Where are all the Canadian game shows?

Greetings everyone!

As you probably already know, I am indeed quite a geek. One of the many things I enjoy in my geeky livelihood is television -> usually science fiction and fantasy, but I also some comedy's, dramas, action stories, etc.

Another type of television program I am a fan of is game shows. I've been watching game shows for as long as I can remember, and although I don't like all game shows, I usually find them to be quite entertaining. Specifically ones that involve trivia, or other tests of skill.

But I also have a pretty big problem with game shows. I can't get on them! Why might you ask?

Most major game shows in the US are open to residents of the United States. Usually any resident of legal age can apply to be a contestant, and are allowed to participate if chosen. However, with some notable exceptions (e.g. The Price is Right, Jeopardy!), these shows restrict their contestants to residents of the United States. Thus, most other countries have adopted their own versions of various game shows for their own citizens. Survivor alone has over forty international versions.

But what about Canada? There is no Survivor: Canada that I'm aware, nor is there a Canadian Family Feud, Wheel of Fortune, or Let's Make a Deal. Sure, as I mentioned a few US game shows do allow Canadian contestants, which is great, and although I don't think it's likely I'll ever make to Los Angeles, I'll be sure to apply for them if I do.

But what's the deal with Canada? Why won't Canadian networks create their own, big budget prime time game shows open to Canadian residents? We can't get on the US shows, and other countries have their own versions, but why not us? I call B.S. We're simply left in the dust when it comes to Canadian game show opportunities. Do Canadian networks simply think they wouldn't be profitable enough? I'd watch, and I'd bet you could find many others that would too.

Sure, on occasion a big US game show gets ported over to Canada such as Deal or No Deal, Are you smarter then a fifth grader?, and Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? But not permanently, instead we are left with only "five special episodes". Although I applied to be on these when they were offered, I was not selected nor do I have the chance to try again due to their short life spans. And although Toronto may be a bit easier to get to than L.A., wider spread adoption of such shows would promote more opportunities for Canadian contestants from various backgrounds and locations.

Interestingly, there have been permanent French Canadian versions of game shows such as "Big Brother", "Wipeout" and "Wheel of Fortune" on the major French networks. Although I applaud these efforts, they still have a way to go, and are not applicable to English speaking residents.

It wasn't always this way. In the past, Canadian networks used to indeed produce and develop their own game shows, such as "Definition" and "Acting Crazy". And even today, all hope is not lost. Some very cool Canadian game shows exist in (somewhat) regular production such as Cash Cab and Qubit. Although not quite as "big budget" as major US network shows, they are still well worth watching although getting on them (especially Cash Cab) may not be so easy.

So come on Canada. Let's get the major Canadian networks such as CTV, Global and CBC on board. We need more Canadian game shows! We don't need to just copy US game shows, we can develop our own innovative and exciting shows that other countries will try to copy. And we don't even need many, I'm not greedy, just a few that are consistent, i.e. don't go away so quickly. They don't even need to be the same all time, maybe a Canadian Survivor one season and a Canadian Big Brother (or my personal favorite, Canadian The Mole :) another season. However it's implemented though, I'm getting tired of seeing only American game shows with the odd Canadian contestant. I want to see a persistent prime time high-prize Canadian game show, made by Canadians and for Canadians that actually sticks around.

Well that's my dream anyway :), how about you?

Exploiting Kernel Null Dereferences

From the Ksplice blog comes a fantastic article about Exploiting NULL references in a kernel module to gain root access (or more...) over a system. It's a fantastically written piece, and easy to understand even for non-guru hackers. I recommended taking a few moments out to giving it a read!

Check it out here:

http://blog.ksplice.com/2010/04/exploiting-kernel-null-dereferences/

Where am I? Lost of course!

Namaste!

Yes, I know I'm starting this post with the same thing hundreds of other, admittedly much better, Lost blogs all over the interwebs have. It's the start of Season 6, the last season, and after patiently waiting months, we finally got the season premiere, LA X, last Tuesday.

Now of course, Jay's Desktop isn't a lost blog. It's also not a blog about Lost (see what I did there?). Rather, its a "post-about-anything-Jason-thinks-is-nifty" blog. And Lost is certainly something nifty.

I originally didn't watch Lost when it first aired. It's not that I wasn't interested, I was just busy with other things (school, friends, *cough* world domination *cough*) and never had a chance to catch it. Finally, in first year of university, I rented Lost season 1 over spring break (*cough* loser *cough*) on DVD and enjoyed it quite throughly. From then on I made it a point to watch all of season 2. Like many others, I feel the show hit a low spot around season 3. Many people I knew who also watched the show began stopping around this time. Unlike many others though, I kept watching, especially after Flashes Before Your Eyes. Even if it was at a low point now, I knew it would be coming back, and come back hard. I wasn't disappointed.

