Tikkabik

Some early thoughts on Apple's new iTunes Music Store:

It's disturbingly easy to buy stuff from the service. I totally agree with the pre-release feedback that this is the way online music sales should have worked from the start. 30 seconds gives me enough time to figure out whether I like a track well enough to buy it, and the one-click "Buy Now" button is just like crack -- especially when it comes to buying individual tracks.

This morning, for example, I've already grabbed "A Little Less Conversation" from Elvis, "Fever" by Peggy Lee, and a couple of tracks from Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas' "Great White North" comedy album. A great deal for $4, as far as I'm concerned, and it's $4 I don't have any trouble spending, compared to the $30 I'd spend for the entire collections through the iTunes Music Store or the $40 or so I'd spend at the record store. I've even made a couple of complete album purchases along the way, too -- stuff that I wouldn't have bought in record stores, like "Raising Hell" by Run DMC and "G-Stoned" by Dorfmeister & Kruder.

I'm ashamed to admit I have some experience with Limewire and other peer-to-peer services that enable you to steal music -- though I'll defend it: Almost all of what I've ganked via Limewire I've purchased later, if it's been commercially available. iTunes Music Service makes it so easy to preview and buy the stuff I want that it's not worth the trouble of trying to get it free.

The Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology seems to work fairly intuitively, as well. The first time I tried to fire up my Power Mac's shared playlist over Rendezous and accessed a file I'd downloaded via iMS, I was asked if I wanted to authorize myself to listen to the files. I was prompted for my iMS account info, entered it, and haven't had a problem since.

The only thing I'm curious about is what happens when you get rid of a computer that's been authorized and try to access your DRM-protected files from another machine, if you've already authorized the maximum allowable amount -- three Macs. Does iTunes then ask you if you want to "de-authorize" one of the machines, does it allow three simultaneous streams to an unlimited amount of computers, or what? Has anyone tried this out yet to find out how it works?

Dan Dickinson pointed out some irony to me yesterday: One of Apple's music ads -- Nic, the white guy singing "Baby Got Back" -- is singing the one track you can't download from iMS. Apparently Sir Mix-A-Lot's people haven't cleared his music yet. Go figure.

My only complaint at this point is that 200,000+ tracks are not enough. I'd like to see a lot more stuff on there, in the genre's I'm most interested in: Jazz and Electronica. I'd like to see some of what's there be available as complete albums rather than just partials (I would have bought Off the Wall by Michael Jackson if I'd been able to grab the whole thing). I'd also love to see stuff from smaller labels and independents. But it'll all come together in time, I'm sure. So far, what's there is absolutely fabulous.

Hopefully I'll be able to shake my iMS addiction long enough to save my pennies for an iPod.

Posted by flargh at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

So my latest guilty pleasure is this charming show on PBS imported from Britain called Manor House. It's billed as "Upstairs, Dowstairs" meets Reality TV, and the comparison is quite fair.

The premise is basically a three month project recreating life in an Edwardian-era manor home, circa 1906 -- what we've seen in the seemingly innumerable Merchant Ivory films of the past two decades -- taking a close look at how both the aristocracy and the staff behave when put in their requisite roles.

They've done this same style of project with World War II homes, prehistoric British stone-age dwellings, and frontier homes, so I guess it was inevitable they'd eventually cover Edwardian times too.

The Edwardian gentry has been a source of seemingly endless fascination in fiction over the years, and there are obvious reasons why: It's such an alien lifestyle to our modern ways.

One of the big problems for the television project has been retaining scullery maids, because it's such loathsome work -- 16 hours a day in the kitchen, preparing foods, cleaning pots and pans, mopping floors and other drudge work. It drove two participants out in a matter of days.

There's also been an endless stream of bitching and moaning from the downstairs staff -- the lower servants -- about the length of their days and the harshness of their masters. The upstairs staff and the house's family themselves haven't had the same complaints, but they've had the same sense of unreality that everyone in the project shares.

The show's narrator -- and several of the more self-aware participants -- have noted that they've raised objections that never would have occurred to them one hundred years ago. I guess it speaks to how far English society has come in 100 years that modern people in their late teens and early 20s feel so restricted by this type of life.

Then again, as someone who regularly works 16 hours a day, I'd also like to invite them to quit whining and just get on with it.

Posted by flargh at 11:47 PM | Permalink

There's an extensive thread at Slashdot comparing the relative merits of Advanced Audio Codec (AAC) -- the technology Apple is using for distributing files purchased through its new iTunes Music Store -- against MP3 and Ogg Vorbis.

Some folks participating in the discussion seem to think Apple has it out for the Ogg Vorbis crowd; other feel that Ogg Vorbis is better sounding at lower bit rates.

Personally, I don't give a shit. AAC at 128K sounds great to me, and I'm going to convert all my MP3 files to AAC (they're all encoded in MP3 at 160K), so I'm sure I'll save a few gigs in the process and I'll never notice the difference audio-wise. Perhaps I'm not that sophisticated a listener. Whatever.

People have made AAC's case pretty clear -- 128K AAC is good enough for most people who aren't audio geeks; it supports the digital rights management technology Apple had to use to get the major labels on board with this store; and it's part of QuickTime 6/MPEG-4, a core Apple system technology. All those are big pluses.

All I can tell you for sure is that: That hideous monstrosity known as the Free Software Song is encoded in Ogg Vorbis. That's enough to make me run screaming from it like an n-stage case of SARS.

Posted by flargh at 01:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (11)

Okay, the last time Apple launched a major ad campaign it was Switch, and the breakout star of the switch ads was the stoned-looking teen Ellen Feiss, who offered a rather disjointed onomatopoetic spoken word performance about how her PC ate her homework.

My bet for star of Apple's new music ads -- to publicize its new iTunes Music Store -- is Jacob, the young lad who belts out a rousing rendition of Eminem's "Lose Yourself," the ubiquitous single from the Detroit rapper's recent movie debut "8 Mile." He's cute, he looks really tough and serious, and as a dad I just wanna tousle his hair and pinch his cheek.

Having said that, I'm unquestionably most drawn to Nic, the white man who knows how (and where) to shake it with his dead-on rendition of Sir Mix-A-Lot's classic hip-hop one-hit-wonder, "Baby Got Back."

Posted by flargh at 06:41 PM | Permalink

Bob gets really bad allergies in spring and fall, and last year his pediatrician offered us a prescription for Claritin. It worked effectively. Of course, Claritin went over the counter this past December, so it's no longer covered by our medical insurance's prescription drug plan.

What these means is that while we used to pay $10 for about 20 pills, we now pay $11 for 10 pills. I'm not terribly pleased with the situation, and from the news reports I've seen on the television in the past day or so, neither are many other people, who are complaining to their insurance companies and asking to have prescriptions written for competing products.

The insurance companies are apparently insisting that they try Claritin first, and some companies are asking doctors for proof that their patients try Claritin before honoring prescriptions for other allergy medications. It seems like a silly runaround: Doctors are bitching because it means more paperwork for them.

