Sun to set on common sense in 2009 · Sunday February 24, 2008 by colin newell
A December 2005 headline read… Congress is poised to make Feb. 17, 2009, the hard-and-fast date for the national conversion to digital TV — ending the more than 60-year era of analog broadcasts and potentially making millions of analog TV sets obsolete…
Hard and fast date? Hardly. The date of the analog expiry date has been bounced around more than the average basket-ball at a Nicks game.
Why? Why the space race to land-fill 75 million analog TV sets in the U.S.A. ?
Well – The government and the FCC (once considered the same thing, now hardly!) hope to collect more than $10 billion by auctioning off the spectrum now used for analog TV, allocating some of it to emergency services. Brilliant economics?
According to the FCC, people who want to keep their analog sets will be able to apply for subsidies. Each household can get up to two vouchers, worth $40 apiece, that will help pay for boxes that convert digital signals to analog. The bill sets $1.5 billion aside for that purpose.
Now hang on one moment. I live in Canada and I view converted digital signals from my cable company down-converted from the slightly superior digital to the analog signals that my HD Ready Sony is more than capable of slurping up.
So. Instead of forcing 75 million household to ditch their classic TV’s or add yet another set top box to their already straining consoles… why not get the cable companies to do it for you with the option of buying a box for the extra features?
No. That would make sense wouldn’t it!?
In summary, this whole affair is considered one great big gift for the tech companies and cable monoliths – thanks in full to the highly cooperative FCC which is little more than an imaginary government agency in corporate clothing.
Morons on 4 wheels rant #1 · Saturday February 2, 2008 by colin newell
Darwin spoke about Natural Selection – here is a great example:
Entering Rod Serling rant mode, cigarette clasped between gritted teeth: Picture if you would, a quiet evening on the Trans-Canada highway. You are out for a romantic cruise in your 1956 Pontiac Bel-Air when the peace is shattered by a 2006 Aston Martin and a Ford GT racing down the highway. You and your date Trixie Belden are spooked as the drivers weaved in and out of traffic at high speed.
But this was not an amalgam of bad fifties and sixties B-Grade stereotypes… — it was the Trans Canada Highway Friday about 8:30 p.m. And now two expensive high performance cars are resting their rubber in an impound lot.
The Times-Colonist reports: “The drivers, who were pulled over by Saanich police outside the Red Lion Inn, are prohibited from driving for 15 days. They have also been issued violation tickets for driving without due care and attention, which carries a $368 fine.”
“A driver who called 911 was passed by the speeding cars as he came onto the Trans Canada Highway at Millstream Road. He watched them fly down the highway, until they were forced to slow down near the merge lane of the Old Island Highway. The sports cars twisted and turned through traffic lanes until they were free again to race down the highway into town. Stopped by a red light at Tillicum, both cars shot forward when the light turned green.”
How is it that if I walked into a bank and joked about wanting a zero-interest anonymous loan, I could be tossed into the slammer for 10 years… and 2 knuckleheads high on testosterone and Starbucks coffee can put dozens of lives at risk for the cost of $368? Hell, I cannot buy 3 Canucks tickets for $368.
What gives with society anyway? Two 39 year olds driving about 100,000 dollars worth of Detroit steel could have killed someone… or maimed someone… or killed a whole family. And we slap them on the wrist. How about banning them from getting behind the wheel for a year.
These 2 belong behind the wheel of a 5 year olds tricycle because that is where their actual intelligence is at.
Shame.
I have seen this Aston-Martin parked at London Drugs on Yates St. I think it is the same owner. He flew out of the parking lot one evening a few months ago after picking up his prescription… traveling down Quadra avenue at speeds in excess of 60km/h within seconds of entering the road-way.
What an idiot. Watch for him.
Vancouver iPhone scambuster · Friday February 1, 2008 by colin newell
This was all over the newspapers this morning…
A guy in Vancouver is allegedly scamming people over the much-in-demand iPhone.
A website, based in Vancouver, attacks the scammer head-on.
Interestingly, the scam artist uses intimidation on top of deceptive business practices; sells a products that he does not have and then bullies the victim into silence with threats of frivolous lawsuits if the victim speaks up – classic sociopath behavior.
Check it out for yourself here
Read more on the perp here
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When life gives you lemons... start baking · Sunday February 18, 2007 by colin newell
True confession. I have been lusting after this one kitchen item for years, for over a decade in fact. My first real kitchen appliance was a Champion Juicer that I bought in 1988 or 1989. It is still running like a top. Just not in my kitchen. In my Mom’s kitchen – she pinched it from me just before I got married and never gave it back. Of course, she says, I can have it back whenever I want it.
Right.
Anyway. I digress.
The KitchenAid Artisan mixer is going to make life a little easier for me. I do 100% of the baking around the house and 50% of the chef work. I am the Chef’s assistant in fact. More of a sous chef. A great stir-person. A dicer. A whisker. That’s me.
Anyway. I make all my own muffins, bars, cookies, biscotti, cakes and (lastly) breads. The breads are most definitely at the end of the list because they are the most labor intensive.
Not anymore. Now that I have the KitchenAid Arnold SchwarzenMixer life is going to be that much easier. The 7 watt hand blender will be relegated to omelette duty and my uber-cool Paderno hand-blender will just keep on doing what its doing.
Anyway. I have my mixer. Yipee. Stay tuned for recipes.
Who wants dinner?
