Passkilling

Once again this week, Michele noticed that the Sopranos had not been recorded to Tivo on Sunday night. WTF? This happened two weeks ago as well and was a pain to get a copy.
We’ve been noticing that several shows that we have on Season Passes for are missing shows that should have been recorded. I was a bit baffled as to the problem and started checking the To Do List to ensure that everything was scheduled correctly.
This morning Michele and I realized what the trouble was. It’s the kids.
We’ve known for a while that the girls can drive the Tivo remote like pros. What we’ve figured out is that the girls can be watching TV and the “Tivo wants to change the channel to record * ” dialog box comes on screen. Since we have season passes to a variety of shows it’s usually OK if an episode of Good Eats or The Saddle Club is missed. The trouble is that the girls are willing to cancel and kill any show that tries to get recorded when they are watching TV.
The girls also know how to record a show they are watching and are will to tell Tivo not to record the previously scheduled show. Damn smart kids…
I’m not sure how to deal with this situation, but I have named it.
Passkilling is when someone cancels a Tivo request to change channels and record a Season Pass show.
A Passkiller is someone who cancels an in-progress Season Pass recording or cancels a channel change request.
Can anyone else share passkilling stories? What essential TV have you missed due to passkillers?

Sunday stuff

I still haven’t finished my E3 stuff yet. I suck. I know.
Dad Stuff
Zoe and I went to a horse show where she won her event.


She’s becoming quite the horsewoman.
Other stuff
My project for the day was making some pulled pork. I bought a pork shoulder at the supermaket. I had spoken to Martin about it previously and had my game plan laid out.

I put my smoke rub on the shoulder and got the smoker smoking.

This is what the shoulder looked like after eight hours in the smoker.

The pork fell apart in my hands and I was able to easily shred it and discard the bones. The fat had all melted away and the meat was easy to handle.
I made a BBQ sauce based on KC Masterpiece that I found on the net. The sauce was pretty good, but a little vinegary. Perhaps overnight in the fridge will mellow it a bit.

Whiny bloggers flip out

I read today that SixApart has finally announced a reasonable plan for licensing MovableType.
And now there’s a firestorm of indignant bloggers ranting up the blogosphere with outrage and bile.
“How dare MovableType charge me for my blog?”, they whine. “Don’t they know that my blog is important to me and many others!?!?!”, they complain.
Let me lay it down clearly for you whiny bitches.
For years now, Ben & Mena had been providing a great product for free to people. I know for a fact that the vast majority of people that downloaded and use MovableType, didn’t give one penny to them as a donation for the software.
MovableType becomes the premier blogging tool in the blogosphere with power and flexibility that is barely matched by anything else out there. They innovate, they give, and the help foster the explosive growth of weblogging.
After a few years, Ben & Mena decide to make a business out of their skills and start SixApart. The incorporate, they get investors, they hire employees. Now they are going to make some money.
Let me go over that point again for those of you on the short bus, THEY ARE GOING TO MAKE SOME MONEY.
You see people, business are about making money. For a business to make money, you need to charge people for your products and services. This is not a hard concept to master. If you think very hard, you may realize that when you go to the grocery store, if you want to take stuff home, you have to give money to the person at the register. Or, when you bought your spiffy laptop, you had to pay someone before you walked off with the laptop.
I’ll go slow here, try to follow along.
If SixApart wants to make money, they need to charge for their products.
Now that wasn’t so tough, was it? What did you expect SixApart to do? Rely on donations? Please…
Of course they are making you pay for all the good stuff. It’s the same thing that every other business does. The better the stuff you get from them, the more you pay. Some people tried the ‘give it all away for free and make it up in volume’ business plan before. Remember that whole dotcom boom thing? Yeah, will amazingly it didn’t work to make everything free.
Some people are complaining that they expect more from MT 3.0 and for a lower price. I expect more from a BMW (where’s the friggin’ auto-shotgun that I saw in the James Bond movie?) and they should charge less for the car, like about $10,000. Do you think that ranting about BMW or buying a different make of car is going to change the costs that BMW incurs making a car? No.
SixApart is still going to provide a free version, but to many, that just isn’t good enough. Imagine that, the free software isn’t powerful enough for your, you want more features in the free version. Is that because those features have some real, additional value?
There are plenty of luxuries in life that people can’t do without and are willing to pay for happily. How many companies offer free cell phone service, netflix, broadband net access, PVR service, etc. Not many. It appears that most people are willing to pay for good things.
But SixApart announces their plan, and here come the posts by angry bloggers with their fists clenched over their spiffy Macs, sipping $4 lattes, flipping out that business dare intrude on their happy, happy, joy, joy world of free software. “I’m done with MT!1!!!1” they type. Enjoy the ride folks. Switch over to Blogger. Oh, wait, they charge for the good stuff. Then choose, Livejournal. Oh, dang, they charge too. Perhaps Radio then. Wait, they charge too!
OMFG, all the good weblogging stuff costs money. We’re doomed! Sure there are some good freeware blogging tools out there. Unfortunately, they have little support and little outside development at this time. For those with the skillz, they won’t have a problem, converting. But all you whiny, ungrateful types, might just have a problem with the conversion and editing that is required.
There are plenty of people that can and will switch. The people that can switch easily aren’t the ones complaining. They are smart enough to realize that good software is actually worth money.
Maybe your precious blog might actually be worth paying someone to get help with. I mean, you’re a busy person and you just want to focus on the blogging, not the software, right?
You might even consider paying SixApart to support you and your blog, since it’s such a fun part of your life. Perhaps things of value to you are worth spending money to have?
Naw, it’s much easier to bitch and moan that ‘you expected more from 3.0’ and ‘I’ll switch’ than admit that you are a cheap bastard.
P.S. The best post on the MT 3.0 announcement.