Lost was a great character story for sure, but what I really loved was the mystery. The feeling of "weirdness". For the first several seasons, the science fiction/fantasy element, though clearly present (the Numbers, the monster), was somewhat subdued and in the background. Like many others, I was quite shocked at the end of season three: so much to the point that for a few moments, I though they'd retconned Kate and Jack knowing each before the crash. I did indeed notice Jack's out-of-time phone, but chalked it up to a production error (tsk). But as it sunk it, it began to make sense, and finally, The Constant, seemed to solidify it: time travel! Yes, now we're in the right territory. I was very happy to see the sci-fi elements brought to the foreground, including not only consciousness time travel but physical time travel and other superpowers as well (e.g. Miles, Jacob). I haven't been disappointed since!

Finally onto some season 6 ideas! I'm assuming you've seen LA X already. These are some ideas I came up with while watching the premiere, though they are unlikely to be unique and I certainly don't have an answer for every mystery, nor would I like too. These are just a few thoughts I had. I'm posting them for posterity purposes, sort of a "let's see how right I was" when it's all said and done.

1. The Island is isolated in time and space. Although the previous season dealt with time travel, this one seems to be dealing with parallel universes ("flash sideways" as the producers have coined them). There seem to be at least two universes: the island universe where the characters crash, and the alternate universe where they didn't. My prediction however is that there is in fact only one universe: the universe where the characters didn't crash created by Juliet's detonation of Jughead. The bomb did indeed reset the timeline, but the Island due to its "special" nature, and the island only, was isolated from the changes in the timeline (like how the Enterprise-E didn't disappear when the Borg went back in time in Star Trek: First Contact). The island exists itself in a sort of bubble universe. Thus, if the characters on the island were to leave, the universe they would encounter is one where flight 815 never crashed, and each one of them would have a duplicate.

2. I think it's inevitable that by the end of the series, one of more characters on the island will leave and discover this, only to return. The two groups/timelines will converge, either by meeting or at least observing each other. The characters on the island will decide to stay (hopefully happily) on the island in the end while the characters off the island will have the lives enriched for meeting their on-island counterparts.

3. The missing coffin and knives are two special items that link the timelines together. When flight 815 passed over the "island" in the timeline where the plane never crashed, these items disappeared, since they were so important to the island's isolated timeline.

4. Either the Numbers have changed, or their effects have changed in the new timeline. This appears to be evident by Hurley still winning the library but still being "lucky". I don't have much more detail on this one, but several other blogs have pointed out a few new reoccurring numbers. It still remains to be seen what numbers Hurley used in the new timeline, but I doubt he got them from the mental institution (who in turn got them from the radio signal).

5. Rose and Bernard are Adam and Eve. This theory has been around for sometime, but I think everything we've seen in season 5 next to confirms it. Though Jack and co. have returned to the present, I think that although Rose and Bernard were also transported to the island in the "bubble" universe (instead of the island now on the bottom of the sea), they remained in the 70's (or even further back in time). They will eventually move to the caves and die together peacefully. The stones I don't understand though (maybe Jacob gives the stones to them?). In a way, Rose and Bernard will serve to prove Jacob's point against his enemy, that humanity is worth something after all.

6. Back to number 2, Off-island Jack will restore off island Locke's ability to walk, and off-island Locke will return to the Island to stay, maybe even gaining old-Locke's memories. In the end though, John and Locke will be friends and definitively on the same side. In fact, have you ever noticed that:

This works on so many levels! All the mysteries solved right there :) It's going to be a fun ride.

Extending your desktop to TV with Karmic Koala

Introduction

Ever since I've been using Ubuntu on my original laptop, I've been having great fun poking and prodding with its configuration, getting it to do some pretty fantastic things! My eventual goal is to turn this machine into a full fledged Linux-based HTPC (Home Theatre PC), and have been working on the project on and off to achieve that goal.

I don't have a high definition television, but the laptop comes equipped with a S-video out port, perfect for connecting the PC to my standard definition television. When I used to run openSuse, I had the proprietary ATI drivers installed and could use aticonfig to turn the extended desktop on and off.

Problems

Since switching to Karmic, I haven't quite been able to get this to work. The ATI drivers don't come installed by default, and they aren't open source anyway. I did make an attempt to install the drivers, but the OS seemed to ignore them and continue to use the open source drivers. I didn't want them unless necessary anyway, but the question remained: how to configure extended desktop without ATI config?

