No more Playstation Portable ID

Regular readers might notice the lack of that big, black box that used to be on the right side of the page, showing the "trophies" I had earned on my PS3. It was always a little kludgy to begin with, requiring me to log in to their site to manually update information that could have been updated automatically quite readily... then, a few weeks back, the update feature stopped working entirely, at the same time as they redirected people logging in to a splash page advertising the game of the moment. I tried waiting it out, figuring somebody would notice and get it fixed in a timely manner, but it never happened.

So, anybody interested in what I'm playing on PS3 lately will have to just see what comes across on my Facebook feed... and, for you programmers out there, here's a concrete example of the importance of testing everything your code touches.

Merry Christmas

Yes, if you haven't gotten presents for people by now, it's TOO LATE... :)

Here's hoping you and yours have a merry Christmas this year... mine's already mostly done, nothing left but the optional socializing and plying kitties with catnip-filled socks. Good, clean, wholesome fun... :)

Movie o' the day: Avatar

I know, I know, I don't usually catch movies on opening weekend... but a slow day at work combined with the hype-storm around this movie got me into the theater.

So, first things first... Avatar is a very pretty movie. It pulls off the "you are there" vibe as well or better than the Lord of the Rings films did, which is all the more impressive considering the alien landscape and critters involved. However, it's not a very deep movie... it's a pretty standard representative-of-the-outsiders-goes-native sort of flick, just a bit more so than you might see elsewhere, thanks to the sci-fi nature of the beast.

Wait, strike that... sci-fi it ain't. Yes, it's in a futuristic setting, and technology is involved in getting the hero "in the wild"... but, in truth, this is a fantasy film. I understand that they had to do some things in service to the story, and to make this alien world acceptably palatable to the mass audience it hopes to draw, but there are just too many such concessions to call it anything but fantasy. Heck, they could likely have replaced the sentient aliens with elves, set the scene in the faery realm instead of an alien planet, and not had to change a whole lot else in the process.

I'll just add one more niggling point before I conclude... and that's how, for lack of a better term, uneven the alien-ness of things are. Plants are as you might expect, with analogues of ferns, trees, and the like. Animals tend to be of the "add bits on to make it alien" school... so you end up with "horses" that have extra legs up front, but still move like horses. The sentients are the most human-like... down to neural interfaces that are made to look like long, braided hair, to add to the "native" look they have. Beyond that, there are the "cute" bits, things added solely for visual effect (like mosses that light up when you step on them) or, again, in service to the story (floating, fairy-like "seeds" that act as a "sign" when they clump about the hero). I guess I'm still stuck at Darwin, wanting my alien life to be different not just to be different, but for a demonstrable reason.

So, my final take: if you're mainly looking for something pretty to watch with an enjoyable-enough story that won't tax you intellectually or emotionally, catch this film... heck, do the IMAX 3D if that's your thing. Otherwise... well, it's still worth watching on the big screen, because it's that pretty, but I'd save it for matinee fare, after the hordes have passed.

Gift desparation time

So yeah, Christmas is less than two weeks away, and I've got presents pretty much "wrapped up", so to speak... except one. What the heck am I going to get for my mother?

This is a trickier proposition than it might appear on the surface. I have a few simple rules for procuring presents:

1. Get at least one present for each person at the gift-giving event
2. Each person's total gift should meet a minimum monetary value (this year, about $15-$20), but feel free to spend more if it "makes sense" (e.g. the ever-elusive "perfect" gift for someone)
3. Gifts should be enjoyable, but shouldn't be needful things... toys, games and food are all good gifts, while knives, cookware and appliances are not so much. This rule has the most wiggle room... cookware for somebody who makes a hobby of cooking is fine, as it might be for somebody setting up their own house for the first time

My mother is getting on in years, and may well end up putting her house up for sale shortly to move into an assisted-living sort of place... but her house has 40+ years of accumulated "stuff" squirreled away in odd places, so the last thing she needs is more stuff. Consumables would be the obvious second choice... but she is significantly overweight, and tries to combat that as best she can (mobility problems, in part due to weight), so the box o' chocolates is right out. She's already told us all that we don't need to get her a present, but that's not right, either... I've been on both the giving and receiving end of no/cheap present, and neither feels particularly good.

I suppose there's always the gift certificate route... but I hate giving something like cash, but less useful... and, of course, cash gifts are taboo, unless you're a shut-in due to health (as opposed to a hermit by choice, like I am). Oh well, here's hoping I come up with a good gift idea before the big day hits.

Plushie

OK, so this post is going to be a bit out-of-left-field for regular readers, but what the heck... cool knows no bounds, and, if it's good enough for the ACM (saw a story on this in their print rag), it's good enough for us.

I've always had a touch of the artistic bent, and I routinely take a stab at combining that with my other skills... but 2d and 3d art on a computer always strike me as needlessly complicated, especially 3d variants. What should be as simple as molding something out of clay and painting the results always seems to devolve into exacting placements of polygons and splines, followed by "texture maps" of 2d images over the top, a counterintuitive process if ever I've seen one.

Enter Plushie, software from Japan built for the sole purpose of letting average users get a handle on another non-intuitive crafting process... making stuffed animals (be sure to check out the vid). It's cool enough on its own (I've got a niece, in particular, who would likely love the idea of designing her own stuffed animals), but I think it could become more, with a little work. You've already got real-time generation of 3d bits from simple drawing, and separation into a minimal number of 2d parts... make it where you can add colors and/or textures, either to the parts themselves or directly to the 3d representation, and you've got a nice, primitive tool for creating a 3d model, for whatever use you care to put it to.

I'm going to have to check out the demo one of these days... maybe make some nice, Lovecraft-inspired monstrosity, just for kicks... :)

A new DNS alternative... Google?

It's been a few months since I last posted about DNS, when I justified switching to OpenDNS from the servers Comcast provides, even though they both play a similar, non-standard game with some of the results. It appears that Google has decided to enter the fray, without pulling those tricks. I'll likely switch after a couple of months... but, for something as essential as DNS, I'm willing to wait for the inevitable first round of problems to crop up and get solved.

Subscription TV via Internet - almost there...

Time for another Roku post... in case you didn't hear elsewhere, they've now come out with a whole slew of channels for their little box. As you might expect, some are pretty cool (I see myself making good use of that Revision3 channel), some just aren't my cup of tea (TWiT looks like nerd talk radio, which is a disturbing combination to consider), and others are real head-scratchers (bring up my Facebook photos on my TV? Really?). The best part, though, is that these new channels are available through a "channel store", so you don't have to have hundreds of channels you'll never use cluttering up your interface.

One thing that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense, based on the currently-available channels, is that you now have to sign up for an account with Roku to get these extra channels... and then, on some sites, you have to sign up with an account for their site, as well. Unless Roku is setting itself up to accept payments for sites that don't stream publically otherwise, it just doesn't make sense... but, if that's what they're setting up for, things could get a *lot* more interesting in short order (paying a monthly fee to Roku for a few "premium" (i.e. only available on cable/sattellite otherwise) channels could be a tack that providers will support, while keeping out of the actual payment-collections end of the business).

If you've got a Roku box, these new channels are available to you right now... but your box might not know it. Apparently, there may be some glitch in the updater, either on the box end or the server end... but, if you run the update once, then immediately run it again, it should come through for you.

DVD Pick: Hot Fuzz

This film's premise is pretty straightforward: top cop gets shuttled off to a sleepy little village, mainly because he's making the rest of the local force look bad, where he runs afoul of the more "relaxed", rustic atmosphere expected by the locals, before discovering that all isn't well in the village. Of course, if that were the entire story, I wouldn't be recommending it...

The funny thing about this film is, for all it's set up mimics any of a number of "cop working outside the system" films, it lulls you throughout the majority of the film into thinking it's just a comedy about a big city cop trying to cope with the "rigors" of working in a small village... then it lulls you into thinking there's just one madman out there causing havoc. Only in the final half hour do you get the "big reveal"... and, honestly, it's something irrational to somebody who hasn't been watching the film up to that point, but makes sick, perfect sense in context... enough so that I wondered, more than once, whether the hero was suffering some kind of psychotic break, instead of finally digging up "the truth". Beyond that point, all sorts of fun ensues, including some takes on standard action-movie tropes with a small village bent to them... it had me laughing out loud more than once, which is really quite rare for a film.

So, if you've got a couple hours to spare, and are looking for a laugh (especially if you liked Shaun of the Dead, which is where some of the players came across my screen first), give Hot Fuzz a go... if you stick it out to the end, I don't think you'll regret it.

