Marc's Public Blog

So, I made plans to go and it's it's booked well in advance, even 11 months early, the choices were already a bit limited and we ended up with the best and likely most expensive boat, WAOW. Quite frankly, this turned out great, the boat, crew, cabins, and amenities were fantastic, and it also turns out to be the only liveaboard so far to have satellite internet for all in the boat (apparently about 1Mbit/s).

Getting to the boat is a bitch though, you have to fly to Sorong, which is a small little airport which requires 2 flights from Bali or Jakarta, which in turn required two more flights from SFO, or 4 flights total. As a result (and to get business award tickets), we flew to Bali a few days early before doing the 2 extra flights to Sorong.

Since there are Malaria mosquitoes there, then the airport looked more like a bus terminal, and someone from the boat told us "whatever you do, make sure you do not have to go to the So Wrong (Sorong) hospital, trust me, you do not want to go there".
Given that, Jennifer and I had taken malarone against malaria just in case, and had long sleeves and pants in hot humid weather filled with anti mosquito spray. As a result, we were happy when the Waow staff picked us up quickly at the airport and had us on a boat towards the Waow in fewer than 30mn after we arrived. The boat soon after left Sorong for its 12 day voyage.

Here is where we went:

The Waow is a new wooden luxury sailboat that was built just a few years ago. While we didn't much wind during our trip, they still put the sails up one day because why the heck not :)

The staff was truly fantastic (and plentiful, they were around 25 or so, for barely 20 divers). The cabins were huge, we had an upgraded one and it wasn't even the biggest one:

Jennifer was very happy with the hammocks :)

As usual, I had my triple GPS logging setup to get the route and dive sites:

A few other pictures from the boat and divers

The dive guides were top notch (and so was the rest of the crew)

we got a few fresh fish deliveries :)

Oh, did I mention the boat even had a masseuse?

I also managed to get a coconut from land on one of our visits:

this is why I'm happy to have saw on my swiss army knife

score!

they also got some fresh green coconuts for us later

Before I finish with the diving pictures, we had several excursions during the cruise that were other than diving, and were a nice occasional change compared to just diving 4 times a day every day for 11 days. Here are some pictures from them.

we got to see how a pearl gets extracted

we climbed to the top too

yes, top of the world, Arturo :)

we picked up an escort from a local village to make sure we wouldn't steal fish or pearls (and pay a fee)

cave birds built nests in there

the local tribe buries their deads in caves by the water

our divemasters were zen :)

Ok, but those were many non diving related pictures, so let's go to diving now:

Thanks to Arturo for this one

this is where sand comes from :)

And that was it, 11 days, 32 dives, many of which good or great. It was tough, but someone had to do it :)

A big thanks to the crew who was fantastic with us.

While you should go to that page for more details, I'll put a few pictures here:

For more many pictures of Diving in Raja Ampat on the Waow, go here.

A few more pictures of our resort, Ubud by Como, on the way out:

We got up early to visit the Bali Zoo and Saphari Park. Lack of planning and knowledge (and them having a useless website), caused us not to know they had private safari tours in a jeep for 2 where you could hand feed the animals. That would clearly have been the highlight of the visit. Instead, we got the normal group safari tour, which was still good to see animals there.
We didn't sign up in time for an elephant ride that would meet the time we had to leave by, but we got the camel ride instead, which wasn't bad :)

the private jeep we should have been in :)

We went to visit the tigers:

just like our cat, but a tiny bit bigger :)

but eh, it was hard to pass on :)

grooming, just like our cat

Time for our camel ride:

Even if we didn't get to ride one, we did get to feed some elephants before their bath. Their trunk is very very good at probing and tickling you everywhere until you hand out the food :)

Then was time for the elephant show, this zoo's main feature:

Last but not least, we had a quick look at the rest of the place before heading out:

After the Zoo, Tawan drove us towards the airport, but since we had a bit of time left over, we had lunch by the beach, where we hadn't spent any time so far :)

And that was it, the end of our trip in Bali. Next were the flights towards Sorong (via Makassar) to reach Raja Ampat, our ulimate diving destination.

the lizards were having breakfast too :)

the staff kept the ground meticulously

This is not what I usually do, but we had some spare time in the morning :)

We then started our day with the bird park, which I figured would be fun. I was indeed right, on top of having unusual birds, they had some you could interact with (including the big blue parrot that came down from its perch slowly and calmly to bite my finger pretty hard, stupid parrot).

they showed us how cocks fight. Mmmh, ok

this one was super friendly and literally asked me to scratch under its feathers :)

this little guy wanted to clean our ears :)

Next door, they had reptiles, we had a quick look:

Our next plan was to have suckling pig, a local specialty. Yummy piggy was had :)

Next, we got to visit places that had art for sale: wood carvings and paintings:

art indeed

To finish the day, we went to Tanah Lot to see the fesh water source in the middle of the ocean, the temple that hosts it, and the surroundings. Once is supposed to see the sunset there, but it was an utter clusterfsck of people due to a special gathering of motorcrossers that day, as well the regular tourists. It took us almost 45mn just to get out of the parking lot before sunset, never mind what it would have been later... (yeah, we missed sunset, but we were going to be 10 days on a boat, so we'd get many more):

at the lowest tide, you can walk to the fresh water island

fresh water comes out of the small island

they have a secret snake in a cave you're supposed to pet (for a tip)

they have a secret snake in a cave you're supposed to pet (for a tip)

After a long drive back to Ubud (which would have been twice as long, if not more, had we waited for sunset), we got an evening reflexology massage, which did include some severe foot plant manipulations to stimulate nerve endings

And that was the end of our 4th Day in Bali.

breakfast location

Tawan then took us out for a drive:

lots of rice fields

people drying their rice on the side of the road...

