A Smashing Hypothesis (or, how to make A Good Idea longer)

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I had a thought last night. I should write a plug-in for Microsoft Word that kids can use for paper-writing when they have to have some sort of arbitrary length for their submission; like 5 pages or what have you. This plugin would automatically shrink the margins, double-space and increase the font size, but only up to the upper limits of acceptability; no logic in making it 50 point. That would just give it away. It would have a thesaurus attached, so you could find the longest and most "cromulent":http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cromulent words to substitute in. Word already has built-in grammar checking, so you can probably make sure that everything still makes sense after you're done. Of course, if I could bring in a bunch of 18th century slang, I could just have it be a Mr. Burns filter for all the little ragamuffins out there. The only problem as I see it would be marketing. Any sort of email with subject lines like "Increase your size by 50%" and "Rip your teacher's emotions apart with your massive paper" are likely to get picked up by spam filters.

Boo!

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My bill payment service seems to have "let their domain registration lapse":http://www.statusfactory.com/. I just called to confirm that they're not going bankrupt or anything like that, and apparently they're not. They better hurry up and get their domain info renewed and propagated... I got bills to pay, yo! *Update:* Everything seems to be back in order. Domain registration screen has been replaced by the regular home page, and bills have been paid.

Cheap?

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My work machine has been pretty slow as of late, and after running a spyware scan I concluded that it's because I'm a little low on memory (only 1GB). So, just for an experiment I cannibalized my home machine and threw some more memory in the work one. Now, with 1.5GB it seems to run much faster, so I went online and found another 1GB (2 512MB modules) for $80, shipped. It's a wonderous age in which we live.

Stalker-iffic

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"Google Maps":http://maps.google.com/ has now added seamless satellite photos to its already stellar map service. I guess when they bought KeyHole last year that it was bound to happen, eh? So far it seems to be pretty cool, and makes finding "pictures":http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=32.254443,-110.758721&spn=0.006845,0.009795&t=k&hl=en "of":http://maps.google.com/maps?q=416+Noble+Street,Pittsburgh,PA&t=k&hl=en "addresses":http://maps.google.com/maps?q=309+South+Braddock+Ave,Pittsburgh,+pa&t=k&hl=en a whole lot easier than that Microsoft Terrawhatever site from a few years back. In other news this afternoon is my followup appointment to find out what's going on with my poor belly. I'm sure it's not going to be anything bad, but of course I'm completely nervewracked about it.

Rumors about the death of TiVo have been greatly exaggerated

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News from yesterday shows that TiVo has "signed a deal with Comcast":http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2005/03/comcast_and_tiv.html, which is a "huge boost":http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=TIVO&t=5d for the company, especially after it looked like that deal "wasn't going to get done":http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000683027751/. I think that being able to get their product out there in front of everyone for a low monthly fee (based on what other cable companies are doing with their rentable DVRs) we are going to see a lot more converts to the "cult of TiVo":http://a.wholelottanothing.org/2003/04/why_dont_you_ow.html.

Less boob tube

in ,

The head of the "Feral Marketing Department":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001398/#comments and I were chatting this morning about TV and shows, and he mentioned that he's probably cancelling HBO at least, perhaps until the Sopranos are back on. I've been thinking for awhile about my own TV-watching habits for awhile as well. When I "moved":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001199/ here I put the bulk of my crap (including "amazingly oversized TV":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031210_apartment/P1010015.jpg) into storage. I did pick up a small-ish set for PS2 playing in the guest house, but for the most part I haven't missed my TV at all. Part of the reason is that not having DirecTV installed here has made me watch a hell of a lot less television. Another reason is all the "stuff" that I have going on as well; relationship, biking, climbing, poker, etc. I'm house-shopping now, and giving serious consideration to not getting any sort of pay service when I find a place.

