Another popular culture event that I should relate to, at least based on my age (49). In fact I find the current Led Zep reunion tour entirely uninteresting, much like the fact that the Eagles have a hit album right now.
So what, am I supposed to get all excited about some fat old millionaires playing 30 year old songs to a crowd of fat middle-class, middle-aged hippie-never-were's desperate to latch on to a long passed image of their own youth?
Now, if they could actually make me 18 again, that would be worth paying for...
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Monday, December 10, 2007
Christmas Shopping
Shopping for Xmas presents always gets me down. Most gifts for kids end up getting forgotten after a few weeks, and gifts for adults tend be obligatory gifts.
I much prefer giving and receiving birthday gifts. It always seems more personal and genuine.
I'm tired of being told endlessly that the fate of the U.S. economy depends on me spending gobs of money on useless junk that noone needs or wants.
Little kids are the ones that deserve and appreciate Christmas presents
I much prefer giving and receiving birthday gifts. It always seems more personal and genuine.
I'm tired of being told endlessly that the fate of the U.S. economy depends on me spending gobs of money on useless junk that noone needs or wants.
Little kids are the ones that deserve and appreciate Christmas presents
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Media MVP
I bought a little box (Hauppage MediaMVP) that hooks up to your TV and your home network that allows you to stream video and music from your computer to your TV and stereo.
I bought the hardwired version. There is a wireless version, but my router is close to my TV and had an open port, and I thought it would work better running wired, based on some reviews (also it requires 802.11G and I have 802.11B).
The server software that comes with the MediaMVP is really awful, constantly froze up, so I ended up buying a copy of SageTv with support for MediaMVP, which works like a champ. SageTv is a bit of overkill, since it supports PVR cards with scheduling and full DVR functionality. For me I am just using it to play downloaded AVI files. I used to download AVI's and burn them to DVD's, which was time consuming (4 hours to convert a 2 hour movie), and wasted a disk.
You need a decently fast computer as your video file server, but the MediaMVP box does the decoding onboard. It has a CPU and starts a version of Linux internally. I think the SageTv software replaces the Linux it comes with, though. You can do all of what SageTv does using open-source software and a lot of time, but I just wanted to watch my TV, not play with software.
This is a really good solution if you want to watch AVI files on your TV, not on your computer screen, but don't even bother to try to get the MediaMVP software to work.
I bought the hardwired version. There is a wireless version, but my router is close to my TV and had an open port, and I thought it would work better running wired, based on some reviews (also it requires 802.11G and I have 802.11B).
The server software that comes with the MediaMVP is really awful, constantly froze up, so I ended up buying a copy of SageTv with support for MediaMVP, which works like a champ. SageTv is a bit of overkill, since it supports PVR cards with scheduling and full DVR functionality. For me I am just using it to play downloaded AVI files. I used to download AVI's and burn them to DVD's, which was time consuming (4 hours to convert a 2 hour movie), and wasted a disk.
You need a decently fast computer as your video file server, but the MediaMVP box does the decoding onboard. It has a CPU and starts a version of Linux internally. I think the SageTv software replaces the Linux it comes with, though. You can do all of what SageTv does using open-source software and a lot of time, but I just wanted to watch my TV, not play with software.
This is a really good solution if you want to watch AVI files on your TV, not on your computer screen, but don't even bother to try to get the MediaMVP software to work.
Friday, November 30, 2007
CEO resignation season
Lots of CEO's seem to be jumping or being pushed from their jobs lately. Hopefully they won't find themseleves too short of cash. Most seem to be getting decent severance packages, far in excess of the 2 weeks pay for every year of service that most of us get.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Republican YouTube Debate
Just exactly what makes these YouTube debates so revolutionary continues to elude me.
Thousands of questions are screened by the debate organizers, so they may as well have just written them all anyway.
Seems like just another expression of the personalization of everything.
Is the YouTube generation incapable of understanding (or paying attention to) a political debate without having to be amused by some jackass asking the question while performing for the camera?
Are the questions not interesting unless the viewer can relate personally to the asker?
Thousands of questions are screened by the debate organizers, so they may as well have just written them all anyway.
Seems like just another expression of the personalization of everything.
Is the YouTube generation incapable of understanding (or paying attention to) a political debate without having to be amused by some jackass asking the question while performing for the camera?
Are the questions not interesting unless the viewer can relate personally to the asker?
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Stem Cells
Today I saw an article about a new breakthrough in stem cell research. Scientists have been successful at making skin cells act like embryonic stem cells. They anticipate working out all of the remaining problems pretty quickly.
I find this topic to be extraordinarily interesting. It seems like it could be one day possible for injured people to regrow their skin, spines, eyes or livers. Maybe even a lost foot could be regrown. Truly amazing, and I hope I live long enough to see some of the incredible things that will develop from this technology.
I find this topic to be extraordinarily interesting. It seems like it could be one day possible for injured people to regrow their skin, spines, eyes or livers. Maybe even a lost foot could be regrown. Truly amazing, and I hope I live long enough to see some of the incredible things that will develop from this technology.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Out of the action
Been a while since I posted. I haven't had much to say lately and work has been hectic.
We watched the movie "The Hoax" at home this weekend. It is about a writer in the early '70's who forged a biography of the crazed billionaire Howard Hughes. It was based on the antics of writer Clifford Irving, and a lot of it was fictionalized, but the core story was true. He did this while Hughes was alive, and managed to get away with it long enough to get a million dollar advance from his publisher. There was a lot of intrigue and the book had a role to play in the Watergate scandals that took down Richard Nixon. Irving, along with his wife and his co-writer, eventually went to jail for fraud. He is still a published author today.
Richard Gere was the star. I really like him when he is not playing a simplistic good-looking guy. He is a great actor and was particularly good in this role.
We watched the movie "The Hoax" at home this weekend. It is about a writer in the early '70's who forged a biography of the crazed billionaire Howard Hughes. It was based on the antics of writer Clifford Irving, and a lot of it was fictionalized, but the core story was true. He did this while Hughes was alive, and managed to get away with it long enough to get a million dollar advance from his publisher. There was a lot of intrigue and the book had a role to play in the Watergate scandals that took down Richard Nixon. Irving, along with his wife and his co-writer, eventually went to jail for fraud. He is still a published author today.
Richard Gere was the star. I really like him when he is not playing a simplistic good-looking guy. He is a great actor and was particularly good in this role.
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