rants

Henry Rollins on Intelligent Design:

From the Make Blog:

Over the last few months I’ve seen more people start projects than ever before, many have told me their favorite shows aren’t on so they decided to dust off their tools and make something. Projects are flowing in to the MAKE submission form, new things in MAKE Flickr photo pool - it’s awesome.

Hear, hear. Even though I actually work in television, we dropped our cable TV subscription mid-last year. I weighed the possibility for a while— sure I got some inspiration for other work I saw on the tube, and I got to see the shows I had worked on finally be broadcast, but on the other hand… there was all this crap. Crap that I didn’t want my kids watching. Crap that I ended up watching when it was late at night and my defenses were down, and I just started flipping channels.

I hate flipping channels. It’s the biggest time suck, and I kicked myself every time I got drawn into it. I only really watched five shows— Good Eats, Battlestar Galactica, House, Lost & The Daily Show… and Psych. Six shows. And when was the last time I watched a broadcast of a show I worked on, anyway? The charm of that wore off a long time ago. Last thing I want to do at home is sit down to an hour of something I’ve seen a dozen times over by now, plus commercials.

So, that was it. The shows I watched, save Good Eats, were all on the iTunes Store, and I figured maybe I could get a “friend” to tape A.B. for me, so that was it. Done. Kaput. No more TV.

[click to continue...]

When I ordered a recent After Effects tutorials book, I was offered a Digital Upgrade from Amazon. I took the offer, not looking very closely, but later found that it doesn’t include any of the files that may be on any attached disc(s)— just the scanned pages. Just an FYI.

So far, the iPhone is 95% joy, and 5% infuriating. Some of the high (and low) points:

• It’s incredibly scratch-resistant.
• Bluetooth hands-free headsets work incredibly well. Well, at least my JawBone does.
• No to-dos. Ta-da Lists have a nice iPhone-specific interface now, but I still want some sort of OmniFocus-like GTD task list for this thing.
  UPDATE: Omni is working on a personalized iPhone access solution for OmniFocus, but it’s still a ways from being truly useful. I’ve also been led to believe by someone at the Apple Store that more functionality in this area will be coming around the same time as Leopard.
• The built-in alarms and countdown timer actually work like they should, waking the iPhone if it’s off or popping up a notification on top of whatever app you’re using when the time comes. I never had luck with that on my Treo, so that’s a great thing.
• MobileMail now shows a couple of emails that say “This message has not been downloaded from the server”— even though I may have actually read them once already— and I have no idea how to make them download. The little “reload” curved arrow in the lower left doesn’t seem to do anything here.
  UPDATE: This seems to have to do with how Gmail (and possibly other email servers) deal with multiple reader clients. See the comments for details.
• When transferring your account details from your Mac, Gmail-hosted domain accounts don’t come over properly, since the iPhone assumes it’s a regular Gmail accound, and appends a non-removable “@gmail.com” to all my user name settings. I had to manually set up my email settings on the phone to work around this.
• There is odd behavior when editing a text field in landscape mode. In that mode, there’s such a tiny space between the virtual keyboard and the top of the screen, the little magnifier loupe that pops up to help you position your cursor actually falls off the top of the screen, making it useless.
  UPDATE: The Apple Genius’ solution is just to scroll the text field so it’s a little lower on the screen. A small thing, but it still bugs me.
• The headphone jack is sunken into the top of the iPhone and has a bezel around is that restricts the size of the 1/8″ plug you can fit in it. So far, every 1/8″ plug I’ve tried other than the Apple-supplied headphones won’t fit in it. I may have to buy another set of Apple phones to cannibalize to make an adapter cable.
  UPDATE: Apple Stores already have an adapter cable in stock for $9.99.
• Seems to have frozen a couple of times when I tried to edit the name of a recurring event in my Calendar, and hitting “Save” actually seemed to save a new copy of the event, so I had a duplicate. But at least that got me out of the freeze.
• I really, really like the list view in the Calendar. I wish iCal had that.

I’m still reading the manual (which doesn’t come printed, but as a PDF you can download from Apple’s iPhone Support page), so maybe I’ll come up with answers for some of these yet.