Great idea! Err... maybe not.

As a tech guy, I'm generally attracted by new, shiny things, even while they're still in development. As an engineering type, I immediately consider how useful the new, shiny thing can be, and pick out any glaring problems with the idea. Rarely, the engineer in me shouts down the tech in me... this is one of those times. Somebody's working on adding circuitry to contact lenses, to allow image overlays on the real world... think heads-up display without any obvious equipment, that sort of thing. Here's a link to an article about the current work.

So, cool idea, augmented reality and all that, maybe a neat gaming interface... but then there's the problems I see. Start with the basic interface... it's light-emitting, but inside your eyelids, so there's no way to get away from it, short of removing the things from your eyes. Also, if you wanted to be able to read text, your software has to track your eyeballs and head motions to match up what you see in the lenses with what you see of the world outside, unless you want a truly hurl-inducing experience.

Suppose you take care of those problems... it's still a powered circuit on your eyeball, so, if you overload the power to the circuits, you get heat generation, quite possibly beyond what your eyeball will withstand comfortably. Contrariwise, you could use some sort of fuse circuit to limit the power... but, unless they're exceptionally cheap to produce, you're going to be pissed about your new toy breaking because you got too close to your power supply (or somebody was actively trying to shut down your toy...)... and, if they're cheap, I don't know of too many cheap things you want sitting on your eyes.

Put those problems aside, suppose the things work perfectly. How long do you think it will take for somebody to decide they want to watch a movie... while driving in the dark? I mean, a cell phone, you can at least see the handset... if you look closely enough, from the right angle, you can even see most hands-free earpieces. Unless these things light up your eyes with an unholy glow visible from a few feet away (which, mind you, would be another point in their favor...), nobody's going to know you're using them until it's much, much too late. No... there's some fun potential with this idea, but it just needs to go away, the sooner the better.

Windows 7 Starter netbook

Back on Windows 7 launch day, I snagged myself a shiny new netbook, so I could play with the new Windows (especially so I could check for installation/operation problems with software out at work). On the whole, I'm well-pleased with both the netbook and Windows 7... but, as is often the case, there's some niggling little annoyances.

I understand the theory of tiered pricing, not that I entirely agree with it, but, in the case of netbooks, there's good sense in keeping the cost of Windows low, what with all those Linux distributions looking to get a foothold. Microsoft did a pretty good job of paring things down, too... no DVD playback (which, without optical drives, is not an issue), and no shiny new display tricks (which, with the limited graphics hardware, is no great loss) as examples. But then, they also cut support for streaming media (on a network-oriented device...) and even spent the resources to restrict users from personalizing their desktop colors and wallpaper. That last bit is just downright petty on Microsoft's part... and Asus (the maker of my netbook) apparently agrees, since they put out a tool to let you change your wallpaper.

What I can report, after a few weeks' use, is that Windows 7 seems to work well on the limited hardware a netbook provides... so long as you don't try anything too graphics-intensive, like games. That may even change, as newer graphics hardware takes over the market... but, for simple tasks like web surfing, email, and typing up documents, a Windows 7 netbook is a viable option. Just make sure to get some hands-on time with one before you buy... the limitations of keyboard spacing and screen size may be too much for some to endure.

Netflix on PS3

Regular readers of this blog have likely gotten sick of hearing me praise the Roku box, which started out life playing Netflix streaming content, and has since expanded its repertoire to other video sources... so, for a change of pace, let me introduce a new alternative.

In this generation's seemingly endless struggle of competing video game consoles, I've stuck with Wii, for it's unique user interface, and PS3, for its power and adaptability, while steering clear of the XBox360 for a variety of reasons... but one item the 360 faithful always tout is its ability to stream Netflix video (so long as you pony up for Microsoft's annual network service fee). Roku has me covered there for now... but Netflix just made available a way for PS3 owners to use their service, using a disc you can request from them, at no additional cost, so I decided to give it a go.

Setup is at least as easy as on the Roku... insert the disc, which gives you a code to enter at the Netflix website, and up comes the interface. At first glance, the interface is a dead ringer for the interface on Roku's box (and why not, since it's Netflix on the other end in both cases), with your streaming queue laid out pictorially, where opening up any item gives you controls to start a movie or episode, select an alternate episode, rate the item, or remove it from your queue. However, that is where the similarities end... going "up" from the queue display on the Roku takes you to a screen where you can choose other channels to view, but, on the PS3, you get additional options, including a couple of "what's new" sections, category breakouts, and "recently viewed" sections, which you can use to browse items not already in your queue and view them immediately or add them to your queue, a feature that the Roku box currently lacks.

As far as viewing goes, I didn't notice any great difference between Roku's regular output and the PS3 when I watched an episode of South Park (apart from the lack of "quality dots" when the stream was getting set up), but, admittedly, that's not the most complex video to display... but I would still say the PS3 does the job as advertised. All in all, if you already have (or are in the market for) a PS3, this looks to be a fine way to get your Netflix stream to your TV. Myself, I will still be sticking with the Roku box for my regular viewing... it's quieter (no moving parts), and plays more than just Netflix (and adds more to view all the time). The categorized view of items on the PS3 is a nice touch, but I already have well over 100 items in my queue... and, if I was wanting something specific, the lack of an actual search feature means I would be getting on the Netflix website to find it anyways.

Another Halloween in the bag

...and again, 3 bags of candy for 3 trick-or-treaters. One of these years, I'm going to have to start picking up some good, dark chocolate for handing out instead... :)

On the bright side, I found that Disgaea 3 (a PS3 game) is fine fodder for Halloween night... it's turn-based, so you can set it down on a moment's notice, it's theme-appropriate, what with all the little freshman demons you control... and, at the rate I'm making progress through it, I may well still be playing it next Halloween. It's a fun game, to be sure, and you'll definitely get your money's worth out of it if turn-based strategy-RPGs are your thing.

Internet neutrality, the fun continues

The FCC has begun the process of making 'net neutrality a requirement for Internet providers, something I agree with wholeheartedly. You would think that preserving the established, expected rights of consumers (read: voters and taxpayers) would be something your average elected official would be all over... which means John McCain is something other than average. As soon as the FCC started the gears turning, he's attempting to bring the process to a halt, introducing a bill to prevent the FCC from pursuing the issue (link). My favorite part... he has the gall to call this bill the Internet Freedom Act (that's freedom for the Internet providers, not you, citizen).

Oh well, I can at least find a little glimmer of hope... the various reactions to this act detailed in the article I linked to fall mostly where you would expect (rights groups and Democrats against, corporate executives and "free-market think tanks" against), but there's one Republican senator listed on the consumer-rights side. It's not much, but if one senator can see past the campaign contributions to take the side of the end user, maybe enough will to shut this stupidity down.

Marketing and honesty (as if!)

I've seen a slew of ads on TV lately from various grocery companies, each to the tune of "in these tough times, we're going to be nice guys and lower our prices for you." Funny how none of them are put forth as "sure, we've been gouging you for months/years now, but we decided that we couldn't survive doing that anymore, so we're dropping prices a little to try and suck you back in to our stores." Gotta love spin... why just say "new lower prices" when you can try to sell it as something you're doing out of the goodness of your corporate heart?

The fate of bad pizza

I was driving around town yesterday, and found myself driving north on Division, something to be avoided if you want to get where you're going in a timely fasion, when I saw a sign up ahead for Eatza Pizza. It's a chain (apparently nationwide, scarily) that has Spokane written all over it... an inexpensive, all-you-can-eat pizza buffet. I tried it once myself, at a location out in the Valley... once. Suffice it to say that, in my humble opinion, it was the worst pizza I have ever had the opportunity to eat, bland and bready... heck, the cheapest supermarket freezer pizzas are a step up.

I knew the Valley location had closed some time back, so I was curious as to how this site was holding up... and, since traffic was stop-and-go, I chanced a glance, figuring I'd see an empty storefront or maybe a few cars in the parking lot. What I saw was a lot scraped clean, down to the dirt, with the signpost still in place at the street. I'm sure it was just done for tax purposes by the property owners... but I can't help but imagine the owners deciding that the site was irrevocably tainted by the bad pizza, razing the structure and parking lot to the ground, and leaving the sign behind as a warning to other restaurateurs of the fate awaiting bad food.

Comcast - fixed, I think.

