cygweb

Yep it's here... Happy New Year.

I played around with WCYG a little earlier today. I'm continuing to add songs to the station and I'm resurrecting my playlist-generating Python script to help me get back to using a playlist-based source as opposed to randomly picking songs on the fly. I haven't found a way to do the kind of programmatic shuffling I'd like to with Foobar2000. Also, with a playlist I can periodically put in station IDs and the like.

Playing with streaming is fun even if you're the only listener.

Took a few days off from blogging since we made (too short of a) trip to Buffalo this weekend to see family.

Don scooped me on the news of Alex Lifeson's New Year's Eve debacle. I can't say I can't believe it, but the amount of speculation this is generating on the Rush forums I read is amazing.

My Foobar2000 WCYG source crashed for the first time while I was out of town, so I'm going to look at upgrading to the new version 0.7.7a soon. I tried using Winamp5 as the stream source last night and it sounded good for a while, but then it got to an I Mother Earth song and broadcasted very loud static. Back to FB2K for now.

I've got some ideas for a tagline and ad spots/station IDs for Icecast. I've only found these (see the bottom of the linked page) doing a Google search; I'm not sure if anyone else out there has produced any. I'd like to give back to Xiph for the cool technology they've freely released.

I got three out of four football picks right for the weekend. I predicted a Denver upset of Indianapolis that didn't happen by a longshot. The Colts are for real. I think they can beat KC at Arrowhead next week. However, my Pats-Eagles Super Bowl prediction still stands.

Ross blogged about the "Bush In 30 Seconds" grassroots ad campaign. There's some interesting ads among the finalists. Ross's favorite is "Desktop". It's definitely the most geeky, but my favorite right now is "Gone In 30 Seconds". Numbers are sometimes the simplest form of explanation.

Lessig included a link to a Washington post transcript of last night's debate in the first paragraph of this entry. His entry and the transcript (it's pretty long) are worth a read.

Helen Thomas has written a column that's got a good summary of some of the misinformation that came out of the White House last year:

An example:

In an interview on Dec. 16, television anchorwoman Diane Sawyer pressed Bush on the fact that no unconventional weapons had been found in Iraq some nine months after the search had begun.

Bush kept interjecting: "Yet."

Sawyer persisted, asking about the administration's flat statements that Saddam had such weapons versus the mere possibility that he could acquire them.

An exasperated Bush replied: "So, what's the difference?"

Do we really have to explain?

Source: Kicking Ass.

I just guest-blogged over at Shane's about the playoff games coming up this weekend.

When I was at StarTrek.com checking out the schedule for Enterprise, I found this great page that has a link to a slideshow that gives the historical references for the images in the opening credits. I'm surprised at how many I knew already, but I didn't know them all. Recommended.

Shane made a surprising and cool Flash banner for the site. It's now live. Thanks dude!

Those of you that know me know I'm a big fan of MiniDiscs. I've been using them for about six years now, and they've kept me from considering solid-state- and hard-disk-based portable digital music players. I've been wondering for the longest time when Sony would increase the density of MD media. Yesterday they announced Hi-MD, storage and player technology based on a 1GB version of MD media. To put this in perspective, original MD media, which has been around for over 10 years, holds about 140MB.

I have yet to digest all the reports about this, but it looks like the initial slate of portable recorders they're releasing have features many MD users have been requesting, like digital uploads from MD to PC. It also looks like they'll support linear PCM, which would be the first lossless format supported on MDs. ATRAC's SP (standard) mode has sounded great to my ears ever since I first started using MDs, but it will be nice to have a small MD player that is capable of playing back CD-quality audio.

Sources: HydrogenAudio, MiniDisc.org.

Just read on Slashdot that Xiph has released Icecast 2.0. I've been using the alpha and beta versions on Win32 for quite a while and they've been very stable. Good stuff. I guess I should get to work on those Icecast IDs I mentioned... ;)

Slashdot points to a juicy article describing how the RIAA is hiring ex-cops dressed up like real cops to bust street vendors who may or may not be selling copyright-infringing CDs and DVDs. If it looks like a cop, sounds like a cop, and threatens to cuff you like a cop, then it's probably (impersonating) a cop. I wonder what real law enforcement officials think of this.

I'm wanting to learn some of the songs from Porcupine Tree's In Absentia, so I Google for "sound of muzak" tab. The first link takes me to a site called "Power Tab Archive" and offers me tablature for the song in a binary format with the extension "PTB". Hmm. Strolling around the site a little more, I find a link to Power Tab .net, which has software for PTB files called Power Tab Editor. It installs easily and looks really cool.

Keep in mind that it's been a while since I looked for tab on the Internet. All the tab I've ever grabbed (or created) has been ASCII text files. While that was OK, it was a bit lacking.

So back to the Power Tab Editor. The display of the score in the PTB file looks detail-for-detail like the tab in the musician magazines. And when printed, it's even better. Good stuff! There appears to be a healthy community of people trading tab this way. I'll be glad to join it!