We went to Gunung Kawi. On the way down to a temple, lots of stores:

Next door was Tirtha Empul Temple:

offerings

Next, we went to a Volcano Rim, but unfortunately the weather and visibility were poor, so the view was not that great and we ended up not going to the hot springs that were down there, but we still had lunch at the view restaurant that was right there, and the buffet was tasty and quite cheap:

Later on the road, we went fruit hunting for Jennifer :)

On the way back, we went to Penglipuran temple and its street of traditional houses for tourists to see:

Last, but not least, the elephant cave and its surroundings:

On the road, we saw a flock of ducks used to 'clean' a rice field :)

Next, Tawan, our guide, came to pick us up. He drove us around Denpasar in the morning and took us to the Bajra Sandhi Monument:

Next, he took us to the near island where we booked our dolphin experience with Bali Dolphin Interaction (beware, there is another one, and apparently it's not as good). Driving around was "interesting", you got to see all kinds of things:

Eventually, we got there. Before I put more pictures, I'll answer the "isn't this mean to inhumane to the dolphins" part. I'm not an expert, but while their enclosures didn't look super big, they were in the ocean (i.e. real water), they are allowed to go swim with one another after their work hours (bite marks and scratches they do to one another confirmed that), and allegedly, they're let out to swim in the ocean on sundays, but they come back for the easy food and the routine they're used to. While I'm not sure if I could believe that, cats and dogs do that happily and come back for food and companionship, so maybe it's possible for dolphins too, at least I hope so.
All that being said, we were split up in groups and had one dolphin to play with for each group. The dolphin is obviously trained to do tricks, but just like a dog that likes go fetch a ball, apparently our dolphin was more than happy to do some of the tricks and bring us back a ball too:

Once our dolphin fun was over, Tawan took us to a place that sells Luwak Coffee, the most expensive coffee in the world, where individual beans are eaten and pooped half digested by a local animal (Luwak). Apparently, it makes coffee better (I wouldn't know because I hate coffee :) ):

Luwak, the choosy animal

Next, we went to the monkey forest, which is both a nice temple, and lost of wild monkeys, which you're not supposed to feed since if they bite you, you can get rabbies, but you can pay a local to feed them for you and make them climb on you:

some tourists fed the monkeys directly, but it wasn't a grand idea. Some do end up bitten.

just what you're not supposed to do

We ended by having dinner close to our new hotel in Ubud, at Indus, with a great view and good food:

We arrived in pretty good rain, which only got worse over time for the rest of the day

Everyone seemed to have a tour or a guide waiting for them, we did too

Our guide took us for an evening at the Zoo where we had dinner, saw an animal show, and got to visit the Zoo at night with a flashlight (not forgetting getting to feed an elephant):

After the visit, we got a drum and dance, and fire dancing show:

and that was it for the evening, despite the great flight, we were beat and jetlagged.

To get there, a good option was to go through Bali, and since we used award flights (free flight in business using the stack of United miles I had gathered), we had to arrive in Bali 4 days before our connection to the next towns on the way to the boat.

After a quick online search, and asking some friends, I quickly figured out that spending 4 days in Bali wasn't the worst thing in the world, so that's what we did.

The flight from SFO to Bali (via Taiwan) with EVA Air was really good. Made flying as much of a breeze as it can be:

seabass was on the special order in advance menu, quite tasty

met the definition of lie flat :)

The EVA Business Lounge was quite nice too, even had ice cream :)

After the last flight, we arrived in Bali in pourring rain, to be greated by our guide, see next post.

But the important thing is that the telnet connection 2-way, so it will also tell you whathe receiver is doing. I use this to know when the receiver turns on or off, and more importantly when it tunes into my mythtv input. When that happens, I have my controlling PC (the one that's always on) know that the AV receiver switched to mythtv, and it will send a wake on lan (WOL) packet to my mythtv to wake it up from S3 sleep, as well as restart X because for my video card X doesn't resume properly over HDMI.

At the same time, as explained in an earlier post on how to mute and change volume on a Denon receiver using a mythtv remote, I already have my mythtv send commands to my Denon AV receiver to change the volume or mute it.

Given the above, I now had the problem that both my hacks didn't work at the same time because denon receivers only accept one telnet connection. Thankfully the connection is 2-way, but you need the code that can receive status from it independently from writing to the telnet socket.

So, I found denon.pl from bradfitz and quickly adapted my code into it. My new code reads commands from a FIFO and passes them on ot the socket. With my diffs, it's not super pretty code, but I stopped caring when it worked :)

So now, I have my denon to trigger a WOL packet to wake up my mythtv PC from S3 ACPI sleep when it's selected in the receiver.
In turn, when my denon is told to sleep, my code receives the state change over the telnet connection and my controlling PC uses the info to make mythfrontend exist back to mythwelcome, which in turn will cause the mythtv to go to S3 sleep if it's not doing anything else.
This can all be done by only reading from the telnet connection (which I used to do), but now I also use mythtv to control the sound on the receiver and this is done by sending commands asynchronously from the status updates being received.

