Author Archives: Fordiebianco

Like A Headless Server

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My Apple TV is dying. It’s the beautiful, sleek first generation model that worked really well within the best girlfriend ever’s living room design (and not like these pokey, hockey puck resembling newer ATVs), but it’s now 6 years old, and it makes funny noises at times, has the odd flicker and, like a geriatric projectionist gets rather hot and refuses to play the chosen film until you feed him Werther’s Echte or it’s Carry On movies all the way. Last night it refused to play ‘Castle’. The best girlfriend ever almost had a heart attack. So I started to research alternatives. It needed to be cheap and the old IBM ThinkCentre I had lying around was just what I needed, but its motherboard threw so many BSODs that even an XP install was torture. So a new machine it had to be. But within reason please, as ‘a penny saved is a penny earned’ (Mrs Cosmopolite, Nr 3 Quirm Street). A small form factor would be nice, so mini – ITX was the motherboard size of choice. After looking around for a bit, I found this:
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This is the charmingly named Gigabyte GA-E350N WIN8, a 17x17cm teeny weeny little powerhouse with some interesting properties like an old PCI slot and serial port, so clearly made for people  who still have some legacy hardware lying around. Just like yours truly. It comes with a nice AMD E350 dual core CPU, so no need to buy a new one. It has decent Radeon onboard graphics, but this being for Castle – serving purposes it’s not really that important.  Admittingly, it’s not the quickest chip in town, but Castle is not the hippest show in town either.  Now all I needed was a nice case. There is still a Macintosh SE/30 lying around in the garage that was ruined by corrosion on its motherboard, but that’s going to take a few weeks to get ready, and time was of the essence, because you never know how long the AppleTV will be working. So an alternative case had to be found. After some deliberation, the postman delivered this: The snappily titled Cooler Master Elite 120 Advanced USB 3.0 Mini ITX Case. It is rather beautiful. And it fits so much stuff! And the best thing: you don’t have to buy a new PSU, but can just use your old ATX PSU. Genius! So, after unpacking, I was looking at this:

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Mmh. It looks nice and clean. See whether I can get this working.

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Ok, so that’s how you fit in the hard disks. I wonder if I can get a few more in there…

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Motherboards fits…

It's a bit like a weird game of Jenga

It’s a bit like a weird game of Jenga

Three! That will fit a lot of Castle

Three Terabyte,  That will fit a lot of Castle

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So you slide your old PSU in there from above…

Something is happening!

Something is happening!

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It is accomplished!

So, software. Well, I thought about Debian and Open Media Vault, but both were being bitchy about my ancient external USB DVD-Rom and refused to install (and were bitching about Grub2), so in the end it was an old legit XP OEM disc that I had lying around. Which is fine with me, because it runs Itunes and can now serve the soon to arrive hockey-puckish AppleTVwhatevergenerationtheyareatnow. And it stores all the action shots of my mouse and bird cams. And it serves music to the various Revos that are strewn around the house. All that for less than a 100 quid.

It’s good to be a Nerd.

10 Most Romantic Movies Ever?

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I have no idea where the Guardian gets their film editors from, but one of them recently did a list of the best 10 romantic movies ever. Couldn’t disagree more with their list, so it ‘s time to set the record straight.

1. Up
2. Sixth Sense
3. Sleepless in Seattle
4. Princess Bride
5. The Great Dictator
6. Continental Divide
7. Highlander
8. Wall-E
9. Four Weddings and a Funeral
10. Love Actually

So there.

Beat that.

Margate: Grotty Council Estate or Beautiful Kentish Seaside Resort?

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A few weekends ago, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I was doing the dishes at Chez Fordiebianco when the BBC World Service featured a half hour documentary on the regeneration of Margate, one of the many seaside resort on the English coast that have slid into obscurity over the last half century. As you might have heard, Thanet District Council – Margate’s local government body – and some very dedicated public figures had tried for about twenty years to halt the resort’s decline by turning it into a cultural destination for well heeled middle class tourists who like their art with a bit of beach. The Turner Contemporary was completed in April 2011 and this month it attracted its millionth visitor. Not bad for a small museum 2 hours away from London. The aforementioned BBC documentary included an interview with the owner of a daring new hotel on Margate’s waterfront who hoped to benefit from the influx of new tourists. As the best girlfriend ever loves nothing more than a bit of beachcombing on a nice sunny day and rather fancies new art, we found ourselves on a recent Friday after work in the Blackwall Tunnel, heading westwards. 2 hours later the car was parked, the luggage unpacked and the best girlfriend ever was sitting in the beautiful dining room of The Sands Hotel, gin and tonic in hand, studying a particularly nice piece of grilled fennel.

The next morning we woke up to a rather gorgeous view:

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Even at low tide the nearness of the North Sea to Margate proper gives it a nice classic sea side resort feel, and only a few metres after venturing out we were greeted with the classic accessories of beach life

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Emboldened and pleasantly surprised we started walking west on a well kept path next to the beach, from time to time seeing flocks of cyclists and other tourists, but certainly not more than a few dozen within the 3 hour walk. The beach was mostly kept immaculate, with sign of machinised sweeping from the night before. Each of the three bays we walked past had a beach patrol, supervised swimming areas (proudly displaying their blue flags, awarded for cleanliness) and a more or less well kept cafe.

So far, so dandy.

There were unfortunately still many signs that Margate hadn’t yet turned the corner from decade long decline and neglect.

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Not particularly welcoming.

