Game of Thrones – Season 2 – The Cold Winds are Rising

Game of Thrones Season 2 (A Clash of Kings)

A new HBO teaser for Season 2

“My brother left no true-born heirs. By right and birth and blood, I do this day lay claim to the iron throne of Westeros. Let all true men declare their loyalty. The iron throne is mine by right. They will bend the knee, or I will destroy them. The cold winds are rising.”
– Stannis Baratheon

Notice the three horn blasts at the end of the clip?

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
The sound went on and on and on, until it seemed it would never die. The ravens were flapping and screaming, flying about their cages and banging off the bars, and all about the camp the brothers of the Night’s Watch were rising, donning their armor, buckling on swordbelts, reaching for battleaxes and bows. Samwell Tarly stood shaking, his face the same color as the snow that swirled down all around them. “Three,” he squeaked to Chett, “that was three, I heard three. They never blow three. Not for hundreds and thousands of years. Three means—” “—Others.”
- – (A Storm of Swords)

Welcome back Game of Thrones!

Music Monday #089 – Soundgarden

Soundgarden is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984 by singer Chris Cornell, lead guitarist Kim Thayil, and bassist Hiro Yamamoto. Matt Cameron became the band’s full time drummer in 1986 while bassist Ben Shepherd became a permanent replacement for Yamamoto in 1990.
Soundgarden was one of the seminal bands in the creation of grunge, a style of alternative rock that developed in Seattle, and was one of a number of grunge bands signed to the record label Sub Pop. Soundgarden was the first grunge band to sign to a major label (A&M Records, in 1988), though the band did not achieve commercial success until they popularized “grunge” in the early 1990s with Seattle contemporaries Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam.
– wikipedia

Time to shake away those Christmas Holiday cobwebs and get back to work. A bit of Soundgarden should manage this pretty well.

And now for some music …

APSDaemon.exe give me back my CPU!

Symptom: After installing iTunes 10.5.x upgrade, APSDaemon and Apple Mobile Services take 100% CPU

APSDaemon.exe (otherwise known as Apple Push) is the service that wirelessly syncs your device (part of the iCloud package). Searching through the forums it appears that the most referred to solution is;

netsh winsock reset

This does have a proviso that any software with a LSP will then break;

“Warning Programs that access or monitor the Internet such as antivirus, firewall, or proxy clients may be negatively affected when you run the netsh winsock reset command. If you have a program that no longer functions correctly after you use this resolution, reinstall the program to restore functionality.” [5]

This weeks links (2012-01-30)

In brief:

* Victorian Bushfire Recovery 3 year report (2012-Feb) [Regional Development Victoria]
The Victorian Bushfire Recovery Three Year Report focuses on the progress and achievements made over the last 12 months including the delivery of programs, funding and support to communities and individuals affected by the 2009 bushfires.

* Optus snaffles free footy (2012-Feb-02) [The Age]
… Justice Steven Rares in the Federal Court in Sydney yesterday found that TV Now did not breach copyright because individuals were responsible for requesting each recording and that Optus kept separate recordings for each customer.
Justice Rares found ”that such a recording or film was made by the user to watch it at a time he or she considered to be more convenient than when the live broadcast occurred, even if only by minutes”.
The Copyright Act allows individuals to ”time shift” their viewing, and Optus had argued its service sat within this exemption. …

* iPad, therefore I am, and keeping a wired open mind (2012-Feb-02) [The Age]

* It’s a national park, not a farm: alpine grazing rejected (2012-Jan-31) [The Age]
The Victorian government has lost its fight to let high country graziers back into the Alpine National Park, with federal Environment Minister Tony Burke announcing today that the application had been rejected.

* Infographic: Why the movie industry is so wrong about SOPA (2012-Jan-17) [Matador]
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) claims that SOPA and PIPA are aimed at stopping online piracy. But as this infographic demonstrates, it’s really about fighting innovation.

Some reading/listening:

*