Rock Band

The Ron Paul Phenomenon on PBS

The PBS show, NOW, is doing an episode about Ron Paul's campaign this week. The preview looks very interesting. It is supposed to air on the 14th which is just a couple of days before the next big fundraiser.

My Xbox 360 Repair Experience

Two days before Halo 3 came out, my 360 died with the infamous 3 rings of death failure. I immediately put in a repair request on xbox.com. This was during the weekend so I knew it would be a few days before I got a box to return it in.

Microsoft shipped me a box to return it on that arrived on Tuesday. I shipped it back on Wednesday, and it arrived at the repair center on Friday. By Sunday night, they had shipped it back out to me.

I got the box back last night (Tuesday). 11 days from failure to return including 4 weekend days. Not nearly as bad as I expected.

It looks like they sent my original 360 back to me so I guess they repaired it. It booted up right away, but it did lock up almost immediately in Halo 3. It wasn't the same failure so I guess I'll just see what happens. Since that first lock-up, I haven't seen any more failures.

Halo 3 Spoilers on Gizmodo

I was slightly amused a few days ago when Brian Lam posted a video on Gizmodo to show off the Halo 3 promotional items (swag) that Microsoft had sent him. He haphazardly tossed the items around as he went through them.

Apparently, there were enough responses to the first video for Brian to create a second so-called apology video where he ends up throwing all the swag out of a window. To top it off, he finishes up by spoiling the end of Halo 3. Thanks, Brian.

Gizmodo was pretty much redundant for me since I also read Engadget. So long, Gizmodo. I hope Microsoft no longer bothers you with all that annoying free stuff.

Masters of Science Fiction

Do television network executives get bonuses for each incompetent decision they make? Apparently, ABC's entertainment president, Stephen McPherson, didn't like the Masters of Science Fiction miniseries they produced so they've delayed it, cut down the number of episodes they are showing, and not even bothering to promote it.

Let me get this straight. ABC is showing a miniseries of one-shot episodes based on stories by Robert Heinlein, Harlan Ellison, and a teleplay by J. Michael Straczynski, and the first time I hear about it is after the first episode has been shown! Keep up the good work, ABC.

Moving email to Google

I've switched over to using Google for our mail service. You're going to have to contact me to get your temporary password. Email me or give me a call.

You can use the Webmail link on the right to login.

IBM Lost Tapes with Employment Information on Them

A few days ago, I got a letter from IBM saying that they lost some backup tapes with employment information on them including Social Security numbers. I'm sure glad they held onto my information for the few months I worked for them ten years ago. The best part is that they say the loss occurred in February, but they are only just now contacting people about it.

Interestingly, I have seen very little media coverage of this. Maybe the scale of the loss wasn't too large or the media is sick of covering stories like these.

Here are a few links of other people discussing these letters:

http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/ msg07622.html
http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/4475

Iowans for Tax Relief exclude Ron Paul from presidential candidates forum

Two days ago, a post on the Ron Paul 2008 blog indicated that Dr. Paul was being intentionally excluded from a forum of presidential candidates sponsored by Iowans for Tax Relief. The absurdity of excluding Dr. Paul by a group that supposedly wants lower taxes is astounding.

Thomas Wood at lewrockwell.com contacted Ed Failor, an officer of Iowans for Tax Relief, to find out if this was true and was given some story about the candidates list being set a long time ago and that can't be changed. Yeah, right.

Ken Snyder, chairman of Ron Paul's campaign, was interviewed on WHO News Radio 1040 in Des Moines yesterday and Ed Failor called in to. Unfortunately, Ed Failor sounds too personally insulted by the whole ordeal to see the larger picture that Dr. Paul should be included in the forum.

Amazon's "Your Media Library" Sucks

Since I had a $15 credit from one of Amazon's Unbox promotions, I purchased season 1 of Arrested Development with the intention of downloading them to my TiVo to watch. Unfortunately, to download shows to your TiVo, you have to deal with Amazon's "Your Media Library".