Right now there are 3 shows that I try and watch on a regular basis: "24":http://www.fox.com/24/, "The Daily Show":http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/thedailyshowwithjonstewart/, and "The Simpsons":http://www.thesimpsons.com/. I'll catch the occasional "CSI":http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi/ or "L&O":http://www.nbc.com/Law_&_Order/ with Kim at her place (with her huge rabbit ears and no cable), but for the most part that's it. I've found that all my TV needs can be met by the Intarweb, even with my "woefully crappy connection":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001356/. I have "Azureus":http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ running with some filters set up, so when I get on the computer Tuesday through Friday mornings, I'll have last night's Daily Show sitting and ready for me to watch. 24 I can either catch at Kim's, or I'll have that downloaded (with very good quality, I might add) a day or so after it airs (it'd be faster if my connection speed were better). When the new seasons of Sopranos and SFU(Six Feet Under) air, I'll be able to add a filter for those and see them next-day as well. I'm not alone in doing this, either. You can just take a look at any of the "big":http://www.tvtorrents.ws/ "TV":http://www.btefnet.net "Torrent":http://www.orbdesign.net/bt/ sites and see all the popular shows pop up within hours of airing, sometimes sooner if they can catch a wild feed.

All that combines to mean that I'm not sure I feel like forking over the extra money every month. Granted, my TiVo has been "sad and lonely":http://www.weblogsinc.com/common/images/6563571713523346.JPG in storage, but since they're "on deathwatch":http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000100030115/ anyway I don't know how relevant that is. I've seen the idea elsewhere, but I really think TiVo needs to allow you to do something similar; have an internet connection and act as a BitTorrent aggregator to bring you down "long tail":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail shows.

One reason to get cable might be to be able to bundle high-speed web access in the package, making both more affordable. Another could be for HDTV, although I would have been more inclined to go for an all-HD service like "Voom":http://voom.com, which apparently is about "ready to take a dump":http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000290033928/. I'm not even sure what sort of OTA(Over The Air) HDTV is being put out by the local affiliates, but I don't have high hopes for that either.

*Update:* Hey, I just saw that a new season of "The Shield":http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/the_shield/ has started, so time to add that to the Azureus list. The only problem with being so unconnected from prime-time schedules is that I don't know when new shows are airing, like "American Chopper":http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/amchopper/amchopper.html or The Shield.

I thought they were nerds...

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While reading "this Slashdot blurb":http://it.slashdot.org/it/05/02/25/1328205.shtml?tid=95&tid=158&tid=218 about floater ads (heh, I said "floater") I realized that people on /. looooove to bitch about the NYT's "soul-sucking registration", and will do so at every opportunity in an article intro. Do they just want to remain willfully ignorant of the "NYT permalink generator":http://nytimes.blogspace.com/genlink and continue to rage against the machine? You would think that something like that would spread quickly among the nerdarati.

Flickr, flickr, flickr here you are...

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_(Imagine the title sung like The Cure's "The Caterpillar")_ I've been so impressed with the "Flickr":http://flickr.com/ photo service that I plunked down some money to open a Pro account there last week. It finally got turned on earlier this week, which has let me upload some of my backlog of "photos":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/ to my "new photo page":http://www.flickr.com/photos/feralboy/. It's a great application, even with just the free account. I'm trying to get "Paul and April":http://apadventures.net/ to get an account as well to put up all those fabulous climbing shots; and with all the neat tagging and Set features, we could have everything totally organized and searchable. Wanna find all the pictures of April at Hueco? "No problem":http://www.flickr.com/photos/feralboy/search/tags:april,huecotanks/tagmode:all/. Want to get an RSS feed of all photos tagged "boobs"? "Knock yourself out":http://www.flickr.com/services/feeds/photos_public.gne?tags=boobs&format=atom_03.

I think I convinced my dad (who "visited":http://www.flickr.com/photos/feralboy/tags/dad/ this past weekend) to open an account, and I'll get him a Pro account for a belated Xmas present, and I might do the same for some "certain roomies":http://apadventures.net/ if they want to open an account too. ;-)

"Robin":http://firepile.com/robin/ has also opened an account, and has started "putting up pictures":http://www.flickr.com/photos/firepile/ too, mostly of "her cats":http://www.flickr.com/photos/firepile/tags/cat/. I like that you can go in and put "annotations":http://www.flickr.com/photos/firepile/5304138/ on people's pictures (if they let you)... sort of adds to the whole community feeling, as well as all the "photo groups":http://www.flickr.com/groups/rockclimbing/.

Sites like "Flickr":http://flickr.com/ and "Google Maps":http://maps.google.com/ make me think that innovation on teh Intarweb isn't quite dead yet.

