1) I gave notice at my job. I don't talk about work here, so I'll be very brief - The job made me so miserable and emotionally abused that I just couldn't bear it any longer. Making more money than I was worth was nice, but it got to the point where I was filled with so much self loathing for tolerating an awful experience that staying with it stopped being an option.
I have no idea what I'll be doing. I need to spend a week or so updating my resume and feeling out options. Right now I'm really unhappy about it. Trying to find a new career in programming at my age is not an attractive challenge. We will see. Whatever it is, I'm sure it will be better than my current job.
2) We spent the first installment of the MT parents Christmas gift on fancy cheese and beer and soda and meat and sweets. Still eyeing the dry aged steaks. I'm not sure my cooking skills are up to a $28 per pound steak.
3) It was good to see the Saints win the Superbowl. All the hype before the game over them being the hope of New Orleans was a bit much, but when we were there back in November we really did get the feeling that the locals felt that way. And even though this is likely a bigger bump for the French Quarter than the lower ninth ward, it is good to see some attention being shown to the areas that never got rebuilt.
4) I'm liking what I'm hearing from Obama a lot more these days. More blaming the people actually screwing it up. Less playing nice for no good reason at all. More calling bullshit. Hopefully this will hobble Congress's ability to make everything worse with no accountability.
And hopefully it will act as an effective counterweight to the conservative tea-bagger silliness. I know the common wisdom might be to ignore pernicious morons in the political process. But when the only political voice getting attention is a mob of shrill idiots it's hard to just sit by and hope American voters are smarter than you know them to be. It would be nice to see the president talking truth to stupid.
11 Comments
Podcast Karma - Feb 2nd, '10
1) I have rather a lot of podcasts queued up in the Droid, but the ones I'm most likely to listen to are:
This week in tech
Scientific American Podcast
PRI: The World
On the media
MetaFilter podcast
The Economist podcast
BoagWorld podcast
Buzz out loud
Radio lab
Slate daily podcast
PC gamer podcast
NPR: Most emailed stories
IT conversations
For those wondering, I use DoggCatcher as the podcast client on my Driod. Highly recommended. Fully automated, and it plays nice with my bluetooth headset.
2) One of the problems with getting this stuff via podcasts rather than radio is how to pay for it. With the NPR sorts of programs on the radio I pay a donation once a year and I'm good. Or not, since it's technically free. But podcasts are all over the map in terms of my karmic obligations. Some podcasts, such as the MetaFilter podcast, are suppose to free and you can't pay for it if you wanted to. Others, like the PRI podcasts, are explicitly asking for donations. And a few, like The Economist podcast, are basically stealing if I don't pay.
The core problem is coordinating how to pay what's fair. Even if I can figure out what I *should* pay it seems a little silly to track down a payment page (Once a month? Once a year?) and pay a few dollars. And some, like the NPR, make it impossible to pay for the programs directly. Most mystifying are the podcasts that aggregate a variety of shows, such as the Slate daily podcast. How am I suppose to pay for those? So just keeping track of where and when to pay is a complete pain.
It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. With print newspapers slowly dying (as they should), and more and more radio style programming being shifted to podcasts, there should be an emerging subscription or micro-payment system. People want to pay for this stuff, it's just too complicated right now. My hope is that there will be an easy way to directly pay the people doing the podcasts. My worry is that it will end up being like cable TV where an otherwise useless company rips off both customers and content creators.
4 Comments
Chicken Podcast - Feb 1st, '10
1) So Sharon was upset about the schedule for NPR's Morning Edition changing in Kalispell so that she couldn't listen to it anymore. I told her that podcasts were the solution, and she could listen to it any time she wanted. So here's the deal with podcasts -
A podcast is just a sound file the same as other MP3s and music files. Anything that can play one of those files can play podcasts. The programs are much like radio shows in that the people doing them will produce one daily or weekly, but the files will be out on the Internet and available whenever you want. NPR happens to do this with almost all of it's shows.
One of the things that makes podcasts different than music MP3s is that they will typically be organized on the Internet as programs where you can subscribe and have the files downloaded to your computer or music player automatically. So you get the same programs, but you can listen to them whenever you want. An additional benefit is that you get to listen to what you want rather than what NPR decides to push to you. With thousands of programs available I find I can listen to things much more interesting than Morning Edition. NPR even has a "best of" podcast that grabs items from Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and other shows.
NPR has hundreds of podcasts available here. Morning Edition gets broken up into seperate podcasts, but it works the same way.