It's only fair that I close out the whole overbilling thing with a final report... I've got a bill in hand that shows that I got reimbursed enough to more than cover an entire month of charges, and that my ongoing charge for Internet access has been reduced. I've also been told that my cable modem is no longer marked as Comcast-owned... and I believe them, based on the fact that I had to reset my connection (and go through all the initial setup steps again) in order to receive that news by email. Apart from that minor glitch, it was well worth pursuing this problem with the Comcast Cares team... and I heartily recommend that, if you're using Comcast and have a problem with their service that normal channels cant handle, that you give them a shot. Of course, best good would be for their mainline tech support to improve to the point where a separate, special trouble-shooting team isn't necessary... but it's good they're there in the meantime.

Begun, the Net Neutrality Wars have

Wow... it's practically lightspeed for any branch of FedGov to move this fast. It's only been since July last year, when Comcast and the FCC got hot and bothered about what "reasonable" means, in a network-management sense, that I've been waiting for movement on the whole Net Neutrality issue... and Monday, it came, with the chairman of the FCC announcing the start of a process to enshrine in regulation the core tenets of NN, then going a step beyond and saying that he wants the new rules to apply to all Internet connections, including wireless phones.

Of course, it didn't take long for members of the Republican party to try and throw a spanner in the works. Their first attempt is to try to amend a bill in such a way as to make the FCC unable to spend any money on implementing these consumer protections (link). The ever-popular "tread lightly when it comes to new regulations" is quickly followed by "could stifle investment incentives", as put forth by one of the senators involved.

OK, now here's a fine example of why I am not a Republican (for the record, I'm not a Democrat either). I truly believe that companies providing a service have every right to price their service according to demand and the cost of that service. Where I differ from these Republicans is that I don't believe that service providers should be allowed to "water down" their offerings (without informed consent, at least) for users that abide by the rules of the service, in the name of protecting said users from those that break the rules. Neither do I believe that companies should be allowed to secretly interfere with the service they provide, especially when they do it to prop up other divisions of their company (VoIP and Internet video, to use Comcast as an example), in the name of safeguarding investments. If you want to invest in the current market leaders as a "safe" investment, great... if you want to invest in the Next Big Thing, hoping to make a killing, good on you. However, just because you're an investor, you have no right to assume that both investments are with the same company... or, if they are, that the investments in the future will allow for anything more than the continued survival of your cash cow.

Right, just a bit off-track there... let's see, wireless companies, of course, are also up-in-arms, complaining that open access rules will swamp their networks. I don't know first-hand, but I hear that's already pretty true for AT&T with the iPhone in some areas... but it's also a pretty moot point. We're back to that whole cost/demand equation (and side note: I'm sure texting is still insanely out of line with that concept)... if you have so many people using your service that you can't keep up, raise the price and invest (if possible) in improving your infrastructure. Will that mean that you lose some customers? Sure... but they will bog down your competitors, if they are still offering lower rates. Unless, of course, you're worried that your competitors will do the right thing, upgrade their infrastructure, and leave you in the dust... that's not your concern, right?

Wow, off-track and mildly combative, all in one post... OK, quick summary and finish. If you're offering Internet access, it's right that you be held to offering the whole Internet, unless you tell us in advance what you're not offering, and why. Companies have failed that test in the past, which is why regulation is needed (and please, no "it's just a few bad apples", you want to control problems before they become widespread, or worse, ingrained). If you can't operate under those conditions, be afraid... even if this change doesn't make it through FedGov this time, technology is changing ever faster, and your service will become obsolete someday soon. Whether you survive depends greatly on your ability to keep pace while keeping your customers content... and there's a whole new generation of tech-savvy types out there, waiting for you to disappoint them.

Comcast update

So, in case any of you were wondering, and since I don't have much else relevant to blog about this week, here's where the whole cable-modem thing sits right now: I did get a reply the very same night I posted my last entry, which was unexpected. The next day, we got down to the meat of the issue, verifying serial numbers, MAC addresses and the like... and I've been credited (so I'm told) the $3/month charge for the period I was charged up to this point, and should continue being credited for as long as necessary (expecting "a couple of weeks") while they update their inventory records to reflect that I actually do own my modem. I suspect that time frame includes looking for any physical evidence at the local office that I don't own the modem, but that's understandable enough.

What's not-so-understandable is that their chat technician got confused about when I started getting charged this rental fee... it wasn't March of last year, it was 28JUN08, which, if you look at the history of this blog, was just after I turned in my TV equipment. It was probably just an error on the part of some data entry critter... probably. At any rate, now it's just a little limbo-time while the wheels of bureaucracy grind away, if things go the way they should. If not, I'll be sure to rant some more another day! :)

From out of the blue, a Comcast rep!

I've heard of this sort of thing, but never seen it first hand... if you check the comments section of my prior post, there's a comment from a "ComcastCares1", offering expedited assistance. Being the cautious sort that I am, I checked the profile view (it's been around since Feb. '08) and sniffed around the edges of the proposal for potential scamminess... but I don't see any likely attack vector there. So, I've given it a shot... stay tuned for further developments!

Sneaky little bastards, Comcast are...

So, happy Labor Day, first off... what better day to deal with Comcast's "24/7" chat support service?

Not that dealing with that service should have been necessary... a little over a year back, I grumbled about Comcast billing me for cable TV service when their own bill showed that I wasn't signed up for it, a fight I won. Little did I suspect that, buried in the price for Internet service, was a line item for "modem rental"... which, considering I have always owned my own modem, is more than a bit odd.

No worries though, a quick email to their support people should put that right, right? I mean, fill out their form, tell them who I am, what the problem is, and their people will look into it and either fix it straight away, or let me know why they think I'm wrong, right? No such luck... two days later, I get emailed back (to paraphrase), "Oh, you've got a billing problem? Well, you'll need to use our live chat system to get that fixed."

So I do the chat, where I'm informed that they've been charging that fee on my account since last March (yes, I'm sorry I didn't notice it, since your online billing service doesn't provide a full breakout of charges unless you download a .pdf of what your paper bill would look like), and am I sure that I really own the modem I'm using (which I still have the flippin' retail box for, so yes). Of course, the chat rep can't do anything about it, but has to kick a ticket upstairs for review, so they'll get back to me on it. Honest.

Oh, how I wish I had another viable option to jump ship to right now. Unfortunately, DSL in my neighborhood is still stuck at (theoretically) 1.5Mbps, which might be fast enough for my needs, if theory and reality were well-aligned (but, knowing the phone system here, they certainly aren't). Oh well, grit those teeth and bear it a while longer, I suppose... although I may have to look at wireless options before terribly long.

Note on the window

Work let us all leave early yesterday, so I drove downtown to check out Ponyo (fun, innocent film... maybe I'll blog it properly later) and Pig Out in the Park (disappointing variety/quality of food offerings this year). I went ahead and parked in the River Park Square parking garage, since the movie validation would affray the cost a bit... and parked a bit to the right of center in the space I found (since the van to the left had done the same), but still well within the lines. That's one of the little joys of driving a Yaris, because they are in no way a Large Car.

Once I was done, I came back to the car, only to find a note on the window, which read "Thank you for parking so close :) I love climbing over the passenger side to get tiny my car :)". Now, admittedly, I hadn't paid much attention to the car to my right, beyond making sure it wasn't over the line marker for the space I was getting into... but neither should that be necessary, that being the purpose of those space marking lines being painted on the ground in the first place. So, in effect, the lady in question (judging mainly by the handwriting and tone of the note) was attempting to make me feel bad for daring to occupy the parking space to the left of her car. Of course, being the sort that I am, it had the exact opposite effect, making me happy to have inconvenienced such a self-centered person sufficiently to compel them write their note for me.

There's still the chance, certainly, that I'm being more of an ass than usual, so let me know what you think... was there some unwritten rule of etiquette that I violated, or was climbing over the passenger seat a small price to pay for the other driver's lack of planning?

Halloween?!?

Before the weekend started, I saw signage on one of those shut-down big-box stores for the annual infestation of seasonal costume/accessory shops... but I didn't think too much about it, since they still had "hiring now" signs up, and it could easily be a few weeks before they have everything in place to do the whole Halloween shtick. Tonight, I was walking through the aisles at my local supermarket, and... there's the Halloween candy, etc. That's over 2 months before the event, which, for most people I know, consists of making sure they have some candy on-hand to dole out to costumed children. Holiday creep just blew past the ludicrous zone right into pathetic.

The stuff of dreams, dark forces... and folding?

