08:41 – The penultimate episode of Heartland series six was broadcast Sunday evening. Yesterday morning, I BitTorrented the SD version, just in case. The HD version usually isn’t available until late Monday or early Tuesday morning. It’s available this morning, and I’m sucking it down as I write this. As always, to stay completely legal, I keep my upload speed set to 0.00 and just leech the torrent.
Unfortunately, this is the only way we can get the series in a timely manner. I do wish that the series producers would join the 21st century and sell HD copies of the series for immediate download. I’d have happily paid them, say, $15 for a license to do that, which is a whole lot more than they make from selling a DVD boxed set. Heck, I’d happily pay them $15 right now in advance for series seven. So would many other people, I suspect. The series is immensely popular, not just in Canada and the US, but in the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, and elsewhere.
Transitioned my cell service from Verizon to Straight Talk this weekend. Primary reason was cost. My contract with Verizon was final on Friday so Saturday I did the transition. So far no issues. The porting of my number took about two hours and was done on the ST website.
I did have to purchase my iPhone. According to my calculations I will save over $800.00 over a two period of most phone contracts (T-Mobile the exception for now) including the cost of the iPhone.
Straight Talk, eh? I will have to look into that and any other alternatives to Verizon for our cell phones; Verizon is killing us with whopper bills every month.
We would also be willing to pay for up-to-date flicks and tee-vee shows via streaming but the buggers seem determined to cut off their noses to spite their faces and just will NOT enter the current century to save themselves, apparently. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Ice out in the Bay this morning and blue skies and sun until I got about twelve miles down the road (south) and hit five miles of a blinding snow squall/whiteout. Ya think anybody would turn their lights on? Guess again. And visibility was down to about fifty feet, max. That’s not a lot when everyone is still doing 65 and up. Colleague down the hall just informed me that it has snowed in July here, and not in the mountains, either. Cool. We actually had our fireplace on one July 4th weekend a few years ago; visitors from points south were cold and it was actually kinda chilly.
Straight Talk, eh? I will have to look into that and any other alternatives to Verizon for our cell phones; Verizon is killing us with whopper bills every month.
That was my problem. I was paying about $130.00 a month for two phones. With ST I will be paying only $75 a month. A $55 a month savings is substantial over the course of a typical Verizon two year contract.
Since my phone is a GSM phone with a SIM I can change carriers each month if I want. My wife cannot because her phone is tied to ST and does not have a SIM. This also allows me to get a phone number when I am in Germany next month. I already have the SIM, just need to activate it when I arrive in Germany.
ST coverage is not as broad as Verizon. For some that may be a problem especially in the more remote areas. Places I frequent all have good coverage with ST (who uses AT&T network) so I have no complaints thus far.
Verizon was good service, the price was just out of control, more so when data was involved. ST will limit you to about 2 gig a month in data then cut you off or severely throttle you. I don’t stream videos to my cell phone so 2 gig is more than enough. ST unlimited plan, like a lot of other unlimited plans, really is limited.
Yeah, our Verizon service has been good but the bills are killing us. Just did a quick check and looks like this might be my ticket:
“Straight Talk Samsung Galaxy SII Prepaid Cell Phone w/ Bonus Starter Kit”
“Click here to see if Straight Talk coverage for this device works in your area before buying this bundle.”
I clicked there and lo and behold, the ST coverage works in our little village on the Bay.
Well, that’s done: I handed in my passport today. You have to swear (or affirm) your intent in front of the consul personally, but like all embassy transactions this means through massively thick glass with overpressure blowing through the document slot. He has done this too many times and it has become one of those routines: “Doyouswear(oraffirm)thatblahblahblah”. I said “I do”. For all I know, I’m married to him now. I asked him how many renunciations they get. He dodged and just said “a lot more than we used to.”
I went by the bank and picked up US dollars to pay the fee ($450, ouch!). The cherry on top: The US embassy refused to accept my US dollars, because two of the bills were printed before the year 2000. So I paid by credit card. All in all a rather tawdry ending.
Congratulations. I’m still wondering if Alberta would take Barbara and me.
