cygweb

Well, we had a good time watching the Super Bowl! Comcast activated the DVI port on the HD boxes in the area on Wednesday, so my buddy Jim was kind enough to bring over a cable so I could connect it to the TV. I was able to get it connected up before the game; I couldn't really tell a difference between it and the component-video signal I've been using for the box. Both pictures looked nice.

CBS's HD coverage (including the pregame) was quite good, except for all the on-field SD cams used before the game. Once the game was started, the coverage was superb. I could have done without the "Eye-Vision" (i.e. "Bullet-Time") highlights. It added a little bit of a wow-factor, but I think a system like that is most useful when it helps determine a spot of the ball.

The game itself really took off once the offenses made some adjustments after the first quarter. This was a much closer and higher-scoring game than I had predicted. And it was good. I agree with the Panthers' decision to go for those two 2-point conversions; situationally, it was the right call if they didn't believe their offense was going to get other opportunities to score.

I think Brady got the MVP mostly because of his game management (which is fine); he had one or two successful audibles and passed quite well, save for the one interception in the endzone. At the end of the game, I thought it was hard to pick an individual MVP since so many players contributed on both sides of the ball. I think if Antowain Smith had gone over 100 yards rushing and had two TDs instead of one, he might have been chosen. He played quite well.

I'm just glad the game came down to the wire, unlike last year's. Go AFC!

Update: I missed the halftime show since I was giving my son a bath at that time. Looks like I missed some controversial stuff. There's a discussion over at AVS Forum regarding it. I agree that this shows some of the heavy-handedness of the larger players in the music & TV industries.

I was interested in seeing how this entry would rank once Google cached it. To my surprise, within a week, it's already ranked highest for a common search pattern, beating even the state's official page on the subject. A LocalFeeds "Blog It!" entry corresponding to my original entry is also ranked highly.

I hope this Google clout is put to good use in bringing some discussion to the matter.

I'm thinking of writing an entry that describes how and why I use Ogg Vorbis for capturing and compressing my music. There might not be much of a point to it, but it'll probably interest me if read, say, 10 years from now.

The second battery sent to me by Crayton Electronics for my Ipaq is not charging, just like the first one. Since I had no problems with my Ipaq before the original battery (apparently) died, I can only assume the two batteries I got from them don't work as advertised. I'm going to give up on this and buy a new PDA some time in the future when/if it makes sense. And I'm going to make sure it's got a modular, easily-removable battery. The second (and last) Crayton battery is going in the mail soon - I hope their return process isn't a hassle. It wasn't too bad to get the first battery replaced, but it cost me about $4.50 in shipping.

Speaking of devices with internal rechargeable batteries, I received a Gameboy Advance SP as part of a training promotion a few weeks ago. It'll be a few years before I pass it down to my son, so in the meantime I bought myself a game for it. I got Golden Sun: The Lost Age since I like RPGs, and it's fun. There's enough puzzles in it to keep me interested without frustrating me too much. ;) The size of the GBA and the fact that I can save my game on the fly make it easy to pick up and play occasionally. I'm not a console gamer, and barely make enough time to play the games I have for the PC. But the GBA is convenient and fun.

Looks like I may be heading to Don's to check out the new house and take in the April 3rd Dream Theater show in NYC. That will be a cool show. No other acts on the bill would make it the longest DT show I'll have seen. And it's always neat to see how they'll treat their new material, and what they break out of the archives. Thanks for the invite, Don.

Ross is hosting the latest boxing match between Mark Pilgrim and Dave Winer over Atom vs. RSS. Since I'm not trying to make money off either format I guess I'm more agnostic about this than most. But taking an RSS/Atom Feed Validator and implementing it as an RSS Validator without removing the Atom support (but saying valid Atom is valid RSS) is questionable. I like the fact that Ross has set up his own instance of the Validator on Localfeeds. At the very least, he can integrate it more fully with the process of walking someone who wants to get on Localfeeds' radar through the required steps. And it'll cut down on FeedValidator.org's bandwidth costs.

The Pepsi/iTunes commercial that started airing during the Super Bowl has a disturbing slant. I wonder if anyone told the kids featured in these ads that they weren't sued for downloading music. They were sued for serving out hundreds of songs to anyone who found them on KaZaa. Where they got the songs from was largely immaterial. Not that most people distinguish between uploading and downloading...

It's also disturbing that the RIAA is continuing their effort to alienate their customers. They didn't help produce the ads, but they agree with them. I guess they have nothing to lose.

Every once in a while there's product that Microsoft gets right. I'm really starting to use OneNote at work for meeting minutes and documenting procedures. It's better than Notepad and Wordpad, lighter than Word, and has just enough organization in its interface to allow easy filing. It's also stateless - no clicking "Save" to make sure stuff is safe. I've just started scratching the surface but it seems like the real deal.