This is how the mute script works:

 

#!/bin/bash

FILE=/tmp/denonmute

test -f $FILE || touch $FILE

# prevent bounces
[ $(( $(date "+%s") - $(stat -c "%Z" $FILE) )) -lt 2 ] && exit

if grep -q MUON $FILE 2>/dev/null; then
	CMD=MUOFF
else
	CMD=MUON
fi

# Used to be: 
#echo -ne "$CMD\r" | nc -q0 denon 23
#echo $CMD > $FILE

echo $CMD | tee $FILE > /var/run/denon.fifo

Here is the code that interacts with my Denon AVR:

On the mythtv side, these are some of my scripts:

 

#!/bin/bash

# See http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ACPI_Wakeup
# Time wakeup format was hh:mm yyyy-MM-dd and changed to time_t

DATE=$(date "+%Y:%m:%d-%H:%M:%S")
LOG=/var/log/mythtv/myth_acpi

exec >>$LOG
exec 2>>$LOG

# This will shutdown if I pause too long without turning off denon.
#for mplayer in $(pgrep mplayer)
#do
#    # See if mplayer is currently playing.
#    before=$(grep pos /proc/$mplayer/fdinfo/*)
#    sleep 2
#    after=$(grep pos /proc/$mplayer/fdinfo/*)
#
#    if [ "$before" != "$after" ]; then
#	echo "$DATE: $0 found running mplayer, cancel sleep"
#	ps auxww |grep "[ ]$mplayer"
#	exit 1
#    fi	
#done

# mplayer is killed in myth_frontend_shutdown.
if pgrep mplayer; then
    echo "$DATE: $0 found mplayer, cancel sleep"
    ps auxww |grep "[mM]player"
    exit 1
fi

if pgrep xbmc.bin >/dev/null; then
    echo "$DATE: $0 xbmc running, cancel sleep"
    exit 1
fi

if who | grep -qv mythtv; then
    echo "$DATE: $0 root logged in, cancel sleep"
    who
    exit 1
fi

echo "$DATE: $0 called, and nothing blocking shutdown"

 

#!/bin/bash

etherwake -i eth1 00:22:15:8c:66:e9
etherwake -i wlan0 00:22:15:8c:66:e9 &>/dev/null

 

#!/bin/bash
LOG=/var/log/mythtv/myth_acpi
exec >>$LOG
exec 2>>$LOG

if pgrep xbmc.bin >/dev/null; then
    echo "$(date "+%Y:%m:%d-%H:%M"): Asking XBMC to shut down"
    /var/local/scr/alarm 5 wget --quiet -O /dev/null 'http://localhost:8080/xbmcCmds/xbmcHttp?command=exit'
    sleep 5
    ps auxww | grep '[xX]bmc'
    if pgrep xbmc.bin || pgrep xmbc; then
	echo "$(date "+%Y:%m:%d-%H:%M"): XBMC DID NOT DIE, FORCIBLY KILLING."
	killall xbmc.bin xbmc
	sleep 1
	killall -9 xbmc.bin xbmc
    fi
fi

# stop mplayer so that myth_can_shutdown can detect and shutdown.
killall mplayer

# killing xbmc can restart mythfrontend.
sleep 1

if pgrep -f mythfrontend.real >/dev/null; then
    echo "$(date "+%Y:%m:%d-%H:%M"): Asking mythfrontend pid $(pgrep -f mythfrontend.real) to shut down"
    # http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Keybindings
    #for key in space f1 escape escape down enter
    #do
	#nc -q0 localhost 6546 <<< "key $key"
	#sleep 1
    #done
    for cmd in 'jump mainmenu' 'key escape' 'key down' 'key enter'
    do
	echo "sending $cmd"
	nc -q0 localhost 6546 <<< "$cmd"
	sleep 1
    done
    # Key enter takes a long time to exit mythfrontend.
    sleep 10
    if pgrep -f mythfrontend.real; then
	echo "$(date "+%Y:%m:%d-%H:%M"): MYTHFRONTEND DID NOT DIE, FORCIBLY KILLING."
	/usr/bin/killall mythfrontend.real
	sleep 1
	/usr/bin/killall -9 mythfrontend.real
    else
	echo "$(date "+%Y:%m:%d-%H:%M"): mythfrontend has shut down."
    fi
fi

 

#!/bin/bash

export PATH=/var/local/scr:$PATH

while :
do
    # I shouldn't have to kill mythfrontend because it shouldn't be running
    # but this is just for completeness.
    # I have also had one case like below where I had to kill Xorg.
    # |-login(6160)---startx(6184,mythtv)---xinit(6307)-+-Xorg(6308,root)
    # |                                                 `-xinit(6318)
    killall mythwelcome xinit mythfrontend.real mythfrontend Xorg

    sleep 6
    X_TTY=$(ps auxww | grep '/usr/bin/[X]' | sed -e "s/.* tty//" -e "s/[^0-9].*//")

    /var/local/scr/alarm 3 sudo chvt 2
    sleep 1
    /var/local/scr/alarm 3 sudo chvt $X_TTY

    sleep 2
    # This doesn't actually check that X is talking to a screen, it works 
    # when waking up from RTC and no screen is connected :(
    #if grep 'intel(0): EDID vendor "DON"' /var/log/Xorg.0.log; then
    if grep 'Resuming AIGLX clients after VT switch' /var/log/Xorg.0.log; then
	echo "X seems be running and displaying"
	break
    else
	echo ">>>>>>>>>>>> X isn't displaying, trying restart loop <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<"
    fi
done

For indexing purposes, here is a snapshot of the main denon code

 

