nemesis's Journal

I've started getting a lot of emails in German lately, but Mutt hasn't been displaying them properly. For non-us-ascii characters (e.g. ß), it'd either show \223, or a '?'. This was really beginning to bug me.

Here's the problem: As far as I can tell, most German websites that fire off emails "assume" an encoding of cp1252, the old Windows encoding (correct me if I'm wrong!). Mutt on the other hand, if the encoding's not specified, assumes us-ascii, which doesn't contain these "special" characters (for us English speakers). The problem is further compounded by using a terminal or locale that may not have these characters, too.

Here's how to fix it.

First, you need to use a locale and a terminal that can display these characters. I'm using UTF-8. To check, type "locales". You should see, at minimum:

LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"

If you're not using UTF-8, you can change your locale on Debian with `dpkg-reconfigure locales`. If you get "command not found", then `aptitude install locales` first.

Second, check your terminal emulator (i.e., ssh client) supports the special characters. Easy check: Copy and paste this "ß" into your terminal.

Third, tell Mutt you want to use UTF-8, and to assume any messages that don't specifically mention an encoding are cp1252. Add this to the top of your .muttrc:

set charset=utf-8
charset-hook ^us-ascii$ cp1252
set assumed_charset="cp1252"

And finally, to make HTML emails decode properly, in /etc/mailcap, replace any instance of

text/html; /usr/bin/w3m -dump -T text/html

with

text/html; /usr/bin/w3m -dump -I %{charset} -T text/html

Enjoy!

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So, I just couldn't go past the $35 pricetag on the TP-Link TD-8840. The tards on Whirlpool had nothing but high praise for it, claiming the Broadcom chipset that it uses is bulletproof.

Unfortunately, pairing a "great" ADSL chipset with what I can only presume is a hopelessly underpowered CPU makes for a hopeless situation. As soon as you upload over around the 140kb/s mark, everything slows down for a few seconds (both uploads and downloads). Somewhere along the line, something in the TD-8840 just can't hope. By comparison, my old Open Networks 625 had no problems regularly pushing out over 300kb/s.

Looks like its time to shell out for a real modem. I'm still disappointed Open Networks folded. My 625 was rock solid.

In summary, TP-Link TD-8840: do not buy.

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My ADSL modem at home's on its way out. It's been going at it hard for the last 4 years, but now needs a periodic "kick in the pants" now around every 2 days.

In my desperate search for a replacement, it's become clear to me that the "good" companies don't seem to bother making ADSL2+ modems anymore. They've all got wireless built-in nowadays.

I don't need wireless built in!

Alas, the only company that seems to be listening to me is TP-Link. I can only presume that TP-Link is on-par with D-Link levels of build quality. Likeliness of lasting 4 years? Slim-to-nil.

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Back in 2008, the SBS had the deranged idea that they could take the Top Gear (UK) formula, throw terrible Australian presenters at it, and be flush with an instant hit. How wrong they were.



Both expectations and ratings started out high, and plummeted rapidly. The show even had a segment called "What were they thinking?". Inevitably, the SBS metaphorically placed a "Top Gear Australia" card onto their "What were they thinking?" board, by canning the show and selling it to Channel Nine.

Well, it's back. Yes, Channel Nine commences filming the studio audience on 25 August. And yes, Steve Pizzati is back, along with "that toilet guy", Kenny.

What were they thinking?

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