Finding Your MAC Address: Nintendo Wii

First, start off in the Wii's Main Menu where all the various channels are displayed. In the lower left-hand corner is a round button labeled Wii. When you hover over it the tooltip is "Wii Options". Start by clicking that button.

Now you have two big options to choose from. Select the one on the right, Wii Settings.

In this next menu you'll start out with a tab at the top labeled Wii System Settings 1. There's also a series of three rounded rectangles numbered 1 through 3 at the bottom right-hand corner. You'll need to press a right-pointing arrow button that's on the right-hand center side of the screen. Now you're in the aptly named Wii System Settings 2 tab. Choose the Internet option.

At this point you only have three choices. Pick the middle one, Console Information. And there is you MAC Address. Its just a series of twelve hexidecimal characters where pairs of characters are seperated by dashes (unlike the colon seperators for the iPod Touch). You can safely ignore the LAN Adapter MAC Address so long as you're only interested in the Wi-Fi networking for the Wii. The first half of your MAC address should be "00-21-47".

Finding Your MAC Address: Apple iPod Touch

If your wireless network hub is set up with a MAC address filter/white list then you'll need to collect all the MAC addresses from your new toys in order to get them connected.

First up in this series on finding MAC addresses is the Apple iPod Touch because its near and dear to my heart.

From the Main Menu of the iPod you want to choose the Settings option. By default this will be in the bottom right-hand corner. The icon is a series of metal gears.

Choose the General option, which is the third from the top and at the top of a contiguous list of options.

Now, choose the About option. Scroll to the very bottom. The second to last item in the list is Wi-Fi Address, which is just the MAC address for the 802.11 network device. The value itself is a string of twelve hexidecimal characters with colons between each pair of characters. It looks something like: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx where "xx" are two hexidecimal characters. The first half of the string should actually be "00:22:41" because all Apple devices should start with the same substring!

Holiday Techno Toys

I'm sure a lot of people got some cool gear for the holidays. My personal experience over the past couple days has consisted of updating network configurations to allow these boxes out onto the Net. So I thought I'd publish a quick series of articles giving little pointers on how to speed things along. Enjoy!

Business Plan

I'm waiting at home for an installation and the questions occurs to me: how do service industries get away with only doing installations during normal business hours? Normal business hours are when everybody is doing business! If you're a service company that requires installations then you need to offer that service when its convenient to your customers. How hard would it be to require you installers to work second shift instead of first?

The Future of Libraries

I've become a big fan of my local public library despite its lack of selection. But whenever I walk in there I see all the dozen or so computers occupied and few people browsing the books. This brings up a conversation that I don't claim to be the originator of: What will the mission of libraries be in a world of changing media?

Libraries are no stranger to changing media. The only constant has been the printed book. But even that is starting to slip. The last twenty years has introduced changes in media that can only be described as revolutionary. Who now can remember micrographs?

Its not the mission of a library to keep printed books in vogue. Certainly they're aesthetically pleasing. But a library is there to disseminate knowledge. But they also can't be glorified, free Internet cafes. So the challenge of the modern library is how to balance these various factors while remaining flexible and open to new developments.

Calling All Nerds

I've picked up a recent fascination with name spaces, specifically constrained name spaces like country codes, language codes, XML and other programming languages. But I always wondered why all four-letter TV and radio station identifiers started with either a "W" or a "K" like WKRP or KQED. Turns out that broadcast stations could begin with any letter of the alphabet but certain ranges were allocated to certain countries. For instance, the U.S. gets all sequences starting with "W" but only a subset of all sequences beginning with "K".

Trailerpark Training

Last night at a BW3's I saw a couple of kids playing one of this touch screen video consoles at their table. This wouldn't be remarkable but the game they were playing was beer pong against cartoon pirates. I mean, really? Is this something that 7 year-olds need to be practicing?

До свидания, Америка

Apparently a learned Russian scholar was quoted as saying that the current financial turmoil will cause the United States to split into several pieces. I can't say I'm terribly worried. This is after all coming from someone who has a degree in political science in a country that can't let its people actually vote. Russia seems to excel in the area of the Potemkin vote.

Art Deco-Inspired

Recently I've develop a strong interest in art deco architecture and style. Specifically I dig the streamline moderne style. One weekend I spent in New York I hoofed dozens of blocks to see some of the classic architecture.

• Road to Perdition - Depression-era gangster flick set in the Midwest around the Chicago area.
  
• Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - An alternate history direct from a pulp magazine full of 1940s style.
  
