This post title is literal, I’m talking about a bigger TV (and more).

I’ve had a 27-inch CRT Sony for years (great picture), but the idea always was to move this TV upstairs to the bedroom (where the bedroom TV is a disaster), and get a flatscreen for the living room.

Finally got the chance to get one of those big, honkin’ LCD screens (Sanyo).

Wow. Bigger pic and all that, but – TV and DVD – lots of pixalation.

Big TV was just Part I of my III part plan.

Next, got an upscaling DVD player. I just watched Casino, and the well-lit parts of this are (especially) outstanding. Even on a big-ass TV, very little grain, and virtually no pixalation.

Then, I upgraded from Comcast Analog to Comcast Digital (with HD channels).

Many issues to report, but bottom line:

Oh.

My.

God.

Lester Holt on MSNBC news (HD) is impeccable, even on this large screen.

The digital feed makes non-HD channels much better than analog, really.

There are issues (that I’ll bring up as I really identify and get fixed/not), but overall, WOW.

I’ll only be watching HD channels (networks, History Channel etc) unless there isn’t an HD option (Comedy Central – with “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” – are sadly NOT HD….).

Welcome to the 21st Century, you analog Luddite…

Yep, it’s the Autumnal Equinox.

Here in Chicago, the weird summer (too [everything]) has given way to an almost beautiful week of summer…as we trod into fall.

Go figger.

And I’m not complaining.

Our backyard – not supposed
to have a pond

Well, Hurricane Ike is barreling through Texas, and up here in Chicago we are getting the remnants of that Category 2 storm.

We set some sort of record for rainfall yesterday at more than six inches, and more is on the way.

The picture shows how the rain has pooled at the end of our (and neighbors’) yard; it’s a couple of inches deep.

It rained like hell all yesterday; still raining today but not as bad, and the flood waters are receding.

Still, it would have been nice to come back from vacation and be able to barbecue or just wander around the yard. Not going to happen this weekend…

Well, we just returned from a week in Maine.

We pretty much stayed on the coast, from Portland up north to Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park. We did go inland a bit – up to Bangor and through Augusta – but that was just on the interstate to get back down to Portland from Bar Harbor.

I’m in the process of building out the gallery for this trip, but – as I process images – some first impressions of the state while it’s still fresh in my mind:

• I could live in Maine, at least in Portland. It’s a beautiful and sensible (see examples below) state.
• Very beautiful coastline, and the lighthouses are, of course, classic. Very different coastline than the US’ Pacific coastline, both in looks (Maine more weathered rock; Pacific more sand beaches) and character – Maine fishing and so on; Pacific a lot of housing.
• Once we veered from the coast, the heavy forests heavy with pine and birch reminded me of upper Wisconsin or Michigan. With the hills (not so much in WI or MI), it reminded me a lot of upstate New York, the Finger Lake region.
• Maine, like Montana, has a state rule that says if an individual is standing in a crosswalk, vehicles must stop and let the pedestrians cross. We’re talking in the middle of block in downtown Portland at rush hour. Amazing. I wonder how many tourists from Maine or Montana never fully make it across their first street in Chicago, for example?
• A very clean state. Sure, less populous than Illinois and all that, but I saw virtually no garbage on highway sides, in state parks, on beaches and so on.
• Tying in with the preceding point: Overall, Maine seems to respect nature more than many states I’ve been to. Lots of garden centers; many well-landscaped homes (even the small, poorer homes). Little trash. Canisters with pooper-scooper bags to help clean up after dogs. Speaking of the same, dogs everywhere. In stores and so on. No big deal. Things like these.
• Friendly folks. Shopkeepers, people on the street, the highway department: It’s not construction for the next 3 miles, it’s construction for the next 3.01 miles. Honest. Saw lots of signs like that.
• I love seafood (no sure why; never had any beyond perch fry growing up), and I certainly ate my fill this week…and I still want more…
• I grew up and still live in the Midwest, so the whole concept of border security doesn’t resonate with me in a local manner. But along the Maine coast, I was amazed to see all the harbor fortifications up and down the coast. Makes total sense, but again, I’m from the Midwest. The only invasion – for example – of Green Bay, WI, will be Packer fans… So I learned stuff!

Possibly more to come, but Bottom Line: I could live there, and I’d certainly go back there again as a tourist.

Maine rocks!

Ten years old tomorrow (Sept. 7).

