So we have this big LCD TV in the living room. It has
been doing a good job of being both a TV and a
computer monitor for a few months now. But its
untapped Hi-Def capabilities have been disrupting my
sleeping patterns (see the previous article).

I’ve been casually looking at our options in the HD
world. Here they are at the moment:

* Dish Network HD package

- pros: cheap addition to our current bill

- cons: not many channels, $1000 for the HD PVR

* Comcast Cable HD

- pros: many channels, especially FSBA HD (the local FOX Sports station that broadcasts SF Giants games in HD)

- cons: no PVR available

* VOOM

- pros: many channels, not expensive

- cons: no PVR, no local sports channel

* HD TiVo

- pros: HD PVR

- cons: still need to buy programming, expensive,
non-native data storage format

So nothing really looks like a good option. It’s all
expensive ($1000 for any solution involving a PVR),
and none of them are ideal.

Last week, I saw an article that covered a new product
from ATI called the “HDTV Wonder“. It’s a sub-$200
PCI card that serves as a HD and conventional TV tuner
/ capture card. It advertises some PVR-like
capabilities, and comes with a small indoor HD
antenna. I figured for $200, I’d give it a shot..

I was already going to href='http://www.centralcomputer.com/'>Central
Computer to get a small 5 port switch today
(another SliMP3
needed hooking up), and happened to notice they had an
HDTV Wonder in stock. No time like the baseball
playoffs / World Series to give in to some impulse purchases.

After I got it home, I saw that it requires that yoiu have a video card with at least 64 MB of RAM.
Mine had 32MB, so back to Central Computer for the El
Cheapo video card Du Jour. I returned with a GeForce
FX5200 based card with 128MB of ram — for $60.

Hooked it all up while the Astros/Cardinals game was
going on. I was working quickly to try to catch a
glimpse of HD before it was over. No such luck — I
couldn’t get the local FOX station tuned with the
included antenna. Of course, no problemo at all
getting the Telemundo and Univision stations (the
spanish language stations have all the dough — they
can afford to place a satellite over every persons
home and car!).

After half an hour of running through the “Auto Tune”
channel discovery feature of the ATI software several
times to try to get the FOX station (with the baseball
game), I decided to try a different antenna. Over to
the ‘Shack to see what they had. Dropped another $50
on an amplified dish-shaped HTDV antenna, brought it
home, and hooked it up.

It sucked even worse than the simple antenna that
was included in the tuner card’s box. It’s going back
to the ‘Shack tomorrow.

Back to the original free antenna. This time I decided to try a high quality coax cable to connect it to the tuner card. This made a HUGE difference! The cable that comes with it is the push-on style and pretty thin and flimsy. I used a cable that we got from a Comcast installation of days past — with nice screw-on ends and heavy gauge wire. The signal strength of every channel seemed to double.

When I went to the channel list screen to confirm my hunch of a better signal (there’s a signal strength meter on that screen), the local FOX channel had magically appeared. All right! Now we’re in business.

I tuned in the
NBC station in time to see some of ER in HD. Now
we’re talking! I didn’t expect HD to be this good. Watched that slack-jawed for a while. Then Jay Leno came on.

Compare these two screen grabs to see the difference between regular TV and HDTV (why doesn’t anyone have something like this online already?!?!?!)::

	href='/blog_images/hdtv.jpg'>
Regular TV	HDTV (1080i)

Holy
Crap!!! Sweet Tapdancin Mother of Broadcasting!!!

So for $260, I think I have something that fits the bill. There is
lots more HD on cable / satellite, but I think I’ll
wait until their PVRs are less expensive before making
a move that way.

One other thing to note … DTV (digital TV) hasn’t really gotten much mention that I’ve heard. DTV is standard definition TV but broadcast digitally, so there is no interference or static.

HTDV stations broadcast in DTV when they don’t have HD content to show. DTV on the ATI card is head and shoulders better than the signal that comes from the Dish Network box. It’s sharper, the colors are truer, and the audio is clearer and less compressed.

