50 Worst Inventions

I don't know why I like reading these but it's fun to remember the flops throughout history...

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1991915_1991909_1991902,00.html

Stepping off the TV "grid" - post-update (#4)

Just thought DirecTV users (and maybe other services are like this too) would want to know this one.

Apparently, once your service has been terminated (and the receivers run the next nightly update), you can no longer watch any shows you had recorded on your DVR(s). I'm sure this is in their terms of service, and they explicitly make the "DVR Service" a separate line item on your bill...still, it seems kind of dumb that they wouldn't let you still watch pre-recorded shows until you have to send back the receivers. Especially given that they told me that they'd send me return boxes within 7 days and then I'd have another 7 days to return them - so at most I would have had 14 days or less.

I was kind of expecting that this might happen, and I did watch everything I really wanted to watch already, but there were a few things left on there that I probably would have watched over the weekend before resetting the receivers. I guess it's kind of surprising because now I have been left with a bad taste in my mouth, whereas yesterday I was actually quite pleased that they were very thorough and professional on the cancellation process.

Also, just as a privacy thing, it is always best to do a full reset/erase of everything on any electronic device (if possible) before returning it or sending it in - whether it be a receiver, iPod, phone, etc. so that no personal data is accidentally left on them. You only need to read Slashdot for a few days to see how important this is :)

Facebook privacy settings

For people who use Facebook, you may have noticed or read that their privacy settings are getting progressively "worse" (at least by default) - they're starting to share a lot more information with third party stuff.

A general rule about anything on the internet is to know that anything you put out there has the potential to be seen by anyone, and once it's out there, it's out there and can never really be taken back. If you treat all sites that way, you'll probably stay out of trouble.

That being said, many people use Facebook a lot, and Slashdot has provided some tips and open source software links for automatically setting your privacy settings to their maximum levels.

More $-saving

My good friend Shelley publishes a blog on being debt-free and money-saving, which has inspired me to think more along these lines. I'm definitely not "frugal" but I also like the idea of getting more value for what I'm spending money on.

Besides the $100/month I'll be saving without DirecTV, yesterday I added my mom's cell phone to our existing family plan. Sprint actually encourages people to do this, up to 5 phones on one account, and with our setup, everything is shared (unlimited texting, data, etc.). For my mom, it's $30/month savings from having her own account.

So something to consider - I've know some couples who pool accounts with their friends to save money and split the cost, if you can work out the details it's definitely a good cost saver.

And...this week I will be paying off my car. This is huge for me, because I've never had a paid-off car in the nearly 14 years I've been working. Because of circumstances and my affinity for buying new stuff, this car is actually my 4th in 14 years - 3 new pickups and the Saturn Vue, all of them have been new, and 2 of them have been leased. Probably not the best choice money-wise...then again, I enjoyed them a lot when I had them :)

Stepping off the TV "grid" - update #3

Well, patience, when it comes to electronics and things of that nature, has never been my strong suit (I am very patient about other things, but as my parents will probably attest to, there are certain things that, once started, I have a one-track mind on).

As the last paragraph may have suggested, I cancelled my DirecTV service this morning. This was prompted by 1) using the previously described Windows Media Center setup for a couple of days, and it works perfectly (and I didn't realize how much I was missing without HD locals!) and 2) the fact that last night I figured out that Windows 7 has a built-in UPnP server and transcodes/streams the recorded TV to any UPnP capable device, not just MS Media Extenders. I think this is new with Windows 7 - Microsoft is finally figuring out it's to their advantage to interoperate with stuff (this actually makes me GLAD I have Windows for the first time in like forever). I also took a look at how much stuff was on the DVR that we will NEVER watch (we don't even have time to watch the 3 or 4 new shows we keep up with).

I still have/had no complaints or problems with DirecTV. If my hobby wasn't computers and media devices, DirecTV would still be the best choice I believe when compared with Dish, Cable, etc. But I don't think in the long run any of them will be relevant compared with the internet's media capability and flexibility.

I was a tiny bit disappointed that they didn't try harder to keep me - I have been a customer for 6 years and am the kind of customer they want. They offered to take $27 off my bill every month without even extending my contract, but that's still about $70/month, not enough to compete with "free" (yes I know it's not "free" but it's free for me given all the investment I would have made anyway in equipment and internet service).