I had a dream last night... and no, I'm not going to go on in great detail about it. Suffice it to say that it was well on the rational/logical/cause-and-effect end of the spectrum (as dreams go)... but it illustrated how, if "dark powers" exist, they could get evil-loner-types to willingly gather, and willingly sign on for, group activities. Of course, the answer's obvious: you pay/bribe them to do so.

However, among all the makes-good-sense (given the setting) pieces, there was one odd bit... the recruiter admits to the new recruit that the only reason he's involved in this transaction is because the dark powers in question will, once the deed is done, teach him "a spell of folding AND a spell of unfolding", which, by his tone of voice, he considered to be quite the deal. Now, it would be easy enough to say "it's just a dream, you should expect LOTS of strange things"... but I have to wonder, what kind of folding/unfolding would be so appealing to someone, in spell form or otherwise, that they would take great risks to acquire it?

PS3 price drop

To your right, note the new "I spend entirely too much time playing games" tracker... how thoughtful of Sony to release that little toy at the same time they knocked $100 of the price of a PS3. If you've been waiting to buy a PS3, now's a good time to go... unless, of course, you want the new, slimmed-down version they're putting out shortly, with a bigger hard drive and the same price. But where's the fun in waiting, hey? :)

Subscription TV via Internet - one step closer

I'm sure some of you must be getting sick of my "Roku box is the best toy EVAR" posts, but this could be a pretty significant milestone. MLB.com has a subscription service that lets you watch major-league baseball games live, in HD, over the 'net, for about $35/year... and now it's available on the Roku box (link).

So, call it about $5/month for the "active" time of the year for baseball... depending on how much in the way of commercials get added to your video feed (I'd like to believe none, but I know better), it's perhaps a little steep. But, if you can build a system to handle the traffic at that price for multiple, simultaneous feeds of real-time sports data, I'm thinking that it wouldn't be too hard to stream live broadcast of your favorite currently-only-available-by-cable-or-satellite TV channels at a similar price point per channel... and, while I won't shell out $50 a month (give or take) for 100+ channels of stuff I will never watch, there are at least a few channels I could see paying a few bucks a month to watch.

Das Barbecü

Just got back from a Seattle trip... always good to get away from your own "real life" every once in a while, especially if you can get together with friends and/or family. While there, I caught an odd little musical piece called Das Barbecü... think of it as a hefty chunk of Wagner's Ring cycle, distilled down to about 2 1/2 hours, translated to Texas, and mostly played for laughs. I certainly had a good time with it... any Seattle-ites or Seattle-bound people are encouraged to give it a go. Here's a link to the current production.

Iraq, two years on

I've been looking for an excuse to post something here (life has gotten busy, and therefore a bit sterile/unpostworthy of late), so I went sifting through the archives... and ran across this bit about our presence in Iraq, and how much good it would actually do.

I think it's high time to do the grown-up thing and say... I was wrong. Mind you, the fact that the locals got tired of beating on each other is at least as big of a factor as our physical presence for getting to this point... but the Iraqi government has survived the challenges of the past two years, they have real, trained security forces that are picking up the slack, while we are disentangling ourselves and preparing to get out in an orderly manner.

Of course, there's still plenty of room for one party or another to royally screw things up... in particular, I hope we're well and truly gone before the central government really butts heads with the "semi-autonomous" Kurdish region over key cities and resources. On the whole, though, I'm actually hopeful for a reasonably stable country there going forward, which I didn't expect before short of a lopsided civil war with massive casualties for all involved. Live and learn, as the saying goes.

Comcast is at it again

Boy, if there's any company that gives me episodes of Tourette's, it's Comcast. Once upon a time, I had both cable TV and Internet access through them, and was reasonably well pleased. Over time, I became less well-pleased with them, as their cable TV bill crept ever upwards and they started playing games with the Internet connection (blocking applications, capping downloads and the like). On the TV side, the straw that broke the camel's back was when they reduced the functionality of their channel guide to insert more advertising... I've been using broadcast HDTV and my Roku box, mainly, for about a year, and haven't missed cable TV much.

But Comcast doesn't learn... they just launched a "Domain Helper" system, similar to ones tried (and failed) by other ISPs in the past (link). The basic idea is, you typo an address in your web browser and, if you typo'd the right part, you instead get sent off to a Comcast page with suggestions on where you might have been trying to get... along with who-knows-how-many-ads. The problem I have with this is that online advertisers are notoriously spotty about keeping their adverts "safe and clean"... it's often all too easy for a bad actor to slip an ad in that does something you don't want done, whether that's generating pop-up windows or infesting your computer with viruses, or something in-between.

So... given my druthers, I'd be hopping ship to an alternate broadband ISP carrier just about now. Unfortunately, I'm in an area served by Qwest, which means the really "good" stuff like fiber-to-the-home hasn't made it here yet, and I live about equi-distant from their offices, meaning DSL would be even crappier than usual. For now, I opted out of their "help", then, for good measure, switched my DNS to OpenDNS, which plays a similar trick to Comcast's, but has two distinct advantages in my book... first, you have to know what you're doing to hook up with them (which at least implies some sort of opt-in), and, since DNS is all they do, you can expect them to stay on top of their advertisers... nothing quite like the threat of your userbase deciding en masse to leave your service if you screw up security sufficiently to keep you on your toes.

New ways to screw up a good thing

Here's something that could be very, very bad, depending on how it's applied. It seems that Amazon has applied for a patent relating to serving up ads in their Kindle ebooks (link). Up to this moment, the only downside I saw to ebook readers was their cost... but throwing ads between pages of a book you would otherwise "get in to", that's just wrong.

Inventory problems?

Time for another in my long line of "what wrong with company X" posts... but this time, it's for a pair of rivals, Home Depot and Lowes. I started with a pair of seemingly simple tasks... find a new drain cap for the shutoff valve for one of my outside spigots, and also find a 32 gallon trash can (winter drivers were less than kind to the old can).

So, off to Home Depot I go... locate the garbage cans briefly, then head off to plumbing for that drain cap. I swear, I looked up and down those aisles for the better part of an hour, finding all sorts of things that wouldn't quite work, but not the exact item I needed. Disgusted, I decide to hit the Lowe's a half-mile down the road.

This time, I suss out the drain caps first. Of course, they only sell them in a two-pack of different sizes, guaranteeing that you get one useless bit to pay for in the process... but, at least I found what I was looking for. Then, I go to search for trash cans... strangely, they have multiple stashes of a particularly cheap trash can (no proper handles, just handle-like indents in the can) scattered across the store, but the rest of the trash cans are squirreled away with cleaning products. Anyways, I find a likely-looking mid-range trash can... only to discover that they have no lids for those cans anywhere in sight. Well, I'm not about to shell out for the high-end trash cans (strange that such a thing even exists), the low-end cans are a joke, and the mid-range cans are lidless... so, I take my drain caps to the checkout, then head back to Home Depot.

Back I go to the spot I found the trash cans earlier... much nicer selection than Lowes, there's a couple of different cans that will do the trick for about the same price... and this one even has wheels and handles that lock the lid down. Wait a sec... where are the lids?!? Again, I'm given the choice of paying for the high-end cans, or settling for a lesser can, because the store doesn't have lids for the cans they're selling. Oh well, at least the lesser can here has actual handles, so I settle.

So, two home stores, more or less equal in stature, and two items to buy... one item, one store doesn't carry, the other makes you buy extra that you don't need. The other item, neither store can keep track of all (2) of the pieces necessary to sell a complete item. I know my experience isn't typical (or at least, I hope my experience isn't typical), but still, when you can't even keep a relatively close count of number of lids to number of cans for something that takes up as much retail space as a trashcan, you have to wonder how nobody's coming along and eating their lunch for them.

Revisiting the bad old days of computer games

I've been regularly playing games on home computers for a little over 20 years now (and boy, does that statement make me feel old). From that very first Amiga 500, through the days of DOS (with manual configuration of sound and video adapters on every game), and all the "joys" of Windows from 3.1 to XP, I've watched as games evolved from mostly "coded by a hobbyist on odd weekends" to "multi-million dollar professional development teams". Whatever you want to say about the blanding of games over that time frame, you did get a fairly steady improvement in how likely it was that you would be able to play the game you bought.