Remarkable rise; what will the next decade hold?

Android, less ads more apps (i.e. Chrome), other directions?

To paraphrase the Grateful Dead, “What a short, strange trip it’s been”…

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Price winning author/Russian gulag inmate, died today at age 89.

I’m a HUGE fan of Russian Literature, but, to me, Solzhenitsyn was a lot like Tolstoy. Each had epics (Gulag Archipelago; War and Peace) that are AMAZING, but what sticks with me are the shorter works:

— Tolstoy: Family Happiness, The Death of Ivan Ilych
— Solzhenitsyn – One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (honestly, one of the most painful and beautiful short stories/novellas).

Who are the new Russian authors?

Last night, we went to see the opening performance of a local community group’s production of Rent.

We had seen a professional production of this show, oh, about a decade ago in Chicago, and greatly enjoyed it, so I was interested to see how this version would compare.

Not bad – actually, pretty damn good.

It was a really fun performance. Extremely well cast, and performed with enthusiasm.

The player cast as Collins had an amazing voice, and – according to his bio – he is still in high school. Man, do I feel like a talentless loser…

And I had forgotten about the role played by the Maureen character – and in this production, she damn near stole the show. A petite blonde with an incredible set of pipes and a palpable fearlessness. And – this is something I noticed – she really was having fun (but in character) up there. During the last number, where the entire cast forms a line across the stage and sings, she was (subtly) boppin’ to the music, holding hands with the Mimi character, just really into it.

The only downside was the sound – sometimes the voices were too soft. Roger was really hard to make out for most of the show, unless he was really pounding something out. Maureen was clear first act; sometimes soft in the second.

But it was opening night – time to iron out the kinks.

Great play – solid, very enjoyable performance.

And I’ve been playing the Rent soundtrack the entire time I’ve been composing this entry…one of my favorite CDs, actually, and I’m not a musical theater buff.

With all the talk of ways to achieve cheap, clean energy and all that given record oil/gas prices, overpopulation, global warming and so on, there is one issue I’ve not seen addressed: Electrical transmission.

The transmission of power over current power lines is incredibly inefficient. I’m no power-grid wonk, so I won’t pretend to know the the numbers, but suffice to say a lot of the potential energy created is lost before arriving in a house or business.

I’m sure there are a bunch of folks looking into this, and they probably don’t receive much press (or funding) just because increasing electrical transmission isn’t as a sexy as an electric car or emission-free solar power, for example.

But if we could just double our efficiency rates for electrical transmission, this buys us a lot:

• It would cut our need for coal at a given plant by 50%. Wow!
• One of the big complaints about atomic power is that they have to be located close to cities to maximize throughput. We could potentially build new A-plants further away and keep the same end-user wattage.
• Sun and wind powers have negatives because the infrastructure required is big and ugly – as with atomic power, as far away from populations as possible. Right now, that’s a problem (have to get that electricity to the masses). With better power lines, this may be possible/more feasible.

Face it, we are working with basically the same method of AC power transmission George Westinghouse/Tesla worked on when they were battling Thomas Edison. Greatly enhanced, but same basic premise: Push power down fat wires; branch off on smaller wires for home/areas etc.

Obviously, the technology has greatly improved, but it’s the same issue as with the hard drive of today: You can dress it up, put pixie dust on it, but it’s still a Winchester drive. That’s one of the reasons why solid state drives (such as in Apple devices) are creating such interest/applause.

Oh, did I mention that solid state drives use a fraction of the power Winchester drives need?

I’m sure I’m missing something, but I never read anything about any radical overhaul of electrical transmission.

My guess is that – if you’re reading this – it’s probably the first time you’ve run across it, as well.

Well, my independence celebration this weekend was to celebrate the removal of the horrible pink carpet from my office, and to show the existing hardwood floor. (Top picture: Before; Bottom Picture: After)

Yep, we should have pulled the carpet when we moved in eight years ago, but there’s always something else to do, right?

This looks like any easy job – hey, lose the carpet.

Not so easy.

Move – adjust the following:

• Five computers and cables (two Windows; two Linux; one Mac). Lots of cables (video, audio, network and so on. Wow!)
• Two stereo systems (full and compact)
• Router, switch
• Flatbed and slide scanners
• KVM unit
• Six bookcases (different sizes)
• Two file cabinets

Lots of crap to move, but for a good cause (why not hardwood floors dammit!?).