Boomer was talking up Sam Wyche during the Super Bowl pregame and they showed an interview with the two of them. After the interview was shown, Boomer predicted Wyche would be back in the NFL next year as a quarterbacks coach. Either Boomer is the new Swami, or he was tipped off; the Bills have hired Sam Wyche for that very purpose. There will definitely be a new look to the Bills next year. Could the Thunderbolts' signing of Drew Bledsoe be that far off?

As seen on Cinescape: Lucasfilm has confirmed that the first three Star Wars movies will be released in a DVD box set on September 21st. It's supposed to be similar packaging to the Indiana Jones set, with a fourth DVD of interviews and featurettes. These are supposedly the "Special Editions" of the films, as re-released in the late 90's.

This is good news, as the widescreen VHS versions of the Special Editions I own show aren't very pleasant to watch on an HDTV. I can remember trips to see each of the movies' original releases in the theater (I can just barely remember going to see SW:ANH for the first time) and was a Star Wars toy nut between Empire and ROTJ. I plan on picking up a copy of the set the day it comes out.

Update: There's a petition for Lucasfilm to release the original edits of the films on DVD here. I think I'd actually prefer having these on DVD. There were plenty of neat effects added to the Special Editions, but having Greedo shoot first and Han walking on Jabba's tail is just silly.

I'm signature #50527.

Update 2: The Official Word.

Ever since the MT upgrades that led me to 2.661, I've been increasingly getting HTTP 500 errors. I know some of you are as well because of the double-comments. I created a fresh MT code directory and just switched over to it. Everything seems to be working. Let me know if something doesn't work.

• Mozilla Firefox 0.8 (optimized Win32 builds)
• Mozilla Thunderbird 0.5 (optimized Win32 builds)
• XviD MPEG-4 Video Codec RC2 (Jambo) (discussion)
• Foobar 2000 0.8 Beta (discussion)

Good stuff.

Sam Ruby blogged about an application under development at Nokia called PhotoBlog, which implements the Atom API and enables one to post to a blog via a cell phone. That would be really cool and would probably inspire me to get whatever reasonably-priced phone supported it, once MT implements the API. (Hopefully, version 3.0.)

Update: Oops. Nokia isn't developing PhotoBlog; Futurice is. Nokia's CTO introduced the application at a trade show.

President Bush is visiting our area today. I live in the Central Dauphin school district.

Groklaw has been a great read lately, so I couldn't resist publishing its headlines any longer. They are available on the left side under the NHL News. I've moved NFL News down a little for the duration of the off-season.

Holy crap! I wish I could have seen this game!

My wife and I are annoyed that ABC is treating Alias (and with it The Practice) like a monthly series instead of a weekly one. Instead of temporarily moving it to another time slot while they use 9PM Sundays for other stuff, they pre-empt it for weeks on end. This message over on the official message board sums it up.

The networks really seem to be treating many of their filmed shows with contempt. I can only assume it's because reality programming currently enjoys higher ratings. Who and where are the Neilsens? I'd like to talk to them about their viewing habits.

As seen on Slashdot: Apparently it's so; I'm currently an AT&T Wireless customer who's been enjoying a low-cost, low-feature corporate plan for a few years now. I hope Cingular doesn't come in and screw things up.

Update: Here's a more comprehensive AP article on the subject.

Adam Curry is blogging from Iraq. He's also sharing a lot of pictures. Interesting stuff. (As referenced on Scoble's blog.)

Rush have announced the dates for their 30th Anniversary Tour. It looks like another trip to Scranton will be on tap for me - the show there is on August 7th. Plenty of time to plan!

Movies, CDs, Games to Carry FBI Copyright Warning

The new and more prominently displayed warning will read: "The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000."

Let's see - Joe Consumer doesn't like the hostility of the new label on the CD he's about to purchase. He decides to do without. Many people do the same. CD sales go down. The RIAA attributes the decline to "piracy" and increases hostility against potential customers.

Something's gotta give.

Don and Scotbuff have recently added "now playing" info to their sites, so that got me thinking about doing it as well. However, since I listen to Ogg Vorbis files a majority of the time I couldn't use Listen-To, which currently reads only ID3 tags. Also, I had a value-add kind of idea that I wanted to prototype. So I hatched a "now playing" solution with a little help from Foobar2000 and the excellent HTTP Writer plugin. The results are in the new "ICYG Radio" block (blockname subject to change) on the left. Read on for the details.

