I ended up taking an unscheduled trip to Pittsburgh today and since I didn't have the neccessary CDs or my Dell DJ, I had to listen to FM radio. It was then that I truly recognized how much radio programming in western PA has disintergated in recent years. It seems there are three options:
1, You have your "Froggy" stations and apparently there is a Froggy for every digit within the FM spectrum. Within 150 miles, I ran into Froggy98, Froggy95, and Froggy97. These stations are owned by the same company that own all of the "Hot XXX" stations which play the same 5 songs over and over.
2, It seems the main competition to the Froggys and the Hots are the 3 or 4 blabbering right-wing idiots who do nothing but worship GW and complain about how liberal the media is, which is quite the contradition because I couldn't find one liberal on the media at that time. Oh, and of course there were the religious right stations proclaiming that all Muslims were after the blood of the infidels. These two genres seem to have control of over 50% of the spectrum.
3, DVE was the only saving grace. While not as good as they were when I was living in Pittsburgh, they still play some decent music and their morning show comedy cuts are priceless. Fortunately, DVE also has a podcast, so even if I'm out of range I can still hear the best of the morning show. While they do play too many commercials and are owned by the conglomerate Clearchannel, they are still pretty decent.
This brings me to the point of the post. Between audible.com and podcasts, I hardly ever listen to the radio anymore and I would strongly suggestion to anyone to check out my favorite podcasts. Most of them are tech related, so if you are looking for something different check out odeo and iTunes Podcast Directory.
This Week in Tech - Podcast features the old crew of The Screensavers with a few extras. This is the show that really turned me onto Podcasting.
Diggnation - Kevin Rose & Alex Albrechts' weekly recap of the top postings on Digg.com.
DVE's Podcast - See above.
Make Podcasts - Good podcast featuring projects featured on Makezine.com.
Update:
Mike Tech Show - Pretty good podcast dealing with various aspects of technology. Not sure why I forgot that one yesterday.
Oh, and thanks to all of the commenters who have hijacked this posting and turned it into something it wasn't intended to be.
(Disclaimer: The Sector does not endorse the Dell DJ product because of their reluctance in providing a much needed firmware upgrade. Please read previous posts for more info.)
A school in Richmond, VA had the great idea of selling used iBooks for $50. I'm not sure why they did this, considering that the laptops could easily go for 3 times that amount on eBay or other business auction sites. I can only assume they were trying to get the technology into the hands of some local residents who couldn't afford it otherwise.
Well, the result of this ended up being a near riot, where people who stood in line 3 hours before the gates opened were nearly trampled on by people running in.
A couple questions come to mind:
1, Does this school not face the same problems just about every other school in the US suffers from in that they need money? Wouldn't selling the iBooks at their true market value have generated some much needed revenue to funnel back into the school?
2, Wouldn't it have made a heck of a lot more sense to use some kind of lottery system to determine who got the laptops? Having a mass of humanity gather at an event like this with the potential reward being a coveted iBook, didn't they realize they were asking for trouble?
3, From the looks of the photos, it seems that the staging point for the iBooks was inside of a racetrack, so people lined up outside of the gates and then there was a mad rush to another queue where the actual laptops were sold. Who the hell is the moron who came up with those logistics?
Anyone involved in the deal needs fired from the school. I'm sure just the lawsuits alone that are going to come from this will wipe out any money that the sale brought in.
Just full of news today:
Check out the trailer for 10 MPH.
Thanks to Google Maps & Blueweb, I was able to create a map that displays all of the GPS positions that have been entered into my C&O Canal GPS Website.
For some reason, IE keeps giving an error about the API key being invalid and I'm not sure why. The site works fine in Firefox, so there's yet another reason to make the switch.
Check out the map, and if you happen to have some coordinates along the trail that you would like to share, please do so.
The below clipping from the Clearfield Progress made it onto The Tonight Show last week. The irony being that the below float was sponsored by The Prevention of Animal Cruelty civic organization.
At least it was a Saint Bernard and not a poodle that they hitched up.
I'm sure everyone noticed the Sector being down for the past couple of days. The folks over at ReadySetConnect decided to suspend my account because they haven't taken the money out of my credit card account monthly like they are supposed to. So instead of contacting me via email or phone to resolve it, they just locked me out of the account. Well, I'm officially shopping for a new hosting company. Any reccommendations?
The first thing that I did once my account was reinstated was to backup up all of my entries as well as the few other important things I keep on the hosting server. The earliest prior backup that I had was from April, so that's something I need to remember to do more often.
Location: C&O Canal, Paw Paw to Mile Marker 143
Mileage: 24.8
Average Speed: 8.5 MPH
Max Speed: 13.9 MPH
Notes:
This was my first trip to the Canal Path this year, my fourth overall. I covered the distance from Paw Paw to mile marker 143 which is slightly west of Little Orleans. I had hoped to make it to Little Orleans, but I'm glad I turned around when I did. I didn't have any kids with me on this trip (thanks Colleen!) which was good because this is probably the most remote section of the canal path and I'm not sure Ethan would have enjoyed Paw Paw Tunnel as much as I did. I was surprised my average speed didn't increase considering I didn't have a bike seat or a trailer, but I think it is probably because of I had to walk through the tunnel and stopped at every lock and campground to get coordinates. It was a beautiful day for cycling along the Potomac and I saw a ton of wildlife. I'm not kidding when I claim that I saw 3 times the number of deer than humans. Additionally, I was witness to probably the largest Blue Heron I've ever seen (not the one pictured below) and several turtles. A deer ahead of me spotted me on the path and literally started wagging her tail and walking towards me but ran off when I started moving slowly towards her. The Paw Paw Tunnel was awesome. It was longer than I had anticipated and is truly an engineering feat considering its age. Running my hand along the original railing that is worn down from canal boat ropes is a humbling experience.
I added several waypoints to my GPS repository for the C&O Canal.
Notable Landmarks:
Paw Paw Tunnel
Paw Paw Bends
Several Campgrounds
Locks 58 through 64 2/3
A local Altoona radio station is selling PA Porker T-Shirts to commemorate the whopping raise 16%+ raise they gave themselves this year (See my previous entry). Get yours here. I may have to pick one up for myself.
(Thanks to VaxCave for the link.
Tomorrow (August 5th, 2005) from 1:00 - 1:15, CERMUSA will be presenting on the web at Internet2's first Gigaconference. Check it out if you have the time. Instructions to watch the show can be found at:
http://commons.internet2.edu/gigaconference