• The Thirteenth Floor - Half the movie is set in "modern" times and half of it in a simulation of 1930s Los Angeles.
  
• Indiana Jones - Set in the 30s and 40s it features a lot of iconic objects like the Boeing 314 Clipper.
• Gattaca - Actually set in the future but with a retro styling completely reminiscent of art deco.
  
• Bioshock - Not really a movie but this video game is almost one in its own right. Set in a 1960s submarine city that was straight out of the 1940s.
  
• Crimson Skies - Also not a movie, but this game exists in a dystopian alternate history where rigid airships ply the skies with other 1940s aircraft.
  

A Born Leader

I've never understood the saying, "To lead a good life." As if somehow life is something that can be lead around by the nose. It seems to me that life is something that is inflicted upon us.

I'm going for "deep" here and not "emo".

Ballot Time

It's almost election time in the United States! But even some people in the USA don't realize that you're voting on more than just a couple of offices. Usually you have several ballot items concerning state, county, or local referendums. Some states just put on the ballot helpful bits like: "Do you vote for or against proposition 427?" What does that mean?! Well now you can find out using Ballotopedia! Its a great site and now I know all about the ballot items I'll be seeing. Granted, I'm still going to vote no on all of them, but at least I know!

ACORN Voter Fraud

Recently there were revelations of voter registration fraud by a group called Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The irony is that just in the last year I got a home mortgage for low-income families through an ACORN program.

While sitting in one of the ACORN office, waiting to do our financial review, I noticed a lot of different things posted on the walls. One was a piece of paper identifying the daily voter registration quotas. Now, I didn't see anything that said to fake registrations if you can't get them otherwise, but it does occur to me that setting hard quotas for something like voter registration does put a lot of pressure on the actual workers who are pounding the streets. This doesn't spell out impropriety, but it does concern me.

More Mail Scams

I got a nice postcard in the mail today. It came from:

Dealership Warranties
12131 Dorsett Rd., #106
Maryland Heights, MO 63043

It had "VEHICLE SERVICE NOTIFICATION" splashed across the top in bold, capitalized text. Below it informed me:

This notification is to inform you that your factory warranty has expired or is about to expire. To avoid the high cost of automobile repairs, call us immediately with your Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) and exact miles to renew.

Now this isn't exactly a scam. But it is certainly deceptive. The last sentence suggests that I can "renew" my warranty. But they want my VIN and mileage. An actual warranty holder would already know the first part, and any service appointments with a dealership would record the second part.

The phone number included with this mail is: 1-866-533-9966. A Google search for this number shows quite a few more instances of this dubious sales practice.

Maryland Slots

This coming November there will be a referendum on the ballot about whether or not to allow slots machines at horse racing tracks around the state of Maryland. I'll just state from the beginning that I'm opposed to the idea. It seems like there are a couple of arguments one might use against slots.

Social Cost Argument

There are all kinds of studies about what gambling does to a community. Gambling addiction overwhelmingly affects the lower income brackets. In other words, those who can least afford to gamble do it the most, and do it to excess. Apparently there are provisions in the Maryland proposal to use some of the income for increased policing around the slots areas. Its like they're admitting that it'll create problems.

I'm also annoyed by the "stupidity tax" argument for slots. If its true that those who can't afford to gamble do it more then that just increases the future costs for unemployment, food stamps, and any number of other social programs to support those people. So the tax is actually on those who advocate letting poor people gamble their money away. In a way I guess it is a "stupidity tax", but on who?

Money for Education

The way a lot of slots proponents advocate their goal is to sell it as income for education. Well, that's obviously ignoring the fact that a lot of companies are going to first turn a profit on the gambling before turning over some of the money to the state.

The fact of the matter is that if we really do need more money for education, which usually seems to be the case, then the cheaper and more equitable solution is to increase taxes. Taxes can be tailored to spread the financial cost across the economic spectrum. Creating companies that are creating profits for themselves first doesn't seem to be the most efficient solution.

Save the Horsies

Apparently the horse racing industry is falling on hard times. Allowing slot machines on the premises will increase the income to these establishments and allow racing to continue.

So, let me get this straight... There's a failing industry, and we're all supposed to chip in to help it survive? That smacks more of socialism than capitalism. Ayn Rand would give a big, "I told you so," to that.

Losing Money to Those "Other" States

There are slot machines in neighboring West Virginia and Delaware. Some people think that we're "losing" money to these states, and that somehow by having our own slot machines we'll be able to keep it local.