#!/usr/bin/perl

# Originally from bradfitz (denon.pl on github).

use strict;
use IO::Socket::INET;
use Time::HiRes qw (sleep);
use POSIX qw(mkfifo);
use Carp qw(croak);
use FileHandle;

my $host = "denon";
my $fifo = "/var/run/denon.fifo";
my $port = 23;

STDOUT->autoflush(1);
STDERR->autoflush(1);

("\xff\xfd\x03" eq fromhex("ff fd", " 03 ")) or die "Unittest failed";

# ----------------

my $sock = IO::Socket::INET->new(PeerAddr => $host,
                                 PeerPort => $port)
    or die "Failed to connect to $host:$port";

sub expect_from_denon {
    my $expected = shift;
    my $got = "";
    my $buf;
    print "Waiting on ", printable($expected), "...";
    while (length($got) < length($expected) &&
           sysread($sock, $buf, length($expected) - length($got))) {
        $got .= $buf;
    }
    croak "Didn't get expected input." unless $got eq $expected;
    print "Got it.\n";
    return 1;
}

sub fromhex {
    my $in = join(', @_);
    $in =~ s/\s*(..)\s*/chr(hex($1))/eg;
    return $in;
}

sub send_to_denon {
    my $str = shift;
    syswrite($sock, $str) = length($str) or die;
    # We don't sync with the reader, but blind sleep for each line sent.
    sleep 0.2;
}

sub printable {
    my $str = shift;
    $str =~ s/[^[:print:]]/sprintf("x%02x", ord($&))/eg;
    return $str;
}

sub turn_off_myth {
	# for key in 'key space' 'jump mainmenu' 'key escape' 'key down' 'key enter'; do 
        # echo "$key" | nc myth 6546; echo "$key"; sleep 3; done
	system("date; /var/local/scr/alarm 10 telnet myth 10221; date");
}

sub wakeup_activate_myth {
    if (not system("fping -c3 -p1 -q myth"))
    {
	print "myth is already up, toggle X screen to wake X up\n";
	system("date; /var/local/scr/alarm 20 telnet myth 10222; date");
    }
    else
    {
	# If we start myth too quickly and the display isn't ready, it becomes
	# unable to talk to it until it goes through another suspend/resume.
	# Mmmh, actually it doesn't look like sleeping here is useful. but let's
	sleep 1;
	print "myth is down, wake it up and restart X\n";
        # 5 Seconds is a bit aggressive for the machine to wake up and
	# be ready to flip Xorg, but it seems to work.
	system("date; sudo /var/local/scr/myth-fmr_wol; fping -r 5 myth && date && "        
        "echo 'sleep 5 wait for X to restart safely' && sleep 5 && /var/local/scr/alarm 20 telnet myth 10222; date");
    }
}

sub printlog {
    my ($sec,$min,$hour,$mday,$mon,$year,$wday,$yday,$isdst) = localtime();
    my $mesg = $_[0];
    $year+=1900;
    $mon++;

    chomp($mesg);
    printf LOG ("%.4d/%.2d/%.2d %.2d:%.2d:%.2d - $mesg\n", $year, $mon, $mday, $hour, $min, $sec);
}

# --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

my $hello = fromhex("ff fd 03", # Do Suppress Go ahead
                    "ff fb 18", # Will Terminal Type
                    "ff fb 1f", # Will Negotiate About Window Size
                    "ff fb 20", # Will Terminal Speed
                    "ff fb 21", # Will Remote Flow Control
                    "ff fb 22", # Will Linemode
                    "ff fb 27", # Will New Environment Option
                    "ff fd 05", # Do Status
                    );

send_to_denon($hello);

expect_from_denon(fromhex("ff fb 03"));  # Will Suppress Go Ahead
expect_from_denon(fromhex("ff fa 18 01 ff f0")); # Send your terminal type

print "send terminal.\n";
send_to_denon(fromhex("ff fa 18 00",
                      "rxvt",
                      "ff f0",  # suboption end
                      ));

expect_from_denon("BridgeCo AG Telnet server\x0a\x0d");

my $child = fork;
defined($child) or die "Fork failure.";

if ($child) # we're the parent process.  accept input.
{
    if ($#ARGV eq -1)
    {
	while (1) 
	{
	    print "DENON> ";
	    my $line = <STDIN>;
	    chomp $line;
	    next if (!$line);
	    exit if ($line eq "quit" or $line eq "q" or $line eq "exit");
	    send_to_denon($line . "\x0d");
	}
    } 
    elsif ($#ARGV eq 0)
    {
	my $arg = $ARGV[0];

	if ($arg eq "--server")
	{
	    -p $fifo or mkfifo($fifo, 0700) or die "mkfifo($fifo) failed: $!";

	    print "Will read from fifo $fifo until ^C\n";
	    my $logfile = "/var/log/denon-send.log";
	    open(LOG, ">>$logfile") or die "Can't write to $logfile";
	    LOG->autoflush(1);

	    open(FIFO, "<$fifo") or die "Can't read from $fifo: $!";
	    while (1) 
	    {
		sleep 0.1;
		my $arg = <FIFO>;
		next if (not $arg);

		chomp $arg;
		printlog("sending $arg");
		send_to_denon($arg . "\x0d");
	    }
	}
	else
	{
	    print "Will send $arg to $host\n";
	    send_to_denon($arg . "\x0d");
	}
    } 
    elsif ($#ARGV eq 1)
    {
	my ($arg, $repeat) = @ARGV;
	print "Will send $arg to $host $repeat times\n";
	foreach $_ (1 .. $repeat)
	{
	    send_to_denon($ARGV[0] . "\x0d");
	}
    } 
    else
    {
	die "Too many args: ".join(" ", @ARGV);
    }
} 
else # Child process, 
{
    my $logfile = "/var/log/denon.log";
    open(LOG, ">>$logfile") or die "Can't write to $logfile";
    LOG->autoflush(1);

