Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…
Do you re-read books, or re-visit places? Some people do, and some don’t. I’m in the former category, as is Eve Garrard. Her essay In Praise Of Again gets to the heart of it for me.
I pass the same stand of seven oak trees nearly every day while walking the dog. Despite their familiarity, they are always different.
When I was growing up, first as a young boy and then as a rather confused and frustrated teenager, it was clear to me that while the female body was sexualised as a matter of course in the society around me, the male body was pretty much kept under wraps. That probably contributed to my frustration. Mind you, in my teenage years it also probably heightened the rush that occurred when my eyes caught a glimpse of a naked male torso and conveyed that fact to my hormone-sodden brain.
How things change over the course of the years. These days, both the female and the male body are fair game in semiotics. As evidence for the prosecution, here’s Mark Simpson analysing the latest ad campaign for Powerade. Cor!
… and now you don’t. This is a tale about technology, about the little things that don’t quite work and hence irritate me out of all proportion, rhyme or reason. Unless you’re a technology nerd, this probably won’t interest you, so go and read something else. But if you are a technology nerd, then pull up a chair. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin…
I’ve recently acquired a Denon AVR-3808 to sit at the heart of our home’s audio-visual system. As well as being able to handle the usual array of audio visual devices (DVD and Blu-ray players, Satellite receivers and TVs), it also comes equipped with an Ethernet port. So I’ve connected it into our home network. There, it is able to connect to the Internet to receive Internet Radio streams, and also connect to the audio media held on our PCs and Windows Home Server. It even comes with a nice little Microsoft PlaysForSure sticker on the front. Trouble is, it doesn’t “play for sure”.
It will quite happily play Internet Radio stations all day long, but if I try and play back music stored on any of the PCs or the Windows Home Server, then after a couple of hours, the connection will break, and the Denon will display a sad little “Server disconnected” message on its display.
At this point, to get rid of the problem, I have to switch off the Denon and then switch it back on again. When it powers on, it will re-connect to the network, and then all will be well again for another couple of hours listening to music stored on the home network. It’s most odd – it will remain connected all the time as long as I play Internet Radio streams, but as soon as I try to play music stored on any of the devices connected to the home network, after a couple of hours the Denon will fall off its perch, and disappear off the network. Take a look at this snapshot of the network:
Here you see two of the PCs (Matisse and Renoir) and the Server (Degas). There are several icons for each of them representing the different functions:
In addition, you can see that Matisse can also act as a playback device for any of the Media Servers. The Speedtouch is my ADSL modem and Router – the device that joins the home network to the Internet. Now, the above snapshot represents the situation that I see most of the time. But if I start using the Denon as a Media Player device to play back music from any of the Media Servers, then after a couple of hours I get the “Server disconnected” message, and this is what I see on the network:
… the Denon has disappeared from the network… As I say, it’s a case of “now you see it, now you don’t”. But curiously, even though it disappears from the network diagram, it’s still possible to ‘ping’ its IP address:
So even though the low-level functions of the Denon’s networking capabilities are still there, something has happened to the higher levels. It appears to have had a lobotomy. Even more curiously, if I switch off the ADSL modem/router, so that there is no connection possible with the Internet, or have the ADSL modem/router on, but with its firewall set to block all incoming and outgoing traffic to the Internet, then the Denon will quite happily stream music from the Media Servers the whole day long.
