I Feel a Great Disturbance…

I’m still shocked by the events of Friday night, just as I was 41 years ago when it transpired that the muffled “thuds” I’d heard 3 miles or so away on 21st November 1974 were, in fact, the sound of the bombs in the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in The Town in Birmingham.

The terrorists of Paris, Beirut, Syria, Afghanistan, Jodan, Gaza, West Bank, Israel are no more representative of Islam, Christianity or Judaism than the IRA bombers were of the Irish, or Catholics, or the UDA/UDF were of Protestants.

How do we deal with the fanatics? The insane cowards who hide their acts behind the religious beliefs of millions? Not by bombing, that’s for sure, as it only swells the ranks of those warped individuals who believe that slaughtering fellow humans will somehow raise them to greatness in the eyes of their deity.

Jeremy Corbyn’s views on the killing of Bin Laden or “Jihadi John” have been taken out of context deliberately by the media. Anyone who really truly cares about freedom and justice will see the problem: How can we in the West expect others to adopt our systems of justice and democracy when it’s so easy to sweep away the process of law in order to exact revenge, to “do what needs to be done.” Rather than seek to flex their muscles and show how good they are at “taking out” the likes of Bin Laden and Emwazi, the UK and US forces should concentrate on capture, extraction and trial.

There are those in government who will seek to use these atrocities to further erode our freedoms “for national security.” If they do so, then the terrorists can claim another victory. It’s their intention to undermine our way of life because it doesn’t fit with their distorted, misogynistic view of the world.

Those suspected of Friday night’s horrors must be captured and brought to book, rather than made martyrs of.

Without wishing to appear glib or flippant, when I heard the news of what happened in Paris, this sprang to mind:

Reflections

I read yesterday of the passing of the last remaining RAF pilot who fought in the Battle of Britain.  We’re coming up to that time of year when we take a moment to remember those who go to war on our behalf and who pay the ultimate price.  Through their deeds we currently enjoy certain freedoms that others seek to curtail because they don’t fit in with their political/racial/religious agendas.  Each seek to control, in one way or another, the lives of others, to make everyone else conform. Each pays lip service to “tolerance” but can be deeply intolerant of others’ views. Sadly, this is why humanity has seen so many conflicts, small and large.

Each year we hold services of remembrance, vowing never to forget the sacrifices made by those who’ve died in conflict, yet hardly a day goes by without us hearing of lives lost.  We do those people (military and civilian) a disservice by continuing to try to impose our will on others.  Maybe, one day, our species will wake up to itself and accept its diversity. Maybe then we can move forward.

When I started this post I intended calling it “An early ode” but, as can sometimes be the case with me, I got side-tracked 🙂  Here is the real reason for the post:

 

At age 14 you went to war,
Saw sights you’d never seen before,
You dared to go where no boy should
And did the very best you could
So young you were, and yet so brave
And in the end your life you gave
But do not feel you gave in vain
Whene’er the world’s at war again,
For years ahead, in each November,
Tears are shed, as we remember,
Silently, for minutes numbering 2
We stand, reflecting, thanking…
You

 

DTB or not DTB, that is the question…

(or how a tale of woe was reversed)…

About 5 years ago, when the old VCR gave up the ghost, I purchased a Wharfedale 160GB PVR with twin tuner.  I guess at the time I’d had it in mind at some stage in the future to acquire a DVD recorder so I could off-load programmes from the PVR to it. At least that was the plan!

Throughout the years since then I’d wondered a couple of things:

1. What could be done with the DB9 serial connection on the back
2. What sort of hard drive was inside and, more importantly, would I be able to read it on a computer?

I never got round to doing anything about 1, but events this week have forced me to address 2 – I returned home on Monday to find the PVR dead! 😦  Having done the usual things (unplug, plug in, change fuse) I decided to take a look inside:

Inside my (now dead) Wharfedale PVR.

Is this an IDE I see before me?  Well as it turns out, yes.  A 160GB Western Digital hard drive.  “Simples,” thinks I. “Just have to pop it in my Lacie external USB drive case and Bob’s your mother’s brother!”

Well….not quite!