@brad; I also offer congrats but not real enthusiastically; it’s awfully sad that this is what it has come down to for so many people. I wish you and yours the best, of course. I ain’t leaving; they’ll have to dig me out with Warthogs and tanks, I guess.
“I’m still wondering if Alberta would take Barbara and me.”
Look into the Canadian entry viability forms and questionnaires they the have online. Our Canadian friends undoubtedly have the correct info but I recall that Mrs. OFD and I would pass all that stuff with flying colors and be very desirable emigrants. We may end up spending half a year up in the Maritimes and half down here in the northern Vermont Banana Belt by the Bay, but we’re keeping the citizenship, no matter how lousy it gets. If we were thirty years younger? I dunno.
“If Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings, who arrived on Cyprus in March with their terrible swift sword, are back in charge, is this not better than having Western taxpayers forever securing the deposits and investments of the rich and feckless?”
http://buchanan.org/blog/today-cyprus-tomorrow-5522
Thanks. I already have. At first, I thought Barbara and I would have to learn French to qualify, but then I noticed that we qualify pretty much automatically because Canada considers us both artists who would contribute to Canadian cultural life and education. The fact that Barbara is a librarian also gets us points. And all I’d have to do is publish a fiction ebook to qualify us even more.
HBO’s “Game of Thrones” is the most pirated show out there:
http://blog.chron.com/techblog/2013/04/do-you-pirate-hbos-game-of-thrones-thats-a-compliment/
“According to TorrentFreak, HBO’s fantasy series “Game of Thrones” is the most pirated TV show, with each episode generating approximately 3.9 million downloads via BitTorrent. What’s most interesting about that number – culled from the 2012 season – is that it comes close to matching the 4.2 million legitimate viewers who actually pay to watch it on HBO.”
I am dealing with a software pirate here in the Houston area at the moment. He downloaded a cracked version of my software and has been using it for six months. He just turned another employee of his on to it. I just gave him an ultimatum about signing up for a software lease or else I will file suit. He is also a licensed professional engineer here in the Great State of Texas and unlicensed software usage is a professional ethics violation. BTW, I am two for two on unlicensed software usage lawsuits here in the States.
I do not understand people who will download cracked software off the net and use it professionally (for pay!). First, this is how I feed my family and the families of my 12 employees. Second, you do not know who cracked that software package and what they had to do in order to make it work or if they dropped a virus in the software. And then you have the audacity to contact the software developer for free training and help. Simply amazing.
We are all Cyprus and Greece now: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2013-04-01/stockton-bankruptcy-decision-only-the-beginning
If you have any municipal bonds in California or any other borderline State, I would sell them now. In fact, I would not invest in municipal bonds at all. The city of Houston, Texas is facing severe financial difficulties due to employee pensions in the next couple of years. Any city of Houston employee can retire after 25 years of service with a 90% of pay pension that has a COLA. The official estimates of the pension costs for Houston were under calculated by least a factor of two, maybe five. All of the police are leaving and going to work elsewhere when they can get their pension. I would too, it is a sweet deal.
And all I’d have to do is publish a fiction ebook to qualify us even more.
That is trivial to do on Amazon but you know that.
“In only a few weeks central Europe’s pompous and blundering managerial idiots have managed to undermine the most valuable asset Western banking had in its favor—depositor confidence. They will never again regain such esteem. That is why Cyprus matters to the rest of us.”
http://takimag.com/article/why_cyprus_matters_guy_somerset/print#axzz2PKTK8m2q
I see CT has reinforced 2d Amendment rights. I may move there! April Fools a day late.
Now the UN has paid Obummer to sign off on their gun grab. We may all end up moving to Tejas and building walls.
CT is unfortunately nicknamed “The Constitution State.” Their legislators and the people who live there and voted for them and stood still for this just shit all over the Constitution; I hope they’re proud of themselves and congrats on so decisively stopping in their tracks any more Sandy Hook-type incidents.
Good luck to Barry Soetero’s minions and the UN sending in blue-helmet thugs to take our guns. I will enjoy seeing that.
