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Diary of a B+ Grade Polymath ([personal profile] tcpip) wrote2014-08-17 08:39 am
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A Month of Saturdays In One Day

Attened the Linux Users of Victoria Beginners Workshop with Deb Henry presenting on MythTV. It is not a subject that I have paid too much attention to in the past, typically being fairly indifferent to home entertainment systems, and quite happy with my largely 1980s/1990s era technology. Nevertheless I felt somewhat inspired as we projected Metropolis at the V3 Alliance training room, and I was very impressed by the storage efficiency of the system as well.

Afterwards convened the Isocracy AGM at Trades Hall; the turnout was more than expected and Sol Salbe and Michael Shaik both gave excellent presentations on the subject of 'Peace with Justice in Israel/Palestine'. With humour and sincerity both gave pessimistic accounts of the current state of affairs, pointing out that the current situation has widespread soft support within Israel and internal change will largely occur from external pressure, which is certainly not forthcoming from within Australia. Transcripts will be forthcoming very soon. The AGM also made some small amendments to our platform, specifically item 9. There was a real feeling of optimism for the organisation in the quality discussion at dinner afterwards.

Returned home from the Isocracy Network AGM to find that the books from Kickstarter project I backed many months ago had arrived; the Guide to Glorantha Volumes I and II. I have commented on the sheer beauty of these huge (size and pagecount) and lavish tomes. Glorantha is really the ne plus ultra of an imaginative and detailed fantasy world with extraordinary narratives in mythic style, and these books are pinnacle of publishing achievment for that world.

Went to be bed feeling quite elated; everything had gone well during an extremely content-filled and diverse day.

[identity profile] horngirl.livejournal.com 2014-08-17 05:06 am (UTC)(link)
We use MythTV on our media box, although we probably don't use a bunch of its features.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2014-08-17 09:04 am (UTC)(link)
Something I didn't pick up on the presentation (and Deb didn't know), is whether it's an effective games box as well. If so it could make a serious challenge to the Xbox media centre.

[identity profile] horngirl.livejournal.com 2014-08-17 09:08 am (UTC)(link)
All we really use ours for is playing audio & video, and ripping cds. We also watch a lot of YouTube but we do that out of the Myth interface, just in a browser on the Mythbuntu desktop.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2014-08-17 09:35 am (UTC)(link)
The liveTV/record side of things is pretty handy as well, although I must confess what TV we do is pretty well organised already. The juiciest murder mysteries seem to be on at the right time, as it were.

[identity profile] horngirl.livejournal.com 2014-08-17 12:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, we very rarely watch live to air tv anyway. Mostly a couple of things on the ABC which we forget half the time and have to catch up on iView :-)
delphipsmith: (IDIC)

[personal profile] delphipsmith 2014-08-18 04:09 am (UTC)(link)
Kickstarter is awesome. I've contributed to a number of projects and it's been very satisfying/gratifying. The most recent one was this book.

[identity profile] tcpip.livejournal.com 2014-08-18 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
I agree; it seems to work very well and I'm pleased to see that they have options for Australia/New Zealand producers, which I believe was an issue in the past.

Maybe I'll make use of it myself...