    # Init state machine for keeping track of whether receiver is on or off
    # and on which output. By default, we'll pretend the last output was DVR
    my $input = "SIDVR";

    # Sometimes, the connection to denon dies when denon starts up.
    # When this happens, we missed the first PWON, so we assume that
    # we're at stage one already (first PWON seen) when we start.
    my $denon_state = "on_stage1";

    # Turning back on to mythtv when it was off, we need to wait for the 2nd PWON
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:17 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:17 - PWON
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:17 - ZMON
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:20 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:21 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:24 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:24 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:25 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # look for 2nd PWON vvvvvvvv
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:25 - PWON
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:42 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:44 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # 2011/11/09 05:50:44 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # 
    # Turning on when mythtv was the last input to DVD
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:22 - ZMOFF
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:38 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:38 - PWON
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:39 - ZMON
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:41 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - SIDVD
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - Denon switched input to SIDVD
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - SDHDMI
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - SVSAT
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - DCAUTO
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - CVFL 495
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - CVFR 505
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - CVC 495
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - CVSW 52
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - CVSL 495
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - CVSR 52
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - CVSBL 50
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - CVSBR 50
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - CVSB 50
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - MVMAX 98
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:43 - PSROOM EQ:AUDYSSEY
    # look for 2nd PWON vvvvvvvv
    # 2011/11/09 05:48:47 - PWON
    # 2011/11/09 05:49:19 - SIDVR
    # 2011/11/09 05:49:19 - SDAUTO
    # 2011/11/09 05:49:19 - SVDVR
    # 2011/11/09 05:49:19 - DCAUTO

    # Show any read data, and depending on some commands read, wake up
    # or put mythtv to sleep.
    my $data;
    while (sysread($sock, $data, 300)) 
    {
      $data =~ s/\015/\n/g;
      foreach my $line (split(/\n/, $data))
      {
        printlog("Read: ".printable($line));

	if ($line =~ /SIDVR/)
	{
	    printlog("Denon switched to MythTV (denon state $denon_state), waking up myth");
	    wakeup_activate_myth();
	    $input = $line;
	}
	elsif ($line =~ /^SI/)
	{
	    printlog("Denon switched input to $line");
	    $input = $line;
	    if ($denon_state eq "on")
	    {
		printlog("Denon on (state $denon_state), but switched to $input. Turn off mythtv");
		turn_off_myth();
	    }
	}
	elsif ($line =~ /PWON/)
	{
	    if ($denon_state eq "off")
	    {
		$denon_state = "on_stage1";
		printlog("Denon being turned on, switching to stage1 on");
		# Between now and the second 'ON', we'll have gotten a new
		# input line if input got switched at power on, or we use
		# the last one we've seen in the past.
	    }
	    else
	    {
		printlog("Got another PWON (was $denon_state)");
		$denon_state = "on";
		if ($input =~ /SIDVR/)
		{
		    printlog("Denon turned on and was last on MythTV, waking up myth");
		    wakeup_activate_myth();
		}
		else
		{
		    printlog("Denon turned on but input is $input, doing nothing");
		}
	    }
	}
	elsif ($line =~ /PWSTANDBY/)
	{
	    $denon_state = "off";
	    if ($input =~ /SIDVR/)
	    {
		printlog("Denon turned off and was last on MythTV, turning off");
		turn_off_myth();
	    }
	    else
	    {
		printlog("Denon turned off but last input was $input, not doing anything");
	    }
	}
      }
    }
}

