Land of Oz

Politics Suck

The noble profession known as politics. What a bunch of choices we have this year.

We have one dude who has been listening to some preacher bad mouth the USofA for 20 years, and just now decided that's a bad thing - ooh, do you think now being an election year has any bearing on his feelings?

We also have a dame who can't remember the difference between running across an airfield under sniper fire and greeting some little kid in front of TV cameras. Oh yeah, she also claims to have brokered the Irish peace treaty - more or less; or at least had a lot to do with that, or heard of it anyway.

There's another dude who plans on a 100 year Iraqi war. And the way that party has been going for the past eight years, may just end up with a thousand year Reich instead.

We have a current president who wasn't aware gasoline prices were approaching $4 a gallon and thinks thousands of foreclosures and major banks going bankrupt make for "interesting times."

The vice-president, who is in power to serve the people of this country, when told the people don't think the war in Iraq is a good thing says, "So?"

There's a mayor in my home state who feels he's been sent by god to lead the city and just coincidently has no problem with committing adultery. He also apologized to his wife and the city for the act, which he also claims he didn't do.

There's a governor who got caught with his, er, stuff, in a (more than one?) prostitution ring - at $4,500 a night, or over $80,000, and was replaced with a fine upstanding politician who immediately confessed to having several affairs - and so did his wife. I wonder who apologizes to who in that case. Oh, did I mention this shiny new governor also confesses to using heroin and coke?

Isn't it nice we have such an all-American, apple-pie clean sport like baseball to fall back on?

Labels: crime, government, gripes, michigan

Television Digital Converter Box

When I was trying to find out about these things, I ran into so much misinformation, it was very confusing. Finally, I decided to just buy one and see what happened.

As you may or may not have heard, there's going to be a change in the way television is being broadcast in February of 2009. Technically, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the government office on all things radio and TV, has mandated that all TV stations switch from broadcasting an analog encoded signal to a digital signal. This means that all TVs that receive only analog signals won't work anymore. Since the government is tasked with provided at least some "free" TV, they have decided to offer folks a $40 coupon that people can use to buy a converter box that will allow them to use their old TVs to receive the new digital channels. Here's some questions and answers about the process:

Are all TVs affected?
Nope. Only older TVs are. Maybe three to four years old or older. Many newer TVs already have the circuitry inside to receive digital signals. If, like me, you have an older TV using a rabbit ear antenna to watch local TV, you'll probably need the box. According the government web site:

If you purchased a new TV set since 2004, your chances of having a built-in digital tuner improve dramatically. Starting in 2004, many of the TV sets sold at popular electronics stores feature digital tuners that will work after February 17, 2009. But it’s not a sure thing. Even some of the newer TV sets are purely display monitors that lack the internal circuitry needed to pick up digital broadcasts.

Do I need a converter box if I get cable or satellite TV?
Nope. That conversion is already done for you by company providing the signal.

Do I need a new antenna?
Probably not. If your current TV can get local UHF channels - generally channels above 13 - you won't need a new antenna. I have a $25 set of amplified rabbit ears from Radio Shack that work just fine with my digital box.

Does this converter box give me digital high definition TV?
Yes and no. You do get a digital signal, and if the station transmits a high definition signal, you can see it, but it won't be a "real" high definition picture. In my case, highdef shows appear in a letterbox format (has black bars above and below the picture). Since I have an old-fashioned "normal" TV the picture quality won't show the detail available with a real highdef TV. The picture is there, but it looks pretty much like it did with the regular antenna.

What was your experience like?
1. I bought an Insignia converter box for $59.95 from Best Buy. I had no trouble using the $40 coupon (they just deducted $40) so my cost was $19.95 plus tax. The $40 coupon by the way looks like a credit card, not a piece of paper.

2. It can be hooked up two ways. Either running the antenna lead into the box and then another cable from the box to the TV antenna input, or you can run a separate left and right audio and composite video signal from the converter box to your TV. I have a DVD player in my system, so in my case, I ran the antenna lead from my rabbit ears (they sit on top of the TV on a wooden stand) to the converter box, three leads (L&R audio and video) to my DVD player, then three leads from the DVD player to the TV. Using the separate leads supposedly gives a clear picture than using the RF signal.

