Movie 2010.01.01 - Planet 51

Planet 51 is basically an animated alien movie in reverse. The setting is on Planet 51 where the inhabitants were conditioned to think that humans are creatures with one giant eyeball, and are coming to eat their brains and take over their world.

So Captain Charles "Chuck" Baker (from Earth) lands on town Glipford on Planet 51, and was surprised to find civilization. Alerted by the alien landing, the local military is on the hunt for him, as he is deemed a public menace. He hides in the house our main character Lem, but was later captured by the General. Chuck's spaceship was also taken to Base 9 for further study.

Together with the robotic Rover, Lem and his friends Neera, Glar, Eckle, and Skiff drive to Base 9 to rescue Chuck. During the last scene, the guys rescue Chuck. Chuck rescues the General from the self-destructing base. Chuck gives them a short tour of space, drops them off, and heads back to Earth.

Hacking the PS2

Not as easy as I thought. Following standard procedure, I spent a couple of days trawling through the online forums and Youtube, researching on the different ways to hack a PS2. As they say, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I'm interested in the cheapest way, as this cat is only a freebie.

If you're a cheapo like me, your best bet is FreeMcBoot. Latest version as of this writing is v1.8b. The theory is that using a modded PS2, you run the FreeMcBoot installer (off a USB or a customized CD). Once prompted, insert a memory card, and FreeMcBoot with install the necessary files on it. Insert this memory card on any unmodded PS2, then power up. Voila, soft-modded PS2!

At least, that's how it's support to work, but it didn't work for me. I burned the special CD with the Noobie package. The install process worked fine, but when I tried to boot off the memory card, FMCB didn't come up. It's like my PS2 can see the files, but it's not booting from the MC. Bad.

Is it because my new 64MB memcard is not genuine? So I go to eBay to buy a used 8MB Sony MagicGate memory card. Still no go. Is it because my FMCB disc is bad? I burned it again. At 1x speed. And tried it on the two memcards. Still no go. I downloaded FMCB v1.7, and tried everything again. Still no go. Time for a break.

2009.12.26 - Look

For the first few minutes, I seriously believed that Look is a proper, bona fide documentary. Hidden cameras in the mall changing room showing naked young girls? Security cameras catching employees flirting and doing nasty things in the storeroom? Turns out it's just a mockumentary. Reason why it's so realistic is because the whole movie is filmed from the typical vantage points of surveillance cameras.

The movie starts with:
"There are an estimated 30 million surveillance cameras in the United States generating more than 4 billion hours of video every week. On any given day the average American is captured approximately 200 times."

I totally believe this. I heard it's even worse in the UK.

Movie 2009.12.24 - ExTerminators

Movie about a group of women in an anger-management class who start a business killing off abusive men. That pretty much sums up the plot. It's kinda new to me, but after watching the movie, there's really nothing special. There's a twist in the end, but I'm sure you'll get it pretty quick.

Movie stars Heather Graham, Jennifer Coolidge, Amber Heard, Sam Lloyd, etc.

WD NAS --> DLNA <-- LA32B650

The WD NAS supports UPnP and DLNA. The Samsung LA32B650 supports DLNA. I think the Xbox XBMC, connected to the Sammy, supports UPnP. Now, to get everything working together.

I let the TwonkyMedia UPnP server run for a while. I went to the XBMC menus and played around with the config. It can see the NAS directory structures, but it's not displaying the files. If I use my laptop browser, I can access the directories and the files, so it's not Twonky's problem.

Next, I tried ushare. Configuration is simple enough - just edit /opt/etc/ushare.conf to point where the media files are. Sammy can see files, but they won't play.

Next up is minidlna. The application doesn't even seem to read the config file. None of the media files are being served.

I finally settled for MediaTomb. Like TwonkyMedia, scanning the directories take time, but at least they work. OGG, MKV, and some AVI won't play, but I'm guessing this is more Sammy's fault.

Oh, and don't forget to add the following to config.xml and mappings.xml:
<map from="avi" to="video/mpeg"/>

<custom-http-headers>
<add header="transferMode.dlna.org: Streaming"/>
<add header="contentFeatures.dlna.org: DLNA.ORG_OP=01;DLNA.ORG_CI=0;DLNA.ORG_FLAGS=01700000000000000000000000000000"/>
</custom-http-headers>

Hacking the WD MBWE

Spent the past few days Googling and reading up on the forums on the best way to hack the Western Digital MyBook World Edition, hereafter known as WD MBWE.

First step to hacking the MBWE is to gain ssh access to it. With the earlier models, you have to point your device to access an external website to download and install a "firmware". After running the upgrade, ssh will be enabled. My suggestion is for you to upgrade to the latest official firmware (currently 01.01.16), which has ssh access as an option. That's Advanced --> System --> Advanced, then turn on "Enable SSH". Easy as that. Default root password is welc0me.

What you get is a basic Linux running on your MBWE. To extend its functionality, you can download sources and compile them on your own, OR get Optware. With Optware, you get literally hundreds of pre-compiled binaries ready to be downloaded with just one command. Now, Optware is not just for MBWE, so you gotta be careful with which "feed" you subscribe to.

• If your MBWE has a ring of blue lights in front, use the mbwe-bluelight feed.
• If your MBWE has a string of white lights in front, use the cs05q1armel feed.