sub END
{
    #print "Killing child\n";
    kill(9, $child);
}

exit;
___END___
#!/bin/bash

# $0 cmd [repeat]

for i in `seq 1 ${2-1}`
do 
	echo -ne "$1\r" | nc -q0 denon 23
	sleep 0.2
done

exit

PWON", "xon"
PWSTANDBY
PW?", "power-status"
MVUP", "volplus"
MVDOWN", "volminus"
MV62", "vol-18"
MV80", "vol+0"
MV98", "vol+18"
MUON", "mute-on"
MUOFF", "mute-off"
SIPHONO", "input-phono"
SICD", "input-cd"
SITUNER", "input-tuner"
SIDVD", "input-dvd"
SIVDP", "input-vdp"
SITV", "input-tv"
SIDBS", "input-dbs"
SIVCR-1", "input-vcr1"
SIVCR-2", "input-vcr2"
SIV.AUX", "input-vaux"
SICDR/TAPE", "input-cdr"
SI?", "input-status"
SDAUTO", "digital-in-auto"
SDPCM", "digital-in-pcm"
SDDTS", "digital-in-dts"
SDANALOG", "digital-in-analog"
SDEXT.IN-1", "digital-in-ext-in"
SVDVD", "video-select-dvd"
SVVDP", "video-select-vdp"
SVTV", "video-select-tv"
SVDBS", "video-select-dbs"
SVVCR-1", "video-select-vcr1"
SVVCR-2", "video-select-vcr2"
SVV.AUX", "video-select-vaux"
SVSOURCE", "video-select-source"
MSDIRECT", "surround-mode-direct"
MSPURE DIRECT", "surround-mode-pure-direct"
MSSTEREO", "surround-mode-stereo"
MSMULTI CH IN", "surround-mode-multi-ch-in"
MSMULTI CH DIRECT", "surround-mode-multi-ch-direct"
MSMULTI CH PURE D", "surround-mode-multi-ch-pure-direct"
MSDOLBY PRO LOGIC", "surround-mode-dolby-pro-logic"
MSDOLBY PL2", "surround-mode-dolby-pl2"
MSDOLBY PL2x", "surround-mode-dolby-pl2x"
MSDOLBY DIGITAL", "surround-mode-dolby-digital"
MSDOLBY D EX", "surround-mode-dolby-d-ex"
MSDTS NEO:6", "surround-mode-dts-neo6"
MSDTS SURROUND", "surround-mode-dts-surround"
MSDTS ES DSCRT6.1", "surround-mode-dts-es-dscrt61"
MSDTS ES MTRX6.1", "surround-mode-dts-es-mtrx61"
MSWIDE SCREEN", "surround-mode-wide-screen"
MS5CH STEREO", "surround-mode-5ch-stereo"
MS7CH STEREO", "surround-mode-7ch-stereo"
MSSUPER STADIUM", "surround-mode-super-stadium"
MSROCK ARENA", "surround-mode-rock-arena"
MSJAZZ CLUB", "surround-mode-jazz-club"
MSCLASSIC CONCERT", "surround-mode-classic-concert"
MSMONO MOVIE", "surround-mode-mono-movie"
MSMATRIX", "surround-mode-matrix"
MSVIDEO GAME", "surround-mode-video-game"
MSVIRTUAL", "surround-mode-virtual"
MS?", "surround-mode-status"
MSUSER1", "surround-mode-user1"
MSUSER2", "surround-mode-user2"
MSUSER3", "surround-mode-user3"
SSCUP", "cursor-up"
SSCDN", "cursor-down"
SSCLT", "cursor-left"
SSCRT", "cursor-right"
SSENT", "cursor-enter"
SSMEN ON", "system-setup-menu-on"
SSMEN OFF", "system-setup-menu-off"
PSMEN ON", "surround-parameter-menu-on"
PSMEN OFF", "surround-parameter-menu-off"

I got a good 8 hours of sleep, and flew to TH while my friend Scott nicely drove my car and met me there. I only had a slower plane that day, so I had to leave a bit ealier. This was close enough to a night takeoff:

Unfortunately, I was still kind of sick that day when I arrived, but adrenaline and caffeine set that aside for most of the day, although by 15:00, my last session, I was fading. But man, I had had 6 great 35mn sessions by then.

Alessandro came with his "company car"

Alessandro

with Nico, my coach

By noon, my outside rear tire had a bit too much fun, but thankfully I had shipped an old set of tires at the local tire shop and they were able to replace it during lunchtime, so I was able to run the afternoon:

Man 35mn session are a lot of work, never mind when you're battling a cold (we only had about 10-15 mn between each session after refilling gas). By some miracle I was able to stay sharp most of the day and learn from Nico. He did a great job finding what I was doing wrong, and teaching me his fast in fast out line :)
Nico was not my first coach, but he definitely was the most efficient so far.

By the end of the day, I had run a few 2:02's, my best time so far, and that was on worn tires, and with a heavy wind that was blowing into my airbrake. I'm pretty sure on a good day with fresh tires and a fresh me, that means I can now get in the 2:00 range. I'm eager to try that out some future day.
Thanks much to Nico for his expert help.

On the way back, I did a quick overlfy of Thunderhill West:

And then I flew back, which was no piece of cake because by then the adrenaline wore off, and my body let me know that what I did to it was mean :)

This was definitely one of my best days at Thunderhill so far. Thanks again Ari.

We showed up at 10:30, a little late (opens at 10:00) because we spent more time than expected visiting the Cathedral in Washington, and we arrived just in time for a volunteer led tour that was absolutely fantastic. He spent 3h45 with us to show us just a portion of their amazing collection, and he really knew space stuff since he worked at NASA before retiring.

We started with a collection of very early planes, including one before the Wright Flyers' which never managed to fly: the Langley Aerodrome A.

look at this plane. It never flew but sure looked cool.

gunner station, bad ass!

4 rudders!

many early French planes

Then, we went to see other pieces of the collection:

Enola Gay was the superfortress that dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima

They also had rare Japanese and German planes:

dual prop plane with pusher prop

A japanese cruise missile that was actually piloted by a kamikaze

Messerschmitt Komet plane with a propellor to run a generator

Finally we went to the space hangar and our volunteer talked to us about the space shuttle. They have discovery, the last one that flew.

The tracking and data relay satellite that allowed coms with the space shuttle

And we looked at more space artifacts and satellites

Vega Solar System Probe

Mercury Capsule

A concept of gliding wing to land capsules on ground instead of sea

That was a whole 3H45. By then, our guide parted ways with us, with many thanks for his excellent tour. Next, I went to check out the missile and rocket section:

an early drone (KD2C-2 Skeet Target)

OMG, this looks weird

And more things, still, the main hangar is huge:

An F35 with its engine, very cool

but wait, there's more...

I also went to the watch tower where you can see planes landing at IAD:

And that was it. Many pictures on this page, but only a small sample of the 500+ pictures I took there. I barely got to see everything in a day, and quite frankly to visit carefully, you really need 2 days.
This place is one of a kind, it totally deserves a stop in IAD when you're flying by washington, it's that good. Also, you may get plane fatigue after a while, because of how many artifacts they have. Either way, it's a do not miss.

