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GPUs make a lot heat. They also do sums very quickly. You can buy GPUS these days that do well over a trillion floating-point operations per second. Some crazy people like to donate the computing power of their GPUs to distributed science projects. Some like to mine crypto-currencies hopefully to make a profit.

Suppose you could make a very simple computer that basically consisted of a cheap CPU and a few GPUs capable of somewhere between 1 and 10 TFLOPS, and would output heat at a rate of about 1kW, you could use it as a fan heater. Such a device would cost between £0.12 and £0.15 per hour to run at current UK prices.

Could that computing power be worth that much money to someone? Could you heat your house for free?

[Final (I hope) Update 0715GMT, 12 February 2018]
I ended up implementing Ampache and it seems to work acceptably (more details here).

I still need to do some clean up, but this is looking good.

Oh, and fuck you, Tivo!
[End Update]

[Update 0528GMT, 11 February 2018]
Fuck you Tivo!
[End Update]

I've been using Tivo for more than a decade (I got the first one free with a new TV -- the first one is always free, isn't it?).

Of course, DVRs are really only useful if you view/hear your own media and copy media to and from the DVR.

For a number of years, I've been using pyTivo and kmttg to manage that process.

Several months ago, a Tivo software upgrade broke the music streaming functionality from pyTivo (although oddly, not the video). Some research found that the only Tivo supported streaming music app (and video, but I don't care about that) was Plex media server, coupled with the (really, really, really crappy) Tivo Plex client.

I implemented the Plex Media Server and found it to be slow and a resource hog (which I didn't really care about since it was on its own VM).

The big issue for me was that even though the Tivo was local to me and the Plex server was local to me, the Plex server would refuse to function unless I created an account on their site and allowed the Plex server to phone home.

It's bad enough that it's clunky and slow, but that I had to allow them to spy on my completely *local* music streaming? Not happening. As such, I shut down the Plex server for good. Good riddance to bad garbage.

So, for the last few months, I've been trying to find a mechanism which will allow me to stream music through my Tivo -- with privacy -- like pyTivo used to allow me to do.

I've come up with nothing. Tools like Emby, Streambaby, GMediaServer, Galleon and others aren't supported (Tivo killed support for HME and doesn't support DLNA) any more.

Eventually, I'd like to move off of Tivo and go with something that's FOSS, but I'm not ready to plunk down the cash (a PC with multiple tuners and enough CPU, memory and disk to support my needs will be pricier than is practicable right now) at the moment.

So here's a hail Mary to any Soylentils who may have had the same issue and solved it.

I'm not averse to bringing in some inexpensive hardware (with HDMI or composite connectors) to stream audio to my receiver, bypassing the Tivo altogether. But I'd much prefer a software solution.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Some very DISLOYAL folks in Congress shut down our government again. Not so you'd notice, you didn't notice did you? They couldn't miss their lunch, the cafeteria was open in time for lunch. No brown bags. ❄️ No Wolfgang Puck Express. Chuck & Nancy looking very foolish again -- still.

Just signed Bill. Our Military will now be stronger than ever before. We love and need our Military and gave them everything -- and more. First time this has happened in a long time. Without more Republicans in Congress, we were forced to increase spending on things we do not like or want in order to finally, after many years of depletion, take care of our Military.

To renovate and modernize our nuclear arsenal so it's even more awesome. With very special, very small bombs. So we can take out a bad dude, take out his family, and nobody else gets hurt. And very special missiles that work underwater. We can launch them from a submarine, the submarine doesn't have to come up. It stays hidden. Much nicer than Trident, we'll put very special, very small bombs on the end. On the tip. And maybe sell them to Saudi Arabia, so they can protect themselves. To Japan and the UK, these are islands, surrounded by water, big water, ocean water. That means JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!

And we have parade money now. I want a parade like the one in France, like the one in North Korea. President Macron, Little Rocket Man, they look very strong. Because they put on tremendous parades. They're not so strong, we're much stronger. But we don't do the parades, nobody knows how strong we are. We spend money on our Military, people say, "where did all that money go?" They don't see our Military out there, on the street. President Erdogan, so many other countries, they have guys in the street, we don't. That ends now.

Sadly, we needed some Dem votes for passage. Costs on non-military lines will never come down if we do not elect more Republicans in the 2018 Election, and beyond. Doug Jones, we needed that seat. We could have had Senator Moore or Senator Strange in that seat. But we screwed up. We didn't work as ONE TEAM.