It's easy to make insurance companies the bad guys here: Lord only knows that health care management organizations have really been able to fuck up the quality of medicine in the States over the past decade. But the insurance companies aren't to blame. What's happening is a case of sticker shock as consumers are being forced to pay fair market value for something that up until now they've been able to get their insurance companies to heavily subsidize.

It's obviously not the most altruistic situation, and people for whom a $10, week-and-a-half supply is a financial burden are put in a tight spot. But as long as we as a society are expecting companies like Schering-Plough HealthCare Products Inc. to shell out the R&D and marketing costs to bring a product like Claritin to market themselves, go through the hassle of FDA approval and all that's associated with it, we don't really have a right to bitch when they expect to get paid for their efforts.

Posted by flargh at 06:08 PM | Permalink

GOING

TO

E3

YAY

This year, though, I'm not letting John Han pick a restaurant. I'd like to spend at least SOME of my trip AWAY from the bathroom.

Posted by flargh at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sometimes it pays to tell companies what's on your mind.

So, Dan and Corey will tell you that I'm a Hot Pockets whore. I love Hot Pockets. Hot Pockets and the microwave oven are, unquestionably in my mind, one of the finest technological achievements of the last 50 years.

For the uninitiated, Hot Pockets are sandwiches you stick in the microwave. You slip them into cardboard sleeves lined with a reflective material, heat them for about three minutes, and get a hot, tasty sandwich in return.

Chef America, a division of Nestle Foods, has created dozens of different variations, when you consider the different Hot Pocket-related brands: There's the original Hot Pockets, Lean Pockets, Hot Pockets Toaster Pizza, Hot Pockets Toaster Melts, Breakfast Hot Pockets, Hot Pockets Pizza Minis, and Croissant Pockets. They come in many different flavors -- meatball and cheese. Ham and cheese. Pepperoni pizza. Philly Cheese Steak. All of them combine meat, cheese and pastry together in a delectable combination that fills my tummy with the warm glow of love. Well, that and irradiated food.

One day, bored and in a fit of near-hallucinatory reverence brought on by the consumption of a pair of tasty, warm and flaky Ham and Cheese Croissant Pockets, I sent Chef America an e-mail to the tune of "OMFG I LOEV HOT PCOKETS THEIR MY SOUL REASON 4 LIEVING."

Like I said, I was tripping on the nitrates at the time.

Lo and behold, a few weeks later, I am rewarded by a nice letter from one Gail Stuart, Consumer Affairs Manager for Nestle USA's Hand-Held Foods Group. She thanked me for my feedback, and was happy to learn that I enjoy Hot Pockets. She also included four coupons for 40 cents off my next purchase of Hot Pockets brand products.

Now, all I have to do is wait for the Hot Pockets to go on sale and I'll score with the double coupon action. Using coupons when stuff is on sale fills me with the same sense of satisfaction as nailing a difficult bank shot in pool.

THIS IS WHAT MAKES AMERICA GREAT, PEOPLE.

Posted by flargh at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I'm delighted to report that after a protacted period of heavy public access, Tikkabik's stats are more or less returning to normal.

This all got started earlier this month when I posted a few comments about the ever-popular Iraqi information minister who must not be named lest my traffic skyrocket again. Within a few days I was seeing what is, for Tikkabik anyway, an astounding amount of traffic.

The site, which averaged only a few hundred page impressions per day, spiked at 13,092 in one day, and thereafter sustained steady traffic of between 3,000 - 5,000 page impressions. I was pushing hundreds of megabytes of bandwidth per day as people were visiting the ever lengthening forums for these stories, posting comments, and refreshing. My service provider, Pair.com, handled the added load without any trouble whatsoever, and so did Movable Type -- a testament to the competence of both technologies.

My e-mail box was flooded with copies of postings to the forums attached to those messages, from what seemed to be a peculiar combination of people with good senses of humor about the whole thing to jabbering lunatics with only a loose grip on reality, let alone the English language. In fact, some weren't posting in English at all -- there are at least a couple of posts embedded in there in Arabic, believe it or not.

Anyway, eventually I took two steps to curtail traffic -- the first was to forbid anonymous posting. Of course, determined people simply fed garbage into the e-mail field and left it at that, and it was fine -- but it did reduce traffic overall, rather dramatically.

Eventually, however, my patience was exhausted with it. After all, Tikkabik is a diary of sorts, a running commentary of whatever's on my mind. I have no interest in monetizing this site, so increasing traffic to the point of advertising sustainability (if such a thing even exists on the Web anymore) is not a concern. See, my editorial perspective on Tikkabik is distinctly different from the content I'm responsible for in my career: I have only a passing interest in hearing from people who have an opinion about what I write, and usually that interest ends completely if you're not someone I know personally.

So a few days ago I finally locked down the forums on those posts all together, forbidding people from posting anything at all, and that seems to have nipped the problem in the bud. There has been some leakage of complete fucking imbeciles who seem to think it's necessary to post off-topic messages about the Iraq war in other forums, but for the most part it's back to normal. I've also reconfigured the blog so anonymous posters can post again, just in case you have some bug up your ass about having your e-mail address mined by spammers.

Traffic has been steadily dropping day to day since then, to the previously maintained levels. I'm happy with that.

Posted by flargh at 12:09 PM | Permalink

Overnight, it seems, my house has been turned into a shrine for anime. In fact, it's become a shrine to Japanese consumerism in general. Recently I told you about my purchase of my first real anime production cel -- a fragment of a series called Boogiepop Phantom -- but it gets better.

Bonnie repainted Emme's room pink some months ago and finally got around to hanging up some wall scrolls we'd collected for Emme. Three of her four walls now have giant Sailor Moon wall scrolls, and the four sports a Sailor Moon calendar. Added to that, Emme's bed is covered in Hello Kitty sheets, bedspread and throw pillow.

We picked up a Maho Tsukai Tai (Magic User's Club) poster at Anime Boston 2003 last weekend, which I've been ordered to frame and find a suitable, conspicuous spot for. It's bordered with pink, so my first thought was the hallway outside of Emme's room, but that's not conspicuous enough for Bonnie. So, I'm thinking of maybe hanging it in the family room.

What's more, our spartanly decorated living room -- previously graced only with a few framed photographs and a wall scroll of My Neighbor Totoro we picked up from a Japanese toy store in Cambridge last year -- now sports a large, horizontal wall scroll of Kiki's Delivery Service (apparently our living room is now Hayao Miyazaki-themed). Now all I have to do is get one of those Spirited Away movie posters (actually, I have one that was included with NewType, but it was creased and is thus unsuitable for general display).

The boy's bedroom is punctuated with centerfolds from video gaming magazines -- things like Mario Sunshine and the like, Japanese imports all. My stereo equipment is largely Sony and Onkyo these days. My video game systems are all made in Japan. At least 50 percent of our DVD collection is Japanese animation.

One of these days I really have to make a concerted effort to learn Japanese. It's taking over my life.

