You know that feeling you get when you close a time-sinking application such as a web browser or game, and then not 10 seconds later you’ve opened it again? I feel that I either have horrible time management skills, or a general lack of things to do these days, and thus I’ve decided to continue my Earthbound campaign. I have a short attention span when it comes to games, so it usually takes me a few years of playing on and off (mostly off) to finish a game, and I tend to overestimate my progress and forget my place in the story, so it was to my dismay when I started up the copy on my Wii to find out my level 80 character was actually level 1, and that he didn’t exist yet. This can’t be right! I cried in anguish as I have very clear memories of almost defeating Diamond Dog many months ago. As it turns, my ZSNES save files aren’t compatible with the SNES9x-based Wii SNES emulator I was using. As much as I’d love to play Earthbound on a TV like it’s meant to be played, I’m not spending 50+ hours to work my way back to where I was over an incompatible save file. To the computer I go!

After an exhaustive search of my HDD, I came across 3 different copies of the save file, but none of them were up to snuff with where I thought I was. One of them was my first time in Saturn Village, and the others were earlier. I decided to cut my losses and go with the Saturn Village one, and proceeded to spend the next 3 hours killing foppies (I can’t help but think others have done this before me… they’re weak and offer 2600 EXP if you can corner 6 of ‘em) and by the end they were even running scared when they saw me coming! I kinda felt bad for them after that, I didn’t really want to genocide an entire species, I just wanted to get strong enough to fight Master Belch! Honest!

I went to bed that night with the sinking feeling that all that time had been spent in vain, as there was one place I still hadn’t looked: my external hard disk. I took a look the next morning, and sure enough, I found yet another copy of ZSNES and another save file. (How many copies do I need?!) Anyway, I got back my level 80, and braved the mystical land of Magicant, went back to Saturn Village, and got into the time machine. I thought I was completely unstoppable when I single-handedly defeated my own nightmare, but I found there was still a lot of training to go. Oh well, at least I can now that I have my save file back.

Moral of this story: ORGANIZE your files!

If you’re a frequent headphone user, I’m sure you’ve all had this happen to you at one time or another! On another note:

Reddit vs. Digg: My Opinion

I don’t think you can do an exact comparison of these two popular link sharing sites because the way each is laid out and run is so different. Digg has fixed categories for items of interest that are moderated by its administration team (and of course the users through thumbs and reporting). Reddit lets you create your own categories for anything, and while they have admins and moderators, founders of these categories (aka subreddits) can moderate as they see fit. Digg and Reddit function in much the same way, with upvoting and downvoting, but as far as I’ve seen, burying a story on Digg is a lot more of a hassle than downvoting on Reddit, which would lead me to believe that the majority of Digg users don’t bury stories they don’t like, they just don’t Digg ‘em up. Burying a story also doesn’t appear to subtract from the Digg count, and appears to be more of a reporting tool since in the past you’d have to specify a reason for why you were burying it. On Reddit, downvoting simply appears to mean you don’t like a story (e.g. 147 points (64% like it)), and will reduce both the total score of the story but also the user’s general score. Another thing I’ve noticed is that while Digg has always been plagued by Power Users (those who submit the majority of the popular stories and whose stories get dug up simply because the users are popular) while for the few months I’ve been on Reddit I haven’t noticed the same problem. Perhaps it is an issue, but I rarely hear a lot of drama from Reddit about power users unless it’s in regard to Digg.

Personally, I use both and like ‘em, so I don’t really have a strong opinion, but I’d probably go with Reddit over Digg if I was forced to choose. Reddit seems to give everyone a stage whether they are new or old, but on Digg it seems to depend more on who you are than what you submit.

I like how Windows Live handles photos already… Microsoft has certainly outdone itself with the new Live programs, so much so that buying a Mac for iLife seems irrelevant. I wouldn’t find iLife so bad if MobileMe was free, but $99-149 for the same stuff Microsoft is giving away for free?!

Anyway, here are all the cruise photos. There might be some videos in there too!

I’ve been making Rage comics lately… this is my second attempt at one.

I have my wallpaper set to rotate every 30 minutes to a random picture from my most recent cruise (yeah, long overdue post on the way) but I just came across this and it looked awesome. The quality is horrible but that’s kind-of what I think makes it cool. Don’t know if anyone will share my opinion but boy do I love sharing it!

In the beginning, there were really only three major television networks: ABC, CBS, and NBC. If what you wanted to watch was not airing at the time you wanted to watch it, you were quite frankly outta luck. These “big three” networks provided all the sports, entertainment, and news that people saw on TV, and they had to do it all since they were the only networks anyone watched (not counting local stations). This was all due to technical limitations and the fact that infrastructure wasn’t very well developed yet. Manufacturers of TVs set them up to receive a fixed amount of channels, having a single channel knob on the cabinet that would turn the TV off if set low enough.