HDD was removed from the PVR and installed in USB case and connected to laptop running Linux Mint 12.  a quick fdisk revealed:

Disk /dev/sdf: 160.0 GB, 160041885696 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19457 cylinders, total 312581808 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcfaab5fa
 
Device     Boot  Start       End     Blocks Id System
/dev/sdf1           63    417689    208813+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdf2       417690 312576704 156079507+ 83 Linux

So far, so good. It looks like the embedded O/S was Linux-based.  Wonder what filesystem types were used:

/dev/sdf1: UUID="7fc78ac0-b003-9dc0-cc66-e0c1a4e0cbc1" TYPE="ext2" 
/dev/sdf2: UUID="7fc78ac0-b003-9dc0-cc66-e0c1a4e0cbc1" TYPE="ext2"

Looks OK apart from both partitions having the same UUID Ever get the feeling things are too easy sometimes?  Read on….

# mount /dev/sdf1 /mnt
# df -h /mnt
Filesystem    Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdf1     204M 6.4M  198M   4% /mnt

OK. So the first partition mounts.  let’s try the second…

# umount /mnt
# mount /dev/sdf2 /mnt
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/sdf2,
 missing codepage or helper program, or other error
 In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
 dmesg | tail or so

ARRGH!  Do I run fsck and try and repair superblocks (risking  corrupting what’s on there)? Best to exercise a bit of caution at this stage, so I used a utility called partimage to take a backup of the second partition, writing to a 500Gb USB drive I have.  Partimage works at a lowere level than the filesystem and will create an exact image of the partition, split into 2Gb files if required, thus enabling the recovery of the partition should something go wrong.

Whilst partimage was doing its thing, considerable Googling was done, with the upshot being that the second partition was formatted using a “modified” ext2 using 32K blocks rather than the usual (maximum) 4K blocks. Other PVR users had attempted the same thing and hit the same problem (it turns out that the Wharfedale unit is really made by Vestel, who provide similar re-badged units to supermarkets etc).  Under normal circumstances, Linux can’t handle filesystems with 32K blocks (well, not without patching the kernel and I wasn’t about to start that).

What to do?  Well, loathe as I am to say it, this is where a piece of software written for Windows called ext2fsd comes in which basically adds a driver to Windows so that it can read ext2 filesystems. I installed the software and connected the drive and sure enough, the second partition and its contents were visible.  Each programme recorded is stored in a separate directory (folder in windows land) with the directory name based on date/time recorded. For example, here’s the directory holding the earliest recording:

~dvr2007081322003801.rec

“That’s odd.  I’m certain I didn’t get the PVR until September 2007” Looking at some of the other directory names it seems the month and day portions start at 00 (for the 1st), so the directory name breaks down thus:

2007                 Year
    08               Month (-1, so this in fact indicates September)
      13             Day (again -1, so this is 14th)
        22           Hour
          00         Minute
            38       Channel (In this case BBC4)
              01     All the recordings end in 01 for some reason

Coming up in Part II: Getting to grips with video encoding and producing a DVD…

For the fallen

Tommy Atkins was a boy who answered Kitchener’s calling.
The gun he carried was no toy, nor were those brave men falling.

Tommy’s spirit still lives on today, as brave men go to war.
Some, the ultimate price do pay, as many did before

Now their eyes no more can see, their bodies lie there still.
Lives given that we may be free, to speak and think at will.

For all that you have done, we salute you Tommy Atkins.
At the setting of the Sun, we remember you Tommy Atkins.

A feast of ISS passes

We’ve recently been treated to some bright passes of the International Space Station and it looks as though there are more to come (weather permitting) over the next week or so.  The following table (edited from http://www.heavens-above.com ) shows the times of the brightest passes.  Times/directions will vary depending on where you are but should be fairly accurate for anyone in the Midlands:

Date	Mag	Starts			Max. altitude			Ends
		Time	Alt.	Az.	Time	Alt.	Az.	Time	Alt.	Az.
17 Jun	-3.6	23:16:59	10	W	23:20:11	76	SSE	23:23:17	10	E
18 Jun	-3.4	22:15:23	10	WSW	22:18:29	60	SSE	22:21:36	10	E
18 Jun	-3.6	23:51:06	10	W	23:54:15	78	S	23:57:25	10	E
19 Jun	-3.5	22:49:28	10	W	22:52:36	80	S	22:55:45	10	E
20 Jun	-3.4	21:47:51	10	WSW	21:50:59	70	SSE	21:54:07	10	E
20 Jun	-3.5	23:23:37	10	W	23:26:45	71	S	23:29:54	10	ESE
21 Jun	-3.5	22:22:01	10	W	22:25:09	80	S	22:28:18	10	E
21 Jun	-3	23:57:51	10	W	00:00:52	43	SSW	00:02:27	23	SE
22 Jun	-3.4	22:56:14	10	W	22:59:20	62	SSW	23:02:28	10	ESE
23 Jun	-3.4	21:54:39	10	W	21:57:47	77	S	22:00:56	10	E
23 Jun	-2.6	23:30:32	10	W	23:33:26	34	SSW	23:35:05	20	SSE
24 Jun	-3.2	22:28:54	10	W	22:31:59	52	SSW	22:35:03	10	ESE
25 Jun	-2.2	23:03:20	10	W	23:06:03	27	SSW	23:08:01	15	SSE
26 Jun	-2.8	22:01:41	10	W	22:04:41	42	SSW	22:07:41	10	SE