So...at midnight tonight, I will be "disconnected" for the first time in 14 years, since college when I didn't have cable.

Am still evaluating whether or not I need to upgrade my internet connection speed. Given that I'm getting some of this off the air and not over the internet, it might not be necessary now.

Down one mower

I just sold my old 11-year-old Craftsman mower that has one of the self-propel drive wheels not working, for $25. I now have $25 and more garage space...I call this a win-win :)

Madame Sparkles showed her excitement by laying on the floor and demanding petting.

Jane Lynch is awesome

We all love her on "Glee" already, but I've been reading up on what she does outside of her career, and this in particular was pretty neat - I don't agree with some of PETA's methods, but the basic message here is still a good one.

Stepping off the TV "grid" - update #2

(I did get outside and enjoy the wonderful weather every day this weekend, just so it doesn't sound like I spent all my time inside doing the following :)

Since my last post, I bought a Hauppauge HVR-1600 ATSC/QAM/NTSC capture card, and spoke with a friend who has been using MythTV for a couple of years, and he gave me some tips, including mythbuntu.org to get a customized Ubuntu distribution for Myth. My initial attempts at using the card with Linux were not great - after reading some forums, I tried out using some different firmware, using a modified Linux kernel, and updating some drivers. Installing the Mythbuntu distribution helped some, but I still couldn't get video that wasn't choppy and pixelated.

On Saturday though, all my plans got changed, because one of the other 5 computer's in my house (Erin's) crashed. After some quick triage, I was fairly certain I knew what the problem was - there was a generation of motherboards that had a motherboard "chip" which apparently offloaded some of the basic motherboard duties to hardware. The problem with the ones I've encountered (and read about) is that the small fans they put on these chips are very cheap and crappy and tend to go out easily. Usually, if your case has proper cooling and ventilation, you don't really need the little chip fan, but eventually something happens and the chip overheats and dies. Thus a perfectly good motherboard in all other respects is now completely worthless (thanks ASUS). Fortunately, the "spare" machine I had been doing all the MythTV messing around on had a motherboard with the same processor socket. It took a fair amount of Saturday to get everything all taken apart and put back together (including a Windows 7 re-install and all the apps) but everybody's computers are happy again. And, one of the funniest/weirdest things is that the 6-year-old motherboard/processor that I "retired" is now "un-retired" to be the backup server again...but I digress...

Back to the media stuff...I decided that without a spare computer, the next best option was to put the Hauppauge card in my super-power i7 desktop since it has more than enough power to handle recording a show and still being my desktop machine. So after cleaning up the mess from all the computer re-organizing, I put in the card and installed the software. The card definitely works better on Windows (usually the case with newer stuff). Windows Media Center did a channel scan and found all my channels, downloaded guide data, and I added all the shows I wanted to record. It says I have 43 hours of HD capacity, which should probably be good enough for now.

I tried watching from another of the Windows 7 machines and it seems to work quite easily once you add the primary machine's video directory to your media list.

A couple of downsides of using Media Center...one is that doesn't seem to let you use network drives as storage - for me that's bad because there's a lot more storage on the server. I have read about some hacks which allow you to get around this, but it seems dumb that they only allow local storage by default. Another (for me anyway) is that it seems fairly incompatible with anything else - you can use Microsoft media extenders like an XBox or other Windows machines to watch content, but it does not have a UPnP server or something that would extend universally to other clients (like my PS3).

Another advantage of having the capture card installed on my machine is that it can also take in other audio/video inputs, so I hooked it up to my VCR - I still have several tapes that I have not converted to digital, and the tapes have gotten degraded enough where some of the other methods I've tried to capture the video have not worked well. I tried one portion of a tape I know was among the oldest, and while the quality isn't perfect, it is good enough to watch - the sound and video all lined up and there was no choppiness. So I may be finally finishing that project.

Next on the list to try is Boxee - my friend Eric showed this to me on Saturday. It is a front-end TV "aggregator" of sorts - keeps track of finding content on the internet and in your media library. Does not appear to hook up directly with WMC, but has lots of other great features.

Random coolness of the day

I have a lot of experience with music notation programs over the years, and I find this to be incredibly cool:

http://0xfe.blogspot.com/2010/05/music-notation-with-html5-canvas.html

Completely web-based, written in javascript, nothing to install.