3. I followed the instruction book, turned everything on and the little box soon automatically searched for channels. I went from five channels to 15. Most station have multiple programs broadcast on their one channel. For example, channel 19 (PBS) has four channels (19.1, 19.2, 19.3, 19.4). The reason for this is digital broadcast signals are more efficient and allow more information to be transmitted over the same signal. Thus, you get four digital programs where only one analog program was before.

What problems did you have?
Nothing really. Don't forget to RTFM. (A polite acronym meaning Read the Flipping Manual) I forgot to peel the plastic wrapper off the included remote battery at first so the remote wasn't working. I also had to shuffle around my video stuff, because I had been using the RF input from the antenna directly to a VHS player so the VHS player was acting as my TV tuner. Now I use the converter box for the tuner that feeds into the DVD player before being routed to the TV.

Was it worth it?
Most definitely. For $20 I went from four and a half TV channels (66 was usually unwatchable) to 15 crystal clear channels (OK - there's some occasional breakup, but not bad). And my PBS channel has great programming on the extra channels. Very cool.

How do I get the $40 card?
Go to https://www.dtv2009.gov/ and sign up. And don't be suspicious/worried that the government is giving you something for nothing. They sold off some extra channels that the conversion freed up and made billions that they can waste on other programs. On the other hand, the $40 rebate program is only costing the government millions.

Labels: government, tech

4 - 4 / 5 - 5

Four dollars a gallon

Four thousand dead GIs

Five years of war

Five hundred billion dollars war cost
Ain't those numbers cool?

Labels: government, gripes, military

// posted by Jim-of-oz @ 3/27/2008 07:31:00 PM

Haves and Have Nots

Here's an interesting pair of pictures that were displayed on BBC a week or so ago. They were sequential on the site, but couldn't be farther apart in life.

Labels: misc

What?

Am I conservative or liberal, if I:

support gays using assault guns to shoot people who spray paint anti-Muslim sayings on synagogues.

want my body donated to science or put in a Hefty bag with the trash.

save energy by shoveling my snow and using a manual lawn mower only to relax in a scalding hot tub of water later.

enjoy veggie pizzas and rare steaks.

drink imported beer from Europe and prefer water from the tap.

patiently wait for several minutes at a railroad crossing but spout epitaphs when someone spends 4.56 seconds before moving at a green light.

like to listen to classical music while reading Guns and Ammo.

donates to ACLU and NRA.

thinks rabbits are cuddly and tasty.

loves to watch kittens and puppies frolic, but feel little remorse when their owners allow them to get run over. Remorse about the puppy, I feel nothing but contempt about the owners.

Labels: gripes, misc

// posted by Jim-of-oz @ 3/24/2008 05:42:00 PM

So? 2

It is nice to know that all those kids and spouses who lost their mom or dad in Iraq can't hold a candle to the burden the president is lifting. For a guy who isn't even aware of the price of that gas that us peons are paying, I think that's might generous of him to take on that burden.

Cheney said in the interview, conducted in Turkey. "It places a special burden obviously on the families, and we recognize, I think — it's a reminder of the extent to which we are blessed with families who've sacrificed as they have."

"The president carries the biggest burden, obviously," Cheney said. "He's the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm's way for the rest of us."

I'm sure that Jenna and Barbara are happy that the president is carrying that burden instead of them. We all know how well our government's members kids are holding up their end of the democratic bargain. I'll bet there are at least three or four dozen kids from congressmen and senators that are spending their second or third tour in Iraq. Actually, I'd be surprised if it's three or four.

Labels: government, gripes, military

BORG

Big Orange Retail Giant, or in other words, Home Depot. Today I wandered around during my lunch browsing the store. I'm looking for an electric lawn mower. Naturally, there's no one there to answer questions. However, I did find some stainless steel kabob sticks on clearance, (loose in a package), so picked them up.

