Category: Consumer Electronics

Zimbabwe Update

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So, now we have a “unity government”, only Mugabe continues to make appointments unilaterally, though Tsvangerai is disputing them, for what that is worth.

In any case, we are seeing an increase in political violence, and government elements allied with the ZANU PF are continuing arrests and detentions of political prisoners, including a “terrorism” charge against senior MDC official Roy Bennett, who is still in detention despite a court order realeasing him on bail.

Seriously, one of the two only good pieces of news coming out of here are reports that Robert Mugabe has bought a $5.7 Million house in Hong Kong, because that might mean that he is preparing to leave.

The other good bit of news is that the new Finance Minister, and Tendai Biti (MDC) is starting to pay some wages in foreign currency.

If Tsvangerai and Biti are smart, they will make sure that the foreign currency goes to organizations that aren’t just a bunch of Mugabe’s thugs.

Unsurprisingly, the seizure of farms is continuing unabated, because it’s about the only currency left for Mugabe to use to buy continued support.

Republicans to Use Foreclosure Data in Black Neighborhoods to Suppress Votes

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Because, as we all know, the real motto of the Republican party is, “N*gg*rs should not be allowed to vote.

The thing is, this is illegal:

“You can’t challenge people without a factual basis for doing so,” said J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm. “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

Once again, the Republican’s cynicism exceeds my capacity to be cynical.

South Africa/Zimbabwe Update

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Morgan Tsvangirai has now returned to Zimbzbwe, and is campaigning in the runoff.

Meanwhile, Mugabe has changed his campaign tactics, trying to work with small groups, as opposed to his previous mass rallies, and he’s railing against both Tsvangirai and the US ambassador to Zimbabwe, which I think is a prelude to some more violence and intimidation from his “war veterans”.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, Thabo Mbeki is calling the violence against refugees in his country a “disgrace”.

Of course, the largest group of refugees, those from Zimbabwe, were as a direct result of his policies supporting Mugabe, and the tensions are a direct result of their numbers.

Austan Goolsbee Blowback in Canada

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I think that it’s increasingly clear that the leak of this story was orchestrated by Steven Harper and his bully boys, in this case Michael Wilson, ambassador to the US, though the underlying facts, that Goolsbee said it’s just politics, appear to be true.

The fact is that Harper is in charge of an unpopular minority government, and having an election in parallel with the US would probably cut against them, so now is a good time for the opposition to get a no-confidence vote.

The Canadian people are almost as sick of Bush as the American people, and by holding elections near the same time, it makes the choice clear.

Any followers of Canadian politics want to explain why the opposition is not trying to get snap elections?

Toshiba Trying to Sell HD-DVD Machines as Super DVD Players

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By virtue of the depth of the layer in the disk (0.6mm), HD-DVD players can play a standard DVD without an additional lense (Blu-Ray uses a 0.1mm depth with a super hard coating to protect it, which is why it’s more expensive), so standard DVD is pretty much standard on all HD-DVD players, and now Toshiba, following slashing the prices on their player, are attempting to sell their machine as a superior way to play standard DVDs.

“Major initiatives… are designed to spotlight the superior benefits of HD DVD as well as the benefits HD DVD brings to a consumer’s current DVD library by upconverting standard DVDs via the HDMI output to near high-def picture quality,” the company said.

“With DVD upconversion via the HDMI output, HD DVD players instantly make a movie lover’s existing DVD library look better than ever,” it claimed.

Assuming I was wrong in my prediction that HD-DVD would win the format battle, I would say that this was a death rattle, though this might be a good alternative for people with large DVD libraries and large HD screens.

Me, I’ve never been impressed by HD-TV. I only notice the difference on really big screens, or when they are side by side, so my interest is purely of a sporting variety.

Toshiba Cuts Prices on HD-DVD Players

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Some HD-DVD drives are now less than $100, and the newer ones are less than $200.

I don’t think that it’s going to make a whole bunch of difference, and that, to the degree that spinning optical media will be the future of movie distribution, it looks like Sony’s Blu-Ray has won (I got that one wrong).

On the other hand, if you want a deal, and HD-DVD handles existing DVDs quite well, you might want to go shopping.

Canadians Kill MP3 Player Tax

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This report does not make it clear as to why the Federal Court of Appeal struck down such a tax.

There are provision in the Canadian copyright laws that allow for audio recording media, on the theory that they are means of distribution, but an MP3 player is not a means of distribution of music, but rather a means of consumption of music.

Simply put, people don’t swap MP3 players, though obviously some people swap music files.

Adventures in Ebay

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I wanted to upgrade my system, but because it’s a Dell with ECC RAM, it’s hard to find the memory, and it costs a lot, so I checked out eBay.

I made the order on December 29, it arrived FedEX ground yesterday, and it works. No muss, no fuss.

It was between $400 and $500 for a gig of RAM from Dell, it was $29.95+ 9.95 s&h for the 1 gig from computersgeeks. Used but a the Dell OEM part

I recommend the seller, but once again, everything Dell does seems to be non standard and a pain to replace.

Looking for a Laser Printer, Suggestions Folks?

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To be accurate, I’m looking for a printer that fuses toner on paper, so LED, etc would be OK, I just don’t want to get gigged on ink.

My requirements:

  • It should handle B-Sized, which I use for the real (dead tree) version of 40 Years in the Desert.
  • It should do color well (pics of family go in)
  • It should have a print mechanism amenable to home refilling. I have a Panasonic printer where I can crack open the spent toner box, and empty it, and get 5-10x the life out of it.

Nice to haves:

  • Postscript (I convert my stuff to PDFs using Ghostscript to put them on line, and at some point, I may want to offset print again).
  • 2 Sided printing (not so important, I can always flip the paper).
  • Can handle card stock (business cards, etc.)

Probably the hardest thing to figure out is how hard various models are to refill.