@Lynn: I was wondering how you ever caught unlicensed users. Then I read this: …have the audacity to contact the software developer for free training and help.
I reckon there’s no cure for stupid.
You said you don’t yet have a solution for cloud-space. I hope you’re working on one – cloud computing is here to stay. It’s just too convenient to have access to one’s data – and high-powered programs – from everywhere and anywhere.
@Lynn: I was wondering how you ever caught unlicensed users. Then I read this: …have the audacity to contact the software developer for free training and help.
I reckon there’s no cure for stupid.
I’ve got more than that but it is a trade secret. And yes, there is no cure for stupid.
You said you don’t yet have a solution for cloud-space. I hope you’re working on one – cloud computing is here to stay. It’s just too convenient to have access to one’s data – and high-powered programs – from everywhere and anywhere.
I know it. Moving our calculation engine to the cloud is trivial. Moving our user interface to the cloud is a freaking disaster with our diagrammatic user interface and 150+ unique dialogs that is heavily tied to the Windows Win32 API.
Re: cell switchovers
We’ve been with Sprint for about 15-18 years and I think we’re going to switch to Ting. Same Sprint towers and, at $6 per phone per month, we’d probably save 70% or better each month over our current, ancient plan. And, since we only use phones for calls and a few texts, we can just switch over our existing non-smart phones and be good to go.
Good luck to Barry Soetero’s minions and the UN sending in blue-helmet thugs to take our guns. I will enjoy seeing that.
No, no, no, you have it wrong. They are only going to register us, register our guns and see if we are qualified to own a gun. And ammo.
And if you are not qualified to own a gun due to some definition written by the American Psychiatric Society then they will come gently and ask for your guns and ammo. After all, you should not own any guns or ammo if you are paranoid, etc.
In fact, you sound a little paranoid to me. You should turn in your guns and ammo today. And your Bibles.
Now the UN has paid Obummer to sign off on their gun grab. We may all end up moving to Tejas and building walls.
For some reason I see the Great Wall of China moved to the Great State of Texas. Then we will have the Great Wall of Texas with Marines walking it.
Gee, I already turned in my copy of “Origin of Species” and now they want my Bible, too?
Of course, as a combat vet of three U.S. wars, I’m probably already in trouble with the APS for probable mental incapacity, as defined by them, of course.
All those people need to be taken out, root and branch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S29OxOM9dqU
I think we’re going to switch to Ting
A good deal if your needs are really not much. CDMA only at this point so any phone with a SIM will not work. And it also seems that Ting will only work with phones you buy from Ting or old Sprint phones.That limits options for acquiring a phone. If you already have a Sprint phone that is CDMA and the contract is up it appears to be a good deal.
I have my old (two years old) Motorola Droid-X phone that is CDMA that is now sitting around doing nothing. I am probably going to get a prepaid envelope from Verizon and send the phone off to be recycled. Unless someone wants the phone and pays shipping. It works well. No scratches on the screen and the only marks are where the paint on the battery cover is coming off at one of the edges. I suspect the phone will only work on Verizon networks so there is a high probability it will get sent to the recycle bucket.
After about two years it is probably time to get new phones anyway. Sometimes replacing the battery is more than the cost of a new phone of the same type and model. Two years is a long time in cell phone technology.
Lynn, what I would do about your app is keep the Windows-based UI and simply change the data sources and engine over to the cloud. I’ve done that a couple times with different apps. So long as the earlier developers maintained good, black-line breaks between the data sources, the engine, and the user interface* it’s not really that bad.
Once you’ve gotten that part done and you’ve gone through the teething pains of having the data out on a cloud service somewhere (and, trust me, there will be some), then you can start moving the UI over to a webapp.
* Hahahahahahahahaha! I crack me up.
RBT wrote:
“I’m still wondering if Alberta would take Barbara and me.”
They may take you but probably won’t take your guns. What’s wrong with Idaho or Montana?
“And all I’d have to do is publish a fiction ebook to qualify us even more.”
I thought you didn’t have the imagination to write fiction.
Lynn wrote:
“In fact, you sound a little paranoid to me.”