Another thing I was looking for was supports for some heating ducts in my house. Menards had some, but I wasn't ready to use them when I saw them. Naturally, there was no one around the ductwork. I walked past a couple of aisles and finally found a Borg drone taking pictures - I think she was a vender. She tried to help after I showed her where the ductwork was, but finally handed me off to the plumbing guy, who after taking me to his plumbing section told me he didn't carry duct supports (he could have told me that in the ductwork section).

So while in the plumbing department, I picked up some foam insulation for my 1/2" and 3/4" copper water pipes. This is lightweight (more on this later) split foam tubes that go around water pipes to help the hot water pipes from cooling off and the cold water pipes from dripping condensation. They're about 6 foot long, floppy, and a little awkward to carry.

I head for the checkout lane and lo and behold, there are no open checkout lanes. All the lights are off and all the little anti-customer checkout gates are pulled shut. The only thing open is the self-checkout lanes. Normally, I have no problem with, and in fact prefer, the self-checkout lanes. However this time, because of the type of materials and the lack of price tags it would have been nice to get a little help.

OK. I scan the kabob sticks (they do show the clearance price) and because the package was broke, put them on the shelf. However, the scanner won't accept that shelf and beeps at me to put the stuff down in the right place. When I finally figure out what it wants and comply, it generously allows me to scan another item - one of the insulation tubes. I put that down, but it's too light to trigger the machine (I told you they were light) and the scanner tells me again to put it down correctly. Finally a Borg clone comes over to reset the machine. The next tube I want to scan doesn't have a tag, so I pick up the one I just scanned to use the tag on it. This time the machine yells at me to put it back, having decided that it isn't too light after all, and of course the Borg clone has to come over and reset the machine. So I scan one with a tag, and when I put it down, I step on the counter to tell the machine I did put it down. Naturally, the machine isn't too happy with my fat foot, and once again the Borg clone has to reset the machine.

I finally tell her that not all tubes have tags and that I have 4 large ones and 3 small ones. She hand scans the one I earlier scanned and marks up 7 more. I tell no, 4 large ones and 3 small ones. She has to reset the machine and removes the 8 large ones and again has to reset the machine and finally scans in 4 large ones. I have to pull one of the small tubes out so she can reset the machine and finally scan the 3 small ones. Eventually I get to the point where I can pay the Borg for their quality service and products. I put in my $20, get my change and pick up 7 long, floppy foam tubes and a broken package of loose (and sharp) kabob sticks and try to get out of the store without dropping anything.

So as I'm wandering out the door, with loose floppy tubes and sharp pointy sticks in my hands, and my change falling out of my pocket, another vendor asks me if I want a hot dog! Thinking about telling him where he could put his hot dog as I juggle tubes and sharp pointy things, and loose change, I say no, (surprisingly I'm still polite) and walk out to my car.



I've heard it called this more than once. Not only does the acronym fit, but Home Depot tends to have a Borglike (you gotta know Star Trek) effect on local hardware stores. The Borg motto is, "Resistance is futile, prepare to be assimilated."

Labels: gripes

Good Friday/Easter

Well, it's pretty obvious I'm going to hell thinking about this, but I really don't see the big deal about this holiday. Friday is supposed to commemorate the death of Jesus and then Sunday he comes back to life. As I understand it, one of the basic tenets of Christianity is that God gave his kid's life for us. My question is why is that a big deal?

If it was you who gave up your kids life (I don't have one to give up) for someone, that would be a big deal. After all, once your kid is gone, it's gone. God, on the other hand, is immortal and always been and always will be. I'm guessing that's genetic so so is his kid - Jesus. Which means that God lets his kid die for three days and suffers for a couple of weeks, knowing all the time Jesus will be coming back to life shortly.

Since he always has been and always will be, it seems to me that a couple of weeks of pain and agony and then three days dead, isn't such a big deal. There's a lot, too many actually, mortals who if they only had to suffer for a couple of weeks, would be ecstatic. Honestly, compared to mortals in places like Treblinka under Hitler, Cambodia under Pol Pot, European pagans under the Inquisition, Iraqis under Saddam and Nanking under the Japanese, and too many more to mention, Jesus had it pretty easy.

Now if God decided to let kids be born without birth defects, that would impress me. But giving up his kid for three days out of an infinite life - I don't think so.

