My Tivo hates me
Posted on Dec 29th, 2008
I loved my Series 2 Tivo. It was rock solid. It was so faithful that I even bought it a twin brother to play with while out of the house.
My Series 3 Tivo is like the gremlin that eats after midnight. It’s slow at times, it doesn’t like to multi-task and it’s temperamental. And it crashes — a lot. I’ve learned that if the Tivo is recording two shows at the same time then don’t, no matter how badly you want to, don’t ask it to do anything else. Stop recording one of the shows if you don’t want the screen you see here. What is this screen? Well, it’s the startup screen you see after the Tivo very quietly crashes. No error messages, no clues as to what happened, not even an acknowledgement that something has gone seriously wrong. Just 7 or 8 minutes of time that the Tivo refuses to stay awake for.
I just wanted to watch a rerun of Family Guy. Now I’m writing a blog post. Oh well…
Dog-Powered Vehicles Force Man's Best Friend Into Manual Labor
Posted on Dec 29th, 2008
Your dog is lazy and shiftless, not paying his way through life at all. It’s time to make your dog work for his food by attaching him to a scooter, bike or skateboard.
Yes, now you can get your lazy ass carted around by your poor dog, attaching him and up to three other dogs to one of these crazy contraptions. The big selling point, apparently, is that by placing the dog behind the steering apparatus, you’re able to have much more control over where you’re headed. Because if the dog was placed in front of the steering apparatus, you’d always just head right to the butcher shop or milk bone factory.
Text Messages Are an Even Bigger Ripoff Than You Thought
Posted on Dec 29th, 2008
We all know that text messaging is overpriced, but the NYT has pulled back the technological shroud to find out that the prices aren’t just bad, they’re practically extortionate.
The article goes into depth about how text messages are transmitted. In short, texts are unsurprisingly transmitted between towers over the main, wired network in the same way as cellular data, a portion of the journey that, considering the tiny amount of information in a 160-character text, costs very close to nothing.
Surely then, the carrier incurs costs to transmit the messages from towers to handsets. After all, this is the wireless part of the journey, and wireless costs lotsa $$$, right? No:
Text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.
That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.
You read that right: for carriers, sending a text message from an extant wireless tower to your handset is more or less free. If it’s any consolation, the article also mentions that the Senate Antitrust Committee is kind of looking into the matter, so we may see relief (or even retribution) within the next 10-40 years.
LG Touchscreen Watch Phone Will Support 3G, Speech Recognition
Posted on Dec 29th, 2008
Details of a new LG watch phone, likely to be announced at CES, have trickled out through the company’s Korean site. And surprise! It looks hard to use. But not—and this is important—unusable.
The first thing to notice is the specs: unlike last time around, they’re actually pretty solid. The GD910, as it’s called, will support 3G, HSDPA, Bluetooth, text-to-speech and speech-to-text, and finally, videoconferencing via a front-mounted camera.
Merry Chrismoose!
Posted on Dec 24th, 2008
Droopy red hats are sure to be the new fashion statement for the animal kingdom!
Merry wishes for the holiday season!