Run the below set of commands to install/set up Optware:
feed=http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware//cross/unstable
ipk_name=$(wget -qO- $feed/Packages | awk '/^Filename: ipkg-opt/ {print $2}')
wget $feed/$ipk_name
tar -xOvzf $ipk_name ./data.tar.gz | tar -C / -xzvf -
mkdir -p /opt/etc/ipkg
echo "src armel http://ipkg.nslu2-linux.org/feeds/optware//cross/unstable" > /opt/etc/ipkg/armel-feed.conf
wget http://mybookworld.wikidot.com/local--files/optware/sort_dirname.tar.gz
tar xvfz sort_dirname.tar.gz -C /

With Optware, all new applications are installed under /opt/bin
/opt/bin/ipkg update - to update local feed list
/opt/bin/ipkg list - to see what's available for download
/opt/bin/ipkg list_installed - to see what's already installed
/opt/bin/ipkg install - to install or upgrade packages (including dependencies)
/opt/bin/ipkg remove - to remove packages

Of course, any application you install won't run automatically unless you add it to /etc/initd Sample initialization and termination scripts are in /opt/etc/initd/* Optionally, you might want to install teinturman's feature packs. I tried the installer and feature packs, didn't work for me, had to spend some time and effort backing out the changes done to the system. Try it though, it might work for you.

Next thing we gotta do is disable the Mionet crapware. Other people might have a need for it, I don't. There's an option to turn it off via the GUI, but internally /usr/sbin/wixhwmonitor still calls /usr/mionet/monitorCVM.sh, which restarts it. So monitorCVM.sh is what needs to be tweaked to really disable Mionet.

Just add:

if [ ! -f "/etc/.mionet_on_startup" ]; then
exit 1
fi

The new firmware also upgrades TwonkyMedia Server to v5.1. This works out of the box - identifying most of my audio and video files. Only downside is that it's taking a long time to scan my files and the constant spinning is making the drive hot. More hacking next time.

Asian Santa

For some reason, my wife's colleagues at the villa thought it's a good idea to get me to play Santa at this year's Christmas presentation. With so many other possible candidates, I said "Yeah, sure, but only as a last resort, if you guys can't find anyone else." Turns out they can't find anyone else. So here I was in my Santa suit and Santa wig and Santa beard and Santa hat, waiting for the kids to cheer, which is my cue.

I come out of my hiding place ho-ho-hoing and spouting "Merry Christmas". After distributing bags of lollies to the kids, I loitered around the greens for picture-taking (FOC). I must be a strange sight - thin Asian chinky-eyed Santa.

Movie 2009.12.14 - Jennifer's Body

I wonder why they called the movie Jennifer's Body, as I didn't get to see much of it. Yeah, there were parts where Jennifer took off her clothes (while seducing her victims), but none of the good parts were shown.

The story has nothing to do with Jennifer's body though. Murdered in the woods as part of a Satanic rite sacrifice by a rock band after fame and fortune, Jennifer comes back from the dead with the demon inside her because the ritual asks for a virgin, and she's not. She attains some superhuman powers, but these wane after a few days. To top up her powers, Jennifer needs blood, so she preys on her male classmates. Best friend Anita starts getting suspicious about the weird things happening. She does some research in the occult section of the library and comes to the conclusion that Jennifer is a succubus. She then tells her boyfriend Chip to stay away from Jennifer.

School dance time. Jennifer seduces Chip, leads him to the nearby pool house, and proceeds to feed on his neck. Anita manages to save Chip from Jennifer, but he later dies from loss of blood. Furious, Anita later sneaks into Jennifer's bedroom, and kills her by stabbing a boxcutter into her heart. For this, she was confined in a mental asylum. Having been scratched by Jennifer during their confrontation, Anita assumes some of her superpowers and is able to break out of the asylum easily. She hitchhikes her way to the hotel where the band is staying, and kills them all.

Unbelievable (not in a good way) performances. False advertisement - didn't see much of Jennifer's body. Plot is too simplistic. Pass.

Movie 2009.12.13 - Where the Wild Things Are

Watched this movie in Gold Class at Westfield Parramatta. On top of our $50 voucher, we had to pay $24 more. That's fricking' $37 per person! Should've watched 2012 instead to make it worthwhile. I mean, 2 hours and 4o minutes.

Saw the trailer for Where the Wild Things Are, and I liked it. Should've stopped at the trailer and not watch the movie 'coz you're not missing much. Story of a kid called Max who has a wild imagination and overly hyper. One time, he overstepped the line and bit his Mom on the shoulder. Mom shouted, "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?" Max didn't agree with her observation, and stormed out of the house. He found a boat and sailed into the oceans and later landed on the island of the Wild Things.

Bluffing about his abilities, he became king of the Wild Things. They don't really do much - wrecking houses, smashing trees, building forts, having dirt-clod battles, etc. Beneath all this fun and contentment, there's an undercurrent of tension, as some of the Wild Things feel that Max is playing favourites. Some even suspect that he's not a king - "regular, like us." Carol later discover Max' secret and throws a tantrum, threatening to eat him. Max eventually leaves the island, but not before settling their differences.

So you see, this is how Max deals with his pent-up angst and rage. He realizes that it's fun to be wild, but there are consequences to other people, and he has to be sensitive to that and not be selfish. At the end of the movie, he comes back home. Instead of giving him a good beating, his Mom was at the kitchen waiting for him with a piece of cake, which Max eats in silence.