We purchased a Canon i860 printer over the weekend. We have a Brother HL-760+ laser that's been a good performer for many years, but we've been wanting to do some color printing. Mainly color graphics, but also some photo printing. We narrowed it down to the HP Deskjet 5650 and the i860. The Canon won because of several things:

• Five separate ink cartridges, as opposed to two on the Deskjet. At Circuit City the replacement HP tri-color cartridge (17ml of ink total) is $35. Each of the three Canon color inks (13ml each) are $12. How the Canon should have cheaper ink costs in the long run is left as an exercise to the reader. ;)
• A straighter paper path; the Deskjet is more ergonomic but has a 180° turn.
• A separate photo-paper feeder.

I've just started using it, but the setup was very easy. The first photo I printed on the complimentary 4x6 photo paper looks amazing. If I encounter any problems with the printer or its software I'll post about them. At this point it looks pretty solid.

It was quite a while ago that I filed with the CD Minimum-Advertised-Price Antitrust Lawsuit Settlement website as a member of the settlement group. I believe I saw this reference to it on Slashdot and filed. Well, I missed the recent article on it, so I was surprised to find my check in the mail today.

Cool. $13.86. Just about enough to go buy a CD. ;)

As I'm starting to tag my music files with "ARTISTWWW" and "PURCHASE" URLs, I'm coming across some interesting stuff:

• Asia is still alive. The current lineup is recording a new album. I may check out some of the stuff that's referenced on the Asiaworld front page.
• When browsing for some Amazon links I found this one referencing a live album from a 1982 Asia show in Buffalo. Cool. The only Asia show I saw in person was a '93 show in Buffalo on their "Aqua" tour. It's listed near the bottom of this page.
• There's a String Quartet Tribute to Audioslave CD. Hmm.
• When looking for Buggles info, I ran across this page that details some of the history surrounding the brief integration of Buggles members Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes (the sole original member of Asia holding the Asia torch) into Yes after Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman left the band after Tormato. I really like the Drama album, but I didn't know a lot about the circumstances of its recording and the subsequent tour. An interesting read.

Does anyone but me think this is cool?

All-time sack leader and certain Hall-of-Famer Bruce Smith has been released by the Redskins. Speculation is that he will retire. I think he probably will.

Thanks for the memories, Bruce. You had one heck of a career.

I wonder what he'll do next? TV is probably an option if he wants it. Let Dan Dierdorf retire from the booth and put Bruce in there with Dick Enberg. ;) Or make him a part of a new ESPN Sunday Night crew...

Groklaw has published a transcript of FSF counsel Eben Moglen's remarks and Q&A at Harvard on Monday. I'm finding it's an excellent read.

Update: My favorite quote so far:

Music and movies and various other forms of culture are being distributed better by children than by people that are being paid to do the work. Artists are beginning to discover that if they allow children to distribute art in a freehanded sort of way, they will do better than they do in the current slavery in which they are kept by the culture vultures, who do, it is true, make a good deal of money out of music, but they do so primarily by keeping ninety-four cents out of every dollar and rendering six to the musicians, which isn't very good for the musicians.

I don't know how much of it I'll watch, but since it's on in place of Alias and The Practice, I'll be tuning in for a bit. Here are my predictions (even though I haven't seen many of the movies in question):

• ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE: Sean Penn - Mystic River (fourth nomination; I think the Academy will finally reward him)
• ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Ken Watanabe - The Last Samurai
• ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE: Charlize Theron - Monster
• ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE: Marcia Gay Harden - Mystic River (yes, I am biased towards anyone who's had to grow up with the surname "Harden", especially guys)
• ANIMATED FEATURE FILM: Finding Nemo (I love the Pixar movies)
• ART DIRECTION: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
• CINEMATOGRAPHY: Seabiscuit
• COSTUME DESIGN: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
• DIRECTING: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (if Peter Jackson doesn't finally win this, I will be disappointed)
• DOCUMENTARY FEATURE/SHORT SUBJECT: no prediction
• FILM EDITING: Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World (can't wait to see this on DVD - my dad said it was great)
• FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM: no predicción
• MAKEUP: Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
• MUSIC (SCORE): The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King (duh, I'd like to see ROTK win all its categories... ;) )
• MUSIC (SONG): "A Kiss At The End Of The Rainbow" - A Mighty Wind (go bizarro Tap!)
• BEST PICTURE: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
• SHORT FILM (ANIMATED/LIVE ACTION): no prediction
• SOUND EDITING: Master And Commander: The Far Side Of The World
• SOUND MIXING: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
• VISUAL EFFECTS: The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
• WRITING (ADAPTED/ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY): no prediction

Predictions or just wishes? You be the judge. ;)

The full list of Oscar nominees is here.

GO LOTR!

Update: Wow... LOTR:ROTK has kicked major butt. And Jackson just won Best Directing! Thank you, Academy!