This goes back to the social cost argument. The richest people are playing slot machines, so really how much money are we losing out on? And the, "everyone else is doing it argument," is morally dubious at best, and flat out juvenile at worst.

Digg A Hole, Then Crap in It

The meta-news site, Digg, garnered a lot of attention a while ago. It was hailed as the second coming of the Internet. The concept was that you, citizen journalist, can "Digg" up news stories and post them online to be democratically voted up or down. The steam turd of a buzzword for this is, "user-generated content". Well, having "yes" or "no" buttons on a web site hardly equates to democracy. I haven't visited Digg very often anymore. Maybe twice a year. But every time I'm astounded by the fact that the site is so blatantly slanted to the liberal bent. I'm talking like beyond Marx himself here! It's so bad that I find the site to be completely irrelevant anymore aside from being a soapbox for every blowhard and political pundit wannabe.

Mail Scam

Yet another scam for you. This one through the good, old-fashioned post.

I got one of those mass mailer letters with the perforated edges. It said "Happy Birthday!" on the front. Inside there was a Southwest Airlines logo, which included the text, "Plus other major airlines".

Further down it said that I had won a free trip for my birthday! Hooray! All I had to do was call 1-800-813-6994. I even had a reservation code! PB007.

There was another piece of paper that I ripped out that looked like a Southwest Airlines boarding pass. On the back in small print was written:

Travel Provider:
Global Travel
8500 Leesburg Pike
Suite 306
Vienne, Va 22182

*Certain restrictions may apply.

*This promotion is not sponsored by or affiliated with Southwest, they are a major supplier

Now let's put on our thinking hats... What makes this appear as a scam?

1. Postage paid in West Palm Beach, Florida. Permit #: 3950.
2. Suspicious travel agency that I can't nail down on the web. They claim to be in "Vienne", Virginia. There is no "Vienne". But there is a "Vienna".
3. Possible use of Southwest registered trademarks without permission.
4. Again, poor grammar and punctuation.
5. The desire for me to contact them.

Aaaannndd... SCAM!

Text Message Scam

Got this text message on August 14th:

Your Finance Center F-C-U services was suspended for suspicious activity, call us at 6197934988

The message was from "dept@fcfcu.com". When I first googled this I didn't get any results. But now, two days later, quite a few results are popping up. Here are some clues that this was a scam:

1. Poor grammar and punctuation.
2. Real banks don't text you if something's suspicious. A real human will call you.
3. 619 is a San Diego area code phone number.
4. The Whois results returns an IP in Chicago, Illinois.

My recommendation: don't call that phone number!

Vegas

VEGAS! WOOO!!!

That will be all.

Tech Help for iTunes

I was recently experiencing a problem with iTunes for Windows where I would start ripping a CD and after two or three songs the CD would just disappear. Eventually it would reappear and the same thing would repeat over and over.

The solution was making sure that AutoRun for the CD drive was turned on. VMWare Server turned that off and apparently iTunes didn't like that so much...

Tony's Freakin Rich

Does anyone know who this Tony guy is in New York? He has to be freakin rich! I see his name everywhere. Apparently he owns pizza shops, hotdog stands, tuxedo stores, real estate, just about everything! How does Donald Trump have his own TV show and this Tony doesn't? Seriously...

Sphincter Says What?

Here's a quick, completely subjective survey of language frequency heard on top of the Empire State Building in order of descending frequency:

1. Mandarin
2. German
3. Spanish
4. French
5. Tied: Russian/Hebrew

Then a bunch I didn't recognize. Surprisingly, little to no Cantonese, Hindi, Urdu, or Punjabi...

Dirty, Dirty Cities

I've now been to NYC. I must say as fun as it is it is still a dirty, dirty city. Inspired, I will now present a list of dirty cities:

1. New York
2. New Orleans
3. Gary, including East Chicago, Whiting, Hammond, and 90% of Lake county
4. Binghamton, NY
5. Los Angeles
6. San Francisco

Feel free to post any comments concerning your own dirty cities.

Radio Shack

I used to like Radio Shack. It was kind of a nerd haven. You could find all matter of useless stuff in there. Piezo buzzers? Check. Random resistors? Double check.

But I went into one last night and it was a shadow of its former self. The shelves were mostly cell phones, cell phone power chargers, cell phone headsets, and two Xbox 360s. Its like RS is trying to be like Best Buy. But BB can leverage its size to offer a wide variety of goods. RS could never compete especially since their stores are so small. What in the world is going on here?