Up until now, Steam (a service I've mentioned in past posts) has been, to me, the pinnacle of that progression. Sure, the service had some fits and starts at launch, and it doesn't do well for those who don't/can't have an Internet connection, but it's a mature service that promises one simple thing: buy from us, and, supposing your computer meets the minimum requirements of the game, it will install and run at least as smoothly as the version you buy from the store, if not better. In fact, there are even some games (Half Life jumps to mind) where the boxed version is unplayable under current versions of Windows, but it plays and runs just fine from Steam.

So, I was a little surprised to see that Bethesda Softworks (the people behind Fallout 3, which I wrote up earlier) had released a few older games on Steam... or rather, one game in particular. You see, along with Oblivion and Morrowind (a pair of fine RPGs, fantasy games whose core mechanics are greatly reflected in Fallout 3), there's a title called Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth. I remember, back in the day, thinking it might be a fun game (if memory serves, it came out after Morrowind but before Oblivion)... only to reluctantly pass on it as the reviews came in, praising the concept but panning the execution, particularly the game's stability. Now, here it was in front of me again, up to Steam's standards for putting out on the market, and for a mere $15.

Naturally, I bit. After the first download, the game was unlaunchable, instead pulling up an "Engine" folder. A link within the Steam client let me find the official website for the game, still available after all these years, with several new posts in the forums about people buying the game through Steam and having the same problem I did. Suggested fixes included manually editing your registry, downloading CPU-specific patches from random sites, and installing a fan-made patch on the game, to take care of the worst of the problems.

I opted instead to re-download the game... and at least got something that would launch. Start a game, watch some cutscenes... and watch the game crash as it tries to enter the game proper. I played with various machine settings, turning off video card features and killing other resident programs... which got me to the point of being able to play the first, "introductory" scenario. Apart from one crash while trying to save the game, it seemed to be working alright... until I finished that introductory scenario, got another extended cutscene to lead into the "real game", and another crash while waiting to get started playing. Of course, I retried later, just to make sure it wasn't some sort of fluke, and got the same results.

So, long story short... if Steam had any standards in place before putting games up on their systems for purchase, they're gone now, so caveat emptor is the name of the game. In particular, don't bother trying to purchase Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth from them, either... Steam's installer has problems, the game has problems, and in neither case are they problems of the "quick fix" variety. Heck, if I ever see a patch that fixes this game's problems come through Steam, I'll gladly post a "my bad, Steam's not all that bad" message here... but don't go holding your breath on that one.

Analog TV broadcasting is done

...and it's about time, too. I mean, the switch to digital was going to happen originally some months back, but it got pushed forward due to converter-box supply difficulties. I was going to let the whole thing pass unnoted, but then I saw this story: 700,000 people called the FCC's hotline, confused about the transition, within the past week. Mind you, that's only a little over 0.2% of the population... but, compared to the number of people who still rely on over-the-air transmission of their TV programming, the percentage must be much, much higher.

So, months of leadup-time and on-air education, followed by a delay to make sure everybody can get the equipment they need, test it out, and make sure they're good to go come launch day... and there's still that many people who couldn't be bothered to work things out until the last week of the "old way" of doing things. This, friends, is a prime example of why I have no faith in the future of humanity.

Movie o' the day: Up

Right, well... go see Up, if you haven't already. The movie's emotionally pitch-perfect, never resorting to being saccharine or maudlin... which isn't to say it doesn't approach emotional highs and lows, just that it doesn't dwell on them needlessly long.

So far as the story itself, it deals with a widower being driven to make a choice... but, rather than take the path society has chosen for him, he decides to go on an adventure that both he and his late wife dreamed of all their lives. Of course, how that translates into him making his home mobile by means of thousands of helium balloons... well, you really need to see the movie to fully "get it", so I won't spoil it for you.

Along the way, he ends up inadvertently kidnapping a young neighborhood boy (and in the process learning that kids aren't all bad), making his way to South America, and meeting a boyhood hero (and getting that hero transformed into the main villian). Mix in a giant bird and some talking dogs (courtesy of collar translators) for plot points and comedy relief, and the end result is a wonder to behold.

Oh, and of course, being a Pixar flick, it's got a short beforehand... in this case, a piece called Partly Cloudy, which takes the old "storks bringing babies" story back to territory I haven't seen since the old Warner Brothers cartoons... namely, where do the storks get the babies? That poor, poor stork... I haven't seen that kind of abuse of a cartoon character in such a short time since those old cartoons, either, and it was just as funny now as then.

So, a great short and a wonderful movie are waiting for you at the local theater... what are you waiting for?

DVD Pick: Idiocracy

Wow... I don't know how I practically missed hearing about this one (I only got tipped off to it by one friend, and somehow missed its time in the theater, and never heard anything intelligible about it online). Suffice it to say, I'm glad I did catch wind of this film... it targeted one of my persistent dreads about the fate of the human race, and blew way past anything I could have come up with, leaving me laughing out loud at the absurdity of it all.

The setup involves a slacker army grunt and a prostitute getting the "Buck Rogers" treatment (one year cryosleep turning into 500), and waking up an a world where intelligence has been all but bred out of the human race (the illustration behind that concept was sheer genius, I might add). Hilarity ensues, with trips through the hospital, prison, Costco (but, sadly, not Wal-Mart), and the corridors of power, ending up with an episode of Monday Night Rehabilitation to remember. Beyond that, I won't say too much... it's too much fun to watch "the smartest man alive" try to cope with the society that is still semi-functional despite the Darwin-inviting stupidity of everyone else.

No, it's not high cinema... heck, it's barely low cinema. But, sometimes, something that will make you laugh, without feeling dirty for doing so (I'm looking at you, Borat) is better still.

Memorial Day

I just felt the need to post, since I've been seeing some mixed messages coming out of the media leading up to this day. Mainly, Memorial Day is not a day for honoring veterans... we have a perfectly good Veteran's Day for that. No, Memorial Day is for honoring those souls that lost their chance at becoming veterans when they died serving their country. 'Nuff said.

Quick downloadable games multi-post

I just took a look back... and it looks like it's been a while since I've bothered to write up any of the games that have my focus at the time. Of course, right now that's because I don't really have a "main" game sucking my every free moment away, but rather a few "lesser" games all vying for position, which I'm playing as mood and time constraints dictate. So, here's a few of them, if you're looking for some time wasting fun:

• For you Windows types, if you're looking for a type of game that hasn't been around for quite some time, you might try The Wizard's Pen. I snagged my copy for about $10 off of Steam. For a more standard (but definitely not "normal") adventure-style game, Steam also has Sam & Max Season 2.
• Available for multiple systems (I got mine for the PlayStation 3), there's Puzzle Quest Galactrix, a fun twist on the standard match-3 puzzle genre, in a couple of ways. Of course, if you haven't played it yet, the original Puzzle Quest is a fine little game, as well.
• On the PS3 side (when I'm not in a multi-hour session of Oblivion or Disgaea 3 or Civilization Revolutions or...), I still get some mileage out of Noby Noby boy... and PixelJunk Eden is still very entertaining (enough so that I need to work on "finishing" it, so I can snag the expansion for it with a minimum of guilt).
• And then there's the Wii... where I've got 2000 store points ready for something "worthy", and have had since the beginning of April. Hopefully they come out with something that piques my interest someday soon, lest I start thinking of it (with the Wii Fit) as just "exercise equipment", which would be the touch of death for my use of that system... :)

So, there you go, no major blockbuster games, but plenty of decent playables to be had, depending on your playstyle.

Movie o' the day: Star Trek

I know, this is pretty early after release for me to have seen the film, but after hearing nothing but good things from all quarters, I had to check it out myself. Unfortunately, it's another movie that I would have to give "spoilers" to do a proper review on... suffice it to say that, yes, they made it clear, in no uncertain terms, that they were kicking off an "alternate history" of Star Trek with this film. Heck, they did a good enough job of that differentiation that I could readily see myself watching a sequel to this film, and might even follow a new series, were this the launch point.

Of course, it wasn't a perfect film by any means... on the visuals side, there were two bits that I never cared for on sci-fi ships. The "enemy" ship is spiky all over, for no apparent better reason than to make it the "scary" ship, which isn't even remotely necessary (think Death Star for the antithesis of that concept). Also, one of the Federation ships had a large, rapidly spinning section, which falls in the same category of being flashy for no reason, not to mention entirely inconsistent with every Federation ship I've ever seen, at least.

Beyond that, there was at least one major plot hole, which I can't detail without giving away entirely too much of the movie... but if you just sit back and enjoy the ride, it's still a load of fun.