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Concrete. It depends what you do with it.

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The view from the beach

The charming concrete abomination that’s spurting out of the ground there is the Arlington Building, a brutalist concrete block of flats from 1964, that funnily enough has an excellent website defending it’s existence. Unfortunately it completely and utterly dominates Margate’s skyline and turns the character of this admittedly rather pleasant seaside town into a South London estate. Not a place you would initially choose for a  holiday.

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One of those things does not belong here. Can you tell which one?

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Of course you ask yourself: What where they thinking? And why is it still there? According to the Website:

From the Thanet District Council’s Conservation Officer’s report, 2011:
“The tower block is a building of considerable merit; arguably ‘listable’ with extremely well considered crisp detailed elevations which add positively to the architectural character of the town – it’s jazziness responding well to the seaside atmosphere. It is a far superior building to the residential tower blocks erected by local authorities prior to the Ronan Point incident of 1968.”
Ok. Looks like it’s staying.
This means that Margate is pretty much only enjoyable if you look at its western side, towards the Turner Contemporary and the Harbour Shacks. These were apparently made available to entrepeneurs about two years ago and are now populated by a few pubs, a gallery and some restaurants. Together with the gallery, this side of Margate certainly seems to be thriving, and it’s a long time since I’ve been in such a welcoming pub like the tiny Harbour Arms. The whole concoction of shops and pubs is called ‘The Harbour Arm’ and yes, the have a website as well. Pretty digitalised place, Margate.

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The Gallery itself is a rather ghastly white modern cubist thing plonked on the harbour side and sticking out like a sore thumb or, even more appropriate, like the Arlington Building on the other side of the bay. It’s certainly nicer to look out than to look at it from the outside.

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So, what kind of summary should I come up with?
Did we have fun? Yes.  Is it a charming place? Yes. You can see that the council and the local entrepreneurs are trying hard to transform this into something special, and on a beautiful autumn weekend it certainly is. Nevertheless its structural problems are going to continue to make it challenging for Margate to become once more a synonym for carefree North Seal holidays. On the other hand, when the light hits it just right, it is rather strikingly beautiful and there are some excellent restaurants.
Just don’t let your eye gaze too much over the Arlington.

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Soundcards. Soundcards?

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There are still people who buy soundcards. I happen to be one of them. Why? Well, I like to listen to my music as close to the original production as possible and, having a soft spot for loud American popcorn movies, Mahler symphonies and concert blueray discs, I to listen to these in 5.1. Over the years I invested in a nice set of speakers and a dedicated Marantz 5.1 amplifier to deliver what you a arrogant high-end afficionado would call a upper middle class listening experience. To make the connection between computer and amplifier and to ensure a Dolby Live surround signal I bought a rather Creative X-Fi Titanium HD a few years that for some time did what it was supposed to do, even though the drivers were buggy and GUI looked like a five year old had a go at Visual Basic.  Recently though a new motherboard, processor and videocard was implanted, together with and a new Windows 7 install, and suddenly the card refused to encode Dolby Live. Why? No idea. The card was ripped out, installed in a different slot, the drivers were re-installed (including Creative’s Dolby package), but still no Dolby. Everything else worked fine, but no encoding. So, the infamous Creative support was asked for help. I explained everything as simply as I could, gave them each every hardware item’s name, even made a little move from a screen capture.

What did I get: ‘install, re-install. re-socket, re-install’. The fact that this was a fresh install didn’t register. I requested referral to second level technical support, but to no avail. So I bought an Asus Sonar Essence STX and told Creative to go and stuff themselves .

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This card represents the best incremental step forward to the overall performance of my entertainmentwork station for a long time. With a built in headphone amplifier and its external power source this has transformed my listening habits. It’s now a pleasure to listen to a good recording of Mahler’s second symphony, the sound stage being delivered broad and with incredible depth by the Q-Acoustics front speakers. As an added bonus, the dolby encoding works flawlessly, and I can finally listen to Incognito’s 30 year anniversary concert in glorious 5.1 (as the best girlfriend refuses to let me have a similar setup in the living room. Interior design decision. Aha.)

So, if your partner won’t let you have a surround sound in YOUR livingroom, go out and spend a few quid on this card and turn your office into a sound stage. Or at least get some good headphones and enjoy your favourite tunes without alienating the neighbours.

Ralph Bakshi Delivers

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The first ‘Non-Disney’ animated feature I ever watched was Ralph Bakshi’s amazing ‘Lord of the Rings‘. I was a mere teenager and had already read the book a few times, but the movie blew me away. It was so much more scary and violent than anything Disney had ever done and certainly opened my eyes to other forms of animation. The extensive use of rotoscoping made the film look completely different to anything I had seen before and added to the feeling that  was obviously watching something special and revolutionary. I kept up with Ralph Bakshi’s work for some time but wasn’t surprised that his particular preferences in storytelling weren’t in vogue anymore by the eighties and he slowly vanished from my radar.

Hence my surprise when I heard that he was planning to direct a new film, ‘Last Days of Coney Island’. Fed up with the mainstream studios, he financed the movie with a successful Kickstarter campaign to which I contributed a few bob. As promised, I received an original doodle from the man himself, together with a print from the new movie, a print from ‘Wizards’, and a character sketch for the new protagonists. Now all framed and polished, my loot is ready to go on the walls of house and office.

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It feels good to have contributed to the creation of new art and get something in return. Crowd sourcing projects like these can give the humble punter a chance to be involved in something big. Or very small.