It’s nearly 54 years since Man’s first artificial satellite was put into orbit and 50 years since Yuri Gagarin first ventured into the unknown.  The first decade and a half of space exploration saw a flurry of activity on both sides of what was then known as the “Iron Curtain”, with the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R going head-to-head, each trying to out-do the other in demonstrating their technical prowess, culminating at 20:17:40 UTC on 20th July 1969 when Apollo 11 touched down on the surface of the Moon.  In the 42 years since that momentous occasion we have seen numerous robotic missions to the planets and, for the last 30 years, regular forays into near Earth orbit of the NASA Space Shuttles which have delivered and maintained the great telescopes and, for the last decade or so, have contributed to the construction of the ISS. Along the way there have been many triumphs, but we should never forget the human cost:

Apollo 1, Soyuz 1, Soyuz 11,  Challenger, Columbia – all pioneers who paid the ultimate sacrifice.

As someone who was born less than a year since Garagin took that flight, I’ve long had an interest in space – be it spaceflight or astronomy and remember the heady days of the Apollo programme and the wonder of knowing that a quarter of a million miles away (give or take) on the Moon there were humans walking about.  In those days, of course, there were far fewer satellites in orbit and you needed the finances of a small country to afford the sort of telescope that’s commonly available nowadays.  If you were lucky and happened to be looking in the right place at the right time you’d see a dot moving across the sky and maybe realise that was a satellite. That was how it was for me until one evening last summer when I happened to look up and see a swiftly moving dot followed by a much brighter object.  I was somewhat mystified at the time as I didn’t for one moment think it was what it turned out to be: a Progress supply vessel followed by the International Space Station!

Since then, I’ve tried to keep track of when the ISS is due over and have been fortunate to capture it in passing.  Sadly, as the Shuttle era draws to a close I’ve not been able to grab an image of ISS and Shuttle either docked or before/after docking.  Maybe when Atlantis takes its last flight I’ll get a chance. Why all the fuss about the ISS? Well, I think it’s to do with the fact it’s crewed and it’s easily seen. I’m not sure whether, in their time, SkyLab, Salyut or Mir were ever visible from the UK or whether anyone was able to image them, but the ISS is unmistakable and, with suitable equipment it’s possible totake a picture showing its progress across the sky.  The ultimate challenge, though, is to capture an image of the ISS not as a streak across the sky but a snapshot, so that is my next project.  Hopefully I’ll be able to post the results soon!

Mystery object

Enjoyed a lovely clear sky last night, so decided to get a few pictures of the Moon and Jupiter, hoping also to capture Uranus.  I’m intrigued by the result, however.  Jupiter and the galilean moons are obvious bottom left of image and I think Uranus is as marked.  What’s puzzling me is what the green “fuzzy” is upper right!

My first Perseid caught on camera.  It just so happens it was passing Andromeda at the time!

Though I saw a few other meteors, some of which were  quite bright, sod’s law dictated that as soon as I pointed the camera in a different direction a meteor would streak across where it had been pointing! I’m working my way through the rest of my images to see if I got lucky elsewhere

At one point I saw two very bright, stationary flashes above Cassiopeia within a couple of seconds of each other, just like someone switching a bright torch on and off a couple of times

What’s it all about?

Well, here I am with my first public blog (cue fanfare and public holiday…well, maybe not)!

I’ve toyed around with the idea for a while, even installing software on a server but figured I might as well use an address totally unconnected with my employer. Not that I’m likely to say anything contentious, but it saves me having to bother with a disclaimer!

I’ve no idea what pearls of wisdom (?!) I’ll inflict upon an unsuspecting world, nor whether there’s anybody who’s remotely interested in anything I have to say, but I guess the same applies to 99.9% of the blogs out there – only time will tell!

In future posts I hope to pass on my experiences with various software/hardware I use, along with solutions to problems I’ve encountered, but for now I shall return to persuading my HTC Hero to access my Unix email account!

P.S. Be prepared to se this blog in use various themes for a while – until I figure out which I like best!