...and solutions!

The answer lies in the X Resize and Rotate Extension (RandR), or xrandr. If you run xrandr from Terminal, you should see something that looks like this:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 1280 x 1280
VGA-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
LVDS connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 0mm x 0mm
1280x800 59.9*+
1280x720 59.9
1152x768 59.8
1024x768 60.0 59.9
800x600 60.3 59.9
640x480 59.9 59.4

On my laptop, LVDS refers to the LCD screen. Listed there are a number of possible resolutions and screen refresh rates.

To activate your S-video out (or VGA), you'll need to add a display mode for it. Use the addmode function of xrandr for this:

xrandr --addmode S-video 800x600

In this case, I want to set an S-video out mode of 800x600 resolution. You should then see the mode if you run xrandr again:

S-video disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
800x600 60.3

In order to actually use the S-video out, there are a number of options. The simplest is merely to activate it:

xrandr --output S-video --mode 800x600

But not quite...

This'll clone the desktop onto the S-video out. Unfortunately, since the LCD is running at 1280x800, you'll only see the top-left 800x600 pixels of your LCD display. This isn't particularly useful now is it? You can use the --pos YYYxZZZ option (e.g. --pos 100x100) option to move the output display around, but you'll still always be missing some of the screen.

Unfortunately, it was at this point that I hit a road block. I could clone the output, and move it around, but not get a dedicated output for the S-video out. What I decided to to was alter the command a little, I would turn off the LCD display, set the resolution to 800x600, then send it via the S-video:

xrandr --output LVDS --off --output S-video --mode 800x600

Now, I could have either a 1280x800 desktop on my LCD, or an 800x600 desktop on the TV. Not exactly what I wanted, but still sufficient for watching movies, videos, and even using the desktop on the TV.

Eventually, I realized what had to be done in order to extend the desktop.

1. Make the "virtual desktop" (amount of screen area) bigger
2. Use the --pos command to move the S-video output to the right of the LCD desktop.

xrandr has a --fb command for increasing the size of the "Frame Buffer" (the virtual desktop size). Alas, everytime I would try to change it, I'd get an error like this:

xrandr: screen cannot be larger than 1280x1280

Xorg.conf

Doing some searching, it seems the best advice was to configure the virtual desktop size in the Xorg.conf file (so the virtual screen size would be set while X server was starting). But hold on a moment...Ubuntu did away with Xorg.conf files in version 9.10! What to do? I made a few attempts at writing an Xorg.conf file by hand, but was always missing something causing my machine to reboot in "Low Graphics Mode". And my searches for changing the frame buffer without an xorg.conf, including a post on the Ubuntu forums, revealed no results.

Luckily, I found a post today on how to generate an xorg.conf from your current configuration. Essentially:

1. Reboot. When in grub, select to boot in recovery mode.
2. After logging in to a command prompt, run:

sudo Xorg -configure

3. This will create a xorg.conf.new file for you, likely in your home directory.
4. As root, copy this file into your /etc/X11/ folder (remember: back up the old one if there's already one there!)
5. Rename it to xorg.conf
6. Open your favorite editor (you can run startx now and do this from X Windows if you don't want to from the command line)
7. Find the "screen" module.
8. You'll see listed a number of display sections like so:

SubSection "Display"
Viewport 0 0
Depth 24
EndSubSection

To the most common ones (or even just the ones you'll use), add the following line:

Virtual 2080 800

9. Save, and restart.

Upon running xrandr at a command line now, you should see your virtual desktop has changed:

Screen 0: minimum 320 x 200, current 1280 x 800, maximum 2080 x 800.

You can now use the --pos to set your S-video output to 1280x0, which will put the video output to the right of the current desktop and Volia! Extended Desktop! You can now drag windows over to it (such as videos), full screen them, move them, even see your desktop effects!

Wrapping it up

To prevent having to use xrandr all the time, I made a few simple scripts for configuring the TV Out.

1. Go into your home folder. Create a folder called "Scripts".
2. We're going to make three scripts:
One for turning the TV out on in Extended Desktop, One for Clone Mode, and one for turning it off. First the deactivate script:
3. First, deactivate: In gedit (or another editor), paste the following into a text file:

xrandr --output LVDS --mode 1280x800 --output S-video --off

This'll deactivate the S-video and make sure your LCD is the main display. Save it as "Deactivate_TV_Out" or something alone those lines.

