The dumpster home theater in the basement is getting closer. The ancient, s
projector – some might be tempted to call it “holocene” but I, of course, shall refrain – will work fine as a ceiling mount, give or take, although it makes more noise than a vintage 1993 1gb hard drive.

Speakers are roughly placed and proved functional. I still need to dress the wiring and work out an actual mount methodology.

The el cheapo USB 7.1 dongle seems to be working, but the audio-source paths are so convoluted that it is difficult to determine what might be driving to apparent optical-in on the amp. I suppose a DVD might be the best option for testing.

So far the single most expensive out of pocket expense was $100 for a DaLite model B 96″ square (over a fancier 16:9 model on Craigslist for about the same). Reviewers online warned of a new-shower-curtain stench, and that is correct. Happily it seems less awful than I was afraid it might.

So tomorrow, I will concentrate on dressing the wiring and then troubleshoot the audio. I am actually somewhat concerned about the audio settings – if I have to jimmy the settings in three places dependent on a given media source, a distinctly possible outcome, the Mini is no longer a viable playback option and any middling DNLA + DVD device looks like a good idea instead.

Viv has already asked about moving the Wii to the basement. That could easily lead to a PS3 or Xbox upstairs, and moving the BD390 down too. Which would enable true, or nearly true, 1080p on the way-pre HD projector, which supports 1024×768 – so close, and yet so far.

Maciej is up to something. His Polanksi piece and his scurvy piece, both from 2010, refreshed in my RSS today, and I see there is a piece up dated 2-17 which has not yet surfaced in my feeds.

Old pal Jeanne posted a drawing I gave her in 1991 on Facebook:

Along with a pic of her, me, and Matt Uhlman in the photo booth at the Rainbo Room in Chitown, ’91.

An update on the media mini:

Antiquated digital cable for antiquated dumpstered projector, check! And well under ten bucks from Monoprice.

Multichannel digital output via AirPlay, NO WAY!

Repurposing articulated (and dumpstered) keyboard shelf as projector ceiling mount, possible check!

Craigslist-sourced Sony surround set, flaky as advertised, check! Still looking into what might be causing low volume audio, but in general, the amp looks to be toast.

So, basically, I need to solve the audio problem. The video input to the projector is semi-solved (the mini will certainly not play nice with many HD video sources, and of course it won’t support blu-ray). Another year and networked 1080p playback devices will be craigslisted at under $100, so no rush.

Looking at CL for audio stuff was kind of amazing. It looks at if there is approximately a $50 floor for amps, no matter the quality, age, or features. Crappy 1980s Aiwa or 7.1 no HDMI whatever, it’s going for $50.

A rare day spent out and about.

I did an informal usability review for an iOS app oriented toward consumer-sourced aggregation of review and product info. No, I can’t tell you who.

It was fun and I was glad to contribute, being a fan of the service.

Thinking about it a few minutes ago I started poking around the profile-based suggestions embedded into my Amazon user account and as expected they are fucking terrible, as they always have been. Amazon should figure out how to buy my search history from, well, actually from me, not Google.

I suppose I would totally let Amazon snoop on my user-ID tied search results for a blanket, all-merchants discount of something like 20%. The problem (for them) is that I have multiple Google IDs, but honestly, how many of us can there be?

Being an Amazon merchant, I would expect they would pass the 20% on to third party merchants, and as a merchant that would be something I would very much NOT appreciate. Unless they could show specific, attributable revenue growth that exceeded the discounted charges. That sort of transparency seems unlikely.

Randomly showing a friend Justin.tv on my phone, explaining how I used it to watch baseball in Japan last season, I notice a game in progress.

It’s the February 14 practice game on Okinawa between the Hanshin Tigers and the Hiroshima Carp!

Currently, it’s the bottom of the 8th, Carp on and trailing 4-2.

Judging simply by the sun angle, it looks to be about noon in Okinawa right about now, 9:30p Seattle time. Boy, I wish there were regular season NBP games in Okinawa.

I reminded Viv that the Grammys were on in an ill advised fit of Valentine’s Day spirit.

Viv tells me she gwine download the roses. I became concerned that they might digitally vanish, so I have documented them.

The ancient 1st gen Mini has just been reallocated to media center duty, once again, this time in the basement, where it will drive an even-more ancient video projector, one I dumpstered many years ago.

XBMC finally arrived for PPC systems sometime in the past couple of years. While it is far from as polished a product as Boxee, it was able to browse to and add nearly all my LAN media sources. The exception being the recently-added eyetv, which sends and shares happily to the iPads but not via UPnP/DNLA.

It looks as though I need to pop for a bigger screen than the 64″ model we scored at a salvage place for five bucks, as well as a ceiling mount for the projector. I am still mulling options for audio. The Mini will never be able to install Lion, with its broad support of AirPlay options, but might be able to support an Airfoil-based audio redirect. The question, then, is “Can Airfoil support multi-channel surround?”

AirPlay appears to and Airfoil claims to support all AirPlay enabled devices, so one would think the answer is yes. I need to test this somehow.

Further equipment gathering is needed as well; I have a pre HDMI 5.1 receiver currently in use only as a stereo output device, and I do not have an additional set of surround speakers. Therefore an additional stereo-only receiver and some set of speakers is suggested. Out if curiosity I looked for wireless surround systems but that appears to remain a pipe dream.

Given the recycled nature of this project, I think Craigslist would be the place to go for the speakers and receiver.

UPDATE: scored a nice compact 5-way Samsung set. No sub, but I’m sure that will, er, surface in time.

In rooting through my antiquarian cables and such, I realized that with the exception of books, I have more tools and electrical stuff (extension cords, what not) than my family did when I was a kid.

Waxy has some analysis and handwringing up about OAuth and third-party apps accessing Google account info, specifically Gmail.

I took a look, and yeah, I don’t trust you motherfuckers very much. Tripit and Yahoo are the only non-Google services I have granted OAuth inbox access to. I obviously need to nuke Yahoo, but Tripit is essential.

I suppose the answer is to stand up a dedicated travel-oriented gmail address with forwarding. The problem generated there would be two unique uid/pw instances.

Hm. Anyway, yeah. Nerds who use crypto use gmail and grant OAuth access just like normal people. You know who uses crypto and doesn’t do that? Corporations and governments, and not all of them, even.