Timecube

There's a bizarre site on the web (as if there was any other type of site) called Time Cube.
The page is disjoint and difficult to read. Whoever authors it might very well have some kind of schizophrenic or schizotypal disorder. But he takes this all very seriously. I would know because I mocked his site in an email to him during my undergrad years and he responded about where I could stick my four-cornered head... His basic premise has something to do with time, but you'll have to get through the anti-semitism to find it.

On the page you'll also find a claim that he will debate his theory with anyone anytime. I did read a criticism that suggests Time Cube's arguments are semantically meaningless and not worth debating (read: they don't make sense). I think Time Cube is just plain wrong. The reason is because Time Cube still relies on the same meta-physics that it purports to deny. Therefore, in trying to deny the very meta-physics on which it relies, Time Cube is just another form of nihilism and not worth debating. There's your four-pointed word for you.

Battlestar Delaytica

I went to watch Battlestar Galactica last Friday night and imagine my surprise to not find a new episode. Turns out that there won't be any new episodes until early 2009! It already took them about eight months to get season 4, the final season, up and running. And now they're throwing another six month delay? This is the kind of tomfoolery that made me lose interest in Lost's season 3.

Gardening Day

Today was gardening day. Well, not really because I only had one task to do, and it was to smite this monstrosity:



I don't know what it is or where it came from but all those three feet of growth happened in the last three months. One glance there was nothing and another glance there was this! So I made the executive decision that it must die.

That was easier said than done. There were three stems and each was a quarter to one half inch in diameter. Turns out they were all part of a common root system. A little ways down I found where they all converged: on a bulb at least six inches across. That took some hacking and prying but it eventually succumbed to my manly prowess... And as a parting gift it left behind a few roots that were each at least a half inch in diameter. Now that's crazy.

As an aside, I thought I'd include this shot of our butterfly bush:


The red line is where I hacked it down to before spring began. We've had a lot of rain and you can see how its more than doubled in size. There's actually a light somewhere back in there. I swear you can't kill this thing.

Domain to Ya'll's

I've been dabbling with the idea of setting up my own Windows domain at home. The benefits of a roaming profile are that you could have multiple users on the same machine (not simultaneously) with their own files, and that you can take your files to any machine that is a part of the domain.

Now, the downside to all of this is that the you need either Windows 2000 Server (Professional won't do) or Windows 2003 Server. Both of those are hundreds of dollars. That's hundreds of dollars more than I want to spend. So its Samba to the rescue! In case you don't know, Samba is an open source, reverse engineered implementation of the SMB protocol on which Microsoft built their domain system. Samba's free, and it lets you do fancy things like domain and roaming profiles. I've actually just gotten the domain part working after several tries. It sure ain't simple. Next I'll implement the roaming profiles. Maybe I'll even have time to post a tutorial. But for now: it works!

Westinghouse DPH-0802 Digital Picture Frame

I want to warn everyone away from Westinghouse products.

Last August I got a DPF-0802 digital picture frame and I never got it working properly. A few minutes after I would start it up, lines and other artifacts would start appearing on the screen. After a while it would be fractal nonsense. An email complaint to Westinghouse earned me the response that you can't upload JPEGs with meta data in them. Keep in mind, any digital camera you use to take a picture inserts meta data into the JPEG file. So you have to open each and every picture in Microsoft Paint and re-save it strip out the meta data. A real pain in the ass.

Well I tried this and it didn't help anything. I got lazy and let time pass. Eventually I complained again. Apparently you can't also save the pictures in the root directory of the frame itself. That makes no sense. After all, when you plug it into your computer via USB cable you're automatically at the root directory.

So obvious Westinghouse can't write software worth crap. Their JPEG library is atrocious and they can't handle files not being in a certain directory. Someone screwed up somewhere along the way.

Fast forward another few months and the frame won't power up at all. The thing is a brick. I finally call up Westinghouse and want to get it fixed or replaced. Woops. My six month warranty expired so they won't do jack for me. Six months? What is this Chinese crap? The kicker is that I could send it to an authorized repair outlet... but there are none in my entire state! Great job, Westinghouse! You truly excel in the field of customer support!

Kung Fu Family Structure

I took some time to piece together the structure of the kung fu family. The text is a non-standard transliteration from Cantonese.





Kung Fu Family Structure by Courtney Falk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Scrubbing It

So I've coined a new phrase tonight. It's called, "Scrubbing It". Basically, you're a TV show with a modestly long run, but your series is up. What you do is you pick your worst episode ever and end everything on it. That, my friends, is Scrubbing It.