Here’s another comparison:

	href='/blog_images/dtv.jpg'>
Regular TV	DTV (480i)

So you heard it here first — DTV is cool too.

Had to write this down — it was the first dream I had
that took place off Earth…

Went into a metal contraption thru a door, sat down,
got up, and opened the door and was “on the Moon”.
It was daytime on the Moon.

There were 4-6ft bundles of blue/red paper/cardboard
stacked three high by a hundred wide 50 yards away in
the distance. Thought to myself that it’s as good of
a place as any if you want to keep something like that
around. Maybe there is some kind of recycling
facility here. Lots of trash and stuff strewn about
too.

My intention here was to build a music broadcaster.
There were other broadcaster machines here among the
junk. I knew there weren’t any other people here. It
was kind of neat to be the only person here, but to
see the evidence that I was definitely not the first
person here. That made it feel more comfortable I
think.

Walked down the steps from the metal door, and thought
for a second that I wouldn’t be able to breathe, since
I was on the Moon and all. I inhaled, the air was a
bit thick and odorous (like Egypt was), but there was
air was there. I assumed that the folks who had come
before me had set up some kind of atmosphere generator
or some sort of bubble to keep in the air. This place
was a lot like the desert on earth, but I was indeed
“on the Moon”.

Anyhow, I carried on with my mission…

There was a turntable waiting for me at the bottom of
the steps, record spinning. I placed the needle onto
the vinyl, and a lovely dance song I’d never heard
before played from the speakers nearby. It rocked.
Mission accomplished. There would now be my music
broadcast from the Moon.

Time to go back.

I went back up the steps, thru the door into the metal
room, and sat down on a small couch. I immediately
got up, opened the metal door, and went out into what
I guess was my house back on Earth.

I looked out the window into the night sky, and saw
the moon big and yellow; half of it showing above the
horizon. I walked out onto the deck and pointed the
antenna out there at the Moon as rose completely above
the mountains in the distance. Sure enough, the music
I had started playing on the Moon played on the stereo
inside the house. I thought to myself, “now anyone on
Earth can listen to this as long as they can see the moon”.

Over the course of the last nine days, we have doubled
the amount of artwork we have in our display cache at
home. Not only have we been blessed with a lovely
three-years-late wedding gift from my lovely mom, but
there has been much photography going on here, as well
as it being the time for Open Studios in San
Francisco, where folks like us can get neat stuff on
the cheap!

Here are the stories….

1) Mom painted us a vibrant colorful swimming pool in
the AM scene. I don’t think she named it, so in that
case, I hereby decree that it is “Swimming Pool in the
AM”. Hopefully she has thought of something
more clever! [update 20041012 -- the official name is "Swimming in the Sunrise". Mom's name is definitely better!] It is the one up on the purple wall –
the only wall in the house that did not cower in fear
from her use of the brightest colors available to
Mankind. We really love it Ma!

2) Last weekend, we stopped by one “T. Ito”’s studio
space. His work in the Open Studios catalog was
compelling, hence the visit. Little did I know that
this was Trevor Ito — we went to high school
together, were in the same photo class, and he was
good buds with Em and Mark and went to their wedding.
Small world, great work.

3) Arti fell in love with these aspens silkscreened
onto 8×8 inch wood boxes painted different colors. I
like them too!

4) As I mentioned before, I’ve been inspired to take a
new direction in photos. This inspiration came from
some work we saw in SF Open Studios. The
possibilities are never-ending. Lots of photography
happening around here these days. I’ll have some cool
stuff to show off here in the next week or so.

5) This past weekend was a rollercoaster of Open
Studios. The beginning was awesome — our first stop
was to Kitty Wehrmeister’s house. She works in monoprint
(Paint is applied to an un-etched plate, paper laid on
top, then passed through a press. Repeat as many
times with as many colors as necessary.) Her work was
fabulous — and at $25-$35 per print, this really blew
out the Value Ratio scale. We got two of her prints. They are now awaiting frames.