Posted by flargh at 11:52 AM | Permalink

Ten years ago or so, every shareware or hobbyist developer cut their teeth on arcade-style games. Remakes of 80s classics like Galaxian and Asteroids. And what's more, games that I actually cared about. Nowadays, the vogue in cheap game production has become puzzle games.

Action-oriented puzzle games have been around since the 1980s. Tetris was the first one to grab mass attention, and they've been with us more or less ever since. Columns, Super Columns, Super Tetris. There's been a slow evolution over the years.

Collapse and Bejeweled and their ilk have been hugely popular in recent years, and I can understand why; it's for the same reason that popping bubble wrap is fun. There's a zen meditative quality in the repetion of matching colors and shapes together that's undeniably attractive.

But it seems like everyone has to cash in on the idea, implementing minor, iterative changes to the concept and republishing the same idea over and over again.

Here's some advice, game developers: Just because you slap prettier graphics and catchier music than the last guy doesn't mean you've made a better game. Show some originality, for chrissakes.

Posted by flargh at 03:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

One thing I forgot to mention: Anime Boston 2003 finally gave me the impetus I needed to start collecting anime cels, for framing and display in the house.

These days, most of the art produced by Japanese animation houses is done on computers. Cheaper and easier to do than by hand, CG actually opens up new production and direction techniques traditional animators would be hard pressed to do, but it's also going to damage a collector's market that's been going strong now for years.

There are dealers who trade in these production cels after the animation companies are done filming them. These cels -- transparent cellophane sheets the artists ink pencil sketches from -- are then photographed onto background mattes in the final production process. They used to get thrown away by the dumpster-full. Now they're a treasure-trove for collectors who want to hold on to a piece of the series they love.

The switch to digital production means there's a finite and dwindling supply of anime cels available on the market. It won't run out tomorrow or the day after, but there will come a time when most of what's worth owning is already bought and paid for.

But I'm not interested in the value end of it, specifically. I learned a long time ago you should buy art you like simply because you like it. For the most part, unless you're really lucky, wealthy as hell and tremendously knowledgeable, art is a fucking miserable investment.

I just want art that I can hang on the walls, look at and say, "Yeah, that's from a series I really liked -- that's a genuine production cel from something that touched me, or entertained me, or horrified me, or held my attention long enough to make an impression.

I've actually been talking about doing this for a couple of years, but haven't really gotten up the courage to make it happen before now.

At the show there was one particular dealer who was selling a whole shitload of stuff, and had probably two or three dozen books filled with cels from every conceivable series. He had a few dynamite Miyazaki pieces from Totoro and Kiki's Delivery Service that were selling for upwards of $2000 - $6500 each, but most of his stuff was anywhere from $30 to $200, depending on quality, composition, and popularity of the series.

He had a few really awesome pieces from Revolutionary Girl Utena and Magic Users Club I would have been proud to own, but couldn't afford. So, on a lark, I asked if he had any Boogiepop Phantom. Boogiepop Phantom isn't my favorite anime, although it is definitely one of Bonnie's, but it did tweak my curiosity because of its David Lynchian plot twists and general weirdness. The dealer dug out an oversized portfolio he hadn't laid out on the table and showed a piece to me that I ended up buying.

It's a cel that shows Poom Poom -- a character from the latter half of the series who is a young boy dressed in a Robin Hood-style outfit. Rendered in a more or less isometric perspective, this picture shows Poom Poom's face and upper body as he's handing other children red balloons, one by one. It's a simple image, beautifully rendered, and quite innocent looking.

But within the context of the series, there's absolutely nothing innocent about it. Poom Poom is a manifestation of lost innocence, of abandoned childhood that unhappy people who feel trapped in their adult lives are desperate to regain any way they can. If they take the balloon, those lost souls will regain that innocence and that happiness, for a time -- ultimately paying for it with their sanity, at the very least, and often their lives. And what makes him so intriguing is that Poom Poom himself is unaware of his destructive nature -- only of the joy he wants to bring. Like so much of what's in Boogiepop Phantom, Poom Poom is a jumble of contradictions that very seductively pulls the viewer into deep introspection.

Anyone who says that animation is just for kids is ignorant.

So anyway. That's my first real anime cel. I have a couple of others but they're not "real;" just cheap throwaways mass-produced as promotional items. This one will get a proper framing and a place on the wall where I can enjoy it.

Posted by flargh at 12:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

... makes some people inconsiderate.

"Hello."

"Hey. You called?"

"Yep."

"So what's up?"

"Didn't you hear the message?"

"No. Just saw that you called and figured I'd call you back."

You know, if you're gonna have a voice mail box or answering machine connected to your phone line, you should at least have the courtesy to check it after someone calls to see if they've gone through the trouble of leaving you a message. I wasted a minute of my life telling you something, and sorry if it seems like making a mountain of a molehill, but I'd rather not have to waste another minute explaining it to you again.

Posted by flargh at 12:22 PM | Permalink

Of all the holidays we celebrate, I hate Easter almost as much as I hate Christmas. Why? Candy is involved. And my children + candy = a volatile combination.

Bonnie and I limit our kids' easter candy intake as much as possible, but there's a finite limit to how much we can control it -- the kids often find their easter baskets filled with toys and books and crafts instead.

As we do every year, this year we went to my grandmother's house. She baked a really nice ham and prepared a great spread of food for us to enjoy. She also hid a couple dozen plastic easter eggs around the living room for the kids to find.

That's the first mistake. Because one kid is always going to find more than the others. Then the other will claim that it's not fair that the first found more. And the first is usually Bob. And he doesn't handle conflict very well.

And my grandmother has a penchant for giving each of the kids one special egg -- it'll have a Cadbury Creme Egg in it or something -- so if one kid finds all three of the dark green eggs, let's say, he or she has to divide up his riches between the other two. Second mistake.

So, by 2:30 or so -- within about a half an hour of getting to my grandmother's house -- the kids have been driven to utter distraction through this Easter egg hunt ritual. What's more, they've now been rewarded for their work by being given a pound or two of sugary products that they're just dying to eat -- marshmallow Peeps, for example, and chocolate coins wrapped in gold tin. And the aforementioned Cadbury Creme Eggs.

Just in time for dinner. Which they pick at, poke at, and do everything in their power not to eat. After all, they don't want to spoil their appetite for junk.

So, by four or five pm I've usually made myself hoarse by yelling at the kids over various infractions of the rules that they bloody well know better than to break; they're completely incoherent from their unsupervised intake of sugar; and I'm ready for a nervous breakdown.

All in all, NOT my favorite day of the year.

Posted by flargh at 08:59 AM | Permalink

Bonnie and I left the kids with their grandmother yesterday and went into Boston for Anime Boston 2003 -- the first major regional anime expo in this area that I'm familiar with, and I when I say "major," it's no understatement: Bonnie and I got there at about 10:30, and had to wait in line for an hour and a half just to register. Shortly after we got there the show's coordinators announced that they'd closed the line behind us because they'd hit maximum capacity -- about 4,000 people all told.