Cat Time

Cats are like children. No one has the cutest one, but you have to think that you do.

Hey Nerds, I Hate H.P. Lovecraft

You heard me right: I hate H.P. Lovecraft. His writing is terrible, which is perhaps why he wasn't appreciated during his lifetime. It's as if Nathaniel Hawthorne rewrote the Greek classics. The stories are so drawn out and tedious. He pays minute attention to details like architecture, culture, and language while at the same time ignoring plot pacing and development. The man uses the "deus ex" construct like it's going out of style! Oh, and don't get me started on his vocabulary. Here's a handful of his over- and mis-used words:

1. Terrible
2. Horrible
3. Blasphemous
4. Unspeakable
5. Cyclopean
6. Infernal
7. Foul
8. Basalt

And don't try to justify his bad writing by saying, "Oh, but look at all the great writers he influence." So? That's doesn't somehow make his stuff lovable. Just because Quentin Tarrentino was influenced by all kinds of schlock material that doesn't make those movies any better. There. I've had my say.

Skip to the Future

There are several "hot" technologies out right now that I'm making a conscious decision to avoid. The problem is that they're not really innovative, and will soon be subsumed by other, better technologies. Let's examine a few, shall we?

Apparently the Blu-Ray media format recently won the next-format wars. Actually, both formats were losers. That's because the "HD" (high-definition) was the real key, and not what it was being stored on. In fact, physical media is going to become increasingly irrelevant as downloads take over as the primary means of content distribution. I'm not going to buy a Blu-Ray player. Partly that's because they're so insanely expensive still. And the prices went up once retailers knew they had the consumer by the short and curlies! I'll build a home media computer with networked storage and streaming instead.

And then there's those new "energy saving" compact fluorescent light bulbs. They're significantly more expensive than the regular incandescent light bulbs. So they're energy savings take quite a while before they pay off the difference. And then there's the fact that their light isn't appealing to everyone. I'm going to hold off and wait for LED light bulbs to come on the market. LEDs consume little energy and they're not toxic waste. Yeah. Compact fluorescent require special handling and disposal methods. Oh, and don't break one on the floor!

Spafford Completeness

Eugene "Spaf" Spafford is a professor of computer science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He is well known for being an early researcher into computer security (and the lack thereof). Needless to say he doesn't suffer from a shortage of work.

If you make the mistake of sending Spaf an email with a Microsoft Word attachment you'll receive a quick (indeed both instant and automated) response admonishing you for using document formats that allow for code execution. It is quite foolish to mix the two. But it also strikes upon a more fundamental truth: executing code is the root of all computer insecurity.

Thus was born the concept of the Spaf machine. It is similar in conception to the Turing machine, but quite different. The first principle of a Spaf machine is that only read operations are allowed. The second, and final, principle of a Spaf machine is that the tape is initialized to a random value. How that randomness is selected, what constitutes sufficiently random data, and where socks go in a dryer are all fluff questions best saved for a hash bar in Amsterdam.

"So what?" you might say. "All it does is read random bits. That's useless!" Au contraire! You are apparently not familiar with the idea of the infinite monkeys. Our application states that given enough time a Spaf machine would successfully render every email you would ever receive. But it would not execute a single bit of code! It is the first truly secure machine!

And Ye Shall Know Him by His Power Tie

Can't decide who to vote for yet in the American presidential election? I can! But for those of you less-able proles I'll provide you with a short list from which you can pick. Make your mark heavy and dark with your extra large crayons!

Lord Voldemort. Keeping it simple. Strong anti-muggle agenda. Doesn't listen to the Death Eater lobby.

Max. Psychotic lagomorph with a hound dog, crime-fighting partner. What's a lagomorph? I don't know either. But you're already on the Internet so why don't you go find out?

Cthulhu. You can't possible be able to pronounce this blasphemous name. But humans were never expect to comprehend the infinite horrors of the Ancients.

Darth Vader. In these uncertain times feel secure in knowing that that isn't a moon. It's a space station.

Huxley Sez

Aldous Huxley once said:

And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing … a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.

I submit that he was referencing reality television. He was more prescient than H.G. Wells!