Merger mania

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Not really a new trend, but still one that I find disturbing. Hot on the heels of SBC's "merger with AT&T":http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000733029998/ comes news today that Verizon is going to snap up MCI. They needed to do something to prove that they were a player, and although some people thought they might go after one of the bigger companies (i.e. Cingular or Nextel), this merger makes headlines without making a huge dent in Verizon's cash. I wonder if this is just a merger for merger's sake, tho. MCI is a troubled company, and they are inheriting a bureaucratic nightmare ("60 billing systems?":http://news.com.com/Verizon+to+buy+MCI+for+5.3+billion/2100-1036_3-5574860.html) Also, I wonder why Verizon's bid which was $.5 billion less than Qwest's was accepted... not like MCI is going to care about Qwest's "financial scruples":http://money.cnn.com/2002/06/26/news/companies/qwest/, right? Consolidation, especially with telcos, makes me nervous. I have "enough trouble":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001356/ as it is with phone companies, and I still technically have choices for my provider. Wasn't the Ma Bell breakup done specifically to avoid the type of consolidation and lack of choice that we're heading towards?

In other merger news, Blockbuster is "again":http://www.hackingnetflix.com/netflix/2004/12/blockbuster_con.html making a hostile "takeover":http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/03/news/midcaps/hollywood.reut/ play for Hollywood Video. While I've been a satisfied "Netflix":http://netflix.com/ customer for years, the thought that there would only be "Netflix, Blockbuster and Wal-Mart":http://www.hackingnetflix.com/netflix/2005/01/reporter_tests_.html (both of which are gunning for Netflix in the worst way) as the 3 major players makes me worry about their future.

The games people play

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Man, there are so many cool games either coming out or already out for PS2 this holiday season. There's possible Game of the Year "GTA: San Andreas":http://ps2.ign.com/articles/559/559560p1.html. There's "Gran Turismo 4":http://ps2.ign.com/objects/489/489327.html. There's "NHL 2005":http://ps2.ign.com/objects/678/678013.html. "NFSU2":http://ps2.ign.com/objects/679/679032.html. "Tony Hawk":http://ps2.ign.com/objects/640/640600.html. All this is making me think about getting a totally cheap-o (read: $100) tv to put in my room so I can hook up the PS2. That will let me both play games AND watch DVDs. It's a win-win!

The red badge of geekiness

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Thanks to "David":http://bigbrit.blogspot.com/, I now have a "GMail":http://gmail.com/ account! Now I can stop making random posts to our "defunct climbing co-op page":http://pittwall.blogspot.com/ in the hopes that being a more active "Blogger":http://blogger.com/ user would get me an invite. So far it seems pretty cool. I like the way that email threads are shown as "conversations", and I can't get over the 1GB of storage. Anyway, as I get some invites (and based on "this Wired story":http://wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,63786,00.html they're being handed out much more freely these days), I'll be passing them along to whoever. "Joshua":http://firepile.com/log/ totally gets one, because he's a big nerd like me, but if anyone else wants one, just let me know.

Oh, and my address is mattcomroe (and you can figure out the rest).

Fuckin' Microsoft....

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This morning when I get into work there was a "Critical Update":http://www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/20040210_windows.asp waiting for me. I installed it on my XP machine at home, no problem, so I figured it would be the same thing here. Nope. After the reboot it said that my boot.ini file was invalid, and then there was a problem with NTOSKRNL.EXE. After some head-scratching I fired up the bootable Win2k CD and went to the recovery console to look at what was in boot.ini. That's funny, it's just not there! Lemme go look on a co-worker machine... hey, it's not there either! The fix wound up being creating a new boot.ini from scratch, and making an educated guess about which disk/partition my installation was on. I was half-tempted to just wipe and reformat, then put XP on, but I've got so much configuring that I would need to do (mail, Visual Studio, little apps, etc.) that it would probably take most of the damn day. Hey, I figure 2 hours lost isn't really all that bad, so I just made a fresh "Emergency Repair Disk":http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWS2000/techenthusiast/tricks/administration/erd.asp and chalked it up to experience.

iPod Mini = teh sux0rs

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"Matt":http://a.wholelottanothing.org/'s "got it right":http://a.wholelottanothing.org/archives.blah/007640; "this":http://www.apple.com/ipodmini/ is a horrible idea. Why the fuck would I pay $250 for an iPod that holds "1000 songs":http://files.mobiletracker.net/macmerc/macworld04/ipodmini.jpg, when I can get one that holds almost 5000 songs for $50 more? Oh, because it comes in some pretty colors? Bollocks.