Pink rug is gone; all hail the hardwood.

When Microsoft first put in a bid for Yahoo, I thought the deal would probably happen.

Maybe a hard sell, but it would happen. It just made sense.

As we’ve known now for several weeks is that Yahoo’s Jerry Yang will do anything to keep that from happening. While Microsoft is now saying they really aren’t pursuing Yahoo! anymore, that could be posturing. It’s still possible for the two to team up in some way, but at this point, it’d help neither.

• Microsoft – MS’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo! showed its hand: They are really stuck in the mud on searh/ad positioning. They can’t court Yahoo! forever; they have to pick a new path and spend some of its $X billion war chest on carrying out that mission. The web is not static; move fast or die.
• Yahoo! – Yahoo is in even worse shape than Microsoft. This battle over the soul of the company has cost it dearly – in the last couple of years, more than 100 managers have left Yahoo!, including 18 top execs this month. This makes the company – whether purchased by Microsoft or going it alone – that much weaker/less attractive to investors and so on.

Both Yahoo! and Microsoft are getting bitch-slapped by Google (the reason for MS wanting to purchase Yahoo!), but MS still has its desktop offerings – the cash cows that are Windows and MS Office – to at least delay disaster. Yahoo! doesn’t have anything but online properties, and Yahoo! is in trouble here, as well. While Yahoo! has done an admirable job over the past few years in acquiring useful internet tools/sites – such as Flickr and del.icio.us – the founders of those companies have recently bailed from Yahoo!. Sounds grim there.

So what options are open for Yahoo!? I just don’t know.

I’m getting more and more convinced that online search/ad placement is a winner-take-all proposition. And – today – that winner is clearly Google, which keeps increasing its lead over Yahoo and MS every month. Just a sliver at a time, but Google already has about double the combined search use of Yahoo+Microsoft; in ad sales, I’d guess (but I don’t know) the spread is even wider.

On the ‘net, winner takes all is often the norm, rather than the exception, especially for revenue-generating sites:

• Classifieds – Craigslist is killing newspapers. (And most of the ads are free – but that’s part of its appeal.) There really isn’t a decent online competitor except for jobs listings and for sale stuff, which are only two of dozens of Craigslist’s offerings.
• Job listings – Monster.com beats anything else out there, though Craigslist is having an impact on it. But CareerBuilder, HotJobs (another Yahoo! purchase) and others are decidedly second-tier players.
• Auction sites – Ebay rules this roost.
• New books/CDs – Amazon. In this space, there are hundreds of other players, some that do well – but on a much, much smaller scale than Amazon. And Amazon continues to innovate, so I think they will remain top dog in the near future.

That’s not to say that these so-called winners will always be on top. For a long time (in internet time), Altavista was THE search engine. Then came along this minimalist upstart with the funny name….Google.

But unless MS and/or Yahoo! can come up with some innovative twist on search/ad serving, I don’t see Google’s dominance decreasing. Its dominance is going to increase, at least in the next few years.

As I said, MS can survive (short-term) on Windows/Office, but Yahoo! doesn’t have that luxury. And Yahoo! can’t compete with Google on search/ad serveing (Note: The chief architect of Yahoo’s new ad platform – Panama – is one of the high-ranking execs to bail. Whoopsie…).

I don’t want to see Yahoo! – the brand or the innovative ways – go away.

But I don’t want to see it maintained in the way Netscape has maintained its brand. It’s almost as though they just left the servers running. Sad. Netscape has no relevance today; an internet pioneer and icon that many younger users of the ‘net aren’t even aware of. Again, sad.

Yahoo! is going to have to have the epiphany Microsoft had when MS realized the web mattered. Bill Gates – to his credit – radically changed the way MS did business in a remarkably short time once he (belatedly) understood the ‘net.

WWYD? (What will Yahoo! Do?)

Update 6/29/2008: I was looking at news.com’s gallery concerning the one-year anniversary of the iPhone. And there’s a path for Yahoo: Look to Apple.

Once Apple and Microsoft went head-to-head, but – once Jobs came back to Apple – Apple decided to just build best of breeds. People will pay for quality and so on. While it’s decidedly different for an online company, this is a path Yahoo! could take. Pick a path, make it the best, and have solid profit on MUCH less revenue.

I doubt that’s an option a company the size of Yahoo!, but …