Bonnie and I are big anime fans, but we're not otaku -- in other words, we're not obsessive. We know which stuff we like and which we don't, but we don't track each voice actor or director or artist's moves in stalker-like creepiness, we don't swoon every time something new is released in the states, and we don't keep track of each minute detail about every character in the stuff that we watch.

Looking around Anime Boston, my first thought -- and one that occurred to me over and over again -- was "boy, am I old." Approaching our mid-30s, Bonnie and I were distinctly older -- by at least a decade -- than many of the people who showed up.

Cosplay -- or costume play -- is a big part of the scene. And if you're in your early 20's, it's a feast for the eyes: Young, nubile bodies dressed up in tight, revealing clothing inspired by the fantasy creations of Japan's best anime and manga artists. As titillating as it sounds, though, I wasn't really that turned on by it. Maybe my tastes are changing or maybe my libido was just down yesterday, but I looked at a lot of the girls at the show and wasn't particularly turned on. "Underdeveloped" was the word that came to mind, and I don't mean in a bulimic or small-chested sort of way: I mean just ... well, too young.

Having said that, there were a few costumes that just made my jaw drop or made me laugh heartily. Good cosplay involves either spending a lot of money having a costume made for you or using your own skills to put together a good costume. I was totally impressed by a lot of the artistic skill in evidence at the show.

I was also tickled by the senses of humor of some folks in costume, especially one young guy who showed up with flowing, long hair and a shirt open to his waist with a sign around his neck that said "Generic bishounen: Just as effective as the more expensive brand." (Bishounen means "pretty young man".) Another guy -- bigger and taller than me -- was wearing a grey sweatshirt and had a black-painted nose. It wasn't immediately obvious to me who he was until I saw him in the dealer room haggling with a vendor over a plushie doll of Mai, the three-year-old bratty younger sister in Miyazaki's classic movie, "My Neighbor Totoro." It was then that I saw the grey chevrons on the white chest of his sweatshirt, and he held up his sweatshirt hood to reveal two pointed ears. He was Oh-Totoro (Big Totoro), of course.

One final word on cosplay: Despite what anyone might say, cosplay most assuredly has a huge amount to do with adult sexual fantasy, and fetish. If you're fat, or really ugly, don't cosplay unless you're gonna do something cute, like Oh-Totoro (or another big, burly guy I saw yesterday) dressed as Kero-chan from Cardcaptor Sakura). If you're fat and you're trying to be sexy, you're creeping the rest of us out. Really.

The day was filled with discussion panels of voice actors from animes we liked, folks from companies who publish and distribute anime and manga in the united states, and various other luminaries who pontificated on various issues ranging from video games to how to make your own manga characters. There were also several different tracks of videos running almost continuously, a rather disappointing room filled with video games, and lots of other goings-on. All told, a fun time.

The event needs a bigger venue, however -- it totally overwhelmed the Park Plaza. And they definitely need a more effective registration process for next year: The entire line -- that hour and a half wait I referred to before -- was stymied by what basically amounted to a pair of women and a man who were laminating badges using what looked like a single machine. Definitely Not Efficient.

Posted by flargh at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So I composed a long e-mail yesterday voicing my frustration with Suncoast and sent it to them after my rant here yesterday. Not too long after, this came in my e-mail in box:

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification.

Delivery to the following recipients failed.

storesissues@suncoast.com

Posted by flargh at 08:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I've been a loyal Suncoast customer for years. I like the people who work there, because they are, for the most part, video geeks, anime otaku, or sci-fi nerds -- in short, folks I can get along with and relate to. Yesterday I went in to my local mall to pick up three Hayao Miyazaki anime DVDs that I had pre-ordered, which just came in. The gate to the store was locked and shuttered, and the sign on the front said they were closed. I was given a phone number for a store in Taunton to call -- more than an hours' drive away -- to discuss my reservations.

There was absolutely no indication that they were going to close. In fact, the employees only had a few hours' notice, according to a couple of people that I've spoken to. Well, I feel for the employees who are now out of work. What's more, as a loyal customer, I think I deserve better.

Even when it's been cheaper to go to Best Buy (whose corporate benefactor, by the way, owns Suncoast too) or more convenient to go to another chain or just buy my DVDs mail-order, I've gone to Suncoast.

Why? They speak my language. They call me to let me know that stuff I'm interested in is coming, even if I haven't pre-ordered. They all know me by name. I don't have to ask them to give stuff to me in widescreen -- they know it. As near as I can tell, I've given them what amounts to thousands of dollars in business over the years.

In short, my relationship with my local Suncoast was the sort of customer/merchant relationship that corporate suits cream themselves to foster. It's also the kind of relationship that Best Buy Co. Inc. has just managed to completely fuck up beyond any redemption.

Now, I'm not being willfully stupid about this. Suncoast was never the most popular store in the Cape Cod Mall, and I know their lease was running out. There are economic circumstances that cause major companies to make decisions like this that are awfully hard to argue with, and I won't even try. At the risk of sounding terribly self-centered, what I'm hacked off about is the personal inconvenience the decision has caused me.

I've got nine reservation slips sitting in my wallet for orders I'd placed with Suncoast. Everything from those Miyazaki treasures I'm waiting on to the Animatrix DVD that's coming out in June to the new Harry Potter book (yes, book). And I can't do a goddamn thing with them, because the manager who's responsible for dealing with this -- the guy who runs the Taunton store -- decided to take the day off today.

So rather than just going down to Best Buy -- which is running a pretty decent special on the Miyazaki discs I ordered -- I'm stuck with nine useless slips that I've already put $5 down a piece on for the privilege of pre-ordering stuff that hadn't come out yet. And it won't be until tomorrow that I can try to get this sorted out. What's worse, I'll be stuck with this mess for months to come, because the stuff I've already pre-ordered is so far out in the future.

Serves me right for giving a faceless corporation my loyalty.

Posted by flargh at 04:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

bOING bOING linked this morning to an article on Discover.com about a fellow who has developed what seems like a solid way of turning just about any carbon-based waste into useable products like light oil, sterilized water and minerals suitable for fertilizing or other uses. The system purportedly works without the huge energy waste that's involved past processes, and the inventor actually has working systems to prove it, as well as investments from organizations like ConAgra and the federal government.

He said that it scales from a full-sized factory all the way down to something small enough to fit on a truck. If the system works even half as well as he claims, it could have long-term global ramifications for the conversion of waste material -- everything from milk bottles and refrigerators to turkey offal and poop -- to fuel oil and potable water. Pretty exciting stuff, almost too "Back to the Future" to be believed.

Posted by flargh at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

A few days ago I told you about my spam problems -- over 100 an hour in some cases, really atrocious. At my boss' behest, I installed an OS X app called SpamSieve that does wonders. I'm still not totally spam free, but I'm looking at a spam folder in my Entourage directory that has almost 2000 messages in it, and they're virtually all spam.

I woke up this morning to find about 70 messages in my inbox, versus the usual 600 or 700 that come in overnight. Of those, maybe 50 were spam or bouncebacks from virus detection software apps (people with worms who have our addresses in their address book continue to be a big problem, also).

