Zibblog

I was looking through my Amazon wishlist the other day trying to decide if I wanted to supplement an order I was putting together. As I was looking through it, I saw some random DVD movie collections like Star Wars in widescreen and the complete Matrix collection that I realized would probably be out on some form of next generation disc storage sometime. At this point, that is HD-DVD or Blu-ray in the kind of cage battle that consumers haven’t seen since VHS vs Betamax.

On a side note, every time I think about the whole VHS/Betamax thing, I remember the story that Ronel Elul always used to bring up in econ class about how Betamax was the superior technology. As I was putting together this blog post (is it odd that I do research for my blog posts?), I found an interesting article about the truth about “Why VHS was better than Betamax” that mostly comes down to the fact that the Betamax technology wasn’t really that superior and VHS ended up having a superior consumer implementation.

In the end, I found an interesting article that lists some of the titles that are supposed to be released in time for xmas for HD-DVD, and a lot of the titles that I would like to own, like the Matrix set, are on the list. It will be interesting to see which format survives because I’m certain that my bank account will probably be able to support at most one next generation disc format.

I’ve been putting some thought lately into what I’m going to do for audio/video wiring in the entertainment center that I’m going to be putting together. Some of it will come down to what I want to do for an audio solution. If I went with something like a heavy duty receiver (e.g., Josh recommended some of the better Yamaha products, which led me to something like the RX-V4600), then I’d get something that would do video switching as well. This sort of thing has some nice benefits like supporting a pretty full featured speaker setup and some nice one touch switching between sets of inputs.

Josh’s other audio recommendation for today was the speaker system all in one unit, the Yamaha YSP-1. That has the benefit of being only one speaker and perhaps nicely integrating with the high concept entertainment center that I have planned. However, at that point, I’d be starting to think about some other system for doing input switching like perhaps a 4 to 1 HDMI switcher with digital audio switching. At this point, one of the main decisions is what to do with the various electronic components. One idea that I had was a wiring panel on the side of the unit that would have the 4 HDMI inputs that you would plug in, which would get routed through the switch into the tv. It’s either something like that or have all the electronics in a section at the bottom of the entertainment center. I feel like I need to obtain a copy of AutoCAD or something and turn my vision into a 3D model.

I keep meaning to get some “real” posts up, but a combination of attempting to fix tons of bugs, running, and listening to my girlfriend (it still feels kind of weird to say (or even type) the word) vent about work have sucked the energy out of me for today. I’ve got some posts in mind, but they’ll have to wait. In the meantime, here are some random links that I’ve been accumulating.

There are those times when I just don’t care about the environment. For those times, there is this comic. (On a side note, Yirmumah is a great source of random links and adult humor.)

For those of you who don’t read Gizmodo daily, I bring you a link to a “Halo-driven Talk Show with a Game Boy Soundtrack“. For those of you with an XBox Live subscription, a new set of 5 maps became free on the 30th. You can get them for free on XBox Live or buy them in the store for $20.

Someone finally created a comic book for fans for Batman and people that hate hippies.

I even found a random blog entry the other day about middle age programmers.

For all of the parents of young children that I have reading this blog (the number seems to be ever growing) there is the ThudGuard Baby Helmet.

For all of the UI designers that I have reading my blog (really, all the cool kids are doing it now … well, Rus and Mandy are, which is enough for me to consider it cool) there is an interesting article on the mac ui.

As a final note, I’ve recently gotten back into the habit of doing watch research and it turns out that there are many really cool watches that never make it to the US like the Seiko Worldwide Atomic Solar Watch.

Well, I’ve now worked my way through a whole new set of links. Coming soon is an entry about Carmel, upcoming comic book covers, and why you should be like Matt K and read more comic books.

Lately, I’ve been unhappy with my AT&T cell phone plan since I keep running over on minutes, so I decided to go online and find a better rate plan. After browsing the Cingular site, I found the plan that I wanted but could find no way of switching the plan without selecting a new phone. I was perfectly happy with my old phone, so I decided to give them a call and see what I could do.

The answer was absolutely nothing. It turns out that if you were an AT&T customer, you can only choose an AT&T plan (which are kind of crap in comparison). All of this makes sense if you assume that they want you to switch to Cingular. Anyway, once I came to terms with the fact that I “had” to get a new cell phone, I decided to get a cool looking cell phone. It also turns out that nobody makes cheap cool looking cell phones, so after some looking around, I ended up with what Motorola refers to as the RAZR BLK (it turns out that many people consider spelling the word BLK to be really, really cool). Anyway, it actually seems to be a pretty good phone. I’m not a huge fan of flip open phones, but I can appreciate something only half an inch thick.

I realized that my latest addiction was HDTV when it dawned on me that I was watching an equestrian sports show and about the only reason I could come up with in my head was “it looks nice in HD”. However, I will not apologize for watching a Chicago / Earth, Wind, and Fire concert on INHD. There is nothing wrong with a man liking Chicago as long as it is not late Chicago.