<p>
	Welcome to the another episode of apt spelunking! If you missed the first
	episode, I should explain. Apt spelunking is the act of aimlessly searching
	through your distribution's software repositories, and picking out the gems
	that you find. I call it apt spelunking because I use Debian, which uses the
	apt packaging format.
</p>
<p>
	Let's jump into the first package: tvtime.
</p>
<h2>
	tvtime
</h2>
<p><a href="https://tvtime.sourceforge.net/">https://tvtime.sourceforge.net/</a></p>

<p>
	The package tvtime is a simple one, but it does what it does very well. tvtime
	interfaces with a TV tuner - specialized hardware that allows your computer to
	process analog television signals, via coaxial or RCA video cables. If you have
	this hardware, usually an expansion card or USB peripheral, tvtime allows you to
	use your computer as an analog television.
</p>
<p>
	tvtime binds to the card of your choosing, allows you to switch between NTSC and
	PAL modes (NTSC is what I use, that being the American standard), and shows you
	a wonderfully grainy video. It has filters that can help smooth out the image a
	bit, but it's still an analog video.
</p>
<p>
	tvtime is video only, so you need to use something else to handle the audio of
	whatever you are hooking up. Often this is done by the hardware tv tuner
	somehow; my PCI card tuner has a 3.5mm jack that offloads any sound received
	over the coaxial wire, and I patch that into my sound card. RCA cables have
	separate wires for audio, and I plug those into my sound card via a converter
	cable.
</p>
<p>
	I have used tvtime to hook up videogame consoles, VCRs, and older computers like
	the TRS-80. It's helped me to defeat Eternal Darkness, an old GameCube game that
	is still worth a look, and it's allowed me to digitize old VHS tapes we have
	lying around. More on that in another episode.
</p>
<p>
	It is a fantastic alternative to keeping an older analog TV around. If you have
	older equipment that needs to dump analog video somewhere, tvtime and a hardware
	tuner makes for a great setup.
</p>
<h2>
	phatch</h2>
<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phatch">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phatch</a></p>

<p>
	This absurdly spelled program is incredibly good at what it does. Phatch, some
	sort of unholy combination of "photo" and "batch", is a GUI interface for
	assembling chains of actions to manipulate image files.
</p>
<p>
	I use this program for web development to save time when creating static photo
	galleries or other types of images with similar constraints.
</p>
<p>
	To use phatch, you assemble a set of operations (phatch refers to these as
	"actions") in an ordered "action list". I'll use my gallery thumbnail action
	list as an example.
</p>
<p>
	There are only two actions in my thumbnail action list: "fit", and "save". Each
	action has a set of predefined parameters and options that let you tweak what
	happens to your files. The "fit" action resizes an image without goofing up the
	aspect ratio. You give it a box to fit the image in, and it fits it fully into
	that box and cuts off any extra edges. The most important parameters for this
	action are canvas width, and canvas height - which tells phatch how big the box
	is. The save action has parameters that let you set which image format to use,
	which folder to save to, and even what to name the file. For my thumbnails, I
	have it use the original filename, and append a "_t".
</p>
<p>
	Once you have your action list together, you can tell phatch to run on an entire
	directory and include or exclude different file types.
</p>
<p>
	There is much, much more to phatch than just resizing images. Sounds like
	another episode idea… anyhow, moving on!
</p>
<h2>
	xstarfish
</h2>
<p>
<a href="https://packages.debian.org/hu/jessie/xstarfish">https://packages.debian.org/hu/jessie/xstarfish</a>
</p>
<p>
	I left xstarfish until the end, because it's so much fun and so very, very
	weird. xstarfish generates a random, tileable background that can be dumped to
	a file, or assigned directly to the X display of your choice.
</p>
<p>
	It uses some sort of magic randomsauce to pick a color palette, some patterns,
	and some other distortions to that you get a brand-new, unique background every
	time you run it.
</p>
<p>
	It can also be started in daemon mode, with a timer, to automatically change
	your wallpaper periodically.
</p>
<p>
	There are at least two problems with this.
</p>
<p>
	First of all, let's start with the practical. You can set the size of the image
	xstarfish generates, by either using the -g flag and manually setting the
	geometry with a pixel width and/or height, or you can use the -s flag and set a
	general size like "small", "large", or "full". If you use "full", xstarfish
	automatically generates a full wallpaper for your display.
</p>
<p>
	Since xstarfish generates randomness (which is often CPU intensive) and uses
	that to generate random filters (which can be hard on your CPU) and can be set
	to do it periodically (which, depending on frequency, could keep your CPU busy),
	this utility can be a resource hog. I have two monitors, each running 1280x1024
	resolution, and when I set it to generate a new background every 10 seconds...
	well, it didn't. It just maxed out one of my CPU cores, and spit out a
	background every once and a while. Cutting it down to only generate a single
	monitor-sized image every 60 seconds made things much more reasonable.
</p>
<p>
	The second, more pertinent issue with xstarfish is that it randomly picks colors
	and patterns. It is exceptionally random about it. Imagine for a moment that you
	needed to paint a room, and you wanted to pick random colors and patterns for a
	room in your house. You would begin by blindfolding a friend and pushing them
	into the paint isle at your nearest hardware store. Whatever three buckets of
	paint they bump into first, well, that's your color palette. What do you mean
	you don't like orange, sea foam and gunmetal grey? 
</p>
<p>
	Then, you take those paint cans and proceed to tie one to your ceiling fan, one
	to your eight-year-old child and swing the third around your head at a 35 degree
	angle. Fairly quickly, you'll have your own xstarfish-inspired decor.
</p>
<p>
	With all of the potentially awful things that can happen, I really do like
	xstarfish. It's not something I keep running all the time, and a lot of the
	options remind me of early 90s Encino Man fashion and school photo backdrops
	with lasers. But sometimes the patterns are actually quite pleasing, and if I
	keep the tile size small, it reminds me of 90s web design.
</p>
<hr>
<p>
	That concludes the second installment of apt spelunking. Please don't let me
	take all the glory; take a tour through your package manager, whatever distro
	you use, and tell us about some cool stuff you find!
</p>