So before, my own brute-force method of filtering spam by using complex rules in Entourage was netting probably about 20-30 percent automatically. Judging from my experience with SpamSieve, it's closer to 90 percent effective, and since it's still "learning" as I mark spam and tell it to move the spam, it's bound to improve over time.

SpamSieve integrates with Entourage via AppleScript, which isn't the fastest method in the world but it works really effectively. SpamSieve employs Bayesian filtering, which I don't pretend to understand intimately, but my experience with similar technology integrated into Apple's own Mail.app software tells me it works better than other methods I've tried.

Well worth the US$20 registration fee, imo.

Posted by flargh at 09:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

So I broke speed laws coming home after Bob's school recital last night to catch a new episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Faith's grand return to Buffy after her guest appearance on Angel. And let me tell you, the sex appeal of all the major characters aside, I just love this show for the storytelling and snappy dialogue. Sure, the pushup bras and the skin-tight outfits don't hurt.

Anyway, what do I find on the local UPN affiliate instead? RED SOX BASEBALL. Tampa Bay came to town and the game wrapped up, of course, at 8:55PM. Just in time for me to miss ALL OF BUFFY.

I sent an e-mail to them today asking them if they had plans to re-broadcast, but thus far have heard no response. Grumble.

Posted by flargh at 04:53 PM | Permalink

So yesterday I took off work early for an eye exam. I need to have them every six months because I'm diabetic, and the opthalmologist wants to keep an eye (pardon the pun) on two things: the condition of my retinas and the pressure inside my eyes (to wit, glaucoma).

The first part of the exam involves reading off the eye chart you find in optician's offices. I can still read 20:15 in my right eye -- that's the bottom line on those charts, which means that I'm still reading in that eye at 20 feet what most folks can read at 15. But my left eye is weaker -- I'm 20:40 in that one, the third line from the bottom.

I correct stereoscopically to about 20:20, so I'm still not a menace on the road, and don't need corrective lenses for anything, though when I'm working on the computer I tend to wear a pair of prescription eyeglasses my wife had made for me when she was still working in an eyeglass store, with a mild plus lens installed that takes the strain off when I'm reading small type.

To do the second part of the examination, they put drops in your eyes. One of the drops is this yellow dye substance which stings like hell, and makes you tear uncontrollably. Not as bad as if you'd been maced, but about as bad as rubbing your eyes when cutting onions -- just decidedly unpleasant. The other dilates your pupils so the doctor can see your retinas easier. The best part, of course, is having your face strapped into a big device they use for the glaucoma test. All I saw was the unearthly blue glow of this device that seemed only millimeters away from my cornea. If they'd just playing some Beethoven in the background, I'd feel like Alex De Large from A Clockwork Orange.

So, you wait around the lobby for about twenty five minutes or so for these substances to take effect, gradually watching the color of the room fade away into a bleary whiteness as your eyeballs become incapable of restricting the flow of light. Then they take you into the opthalmologist's exam room itself, and he straps you into a different version of the same machine you were in before. This time, he shines lights so bright you can actually feel them burning into the back of your head.

"So, this is what the deer in the headlights feels like," I said. I heard the doctor snuff at that point, but I was too blinded to know whether it was a laugh or he was just clearing his throat.

So, after all this is said and done, they send you on your way -- free to drive home -- by touch, presumably, or maybe by memory -- or just stumble out in the roadway groping blindly like a zombie freshly risen from the grave.

And for whatever reason, they collect the co-pay *after* they've blinded you, rather than before. At least I had the presence of mind to pay in cash this time around. Last time I used a checkbook, and couldn't see what the hell I was doing.

It takes a good three hours or so for the pupil-dilating stuff to wear off, during which time I'm functionally useless. I can't actually focus on anything smaller than about 48 point type, which means I can't write, can't very well read, and am hypersensitive to bright light. At one point Bonnie wanted me to bring something out to the car, which I did without grabbing my sunglasses first. I felt like a bug that had just had a rock lifted from on top of him.

The good news is that my eye doc says I'm okay for another eight months. So I don't have to go through this torture again until December.

Posted by flargh at 11:35 AM | Permalink

Okay, so it's been explained to me that pointing the soles of your shoes at someone else's head is insulting in Arabic culture.

That's why George Bush Sr.'s visage was laid out in a tile mosaic at the entrance to Baghdad's Al-Rashid Hotel; that's why MSS mentioned that Iraqis would be beating the faces of coalition forces with their sandals; and that's why we've seen images of civilians in the streets of Baghdad and elsewhere whacking graven images of Saddam Hussein with their shoes.

But can someone with a better handle on Arabic culture than me please explain *why* this particular insult is so harsh?

Posted by flargh at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The popularity of the MSS threads has garnered an inordinate number of posts from anonymous cowards. I don't appreciate hit-and-run tactics: I firmly believe you should have enough strength in your convictions to be held accountable for your own opinion.

Accordingly, I've deactivated anonymous posting from the comments areas beginning today. Hopefully this will start to slow things down to an at-least-manageable level.

Posted by flargh at 12:06 PM | Permalink

Lordy, I hope so. The forecasters are predicting reasonably warm and sunny and, well, downright springlike conditions for the next few days. It's hard to believe, but three weeks into the Little League season, Bob's only had two practices, despite having two practices scheduled per week. The others have been rained or snowed (!!!) out.

So, I guess all those sacrifices made to the Fertility Spirits worked. Spring is here at last. And now maybe my spring bulbs will have a chance to flower without fear of destruction.

Posted by flargh at 11:27 AM | Permalink

I've been amazed watching this site's traffic for the past few days. It usually only measures a few hundred hits per day, which, given it completely generic appearance and relatively uninteresting content amazed me. But a post I made about the Iraqi information minister about a week and a half ago clearly got picked up and distributed someplace.

On April 8, the traffic doubled to almost 900 page impressions. Then on the 9th, it more than tripled to more than 3,300 hits. I thought it was just a temporary blip because on the 10th it dropped down to more than 1,400. The on Friday, Tikkabik was shocked and awed in a massive decapitation strike of Web traffic: more than 13,000 hits (totalling over 250MB of traffic). Saturday saw a respectable total of more than 5,400 impressions.

Much of the traffic seems to be originating from the UK. Well, we'll see how next week goes. My account with my Web host gives me enough bandwidth flexibility that I can see how this rides out over the course of the next few days without panicking about a huge bill at the end of the month, but if continues on this track, I will have to pull the thread all together.

Posted by flargh at 11:49 AM | Permalink

Syrian deputy ambassador to the United States Imad Moustapha doesn't have al-Sahaf's sense of absurd or his penchant for witty banter, but clearly he's living on the same plane of unreality.

Moustapha told CNN, "We believe that Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries are dream targets for certain neo-conservative intellectuals here in the United States that are strong allies of the extremist Likudist and Sharonist factions in Israel."

Ah, in other words, it's a Zionist plot. Why didn't you just say so? *sigh.* Give me a frickin' break.