[btw, after Kitty's place, we spent WAAAAAAY too long
at this bizarre "I doodle in sharpies on 3x5 cards and
sell my work for $500 and by the way have you looked
at this rainbow doodle in 3D glasses and by the way
this only cost me $0.05 to produce so I'm making over
$60 per hour with my art and by the way this is the
cosmic hearth where the space between you and I comes
from and by the way look at the little metallic stars
in this one and by the way there are only $0.01 worth
of glitter in this one so I could maintain my profit
margin and by the way....."
AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!]

6) Saturday’s Open Studios viewing extravaganza ended
at Base Gallery –
BJ’s badass gallery/studio space where I spent many
nights DJing gallery openings and learning how to draw
people in their drop-in figure drawing class. We saw
Catherine St. Clair there (she used to help us out in
the figure drawing) and her cool work. We really
liked this one painting she had done 5 years ago, so
we got it. Had a great talk with her New Husband Beau
about photography. Too bad BJ wasn’t there!

So that’s it! We have had great fun re-arranging (and
seeing again) the stuff we had up before consuming
this cornucopia of art. That reminds me: Move the
stuff on your walls around at least every 6 months.
It’s amazing how we no longer see what is hanging up
when they’ve been there for so long.

Z -

The Nobot looks absolutely lovely. I mean it. It has
really morphed into a wonderfully user friendly and
beautiful website. Excellent job.

If I had a thought in my head that as worth putting
down on paper I suppose I would entertain the idea of
submitting something. But in actual fact, my head is
so scrambled with bits of information flying about
here and there, I would probably make a good test
subject for the UCLA neuro-psychiatric institute.

Witnesseth:

1) My engagement party is on the 30th of October and
we would love it if you two would make it down. Can
you give me your address?

2) My “new” 2001 Volvo V-40 has been driving like a
dream. ( Don’t give it a second thought that you
never called me back - really… [doh! --ed])

Anyway, one month after purchase, the 1.9 litre dual
stage turbo engine has been augmented by yours truly
and now deftly speeds down the by-ways of suburban San
Diego with a new EuroSport Ultra-Flo Air Intake
System. check it:
http://www.eurosporttuning.com/home.htm
Sure it cost too much money - but what the hell.

The new sucking, swirling, gurgling sound coming from
under the hood took some getting used to though. I
actually thought a couple of times about reinstalling
the stock airbox becuase people were looking at me
like I was smuggling a troup of Swedish prostitutes
under the hood of my car. But today she passed the
test (the car that is - sicko) as I hit the ol’ pedal
to get around a truck that was killing my road-stoke.
The prostitutes made made one giant sucking, slurping,
swirling inhale and before I knew it, I was around
that semi in nothing flat. Seriously though, I got
waaaay more response than I would have gotten from the
stock airbox. Its pretty remarkable actually. Not
only was I pressed into the back of the seat but I
looked down quickly enough to see my MPGs drop to 11.1
- Sweeeeeeet. 11.1 - isn’t that the mileage of a 12
cylinder Ferrari?

Bottom line - She’s a keeper.

3) My security guards have been getting into trouble
at work. Last week one guard was stoned on the job -
like eyes rolling in the back of his head stoned - I
couldn’t believe it. Franklin is his name - or was -
Franklin’s ass was fired. I mean fuck - I can get some
idiot to sit in front my properties and get stoned for
free - I don’t need to pay him for it. This week we
found another one was sleeping(asshole), another one
spit sunflower seeds around the entire
property(idiot), and another guard who was sleeping
after passing out drunk had to be woken up by a tenant
so he would move his camper shell pick-up truck out of
the tenants DRIVEWAY (speechless).

Jesus H Christ Z - you’ve got to be fucking kidding
me. I am now of the belief that security guards are
one notch up from sign spinners on Darwin’s employment
ladder. I have absolutely no faith in them anymore.
I just thank god mine aren’t armed.