So it looks as though there is something in the Denon that has a heartbeat with something out on the Internet that conflicts with local audio streaming and which might lie at the bottom of the issue. I noticed something else that is curious. For those of you that are playing around with the Beta of Windows 7, you may have noticed there’s a new feature in the version of Windows Media Player than comes with it. While all versions of Windows Media Player can “pull” media from Media Servers, this new version can “push” media to Media Player devices out on the network. So, when you’re in Windows Media Player, you can select tracks to play, but instead of playing them locally, a right-click shows a new option: “Play to…” and a list of the Media Player devices attached to your network. Here’s an example of what I see when I “push” a track out to the Denon:
Notice that Windows 7 has correctly identified that the Network Audio device is in fact a Denon AVR-3808 – I didn’t have to set that up myself, it’s done automatically. But here’s the interesting thing. See that “Clear List” in the snapshot above? That’s actually a button, which when clicked will clear out the contents of the playlist in the panel below and stop streaming to the network device. And when I click that, sure enough, the Denon stops playing, but its built-in display shows something very odd:
What’s that “Rhapsody”? If I try to navigate to that item using the Denon’s controls, it instantly vanishes from the list of choices, which are normally: “Favorites, Internet Radio, Media Server, Recently Played”. Now Rhapsody is an online subscription digital music service. It looks as though the Denon is treating the Windows 7 Media Server as though it’s a Rhapsody stream, and that can’t be right. I have no idea why the Denon falls off the network when it’s connected to the Internet and streaming audio from our Media Servers on the home network, but I’m pretty sure that the problem lies with the Denon. Its firmware is the latest current version (2.01). This problem doesn’t seem to be common, but there is at least one other person who is seeing the same phenomenon. Trouble is, if it’s just the two of us, then this isn’t going to be fixed anytime soon. We’ll just have to continue to switch our Denons off and on every couple of hours… Sigh.
Update: I think a number of people are seeing this problem on their Denon equipment, but not everyone does, so it’s likely to remain problematic as far as resolution is concerned. Meanwhile, I do have a workaround, although it’s not very elegant. I’ve created a new Firewall profile on my ADSL modem/router. That allows all traffic from devices on my home network to reach the Internet and vice versa, apart from the Denon 3808. The Firewall profile has a rule that prevents any traffic between the 3808 and the Internet, although local traffic on the home network subnet is permitted. With this rule in place, I can stream music from the Media Servers on my home network to my heart’s content and all day long. No more cutting out after a couple of hours as the 3808 falls off the network. It’s not elegant, because if I wish to switch to listening to Internet Radio stations on the 3808, then I have to switch over the Firewall profile on the ADSL modem/router first. But at least I’ve proved, to my satisfaction at least, that the problem lies within the 3808.
Update II: A couple of people have run packet traces on their Denon’s network traffic and found that, even when using a local media server, an AVR-4308 or AVR-3808 will communicate with internet address 207.188.0.25 on port 443. Doing a “whois” lookup shows that this IP address is registered to Real Networks. My bet is that this is a server address of the Rhapsody Music service. Quite why the Denon receivers should be communicating with these servers out on the internet when using local media servers on a home network is anybody’s guess, but it looks like a bug to me, and definitely seems to be causing the “server disconnected” message.
I therefore modified my original Firewall rule, which stopped all communication between the Denon and anything out on the internet, to one that stops the Denon communicating with this specific internet address. This modified Firewall rule also stops the “server disconnected” problem from occurring, while allowing the Denon to continue to receive Internet Radio and to communicate with Denon’s servers for firmware updates. Now all we need is for Denon to acknowledge that this is a bug and fix it.
Update III: Denon provided a firmware upgrade A2.04, WEB=W200908260504 on October 15, 2009 that may have been to address this bug. I haven’t bothered to remove the Firewall rule, which I would need to do in order to test this, so I can’t confirm it.
Update IV: Since that firmware update was released (and I installed it on my Denon), I have replaced my old ADSL Modem/Router with a new one (it was on free loan from my ISP). Although that has the possiblity to create Firewall rules, I have not done so. Therefore, the “Denon rule” is not present in the new modem, and I have not seen a repeat of the “server disconnected” issue. Therefore I conclude that the October 15 update has fixed this issue. I should add that I’m not using the Rhapsody music service (Denon don’t offer this in Europe, and even if they did I wouldn’t use it), so I don’t know how this affects Denon users based in the US who do use the service…
Update V 9 May 2014: Damnation, the “Server Disconnected” message is back! And now it’s worse than before – it also affects Internet Radio as well as streaming from our home media server. I think I need to recreate the firewall rule again. Trouble is, I have a new router (a Fritz!Box 7360) which doesn’t seem to have a straightforward way of doing this.