When asked about the celebrations and looting in the streets of Baghdad over the past couple of days, Moustapha said, "Those people that are running in the streets -- those are mobs."

Yeah, mobs they may be, and some of them may have grave reservations about the arrival of the American tanks and soldiers. Lord knows I would too -- they're an occupying army, and there's no debate about that from anyone involved on either side of this conflict.

But a lot of those people are kissing US soldiers on the cheeks, holding up pro-US and pro-Bush banners, and obliterating any trace they can find of Saddam Hussein. There's very little question in this observer's mind that many people in Iraq are quite relieved to be rid of Hussein once and for all.

Posted by flargh at 09:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

This is the sort of idea that, if I had any artistic and programming talent, I'd do myself: A "Where's Waldo?" style Shockwave or Java-based game featuring everyone's favorite Minister of Propaganda, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf.

Just imagine the comic possibilities of trying to find al-Sahaf amidst an animated collection of former Republican Guard soldiers walking home after surrendering. Or in a group of Fedayeen Saddam who have diguised themselves as Bedouin to try to evade the advancing "coalition" forces.

"No, I am not here! It is a lie perpetrated by Western gangsters!"

"You can try to find me but the people of Iraq will rise up and ... um ... beat you with their shoes!"

Posted by flargh at 09:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (66)

Why? For the love of God, WHY?

Posted by flargh at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

The PC market is littered with companies that make graphics cards based on Nvidia Corp.'s popular graphics processing units, and it's a sore spot for many Mac gamers who would like speedier rendering in their 3D games, since their options are very limited.

One can buy a $400 graphics card from Apple that's only designed to work in 4x AGP slot-equipped Power Mac G4s. Based on the Nvidia GeForce4 Ti chip, the Apple card is grossly overpriced compared to its PC counterpart. ATI has a couple of choices, too -- the Radeon 9000 Pro Mac Edition, which is a mainstream card at best, and the older Radeon 8500 model. These aren't necessary bad choices if your Power Mac G4 is a couple of years old, but neither are "premium" alternatives.

There is no "premium" alternative. Mac-compatible retail boards based on Nvidia chips don't exist, and ATI is dragging its heels on getting a Radeon 9800-based Mac retail product out the door. One is coming, I'm sure, but when, I have no idea. Another way to get faster graphics in your Mac is to use a PC card that's been "flashed" with new EPROM software to support the Mac. Some people have made it work. Most folks don't want to go through the trouble.

Anyway, a reader asked me this morning why a Mac-centric company hasn't stepped up to the plate with an Nvidia graphics card. That got me thinking about the economics and logistics of Macintosh video card support, and I came up with a lengthy and detailed response that I think is pretty much on the money. This is focused on Nvidia because they're the dominant player in the market right now beside ATI, but you can substitute pretty much any brand name in there and you'll come up with the same response. Read on for details.

Companies who make Nvidia-based graphics cards buy the chips and license the board reference designs and drivers from Nvidia. Most of them use third-party card fabricators in Taiwan and other Pac-rim countries to do the actual manufacturing for them (Apple, for example). A few really big ones own their own manufacturing facilities.

Nothing is stopping any Mac vendor from licensing a board design from Nvidia and producing their own cards; conversely, nothing is stopping an existing Nvidia licensee from supporting the Mac market with a Mac-compatible product. I've talked with Nvidia about this; they've assured me that they'd be amenable to such an arrangement.

Nothing is stopping such activity from happening, except for the cost of manufacturing, limited consumer demand, Apple's use of proprietary technology like ADC for its monitors complicating the manufacturing process, the frightening pace of graphic chip development, the historic failures of companies that have produced consumer-focused graphics cards for the Mac, and various other issues that have pretty much scared everyone away from doing it.

Most PC card makers don't see the Mac market as large enough or robust enough to bother with, considering the only demand for add-on cards is in just one segment of Apple's product line -- the Power Mac G4. Virtually every other system that Apple sells uses integrated graphics hardware that isn't upgradeable. Another nail in the coffin is the weak demand for the Power Mac G4 for the last several quarters.

Pros and consumers alike are staying away from the Power Mac G4 in droves, and while different people will give you different answers as to why that's the case, I think it's because there is a real, tangible performance deficit in the Power Mac G4 design, "megahertz myth" not withstanding. Apple needs faster processors, faster motherboard designs, bells and whistles like USB 2.0, and it needs those things in a hurry.

Add to that the fact that every Power Mac ships from the factory with a graphics card pre-installed. That means that a potential vendor has to convince a consumer with a Power Mac G4 that their retail product is different enough from what the user already has to make them pay a premium. And the vendor has to have the infrastructure to support end-users with driver updates, staff on hand, and so on.

Retail graphics cards, even in the PC world, are a niche market. Nvidia's board partners and ATI will all tell you that the real money is selling to OEMs, system fabricators, and other folks who can do a volume business -- not to retail stores, although there is some money to be made there.

So the problem is that Mac retail graphics cards are a niche of a niche, and in the end, the cost/benefit analysis makes graphics card makers decide that the effort isn't worth it.

Posted by flargh at 11:39 AM | Permalink

Holy shit. It's quarter to four in the morning. I better go to sleep soon.

Posted by flargh at 03:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I have my e-mail client (Entourage v.X) set to automatically dump the contents of my Deleted Items folder once per hour. During daylight hours it averages anywhere from 50 - 120 posts or so. Per hour.

That's just spam, people.

Mark my words: If I ever meet anyone who admits to making money by running a UCE operation, I will kill them. Spammers are loathsome, vile scum who deserve to be ground beneath the bootheels of humanity.

Posted by flargh at 03:57 PM | Permalink

I love music. I have hundreds of CDs that I've been amassing over about half my life at this point. My tastes tend to run pretty eclectic: I have everything from Patsy Cline to Miles Davis, DJ Keoki to Mozart. There's some stuff in my collection that tends to dominate. I really like music with a beat to it, like electronica and dance, and I love bebop era jazz. I also have a weakness for eighties pop. Partly because my budget is limited and partly because I have a life outside of listening to music for pleasure, I'm strictly a dilettante, but I know what I like.

There are a few gaps -- I'm not big into country and western, especially the heavy-rotation stuff that's available now. If a Toby Keith CD ever makes it into my collection, I'd be awfully surprised. But one of these days I'm gonna pick up some Johnny Cash and some Willie Nelson, when I can get around to it. And opera is another area that I don't really have any interest in, unless it's Elmer Fudd singing "Kill the wabbit" in a viking helmet. But suffice to say that musical tastes run wide and deep.

Because I'm an avid Mac user and I write news for a living, I stay on top of the latest releases from Logic and Mark of the Unicorn and Native Instruments and Steinberg and all the other companies that develop music production, editing and composition software for the Macintosh. I even bought a keyboard years ago.

Despite all this, I'm not a musician. I'm functionally tone-deaf, can't sing on-key to save my life, and am disabled in the usual suburban white-man way when it comes to actually keeping a beat. I can't dance worth for shit, even for those Japanese dancing games slowed down to "just had a stroke" pace.