<div class="message" style="border-top: 1px solid #98B4DF;background: #F7FAFF;">
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:39:43</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Costco had an instant $100 rebate on one of the Toshiba HD-DVD players, so I picked it up, along with a Jet Li movie. That was my "Father's Day" gift from everyone.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="border-top: 1px solid #98B4DF;background: #F7FAFF;">
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:40:00</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Oh, crap.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="border-top: 1px solid #98B4DF;background: #F7FAFF;">
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:40:09</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>I just realized I don't think I called my Dad.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F6FFED;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #386C05; background: #BBEE99; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #9EC678">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">aalgar</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:40:20</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Heh.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="border-top: 1px solid #9EC678;background: #F6FFED;">
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:40:24</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>I called mine but didn't reach him.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="border-top: 1px solid #9EC678;background: #F6FFED;">
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:40:31</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>I probably should try again this week.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="border-top: 1px solid #9EC678;background: #F6FFED;">
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:40:42</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Blockbuster picked a horse as well... it was the one you didn't pick.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F7FAFF;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #234578; background: #CCDDFF; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #98B4DF">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">mboszko</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:41:02</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Well, that's fine, since I don't go to Blockbuster. :P</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F6FFED;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #386C05; background: #BBEE99; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #9EC678">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">aalgar</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:41:18</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Yes, but a lot of people do.  Don't you think that might affect the ultimate outcome of this thing?</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F7FAFF;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #234578; background: #CCDDFF; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #98B4DF">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">mboszko</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:41:26</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Maybe so.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="border-top: 1px solid #98B4DF;background: #F7FAFF;">
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:43:25</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Blu-ray has a lot of technological advances, but HD-DVD has the advantage of having better backwards compatibility-- not jsut for playback, but also for manufacturing. You can convert a current DVD plant to make HD-DVDs without too much fuss, whereas BD requires a whole new plant.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F6FFED;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #386C05; background: #BBEE99; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #9EC678">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">aalgar</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:44:04</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Well, you know my thoughts... still way too early for me to worry about it all.  But I hope you chose wisely.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F7FAFF;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #234578; background: #CCDDFF; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #98B4DF">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">mboszko</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:44:54</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>I think neither of them will live very long. They won't reach DVD's age before they start getting replaced with something else. Still, I wanted to play with at least one of 'em so I could speak intelligently about it.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F6FFED;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #386C05; background: #BBEE99; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #9EC678">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">aalgar</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:45:05</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Heh.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="border-top: 1px solid #9EC678;background: #F6FFED;">
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:45:17</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>I bet you end up getting BR as well, so you can speak intelligently about both of them. ;)</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F7FAFF;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #234578; background: #CCDDFF; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #98B4DF">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">mboszko</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:46:05</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Watched the first disc on it last night, and it crapped out 3/4 into the movie. Decided it couldn't play the disc. Even after I pulled it out, I didn't see anything wrong with the surface, but cleaned it anyway and popped it back in, then it insisted it wasn't a HD-DVD disc at all.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F6FFED;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #386C05; background: #BBEE99; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #9EC678">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">aalgar</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:46:23</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Weird.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F7FAFF;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #234578; background: #CCDDFF; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #98B4DF">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">mboszko</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:46:42</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Fortunately, it was a hybrid disc so we flipped it over and watched the rest in standard def.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="border-top: 1px solid #98B4DF;background: #F7FAFF;">
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:47:12</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>So, gotta get another disc to figure out if it's the player or the disc.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="border-top: 1px solid #98B4DF;background: #F7FAFF;">
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:47:24</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Hope it's not the player. I think I got the last one at our Costco.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F6FFED;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #386C05; background: #BBEE99; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #9EC678">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">aalgar</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:47:28</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Ugh, yeah.</span>
  </div>
</div>
<div class="message" style="background: #F7FAFF;">
  <p class="sender" style="color: #234578; background: #CCDDFF; font-weight: bold; margin: 1px; padding: 2px; border: 1px solid #98B4DF">
    <span class="sender" style="font-size: 90%">mboszko</span>
  </p>
  <div class="meta" style="float: left; padding-right: 0.5em">
    <span class="time" style="font-size: 90%; color: gray">22:48:25</span>
  </div>
  <div>
    <span>Picture quality was good while it lasted, tho. Very clean. Didn't see any of the compression artifacts I notice on the HD cable feed.</span>
  </div>
</div>

When we last left our heroes, Comcast’s contractor had botched the install, and promised to send someone out Wednesday to fix things.