Update V1 29 May 2014: Damnation again. It transpires that Rhapsody have changed their servers, and Denon have issued a new firmware to fix this. Trouble is, Denon have only issued the firmware for their new products. There has been no update for the 3808. Unless Denon issue the firmware for the 3808, or I can find out what the new version of the firewall rule needs to be, this problem will remain.
In the final analysis, it is not religions that deserve our respect. A religion is a collection of metaphysical ideas and moral ideals. Ideas are believed or disbelieved; ideals are pursued or rejected. Admiration, appreciation, perhaps, but respect? No. What deserves respect are persons. Surely, the feelings of persons–individuals believers–can be affected when their beliefs are attacked or ridiculed. These feelings are real and important. However, feelings of offense do not generate a right not to be offended.
Respect for persons does not require that we never hurt their feelings, but rather that we treat them as possessing dignity equal to our own, and therefore hold them to the same fundamental intellectual, ethical, and legal standards to which we hold ourselves, to see them as autonomous, self-legislating creatures. Therefore, respect for a person is not only consistent with criticism of a person’s beliefs; respect for a person sometimes requires criticism of his or her beliefs. Sometimes in order to respect, we must disagree. Anything less is not respect, but indifference.
When you demand “respect”, you are demanding we lie to you. I have too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that charade.
"I’m hoping for the best (from Obama) and expecting the worst, as one must do with any politician, and indeed with life."
…the case for liberty has never been that it protects sensibilities. It is rather that by allowing people’s beliefs to be scrutinised, criticised and — yes — insulted, bad ideas are more likely to be superseded by better ones.
"And now, O Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance. And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family".
"O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…
Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.
And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
AMEN".
I can’t really believe it, but it seems that I turned 60 last Saturday.
Of course, there were signs and portents, such as the herd of deer that thundered past my study window on the day – a sight that I’d never seen before.
But, more prosaically, there was the calendar, and the fact that Martin had been having whispered telephone conversations and sending off emails for weeks (months?) beforehand. At 16:30, I was ordered out of the house and told to get in the car and open the first of a series of envelopes that he thrust into my hand. The contents of that first envelope instructed me to drive to a nearby town and collect my birthday cake from a baker’s shop.
The first mission accomplished, and I was instructed to drive to a friend’s house where I was told to take a photo of the aforementioned cake.
Well, of course, I was pleased…
And then I was told to cut the cake (using a cheese slice for traditional Dutch cheeses) and serve slices for the assembled friends.
After coffee and cake, it became time to open the third envelope…
This instructed me to return home at 19:00 hours and be prepared for the worst – I mean, the next stage of the celebrations.
So, I duly drove home, accompanied by Len, a friend from London who I have known since the early 1970s. Entering the house I was greeted by a roomful of friends and presented with a bucketful of sixty roses to mark the occasion…
I’ve often said about Martin that “I can’t take him anywhere”, because his Dutch directness has a habit of getting me into embarrassing situations. He’d prepared for that for this evening by wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed “I apologise in advance for my behaviour tonight”.
In the event, he had (almost) nothing to apologise for. He’d engaged Bob Schoemaker, from Willy Schoemaker, the wine merchant, to lead us through an evening of wine-tasting.
As I said, he had almost nothing to apologise for. But that was before we had the tribute to Abba…
Still, it was great fun, and we all had a ball, even though our dog, Kai, was beginning to wonder who the dominant species on the planet earth might be…
Of course, I had to give a speech…
But I made up for it by opening more wine…
All in all, it was a great evening, and thanks must go to Martin, Bob Schoemaker and all our friends for making it so memorable.
Onwards and upwards…
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