I don't get it. Why am I wired to like music as much as I do, without having an ounce of talent to play it? Why do I like dance music in particular, when I can't dance? There's a cosmic irony here.

At least I'm self-aware enough to know that I completely lack musical talent, not like this guy.

Posted by flargh at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I've never heard the sweet siren call of a TiVO as strong as now.

If you've somehow missed the TiVO craze, it's a hard disk-based personal video recorder (PVR) that connects to your TV. It's basically a replacement for a VCR, but because it's hard drive based, it's a lot faster to find what you want to watch. The box goes hand in hand with a subscription service that offers schedule and program information.

So you can tell your TiVO to record your favorite shows, and it'll do it every time they come on. But you can also look up info about actors, directors and many other criteria. This thing is a media junkie's wet dream.

The Series 2 boxes added home networking features and other capabilities, and just yesterday the company released its Home Media Option for those units. Working with a wired or wireless network interface, this lets you interface the TiVO with your Mac and PC to serve up MP3 files or digital photos through your stereo, and schedule stuff remotely from any Internet-based computer. Too cool!

Alas, my lust for the TiVO also fills me with self-doubt and self-loathing. Do I really need another device in my life that makes it easier to watch TV?

Posted by flargh at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Second week of April and there's two inches of snow on the ground. Better than the four inches that New York got yesterday, but at this point it's yet another slap in the face. Still, this one had the weatherfolks baffled -- they were telling us to expect upwards of half a foot, so not having my boots covered this morning as I de-slushed the steps and the van was a welcome surprise.

My boss is back in town, and just in the nick of time. I was up until 3 in the morning on Monday getting NAB 2003 announcements posted, and then woke up again at 7 because my children are evil and won't be quiet in the morning. So I totally punked out by about three o'clock yesterday and let him handle the remains of the day, and the first post this morning. Last night was the first night I caught six hours' sleep in about a week, and while I probably could have slept another four, if I had, I would have been in no shape to do anything for the rest of the day.

On Cape Cod power outages are frequent but brief. Hardly a week goes by that you don't find a digital clock somewhere in the house flashing midnight. I've managed to compensate for it with my hardware by buying APC UPS's, and they work quite well -- usually providing just enough power to ride out the blips that occur from time to time.

I wonder how much it would cost to set up a UPS that would give the entire house about five minutes' worth of current? I'm sure it'd be the size of a bathtub and as expensive as a luxury car. The EMF radiation would probably make my hair fall out. Oh, wait, I don't have any hair.

Posted by flargh at 10:13 AM | Permalink

"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain."

- T.S. Eliot, Waste Land

The National Weather Service has issued a chronologically incongruous "winter storm watch/advisory" to let us know that Cape Cod should be prepared for almost half a foot of snow tomorrow. I want to die.

A "plate o' shrimp" moment: In my ongoing efforts to rip my entire CD collection to MP3 (more than 7.5 days' worth of continuous music ... 12.5GB so far and I'm not even close to done), I accidentally re-discovered Kristin Hersh's first solo album, Hips and Makers, and remembered just how good it was. Well, I stumbled across her Web site recently, and she has a new album out called The Grotto. From what I've heard, it's absolutely amazing. You can listen to the whole thing streamed through QuickTime.

Posted by flargh at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

You gotta move the Iraqi (Mis)Information Minister. This guy's Reality Distortion Field is wider than Steve Jobs' -- only one problem: Unlike Jobs' RDF, al-Sahaf's doesn't work.

Posted by flargh at 03:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (183)

So there's this new show on SciFi called Scare Tactics. It's basically Candid Camera using slack-jawed morons. I have a moral dilemma when I watch it, because I can't decide whether I love the show or hate it.

If you don't get cable, or if you're a Canuckistanian terrorist and just don't watch TV at all, here's the elevator pitch: Take a victim who considers the National Enquirer to be Pulitzer-winning journalism. Put him or her in a situation that they've read about on the pages of that or the Weekly World News a hundred times before. Scare the shit out of them. Record it for posterity using hidden video cameras. Rinse. Repeat.

Most of these situations involves taking people out of their native element and bringing them to remote locations: Bringing kids with no camping experience out to the woods and convince them they're being attacked by a sasquatch. Taking a couple of city kids out the desert and convince them they're about to be eaten by a seven foot tall alien. (Real skits, folks). Someone that's with them is usually in on the gag just to add to the reality -- or the unreality -- enough to grab them hook, line and sinker.

One scenario had this guy firing a mock laser gun at targets until he "accidentally" set another guy on fire. Another showed a girl applying for a job as a personal assistant for the host of the show, who is then abducted by mysterious thugs. Another guy who picked up $50 to be the subject of a medical experiment watches as another subject next to him hooked up to an EKG flatlines and can't be resuscitated.

Now, sure, you can say Scare Tactics is exploitative and sadistic, and it is, absolutely. But there's something so delicious about watching people take advantage of morons, I can't help myself but chuckle, a bit. And, at the very least, it's harmless fun -- not like watching people try to suppress their gag reflexes choking down a mouthful of bloodworms on Fear Factor, or stringing a few gullible bachelorettes looking on for a month or two.

The skits Scare Tactics creates are a bit extreme, and the victims are a bit more daft than most, but I can relate to them, just the tiniest bit.

Back when I was a teenager, I used to hang out with this group of kids after school. We'd get high in my basement as often as we could, and one afternoon we were silly and baked and horsing around in the living room when my buddy Jim looked at me and said, "Hey, check this out. Stand up."

He went to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest butcher knife he could find, and came at me with it. One hand was on the hilt of the knift and the other was cupping the point so the sharp part was concealed. I backed up and he said, "Come on, man, you trust me. I'm covering the point with my hand. Don't worry, come on, just check this out."

It took him a minute or two but he finally settled me down, pinning me up against the wall. I could see his hand on the hilt of the knife and felt the other hand pressing into my belly, just the tiniest bit of pressure telling me the knife was still there. Calm, soothing tones. "You trust me, right? You trust me. We're friends. You got nothing to worry about, right? You TRUAAAAAA!!!"

And just then he pulled back with the hilt, but pushed the other hand that had been holding the point straight into my abdomen. The motion, the sound, the sensation of pressure: I could swear I'd just been stabbed, and started screaming like a girl. Then I noticed that my other two friends were laughing their asses off, and so was Jim.

I'd pissed myself in utter, abject terror.

Any lie told convincingly enough will hook you.

Posted by flargh at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

A whole lot of Mac digerati -- and a lot of the unwashed masses, for that reason -- spend huge amounts of time pontificating on what segment of the consumer electronics market Apple should attack next. Some people say a DVR box like a ReplayTV or TiVO would be good. Others thing Apple should do its own PDA, a resurrection of Newton showing the Palm crowd how such devices should work. Other folks think that a cell phone is the answer.

Well, my entry into this market doesn't try to cram a million pounds of electronics into a sleek tiny box. All I want is an office phone. An office phone designed by Apple.