As time went on, improvements in broadcasting technology allowed for more channels to be broadcast at once than through over-the-air (OTA) TV, and thus cable and satellite TV were born. These new variants used large networks of cables and satellite dishes to provide better reception, quality, and a larger coverage area than traditional OTA TV. To use these new technologies, many TVs needed to be fitted with a set-top box that contained a TV tuner; a device that would unscramble and translate the cable and satellite signals to a language the TV could understand. Now users weren’t limited to only 11 channels, and 60-70 was the norm. Instead of having 3 or 4 channels that provided a wide range of content for all audiences, many new channels employed the use of narrowcasting; only broadcasting certain types of shows for specific audiences. As technology continued to get better, more and more channels were able to be crammed into cable and satellite transmissions, and in the early 2000s companies such as Comcast and DirecTV started offering monthly deals for HUGE amounts of channels, well over 900 of them, which leads me to my ultimate question: how many channels do we need?

Looking through the TV Guide menus on my set-top box, I know that I’m missing out on a lot. You can only watch one TV show at a time, and at any one time there are 900+ channels going with whatever happens to be on. It seems like a real waste to me, as the only channels I really watch have numbers less than 70, and even at that I never have any need to visit any channel from 10-30, as nothing that appeals to me ever is playing. Smart money would say I should downgrade to a package which only has 70 channels instead of the full 900, but there are some pretty awesome channels above 70 that I like visiting that require me to pay for all of them.

If I watch 5 channels each week, and 2 of them are in the premium tier, wouldn’t it be better for me to pay for only those five instead of all the ones I’m not watching? $80 per month is an expensive proposition for 5 channels, wouldn’t you say? Here’s what I propose instead: what if we paid each month a flat rate for the set-top box rental fee and a reasonable fee for the basic tier content, but then we’d have a choice: either the classic premium tier 900 channel deal or a new one in which you first select the premium channels you know you want to watch and you pay for unlimited viewing for the entire month for those channels. The TV listings for every channel will still show up in your guide though, and if you go to a channel you haven’t subscribed to and want to watch, you can either set up an unlimited subscription to it right from your remote, or you can buy 24 hours of viewing for a few cents. If you only watched 5 channels, you’d pay in proportion to what you use. In my opinion, this would be a big win for consumers, but I don’t know whether or not it’s feasible from a business standpoint.

With the advent of narrowcasting, it doesn’t seem right that providers still make us pay for the broadest selections of channels. To conclude, I hope that someday a change will be brought about in this flawed system.

It’s easy to see why one of the world’s most hated companies is changing its name to Xfinity… yeah, that’ll totally work. Put on a fake mustache, big nose and glasses and nobody will recognize you. I really hate Comcast’s converter boxes; not so much for the fact that my analog cable was perfectly fine before the transition, nor for the fact that they’ve taken away a bunch of channels if you don’t use the box (though I do dislike these facts) but rather for the simple reason that the boxes DON’T WORK most of the time, and that we now need to pay an extra fee for something we could use without a fee before. Seriously, watching TV on this Comcast box has become a chore, as every time I turn on my TV the channel defaults to channel 8, just like with a hotel TV. Channel 8 is all in Japanese. All I can ask, Comcast, is WHY? Why is it that I can’t leave your box on channel 2 when I turn off my TV? Why is my TV’s remote not good enough on its own anymore, and why must I have two volume controls? Can’t your box just output at full volume the entire time and let me use my TV’s volume controls instead of finding a balance between the two?

I know that there are other remotes one can use that will control any device, and I know that Comcast’s remote can be programmed to turn on your TV, but what if I want to switch input or use some of the cool built in features on my TV? On my big Comcast dual tuner non-DVR (no HDD) box why can’t I use Picture-in-Picture? I was able to get HD channels on the HD TV before I got Comcast’s tiny box (of which my service is interrupted all the time as seen in the first picture) and now I’m not able to. Sometimes the box just freezes up and I’m completely out of luck, unable to change the channel or anything until I unplug it for a long time, then fight with the remote to get it to respond to anything. Everything used to be so simple, but now Comcast’s messing it up. (It’s not just Comcast, I know, but they’re just about the only provider of cable where I live.)

Above: what I deal with every other day it seems like. If you’re going to charge extra for this device and make it so I can’t watch the same channels I already pay for without it, at least give me something reliable.

Above: the dreaded box itself. I’ve talked to others who share my hatred of this horrible device (this blog is biased in case you didn’t know) and they have similar stories of it crashing and burning when they’re trying to watch TV. I feel it isn’t just me when I say people despise needing to use two remotes on their TV’s, and without the IR receiver this box would be completely unbearable, as I’d need to keep it on top of my TV stand instead of in the cupboard where it belongs. After needing to replace these boxes twice in the last year because they stopped working on me. Bottomline: I’m disappointed.