Also, another much smaller coolness of the morning - all those long hours of memorizing state capitals in grade school won me $.10 off my coffee at Caribou this morning as I correctly identified the capitol of New York as Albany. :)

Stepping off the TV "grid" - update #1

I thought it might be fun to document my progress in my quest for being completely off of the pay TV "grid" as described in my previous entry.

The experiment of keeping track of what we watch from the satellite is going well so far - in 7 days it's all been shows from the main networks, and all the shows are available online either on the network's own website or on Hulu. A few shows (FOX ones) are available online 8 days after they're released, but I don't know if that's a big deal given that right now we frequently watch shows weeks after they actually get broadcast.

On the hardware side, I have been researching capture cards that support ATSC (digital over-the-air) and clear QAM (unencrypted digital cable) signals. I've found there are only a couple of major brands, and will probably go with a Hauppague brand - they seem to have the best reviews, and support their products well. I was surprised to find that all cards still have NTSC analog tuners on them as well - I suppose many people still have analog cable signals. I don't really need that, and wish there were cards that just had dual-tuner ATSC so I could capture two shows at once, but the cards aren't that expensive, if I decide I need two I will just get another one.

On the software side, I spent some time after work today reading about MythTV to see if it is a viable option. It's often hard to read documentation and really get a feel for what a program does, and documentation for open source stuff is frequently out of date with the updated software, so I just installed dual-boot Ubuntu on my backup Windows machine and installed the MythTV package that comes with Ubuntu. All I can say is WOW. With a little help from the Ubuntu section of Myth's startup documentation, I was up and running in minutes. I don't actually have a capture card yet, but I was able to configure everything else and try out the user interface. Myth comes in two parts - the front end that you actually use to navigate and watch shows, and the backend which does all the heavy lifting of databasing, organizing, recording, etc. You can have one backend and as many frontends as you want that connect to it, or you can even have multiple backends to distribute the load of recording to multiple machines (in my case this won't be a heavy load of recording so one will be plenty).

But the features I was most impressed with weren't in the documentation, or were vaguely mentioned. I was worried that it would be hard to watch stuff on my Windows machines, since at best they have a partially functioning Windows front-end. As it turns out, some of the backend plugins work seamlessly with Windows Media Center software, which now comes with Windows 7. I was also concerned that my media "play-only" devices like the PS3 and the DLink media player would have no way out of the box to get to the recorded videos and that I'd have to somehow set up another UPnP server to accomplish this and have scripts to rename the files, etc. Wrong and wrong - right out of the box MythTV installs and runs its own UPnP server and has mappings for "by show", "by date", "by genre" and like 3 others. I went up and fired up the PS3 and it was all there. Awesome.

I'm having a hard time not just calling DirecTV and canceling right now :) But I will get this all working and make sure it does what I need for at least a month before I do that.

More to come...

The Worst

Thanks to friend Trevor for this one:

25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

http://www.pcworld.com/article/125772-2/the_25_worst_tech_products_of_all_time.html

I would agree with most of them. I would actually rank the Sony BMG CD's as #1 - Sony has a history of blatantly thinking that they should be able to control and take over whatever device you're using their stuff on, and installing a rootkit on a PC is just plain criminal to me.

Cutting the "cord"

Have been reading some articles lately about a growing trend of people moving off the traditional "TV grid" (cable or satellite) to a combination of over-the-air broadcast TV and all the "free" TV available on the internet. I have some friends who have recently done this with pretty good success.

Yesterday I got my DirecTV bill and it was just over $100 after the last increase (3 receivers, the highest non-premium package, HD and DVR access). Somehow seeing the 3-digit bill was enough to make me really start thinking about doing this. Short of giving up TV completely (another idea that might have some merit), to make this feasibly work you would need:

- an antenna (something I don't have yet, but initial research shows good ones can be purchased for $50 or so)
- a broadband internet connection (which I already have and need for other reasons and is probably the future of everything anyway and worth investing in
- a "connected" house (wireless or wired - I have cat5e wiring to every room and gigabit switches)
- PCs or media-capable devices for each TV (two TVs have their own PC, one has a PS3 which is an amazing media capable device)
- a server/servers with UPnP capability (not all that necessary if you are using PCs, but useful if you're using something like a PS3, or a DLNA-capable TV)
- a computer with an ATSC tuner to function as a DVR (e.g. MythTV, Windows Media Center) - not required but nice to have if you want DVR functionality

Basically I already have everything except the antenna, and anything with an ATSC tuner, so this wouldn't be a great cost to me to get going. I did decide I'd probably pay some more money for a faster internet connection, since the connection will get more heavily used, and since everything internet-capable gets benefited from this.

