Slightly silly
27/3/2009
As part of my new obsession, I want to install the OLE for the ADC's lighting desk. (We've just got hold of an ETC Ion, which is quite whizzy, and the OLE [off-line editor] lets you experiment with the software and interface that runs the desk from your own computer - so you don't need to go out and buy an Ion yourself ;-)). Now unfortunately ETC haven't seen fit to release a linux version yet*, so I'm trying to run it with WINE. After a few false starts, I managed to persuade the update server that I'm running the testing version of mandriva, so they gave me the newest version of WINE (I may have slightly broken the software management system in the process :-S), in which the OLE installs and starts perfectly.
However - here comes the silly bit - the F-keys are supposed to do some fairly crucial jobs in the OLE (switching between displays on screen, for instance, which is very important since the desk is designed to run with two monitors), and they don't seem to have been properly mapped under WINE. Fortunately, the OLE has an on-screen keyboard which has the same keys as the desk itself, so all the options are available. Unfortunately, that means that the most useful bit of the screen is taken up with a keyboard, so I'm trying to fit the contents of two monitors onto half of one. Fitting two onto one works if you're prepared to switch between things occasionally; fitting two onto half really doesn't.
I wonder if you can see where this is going?
I'm going to try to set up my computer to run with dual monitor support :-)
This, sadly, will not be straightforward, since my desktop only has one graphics card (with a single output), so the process is going to go something like this:
- Install slackware and all the server stuff onto a different computer from the current server (usually a few days' work).
- Disassemble the current server to take out its graphics card - it seems to be the only computer around the place that has a PCI graphics card (which means it's the only one I can easily add to my desktop).
- Add this second graphics card to my desktop
- Find out how to make 2 graphics cards work simultaneously in linux
- Find out how to make 2 graphics cards work simultaneously under WINE
- Run the OLE and be happy
You may think this is a little over the top, when I could settle for reading the manual and only playing around once I've actually got to the desk itself (after all, that's how I approached the old desk), but I'm going to have FUN :-)
*Though come to think about it I wouldn't be that surprised if a few polite emails persuaded them... I shall give it a go
Downtime II
16/3/2009
This one is my own... I always feel kindof dead after a term at Cambridge, so for the next few days I don't intend to do anything at all. Which is kindof a pain, cos things like unpacking actually involve a surprising amount of concentration (for me at least). But I can at least give myself some respite before I address the matter of Kant.
The Chairs went pretty well in the end - at first I thought I'd just managed to avoid obviously screwing it up (there were no moments during performances when I really had to grimace, at least). Since then, though, I've kindof become proud of it after the fact, as various people have told me they thought it looked good. The really big news, though, is that after the second night of the show, one of the producers of ETG asked me if I realised that applications to design their show closed on the following day. I basically said "yeah, but what's it got to do with me?", and she told me to apply. 72 hours later I was appointed LD for the coming year's ETG tour.
That, to me, is a huge deal. I've been hugely excited by the idea of ETG since the moment I first heard about it - essentially you tour a Shakespeare play around European cities in the snow in December, putting on a show in a different venue each day, and just living theatre for 3 weeks. When they return for a home run at the ADC in early January it's always one of the best shows of the year (I mentioned how impressive their Hamlet was this year), and I'd been desperate to find some way onto the tour, but given that The Chairs was my first design I'd assumed I was at least a year away from being able to LD such a major and important show, if I'd ever be good enough. But here I am - slightly terrified, partly that I'm simply not capable of a good enough design, and partly that we'll be doing stupid things with wire-ins to random foreign electricity, and I need to understand all that, or I'll kill people... But far greater than the terror is the joy and excitement. Come and see our production of A Midsummer Night's dream - I'll let you know the dates ;-)