rich ruminations

TiVo may give away set-top boxes-CEO

Chief Executive Tom Rogers said the company, whose name has become synonymous with the ability to pause live television and skip commercials, was close to offering a range of pricing options, including one plan that would include a free set-top box.

“We’re continuing to pursue the prospects of zero upfront and all upfront” pricing, Rogers told the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York.

The company is likely to begin the test to offer free boxes, possibly in exchange for higher priced and longer term plans, fairly soon, said Rogers, who was named chief executive last July.

Obviously at a loss… but they’ll make it up in volume…

We really love our two Tivos — great technology, but a very confused executive management team.

The alumni must be terribly embarrased.

Canadian Uni hot under the collar over Wi-Fi safety

A Canadian university has limited Wi-Fi networks on campus, not out of information security concerns, but because the long-term safety of the technology is “unproven”.

Fred Gilbert, president of Canada’s Lakehead University, made the order on the basis of possible health risk from the technology, especially to young people. Inconclusive studies into possible links between radio transmissions and leukemia and brain tumors from, among others, scientists for the California Public Utilities Commission, led Gilbert to make the “precautionary ban”.

“All I’m saying is while the jury’s out on this one, I’m not going to put in place what is potential chronic exposure for our students. Admittedly that’s highest around the locations of the antenna sites and the wireless hot spots, but those are the places people tend to gravitate to because they get the best reception,” Gilbert said, Canadian technology website IT Business reports.

The evidence must be simply overwhelming to lead to such drastic measures, right? Not really.

Robert Bradley, director of consumer and clinical radiation protection at Health Canada, said documents due to be published this year should establish that WiFi networks operating at below current regulatory limits poses no risk to humans. But if the controversy about the possible health risks of mobile phones are anything to go by that’s unlikely to reassure everyone.

Amazing.

I’ve previously posted about Chax, a very useful plugin for iChat.

Version 1.3.2 has just been released, with these changes:

• (New) Automatically set status to away when the screen saver is activated
• (New) Basic Growl notifications for text invitation and text message received
• (Feature improvemet) Set custom font for group separators
• (Bugfix) Joining a new group chat properly focuses on the window
• (Bugfix) Saved preferred screen names ignores offline users
• (Bugfix) Fixed a bug where an NSArray exception would be thrown (-[NSCFArray objectAtIndex:]: index (0) beyond bounds (0))
• (Bugfix) Sending away auto-replies when using an ICQ account no longer sends HTML formatting
• (Bugfix) Minor UI changes in the preferences

I’ve been running the beta for the past few days, it’s been rock-solid.

The new feature to automatically set the status to away when the screen saver is activated is awesome. I’ve been wanting this capability in iChat for a long time, and now I’ve got it. No more need to remember to change my status prior to walking away from the computer (I always invoke the screen saver, with the OS X feature that requires the password to wake the computer from sleep or screen saver).

Cox and Forkum have created another well-crafted parody, this time incorporating several of the original controversial cartoons along with several well-known characters. Yes, even Piglet has been attacked as an insult to Islam. If you haven’t yet seen the original cartoons, I’ve posted them here previously.

Click for a larger image :

But it can buy a “very good passenger-safety system.”

Driver flees after crashing million-dollar Ferrari in Malibu

Police in Los Angeles’s plush Malibu district were hunting for the driver of a one-million-dollar Ferrari after the sports car was reduced to scrap in a dramatic high-speed crash.

The driver of the high-performance Ferrari Enzo, which retails for between 600,000 dollars and one million dollars and has a top speed of more than 320 kilometers (200 miles) per hour, fled the scene after the early-morning accident.

The passenger of the car suffered a minor injury and was treated at the scene after the car struck a power pole on the legendary Pacific Coast Highway, said Los Angeles County Fire Department Inspector Ron Haralson.

“We have the passenger, who told us the driver did flee from the scene,” Sheriff’s Sergeant Philip Brooks told Fox 11 News, adding that the driver was apparently unharmed.

“And we … followed some footprints up the side of the hill in an effort to locate the driver,” he added.

Authorities believe the Ferrari “was traveling at least 100 mph (160 kph), and it will probably be a lot more than that once we conclude our investigation,” Brooks said.

The impact sheared the red Italian sports car in half, and the entire front section separated from the rest of the shredded vehicle.

“For a million dollars, you get a very good passenger-safety system, and apparently, in this case, it did work,” Brooks said.

The world’s smallest Web site

My friend Willie notes that he won’t use Windows. He’s a smart fellow, and intuitively knows about the choices you have when selecting an operating system:

• Easy
• Secure
• Windows

Pick Any Two.

The Washington Post has a fascinating account of a failed attempt at censorship in China.

The top editors of the China Youth Daily were meeting in a conference room last August when their cell phones started buzzing quietly with text messages. One after another, they discreetly read the notes. Then they traded nervous glances.

Colleagues were informing them that a senior editor in the room, Li Datong, had done something astonishing. Just before the meeting, Li had posted a blistering letter on the newspaper’s computer system attacking the Communist Party’s propaganda czars and a plan by the editor in chief to dock reporters’ pay if their stories upset party officials.

