The FCC is Overrated.

I don't make much money, being right out of school and such. My wife doesn't work (she's a student) and there isn't much more I can hack at, so we're in a financial straight jacket at the time.

There is much to be said about being broke. We just turned on the air conditioning today because our daughter couldn't take it anymore. She decided she wouldn't sleep through the night until we started living like modern humans. And just the other day I was given a choice between Q-tips and paper towels; we couldn't afford both. Apparently I was the decision maker, and I decided that there were more alternatives to paper towels than there were Q-tips.

There are other ways we save money, like reading books instead of going shopping (or anywhere, for that matter. Gas is friggin' expensive!) I drive from home to work and back daily, with no detours except for the occasional "pick up some cheese" request from my wife. We don't have cable TV, we don't go out to eat, and I use existing computer hardware for my projects at home to keep me busy.

This situation, as you may imagine, nearly brought me to tears as I read about the FCC's "Broadcast Flag" mandate effective July 1 this year. Apparently after that date, it will no longer be possible to purchase an HDTV tuner that allows digital recording in HD format. This means one cannot record HD shows and burn them to DVD for high-quality playback. But if one can get an HDTV tuner before the mandate, he's in luck.

It will obviously be a while before I can afford something like that (the card is about $175), and the mandate will certainly be in place before the device is in my hands. But by that time, it would be useless anyway. Why have an HD recorder if you can't record in HD? It's not like there's anything memorable on HD - the nature scenes?

Although I did see part of one game in the NCAA Final Four this year in HD. But that's me and basketball. Not worth recording.

So if anyone wants to send the dinero so I can have the HD decoder, feel free. If you want one yourself, try any popular electronics store before July 1.

Netscape's New Thing

Netscape Thursday released its latest browser, version 8.0. Within 24 hours of its release, 44 security holes were filled. Sounds pretty bad, huh?

It's actually not that bad. You see, the browser uses one of two rendering engines to display web pages - MS Internet Explorer's engine, and Mozilla Firefox's engine. Netscape leaves it up to you to choose - if a page doesn't display correctly, just try the other engine, not another browser.

Anyway, Mozilla recently updated their rendering engine, or some other parts of their browser, and Netscape forgot to include that update in the initial release. So don't go thinking Netscape hired a bunch of fools who wrote swiss cheese code. It was only a very minor oversight, albeit potentially costly. If you have downloaded the Netscape browser since yesterday morning, you're probably okay. Make sure that you have the latest by going to the help menu and selecting "About Netscape Browser." In the resulting dialog box, you will see some version information. The current version is 8.0.1.

...nobody comes to Albuquerque.

I am left wondering this morning why someone would go through that much trouble to escape a wedding. I guess since it was such a huge wedding, it called for a huge, elaborate escape.

I know of a pair of sisters I went to school with down here in Georgia, who both now live in Albuquerque, and chose so randomly. I myself lived in Albuquerque before adolescence. I enjoyed it there, as I'm sure my schoolmates do. Why would a resident talk down such a great city?

With the exception of the southern direction, Albuquerque is surrounded by mountains, and always has a beautiful sky. It's hot in the summer, and snows in the winter. It's a complete metropolis with flash floods and gang members. It hosts the most-photographed event in the world, the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. There's also a historic district where local jewelers lay out their goods on the sidewalks, peddling mainly turquoise necklaces and pendants.

That's just from my memory. I think there's a pretty good university there, too.

Just don't put one of my towns in the dirt. Even Bugs Bunny passed through Albuquerque.