Labels: gripes, religion

Michigan and the Democrats

"I am here for one simple reason: to make sure Michigan's votes are counted and your voices are heard in this election," the New York senator [Clinton] said.

I find it interesting that when she was favored earlier, she didn't much mind that the Democrats had written off what Michigan had to say about the candidates. I don't know the entire story behind this mess, but as I understand, someone in Michigan decided to hold the state's primaries early and the Democratic party said, "screw you," and we don't care what the Michigan people think so we're going to use your representatives as we see fit.

Now that it's a couple of months later and Hilary needs to scrape up some delegates to stay in the race, she's all of sudden decided that Michigan should really vote - again.

P.S. I had planned to vote Democratic in the primary until the Democrats decided they didn't care what I thought. I'll probably just go ahead and vote for Ru Paul now. At least there's no confusion there.

Labels: government, michigan

Bush and Co.

This is what is so great about living in a democracy where the people tell the government how to run things and government leaders show genuine concern for their constituents.
I often wonder what happened to ours.

Informed that two-thirds of Americans now think the war was not worth fighting, Cheney said: "So?" on ABC's "Good Morning America.

Labels: government, gripes

Government Rebate

$600. While I'm not complaining they're giving us something, I have my doubts about this. First, since it's from the government, it means it's our money in the first place. In other words, instead of paying a few grand in taxes, I'll be paying a few grand minus 600. And while $600 seems like a pretty good chunk of change, it isn't really that big. Basically I'll just use it to make a teeny-tiny dent in my existing bills.

The other thing is that this is going to add yet another bill to the government's bank account. Of course, the USofA is so far in debt, what's another few billion dollars among friends. And if the USofA doesn't show any financial responsibility why should its citizens. So, we have 100,000+ mortgages failing, gas prices that seem to go up 10% a week, flour that has tripled in price in a year, and new jobs falling through the floor; yep, $600 will let me sleep better.

Labels: government, gripes

Extinction

Why do we get so upset when a critter approaches extinction these days? Whether it's something like a big, ugly condor, or a cutsey-wootsie panda or even a virtually unknown green-gilled aquatic whatsis, my question is - so what?

Let's face it, extinction is just a normal part of life. We'd be in a heck-of-a mess if the dinosaurs hadn't mostly gone extinct. If you're going to get all upset over a carrier pigeon, why not get upset over the trilobite - granted there's about a 250 million year gap there, but extinct is extinct. The main thing that the panda and koala have today is that they are cute. Look at the panda who was either dumb enough or unlucky enough to only focus on one food source - bamboo. That isn't a way to succeed. I'm sure homo sapiens will be eventually following the dodo, wooly mammoth, and snow leopard. Especially since we're evolving to focus on one food source - fast food.

Sure, it's a little sad the masked face of the bamboo-eating panda or the cute furry little snow leopard will probably soon be gone, but that's life. They weren't good enough to survive - they goofed someplace. Either geographically or physiologically, they didn't have what it took to survive. And to be honest, as we approach 7 billion humans on this planet, it wouldn't hurt if some of us started to go extinct; like home robber and homo assaultist, and homo rapist. (And not to change the subject, but why does the idea of a eating a furry canine bring up so much disgust - when eating a feathered chicken bothers hardly any at all.)

Labels: gripes, oldies

Simplify

I've been noticing that most tech items are built with more options and features than most people could even discover in their lifetime, let alone use regularly. It makes you wonder how much R&D time and effort is spent on developing those features that most people don't use. And in contrast, how much better could the basic functions be if that time was spent on them. Here's just a couple of examples.

Word Processors. I'm a professional writer and probably don't use 80% of what most processors, like Word have in them. Since being forced to switch to Word 2007, I can't even find most of those features anymore. I just checked and my Word has roughly 200 fonts listed in a dropdown. Most of them border on the unreadable. How many do you think I use regularly? Maybe three or four? One of the guys in our office seems to have just discovered his font pulldown and consequently, I now get nearly unreadable content from him a couple of time a week. Usually, I ctrl+a the doc, then select Times to print or Verdana for screen use. I also get docs that try to use every formatting option in the package - usually with disastrous results.