If you have a smartphone doing podcasts is easy, as once you subscribe the phone takes care of the rest. I just hit play on my Droid each morning and it starts playing the latest shows. But you can do the same thing with a desktop computer. And if you have a music player you can easily move your podcast files to that listen to them on the drive to work. Some players like an iPod or Zune are designed to automate a lot of this, but any simple music player can do it.
So, not as convenient as just getting into the car and turning on the radio. But being able to access better programming, and listen to it whenever I want, makes up for that in my opinion.
2) We tried the sous vede chicken breast a while back. It was the most juicy and tender chicken I've ever eaten. But it was also a bigger pain in the ass than any other chicken I've made. So I think we won't be doing much of that anymore.
1 Comments
Droid Does - Jan 29th, '10
1) Google's addition of a scrolling live update from social networks in it's search page is just too cool. And addictive. I think it is gimicky, but I can also see plenty of value in it. Well..... a little value at least.
2) It is indeed fun to see the Apple devoted wig out over the assersion that the iPad is just a niche product that is basically nothing more than a bigger form factor option for the Ipod Touch. "It IS a DVR!!!! It DOES have multi-tasking!!!! There IS a USB port!!!!! People LOVE crippled tablet computing!!!! No one will EVER buy a netbook with this out!!!! It DOES have GPS!!!!! IT DOES IT DOES IT DOES IT DOES IT DOES!!!!!"
How precious.
As I've said all along, it's a great product if you need a bigger iPod Touch, which plenty of peope do. But as most of the blog press is saying, few people really need one of these, and most people will want it more for the luxury factor than for the utility. And this is really more of a third device to carry rather than a laptop replacement. Sure, reading eBooks in bed will be fun, but how many people will pay $500 to do that?
The problem that is just becoming obvious is the cost. Getting this with 16GB seems pretty silly, since it can't be upgraded, so you have to get the 64GB version. And if you don't get the 3G version you will be screwed when all the must have apps come out that require a net connection. And of course a 3G connection requires a data plan. So rather than $499 this really costs $830 + $30 per month.
Another problem being reported by people who have actually held the thing is........ well, that you have to hold it. And you can't type on it while you're holding it. And watching TV or a movie for an hour while holding it is not going to work. And if you're going to set it down to use it, why not just get a laptop?
3) Miss BatGrl was surprised to find out she could access her desktop from anywhere in the world using her Droid. It's pretty well baked for Android phones. Here, and here are examples. I actually may do this to remote into my parents computer.
2 Comments
Yes, Seriously. - Jan 28th, '10
Let me expand on why I feel the iPad is a dud.
First of all, I agree it is a great device. If you are sure you're going to buy an ereader, this might be sort of a slam dunk, depending on how the DRM, portability, and compatibility work.
But Apple hyped this as literally the greatest device they had ever worked on. Let's say that again. Apple hyped this as literally the greatest device they had ever worked on. And in that context this device is sort of a turd. IPod/iTunes filled a massive need in the electronic media landscape and forced the music industry to change course at a time where they were suing everyone who tried any sort of change at all. The iPhone led the way in terms of making smartphones a powerful tool of the masses, rather than the all business Blackberry or the clunkwear Palm/WinMo phones. I didn't want either of those, mainly because I hate the Apple sandbox, but it was easy to see them as game changers.
But if the iPad is going to be a full featured media pad which is the greatest device they had ever worked on, it needs to have more of the obvious features. Like these -
- It needs to plug into my home theater and be a networked media hub.
- Anything on my DVR/PVR needs to be on my iPad.
- It needs to be a next gen gaming platform. Not just a larger screen for iPhone games.
- It needs to play my DVDs and Blueray discs.
- It needs to have Netflix or something on that scale built in.
- Flash, networking, HDMI, multi-tasking etc, all need to work.
- Plenty of storage. (seriously? 16GB? That's a toy. My Droid does 32GB.)
- A camera for video phone calls. GPS for social apps.
- Direct USB connectivity for cameras, printers, etc.
Those seem obvious given the hype. And that doesn't touch the usual suspects of Apple deal breakers like no access to the battery.
The final straw for me is that all of those obvious features are already available on tablet computers, with many of them having a full keyboard as well. Yes, the iPad is lighter and the battery lasts longer. But that doesn't make it the greatest thing Apple every worked on. Hell, my Droid already does everything thing the iPad does, it's just smaller.
Bottomline - This is a great device, but it's just a bigger iPod Touch. If I needed a dedicated ereader I'd likely buy one. But since I can do all it does and more on a tablet, it would make more sense to just buy a new laptop/tablet. The iPad is either too big and I'd rather carry a smart phone, or it's too short on features and I'd rather carry a laptop.
16 Comments
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