I thought this slate of games would be a great set of matchups, but the two yesterday were superb. I thought Carolina's D would challenge the Rams O, but to almost not allow a TD was something I didn't expect. What an ending - I think they said it was the fifth or sixth double-overtime game in NFL history. The two missed FGs in overtime is definitely something you don't see everyday. I'm glad the Panthers are moving on to the championship. I thought enough of their chances to make them my upset pick (and doubled) in Rotoguru's Football Pickoff.

I didn't get to watch all of the TEN-NE game, but what I saw was fun to watch. I can't believe the cold (as low as 2°, wind chills of -11°) wasn't more of a factor. Both teams seemed to be passing as much as they normally would. It'll be interesting to see who the Patriots meet in the AFC Championship, as they had a close game with the Colts in November, and I think they are stronger than the Chiefs.

2 down, 2 to go. My picks today are IND and PHI. Both games will be squeakers. GB-PHI will probably go to OT.

Can I call 'em or what? ;)

Two more great games. The most impressive thing about the Colts was, of course, their offense. The most impressive non-scoring fact: no false start penalties (I think). The most embarassing: no punts from either team the whole game! When Dante Hall got that return TD, I thought the Chiefs had a chance to surge ahead. Their defense blew it after that. I think we're only going to see a great AFC Championship Game next week if the Colts' D steps it up. Defense wins championships.

Should be a good NFC Game next week. Philly just won a tough-fought one (in OT as predicted) on Akers' left foot. I would feel better about the Eagles' chances next week if they had been a bit stronger (on both offense and defense) earlier in the game. I think the Panthers defense will be tougher than the Packers'.

More NFL thoughts to come.

This is a little late, but after seeing Don's and Ross's posts on the subject I had to chime in.

I didn't buy a whole lot of new music last year, so I'll only list my 5 favorite albums:

1. OSI - Office of Strategic Influence
2. King's X - Black Like Sunday
3. Rush - Rush In Rio
4. Dream Theater - Train Of Thought
5. Jane's Addiction - Strays

Yeah, pretty boring. I get a lot of mileage out of the music I listen to. OSI gets the top spot probably because it's had the most time to grow on me, and I just dig it so much. "Head" is a song that hasn't become boring to me yet and I've listened to it over 100 times.

If in my haste I completely forgot something, I'll update this post.

Either I missed something before or this is a new service from Yahoo! I noticed an XML icon on one of their news pages this morning and it led me to their News RSS Feed Index. They are hosting 14 RSS 2.0 feeds, based on their top-level categories and criteria such as "Most Emailed", "Highest Rated", and "Most Viewed". All of the feeds are parsed by SharpReader perfectly. It's mainly AP & Reuters content, but since I already use Yahoo! News a lot I'm subscribing to them.

Update: Scotbuff pointed out that these are not new. I did a quick Google to see if you can pass parameters to them and it looks like Jeremy Zawodny is doing just that. Cool stuff.

I was just checking around to see if Our Lady Peace's Live DVD ever came out, and it was released on December 9th. I see it several places online (B&N, Amazon, DVD Planet) and it lists for $39.95. DVD Planet selling it for $30 is the cheapest I've seen. This seems like fleecing to me. Don't think I'll buy it.

Reports are out that now-former Steelers OC Mike Mularkey has accepted the head coaching position with the Bills. I'm having visions of Bledsoe passing for 4,000 yards next season. And the Bills going 11-5 and getting into the playoffs.

What? Do you think it's too early to prognosticate? ;)

I've submitted another guest article over at Shane's about the NFL games this weekend.

I ordered this battery to resurrect my iPAQ 3630. It's supposed to have 50% more capacity for 66% of the cost of the OEM replacement, so I bought it. I received it a week ago and have attempted to connect it up and charge it three times, to no avail. I hope Crayton will send me a replacement that works. It's not a good sign that the picture of the product on their website is the original iPAQ battery, not the battery they sold me. If I successfully get through this project I'll blog about it, with pics.

The frigid weather is definitely getting annoying. This is my son's first winter with such consistently cold temps, and he thinks I'm being a meanie when I don't let him play outside in it. :( I guess I should be glad we don't live further north of here. I heard an NPR report yesterday from northern New Hampshire that mentioned sub-zero temps during the day. Sheesh.

I've had some stability problems with FB2K 0.7.7a as my streaming source for WCYG and will be upgrading to v0.7.7b soon. In the meantime, I'm using Winamp5 for streaming.

I should be upgrading the site to MT 2.661 at lunchtime. Hopefully it's as easy as last time!

My prediction about the AFC Championship game was partially correct (5 Vinatieri FGs!). But my thoughts about the NFC one couldn't have been more wrong. The Eagles' passing offense didn't show up today. The Super Bowl will be a great defensive battle. I'm sticking with my pick of the Patriots.

Edited: Changed "offense" to read "passing offense". Staley and Buckhalter didn't have bad games.

Michael Jackson's case is so solid that a guy who can bend spoons with his mind is defending him.

I don't think anyone's lived a wackier life than MJ.