Wednesday came and went, with a call at the very end of the installation window informing us that the contractor had been involved in an accident, and gone to the hospital. Thankfully, he was expected to be discharged the same day. However, someone else would be taking his place on Thursday.

Thursday, another contractor came, and said that he had just been sent to upgrade our service to DVR boxes, and not to fix the botched coax install. Since he was not allowed to do work that wasn’t on his ticket, he arranged to come back Friday with the DVR boxes and fix the cable install, all in one fell swoop.

Friday, he did indeed come back. He extended the coax cable, so the boxes could sit where we wanted them to sit (plus a 6ft. service loop, natch), put component cables on the box upstairs (after I delicately explained that the proper use of component cables was not to connect the green to composite video and the red and blue to the audio)— but inexplicably only replaced the box downstairs with the requested dual-tuner DVR. The one upstairs seemed to be working in HD with the DVR, and he said that the rest of the service would work properly once it had finished downloading things.

A few hours later, it seemed apparent that the box upstairs was outputting the HD channels down-converted inside a letterboxed standard definition window (as well as having no dual tuner); and the box downstairs still did not have the DVR enabled. Another call to service was made, who tentatively set up a service appointment for Saturday morning, all the while hoping that the signal they re-sent to the box would kick it out of its funk. Alas, it was not to be, and the call for Saturday morning was upheld.

Saturday, a tech came and got on the phone with someone with more technical knowledge at the call center, and got into a diagnostic menu on the box upstairs, allowing him to change the component output of the box from 4×3:480i to 16×9:1080i, and then another box replaced the last one downstairs. It seemed to be in working order, except for the HD channels, which the tech said would come when it finished downloading the guide info.

Of course, the HD channels never did activate, prompting yet another call to customer service. This rep walked me through several tests, including checking for the presence of a dual tuner by pressing the “SWAP” button on the remote (the box upstairs turned out to be gloriously dual-tuner-free), and re-sending the activation signal to the boxes. He said the one downstairs looked okay, but he was utterly perplexed why we weren’t getting HD channels on the HD box. He was equally mystified as to why our upstairs box was even a silver-colored HD box at all, since the serial number I read off to him was coming back as one of the black SD boxes.

He suggested that we might come in to their office and swap the boxes out ourselves, to avoid another service tech screw-up (though he backpedaled once I paraphrased him saying “since you said you have such little confidence in your techs…”). But as the hour was fast approaching the time they closed on Saturday (and they aren’t open on Sunday), after a bit more testing he determined it would be in everyone’s best interest if he sent another tech out on Monday. I informed him I would already be home Tuesday for the FiOS installation, so could we make it Tuesday instead? Great.

On Tuesday, the first thing the tech said when he walks in without knocking is “what sort of problem is it? …because I see someone’s dug up out there and they might have cut the cable—”

I noticed he wasn’t carrying any dual-tuner HD-DVR boxes. “That Verizon install has absolutely nothing do to with this problem— did they not tell you to bring the new box?”

“Yeah, I got ‘em in the truck. What exactly is the problem?”

So, I told him about the lack of HD downstairs (or, actually, any of the pay movie channels, no matter the resolution, which had disappeared sometime during the day on Monday), and the not-dual-tuner box upstairs. He checked out the box downstairs, was on the phone for quite a while, and eventually rebooted and left it to download updates while he addressed the box upstairs. He swapped that out for the proper dual-tuner model.

The upstairs one got to the point where the guide info was downloading, so he picked up his papers and asked me to sign. But, with a hands-in-the-air and a “no offense to you, but this is the 5th appointment we’ve had to get this working properly, and to avoid wasting any more of your and my time, I’m going to test everything to make sure it’s working before I sign anything,” I went off downstairs to check. Good thing I did, too, because none of the movie channels were working. A call to his people put that in motion, but soon it was obvious that the box upstairs was receiving no HD.