Video. My video tastes are pretty simple. I have rabbit ears to watch the four networks and PBS, and a DVD and VCR player. So basically, I turn it on, select a channel, and adjust the volume. For the DVD or VCR I will check the time on boring movies and sometimes fastforward or reverse. The above describes 98% of my video actions. Do you know what sits on my coffee table just to let me do that? Four remotes with about 100 buttons on each. And even though I've spent the last thirty years fiddling with computers, radios, televisions and other high-tech devices, I still don't have a clue about what three-quarters of those 400 buttons do. I understand there are remotes for home theaters now that run Windows and the installer has to give you a class just so you can turn on your TV. What's wrong with on/off, play/rewind, louder/quieter, and which channel. Instead of spending all that R&D on features I'll never use, how about designing a system that knows that when I click ON, I want everything on. And if I have a DVD in the player, when I click PLAY, the DVD, not the VHS tape or the stereo or my neighbor's garage door should do its thing automatically.

Phone. I have a remote phone at home with twenty or so buttons on it, most of which don't make a lot of sense to me. If someone calls me, I have to press TALK, even though I'm going to listen. When I type in the phone number, I also have to press TALK, even though I'm dialing, not talking. And even though the info screen lights up, the buttons don't, so I have to turn on the lights just so I can figure out which button I need to press to dial a number. And with all its buttons and power, it won't stop some cretin from calling in at eight in the morning to sell me a septic tank cleaner or some such bullshit.

See, even I can manage to turn a simple rant about simplifying into a multiparagraph complicated document that covers far more than it needs to. Oh, one more thing about word processors. In the preceding line I originally spelled manage, with an extra r as in manager . And though that makes absolutely no sense at all, the $400 word processor's spell checker didn't catch it. Due eye make me gravel downloading?

Labels: computers, gripes, tech

Gary Gygax

Wow, talk about feeling old. I don't know how many of know of this 69 year-old guy, but he was the originator of Dungeons and Dragons back in 1974. That was back in the pre-PC days when all the games were played with pencil, paper, lots of reference books, and of course, the ever-present multisided dice.

I never got too much into the D&D side of the house, but spent most of my time playing board war games from places like SPI, Avalon Hill and the upstart Steve Jackson Games. We had a wargaming club, the Wichita Warhawks, at McConnell AFB in Kansas in the late 70s. We even had monetary support from the USAF Morale, Welfare and Recreation funds. Some of us played historical simulations recreating China Farm, Chariot or Chickamauga, but there was always a bunch in the back rattling dice with one guy hiding behind a three-ring binder full of notes and maps.

In the very early eighties one of my first programming projects was a game in the style of D&D called the Tunnels of Avercy hence the domain name of my woodworking site. It was written in BASIC and let you explore an underground dungeon full of monsters and treasures. I published the source code to a BBS (remember those?) many moons ago and wonder if the code still might be floating around out there - I've long since lost it.

I guess that one of the first signs of getting is seeing icons from your early adulthood fading away. RIP Mr. Gygax. You brought a lot of pleasure and companionship to a lot of lonely and strange geeks and nerds.

Labels: celebs, computers, oldies

Directions

Why do they make directions so complicated. I live in an area called Freeland, that is between the cities of Midland, Bay City and Saginaw Michigan. There's a couple of ways to get from where we live to Midland, but the road names make no sense. Some examples:

One road you take to get to Freeland is called Freeland Road, except when it's in Freeland, where it's called Washington. Then from the Freeland/Washington Road, you turn north on Midland road to go to Midland, but on the way there, you have to turn off the road you're on to stay on Midland Road, which becomes Saginaw Road. Which if you drive it long enough, goes from South Saginaw, to North Saginaw and as you get farther west, becomes East Saginaw road - all the time get farther away from Saginaw City and County. Eventually, it becomes West Saginaw Road, before changing back into North Saginaw Road until if changes into East Railway Street.

And by the way, when you're southbound on Midland Road, it turns into State Street unless you turn off of it to stay on Midland Road.

Labels: driving, michigan