"Senority"

Wow... I thought I'd seen some government shenanigans, but I guess they're nothing compared to the shenanigans within the government itself. How can a simple concept like seniority get twisted around so?

For those of you not knowing what I'm talking about, Sen. Specter, the one that was a Republican until just turning Democrat, was a senior member of a number of committees... until tonight, when he was "stripped of his seniority", basically reducing his importance on those committees (link). Now, I'm no expert (thankfully)... but, as a rule, you don't go punishing people who switch to your side. That's the sort of thing that makes people rethink their choice to switch.

Heh... and here I thought that seniority had something to do with the length of time you served your country/company (well, where rank doesn't get involved, anyways). Live and learn.

I must be a "throwback"

I'm a computer guy, which nigh on guarantees that I'm a caffeine fiend. My method of choice for getting that caffeine has always been through canned soda (which, among its other virtues, ensures "portion control"... no aimlessly wandering back and forth to the coffee pot for the umpteenth time for me). Thanks to my past military life, it doesn't even need to be "cold"... I'm quite happy drinking room-temperature soda (something that will make many readers here cringe, I'm sure).

Of course, in certain circles, that brings into play the whole "High Fructose Corn Syrup" thing... which can range from the simple "sugar tastes better" to the extreme "HFCS is the root cause of all obesity in America these days" conversations, often with somebody else handy taking the extreme end of the argument, be that "HFCS and sugar are indistinguishable by taste" or "HFCS is totally harmless". Being pragmatic, I take what I can get, and that has meant the HFCS version of soda for the most part.

Pepsi just released "throwback" (read, sugar-sweetened) versions of some of their sodas, including my perennial favorite, Mountain Dew... so, now we all have a unique opportunity to try both versions, head-to-head if you so choose, and determine for yourself the truth on the taste issue, at least. On Mountain Dew, at least, the sugar version is definitely superior to the "standard" version to my tastebuds... plus, it doesn't leave nearly as much of a syrupy film behind once you've finished a can.

Of course, I could be biased... one of the things I noticed was that it tasted very much like the Mountain Dew I had over in Japan, which was a visit I thoroughly enjoyed, so there could be some of that "nostalgia" creeping in. For me, though, the question of how much what your soda's sweetened by matters has been answered... kick that HFCS to the curb, and make the "throwback" version the standard.

If it's a small, call it a small.

So yeah, I eat a lot of fast food for lunch. Most places have stayed reasonably constant over time, menu-wise... the evil that is McDonalds, for example, has pretty much always had Big Macs and Quarter Pounders, for all that quality might have taken a slide.

Not so with Arby's. There was a time when they had a small, medium, and large roast beef sandwich. Then, they started shrinking the size of the sandwiches to eke out a few more cents per customer. Then, to fill out their top end, they came up with the Big Montana. Then, apparently they weren't interested in offering a White Castle-sized sandwich, so they dropped the small, leaving them with Medium, Large, and Big Montana. Then, somebody decided that was silly, so they renamed them Small, Medium, and Large.

Now, apparently, somebody decided that they just don't like the word "small"... so their basic lineup of sandwiches are now listed as Regular, Medium, and Large. Here's a little hint for anybody from Arby's corporate management that stumbles on this post... if you focused a little more on the product you're selling, and not what it's called, you might do better.

Internet as utility

So, in case you hadn't heard, Time Warner Cable wanted to test-drive a tiered Internet pricing plan... and customer response, naturally, was howls of outrage. Not being a customer of theirs, I wasn't directly affected... but the abhorrent concept could certainly sweep into other Internet providers, should TWC succeed.

Today, I stumbled across somebody actually defending TWC's attempts, on the basis that TWC needs to recoup money they're losing from their cable business, and that the Internet is now more utility than luxury, so should be metered and priced accordingly. Here is the original article.

So, first off... TWC (or any cable company, for that matter) isn't entitled to their cable revenue. They're a private entity, and need to provide value for money paid to succeed in the market place. I'm sure the analogy isn't exactly right, but if, back in early automobile days, a company sold both gasoline and buggy whips, thinking they're entitled to jack the price of gas to offset the fallout of their buggy whip line would have been meet with well-deserved scorn.

Second, I'm all for treating Internet access as a utility. Of course, that means that access should either be provided by a public entity at cost, or that prices should be monitored and regulated by some sort of oversight body. Somehow, I don't think that's exactly what TWC or that article's author was envisioning, exactly.

At any rate, it's a moot point for the moment... looks like TWC has realized the PR nightmare they initiated, so they're scrapping the trial until they can improve their "customer education process" (link). Here's hoping this idea stays well and truly dead.

So, it's tax day...

This is one of those "events" that has never made any sense to me. I don't mean that I don't see a need for a deadline (otherwise, nobody would pay what they owed, obviously), just that I don't see how anybody holds off until the last minute in preparing their taxes, then need to rush to the post office mere minutes before midnight to get their stuff in on time.

If you expect to get money back, doing your taxes ASAP is a no-brainer (why let the government keep your money for any longer than necessary?). If you might need to send more to Uncle Sam, preparing your taxes early still makes sense (so you know how big of a bite you're in for)... if you need or want to hold off on sending it in afterwards, great. Maybe these people are worried about losing their tax forms in the meantime, or forgetting to send them off?

Semantic curiosity

I try to keep reasonably close tabs on the news... in the process, I often catch the same story from multiple sources, so I've gotten fairly adept at determining where word choice implies spin, and what bias is being served by that spin. Today's news has a developing story that looks to have that aspect to it... but I can't determine whether it's spin, or ignorance on the part of reporters, or myself, or some admixture of them all.

A cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama, was captured by Somali pirates. During those early reports, it was simply referred to as "U.S. flagged", which makes sense... sure, it's a holdover from "wooden ships and iron men" days, but even cargo ships have to be claimed by a country, to prevent random confiscation by one country or another. Later, the crew reclaimed control of the ship... and the news reports start referring to them as a "U.S. crew". That's where my questions begin... is there a requirement that flagged vessels be manned by a crew of that country's nationals? Or, is it just an assumption on the part of some reporter, which was picked up and run with by all the news agencies? Or... is it a more purposeful manipulation of the readers... which is to say, "Oh, this ship, which happens to be registered in the U.S., got captured by pirates", followed by "The brave American crew retook their ship from those nasty pirates"?

Oh well, maybe time will out, maybe not... but I do wish I could get the Joe Friday "just the facts" version of the news, on occasion.

I wish this was an April Fools joke...

I was well-pleased when Senator Ted Stevens was convicted in court and, subsequently, lost his Senate seat in the last election. Now, before sentencing has been set, the Justice Department has decided to drop the charges, due to evidence that should have been turned over to Stevens's defense, but wasn't. That's bad enough... but what's worse, they're not going to run a new trial, now that all the evidence is available. (link)

Of course, the Justice Department is spinning their choice as being in deference to the advanced age of Stevens (85), and the fact that he's no longer in the Senate. Stevens's team, on the other hand, is spinning it as a corrupt prosecution, and, of course, their client was wholly innocent the entire time... and that's why a new trial needs to be held.

As things stand, Stevens is now a political martyr for his party, unjustly accused and thrown out of power, a shining example of what's wrong with "the government"... and anybody who thinks nobody will take that tack with this story is entirely too naive. Heck, it's not even unthinkable that Stevens himself won't take another run at government on just such a platform... he didn't loose his senate seat by that large of a margin, and he certainly has name recognition in Alaska. He doesn't even need to wait for his Senate seat to come up when he's 91... he could just as easily do a term or two in the House of Representatives first.

This is a situation where certainty is needed, and considerations for the age and status of the accused are inappropriate. If the evidence is there to convict Stevens, then bring on a new trial. If, on the other hand, the totality of the evidence is so weak that you can't convict, then say so, however embarrassing for the Justice Department it may be. Oh, and be sure to let us know what you intend to do about your "rogue" prosecutors... don't add to this festering pile by letting them quietly slip away, too.

Random Bits

As sometimes happens, nothing worthy of its own post, so here's some lesser fare:

• This is post#200... whee.
• Whitehouse.gov tried out an "open for questions" app today, with the President answering some of the most popular questions. Some of the news coverage focused on the abuse of the intended question categories by pot-proponents, sometimes in a downright derogatory way. From this I take two things... first, I hope the White House learns from this run, and includes suitable categories next time for the concerns people brought up this time, even if it's just in the form of "other". Second, it sure is interesting how news reporting can get nasty when "the people" start getting the least bit uppity.
• Got lunch at Jack in the Box today. Since I ordered something other than a burger, it took a while to get my food ready, so they did the standard "pull around, please" on me. Fair enough, I understand the occasional need for something like that... but, in the process, they gave me one of those "antenna balls" that they normally charge for. So, what, I'm supposed to be mollified about your slow service by your gift of a cheap corporate tchotchke, whose ultimate purpose is to further advertise your business?
  