Once again, he was on the phone for quite a while (he seemed to be having trouble getting ahold of knowledgeable people to help him) and he confided that they had somehow screwed up the codes that were supposed to be sent to the boxes, and in fixing one had broken the other. Several minutes and a few restarts later, I checked every feature and pay channel that I could muster, and it seemed that both boxes were finally— after a week and a half— working properly.

Of course, over about 5 hours, the Verizon FiOS installer, worked quietly, pretty much kept to himself, and installed my 15/2 pipe to the internet perfectly the first time. Don’t think I didn’t feel a pinge of regret when he told me they were going to be offering FiOS TV starting at the end of the month.

I’ve been looking at the new Series 3 TiVo this morning, and drooling over it. However much I vastly prefer the TiVo interface, though, I’m not sure I’m prepared to shell out an extra $800 plus $13/mo on top of my Comcast service for the privilege. At $8/mo for the box and service, I think I’m going to have to stick with the Comcast DVR for now. We actually don’t have DVRs at the moment, though— We just moved to a new house, and had the installer come this past Saturday, but… well, read on.

He came in with two boxes, I told him where to put them, and asked him to plug them in to the two HD sets. I was working on unpacking and sorting stuff, so wasn’t paying much attention— I foolishly assumed he knew what he was doing. He did the one upstairs, and then came downstairs where I was, and I asked him to connect component cables into the receiver. He said, “Component? Oh, let me get one from the truck,” (which should have set off bells, but again— me not paying attention).

He came back down, and I asked him (since he had the box off to the side, not on top of my other components, like I asked), if the cable he ran was long enough to reach. He indicated he thought it was, while plugging the component into the back of the box. He then asked me to connect the component cables to the receiver, which I thought not terribly unreasonable, since there’s a bajillion ports in the back. Then he fiddled with stuff for a few minutes, called in to the service center with the serial numbers of my boxes, and said I was good to go. I signed his sheet, and off he went.

Of course, after I got done with the boxes I had been concentrating on, I went over to put the cable box on top of my other components, since it was still off to the side, but— surprise!— it wouldn’t reach.

Then I went upstairs to take a look, and instead of the box being in the cart under the TV like I asked, it was off to one side because YET AGAIN, the cable was too short. So short, in fact, that he had moved the cart over about six feet to sit next to the box on the floor. Not only that, but instead of a component or HDMI connection (the only way to pass the HD signal), he had connected it with a very short coax cable (so short, it was pulling on, and was in danger of damaging the connector on my TV). So, in effect, we were watching it via RF modulation on ‘channel 2′ of the TV instead of through the HD inputs!

I don’t know about you, but if I’m paying extra for an HD cable box, don’t you think I might actually want it hooked up so I can see the HD? In all fairness, he did knock his noggin on the low ceiling on his way down to the basement— perhaps the blow to the head impeded his judgement.

I called and complained, and they were very apologetic, and refunded my install fee, and since they couldn’t get a hold of the same guy, and all of the other installers were booked, said the earliest they could send someone out would be next Sunday, between 9am-1pm. Fine, so long as it gets fixed. And please send someone else out who has half a clue.

On top of all that, a few hours after the install, the DVR menu disappeared from the box, and the DVR buttons would not work on the remote either. I figured maybe since it had just been hooked up, it might be downloading a software update or something, so I let it go for a couple of days. But last night, when it hadn’t come back, and I finally called tech support, the guy said “It just disappeared? [clickclacklick] You say you have DVR boxes?”

“Umm… they’re supposed to be. I specifically called you guys before the install to confirm I was getting DVR boxes, and the lady told me, ‘Definitely, all of the HD boxes are DVR.’”

“Does it say ‘Dual-Tuner DVR HDTV Capable’ on the front?”

“Nope.”

Well, turns out that I didn’t actually have DVR boxes, just the “plain HD boxes.” “I see they’re scheduled to come back out on Sunday… any particular reason Sunday, and not earlier?”

“Nope, that’s when they said was the next available date.”

“Ohhhhhhhh-kay. Well, I can schedule you for Saturday… or Friday, or Thursday, or [clickclackclick] Wednesday?”

So, they’re going to come back out and give me the right boxes and hook it up properly tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me.