Up sides:

- $100/month savings
- "investing" in what will probably be the future of TV/media with the internet

Down sides and considerations:

- Not every network/channel posts their shows online
- ESPN and sports channels not as available (ESPN3 does broadcast live streaming of many events)
- Will probably have to watch more commercials (for sure on live TV, most streamed media have at least some small amount of ads)
- May want to make more use of PPV options like Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, etc. to "fill in the gaps"

At least on paper, it seems like for $100/month savings, you could upgrade your internet connection, buy more movies, get more PPVs, etc. and still come out ahead.

The plan is to write down everything we watch for 2 months and see how much we actually use DirecTV (and note which things we can watch online). I also have to decide what I'm going to do if they try to offer me deals to keep me as a customer if I quit :)

I should note that I'm not unhappy with DirecTV - in fact I like DirecTV a lot. They have provided a valuable service to people out of range of cable, and have been the only force that stands in front of cable having an insane monopoly. I think it's unfortunate that they're tied to a model (as is cable) where they have to pay for each channel they broadcast, per number of users that subscribe, which is a dumb model because in reality, most people probably watch just a handful of the 200+ channels they receive. I also believe that cable and satellite, while good technologies, are inflexible when looking to the future of media. A good example of this was the switch to HD programming - it was a gargantuan effort, which required new receivers and dishes for everyone, the launch of 3 or 4 new satellites to accommodate the bandwidth, and several years to complete. The internet as a medium of transport, by comparison, is very "neutral" - everything is just transmission of data, the software on each end is infinitely flexible and upgradable.

Had to share these...

Thanks to Carol Boltz's blog for the link to this one (Carol is the ex-wife of the famous Christian singer Ray Boltz - I love reading her blog because it's so from-the-heart and personal in the things she talks about)

Anyway, the main link I wanted to share is a series of interviews on youtube with Michael Bussee, the original founder of Exodus International (in the 70s). Exodus International is an umbrella organization for some of the largest "ex-gay" ministries in the world. The reason I wanted to share these is because Michael Bussee is now one of the most vocal opponents of "ex-gay" and "reparative" therapy. Michael explains very honestly and plainly how he never saw anyone who actually changed and became heterosexual, and how much of the organization was based on wanting to make money or wield political power. (Michael and the other co-founder of Exodus ended up becoming life partners after realizing that these programs weren't actually changing people and actually doing harm).

I've read dozens of books and studies on this topic. The topic brings up all sorts of feelings for me. I am angry because it's another way that people are using Christianity, something I believe in and hold dear, to justify hatred, violence, and as a way to make money and garner political power. I am sad when I think of all the kids whose parents have forced them to go through things like this (I have a friend who is 21 whose mom made him go to this sort of therapy just 3 years ago - this kind of thing is it's still going on). And I don't know if I can articulate an exact emotion to apply to my feeling about how many people grow up believing they are going to hell, are a bad or evil person, and can't be a good Christian because they're gay.

Mainly though, this topic hits home because of the one experience I've ever had with a professional counselor. Early in 2004, I had gotten to a very stressed and anxious point in my life, to the point where I was making myself physically sick and tired with worry and anxiety about my sexual orientation. At that point I really had no one to talk to in my real circle of life (or at least I thought I didn't) and decided maybe it would help to just talk to a counselor would be objective, listen, and wasn't a part of my regular life. I spent the first half hour just trying to get comfortable just saying this stuff out loud, and the next 45 minutes telling my story, nervously clutching the bottle of water he had given me when we started. Going in, I was actually worried that this counselor would try and tell me that I was ok, that there's nothing wrong with being gay - what I'd heard and read was how most of these counselors were "liberal" and many do not subscribe to the ideas of faith or religion, and I was wary of that. After I finished my story, he told me, in a very authoritative sounding way that "we know that gay people are just damaged, that somewhere in there life they were damaged" and that I needed to work with a psychiatrist to figure out where the "damage" in my life was and start attending one of the ex-gay therapies. He handed me a brochure about Exodus International. I was so floored at that point I didn't even know what to say. I finally managed to fumble out something like "I don't think I was damaged. I don't feel damaged. I had wonderful, supportive parents and family, scores of wonderful role models growing up, was never abused" etc. etc. He came back with "well there HAS to be something" and said I really needed to look into Exodus to figure out what it was before I damaged myself even more.