Something digital, obviously, and cordless, and working on a frequency that won't bork my AirPort Base Station (or, presumably, AirPort Extreme Base Station, once I have reason to upgrade). But something that's damned sexy looking and something that integrates seamlessly with the productivity software I already depend on.

Apple has much of the framework already there in iSync, which they're trying like hell to leverage with Bluetooth-enabled cell phones and PDAs. And while that's a noble goal, I think it falls short for two reasons: A) PDAs are cumbersome and secondary, as far as I'm concerned, and B) I don't use a cell phone all that much. I have a better idea. Let's call it the iPhone, for short.

Sure, I have a cell phone all right -- heck, they're giving them away at the mall, so they're practically disposable. The problem is, and I'm sure I'm not alone or even isolated here, they don't work all the time. They're also still a lot more expensive than a land-line, even with an unlimited-minutes plan. And frankly, they're not as comfortable to use or as rugged as a good old cordless desk phone. Cell phones have their place, but they're not replacements for the desk phone.

My vision for this thing is basically just a wireless headset earpiece with a base station to charge it, and to connect to the land line and transmit/receive the signal. It could have Bluetooth built in just for simplicity's sake, I suppose -- it really doesn't matter. It'd be just as effective with a USB cable attached to it. The actual electronics of the thing are basic, simple, off the shelf, cheap-as-hell to make parts. The glue that makes it all work, of course, is the software. And this is where Apple could just kick everyone's ass.

The funny thing is, so much of the framework is in place. It's all so tantalizingly close. Address Book already provides Jaguar users with system-wide contact information management. Names, addresses, phone numbers, Web pages, pictures -- it's all right there. And iChat gives you a way to chat with these folks online. iCal lets you schedule appointments with them. and iSync coordinates the transfer of all that info to other computers, PDAs, and cell phones.

iPhone would simply be a bridge to all this on the office desktop -- the real world desktop, not the computer screen. It would dial the numbers for me, so I wouldn't have to do this manually on a separate phone with speed dial numbers (and let's face it, even the best desk phone UI sucks big time).

Where iPhone could really come in handy, however, would be to help me manage my calls and my time. Auditing, for example, to tell me who I'm talking with, how long I've been on the phone with them for, and how much time is left before my next appointment.

It could recognize caller IDs, and cutting in with a private message only I can hear using the Mac's own text-to-speech software, telling me who's on the other line and asking me if I want to take the call.

It'd do the same to remind me of upcoming appointments, the names of my contact's spouse and kids or birthday, for example. It could also manage inbound and outbound fax transmissions.

So much of the framework for this is already in Mac OS X itself and exposed in SDKs, it'd be something that I bet a third party developer could manage too. Any takers?

Posted by flargh at 02:27 PM | Permalink

Okay, CARS outdid itself with the "Bush demands recount" piece after Al Gore got elected to Apple's Board of Directors, but this is pure gold.

John Moltz definitely gets on my list of Favorite Mac Journos Ever.

Posted by flargh at 12:57 PM | Permalink

Working at home has advantages. The dress code is always casual, you don't have to buy lunch, and you're far away from office politics. There are some downsides too, like never being away from the office.

Bonnie is really good about shuttling the kids to their things -- playdates, Kung Fu, baseball practice and so on, and I usually do the grocery shopping and such on the weekend when I can help it. On weeks like this when my boss is away, one things falls off the charts in terms of importance: Personal hygiene.

I haven't left the house to go any farther than the corner to take my kids to the bus stop or pick them up since Monday. Which, by the way, was the last time I took a shower. See, the Web site's first post is around seven and our kids have to be out the door at 8:15 precisely to get the bus. I'm not a morning person, so often I'll sleep in for as long as I can before I finally have to drag ass out of bed and get to work.

The stubble on my face and head has been growing longer and longer for the past few days, but I didn't honestly realize how bad it was until Bonnie came downstairs to grab some printouts off the laser printer in my office. As I'm talking with her about this cool tech in a story I'd just written, I noticed she kept wrapping the paper around her mouth like a Hong Kong pedestrian trying to avoid SARS. Her eyes kept squinting and watering like she'd just rubbed them after opening a habanero pepper with her fingers.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

"You ..." she said, grimacing. "You ... have really bad ... BO." Then she left the room in a hurry.

So, if you ever plan to visit me at home, the moral of this story is to make it on a Monday or Tuesday, before I turn ripe.

Posted by flargh at 07:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I spit at thee, foul Comcast!

About six months ago ATT Broadband (which since got bought out by Comcast) abruptly pulled Cartoon Network from our cable system. We'd started getting it the day we upgraded to a digital box, and had enjoyed it for about a year, I think. The ignominy was compounded when that particular station got replaced with, of all things, a 24-hour-a-day shopping network.

When I asked the cable company why they pulled Cartoon Network off the box, they said that we shouldn't have gotten it to begin with. It wasn't part of the programming package my town agreed to when they signed their contract with ATT or MediaOne or Whoever-the-Hell-It-Was at the time, and it was just a pure administrative accident that everyone in town should have gotten it when digital cable came to town years later.

Of course, these cable providers aren't, for the most part, clueful or technologically advanced enough to be able to offer a la carte service and let their customers pick and choose what stations they'd like to get. Even though these digital cable boxes have plenty of computing power to handle such a task, and presumably the cable companies do too, since they can clearly turn these stations on and off at whim as well. So my begging, pleading and cajoling fell on deaf ears, and we've suffered without it since then. No Toonami. No Adult Swim. No Dexter's Laboratory, no Samurai Jack. The sun grew a little dimmer the day Cartoon Network left my world.

Well, since then, we've looked at replacing the cable box with a dish. That's a no-go, because the neighbor's trees block the line of sight to the DirecTV satellite. There don't seem to be any other options that I can readily consider.

So, when I got a letter yesterday announcing that Comcast was shuffling the stations around on my box soon, presumably to take away service that I've been paying for but haven't really deserved ... AGAIN ... I hoped that maybe plans were afoot to add Cartoon Network back to the lineup. So I sent their customer service department an e-mail with my query. The response just came back a bit ago:

"Thank you for your inquiry regarding delivering Cartoon Network in Mashpee. At present, Comcast has no immediate plans to re-launch this channel in your town. We do our best to deliver a channel lineup of quality networks and services to our communities. I have forwarded your inquiry to our Marketing, Programming and Managerial Teams so they are made aware of your request."

Make sure that you forward them my boot so they can be made aware of my desire to plant it up their asses, too. Bureaucrats! Nazis! Fiends! So much for being a different cable company. The only thing that's changed is who I make the check out to.

Posted by flargh at 02:02 PM | Permalink

So Jim is on vacation this week, and Dennis pissed off to the doctor to have an MRI done on his foot. It's not quite 10:30 as I'm writing this and we've already posted fourteen stories. I've written 12 of them and edited all of them, and posted them all too.

Not a bad morning's work so far.

Thank god for stimulants.

Posted by flargh at 10:26 AM | Permalink