No one told the editor in chief. For 90 minutes, he ran the meeting, oblivious to the political storm that was brewing. Then Li announced what he had done.

The chief editor stammered and rushed back to his office, witnesses recalled. But by then, Li’s memo had leaked and was spreading across the Internet in countless e-mails and instant messages. Copies were posted on China’s most popular Web forums, and within hours people across the country were sending Li messages of support.

The government’s Internet censors scrambled, ordering one Web site after another to delete the letter. But two days later, in an embarrassing retreat, the party bowed to public outrage and scrapped the editor in chief’s plan to muzzle his reporters.

Read the whole thing.

All our family has been enjoying the Olympics this year on the new HDTV. While there are some occasional problems with the video and audio, on the whole the high-def broadcasts have been a huge improvement over the old SD we’ve been used to.

One of the many hundreds of engineers NBC has employed to make it all happen has been blogging the experience, and answering questions from the hard-core HDTV geeks on the AVSForum. He provides unique insight into how it all happens.

HD Olympics Blog - start at the bottom to read the entries in chronological order.

By request, here’s the recipe I use for the protein smoothie/shake that I make most mornings for myself and Alex.

First, the protein powder I use is Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Protein - Gold Standard. I buy it online from Bulk Nutrition, they have good prices, a fair shipping price, and good service (never had any problems actually). I get the 10 pound bag of the chocolate flavor. Each scoop has 24g protein and no sugar. This stuff tastes very good, even in water, and mixes well with just a spoon. Pre-workout, and before bed, I make a drink using just milk and a scoop of the protein powder.

So, on to the receipe.

1 cup ice
1 cup milk
1 cup frozen blueberries (or any berry of your choice)
3 scoops protein powder
2 heaping tablespoons all-natural peanut butter
1 bannana
2 tablespoons flax oil
1 cup milk (yes a second cup)

First, you’ll need a good blender. Put the ice and one cup of milk in first, then the blueberries. Next, add the protein powder, then the peanut butter. Then the flax oil, the 2nd cup of milk (doing the milk in two separate steps seems to help it mix better initially), and finally the banana. Run the blender at low, then high speed, for 10 to 20 seconds. Enjoy.

I haven’t counted the calories, protein, and fat, but I can tell you this will keep your belly satisfied for several hours. It is all-natural, and no processed sugars. I usually drink this following my workout, so the protein is put to good use.

“There are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots.”

Robert Heinlein popularized the idea of a space ladder in his 1978 novel The Fountains of Paradise. The concept is fascinating — through the use of very high-tech carbon nanotube technology, create a thin yet super-strong ribbon structure that is connected at one end to the earth, and the other end in geosynchronous orbit. Specially constructed elevators traverse the “ladder”, providing a low-cost system for transporting materials and people between earth and space.

Scientists and entrepreneurs are actively working to bring the concept to fruition. In January, an important milestone was achieved:

A slim cable for a space elevator has been built stretching a mile into the sky, enabling robots to scrabble some way up and down the line.

LiftPort Group, a private US company on a quest to build a space elevator by April 2018, stretched the strong carbon ribbon 1 mile (1.6 km) into the sky from the Arizona desert outside Phoenix in January tests, it announced on Monday.

The company’s lofty objective will sound familiar to followers of NASA’s Centennial Challenges programme. The desired outcome is a 62,000-mile (99,779 km) tether that robotic lifters – powered by laser beams from Earth – can climb, ferrying cargo, satellites and eventually people into space.

The recent test followed a September 2005 demonstration in which LiftPort’s robots climbed 300 metres of ribbon tethered to the Earth and pulled taut by a large balloon. This time around, the company tested an improved cable pulled aloft by three balloons.

Exciting stuff.

More information about the LiftPort Group is available on their Web site. Lots of general info is available on the Space Elevator Blog.

A few days ago I briefly mentioned a plugin for iChat called Chax. I’ve now had a few days with it, and installed the latest update, 1.3.1 today. Lots of useful features, here are a few of my favorites:

• built-in chat log viewer
• send away auto-reply only once per conversation
• option to auto-accept text chats, skipping new message notification window
• show status changes directly in the message window
• display new message notifications in the dock, and choose between displaying the number of unread messages or the senders of the messages

If you use iChat, you should check it out.

Just found this new plugin today for iChat. It’s very cool. And free.

Chax

This just in:

Turner Network Television (TNT) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with DIRECTV, Inc. to provide customers with the high-definition (HD) feed of TNT. The service will launch on DIRECTV on Friday, Feb. 17 and will be available on DIRECTV channel 75. The 24/7 HD presentation of the TNT East Coast feed will offer DIRECTV’s customers a wide range of dramatic programming in HDTV format, including sports such as live NBA games and NASCAR races; series; movies; and TNT Originals.

Great news!

Next up: getting the National Geographics new high-def channel.

According to the National Geographics Web site,

National Geographic Channel High Definition (NGCHD) is not currently offered by DIRECTV. Please call 877-77NGCHD (877-776-4243) to request that NGCHD be added to your channel line-up!

I just called the number, after listening to a pre-recorded message, they transferred me to DirecTV to make the request. And was then stuck in DirecTV’s automated phone hell.