Present Perfect

Had to get up at 1 AM because I couldn't sleep and my phone had rung twice. Good thing I did so, because it seemed like the radio station I work for was dropping out intermittently. Sounded like a sync issue.

Connected with the studio PC from my house (thank god for laptops and ADSL) and tried various ways of getting the on-air software to listen to me. Then made a smart move by checking the internet stream - they were sounding fine, so the on-air software, Zenon, wasn't to blame.

Ok, so our signal gets broadcasted on FM through satellite receivers. Our signal travels to London and back through satellite. Call someone from the satellite provider at 2 AM here - no luck. Called someone in London. He answered the phone and called up a technician. So I had someone called out of bed ;)

So I had to wait half an hour for the technician to arrive in London at 2 AM at night. Times like that make you scratch an itch. I wanted to play Doom on my Dave/Dina box, but last time around the joystick acted flakey.

Here's what I learnt in that short half an hour :

• Prboom, a doom port, uses SDL, which is A Good Thing (TM).
• Joystick configuration is done through some user-space tools working directly with the kernel driver.
• If I had read the docs in the kernel correctly, I would have known that I was using the wrong module. I have a Logitech gamepad, with two axes and eight buttons. On loading the analog module, it told me I had four buttons and four axes. I never bothered to check that, and playing Doom didn't actually work because the calibration was way off and button 1 kept me shooting until I pushed it again (kinda like an unwanted autofire)
• I should use the adi module for my gamepad
• the joystick calibration stuff is cool, but I would have liked the software to tell me to PRESS THE BUTTON to do the next step. I was sitting idle in front of my television for two minutes before I realized it was waiting for me.
• It's really hard playing Doom with a joypad when it's about 12 degrees Celsius and your hands are shaking and you really want to get to bed.

So I did something useful in a short amount of time. The downside is, the technician now tells me there is a problem with our satellite feed in London, and the other radio stations on that satellite feed are having the same problem, and he probably won't be able to reach someone until 10 o'clock in the morning ! And we start live broadcasting at 6 AM. I told him to keep trying and call me, anytime.

I've called my boss to say I'm sleeping late tomorrow ;)

Had to get up at 1 AM because I couldn't sleep and my phone had rung twice. Good thing I did so, because it seemed like the radio station I...