This Bill is a BIG VICTORY for our Military, but much waste in order to get Dem votes. Fortunately, DACA not included in this Bill, negotiations to start now.

The administrators have asked for my help with the growing problem of Cyber Spam. Believe me, I'm honored.

We're losing a lot of people because of Spam. And we have to do something. I'm treating it as an emergency, without declaring an emergency. I'm going to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening. The cyber folks at the RNC, we had a very strong cyber defense system. And China, they put a Wall around their Internet. No Cyber Spam in China, folks.

It's time to get very strict. The sentences for spamming are much too short. We’re going to be bringing them up, and bringing them up rapidly. I'm talking death penalty. And the families, with the spammers, you have to take out their families.

All options are on the table, folks. All options.

I buy them quite a lot so I can fabricate an excuse to chat up the cashier at a certain convenience store.

It's ready now, and my apartment is fragrant with the appetizing scent of gravy and salisbury steak.

The mashed potatoes aren't so good but the green beans are of far better quality than those found in cans.

But I don't feel like I can eat it.

I got very little sleep last night. I was awake until four in the morning, then had to get up at 6:30 so I could take the bus to my witch doctor appointment.

I don't feel so good.

Maybe I'll just put it in the fridge.

The cashier is always happy to see me. The other day I folded a Peace Crane before her very eyes. I demonstrated that tugging its tail leads it to flap its wings, then said "This is for you." She was quite pleased.

Unfortunately whenever I see her I lose the ability to speak. So quite commonly I just pay for my Hungry Man and then leave.

Folks, we're having two tremendous rallies today. In the capitals of Florida and California. In Tallahassee, it's so close to Georgia. And in Sacramento. We need to send a very strong message to Governor Moonbeam -- Jerry Brown -- and Governor Rick Scott. They don't understand our Make America Great Again movement. Or they don't agree. Can we call that treason? Why not? I mean, they certainly don’t seem to love our country very much! Because they don't like our oil drilling. I said before, let's knock out Hillary Clinton. And we knocked her out overwhelmingly. Now it's their turn.

Our economy is booming, it's EXPLODING. We need a lot, a lot of energy to keep it running. We need all the energy. Oil. President Bush went into Iraq for the oil. Very expensive, very FOOLISH. And President Obama promised to finish the job. He didn't finish it, he created ISIS. And left a horrible mess for me to clean up.

We don't want to make another big mistake like that one. We want America to be energy independent. For that we need a lot more oil, we need the offshore drilling. But Governor Scott and Governor Brown don't care. They're very selfish, they say "don't drill for the oil." We need that oil. More than we need them.

Let them know! Come to the rallies today -- they call them hearings -- from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Pacific & Eastern time. RALLY FOR OIL! Here are the addresses:

Four Points by Sheraton Tallahassee Downtown
316 West Tennessee Street, Tallahassee, FL 32301
(850) 422-0071

Tsakopoulos Library Galleria
828 I Street, Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 264-2800

More rallies to come, the ones today are the big ones. Watch my website, we have to change these every time the Dems shut down our government! And you can write in too. I want all my folks from the great MIDDLE of the country to write in! boem.gov/National-Program-Participate

-pers gnashing their teeth."

I just asked my client whether I should just give up on what I'm doing.

I'm trying to write a GUI uninstaller. How hard can that be?

Apple recommends that one use a very, very simple privileged helper app, because it cannot guarantee the security of its GUI libraries.

That sounds dandy but so far I am unable to get that helper app to work.

There is already a dead-simple shell script uninstaller. The GUI is intended for those users who cannot deal with command lines.

A neo-Nazi Holocaust denier is set to become the Republican nominee for a congressional seat in Illinois, the Chicago Sun-Times reported on Sunday.

An Illinois-Nazi too. I hate Illinois Nazis!

Holocaust denier to become Republican nominee for Illinois congressional seat.

Jones’s Nazi costume and celebrations of Hitler’s birthday, his protest against a local Holocaust museum and his presence at neo-Nazi and white supremacist events have long been documented.

It's half past nine and, as enjoyable as schooling you lot is, I've got other things to do today. If I don't have tons and tons of messages when I get the time and inclination to argue some more, I'll try and get everything that warrants it a response. If there are too many though, I'm probably just going to mass delete them and watch some anime instead.

[ Update: You folks really didn't want replies, I take it. ]