July 2003

A California-based Internet service provider jumped into the contentious music-downloading fray late Wednesday, filing a lawsuit against the recording industry and questioning the constitutionality of the industry’s effort to track down online music sharers. Pacific Bell Internet Services, based in San Francisco, is seeking a declaration that the subpoenas served against it by the Recording Industry Association of America are overly broad in scope and should have been issued from a California district court, not the District of Columbia. The complaint also seeks a jury trial to have the constitutional issues addressed.

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Snapstream seems to be working pretty well. I am able to log into my HA server web pages, add a recording, and it is sending the request to the remote machine which has my TV tuner installed. Working fine. I am able to watch them (commercial free, as in cheap TiVO) on the local PC, or on my Television, which is also hooked to my HA server. It will also stream the programs across my network with no lag at all.
Very cool new toy to play with. Guess I need to configure my remote now so I never have to get off the couch.

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I’ve been messing around with the newest version of Snapstream PVR, trying to integrate it into my home automation system, and it looks pretty promising. Will post more one I have had a chance to play with it a bit.

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….or, more stupid search engine tricks.
Go to Google and type in “Weapons of Mass Destruction”, click on the “I’m feeling lucky” button. Look at the 404 page not found very closely. Think I might just have to put this on my site in place of the normal 404 page.

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Arrived home from the training class yesterday about 7pm or so. It was interesting, but I sure did hate having to go. Missed everyone. Ended up doing pretty well. Should be back in a unit within the next seven days or so.
I did get to see everyone from the office, that was pretty cool. Pulled me out of class a couple of times for computer problems that someone had questions about. They seem to be doing pretty well, but some days are struggling. The lady that replaced me knows nothing about hardware at all, and since that was 90% of my job she has been getting a crash course. No telling who is doing the collections on overdue equipment, as I took care of that too.
Stephanie made a couple of movies of the baby while I was gone. I will edit them and post them sometime today.

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Saw this headline over at ABC news earlier:
The elderly man who plowed his car through an outdoor market and killed 10 people made his first public comment Sunday, saying, “My heart is broken over the extent of the tragedy.”

I am very sure that he feels great sorrow, and is grieving, but that does nothing to ease the pain and suffering of the people who died, and their families. Take the damn bus next time dude. Anyone that takes three blocks to figure out where the brake is needs to be off the road.
Personally I think that the entire drivers license system need to be changed. Not sure if it really needs to be regulated by the federal government, but it needs to be tougher. Perhaps eye (AND hearing) tests every couple of years, and a full drivers test every 4-7 years. That should weed out a couple of milion drivers. Something else that would help would be to drive up the cost, at least for the initial test (whether it be at 16 or 36, or whatever). Something along the lines of $250-300 for the initial test, and then $5-10 renewal per year. That would certainly get some of the idiots off the road. Especially the ones that can’t afford insurance. I spent the last 4 years commuting 150 miles per day, and uninsured motorists were always on my mind. If they cannot afford insurance they damn well do not need to be on the road at all.
Taking a few million drivers off the road would certainly do more for traffic control than all of the road building that is going on, as well as making people more responsible for their own actions.

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Stephanie and the kids arrived home safely this afternoon. It was pretty nice to see them. Christopher worked very hard over the last two week and took us all to Applebees for dinner tonight. That was kind of cool.
What was really cool (and saddening at the same time), was seeing his downfallen look as he picked up the check and I made sure to tell him not to forget a 15% tip. All total probably about 10% of what he made the last two week. Not to mention the 10% off the top that I make him save. It’s pretty hard to learn those lessons, but learn them we all must, hopefully in small doses at first. I think that tommorow Stephanie will sign the kids up at the upromise web site. I will be sure to post the link for anyone interested in financing my kids education.
I was supposed to have heard from a trainee today who might have been riding with me to those stupid classes tommorow, but noone has heard from him or seen him since Friday. Guess I will be riding by myself. It would have been nice to room-mate with him over the next few days since he smokes as well. Make the week go a little easier. Should be an interesting week.
I am kind of looking forward to seeing a couple of people anyhow. Supposed to go out with my old co-workers in the IT dept at some point this week. Probably the last day.

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Found a template that I really like, kind of fits with my mood.
There are some ares that I still need to work on and fix, but otherwise it looks alright.

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