this made me laugh

NINE INCH NAILS: STROBE LIGHT - NEW ALBUM

Make sure to click the Submit button.

awesome

perfectdrug:~ andy$ curl -I http://www.google.com
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:51:14 GMT
Expires: -1
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Server: Apache/0.8.4
Set-Cookie: PREF=ID=3a34f37d4054844b:TM=1238561474:LM=1238561474:S=0AwT6OMqw9jgEuhW; expires=Fri, 01-Apr-2011 04:51:14 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.com
Transfer-Encoding: chunked

so long, Blu-Ray

I updated my Xbox 360 last night with the NXE update. One of the first things I did (after creating my avatar, of course) was set up Netflix streaming. So Allison and I sat down and watched an episode of Heroes. As it started buffering, the screen indicated that it was in HD.

We watched an episode. Streamed. In HD. I used my Logitech remote for playback controls.

HD on-demand streaming! Seriously, how cool is that? We had watched some previous episodes via Netflix streaming on my laptop, hooked up to the TV via a DVI cable, and the HD streaming looked much better. There is now no reason whatsoever for me to buy a Blu-Ray player.

Of course, Sony are being assholes about letting Netflix stream their content, but they haven't exactly been looking out for consumer rights lately.

The interface isn't perfect - we can only stream content from our main Netflix account, not the other profile we have set up on it. It's kind of a pain to have to open up a web browser to finangle with the queue to find something to watch for it to show up on the Xbox. But they'll eventually get those issues worked out, I'm sure the interface will improve. They have the delivery mechanism in place that makes the cable companies obsolete.

Oh, and I'm finding the third season of Heroes to be cheesy and disappointing, and I feel like I'm just watching it out of habit now.

PDT -> PST

It was great to get an extra hour of sleep this weekend, after Halloween festivities on Friday and attending a beer tasting at the Rogue Ales Public House on Saturday. I was actually confused for about 5 seconds this morning as I walked out the door to catch the bus to work - it was light out! And on the flip side, that got me wondering just how super early that it's going start getting dark out.

I've also been wondering for a while how San Francisco's latitude compares to Washington DC's, and the time switch finally motivated me to find out. According to this, San Francisco is at 37° 47', and DC is only slightly more northern at 38° 53'. So, yeah, during December it looks like the sun sets before 5, but this should be pretty much what I'm used to.

Rock Band 2 awesomeness

I picked up Rock Band 2 this week. It kind of snuck up on me, and I wasn't all that excited about its release date. I've started playing it a bit, and the thing that's stood out to me the most has been the new system calibration they've put in.

In the first Rock Band (and all the Guitar Heros, for that matter) I'd have trouble hitting a long string of successive notes. I know it probably has to do a lot with the fact that I have no rhythm and whatnot, but it was always a problem for me.

Somehow, Rock Band 2 has magically solved this with their calibration. Unlike the first Rock Band, they have both an audio and video calibration. When I went through the calibration process, it claimed that I had no video latency in my system, but I had 110 ms of audio latency. Hm. That's odd, I thought. But I went with it and started playing.

WOW. What a difference it made! I now actually feel like I'm hitting sequential notes when I strum them, and I'm able to hit long repeated sequences with way fewer problems than before. Thanks, Harmonix!

The calibration and the Rage Against The Machine song have totally validated my purchase!

not so famous, yet

I'm on Google Maps!

3 whole Gs of iPhoneness

We finally, finally, finally got iPhones on Saturday! We got down to the Apple Store in downtown San Francisco at about 10:30. We waited in line outside for about an hour, during which time an Apple Store employee went down the line and handed out cards to reserve the particular model you were interested in. (Allison got a white 16GB, I got a black 16GB.) Once we were ushered into the store, we waited in line for about 30 minutes inside. Then the whole purchase and number porting process took about half an hour or so. I didn't know my Verizon account number off the top of my head, but I was able to log in to my account on the 24" iMac right behind us.

Other than the wait, which I fully expected, I was really pleased with how smooth the whole process went. I had heard that people have had problems porting numbers to AT&T when their billing address was outside the area code of the number they were porting in, but we switched over our 703 numbers without any hassle. Additionally, it took only a couple of minutes for the number to actually become active on the new phones.

As far as the iPhone itself - I am still really excited to have one. I added a link to my home screen to the next Muni train at the stop near our apartment, so now I can check before we leave the apartment if we have to hurry to catch the next train or if we should wait a few more minutes. I've got two minor gripes (of course). First, AT&T cell coverage sucks inside our apartment. We get phone service towards the back, but not in the front. And second, the Google Maps native application doesn't do public transit directions - for that, I've got to open Safari, and punch in my current location manually.

Overall though, I'm not going to complain too much. :) I've been lusting after an iPhone for the last year, and my dreams have finally come true.