4. Now, activate in clone mode:

xrandr --addmode S-video 800x600
xrandr --output LVDS --off --output S-video --mode 800x600

and save as "Activate_TV_Out_Clone"

5. Finally, extended mode!

xrandr --addmode S-video 800x600
xrandr --output S-video --mode 800x600 --pos 1280x0

Call it "Activate_TV_Out_Extended"

6. For each file, right click and go to "Properties".

7. Under the permissions tab, click to allow for executing as program.

You can now click each of those to move back and forth between the various mode. Sometimes, you might have to deactivate the TV-out in order to activate it in a different mode. You can make shortcuts to these scripts, or as I did, set keyboard shortcuts:

1. Go to System->Preferences->Keyboard Shortcuts
2. Go to Add.
3. Give the shortcut a name "Activate_TV_Out_Extended", and point command to your script, e.g.
/home/jason/Scripts/Activate_TV_Out_Extended.
4. Do this for each of the other two scripts.

Make sure to use unassigned shortcuts, I used Ctrl-F1, F2 and F3 respectively. I am a bit unsure of including the "xrandr --addmode S-video 800x600" each time the script is run, but it doesn't seem to cause any problems. Without the mode being added, activating the TV out won't work. If I do find a way to keep the mode consistent, I'll update it here. Good luck, I hope others find these instructions useful (provided without any guarantees)! To end my post: something I haven't shown you yet on my blog: Jay's Desktop! I suppose it's about time =P.

Take care everyone!

Tweeting...From...Space!

First, human kind gazed into space.

Then, human kind sent objects into space.

Then, human kind sent itself into space.

Then, human kind landed on another world.

And now...

Human kind can tweet....from space!

Yes, despite the lack of air that might be required for more traditional tweeting, extra-terrestrial electronic tweeting is alive and well! Just ask astronaut TJ Creamer, who thanks to him, you can follow someone not on planet Earth.

As a self described geek, this combines at least two of my various obsessions: The Internet and Space. Col. Creamer's older posts appear to him working on getting it working: presumably tweeting by a proxy on earth. But now the middle man can be cut out, at least mostly so. One site suggests that the tweeting (and web access in general) is actually done via taking control of a computer on the ground, ala remote desktop.

Nevertheless, allowing astronauts to have internet access on the ISS can only help to further and promote space travel. With access to resources like Twitter, Facebook, even VOIP products, hopefully astronauts won't feel quite so isolated, which may encourage more travel. Let's just hope they don't get any viruses. But then again, they should probably be using Linux anyway :).

Geeks and Nerds

I remembered reading this on some miscellaneous website several years ago. I'm not sure who the original author is, but several sources point to Craigslist.

The article is written from a female's point of view, discussing the merit's of various "personality" types. As a self defined geek, I find the article quite a good read, and something others many benefit from as well so I'm re-posting it here. I also find it quite accurate, though personally I'd pick a can of apple or peach juice over Mountain Dew :).

Enjoy!

In the wide world of dating, there are many options. Do you go for the flashy guy with the smooth smile, or the dude in the corner typing away on his laptop? The following are reasons why I think my fellow females should pay more attention to the quiet geeks and nerds, and less attention to the flashy boys.

1.) While geeks and nerds may be awkward, they’re well-meaning 9 out of 10 times. That smooth dude with the sly grin and the spider hands? Wonder what HIS intentions are… plus, I’ve never had a geek guy not call me when he said he would. Score major points THERE.

2.) They’re useful. In this tech-savvy world, it’s great to have a b/f who can make your laptop, desktop, and just about anything else that plugs into a wall behave itself.

3.) They’re more romantic than they’re given credit for. Ok true, their idea of romance might be to make up a spiffy web-page with all the reasons why they love you, with links to pics of you and sonnets and such… but hey. It lasts longer than flowers, plus you can show your friends.

4.) Due to their neglected status, there are plenty to choose from. You like ‘em tall and slender? There are plenty of geeks/nerds who are. You like ‘em smaller with more meat on their bones? Got that too.

5.) They’ve got brains. Come on now, how can intelligence be a bad thing?

6.) Most are quite good at remembering dates. Like birthdates and such, especially if they know it’ll make you happy. Due again to their neglected status, they’re more attentive than guys who “have more options”. Plus, with all that down time without a steady girlfriend, they’ll likely have mental lists of all the things they’d love to do once they GOT a girlfriend.

7.) Sex. Yep. Sex. I’m not really familiar with this myself, but I’ve friends who’ve been intimate with geek guys and it’s raves all around. They say a virgin wrote the Kama Sutra… all that time thinking about sex, imagining sex, dreaming about sex, (they are male after all) coupled with a desire to make you happy? Use your imagination.