I was fortunate that my problem wasn't low self-esteem or confidence, because if it had been, I probably would have bought completely into what he said, and I suspect that many people do buy into this stuff, because they're hearing exactly what they already believe - that they're damaged, that there's something wrong with them, that they need to be cured. You add in the religious aspect

For me, that experience was actually a turning point of sorts, because it forced me to start thinking about all of this more logically and not as emotionally. Once I thought through the fact that I really was NOT "damaged" (and that it wasn't just denial), I started spending my energy doing more constructive things like reading, educating myself, talking to people, etc. I don't want to make that sound like it was easy. It took 2+ more years and the blessing of some wonderful friends before I woke up one morning in 2006 and, for the first time in a few years, thought "everything is going to be alright". But that's another story for another day.

I'll say one other thing about Exodus International. They are an umbrella organization for a very disparate set of smaller organizations, none of which are held to any particular standard, set of rules, or governing body, and in many cases don't even have a lot in common with each other, other than the "ex-gay" label. None of these organizations are licensed or have licensed medical professionals or staff, and none of them do research into their methods, document the results and follow-up to see whether any of their "patients" actually sustained any sort of change or not. Regardless of your beliefs on the topic, or whether or not "change" is actually possible, this organization does not inspire trust or credibility on any level.

Saturday

It's Saturday morning, I have a full cup of coffee (thank you Dunn Brothers Tanzania roast), and I'm feeling blog-ish.

Week 2 of my cast being off - almost all the wrist pain is gone now, but I am still working on range of motion. From what the doctor said it would take at least a month, maybe more before I am back to full strength.

Erin and I have been playing a lot of DDR (actually "StepMania", the PC version that lets you line up all the games into one) for exercise recently. DDR is really a neat game - I do a half hour of exercise before I even realize it's been a half hour. And even though you get a score on every song, it doesn't really matter in terms of exercise because a wrong step expends the same amount of energy as a right one. I love insanely happy Japanese techno (my friend and Japan aficionado Lisa informed me they call that "Hardcore Happy" because the songs are like happy on steroids and crack).

In home IT news, I just upgraded my server to Ubuntu Linux 10.04 (code named "Lucid Lynx"). So far pretty nice. I also finally go through the 13 days of drive checking on my two new 1.5 TB backup drives and am in the process of backing up the entire server. So for those keeping score, the server has two 2TB RAID-5 arrays which means I can lose two drives before losing any data, and if I had a catastrophic failure on that machine, the 3TB offline backup on the secondary server now has everything. Still working on that offsite backup...I also purchased a new Logitech MX Performance mouse to replace one of my 3 remaining (7-year-old, ailing) IBM mice that are no longer made. I may get another one for work, these are cordless, high battery life, micro-USB rechargeable, and overall just nice.

In work news, the product I work on, after a successful GA (General Availability) in March seems to be well-received, and we have more work than we really know what to do with now. I've also had the opportunity to do a little side project using the ARM-based processor architecture - ARM processors are used in many smart phones because they are so low-power. I am really fortunate to have a job that gives me the opportunity to do and learn so many new and interesting things. This is another interesting article on ARM processors in servers.

In other news - well there isn't a ton of other news, but I am back to playing saxophone now after my 6-week hiatus, and will try playing small handbells next Monday. The year is winding down for most groups with summer approaching. We (mostly Erin) have been getting the seedlings planted in the garden - with the early spring, we may get a really good crop, some things are already taking off. Got to test out my new Troy-Bilt lawn mower Monday - having the self-propel drive on the back wheels (vs. the front wheels on my old mower) is going to take some getting used to, but the mower works well and truly is a one-pull start as advertised.

Finally, one of my new year's resolutions for the year was to see the show "Wicked" and in August we're going to do just that - we got early release tickets (thank you IBM club) to the show at the Orpheum in Minneapolis. Erin and I are both very excited!

I'll again put in my plug for what I think are this year's two best new TV shows - "Glee" and "Modern Family" - if you missed out on these, I'm sure the DVDs will be out soon :) Also very disappointed with the "V" remake - Hollywood, please at least try to have a creative idea or two. Please?