Lolcatz

Lolcatz

Bravo Apple

NBC (Battlestar Galactica, The Office, Heroes etc) has had a deal with Apple for their shows to be re-broadcast on iTunes for the last year or more. Apple has always charged $1.99 an episode, making it a great alternative to missed episodes, and I've used it like this before.

NBC realized they could make more money, so they wanted to bump the price, per episode, to $5.99.

When the story broke this morning it was looking like they wouldn't agree, and the contract in December would expire.

It sounds like the negotiations were already ended. Apple just announced that they would be terminating all NBC shows before they started their new seasons instead. Basically, tomorrow.

Apple may not be the bastions for consumer rights that some Apple fanboys make them out to be for this, but it was a pretty ballsy move, and sends the message to other media companies that to get your stuff on iTunes, the biggest, and from my experience and my opinion, best, online media distrbution out there, you need to play by *their* rules, and not make up your own.

No one will buy NBC shows from another network - instead we will go back to "Life before iTunes" and pull them from bit torrents. NBC will get squat for that.

The sky at night

IMG_1636.JPG

I took the dogs out the other night before heading to bed, and the moon was so bright, I didn't need my torch. I stood there admiring the night sky for a few minutes, then remembered my Rebel XTI, tripod and remote, sitting in the living room.

Could of minutes later, I was back outside, tripod setup, camera in automatic / no flash mode and snapping these.

Click through to see more from the set - these have turned out to be fantastic desktop background photos for my Mac and work machines!

Mechanical

Put a broken computer in front of me, and it's pretty clear to me whats wrong with it, what can be done to fix it, and I'll get it done for you.

Put a broken piece of software that I'm familiar with, and I'll do the same.

Put a broken engine, or something mechanical in front of me, and I'll just stare at you blankly. I'm not much of a mechanically minded person.

It's why I bought extended warranties for both my cars. It's why I still drive to the dealership for their service every 5000 miles or so (of course, their prices are competitive, they are very personable and have yet to give me cause for complaint, which is why I go back).

When I bought my ride on mower (a John Deere LA120), for some reason I never really thought about servicing or mechanical mainenance. I didn't when I bought my push mower, and it's doing just fine. But of course, a $2000 mower is a little different.

So when the LCD on the mower starts yelling "service! service!" I figure, how hard can it be?

Hard, apparantly. Checking the service manuals out, and reading around, it's not something for the non mechanical to take much part in. oil changes, blade sharpening, belt and bolt tightening.

So I gave the nice guys at John Deere a call, and they do me a good price on a service plan - a couple of on site servicings in a year, and an extra year on my warrantie. Can't argue with that! Now I just need to remember to park it under the deck on the day they come, so I don't have to give them access to the garage.

Wish I could justify a cart for it now.

Vicks and the NFL

The NFL has announced that they will be suspending, permanently, including any and all monies, the monster that is Michael Vicks.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20429109/

For those in the UK, Michael Vicks is an American football player who was on a $130 million contract. He was sponsored by companies like Nike.

He was also funding a dog fighting ring that was operating on his property. This was the kind of illegal dog fighting ring that would hang or slaughter the dogs that didn't fight enough. That would put hungry, savaged pitbulls against little dogs with their throats slit.

He tried to deny it, but the evidence was hugely overwhelming so he switched to a plea bargain saying he only bankrolled them, and wasn't actually involved. This was enough for Nike and the NFL and he has been cut off. His old team has been freed to go after him for the $50+ million they paid in bonuses.

On Monday he goes back to court to be sentenced, currently thought to be between 1 and 5 years in prison.

It won't be long enough.

Happy night

It was a happy evening in the Geek household last night as the familiar voice of Clarkson and co finally got broadcast over the american airwaves.

Top Gear is now in the line up for BBC America, unedited and in proper season order.

Top Gear has been on before, Discovery Channel showed a couple of episodes. However, Jeremy isn't particularly American friendly, seeing how he despises every motor vehicle made over here, and uses words like "boot" and "petrol". Damn him.

As a result Discovery never really got behind it, and subtitled it to death when it was on - all references to pounds were subtitled with the dollar amount for example.

So BBC America finally stepped up and brought it over as part of their recent revamp. Gone are endless Benny Hill repeats and in come Top Gear and several other shows I've never heard of before. Hotel Babylon? Jekyll? MI-5? No clue if they are any good or not. I can't say I was impressed by the recent airing of Robin Hood, but damn, it's not Benny Hill!

Bravo BBC America.

Long weekend for the geek

I've booked Friday off work - it'll just be me, as Dancer has less vacation time than me. I need to get someone in to check out the boiler, as it had problems that were never really fully resolved, and I need to mow the lawn.

We're off to Boston on Saturday I hope, should be a fun, but long day.

Things pretty much carry on as normal - Buddy turned 3, we've booked a hotel for our 2nd wedding anniversary. Time ticks on!

Speaking of iMacs

Dancer just put 2gig of memory in ours - it's much happier being an itunes server now!

I also just did a wiring job in my car. When I bought it, I wanted to get the upgraded rear view mirror - one with Homelink included, and auto dimming. Unfortunately at the time I couldn't get it as part of the package I wanted.

So I bought a used one from a very reputable guy on ebay, for less than half what Toyota wanted. I also installed it myself, meaning I did my first wiring job in my car. Made a few mistakes, learnt a few lessons, but everything is working as intended. I now have Homelink, auto dimming mirror and a compass built into it, and it's really neat too.

Tomorrow I have Circuit City hard wire my radar detector in, making that another clean installation.

New iMacs

We have an iMac G5, 17inch, 1.6ghz, and it's been an awesome machine - from the days of it being Dancers main computer, where it held it's own in World of Warcraft, to today when it sits under the kitchen cabinets and acts as an iTunes server, sending almost 100gig of music to the laptops, the stream server in our bedroom, the xBox 360 (via Connect360) in the living room. It's also the main recipe machine for Dancers Macgourmet, and in general is one of the most useful computers I've ever owned.





Apple just released the next major update to the iMac range - they got slimmer, more powerful, bigger screened and a hell of a lot more powerful.





I'm not in the market for a new machine, but these things are so nice, I'm tempted all over again :D





I do think the iMac is probably one of the nicest desktop machines you could buy these days - it will run Windows or OSX, it's powerful enough for many games (although PCs still have the gaming crown), but if it's anything like the iMac we bought two years ago, it will be rock solid, be able to be left switched on forever, and you will never have a day of trouble with it.





It's also a damned good looking machine :)