I hearby want to thank Wansview for giving me some of the above cameras for review (I bought some of them on my own, and after seeing my reviews, they asked me to test and review a few more). Note that while wansview cameras do not offer the sharpest 1080p pictures I've seen (Zavio and FI9900 win, even I hate foscam), the nice things I've written on wansview are not based on the free cameras, but the fact that they have always answered my support queries, including the technical ones showing issues with the firmware, and fixed the firmware after that (including making it work on linux and other other operating systems), while Foscam tells people that they're running the wrong version of windows, and that's it.
zavio truly sells good cameras, but sadly they cost more than double, which may be a bit out of reach for many people.

Zoneminder

One good page to know about is ispyconnect, which gives all the entrypoints for many cameras:

Camera in 2009

Dlink DCS900

Cameras in 2013/11

Foscam FI8904W

Wansview NCB541W

Foscam FI8910W

Because it wasn't wide angle enough, I got a 3rd party (cheap) wide angle F2.0 lens for it. It blurs the picture around the edges quite a bit, but gives me the shot I wanted:

Foscam FI8920W

Foscam FI8921W

I also changed the F2.8 lens to a wider dealextreme F2.0 lens that's blurry around the edges:

Ubnt Aircam

out of focus out of the box, this is kind of sad

this is only barely better than the 480p version but great wide angle

480p picture blown up to 720p to compare with 720p 'native'

Edimax 3115w

Zavio F3210

Cameras in 2015/08

Foscam FI9826PB

Foscam FI9805P

Foscam FI9900P

Anyway, here's what I found on the Foscam 9900:

If you guessed that I think Foscam sucks by now, you guessed right. First to me, they look like liars and cheaters by what really looks like buying fake reviews on amazon, and then in the last 2 years, they actually made their web interface worse since the FI8921W where you could at least login on linux and change settings.

While I'll repeat that life is too short to deal with this crap and give money to that company, I used jpeg URL ( /cgi-bin/CGIProxy.fcgi?cmd=snapPicture2&usr=user&pwd=pwd1 ) to make it work with zoneminder, and it works well enough. As other reviews have said, the optics are actually quite good, I do like the very wide angle picture without barrel effect:

Too bad that Foscam's firmware sucks so much, the optics are good now. If you need an outdoor camera, and value your time and sanity a few dollars, I'd recommend the Zavio B6210. If an indoor camera used outdoors with light weather proofing is good enough, try the cheaper and somewhat better Wansview NCM625GA/Q1 below (although its picture isn't as wide and show barrel effect):

Wansview NCM625GA (aka Wansview Q1)

Cons:

Pros:

Updates:

Info:

The 1920x1080 shots are truncated to 1280 for display on this page

Wansview NCM751GA (aka Wansview W1)

This camera was superseeded by the Wansview W2 which is both much smaller and cheaper. Honestly, the only advantage of the W1 is the onboard storage if you care about that. For remote capture support, the W2 will be a much better bet (and almost half the price).

The viewing anble is pretty narrow. That's either a good or a bad thing depending on your needs, but if you need wide, prever the NCM625GA if you can put it outdoors safely, or consider the foscam or a higher priced camera. The night vision is decent though:

The 1920x1080 shots are truncated to 1280 for display on this page

My camera was giving blurry pictures because the lens was mis-adjusted. I had to open it up and readjust the lens for the picture to a bit more clear.

Like the NCM625GA, it now comes with firmware that works fine with linux and any operating system, and the android app gets the camera working in no time after you scan the QR code.

Wansview K1

It's a great little camera. Just like its big brother, I installed the recommended iSmartViewPro on android, scanned the QR code on the back of the camera, and had it working instantly. The picture quality is very good and this is the widest picture of any camera I've reviewed so far (even if it comes at the price of barrel effect).
Please refer to my Wanview NCM625GA review for configuration details. The only real downside is the placement of the ethernet jack, making it hard to fit some ethernet cables unless you remove the flexible sleeve, but that's a manageable problem :)

If you have firmware 0.39 or 0.40 and install this firmware patch I got from Wansview (via the web upload interface), http://ipaddr/mjpeg/snap.cgi?chn=0 now returns a proper Content-Type: image/jpeg header and will work with Zoneminder and other software that expects a jpeg. If your firmware is 0.41 or later, it should just work without the patch.

It is the best 1080p camera you can get for that price, I'm quite impressed with it.

The 1920x1080 shots are truncated to 1280 for display on this page

Wansview W2

My camera shipped with firmware 0.42 which supports http://ipaddr/mjpeg/snap.cgi?chn=0 out of the box with a proper Content-Type: image/jpeg header and will work with Zoneminder and other software that expects a jpeg.

This is definitely a good alternative to the Foscam FI9900 if you are ok with a narrow lens in exchange for better firmware froma better company. However I'm not going to lie, the picture is not ultra sharp. It doens't look blurry but it feels like the sensor is not truly 1080p, or something is robbing a bit of resolution or sharpness.

The 1920x1080 shots are truncated to 1280 for display on this page

Wansview Q2

My camera shipped with firmware 0.42 which supports http://ipaddr/mjpeg/snap.cgi?chn=0 out of the box with a proper Content-Type: image/jpeg header and will work with Zoneminder and other software that expects a jpeg.

