Category: Tech
Upgrade!
I pulled the trigger, or bit the bullet, or whatever gun-related metaphor you prefer, on the Bluehost Pro Plan. It took longer than I thought it would to complete the transfer to a less busy host, but now that it’s done the improvement is anything but subtle. The site should be a lot faster now, and if it isn’t, let me know.
Don’t Click That Mouse, Hand Me the Keyboard
A Mr. D.F. Rogers of Massachusetts writes:
Check out the pricing on this very essential and cool mp3 item. I think there is still a logic problem with digital/mp3 pricing… 😉
http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Crush-That-Dwarf-Pliers/dp/B00138KN6O/
You can buy each side of “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers” for only 99 cents each — since each side technically has only one “track” — but if you want the whole album (both tracks!), well then it is $9.99!
The same goes for “All Hail Marx and Lennon” (How Can You Be In Two Places At Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All) — it’s cheaper to buy the cuts than the whole album, though only by a buck or so. BUT you can get “Nick Danger” — all 28:00 mins of it — for just 99 cents! I think I’ll do it!!! Just $2.97 for three sides of mp3 side-splitting fun, and you didn’t even know that an mp3 had sides!
I think Firesign Theater would appreciate the absurdity of this, although they are getting very little monetary gain from it.
Denro has since reported that he has indeed taken advantage of this big boggin — two tracks for two dollars, instead of the same two tracks as one album for ten dollars, and the Nick Danger track, too. I already have both albums on CD, but come to think of it I haven’t seen Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers in a long time. I’ll invest two dollars worth of time looking for it before buying the MP3, which should make the CD magically appear.
Their Googly eyes upon us
You probably know from all of the pop-ups that Google threw at us in February that their privacy policy has changed. My take on this is that the consolidation of all of their services under a single policy is an excuse to get better marketing information on us as consumers, voters, etc.
Amazon and, to much lesser an extent, Facebook already have a marketing profile on me, and I accept that, but what Google is doing strikes as going against their claimed ethos of “don’t be evil.” So I’ve decided that I will delete my personal Google account, including YouTube. Most of the playlists I set up in there haven’t worked in a while anyway. My Gmail address is used only for Google Alerts, and I don’t count on them much anymore. I’ll continue to use Google’s search engine, but I won’t be signed in, and I won’t use the Chrome browser, because I’m going back to Firefox.
A knight without armor in a savage land
I’m having a Have Gun – Will Travel marathon on the Roku. Netflix has HG-WT through its deal with Starz — a deal that expires on Wednesday, so I’m going through as many episodes as I can before then.
Most of what I’ve read about the Netflix-Starz contract focuses on the loss of recent hit movies, but my preference for casual viewing is for TV shows from the late 50’s and the early 60’s, like Have Gun – Will Travel, and Leave It To Beaver. (I like The Dick Van Dyke Show, but don’t revere it as others do.) How much money can there be left in owning the distribution rights to a 50-year-old TV series, anyway? It doesn’t appear that any restoration work was done on Have Gun – Will Travel, so any money it makes now must be pure profit.
This is my entertainment center, in the corner of the 4-season porch, where I do most of my TV viewing.
I’ve been considering replacing my 13-year-old Sony 32XBR100, but being the best conventional NTSC TV ever made for consumers it’s perfect for SD 4:3 material. If too much of the good, old stuff disappears from Netflix, and/or Turner Classic Movies goes HD, I’ll see about re-purposing the venerable, and extremely heavy, Sony as a setup for classic video gaming and getting a flat panel TV for the porch.
‘BZ Boston notes
Back in September, WBZ 1030 AM in Boston celebrated its 90th anniversary. On WBGH TV, Boston’s PBS station, veteran ‘BZ announcer Gary LaPierre, now retired, talked about his start at the station, only a few months before the Beatles came to Boston. Note: Paul and Ringo are still working!
[jwplayer config=”wide” mediaid=”17585″]
Another great veteran of WBZ radio, Dave Maynard, died recently. After retiring, Maynard’s familiar voice continued to be heard on the station, doing commercials and promos.
Samjay pointed out that the thing everybody uses to set their car’s dashboard clock, WBZ’s on-the-hour tone, is gone. I had noticed a while ago that it was about ten seconds late, and under the assumption it had mistakenly been put before the delay circuit, I sent a note to the station asking about it. Not much later, the tone once again was synched with the radio-controlled wall clocks in my house, but now the tone is gone. Whuzzup with that?
Follow-up: I wrote to the WBZ engineer, and didn’t receive a reply, but the time tone is back. It’s not hitting exactly on top of my radio-controlled clocks, but I’m not going to quibble over 8-10 seconds.