Roger Clemens Versus the World

As I listened to NPR today report on the baseball steroid hearings I came to a conclusion. The problem right now is that Clemens' old physical trainer and also a former teammate are saying that The Rocket shot up with steroids and human growth hormone (HGH). But Roger comes right back with the untouchable, "No I didn't!" The problem comes down to the fact that the committee has (as far as I understand it) no legal power to compel the type of evidence discovery as is necessary to prove anything here. For instance, the trainer claims to have kept syringes and bloody cotton balls he used when injecting Roger. Can those be tested? Can the committee require Clemens to submit to a DNA test? No! So it all becomes one person's word against another. After realizing that I suddenly lost all interest.

Cinco Anos

I have a theory I would like to put forward. My theory is that no television show should run longer than five seasons. The Japanese are much better at this than us Americans. The reason for this is that once you have a fixed frame of reference you can properly pace your story arc(s). Look at shows that violate my theory: Stargate, Star Trek: Voyager, et.al. Everything gets repetitive and cyclical. The freshness is lost. And speaking of Lost they're the one show above any other that influenced my development of this highly scientific piece of work. Ponder these thoughts and reflect in their truth.

Language Multiplicity with Java

Java is the single greatest programming language in the history of mankind. One of the many reasons why is the way Java integrates with various other languages.

JRuby is a set of Java classes that implement the Ruby interpreter. This allows Ruby code to run within a Java application.

But Ruby's not the only interpreted language that gets to play with Java. Python also has libraries to run its code from within Java. Its creative name is Jython...

Moving on from interpreted to scripted languages, Perl can interface with Java too. A Perl module exists to allow Perl code to call Java byte code. Java's not the online language that Perl can call on this way. Typically for Perl its called "inlining".

Last, but not least, is the venerable Lisp language. Lisp is one of the oldest computer languages. But there is recent work that allows you to compile Lisp into the same byte code that Java gets compiled into. In addition to using the same virtual machine, Lisp compiled into the Java byte code can call other byte code.

With this variety of evidence how can you deny that Java is truly the best programming language out there?

Wolverine Ain't So Tough Now

It seems logical to think that Wolverine's healing ability based on bone marrow. But his bones are all fused with adamantium metal. In the X-Men movie it looks like his bones are solid, polished metal now. Wouldn't that prevent the bone marrow from helping with his healing factor? Or instead is the metal porous? That just leaves him vulnerable to poisons, virii, and leukemia! Wolverine's a wuss!

Computer Limmerick

There once was a bit in a bucket
It got there by way of a socket
The IO pipe failed
And the process did bail
So the OS decided to chuck it

5-0x07-101

Computer slows down,
Processes are frozen ice;
Blue screen death draws near.

Don't Reward Sony

Back in the day Sony tried to corner a developing market with their own proprietary format in the hopes of reaping huge licensing fees from anyone publishing on the media. That format was Betamax, and I think most everyone know how that turned out (VHS FTW).

This time around instead of the VCR market Sony's gunning for high definition optical discs. Sony's format is the Blu-Ray standard while the opposing standard is HD-DVD. Now personally, I prefer HD-DVD because it's simpler due the the fact that the same laser that reads HD-DVDs is backwards compatible with regular DVDs. 10 points right there. Granted, Blu-Ray has a larger storage size, but not significantly enough to outweigh the fact that Blu-Ray plays need two separate lasers to support legacy DVDs. Sony also shoved their players out prematurely to not be behind the HD-DVD release. Those original players didn't fully implement the Blu-Ray standard. Most reviewers also couldn't discern much of a difference quality-wise in either's audio or video.

Now all the news is about how Blu-Ray is winning this high def war. If it wins then I think we all lose. Having an entire market beholden to a single primary source like Sony is bad for all consumers. We all need to speak out by voting with our pocket books for HD-DVD. Having said that, I've purchased neither yet. My early adopter ways have long fell by the wayside.

And as if you needed one more reason to not support Sony's standards-autocracy plans there's wireless USB. Wireless USB is going through standardization right now. But all of the sudden Sony smells blood and launches their own version, TransferJet. Coincidence? I think not! Fight the powah!

Word Association

Remember the SAT test? Remember the word associations? Weren't they fun?! How about this one...

Alvin Toffler : hyperbole :: The Pope : Catholicism

2008

A new year dawns on us all. That is if you follow the Gregorian calendar. Those on the Julian, Hebrew, Chinese, Vietnamese, or other can just go soak your heads.

I've begun this new season by expanding the non-blog entry content. Notice the "Blogosphere" side bar. There you'll find a collection of educational and/or entertaining blogs from around this find Intraweb of ours.

And it seems as if our $5 word is now worth €3.61.