I received the OLP Live DVD today (at a fair price from Amazon.ca thanks to Don's tip) and I have to say it's pretty cool. I still need to give it a full once-through, but these are my initial impressions:

The Good:

• Six songs not on the Live CD: "Do You Like It", "Right Behind You", "The Birdman", "In Repair", "Drive" (yes, that "Drive"), and "4AM".
• Both Linear PCM and DD 5.1 soundtracks. (Man, I wish I had a surround setup.)
• Interlaced video, not film. (I prefer video for concert DVDs.)
• Three bonus videos (including one for "Thief").
• A few other video featurettes.

The Bad:

• Letterboxed 4:3 presentation, instead of anamorphic widescreen. This is the same thing that bugs me about Rush In Rio.

Definitely a must buy for the OLP fan. But don't buy it for more than $25 US.

I had already heard about the winning MoveOn.org ad being denied a slot in the Super Bowl, but this article by Matt Bivens lends a little more perspective to the situation. I agree with the assertion that the major networks pick and choose which advocacy groups will be allowed to be heard.

There's a good article over at Yahoo! Sports that gives a few ideas about how to liven up what has the potential to be a low-scoring Super Bowl with at least one unpopular team.

Personally, I can't wait for the big game. We still have to decide how reasonably large our party can be, given that the little one won't be interested in the game (maybe next year!!!) and he'll be off to bed at his normal time (8pm). That night'll see the quickest book reading from me he'll get all year. ;)

My wife's a fan of The Bachelor so I figured I'd post this coincidence. NY Giants backup QB Jesse Palmer (remember this post?) will be ABC's newest kissaholic this April.

Pop culture input circuits are... overloading....

I'm really surprised there hasn't been more press (negative or otherwise) about the new "Drive Clean Pennsylvania" initiative. The only thing I had heard before I took my car in for its yearly inspection was that they started the inspections and stickering in our region in December and that it was significantly more expensive than the regular safety inspection. After finding out that the emissions inpection was $50 at the Monro I go to (where a safety inspection is $20), I was interested in finding out what all that money is paying for. In the DCPA brochure I picked up, I was surprised to read that in our region, currently the only required tests are an onboard diagnostics test (connecting to your car's computer and driving it to make sure that it's working), a visual inspection of the emissions system, and a test to make sure the gas cap isn't leaking fumes. There is currently no test of the actual engine exhaust here, but that's required in the Pittsburgh and Philly regions.

$50 seems a little steep to me for those tests; I wonder if the costs will increase once the state forces our region to test exhaust fumes. I also wonder how much profit (after state and labor costs) the repair places performing the inspections are making. Unless you drive your car less than 5000 miles per year, you have to get the emissions inspection done yearly. I'm all for attempting to reduce emissions through this kind of regulation, but it seems like this approach is a bit heavy handed. It would make more sense to me to target older cars with the yearly inspection and leave newer cars (everything less than 7 years/70,000 miles old, perhaps) to be inspected every other year.

Anyone else around here get tagged for this yet? I definitely recommend calling around to see if any repair places are trying to competetively price this service. Right now it seems like a ripoff.

I have yet to see A Mighty Wind, but I think it's totally cool that one of its songs has been nominated for an Oscar. I'm a pretty big Tap fan and am looking forward to seeing those guys as the Folksmen. ;)

The list of all Oscar nominees is here.

To lessen the tide of comment spam I've implemented the MTCloseComments plugin. I've configured it to automatically close commenting on entries that are over 90 days old. Thanks to Alan Carroll for writing this tool.

I still haven't figured out who I'll vote for in the primary, but it's looking less and less like Dean. You may have heard that he's changed campaign managers; what you might not have heard is the track record of his new manager, Roy Neel. This article over at The Nation doesn't mince words about Neel. If true, these facts don't bode well for Dean, whose campaign appears to be imploding.

I haven't taken a lot of time to educate myself about the candidates, but from what I've learned, I think I'm leaning towards Kucinich the most, followed by Edwards and Kerry. I just wish Kucinich had more of a shot; he's probably not going to gain enough ground to get the nomination.

I was glad to read this article. Hopefully this means less or no more "NAME UNKNOWN" or "PRIVATE NAME/PRIVATE NUMBER" when a telemarketer calls.

Wait! I'm in the National Do Not Call Registry; why am I still getting telemarketing calls? ;)

Man, that's a lot of digits...

Well, the big game is up tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it. Having two weeks to ruminate on the matchup has led me to some thoughts about the game:

• Tom Brady will live up to most of the "Tom Cool" hype, but will not be the MVP of the game. I think we will see a defensive MVP this year.
• Jake Delhomme will keep the Panthers in the game with a few long strikes to Muhsin Muhammad. Steve Smith will be a factor in the short-to-mid passing game.
• The Panthers will run the ball better than the Patriots, but I think the Patriots' passing offense will rule the day. Can you say "five wide set"?
• In the battle of the kickers, Vinatieri will hit three field goals, Kasay will hit two.
• In a low-scoring game (for a Super Bowl), New England wins 23-13.

I really do think the Panthers have a chance to make this interesting, but with both teams rested and ready, I think the Patriots match up better. And I have to stay consistent with my predictions. ;)

Enjoy the game!