Random Winter Thoughts

1: I thought that I would be done having to be annoyed with the silly 'DTV converter box' commercials (on Comcast cable no less) by February 17th. No, alas it will now be the middle of June before the endless ad's telling the stupid that they will need a box or new tv. It has been a year of these endless 30 second spots, and it just makes me wonder how dumb the American public must be. Well, I was wrong, they are even dumber than I thought, so they need to be told 3500 more times before they get it. Oh well in another 6 months, I hope, it will be the end of the RCA Indian.

* UPDATE *

Good news, the bill to delay the digital transition until June has failed in the House. Unless some foolish attempt to resurrect it happens before 02/17/09, we will finally be analog free. *Jump Jump*

* UPDATE 2 *

In an exceedingly stupid move, the US Senate just extended the DTV cutoff date of useless analog NTSC tv signals until June 12. This will of course put on hold the use of those frequencies to do things like area wide wireless internet and other such business producing technologies at a time when we really need business stimulus. Looks like thousands of inane tv spots over a whole year didn't get through to the low brow knuckle draggers, so we need 6 months more of this junk, and put off Billions of dollars in new business so the few people left that have old junk tv sets can get cheap converter boxes.

Good job Congress.

2: Locatik.com

If you look to the left, you will see a widget from a website I found that will track you via cell phone. You can turn it on and off, so if you are somewhere hinkey, no one needs to know. I put a link to the full website at the bottom of the widget so you can see not only where I am, but pictures I have taken that are geocoded to a location.

The software lets you set new locations manually, when moving, or at fixed intervals. The pictures taken are only 800x800 but when you click the yellow balloons on the full map, then the pics, they look pretty good. If you phone has a built in GPS, Locatic will use it to give an exact fix. This will be great on my motorcycle trips, so folks can see where I am at any time they want. When you go to Locatik.com , click on the '?' to see if your cell phone is supported and download the software. I think many a biker will find this invaluable.