TV techmologies

I noticed the other day that my old tube TV (bedroom set) has component inputs (Red Green Blue RCA plugs) on the back. Knowing that it's not High Def or Enhanced Def, I got curious as to why it had those inputs. A little research tells me that, even though the resolution is only standard 480i Standard Def resolution. However, it separates the signal into 3 separate signals vs. the 1 signal of composite video (yellow RCA plug) or 2 signals of S-Video (black plug with several pins). That's cool, but not worth the expense of an extra set of cables, when I'm using an S-Video cable now for my DVD player.

In the living room, I've got a plasma (720p resolution), my gift to myself this summer to go along with the new house and new furniture that the wife wanted. It's hooked up with an HDMI cable to the satellite for the HD channels, which are totally tits. The DVD and gamecube are hooked up via component cables for 480p resolution, which is the best they can do. I thought about getting an HD upconvert DVD player, but I think I'll just wait for Blue Ray or HDDVD to come down in price and get one of them.

Anyway, during my TV input research, I came across a question from someone about why his new tube TV has component input when it doesn't support a progressive scan picture. who the eff buys a new tube tv nowadays? an LCD or plasma of the same size isn't that much more expensive...I guess if your tv goes tits up and you don't have a lot of money, it's a couple $hundred difference, but I bet that same person has a cell phone and cable or satellite. the guy asking the question had the extra dough to dump on component video cables...

BTW, in case you didn't know, in 2009, all TV broadcasts are going digital. That means you'll have to get a settop box to translate your digital picture from your antenna to an analog signal for your non-digital TV.

Son of a Biatch!

New Blackberry security policy removed gmail and google maps from my electronic leash, and firewalls about 99% of websites. It's basically useful for emails and phone service now, which is better than nothing, but about 1/3 as useful now as it was this time yesterday.

The following people should be fired:

last october, someone accidentally emailed a HUGE group at work, more than just this location. I would assume 5k+ people. the email war the followed lasted about a week with emails of "please remove my name from your list" and "please stop replying to all" emails and variations thereof.

fast forward 2 months and someone who hadn't checked their email in quite some time revived it. It only lasted a couple of days.

Over the weekend, someone replied to one of the emails from last December, and there have been a couple of replies since, mostly consisting of "whoever is doing this, please remove me from your list". One guy even took part in this last year, so he needs doubly fired.

Therefore, to publicly humiliate these people, even though they'll probably never know, I am submitting that the following should be fired from their jobs:

L Killion - for starting this whole mess
S McGuffey
L Joseph - for reviving it in December
S Chastain
P Bruner - for replying to it twice
T Wright
A Copeland
S Lewis - for reviving it this week
D Rea
A Ellis
B Coulter - The first to ask everyone to stop replying to all this round
J Blanford - told everyone to just delete the emails like he does.
M Leighty

more updates as it developes.

This isn't a comprehensive list, as I don't have all of their names saved. These are just the ones in the current string.

Edited to delete first names to keep me from getting fired in case anyone periodically self-googles

What were they thinking?

So I moved out into the boondocks a few months ago. It's only about 5 minutes from "town" (2500 or so people), but there's no sewer, no cable and no copper based high speed tubes, only air based, or dial up tubes. None of these are that big of a deal, as septic, satellite and wireless tubes are decent workarounds. What really gets me though is the addressing system in BFI (bum-fuck Indiana).

My entire county only has like 10k people, so we're fairly far behind the times in a lot of things, which is understandable. What the hell were they thinking when they came up with the Rural Route addressing system though? The best I can tell is that they had X number of mail carriers and let them pick their own routes that went in roughly a circular fashion. On my route, it comes from town, starting with Box 1, goes about 500 feet from my house, takes a left turn, goes around a huge country block, comes directly past my house and takes a left at the same crossroads 500 feet from my house and goes out to the highway, and ends.

The trouble is, this address is good for nothing except giving the mailman a mailbox to put your mail in. there's no physical correlation to where the house is located and many websites balk at the address, thinking it's a PO Box (RR X Box Y, Yourtown USA). With enhanced 911 coming out, they're talking about going to physical addresses for all houses that aren't in town...imagine that, using the county road names/numbers, what a concept! They've been talking about it for quite some time though, and nothing has come of it.

Is anyone else's hometown/county in the same backwards state as mine as far as this goes?

Motel update

They reduced my no-show charge by $15. Not a lot, but better than expected, considering the motel was completely sold out due to the Red's/Cubs series going on.