4) Ms. Franklin contunes to call me at work.
The 411:
Ms. Franklin, an old tenant in one of my buildings,
claims she has bruises running up and down her shins
from some pipe fittings that apparently fell on her during
the period her crappy apartment complex in the hood
was getting converted to ridiculously overpriced
condominiums. Ms. Franklin wants money for her supposed
doctor bill as well as money for her “pain and
suffering”. Ms. Franklin doesn’t live in my building
anymore - she moved a way three months ago. Ms. Franklin
has presented me with her medical examination form
that needs to be decyphered by an egyptian
cryptographer. Ms. Franklin has no witnesses. Ms. Franklin can kiss my ass.

5) You’ll appreciate this: Doesn’t one need to know
about computers to be in I.T.? I asked the I.T. girl
at work today if she could go onto a computer and
enable some docs to be shared on our peer-to-peer
network. The response I got was priceless: With a
half cocked look of utter stupidity she stated the
follwing: “Um…I don’t know how to do that. I’m more
of a department head than an actual IT person.”

riiiiiiiight.

6) Debates: I think Kerry has been smoking that idiot
like a pack of Kools.

See ya Z - More next time.

I am the Walrus….

Saturday, Arti and I drove up to SF to check out some
art that some folks were showing as part of Open
Studios.

This is a great event, and is held in a lot of places
around the country. Artists interested in showing
their work register with the Open Studios
organization, who then includes them on their maps and
in their annual catalog. Each artist is assigned a
“weekend” where their home / studio will be opened to
the public.

It’s a great chance to discover new local talent, and
most of the time to actually speak with the artist
about his/her work. This really adds personality to
artwork, which we usually only experience far far away
in space and time from the person who made it.

Derek and Emily arranged for us to all go to the
“Kick-off Party” last Thursday, where we could look at
one small example piece from everyone involved.

The SF Open studios is pretty fancy — with a
full-color catalog produced every year. On Friday
night, we went thru the catalog and put a star next to
the artists we were interested in. Total of six for
this weekend, and a couple for next weekend.

We saw some neat work, and ended up getting a couple
of pieces — one from a guy we went to high school
with who is friends with Em and Mark.

We saw some really cool photography (yes! photography
that i liked!) from />Jeremie Roux (nighttime light and motion
studies) , Rena
Buchgraber (industrial photo transparencies
mounted on brused aluminum) and from Damon Sneed
(digital mirror-manipulation; no web site yet). Very
inspiring
stuff.

Open Studios really presents a diverse body of work –
from things that I really dig, to things I think are
“not art” to (especially in SF) things that I’d put
squarely in the “porno” bin.

And this really hammers home an important point: Art
is personal. Anyone who tells you “this is
art” or “that is crap” or “you don’t know art” doesn’t
know what’s up. Something is art when you have an
emotional reaction to it. The lack of a reaction to
something made skillfully puts that something into the
“craft” bucket.

But here’s the deal — one man’s craft (or porno for
that matter) is another man’s masterpiece. Art is all
about YOU. Don’t see the point in why Picasso is
highly regarded, well no big deal! It’s not art to
you! However, maybe after learning about why others
hold his work in high regard, your feelings may
change, and you may see things in the work you didn’t
see before. Great! You have new art!

It’s rare for me to feel something from photography.
Photography is a tricky medium — since the barrier to
entry is quite low (unlike painting or music),
photography-as-art for me is difficult to come by.
Most things I see in museums are nice portraits,
landscapes, or candid “moment frozen in time” type
journalism shots. For me, these are good
demonstrations of either photography as craft
and/or good luck.

However, innovative artists like those I mentioned
above, who combine mastery of their craft, creative
impulses, and who do it in a manner I like — well,
now that’s what I call art.

So I picked up some good inspiration this weekend from
the work I saw, and took the camera out a couple of
nights. There are a href=http://nobot.2y.net/pictures/india_art/>few
href=http://nobot.2y.net/pictures/20041002-nighttime/>new
href=http://nobot.2y.net/pictures/20041004-grasshopper/>photo
href=http://nobot.2y.net/pictures/20041004-baynight/>galleries
to look at as a result.