Month: November 2007

Happy Thanksgiving!

So I got a message on my home answering machine that said that I needed to call DirecTV (my current TV service provider) about an “upgrade” that I’m eligible for. So I called DirecTV today to discuss this.

A little background first. For the past 3 years or so I’ve been using the HR10-250 TiVo DirecTV receiver. I’ve loved this receiver. It has 4 tuners in it (two HD and two standard def), it has a 250GB hard drive in it so it can record up to 30 hours of HDTV programming or 200 hours of standard definition TV. But most of all it’s a TiVo. And I LOVE TiVo. TiVo’s intuitive interface is easy to use and never has problems. So overall I’ve been pretty happy with this unit.

But now DirecTV wants me to “upgrade” to a new DirecTV HR20. The thing is though that this is not a TiVo.

Now when I bought my HR10-250 I paid $1,300 for it. Granted I’m a bleeding edge tech sort of guy. But now DirecTV wants me to “upgrade” to a unit that sells for $299.99. By the way this unit scored a 7.4 out of 10 rating from CNET’s editors but actual users on CNET gave it a 4.3 out of 10 “mediocre” score.

CNET listed the “bottom line” on this unit as “The DirecTV HR20 is easy to use and offers plenty of features, but its operational bugs make use more of a headache than other DVRs.”

You see, that’s the thing. TiVo is simple. DirecTV’s HR20 unit is described as a “headache.”

My bottom line is that it sucks that DirecTV dropped TiVo as a provider of set top boxes and now is trying to trick me into “upgrading” to a worse box than the one that I already have. Of course they are claiming that I can get more HDTV programming with this new unit, but frankly, between what I already get on HDTV and Netflix I have more than enough stuff to watch.

And are you ready for the real kicker? This new “upgrade” only requires me to sign on for another 2 year contract with DirecTV. WTF? You’re going to give me an inferior box AND make me sign a 2 year contract? Certainly there are some idiots that will take DirecTV up on their “generous” upgrade offer, but I won’t be one of them.

In fact I have half a mind to just bolt from DirecTV and move over to digital cable anyways. This way I can either get a Series 3 TiVo or one of the new Media Center CableCARD PCs plus a bunch of new HD channels and truly get a better product.

By the way, do you know what I paid DirecTV for content last month? $91.96. And that’s what I’ve been paying them a month for the past few years. You’d think they’d treat me a little better than this.

A new study is out by the JFA Institute, a Washington DC criminal justice think tank.

“The report states, “[V]iolence that surrounds drug trafficking in the United States is largely absent” in Western European countries that have liberalized their drug possession policies. The authors further note that the decriminalization of drugs, particularly marijuana, in regions that have enacted such reforms has not been associated with an increase in crime rates.

The report speculates that decriminalizing illicit drugs, along with enacting modest reforms in sentencing and parole, would save taxpayers an estimated $20 billion per year and reduce the prison population from 1.5 million to below 700,000.”

It is still crazy to me that it is a crime for someone to smoke marijuana. Marijuana is no worse for people than tobacco or alcohol and yet for some reason the U.S. Government would rather let pot fuel organized crime than tax it and allow it to be sold at the corner liquor store.

Some of this may be due to the fact that older generations of voters who never experimented with marijuana and powerful alcohol and tobacco lobbies oppose decriminalization — but I’ve got to believe that at some point as aging voters continue to die off and are replaced in the AARP with baby boomers that the voters in this country will eventually realize that we’d be better off decriminalizing pot. The stigma with marijuana use/experimentation is going away. First Bill Clinton smoked it but didn’t inhale. Now Obama smoked it and actually did inhale.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me what my favorite lenses are for the photographs that I shoot. I thought I’d put together a quick recap report on my lenses as well as on some of the other technologies that I’ve tried over the past few years or so in time for the upcoming holiday season. I’ve tried to keep each technology item to a single letter grade and then a couple of quick comments. Feel free to ask more specific questions in the comments.

Adobe Photoshop CS3: A+, The new Adobe Photoshop / Bridge combo may be the single best technological upgrade I made all year.

Canon 135 f/2.0 L Series Lens: A+, My favorite lens from Canon. Beautiful depth of field and bokeh at a reasonable sub $1,000 price.

Canon 5D Digital SLR: A, Best value for a full frame sensor digital SLR from one of the best manufacturers. Only complaint is that the larger sensor attracts more dust requiring more sensor cleaning.

Apple MacBook Pro: A, best computer I’ve ever owned. Great customer service from Apple.

Microsoft XBox 360 A, Great gaming platform, also works great as a DVD player.

Canon EF 100 Macro Lens: A, Great value for a macro that also works well as a portrait lens.

Canon 14mm f/2.8 L Series Lens: A, Fantastic results from this ultra wide angel lens.

Netflix: A, Very impressed with the speed and turn around of the service. Also impressed with the quality of the “watch it now” streaming video service which is included in the membership.

Verizon Wireless EVDO service: A- Reliable and consistent and speeds feel like they are getting faster. Still a tad expensive.

Apple iPhone: A-, great phone/iPod combo — best phone I’ve ever had. The Edge internet access sucks big time.

Canon 24mm, f/1.4 L Series Lens: B+, Strong L Series wide angle offering from Canon, lens is pricey but well built and worth it.

Drobo Storage Robot: B+, A strong multi disc array approach to digital media storage. Sometimes the units can react quirky. Transfer speeds are slower that standard hard drives but this trade off is worth having replicated primary storage.

Microsoft Media Center PC: C, admittedly I’m still running an early version (Windows XP) on an early box (HP 873N) but I can’t stand the 10 sec – 3 minute freeze ups and delays that that I believe are the result of accessing my large digital library over a network or the horrible performance on the DVD player.

Canon 50mm f/1.2 L Series Lens: D, A great 50mm but not for the price and poor autofocus in low lighting situations.