Everybody’s jealous of me now that I’m no longer paranoid. ™
You only need to be fluent in one of the two official languages, but you will get extra points for being bilingual. The federal government is bilingual but all the provinces are unilingual except New Brunswick. That said, most of the other provinces will provide services in both languages where it makes sense, except Quebec which provides services in French only (despite their claims of services in English.)
You may be able to keep your handguns but you will have a very hard time convincing anyone to let you bring them. If they do let you bring them, you will have to keep the locked up at home. It might not be worth the trouble. Bill probably knows more about handgun regulations than I do. I do know that any mention of guns (hand or otherwise) gives most Toronto politicians a severe case of the vapours.
As to your anticipated federal / state squabbles. Kindly confine them to within your borders. Thank You.
President-to-be Steve has no current plans for annexing Canada or parts of it, but that may change in the future. For now, my attention is focused on Mexico. I plan to annex Mexico, then discover what an ecological disaster it is. I’ll force all loud-mouthed greens to relocate to the new territory to aid in cleaning up the mess… then un-annex Mexico and seal the fuckin’ border.
Vice-President-to-be and Secretary of War-to-be OFD has plans to annex the Maritimes and link them six ways from Sunday to northern New England. He also plans to let Quebec go its own way as a sovereign nation and allow the western provinces to link up, if they wish, to our western plains and mountain states. British Columbia with Oregon and Washington if they wish. Ontario is up for grabs but we recommend that Ottawa become a free-fire zone. He suggests the NWT, already de facto sovereign, consider a connection to Alaska.
He wholeheartedly supports President SteveF in his southern campaign and will send support troops accordingly.
Anybody following North Korea? I wonder why peacenik Obummer is sending so much hardware there? Shouldn’t he be over there apologizing for American atrocities during the Korean War?
This is the first year since I got back that there has been no video work around the Easter weekend, so I took the full 4 days off, just to try and remember what it was like to live in Germany. Spent most of that with my son down in IU-town, but paid heavily on the catch-up workload today. There are a couple of alumni-related affairs I will be attending down there this month, and the selection of food establishments is on a par with what we had in Boston. Lots of mom and pop immigrants running ethnic places, including a French place I want to try. Those businesses had a hard time surviving when I was in school there, but are absolutely thriving these days. I am looking forward to spending more time there.
On the cell phone front, my telecom friend (whose plan I am now on) says G4/LTE will be the only service available in the near future, so do not get too attached to CDMA and GMS. His company will have shut down everything in Indiana except for G4 by July, and they are ahead of schedule in doing that, he says. Older technologies are already losing every company money, he says, so no wonder the plan costs are skyrocketing.
As far as phone technology itself goes, I am finding that there are benefits (at least for me) to having the Samsung Galaxy S3 or later. The S3 and later (S4 is now out) have adopted the iPhone’s external connection standards, and that means I can connect a lot of electronic things, like professional microphones, to the S3 using readily available adapter cables. If you have a Droid or S2 or earlier, you have to wire your own cables. Your needs may be different, but I don’t believe I would go for S2 at this point. Word is that the S4 has some kind of retina scan that auto-scrolls a webpage based on where in the screen you are reading. Dwight Silverman’s column in the Houston Chronicle is always up-to-date on phone technology. Silverman has replaced Walt Mossberg as my newspaper tech source.
Not sure what I would do about US citizenship if I were still in Germany, but I suspect I would not drop it if my kids were going to remain in the US—which they are. I advised them when they started university that, were I them, I would leave the US, just like my great-grandfathers left Germany. They both did study abroad in Europe, but are hopelessly dedicated Americans, so here we all are. The US will survive, but I can personally attest from my own experience that there are definitely better places in the world to live.
My main computer for the last 6 years, which is a laptop, is giving me more and more trouble. Probably due to Windows rot. Have not really identified what I want to replace it with, as it needs to do video editing, and the new Asus netbook is not capable of handling that—although I was hopeful. I am never ready to do a reinstall, but am obviously facing that if I am to continue. Lots of stuttering in the audio codecs today, with networking finally locking up, and that is not okay.
