Replacing the VCR

Good luck if you have to replace a busted VCR!

I've been "time shifting" TV for 20 years now. Seeing as I work most week nights until 9pm, if I want to see 'prime time' TV I have to time shift. The last few years it has been getting harder and harder to find VCRs to replace the 2 or 3 I have running. Now, well as I said...good luck...finding a new VCR. Yes, there are still a few dvd/vcr combos out there, but only a few brands and in limited supply. I strongly suspect they've stopped making them and are just drawing down their inventories now. Sigh! It is the end of an era.

One of the three VCR's I use to record TV died about a month ago. I'm making do with the last two and playing the tapes back on the VCR/DVD combo in the TV room. I've been looking and no replacements are to be found. I will have to pick up a combo unit this Christmas season before they are all gone, and that should hold things together for a while, but only for a while.

So, how am I to really replace the VCR? I don't think DVD-RW is the way to go. The recorders are too expensive and the disks only hold about 4 hours each, and that's not enough for the 6 hour days I have sometimes. I think I'm going to have to go to the DVR solution.

DVRs (Digital Video Recorders) come in 3 varieties: Tivo, the cable/satelite company's box, and Media PC's. I don't want to go the monthly subscription route with Tivo or the Cable company...and they would require me moving to "digital cable" and I can't see a reason to do that yet. So, that means I'm looking at a Media PC...and nobody seems to be selling one that does what I want. Some come close, but I'm going to have to customize, upgrade, and jury rig a bit to get to what I've currently got with Cable, VCR's, TV's and coax cables.

Over the next few weeks, I plan to "spec out" what I need and start acquiring the parts. I don't have a PC I can dedicate to this project, so I'm going to have to buy one and customize it. I'm hoping I can get the entire setup done for under $700...we'll see.

Ode to NetFlix

I subscribed to Netflix a little under two months ago. I hadn't done it before because I don't watch many movies and paying $10 a month to see an occasional movie I wouldn't pay to see in a theater seemed like a waste, but shoot was I a dope!

I've gotten about 20 discs delivered in the past 2 months, and not once have I rented a recent theatrical release! Who knew I could get all of these old shows! I've rented mysteries from the 30's... The Thin Man, Mike Shane, Phio Vance, Bulldog Drummond. I've rented old series that, once upon a time, were on PBM Mystery...Sgt Cribb, Tommy & Tuppence, the original Mrs. Marple. I've rented old Marx brothers comedies, TV shows I liked once upon a time like The Avengers, The Man From Uncle, and that's not all!

Netflix has this online streaming feature now. Man this is great!!! I can look at old favorites like The Good Life, Waiting for God, Perry Mason, Murder She Wrote whenever I want, not just if/when some network wants to broadcast them. I can discover English comedies, mysteries and detective shows that I never would have known about...and have: The Last Detective, Rising Damp, Hamish McBeth. Oh, and with my PC2TV setup, I can watch those streams on the TV in the living room...cool!

And all for $9.65 a month!

Just Another Day

Listening to: Sister Lost Soul by Alejandro Escovedo.

This is from his Real Animal album. Alejandro is the brother of Pete Escovedo (drummer for Santana) and uncle of the infamous Shelia E. Alejandro has been bouncing around the music scene since the 60's, but never hit it big. This song, however, I really like.

I can't say I was enthused about the rest of Real Animal, though.

Thinking about: Sixth Sense Technology as demoed by Dr. Pattie Mae.

I thought MicroSoft's Surface was cool, but that pales in comparison to this! I really think this will be the break through technology of 2010 or 2011. Imagine being about to project information from the internet onto any surface and manipulate it. Imagine walking up to a stranger and having information about him projected onto his shirt, or whispered in your ear. Imagine getting real-time reviews of books just by picking them up. This is going to be hands-free IPhone, IPod, Surface, your new Digital Personal Assistant! Of course, I will still want my Dynabook. :)

Reading Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh.

Having exhausted Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie, I've started on Ngaio Marsh. Enter a Murderer is the second book of the Inspector Alleyn series. I finished the first book, A Man Lay Dead, a few weeks ago...it wasn't great, but it was Marsh's first effort and has been universally rated as her worst. It is with this second book that she begins to "hit her stride."

-- 30 --

Cold Fusion?

Cool!

So when can we be looking for our home fusion kits?

'Cold Fusion' Rebirth? New Evidence For Existence Of Controversial Energy Source
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090323110450.htm
March 23, 2009

ScienceDaily (Mar. 23, 2009) ? Researchers are reporting compelling new scientific evidence for the existence of low-energy nuclear reactions (LENR), the process once called "cold fusion" that may promise a new source of energy. One group of scientists, for instance, describes what it terms the first clear visual evidence that LENR devices can produce neutrons, subatomic particles that scientists view as tell-tale signs that nuclear reactions are occurring.

Everything old is new again! I have always thought that something was going on back when Fleishmann and Pons reported their findings way back when. Maybe not fusion, per se, but something. Now it looks like somebody else has found something...and that something looks an awful lot like fusion.

Low-energy nuclear reactions could potentially provide 21st Century society a limitless and environmentally-clean energy source for generating electricity, researchers say. The report, which injects new life into this controversial field, will be presented March 23 in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the American Chemical Society's 237th National Meeting.*

"Our finding is very significant," says study co-author and analytical chemist Pamela Mosier-Boss, Ph.D., of the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) in San Diego, Calif. "To our knowledge, this is the first scientific report of the production of highly energetic neutrons from an LENR device."

A cable, a cable, my kingdom for a cable!

Wouldn't you know it! Here I am ready to sync files...and I don't have a USB cable with the correct connector!

What is it with the multitude of connectors for USB? Isn't it supposed to be *Universal*, can't be universal if you've got a half dozen different...mutually incompatible plugs to deal with.

Grumble, Grumble!

And here comes USB 3.0 with, you guessed it, YACC...and I don't mean yet another C compiler...for us to deal with!

The Digital Age

I got my first copy of digital PC Mag yesterday. I was hoping for a pdf. I got some sort of proprietary format requiring a proprietary reader...yuck! At least, the reader worked okay. I liked the way it scrolled up and down the columns rather than making you page up and down all the time, however, I can't curl up with a monitor on my lap.

John Dvorak was writing about "The End of History" the other day. He thinks that print newspapers, magazines and eventually books are doomed, and when they go so will long term archival.

He might be right. I sure hope he isn't.