Friday, November 30, 2007

Is Stumbleupon digital crack?

So I am fully addicted to Stumble. Its like an infomercial that I know I should hate but just cant stop watching. It is the perfect way to enhance the Internet for caffeine addicted, twitchy ADHD people like me.

Priceless.

The blessed mother of all USB flash drives.

Hail Mary full of MP3s?

Grrr....Microsoft.

Xbox 360 Fall Update

Where's my Divx support Microsoft? Seriously, give me more media formats before I start calling my 360 and Media UN-Extender.

Therapy.

I need therapy to cope with my childhood. There was no abuse or anything like that but growing up without the internet was not fair. For instance I was 12 years old when Knight Rider was cancelled, had the internet existed at that time I could have seen this video. The video's not so cool now but it sure as hell would have been then.

That would have been an unproductive year.

Interesting....

It looks like there are some lucky Comcast subscribers out there already using these. Finally the cable companies are figuring it out and just paying Tivo for their interface. My cable company is being absorbed into Comcast beginning January 1st. Maybe I'll get lucky.

Oh please let it be so....

First, read this.

Ok, do you understand what that means? It means that you no longer have to suffer with that wretched DVR that your cable company gave you. Throw of the shackles of poorly designed graphical interfaces and be free! Season passes for everyone!

If you have never actually used a Tivo then you don't know what you're missing, it really is that much better than everything else. In the past you could have a Tivo but it would be crippled by the logistics of providing it with signal. Cable subscribers could watch only those channels that don't require a cable box or you had to rely on the delicate infrared ballet of your cable box and the Tivo. That worked in a cute but annoying way and the majority of satellite subscribers were in the same boat.

There were a lucky few DirecTV subscribers that got Tivo-based DirecTV receivers, Perfection at last! The picture was great, it was all elegantly combined in one device and was a joy to use in nearly every respect. Of course being a great product it was doomed to die young and did not survive due to DirecTV and Tivo being greedy. Now you have to suffer with DirecTV designed DVRs which are better than the crap from the cable companies but still not up to the brilliance of Tivo.

Now If my damn cable company would just support cable card.

Oh EA.

Give EA a game franchise and they'll find a way to screw it up. Bad Guitars.

Podcasts

Let me start by saying that I have never and never intend to own an iPod. They are overpriced and are essentially a closed platform. Since I have a ten minute commute and spend 90% of my waking hours sitting at a computer stuffed with MP3s, I've never had the need for one. As a result, I was REALLY late to the podcast phenomenon and now I'm trying to make up for it.

Of course "podcast" is becoming a rapidly out of date term. Most devices are morphing from digital audio players to digital media players. The new found ability to play video is filtering down to the content originators and now some of my favorite podcasts are now video-based.

Revision3
My favorite of these new video podcasts(need a new term for these) can be found here: Revision3 Revision3 is a new animal, a television "network" made expressly for the internet but born from the ashes of the old TechTV. If you don't know the whole story of what happened to TechTV check out the Wiki entry. In a nushell Comcast & G4 took a fantastic group of talented people and ran them through a meat grinder. I mourned the loss of TechTV for a long time and until Revision3 came along I had to suffer with G4's craptastic vision of what's "cool" on the internet.

I'd say that TRS is my favorite followed by Diggnation and Systm. All of their shows are great but TRS is the shit.

TWiT
Most of the TWiT shows are rooted in traditional journalistic ideals while the Revision3 shows tend to cater to a 30ish and under crowd. Again, TWiT was started by TechTV refugees and is stuffed with great shows that tend to be more in depth and more technical but still very entertaining. My favorites are this WEEK in TECH and Security Now

Between those two "networks" alone you can occupy yourself for at least 12 hours a week.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

My Favorite Places

So where do I spend my time? Here are my most frequented haunts. I'll post later on about why these are my favorites.

Tech & Gadget News
Gizmodo
Engadget
CNet
Anandtech
Tom's Hardware
The Inquirer

Automotive Stuff
Jalopnik
FinalGear

Game On!
Blue's News

Shopping
Newegg

Tumbler

I started using Tumblr to share some of the pictures and media I've found. Check it out.

Exposed Aggregates

Today I realized just how much of my time I waste daily browsing the Internets. I'm going to use this blog to dump all the things that I find interesting in my daily travels of this digital wonderland. This is mostly for my own benefit, you're just tagging along.
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