Can you believe that not only do I not own a copy of the Marx Brothers’ Monkey Business, I’ve never even seen it all the way through in a single sitting? Or even a single standing! I’m half an hour into it right now on Netflix Now and — d’oh! — it’s bedtime. Maybe I’ll have to watch it in a single sleeping.
The latest update to the Netflix Watch Now player seems to have fixed a problem it was having with correctly determining the available space on my C: drive. Of course, what it should really have is the ability to look for other drives. It would find my D: drive much more spacious.
Netflix has added episodes of Red Dwarf, a British sci-fi TV series my brother-in-law Jim turned me onto years ago. If Black Adder shows up online, then I’ll really be happy!
My sister Jean directed me to this BBC story, about the possibility of caves on Mars. Maybe they’ll find Commander Christopher Draper in one of them!
Spam comments have been flooding in lately, a dozen per whack, four or five times daily. It’s possible, while keeping up with them, I’ve accidentally deleted a comment or two. So I’ve enabled a very aggressive, intelligent spam filtering service. Experienced, sophisticated WordPress users praise this spam-stopper highly, so I’m hoping it kills all the bad stuff and leaves the good stuff.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/MAR07/CraigVenter.flv 400 300]
Friday’s News Hour on PBS had a fascinating segment on some oceanic research that was conducted by scientist J. Craig Venter. He’s one person whose motives I don’t feel the need to question. Although it should be noted that Venter is controversial because he competed against, rather than cooperated with, the federal government’s Human Genome project.
My best buddy Dennis likes to point out that for the first time people listening to recorded music are experiencing poorer sound quality than the previous generation of audio reproduction offered. He’s got a point, and the Boston Globe covered this topic in Wednesday’s edition.
Ever lower fidelity
Many listeners are trading quality for convenienceBy Joan Anderman, Globe Staff | March 14, 2007
Gabe Stillman loves his iLamp . He puts it on his desk while he’s doing homework and moves it to his bedside table for the late-night hours. Not only does it throw good light, it plays Stillman’s music collection. The iLamp is outfitted with built-in speakers and a docking port for iPods, making every one of Stillman’s 850 downloaded songs a finger tap away.
It couldn’t be more convenient. It could, however, sound better.
Continue reading Imperfect Sound Forever
