Saturday, November 23, 2002

New monitor, old problems Finally got my new monitor--a lovely 17" LCD unit from Mitsubishi (NEC MultiSync LCD1700V). The image is bright and sharp. Native resolution is 1280x1024, which is where I have it set. The effect is astounding--it appears to be a bigger screen, but it's only slightly larger in its dimensions, just that the resolution and brightness make it feel big. But, the flickering wobbling blotchy behavior is still there--but only coming from my Win2K machine. When the monitor's driven from my Linux box, the picture's perfect, so I have a replacement video card coming for the Win2K box. Oh, well. 2:12:05 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

QOTDs Ezra Pound. "Literature is news that stays news." [Quotes of the Day] Alexi Sayle. "Americans have different ways of saying things. They say 'elevator', we say 'lift'...they say 'President', we say 'stupid psychopathic git'...." [Quotes of the Day] Bertrand Russell. "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." [Quotes of the Day] John Kenneth Galbraith. "It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought." [Quotes of the Day] Could #3 and #4 explain #2? 2:04:12 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

From the "We told you so" Department Efforts to stop music piracy 'pointless'. Record industry attempts to prevent the swapping of pop music over the internet will never work[product] say Microsoft experts. [BBC News | TECHNOLOGY] Not that I'm in favor of music piracy, and I personally haven't downloaded any music that wasn't clearly offered for download by the owner, but the music companies and RIAA have gone way too far. They're treating customers as crooks, alienating a growing population of potential music buyers. Their whole business model is doomed for failure, but they want Congress to legislate Constitution-bending protections. Let them fail, a new model will take over. 1:54:35 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

Cable provider in trouble Sigh. . . here we go again. Another moderately large telecommunications/cable provider admits to misstating its financial reports. Charter to Restate Earnings Back to 2000. Charter Communications said today that it understated its costs and tax liabilities by $2.6 billion related to the acquisitions in 1999 and 2000. By Reuters. [New York Times: Business] I wouldn't care particularly, except that Charter provides my cable television and cable Internet service, so if it's in trouble I have to wonder how it will affect service and pricing. I can't complain much about the service--we have a reasonable range of channels, they haven't (yet) insisted on going all-digital, and the Internet service is passable. Curiously, at first it was twice as fast as my DSL service (768kbps vs. 384kbps), which I hoped would help the sporadic connectivity issues to my office (it didn't, but I kept it anyway to keep business and personal services separate). Now, without notice, my DSL screams at 1.2mbps. Guess I shouldn't say anything. 1:37:03 PM    Questions? Comments? Flames? []

© Copyright 2002-2005 Fred Sampson. Last update: 5/21/05; 10:14:38 PM.