Several months ago we bought a Sony BDP-BX2 Blu-ray player. I duly upgraded my Netflix account to send us Blu-ray disks. A couple of months later I switched it back to DVD-only rentals.
I had two reasons to move back to DVDs:
- Blu-ray just isn’t that much better than DVDs. Maybe I’ve ruined by eyes with decades of watching NTSC television and computer CRTs, but I just don’t see enough improvement to justify a change.
- The Sony player is awful. It’s slow. It requires an Internet connection (!!). It doesn’t play all DVDs correctly.
In a way I’m relieved. I have a huge collection of DVDs already and I didn’t want to have to replace them.
Continue reading 'Blu-Ray will be a niche market'»
About ten years ago I discovered that I couldn’t use more than one HP product on my computer at a time. I had an HP printer and I’d bought an HP scanner. But the driver software couldn’t co-exist on the same computer. At least, HP declared they couldn’t, and they didn’t care.
They still don’t care about customers, except as a revenue stream. This is again clearly highlighted by their plan to send spam to newer HP printers (Computerworld). They’ve outfitted the new printers with Internet connections, presumably to provide automatic support and updates. They’re also planning to use the link to automatically print advertisements on these printers.
As noted in Slashdot, they send the ads, collect the income, and we pay for the paper and ink.
Continue reading 'Yet another reason to shun HP products'»
There’s an article in Atlantic about the decline in the news industry and the rise of Google, news and all. The article, like most Big Media coverage of the topic, focus on the risk to Big Media news operations, like offices in Kabul or investigative pieces on government waste and coverups.
When I look at Google News, what I most often see are 1,200 copies of locally-published articles that are in fact Associated Press stories. These are classic “straight news” reports: announcements by officials describing crimes, legislation, accidents, celebrity activities, and so on. It is in fact rare for Google News, or any other news source, to produce the sort of in-depth reporting that might vie for a Pulitzer.
Yes, the traditional funding sources of such things are drying up. Yes, they play an essential role in self-government. But somehow we’ll find a way to pay for these things. Maybe Google will trip over a new business model as they blunder about, or maybe someone else will.
Continue reading 'Saving the News'»
Slashdot pointed me at a fascinating article on the deforestation of the planet: Peak Wood: Nature Does Impose Limits | Miller-McCune Online.
I hadn’t appreciated the role of forests in causing relocation of native American settlements on the US east coast. Or the role of wood fires in making traditional Christian teachings of Hell sound like nonsense (where would they get enough trees to keep everyone in Hell burning forever?).
My daughter in law, with her recent graduate degree in environmental policy, may already be aware of this sad story. The rest of us should read it, too.
Continue reading 'The Peak of Woods: a Foretaste of the Oil Peak?'»
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