Layla and I have tried out two IPTV services this weekend.Internet TV Beta in Windows Media Center is surprisingly cool. The beta opened up on Thursday to Vista Ultimate and Home Premium customers in the US, and everyone running those SKUs now magically have an "Internet TV" option on their...
The biennial emissions inspection for the 3 is due this year, so I got it checked last week before I reregistered the car. The 3 sports an old-skool OBD-I diagnostic port, which is largely useless besides being able to tell you that your OBD scanner tool is, in fact, attached...
I don't understand cup or dice stacking ... but damn is it cool....
The huge tires in the bed of this Ford Ranger make the bald passenger-car tires look teeny tiny. P.S. Someone needs to clean my windshield....
It's a late night. Cat pictures all around!...
Once again, I ask: someone please let me know if I'm missing some huge advancement in consumer power technology. But instead of big computer power supplies, I'm talking today about small wall-wart (I hate those words) consumer electronic chargers. I'm really disappointed with the lack of leadership in this space....
It's approximately 7:30 on a Monday evening. On three consecutive network channels, we've got Inside Edition, The Insider, and Access Hollywood. All three are celebrity gossip shows. Why the [expletive deleted] did I buy this antenna? P.S. Antiques Roadshow ... to the rescue?...
Somehow, these managed to grow in the back yard without Layla or I noticing, until today. The larger one is ~6" across....
Without getting into a huge discussion about it, I've found that traditionally, the loudest members of the clergy typically have more rhetoric and condemnation to spew than actual wisdom. I don't disagree that most of our leaders (religious and not) act this way, but I've always expected more from the...
We've finally got the Antennas Direct DB4 mounted in the attic with the feed line run through a new hole in the wall. A few observations.This antenna kicks ass. I'm running it through a standalone 16dB amplifier and the reception blows away the rabbit ears with the (ahem) 32dB built-in...
This is a raccoon. In our back yard. Lovely. P.S. I realize Ralph's pointy kitty is not a raccoon....
I have a remarkably difficult time thinking of the words "Earl Grey" without immediately thinking ... ", hot." Anyone else have this problem?...
I had heard once that being critical and contrary was characteristic of young men in their early 20s. Being a young man in my early 20s at the time, I immediately dismissed this as ill-informed and wrong. Now that I'm a little older, I'm inclined to believe it. I could...
That's right, folks: it only takes me 6 weeks to patch a [expletive deleted] hole I put in the ceiling. Before After Maybe I'll paint the ceiling eventually, too. Maybe....
Aren't there a lot of Asians in Russia?...
It seems I spend an awful lot of my time climbing into strange corners of my house and cutting things in half. Today's adventure involved the crawlspace and a few hundred feet of galvanized steel pipe. One of the previous owners had the entire plumbing system in this house pulled...
When I first saw the headline Inmates go on sausage 'temper tantrum', I should have guessed it took place in New Mexico. P.S. Fighting over sausages? You guys aren't helping your case much....
Once again, recycled bits. I ran across the Keepon once again in gadget news recently, and it's much too cute not to post....
Why, oh why, do you do things like this?...
Layla and Bonnie ran a 5k event this last Sunday, which means that I got to train with Layla for the week prior. And now that the event is over, I've found that I actually dig on running ~5k a few times each week. Running outside is far far better...
In installing ye olde antenna(e), I'm forced to tackle an issue I've been avoiding for quite a while: fishing cable down from the attic into an exterior wall. There are a handful of problems with this. Luckily, one of them isn't insulation—it appears our house is old enough that the...
Serendipity smiles tonight on both Layla and I, as we've been given last-minute opportunities to go the Muse show in Seattle tonight—Layla is going with Jeff and Bonnie Heather (coordinated through Bonnie and Jeff!), who happened to end up with a spare ticket, and I'm going with Manuel, who also...
So tonight I'm using Layla's Samsung Q1. I'm reminded how awesome this form factor is. But, you'll also notice how short this post is. Save me, HTC Shift. Or Q1 Ultra. Whatever. Anything with a keyboard....
Mouser's post about license plates reminded me about a wordy but nevertheless intensely interesting article about how the half-century-old Federal Highway Administration fonts (also known as Highway Gothic) and how they're finally being phased out in favor of something actually designed for highway signs. The only downside here is that...
There's this thing I've been working on lately1 that's been sucking up lots of my spare time and energy. It's a lot of work, but it's also a good time to be a developer. It also means I don't have a lot to post about. So here's a picture of...
Based on the recommendations of Mouser and Manuel, Layla and I have decided1 to go for a two-antenna solution. Half of this is a relatively inexpensive, powered VHF/UHF antenna for picking up the local old-school analog VHF stations. This thing is cheap and rabbit-ear-tastic, and has a huge glowing blue...
Apparently Samsung features a product called Wiselink, which allows their consumer electronics to read MP3 and JPEGs off of UFDs. Yes, Wiselink appears to be branding for "USB+FAT32." Anyway, I ran across this documentation for Wiselink that states that the recommended image size is ... "600 mega pixels." For you...
Today's what the hell? comment comes from an Autos Articulated review of the BMW 750i. Here's the comment, in case you can't click on hyperlinks (I dunno—maybe someone stupidly designed your mouse without buttons?) i would like to thank the board team of BMW company.... u guys are doing grate...
The thing about Forza Motorsport 2 is that the creators picked a reward interval that keeps me stringing along, even though I'm really getting sick of the game. Putting down Gran Turismo 2 was easy, for example, because the easy races were trivial and the hard races were so many...
I just added a reporting mechanism into my secret-sauce spam script, and I've found that over the last few days, 98.73% of all comments are being punted outright—and it's almost impossible to get a false positive in that count. Bonus....
I spotted this at Bonnie and Abigail's triathlon last weekend. My first thought was, "dammit, what would possess someone to put hideous rims like that on their promotional vehicle?" But now I've posted about it—corporate logo and all. Touché, bling rims....
I realize that rockin' the TV signals over the airwaves without intervention from cable, satellite, or IPTV feels like something of an anachronism, but please bear with me. Anyone have any idea what's up with the current menu of television antennae? I feel like it's the same old set of...