The Q1 picture is a bit more narrow and looks a bit more sharp

The Q2 picture is a bit wider and bit less sharp

Here are the other Q2 screenshots, they look fairly good at night;

Reolink RLC-410

Setup was a breeze, the one downside is because it's a PoE camera, it does support 12V input, but it does not ship with a 12V power supply. Thankfully I have a drawer full of those :)
The default picture was way too bright (over exposed) and the sharpening was turned up too high, making the picture grainy. On the last picture, I turned the brightness down as well as the sharpening, and the results are better. The lens is about as wide as Wansview Q2. *Update* a firmware update seems to have dramatically improved the picture quality, which to be honest, was pretty poor. The screenshots below are the old picture quality, I have not had the chance to get shots with the new firmware yet since my camera is installed outdoors at the moment.

Here are screenshots (resized to 1280, but you can click on them to get the full original size). Again, these are very poor quality and a new firmware fixes those:

Wansview K2

So, for that limited price, you still get most of the typical wansview interface without any sdcard or recording support, but you can tell the CPU is slow. It's slow enough that you have to wait for the web page to load, and also slow enough that a reboot takes a while. Last, but not least the picture is only 720p, not 1080p, and when comparing a downsided picture from a K1 and a native 720p picture from the K2, the K2 picture is not as sharp but still very usable
It's far from a perfect camera, but again, you only paid $30 (my favourites from Wansview are definitely K1 and Q1). If you want a camera that's more capable, the K1 is a very good small camera, so get that one instead. The choice is yours :)

Here are the screenshots in native 720p:

Using cameras outdoors

Foscam FI9821W and Zavio F3210, along with an IR booster for better distance vision at night with the Zavio

we don't exactly have harsh winters here, or really bad rain, so part of my equipment is just outdoors under the gutter

I then have ethernet and power going in my yard to the malibox

I do use a waterproof box for equipment outside (includes an insteon iolinc to control the mailbox and flood light if you open it)

very tight fit, but I used a 7A 12V power supply to power the gigabit switch, floodlight (12V LEDs), and 4 IP cams

this should take care of any mailbox thieves :)

A few pictures:

Bruce Schneider via VC

I attended an evening BOF on lock picking

I managed to open a few

Tatu gave a very boring talk about ssh key management and gave his commercial solution which most people seemed to agree was a bad solution, disappointing.

They had a single evening party bowling based:

My coworker Todd gave a fun end of conference keynote:

Because I was presenting a paper, I only had a short 30mn timeslot, which is way too short for my talk which needed closer to an hour, so I gave a very fast condensed version. Lisa has posted a video here which does not show me, but shows the slides. I self recorded the talk but it doesn't show the screen (slides clearly), that said, you can play both at the same time if you wish :)

Here is a link to the full paper in PDF, which gives many more details than my talk: http://marc.merlins.org/linux/talks/ProdNG-LISA/Paper/ProdNG.pdf

The talk went very well, and hopefully a few people enjoyed the paper, because it sure took a long time to write :)

Then, you need at least another full day to see the much bigger Smithsonian Air and Space Museum by Washington Dulles (IAD)

google has the copy, they have the real one :)

US and Russian capsule rendez-vous

X-15, the first prototype to fly to space before rockets

Bell X-1

747 cockpit

skylab, before the space station

Howard Hughes' speed record plane

The actual voyager plane that went around the world

great way to show how a modern telescope works

These few pictures do not give it justice, the amount of history of aviation, space, including what happend to other countries, how GPS works and why, how the moon landings were done, and how we're going to Mars now, it's a lot of information.
I guess that's expected, but it is indeed bar none the best such museum I've seen in the world so far.

A few pictures:

One night, we went to see the Lincoln Memorial, and the other war memorials:

The first morning, I followed tripadvisor recommendations, we started with the Newseum because it opens earlier. It was interesting, but maybe not worth limited time compared to Smithsonian museums:

The Air and Space Museum was next, and fantastic (follow the link for many many more pictures):

The next morning, we went to the bureau of engraving and printing:

Right after, we went to the museum of American History:

they had a google rack, cool!

The next day, we started with the library of congress. It's beautiful inside, the guided tour was well worth it, and the museums inside are worth the time if you have it:

We however ducked out of the library a bit early to get to the Capitol for our scheduled guided tours. We even got tickets to see the parliament (not in session) and the senate (in session, but nothing happening when we were there). No pictures allowed there though:

After the capitol, I went back to the smithsonian air and space museum for the 3rd time, since I was still not even close to be finished.

The next 3 days, I was at LISA, attending and presenting.

Saturday morning, we went to the Jefferson Memorial before going to Mount Vernon:

We drove to Mt Vernon next, where Jefferson used to live, beautiful grounds:

this is where the slaves used to stay

a few pictures from the museum on site

From Mt Vernon, we drove to the Arlington Cemetary for a few hours, which also has beautiful grounds:

It looks very nice in autumn

the walk by the unknown soldier is still just as impressive

Kennedy's Tomb

Good views from up there:

We were left we just 1h20 for a very quick visit of the Natural History Museum, which was worth more, but that's better than nothing:

great picture!

Sunday morning, our last day, we started by going to the Washington National Cathedral. OMG is it impressive, it's absolutely huge. Unfortunately we arrived during a service, and couldn't really stick around for a long time to visit the top after the service was over, but we visited the crypt underneath and that one along was worth the visit:

down to the crypt

From there, last but certainly not least, we went directly to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy by Washington Dulles Airport, which is probably the best such museum in the world (click on the link for a page dedicated to it.

Right after the museum visit, we got back to the other side of the terminal for the last flight out home, and this concluded a great 8 days in DC.