One remote to rule them all…

Our home entertainment system currently requires a lot of remote controls. One for the TV, one for the DVR, one for the amplifier, one for the Apple TV device I just bought, and one “universal” remote that tries (and fails) to control them all.

The irritating thing, of course, is that several of these remotes claim to be “universal” in some fashion. But invariably something doesn’t quite work correctly: the universal remote won’t switch the amp’s audio sources, the DVR remote won’t change the TV’s video inputs… and none of them are very elegant. I’ve been keeping an eye on the Logitech Harmony remotes for a while, and finally decided to take the plunge: I’m now the proud owner of a Harmony One Advanced Universal Remote 5846.1.0.jpg

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Worthless bags of feces attack epileptics

I have very little patience for people online who think it is their right to disrupt, harass, and harm others purely because they can. I am talking about griefers: a term that began its life in multi-player games as a name for all the people for whom the primary source of fun was ruining everyone else’s fun. Griefers and their ilk come in all forms, some claiming to have a somewhat valid cause like harassing Scientology, most simply being out and out asshats.

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Fujitsu to make bigger “fast” laptop drives

I’m pretty happy with my Macbook Pro. But on the day I bought it, I started planning upgrades: I’m a geek, after all.

The first thing on my list- upgrade from the default 2 GB to 4 GB of RAM. That was done about a week after I bought the machine. Second on my list: a larger and faster hard drive. 120 GB of storage on a 5400 RPM drive is nice, but 240 GB at 7200 RPM… that would be just the ticket.

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The Sword and the Sorcerer… a tale of my aging memory

I spent a couple of hours this weekend trying to remember the name of a movie I vaguely recall watching many years ago. It was back in the ’80s, during the era of Conan and its imitators: the era of Sword and Sorcery movies. I recall the film being kind of fun: a first rate B movie, if that makes sense. Yet I couldn’t recall a title or, with any certainty, the details of the plot.

I remembered two scenes from the movie, and possibly a third one. I wasn’t sure if perhaps I was misremembering, and combining these scenes from several different movies together into some sort of frankenmemory. I recounted my vague recollections to my nephew Shane when we were talking about other movies, and to my friend Chris, who I recall was there when I saw this particular flick all those years ago.

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