Last of all, here’s something that just came down the pike yesterday
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/04/01/aereo-wins-appeals-court-ruling/2042527/
I can tell you that my friends still in management in the industry, are shaking in their boots. They fear that all streaming will be deemed not to be a “public performance” via mass broadcast, but rather a “private performance” because it is on a one-to-one connection, with consequent royalty and copyright exemptions. Man, I am going to enjoy watching how this plays out.
Thanks for that phone info and the Houston Chronicle intel, too; very informative. Quite interesting on the streaming, also.
Six years is a long time for a laptop, esp. one that gets a lotta use; I have a twelve-year-old laptop that used to run XP for state gummint up here and is now running Xubuntu on 1 GB of RAM fairly well.
“I wonder why peacenik Obummer is sending so much hardware there?”
And I wonder where the outrage is from the Left and the progs. Oh wait–I get it; wars are OK if it’s their guy. Schtupping dumpy interns down the hall from your wife and daughter is OK; it’s their guy. Etc.
This could all just be a big joke on us; getting us primed for more mil-spec shenanigans, more DOD expenses, and ratcheting up Homeland Insecurity here; the country is more and more like Orwell’s book, albeit thirty years later than he’d “predicted.”
As to your anticipated federal / state squabbles. Kindly confine them to within your borders. Thank You.
Sorry, you guys signed NAFTA so you get a piece of everything we get, brother.
On the cell phone front, my telecom friend (whose plan I am now on) says G4/LTE will be the only service available in the near future, so do not get too attached to CDMA and GMS.
GM’s Onstar uses CDMA so the FCC will not let CDMA be shut down in the interest of public safety.
Not so sure the government can mandate that. If they cannot mandate service to less-populated rural areas, but yet have multiple companies in highly populous areas duplicating towers and service, then I doubt it can mandate the continuation of CDMA. It sure has no control over my friend’s company, which will have no CDMA service in Indiana at all after July, and it was once the largest provider of CDMA in the state. What about all those people who had “push-to-talk” service (the industry name for what we called “two-way group talk” back when I worked fulltime in a place which used that service)? My friend’s company merely switched those towers off starting last summer, with no advance notice (less than 100 customers on each tower), and people thus went into their stores, where they were either talked into other services, or left for another carrier who still had CDMA. Push-to-talk has been used by a lot of emergency services outfits, including small ambulance companies and emergency heating repair companies, who avoided having to maintain their own two-way radio installations with push-to-talk. In Indianapolis alone, there are areas now that have no CDMA coverage at all.
One of the main reasons companies want to dump the older technologies, is that power requirements are much improved with newer equipment, and there are far fewer maintenance problems. Not only does G4 equipment consume less energy, it takes a lot less RF power to communicate with a cell phone, than the older technologies did—thus not only a decreased power bill for the providers, but smaller phones for you and me. Antenna technology alone is vastly improved with the new technologies. In the places where I have G4 available, I never lose service in elevators anymore.
Meanwhile, my cell phone provider was down in most of central Indiana yesterday (Wed 4 Apr) from the time I got up, until around 19:00. Phone calls came in, and I could dial out and connect, but there was no audio at all going in either direction—not even ringing sounds while connecting. I communicated for business using SMS text and email, but it was no fun. Now the weird thing is that—during this outage—my telecom friend advised me that it was probably my phone, as he was experiencing no problem. So near the end of the workday, I drove up to Muncie to the nearest store, went in, where there were literally more than a dozen people in the tiny store and the parking lot jammed, and one of the employees was shouting out every couple of minutes that if you are unable to place or receive calls, then it is not the fault of your phone, but rather a network failure which they knew about and were trying to repair. He had no idea how long that would be, but in the interim, nobody—including the employees—had phone service. They could not even demonstrate phones to prospective customers. So it made no difference that my phone will use G4/LTE, G3, GSM, and CDMA as available; I had no voice communication with my phone for the whole day.
Gosh the old Ma Bell looks so good in retrospect.
Can a 4G smartphone on Verizon use LTE instead of CDMA for phone calls?
Is that what they call Digital CDMA?