Mac mini to morph into DVR?

Now this is an intriguing rumor... good old Think Secret is claiming that Apple is going to introduce a new version of the mini that is meant to be kind of a dedicated digital video recorder. It'll feature a new version of Front Row, possibly include a dock for your iPod, and probably be Intel-based. Supposedly to be introduced along with Intel-based iBooks at the January 2006 Macworld Expo. I'm a big MythTV fan, but man, a Mac mini would be an awesome little DVR.

Article on rumored Apple DVR

TiVoToGo giveth, movie companies taketh away

I saw TiVo's announcement on Monday about providing TiVo owners the ability to pull recordings from their TiVos and put them onto their PSPs and/or iPod videos. Hey, thought I, that's a nice feature. Kudos to TiVo for doing that. You can do similar things with MythTV but not nearly as simply as with a TiVo and TiVoToGo. Sure, TiVo says they're watermarking the video to try to discourage people from uploading those videos to the Internet, but they have to do something to placate the TV and movie execs, right?

Well, apparently that wasn't enough. Since there's no digital rights management (DRM) attached to the files, and therefore (gasp!) OTHER PEOPLE could watch their precious shows, apparently they're pretty POed at TiVo.

I know that stuff like DRM is probably only a real issue for geeks like me, but ultimately, people know when they're being treated like customers and when they're being treated like thieves. If media companies continue to make their products inconvenient to watch or listen to, people will move on to media that is not hobbled. Or at least I sure hope they do.

Entertainment industry voicing threats against free portable content

Off of the log

I normally put stuff like this in the kids' blog but this was too good to pass up...

Me and the youngins were driving somewhere or other, and I had the iPod playing one of the kids playlists. One of the songs I have in there in an attempt to widen their musical horizons is The Clash's cover of "I Fought the Law." Theo finally got the hang of the refrain and started singing along... yes, now you've figured it out, he sang it "Off of the log, and the log won. Off of the log, and the log won."

Prius Tank #2

I know this is thrilling blogging which is why I do it. Filled up for the second time this morning... got almost 390 miles for this tank, and at 7.75 gallons that's a good 50MPG. Plus, just to add to the excitement of this blog entry, I used my brand-spanking-new cordless air compressor and digital tire gauge to make sure all my tires were at the Prius FAQ-recommended PSI, and I've already seen a jump in my average of about 5 MPG! I am sure I am going to get many many comments on this blog entry, so please try to contain your enthusiasm.

Pat Robertson logic

So Pat Robertson (America's very own crazy ayatollah) has recently warned the town of Dover, PA, that if anything bad happens to them, it's their fault for voting to remove 8 of their 9 school board members after their support of teaching "intelligent design." Since they voted "to remove God from the schools," and "stuck their finger in God's eye," they shouldn't be surprised if God no longer protects them.

Now, I'd like to investigate the flipside to that logic. If nothing bad happens to Dover, PA from here on out, I'm assuming that means God approves of teaching kids evolution. Yay God!

This week in Evolution versus Intelligent Design

I love Ars Technica, and was glad to see this review of the latest goings-on in the evolution vs intelligent design battle. My home state of Kansas, as usual, is doing their students a disservice by literally changing the definition of science so that non-scientific things like creationism, ID, and young-Earth "theories" can be taught in school.

Luckily, the people of Dover PA came to their senses and voted out 8 of the 9 school board members who proposed the "just a theory" warning about evolution. Yeah, there's a good use of the public tax dollars there, outgoing board. Congratulations.

This week in Evolution versus Intelligent Design

Kill Bill's Browser

I use Firefox at home but unfortunately must use IE at work. I would love to see Firefox more-widely used. So I liked this webpage on multiple levels.

Kill Bill's Browser - Switch to Firefox

The non-linear Prius fuel meter

I filled up the Prius's tank last Saturday. The fuel gauge has 10 little squares on it. I'd been driving for a while with only two squares left, so I figured I better fill it. I put 8 gallons in it. The tank is supposed to be a 12 gallon tank. Let's see, two divided by 10 is one-fifth, one-fifth of 12 gallons is 2.4 gallons, which means I should have been putting almost 10 gallons into the tank.

So now I've been driving since Saturday, and the fuel gauge hasn't budged from full. Until today, after driving about 70 miles. Let's see, 70 miles, one-tenth of a tank, that's 70 miles divided by 1.2 gallons... my goodness such mileage! NOT. The fuel meter is obviously just there for show, or to display pretty lights, or something.

On the plus side, the running MPG calculation automatically reset itself when I filled up. Very clever.

Two mornings after the morning after

Still sore, but at least I can now walk down stairs without looking like an 80-year-old man. I tried running a little bit this morning--a very little bit--and it was sore, but not impossible.

I've looked at some of my in-race pictures on the appropriate website. I look awful! My gait must be stupid, or every photographer in the race managed to get me at just the right time to make my gate look stupid. Other people look like they're running--I'm not sure what I look like I'm doing. I'm going to have to videotape myself to see what's going on there. And this is early in the race, too! It's not like the picture at the end, where I look like my legs have stopped functioning properly (because they have).