To start off with, the interface is full of slow scripting which grinds to a halt on my laptop as I'm scrolling down through my list of shows. Next, there is no sane way to sort episodes of a season of shows to keep track of which one you want to download next.

The two sorting options are "date aquired" and "title". "Date aquired" seems to have no bearing on reality when you purchase a whole season of a show. The shows just appear in seemingly random order (the first four episodes in my list are 1, 3, 7, and 22). "Title" just keys off the actual title of the episode so it is equivalently useless.

I hope Amazon does something to improve this mess soon.

Ron Paul on Colbert Report tonight

According to Ron Paul's campaign blog, he will be on the Colbert Report tonight.



read more | digg story

Ron Paul will be on The Daily Show tonight!

Just saw a mention on Digg that Ron Paul will be on the Daily Show tonight. Make sure to check it out.



read more | digg story

Sub-albums in Picasa Web Albums

With the move from Wordpress to Blogger, I'd also like to move from Gallery2 to Picasa Web Albums. However, you can't have sub-albums on Picasa which makes organizing Anna photos very difficult. On Gallery2, we have many age-based sub-albums.

I have found a suggestion page where you can choose from a list of common suggestions including sub-albums.

Moving to Blogger

I'm working on migrating from my Wordpress blog to Blogger. We'll see how it goes.

Let's get Ron Paul on the Daily Show!

Digg has a story up to get Ron Paul on the Daily Show

The mainstream media is hiding Ron Paul and Mike Gravel from America. Diggers, we need to get Ron Paul onto the Daily Show. Digg this up and maybe Comedy Central will listen. Even if you don't agree with Paul, at least he lends hope for a better future. Digg, don't let the media stifle us now.

read more | digg story

The Diamond Age mini-series!

Apparently, Mark Burnett and George Clooney are going to be producing a mini-series based on Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age. Stephenson himself is going to be writing the adaptation. Mark Burnett's involvement confuses me a little, but I enjoy most things that Clooney is involved in. With Stephenson writing, I think this has a chance of living up to the book.

HTPC on order

While I'm still trying to figure out which HDTV to get, I've decided to go ahead and assemble a home theater PC (HTPC). I'm hoping to be able to display a full 1080p (1920x1080) image to whichever set I end up getting.

For DVR software, I plan on giving MythTV another try. My last attempt at a MythTV-powered HTPC sputtered out due to what I now believe to be a crappy SATA controller card.

Here are the components I'm going to be using:

Enclosure - Silverstone LC-17

Silverstone makes a range of home theaterish PC enclosures. The LC17 is at the lower end of their offerings since it doesn't have any sort of display built into it, but it will fit a full ATX motherboard.

Processor - Athlon 64 X2 3800+

This isn't the fastest part, but I don't want too much heat output since I want to keep this case as quiet as possible. Hopefully, having two cores will help with being able to watch a show while transcoding another.

RAM - Corsair ValueSelect DDR2-667 2GB

Corsair has always performed for me in the past so I just went with them again.

Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-57SLI-S4

For motherboards and video cards, I try to only buy Gigabyte or Asus these days since I've been burnt by almost every other manufacturer I've tried. I was going to get the Asus non-SLI nForce 570 board, but it didn't have Firewire so I went with this board instead.

Video Card - Gigabyte GV-NX76G256D-RH

The 7600GS seemed like a good middle of the road performance video card, and this card has a passive cooling solution so it should work well in an HTPC environment.

DVD Burner - Liteon LH-20A1H-185

Liteon always seems to have a good selection of cheap DVD burners. I considered buying a Plextor, but I saw a lot reliability problems in the reviews I read.

Power Supply - Seasonic S12-380

I've read a lot of good things about Seasonic power supplies being dependable and quiet so I decided to give one a try.

Hard Drives - 2x 250GB SATA

For the HTPC I attempted last year, I bought a few 250GB SATA drives. I plan on using two of them in a RAID 1 configuration for this HTPC.