Internet Explorer 8 - my first headache

Internet Explorer 8 came out today... so, being the forward-thinking type that I am, I went ahead and installed it on my home Windows box, to get a taste of what hell I'm in for when the machines at work update. Surprisingly, nothing I've tested so far has broken outright... but that doesn't mean IE8 gets a clean bill of health, oh no.

One thing I was curious about was how this "compatibility mode" switch thing would work... and, sadly, it's another case of Microsoft being just a little to "helpful" for my tastes. Of course, this particular issue will likely only affect one person (me), so I guess that's some small comfort.

You see, Microsoft realized that some websites use things other than "www" in front of their domain name for web-based content... so, being the "helpful" sorts that they are, they didn't limit their compatibility mode setting to any single server, but to the entire domain. That's all fine and well, if you have www.microsoft.com for your main content, and ads.microsoft.com for advertising, etc., etc... but I have www. as a web server (which I pride myself on keeping standards-compliant) and pds. for the administration site for a service I maintain, which is provided by a third party and coded to IE7. So, unless I want to futz about with the compatibility mode setting every time I switch between sites, I just have to pretend IE8 is broken when I visit my real website.

I sincerely hope that I stumble across, or Microsoft comes out with, some sort of "advanced" compatibility settings tool, to let me be more specific when I want to. Not holding my breath...

Spokane "justice"... damn scary!

OK, for anybody just stumbling across this post... no, I don't hate cops. The vast majority of them are just like anybody else, doing the best they can with the tools they have. But, again, just like any group of people, there's always a few who are stupid, evil, or both, and should, at a minimum, be downgraded to a position of less authority/threat to society.

So, with that obligatory bit out of the way, what's up with the title on this post? Simply this: a couple of years back, an off-duty cop was drinking in a bar while carrying a concealed gun (bad idea in general, against departmental regulations, but not illegal in and of itself). Something happened (the details of which vary depending on which side you want to listen to), resulting in the cop chasing a man on foot through a residential area, shooting at the other man repeatedly, hitting him in the back of the head, after which he not only doesn't call 911 or get anybody else on the scene, but actively avoids on-duty police when they do show up. Today, the verdict came down... not guilty on all counts, by reason of self-defense.

Of course, I've left a fair amount of detail out so far... the cop was drinking in a gay bar, which is why he says he was avoiding his fellow officers. The cop says he was chasing the other guy because he stole his truck... in spite of forensics not being able to find a trace of the guy inside the cab of the truck for that guy's trial earlier. Not that that stopped a dispatcher from piping up about a confession at this second trial, but not at the first, that's conveniently not recorded. Oh, and of course, the guy being chased supposedly turned around and acted like he had a weapon, which is why he was shot... in the back of the head... in self-defense.

No, I don't hate cops. What I hate is that our criminal justice system is so brain-damaged that we can process two individuals through separate trials and decide, in effect, that there was no criminal problem, despite a drunken gent chasing and shooting at somebody else, with or without cause, resulting in the guy being chased getting shot in the back, in the head or otherwise. Even more so, I hate that such court idiocy could happen in any number of places, not just slightly-backwards Spokane.

I wish I had the clarity of thought to come up with a "foolproof" fix to the system to avoid problems like this... the best I can come up with at the moment is that, in any criminal "event" involving more than one person, the entire event should be handled at one trial, and the job of the jury should not simply be an up-or-down guilty/not guilty verdict, but the construction of a timeline of events, as best they can tell, that supports their verdicts. All I know is that there has to be something better than... this.

New iPod Shuffle... another Apple swing-and-a-miss

I know I'm one of the last few people on the planet for whom this is true, but... I don't have a portable MP3 player of any sort yet. The fact is, I don't have much in the way of a music library, and am generally content with what I can pull off the radio. Of course, that's not always an option, so I've been keeping an eye on players, capacities, interfaces and the like... and the old iPod Shuffle was almost right for me, just lacking a bit in the storage space arena.

So, now Apple has released a new Shuffle, with 4GB of storage space... but, they went and did something stupid, moving the controls off the device proper onto the cord of the ear buds. Oh, and of course, they'll offer a "control dongle" if you want to use some other headphones with their new toy.

Here's my problem... one of the main uses I would get out of my Shuffle would be... in my car. I have an auxiliary jack on my stereo, specifically for plugging audio bits in. So, there I would have to have this control dongle and a patch cable to plug in the player (and have to figure out how to seat both the player and controls reasonably safely in the passenger compartment)... and then, if I want to use the player anywhere else, I have to either remember to bring the control dongle along with, or use only the ear buds included with the player... and since I can see myself using this player in more than one "non-car" location regularly, I would pretty much have to carry headphones with me wherever I went with the player, rather than caching headphones at work, at home, etc.

Oh well, again, I guess I'll wait for Apple's next revision... unless some other mini-MP3 player catches my eye first, of course.

Mac Mini revamp... meh.

So, Apple got around to updating their desktop product line today. I took a look at the new base-model Mac Mini and... was underwhelmed. OK, a little speed boost on the processor, more hard drive space, improved energy efficiency, and a more modern graphics chip... for my purposes, all that really translates into is that I could probably play Spore on that Mini if I were so inclined. Unfortunately, that just doesn't translate into a $600 purchase for me.

Oh well, we'll see what fun there is to be had in later product turns... I kind of doubt that anything in the next OS X will stress my current Mini any more than it would this new Mini, so, odds are, I'll be waiting for the next Mac Mini revision, if any.

Remember your scientific method

OK, time for a little sheepish admission of guilt. Last post, I castigated Nintendo for misleading error messages... which, it turns out, were likely actually right. But in the process, I found a new target for my ire: Sony.

It turns out that my spotty Wi-Fi connectivity with my Wii correlates nicely with the powered-up status of my PS3, which sits about 6" below the Wii. If the PS3 is on, the Wii connects with no problems, otherwise there's no network joy to be had. I now suspect that the Wi-Fi antenna in the PS3 is left in a state that parasitizes the Wii's signal when the Wii is turned off. If true, the next experiment is simple enough... move the Wii further away from the PS3 and see what happens. Of course, that's a lot of work to go through to fix a problem that currently impacts me once a week, when I vainly check for new, worthwhile downloadable games for the Wii. Maybe when my play patterns change again...

Wii: a little *too* simple, sometimes

I understand the concept of Keep It Simple, Stupid... and consumer goods like the Wii are an excellent place to follow that dictum. What I don't care for, however, is when something is "simplified" so much that it obfuscates what's actually going on, in effect patting you on the head and saying "there there, don't worry your pretty little head about it".

I was trying to do my weekly review of Wii bits tonight (sadly, about all I'm using the Wii for these days, thanks to the PS3, with it's Pixeljunk Eden and Disgaea 3 and the like... but that's another story), when error messages start coming up about being unable to "connect to the Internet". Of course, I was able to prove that I could connect to the Internet just fine with my PC... what it should have said was something along the lines of "unable to connect to server(s)". It seems like a quibble on the surface, but it's more than that.

There are a very, very few people out there that lack the brain power or mental construct to be able to understand "technical" messages... rather, they don't bother to learn what they say, because they can almost always crib that knowledge off of somebody else (like a child or co-worker) when they need it, leaving their mind free to think on other things (or not...). However, just because people don't feel the need to understand, that doesn't mean that engineers and programmers should make those who want to understand unable to do so without consulting their local guru... and most of all, they shouldn't lie outright to their end users to cover up potential deficiencies with their own work. Even for a large company like Nintendo, servers can and will fail, or be overwhelmed by requests... even though, by odds, the problem is likely to be with the end-user, your errors shouldn't exclusively assume that any problems they encounter are their fault.

Movie o' the day: The Tale of Desperaux

Back when it was first coming out, the trailers didn't tell you much about this movie. All you could really gather was that it involved an uncommon talking mouse with delusions of chivalry. It was the right choice on the studio's part... the story involved is much more than that, spread among a number of characters, but the whole works best when you don't know the scope of the story at the beginning.