Cargo Magazine

You know you’ve been looking at the cover, wondering what’s inside.
You think, “I kinda want to buy it, but if I do, what will others think?” Aren’t these ‘lifestyle’ magazines for women? Cosmo, Vogue, Glamour, etc. The list of magazines like this goes on and on, full of tampon ads, stinky perfume, quizes, and makeup tips. I can’t go there, can I?
There are men’s magazines like Maxim, FHM, and Playboy, but they aren’t really the kind of thing that you can read at the kitchen table while the kids eat breakfast. GQ is a good magazine, but no geek I know wants the clothes and other stupid crap they advertise. GQ’s idea of new technology is a digital watch.
At a glance, Cargo looks very appealing. But for a man to pick up a copy almost seems effeminate in some way. Would buying a ‘lifestyle’ magazine for men without nude photos make me less manly?
Men, I’m happy to report that it’s OK. I’ll be the first to admit that I picked up a copy of Cargo Magazine.


I too had looked at the cover longingly while waiting in the checkout line, wondering what could be inside. I mean, really, how interesting could it be to me? Anything in print must be way out of date to a person like me that mainlines the net about 18 hours per day.
Well, today I’m here to tell you that the Cargo magazine is all good. Nice little snippets of info. Plenty of stuff I hadn’t seen before and I haven’t even read the whole thing yet.
Yes, Cargo is the magazine for the mature geek. With a range of topics from six pages on MP3 players to razor burn lotion to booze, the magazine is tasty.
I give you all permission to go out a buy a copy, you know you want to…
If anyone asks you can always say, “Yeah, Mike said to go check it out, I wasn’t going to until he recommended it.”

Grimwood

A couple weeks ago I finished my latest book, but never got around to writing about it. The book, is the sequel to NeoAddix, which I reviewed previously.
Both books are out of print novels by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. I really enjoy his writing. His mash up of pop culture, cyberpunk, and alternate history is interesting. After reading all four novels, they fit together much better. For example, the protaganist in the first novel is also a key player in the third novel. I read the third novel first and some of the nuances or her role were lost on me. Knowing the backstory makes things clearer and more cohesive.
In order, the books are NeoAddix, Lucifer’s Dragon, Remix, and Redrobe.
Lucifer’s Dragon – Jon Courtenay Grimwood
In the third novel in Grimwood’s alternate future. Two stories are told, the founding of New Venice and the subsequent revolution over a hundred years later. A bit confusing until you get the characters under control in your mind, the story drifts from past to present to cyberspace easily.
The author takes a look at the changes to world power as technology advances to the point where anyone, with enough money, can defend themselves against the ‘old powers’ of the world. The story examines the founding of a new country as a result of the technological shift. The fate of the same country undergoing revolution later as technology shifts yet again is clear warning as to the fate of governments that try to defend against the old enemy and not look at the new ones.
The idea of a data haven is a little tired in the world of cyberpunk, but it suffices as a plot device in this novel. We have data havens today but they appear to be exceedingly dull places. My thoughts tend toward the hot, rogue places being those areas where genetic engineering takes place. When genetic engineering arrives, people are going to want it, regardless of what the law says. Illegality + technology = money + drama.
If you are interested in the cyberpunk genre, you won’t be disappointed by these books.

Downtime

Today is Mother’s Day, and per Michele’s wish, we are having a quiet morning.
Yesterday, I had a little free time and tried out my new raviloi maker gear.


I made raviolis, spagetti, and some fettucine. Michele will have some pasta to cook for the girls this week.
Next week is E3. I’ll be going on Friday. I look forward to E3 every year and am a bit disappointed that my brother Matt can’t make it. He just started a new job and can’t get away.
E3 portends to be drama filled with the hype over Half-life 2 and Doom ]|[ on display on the show floor. I don’t think I’ll take the laptop to blog from the floor, it’s just too hectic. The camera will be snapping and I’ll post them next weekend.