax was sufficient for a balanced budget (along with those other tax receipts we are ignoring for the moment). The IRS received 236 million returns that year, so we'll use that as our population count. So if we divided the tax receipts ($1.21T) by our population (236M) we get $5,127.12 from every household.
Our top quintile would love that. After all, it is easily afforded, and likely much less than they pay now. Our bottom quintile is in real trouble though. They had less than $400 to spare, and are now several thousand dollars below the poverty line. As a percentage of income, the lowest quintile is paying 44.38%, while the top quintile pays just 3%.
That isn't the only school of thought though. There is also the concept of paying a flat percentage rate. So what percentage rate would we need to use across all of those households in order to get back to our $1.21T in revenues? First, we divide our population by five to get the number of households in each quintile (47.2M). Then, we multiple each quintiles mean income by the population for that quintile to determine the total income from the quintile:
Bottom Quintile: $0.545 trillion
Second Quintile: $1.380 trillion
Third Quintile: $2.338 trillion
Fourth Quintile: $3.714 trillion
Top Quintile: $8.063 trillion
Total Income: $16.042 trillion
Our revenue ($1.21T) is 7.54% of that $16T in income our households earned. If every household, regardless of income, paid that rate, the same amount of revenue would be generated. Now, of course, the math here isn't perfect because we have households earning more and less than our mean household income for each quintile, but it helps us understand how this works. Taking a look at our bottom quintile, this tax would cost them $871, which still puts them into poverty. Is that fair?
Again, not the only method for assigning tax rates. We could also apply a different tax rate to folks in each quintile. Let's say the bottom quintile pays no tax, the next quintile pays a small rate, and so on with the highest quintile paying the highest rate. This is close to how our federal income taxes are assessed now. The thinking is that those in the lowest tax bracket are least able to pay, and so they are taxed the least. Those in the upper tax bracket are most able to pay, and so are taxed the most. But how should those rates be assigned? It's a sticky matter, and this is the basis for the arguments going around about whether or not the wealthiest Americans should continue to receive a tax cut.
There is one issue that causes our current method to break down: extreme income disparity. Let's say that there are ten folks in a room, and they represent all of the income for the US. Let's also say the income breaks down something like this:
1: $5,000
2: $15,000
3: $25,000
4: $35,000
5: $40,000
6: $60,000
7: $70,000
8: $90,000
9: $150,000
10: $4,000,000
Whoa, I wanna be #10! I feel really bad for #9 though. If we assign our tax rate by quintile, #9 and #10 get taxed at the same rate. #9 and #10 represent 92% of the total income, and so it should be assumed that they should also be responsible for at least 92% of the taxes paid, if not more. Poor #9 is going to get saddled with a pretty hefty tax rate because he lives in the same quintile as #10, even though the income levels are extremely disparate. This is an extreme example. However, income disparity is real, and the trend has been for more disparity, not less. This means that in our room of ten people, we will have more folks at either extreme. What happens when 5 are earning poverty income, while 5 are earning six-figures?
An Appeal to My Friends Regarding H.J.R 6
My friends, I ask you today to consider Indiana House Joint Resolution 6, a bill before the Indiana legislature that would amend our state constitution to ban the recognition of any same sex partnership. The text of the bill reads:
Provides that only marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Indiana. Provides that a legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.
I know many of my friends will agree with the first statement. Marriage is a religious term, and for you, you would prefer that the state not use this term in recognizing same-sex unions. While I disagree, I would like to instead focus your attention on the second sentence. The second sentence bars any same sex couple from enjoying the rights assigned to a married heterosexual couple under any name. I have spoken to many of you who oppose the government recognizing same-sex couples as married. In all cases that I remember, those who feel this way have had no issue with recognizing a same-sex couple as a civil union. The language of this bill would specifically deny those rights of married couples to a same-sex couple even if they agreed to call their relationship a civil union.
What does this mean for same-sex couples? There are a variety of rights that married couples enjoy that will be explicitly denied to these couples. Among these rights:
- Filing of joint taxes
- Veteran's disability
- Domestic violence intervention
- Joint parenting rights
- Permission to make funeral arrangements for deceased spouse, including burial or cremation
- Right to inheritance of property
- Next-of-kin status for emergency medical decisions or filing wrongful death claims
Many of my friends feel that same-sex marriage is acceptable, and I agree with you. Many of my friends feel that same-sex couples should be able to enjoy the rights of married couples, but should be assigned a different term from their religious definition of marriage, such as civil union. I am not aware of any of my friends who feel that same-sex couples should be specifically denied the rights assigned to their married counterparts. I am pleading with you today to consider the impact of this bill on same-sex couples in Indiana. I am pleading with you to contact your state representative and let them know that this bill does not represent your thoughts on the rights of same-sex couples.
Last Call for Google I/O
Google is running a series of contests this week to give away the last remaining tickets to the Google I/O developer conference. The 2011 conference sold out in record time, so for me, this is about the only way I'm going to have a chance to go. Yesterday was the start of the first challenge which focused on Android. Due to the time difference, the 30 minute "lightning" round 1 started during my normal lunch break, and I was able to quickly submit my answers. I was pleasantly surprised to receive an e-mail 30 minutes later informing me that I was one of 200 entrants to pass round 1 and move on to round 2.
For round 2, the objective was to create and submit an Android app that recreates the bouncing balls countdown clock seen on the Google I/O home page. Of course, today being St. Patrick's day, the clock is slightly changed to be formed of clover leaves blowing in the wind, but on non-holidays it is multicolored balls. Contestants had 22 hours to complete their app and submit, with the deadline being 9am pacific time this morning.
Now that the deadline has passed, I thought I would share my entry. I'm publishing both the source code and the APK file, so if you are curious how I made it, feel free to take a look.
- APK to install on your Android device - LastCallForGoogleIO.apk
- ZIP file containing source files - LastCallForGoogleIO.zip