So, I'm not going to tell you much about it at all... but it is a nice little movie, and, unusually for things I write about, suitable for all ages that can stand to watch an entire movie all the way through (unless you're one of those people that thinks a mouse sticking a human with a sewing needle is too much of an "imitatable act"). If it's not already, I'm sure it will be out on DVD in short order... or, if you want the theater experience, it's still playing at the Garland.

Attachment to things

No, I'm not talking about the pretty toys in my life this time... this is more about the mundane objects, the ones that you use without a second thought, and never stop to consider what you would do without.

You see, I broke my comb today. Like many men, my sole concession to orderliness of hair is a small comb tucked in a pocket. In my case, I know I bought my comb back in 1988, through a store on the military base I was stationed on at the time. I know this because I actually had to stop and think... where on earth do you go to buy a comb?

Of course, that brings up the comb's longevity. I don't know if 20+ years of use is average or exceptional for such an item... but either way, I've been carrying that thing around with me for over half of my life. It accompanied me to several foreign ports of call, got used as a makeshift tool on a nuclear reactor, did its duty throughout college, and through all of my working civilian life until today. It's strange, but I almost felt sad that it had finally succumbed to use and time.

So, now I have a new comb (at a minimum, they sell at drugstores, hidden amongst the "girly" hair-care products). What future fun will it get to accompany me for?

Fun with consumer electronics

I don't seem to have much in the way of problems with setting up home electronics (I've even been referred to as a "machine empath" by friends), but I know that I'm not the norm in that respect. So, while I found this bit from the Onion chuckle-worthy, I'm sure some of you will just get a big kick out of it. Be forewarned, it contains more than a fair bit of colorful language... in fact, that's a fair bit of the point of the piece. Enjoy!

One week with the PlayStation 3

Yeah, I picked up a PlayStation 3 last week, in my never-ending quest for toys to entertain myself with... and I've had a Wii to play with for quite some time. There are a few differences that really struck me, and I thought I'd share:

• PS3 is prettier. Both the graphics it produces, and the shiny black case that contains it, are prettier out-of-the-box than the Wii. Of course, the Wii wasn't designed for high-performance graphics, and the Wii's case will probably stand the test of time better, but this is definitely a plus for the PS3.
• PS3 does Blu-Ray and streaming video. Yeah, I've heard that Wii might get a video channel someday... but PS3 has video now. Mind you, it's pricey compared to what you can get through a nice Roku Netflix box, but it's there. Side note: if anybody tells you you can't get good display characteristics out of a 1080p TV below 47", I will gladly call bullshit. My 32" does a very nice job with Blu-Ray movies... but then, I'm only watching from about 6' away - it's not size that matters, it's that ratio between screen size and viewing distance.
• Wii seems to be better thought-out. When you fire up your Wii, you're brought to a screen that just has the various channels that are installed and ready to go... all of the strange settings bits are quietly tucked away until you really want/need to go looking for them. PS3, on the other hand, has one monstrous menuing system, rife with settings tools, installer stubs, and the like. By installer stubs, by the way, I'm talking about icons indistinguishable from installed programs that fire off a download/install program when you click on them, which is rather annoying in some cases... for instance, the photo library program has an icon sitting there, but nothing will tell you that you need to install that program before you use it until you actually click on that icon. Downloadable content is similarly kludgy on PS3... where, on the Wii, your game is playable as soon as the download completes, the PS3 requires you to install programs you download... and with some of the demos I downloaded approaching 1GB, another several minutes of the console locked up while installing your program after a half-hour or more of download time is a bit grating. Wii's definitely got PS3 beat here.
• Wii has a low-power mode. Once the Wii is set up, it can stay connected even when it's "off", to update news and weather info, among other things. PS3 has to stay on at full power to do things like download game demos in the background... it does have a "turn off after downloads complete" option, but when I tried that, something went awry with the downloads, so the machine stayed on all night at full power.
  

So, in a perfect world, I'd love to have a machine with the PS3's power run with the elegant simplicity of the Wii's interface... but I still like both machines well enough as-is.

Nothing's ever easy...

Wow... you would think, in this day and age, that a month's lead-time would suffice for moving communications services from one site to another. Not so much, it turns out... at least, if Qwest is involved.

My company is consolidating office space, and closing out an office in the process. We notified our provider, Time Warner Telecom (TWTC), that we wanted to move services on 30DEC08. Great, they said, but the physical lines for that service are handled by Qwest, so it'll be about 30 days before we can do it. Finally, TWTC set a date of 02FEB09 for the move.

Admittedly, I don't know exactly what's involved on Qwest's end for this process. What I do know is that they came by on Tuesday this week to do some installation work, had problems, and said they would be back on Wednesday. They came back today (Friday), played around a bit, and told me at 3pm this afternoon that one of the two T-1 lines we ordered is still having problems, nothing they can do, sorry, etc., etc...

I finally had no choice but to pick up the dreaded phone and call the TWTC people, and let them know what Qwest hadn't yet... I'm being told that, with one line, we should get some of our phone lines, and Internet access with reduced speed, but something functional, at least. I certainly hope so... but I'm definitely not getting the "warm fuzzy" about this whole thing right now.

Anonymity returns

I had some downtime at work today, so I tried Googling up 'delRhode'... in times past, it came up with two, maybe three pages devoted almost solely to the doings of yours truly. Now, if you try that, you get page upon page of Spanish-language references to things having to do with Rhode Island... it's good to be hard to find... :)

Scavenging at Circuit City

Like many people in Spokane (and, honestly, the world over), there are stores that I just don't go to (generally because there's a similar one that I like better), until one of two things happen... either the disfavored store has something that I just can't find elsewhere, or it's going out of business, and I'm looking to scavenge the remains. Circuit City has now fallen into both categories.

Of course, Spokane has two Cirucuit City stores, which brought up the question of which one to go visit... and, as a proper scavenger, my answer was "both". It's as well that I made that choice... it helped remind me that, for all that stores can be the same in many ways, there are always differences.

The first store is about a half-mile from where I work, and is part of a major shopping mall complex. I hit in the late afternoon, and it was, as expected, a madhouse. I dutifully made the rounds in that store and determined that, yes, there was not much left that held any interest for me... there were a couple of XBox 360 "elite" packages left around, but 10% off wasn't enough to "seal the deal" for me, because of the extras I would have to buy to get what I want out of it.

The second store is on the far side of town, tucked away in a shared driveway with a local Costco. It only took me about a half-hour to get there from the other one, but the difference was really night and day... for all that their miniscule parking lot was packed, the mass of humanity inside was much less. They still had a couple of PlayStation 3 consoles around, possibly because of their odd placement (not quite "with" the other videogame stuff)... but, again, 10% off wasn't enough to pull the trigger on a purchase (I can get a similar price through Amazon.com through the end of the month, at least).

So, no new videogame systems for me yet... as for anything else, well... they did have some PlayStation 2s at each store, but I've got one of those lying around already. There were some "upconverting" DVD players at both... which I couldn't justify buying, since my old DVD player does a pretty good job as is. There were, of course, the Blu-ray players... which are both too pricey, and something I might not need at all, if I end up getting a PS3. So, round one of the scavenge comes up empty... we'll have to see what's left by the time round two comes around.

WANT

Wow, and here I thought I had somehow "gotten beyond" lusting after computer gear. The people who got the whole "netbook" thing rolling showed another great idea at CES... why not pack a whole computer inside a keyboard, with a wireless HDMI connection back to your TV for audio and video? I mean, that's been the big sticking point for me putting a computer in the living room, really... you have to have a (more or less noisy) box tethered to the set, and then some sort of wireless connection to a keyboard/mouse combo that you have to store somewhere, with batteries occasionally dying, that sort of thing. Here, it's all in one package, the only "required" tether being power to the wall, but with plenty of connection jacks if you need to plug in, say, that portable flash drive with the movie you want to watch.

Take a quick look at it here. Of course, it hasn't been released yet, so there's no pricing info, or bothersome system specs to make me go "that's all it has?", but I hope to hear more soon... it is a pretty toy, and well thought-out, from what I can see, and that's plenty to give me a big ol' case of WANT.

Now THAT is geeky!

People never cease to amaze me in how they find ways to go that little bit farther, taking something good on its own and enhancing or breaking it, depending on your point of view. I mean, never in my wildest dreams would I have considered playing the vocals part in Rock Band 2 by putting the microphone in a pair of headphones driven by a theremin (link). As an added bonus, it's that "Still Alive" song from Portal I just posted about recently... :)