Random Adam Sighting
I never watch MTV anymore. I sometimes watch MTV2, but if I’m going to watch a music channel I find myself on Much Music a lot. Last night after LFNY, I tagged along with Bree to have a drink with our friend Susan. At one point, we all looked at the tv to see Adam Curry in some show about the Headbangers Ball on MTV2. At least I think it was about the Headbangers Ball (there was no sound on the TV). This then led into a conversation of what people on the web have blogs.
Are you infected
This morning I got pointed at the human virus detector. I’m pretty hosed myself. Too bad they don’t offer anything to do a brain cleaning.
QOTD
Dan Rather. “An intellectual snob is someone who can listen to the William Tell Overture and not think of The Lone Ranger.”
LFNY
Wow. Once again Live From New York blew my mind. They are so good. I picked up a CD that was recorded at one of the last LFNY shows (I think it may have been the one I went to last).
QOTD
Mark Twain. “Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.”
Anti-Ecstasy Ads
The Partnership for a Drug Free America is gearing up for a new ad campaign, their latest target is Ecstasy. CNN had a blurp from AP about this which left me quite frustrated. The thing that irks me is that I’ve heard of very few people dying from taking MDMA. When the full reports come out it was usually that they were actually taking a mixture of substances, or they weren’t actually taking MDMA (just something they were told was MDMA), or they didn’t take care of themselves and do things like keep themselves hydrated.
I’m not saying that there are not risks associated with the use of it. There are, and it is not something for everyone. But I want to see more facts. What did the girl in the ad actually die from. Without giving more facts, the ad doesn’t do much beyond upsetting people and making them think ‘drugs are bad’ for no reason beyond ‘some girl died because she took ecstasy’. What I want to see is ads that give more facts. Don’t just tell people drugs are bad, tell them what they do to you. Tell them the dangers of them. Give some equal time to other drugs that are even bigger killers. How much do you want to bet that alcohol is responsible for many more deaths then Ecstasy.
Nifty new site feature
Last night I added some code to the site that I got from http://littlegreenfootballs.com/. Over on my right nav bar is a link to ‘Recent Referers’. My site now tracks the 30 most recent referers to my site. I’ve seen this on a few sites and finally got around to implimenting it on mine.
Rainy Sundays
It’s Sunday and it’s raining out, I’ve got some random Jazz stream from the net playing on my laptop, and I’ve got a craving for a cup of coffee. Days like this bring to mind this image I have in my head of my dream house. It’s in on an unpopulated lake (heh, hey, I said it was a dream!), I’m sitting out on the deck, drinking a cup of coffee, reading the paper and looking out over the lake. I’ve had this image for so long I’m not sure where it came from. Someday I hope to have something at least approximating it.
Home Computer Appliances
Warning, the following contains some of my geeky ramblings about things that have been rattling around in my head, feel free to skip. 🙂
My friend Chris mentioned to me that news of TiVo’s price increase had hit Reuters. I couldn’t find the article itself, but it got her and I onto the topic of network appliances again. So I was thinking about this last night as I was falling asleep.
Now I love being able to use my computer for lots of things, listening to music, watching movies, I even at one point wanted to be able to watch TV on it. But as time goes on, I find that it isn’t the best platform for all those things. It is like the phrase “Jack of all trades, master of none.” A computer is trying to be everything at once, a good stereo, a good tv, a good dvd player, etc. But, a computer has limitations. Even the fastest computer out there will have issues trying to do too many things at once.
The product that brought this into my head the most lately was WinDVR, which I mentioned a week or so ago. My friend Alan brought up some good points about some of the things it let you do, specificly archive shows to CD or share shows with friends. And as I was thinking about that, I suddenly realized the product’s biggest weakness. It had no way to talk with my cable box. I have digital cable and the TiVo gets around this by being able to send IR (remote control) signals to my cable box. This enable the TiVo to constantly be changing channels and recording shows I may want to watch. It becomes an extension of your TV/Cable.
This topic has also been kinda hot in my head because I just ordered an Audiotron this weekend. This is another product that does the same thing people have been doing with computers, but does it in a better way (IMHO). People have been running audio cables from their PC to their stereos for a while. The computer makes a perfectly good mp3 player. The problem is, it means you need the computer near your stereo. With the Audiotron, you just need a home network. It’ll play music that is shared out from any PC in your house, it will play audio streams from on the net, and it’s got a cool web interface for managing it. It also has a remote control for me to add to my growing collection.
These days, my biggest goal when I’m at home sitting on my couch watching TV and reading is not having to get up and go sit at the computer to do something. That’s one of the reasons I love my laptop. I can get things done anywhere. All of these products help me get to that point.
Oh, and I do think WinDVR is pretty cool regardless. It’s actually got me thinking of ways to use a computer as a kind of ‘dumb’ VCR/DVD burner for archiving things and it might be an interesting stepping stone on the way to achieving that.
Oh… and I’m an idiot
I thought the LFNY show I was going to was tonight. But it is TOMORROW night. I really need to start using my datebook.