8.) They’re relatively low-maintenance. Most can be fueled on pizza, Twinkies and Mt Dew. No complicated dinners needed here, so if you’re not the best cook, eh. Can you order a pizza?

9.) Most frequent bars as often as slugs frequent salt mines. You won’t have to worry much about your geek guy getting his “groove” on with club hotties because, frankly, he’ll be too busy rooting around under his computer wondering where that spare cable went. You won’t have to worry about him flirting with other women because, 9 out of 10 times, he’ll zip right by them in a perfect b-line towards the nearest electronics store. I’ve seen this happen.
Me: “Eww. Victoria Secret’s Models… They’re so skinny. How is that feminine? You can see her ribs!”
Geek Guy: “ooooooo…”
Me: “Hey!” *notices he is staring lustfully towards the computer store*
Geek Guy: “What?”
Me: “Never mind…”

10.) Although he may not want to go to every outing with you, you can arrange swaps, as in, you’ll go to his Gamer Con dressed as an elf princess if he’ll take you to the ballet. Plus, if he doesn’t want to go someplace with you, you won’t have to worry much about what he’s up to. You’ll probably come home to find him asleep on his keyboard in a sea of Mt. Dew cans with code blinking from the screen. It’s ok. He’s used to this. Just toss a blanket over him and turn out the light.

11.) His friends aren’t jerks. I can’t stress this enough. You’ll more likely get “Omg! A GIRL!! Can I see?!” than “Hey hot stuff back that ass up here and let me get some grub on…” They’re awkward geeks too and will, 9 times out of 10, treat you with the utmost respect and, more than likely, a note of awe. A cute girl picked one of their clan to date? It could happen to them! Hope! Drag some of your single girlfriends over, open up a pack of Mt. Dew, crack open the DnD set and get working. Nothing impresses geek guys more than a girl who can hack-n-slash (well ok maybe if she can code… a geek can dream).

12.) They’re rarely if ever possessive. They trust you, so you can be yourself around them. You like to walk around the house in a ratty t-shirt for comfort? He won’t care. He does too! They won’t get pissy if you don’t wear make-up or don’t want to bother primping your hair. If you gain a few pounds, they won’t try their best to make you feel like crap.

13.) They’re usually very well educated. Physics majors and the like. See #5. You won’t have to listen to him blathering on about his car (ok maybe a little), he’ll have loads of other interesting things to talk about. Politics, world events, how much the chicken burgers down at the local place rock, so long as you douse them in hot sauce…

14.) You’ll almost never have to hear, “Yaw dawg whazzap!!” plop out of their mouths. Unless it’s in jest. They spell properly, use correct punctuation, and are able to tell the difference between the toilet and the floor. They almost never get “wasted”, so you won’t have to worry about coming home to find him and his friends passed out on the floor amidst a pile of beer bottles. Mt. Dew cans, perhaps…

15.) And the final reason why geeks and nerds make great boyfriends: They actually give a damn about you. Not how you look (though that’s a plus), not how skinny you are, not how much make-up you primp yourself up with, but they like you for you. That kind of thing lasts longer than “DaMN baby you got a fine ass!!!” Believe me.

New Virtual Box version fixes Gnome display issues

Happy Friday!

As a frequent user of virtual machines, I find myself quite impressed with their usefulness. Virtual machines allow you to emulate entire other operating systems within a host operating, called a virtual machine. You can even carry virtual machines with you from computer to computer and always have a custom system set up for your needs. Three common Virtual Machine platforms include Virtual Box, VMWare and Windows Virtual PC.

Due to it's freedom and flexibility, I tend to choose Virtual Box over option options. It has an extensive suite of features including seamless mode, mouse/keyboard integration, various device support and many more. It's also available for free under the personal use and evaluation license, and also has an open source edition.

One minor problem I've been having with Virtual Box involves the GNOME desktop environment used in many Linux distributions including Ubuntu.

The problem being that when one saves the VM execution state, and then resumes that state, the GNOME desktop graphic set (that is, its look and feel) appears to mysteriously change. Here's how it should look (click on the image to enlarge):

and after returning from a saved state:

As you can see, a number of icons have changed including the mail icon, terminal icon, network, sound, recycle bin. I would have to shut down GNOME and restart it (log back in) in order to restore their icons to the normal state.

I spent some time trying to figure out what was causing the odd issue, but to no avail. Nevertheless, I'm happy to report that upgrading to Virtual Box, 3.1.2, appears to fix this issue. Upon resuming from a saved state, the icons are no longer changed, or if they are, will immediately revert to the correct form! Fantastic!