We Are Grounded

Blog address is settled:
http://4fterthoughts.blogspot.com/

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N-joy

Matt, I had to post this.

A Gallup poll of Muslims worldwide

i ran across another article today: 'Politics, not piety' dictate radicals in Muslim world: poll. Gallup polled 50,000 Muslims ins several predominately Muslim states. They found that 93% of Muslims condemn the 9/11 attacks. More notably, of the 7% who do, none citing religious reasons, but political reasons. This flies in the face of what we're being taught about "Islamofascism."

i'm becoming very politically-minded because i recognize that our government has a huge impact on the whole world. People live and die by our country's decisions. As a citizen in this Republic, i feel the weight of responsibility. So i've been educating myself and trying to educate others as i go.

But i want to be reasonable and level-headed. i don't want to be one of those bloggers who can get everyone like-minded to foam at the mouth and everyone else feeling defensive, because i don't think that ends up accomplishing anything. So i'd like to use this blog from time to time to say my piece, and i'd like for you all to call me out if i'm not being reasonable. Cool?

Carry your computer on a USB drive?

i just ran across an article called Travel Without the Laptop, Carry You Computer on a USB Drive. The premise is you can install enough software to make any available computer your own by simply plugging in the USB drive. Notable is MojoPac, which looks like a leech that uses a PC's OS to do the gruntwork, but what i really liked was the Portable Apps section. i already use Firefox, Thunderbird, Filezilla, and GIMP. Pidgin looks cool so far.

Change of subject- i recently developed Mac-envy. Fortunately i was cured upon reviewing prices at store.apple.com. That lead me thinking about alternatives. i'm just over with Microsoft. Apple of course is genious (mostly about making profits, really) and i'd enjoy one but i'm stingy. How feasible would an open-source laptop be as an alternative? Like one that runs Ubuntu? Anyone had experience with a Linux GUI?

Jake... we need an RSS feed!

Get on it :-)

What, no posts today?

Ok, nobody else posted today. So here's the sight where I was skiing on Sunday.

(Full size)

Title / Magic

I Propose These as names:

1> Max Occupancy: 4

2> B 4 PMOTS (ask its meaning)

3> PERCUSSIONISTA MESSAGIO

Hm.... maybe I was trying to hard to think of something. # 3 is in Italian though :-)


Also, I cant leave without posting some magic ...





CIAO 4 NOW...

MY PVR Experiment

I figured for my first post I'd share my recent interest in PVR (personal video recorder) and HTPC (Home Theater Personal Computer) technology.
You might ask "Why an interest in PVRs?" Well... Steph and I got a DVD player/recorder which worked well for the last year until the clock mechanism broke... which means it can't do timed recordings... thus is is now an overpriced DVD player (which isn't that great at the playing part). So I'm looking for something to replace it... preferably something from Amazon since I get gift certificates through work for Amazon :-) Don't have the money in the budget for fun gadgets.

I looked into TiVo, but I utterly cannot stand paying for overpriced "service". The new TiVo devices are utterly useless without the service... they actually wont even let you manually record something! Don't get me started on that subject... I looked at some other pre-packaged TV recording devices, but either they will be obsolete soon (Analog Cable) or way overkill. Eventually I looked at a PC based solution, thus the HTPC.

I did some research and become worried that any TV tuner card that I purchased would become obsolete in Feb 2009 because of the digital cut over. The best I could find were some ASTC digital cable input cards and OTA (Over the Air) HD input. I think the ASTC only picks up channels 1 - 125.

I did some research and decided that I couldn't afford to build a new PC to record TV and be a basis for a HTPC so I stuck with the Dell Pentium 4 2.6Ghz PC that I had. I decided on the Hauppauge-WinTV-HVR-1600 TV tuner PCI card that has input for both ASTC digital cable and OTA HD along with Svideo and audio inputs. The card comes with some tv recording software, but I hear it isn't that good. Did some research and saw some good reviews about GB-PVR and its freeware. I've also heard some good things about beyondTV.


I may have jumped the gun, due to the digital conversion coming up in 2009 and the fact that ASTC only covers 1 - 125 channels. Does anyone know exactly how the digital change over will affect a guy like me who has basic cable tv using a TV made in the early 90's? I'm pretty sure I'll have to buy a converter that will convert the digital signal back to analog, but is there anything else? I know that I'll probably miss out on some available channels because with the elimination of analog signals they can have more digital channels on the same amount of bandwidth and I'll only be able to view the first 125. I'm pretty sure I'll still be able to use my new TV tuner card, but it'll only be able to capture 125 channels worth of data. If you guys know of a different card that I couldn't find let me know... I can always sell the card on Ebay :-)

Who slipped up and let Michael Scheuer on FOX?

i can hardly believe i'm posting something from FOX News, let alone on my very first blog post of all time. Even more unbelievable is that they had Michael Scheuer on, since he does not follow the establishment line. Scheuer is the former head of the CIA's "Bin Laden Unit" and has since authored several books about the "War on Terror".

Anybody else see the eclipse last night?

Blog Created

Here it is.
Our collaborative blog.

My creative juices weren't flowing when I chose the domain, so lets brainstorm on a new one. If it's available, we'll change it.
For now it's: http://4ced-interaction.blogspot.com

For now it's a black scheme, either because it is better for the environment, or because I was too lazy to choose another one.

:-)

Once we get going, I'll add it to feed burner so we can get better notification of updates.


In summary, we need:
1. A title
2. A new domain
3. A better page layout
4. Add other "Authors" (I just started with the 3 I assumed would participate)


Finally, post something:
1. Sign in
2. Click "New Post"
3. Type or paste.
4. Click "Publish Post"


Odd, all my lists have the same number of items.

Cheers,