Skip to content

Gah! AppleTV annoyance

Turns out the AppleTV burns 21 watts when in screen-saver mode and 22 watts when in use, only 18 watts when sitting at a menu. It’s not huge, but it’s annoyingly high for something that has no on/off nor sleep mode switches.

Grrr.

Apple needs to fix this.

Update: As Brian kindly pointed out and per this Apple technical document, if you hold the Play/Pause button for 5 seconds, the Apple TV goes into standby mode, which does use a little less power. Mine settled to 18 watts, which is better, but still kind of high. Keep in mind the DishPVR 508 we have “powers off” to 29 watts (32 watts when powered up and playing shows). I also wish the Apple TV could be configured to drop into standby mode automatically to save power.

2008 03 26 snolan Environment Comments (4) Permalink

More Indie Music

More independent music available for free (though they’d love it if you bought some MP3s or CDs as well). This time from the inspirational Gaia Consort. They encourage you to download or stream their music to see if you like it and share it with friends. They love it if you bought it too, and frankly it stands up to the listen first test and I am buying some.

Hat tip to Poly Weekly for playing the excellent song Three on the podcast, which was enough to hook me. Nice viennese waltz, by the way!

2008 03 25 snolan Music Comments (0) Permalink

Indie Music

I am a big fan of independent artists and fresh, new music from innovative talent. A friend is helping several new artists get started at NewIndieArtists and they have links to samples of their music and CD Baby and iTunes in case you want to buy some music in either MP3 or CD format.

While hitting CD Baby, I went ahead and ordered a couple of Jonathan Coulton CDs I have been interested in for weeks.

2008 03 24 snolan Fun
Music Comments (0) Permalink

Someone at MacPorts/DarwinPorts has a sense of humor

Notice anything funny about this:

gromit:~ snolan$ ls -la /opt/local/sbin
total 72
drwxr-xr-x   4 root  admin    136 21 Feb 14:10 .
drwxr-xr-x  12 root  admin    408 14 Feb 11:56 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root  admin      0  9 Jan 22:48 .turd_MacPorts
-r-s--x--x   2 root  admin  35564 21 Feb 14:10 fping

In UNIX sysadmin lingo, a “turd” is an unneeded file left around by a careless fellow sysadmin or user.
Hat tip to Dave for pointing it out.

2008 03 21 snolan Computers Comments (0) Permalink

I’m calling it for Obama already.

Newsflash: the campaigns for the presidential term starting in 2009 are over and done. Obama won it by a vast margin on Tuesday, March 18th when he made his “More Perfect Union” speech in Philadelphia.

At this point Clinton and McCain are simply going through the motions to save a little face.
We should all be trying to figure out how to make his first term as successful as is possible given the huge and difficult to repair damage that the Bush administration has left us.

Update: So it turns out that I am not alone in this sentiment and prediction. Other, much more prolific writers than me have expressed similar opinions:

2008 03 20 snolan Politics Comments (1) Permalink

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead

I am kind of intrigued by the upcoming: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Undead which should appeal to Sutragirl as a vampire story and appeals to me because I loved the original “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead” and the whole play within a play within a play thing (which reminds me of Being John Malkovich today).

The music seems interesting – even if the trailer looks like a typical T&A movie.

Hat tip to prehensile_wit for mentioning the forthcoming flick on her LJ.

2008 03 19 snolan Fun
Movies
Personal Comments (1) Permalink

Obama for President

I had already decided that my vote was going to Barack Obama, partially as a result of the process of elimination (initially I wanted Wesley Clark, then Evan Bayh or Bill Richardson, then John Edwards. One by one all those candidates dropped out of the race, and I was left with Barack Obama as the most logical choice remaining.

I have always been excited by the real chance for change he offers us, but that was offset by doubts about how much experience he brought to the table. I was hoping in 2004 that Kerry and Edwards would win, then Barack Obama could succeed them in 2012… alas, we got more more years of failure.

Today I no longer have any doubts. Barack Obama’s speech shows me what an excellent and realistic leader he will be as President of the United States. Now I am voting Obama not because he is the most logical choice remaining, but because he is the right person for the job and he is inspiring me to work harder at uniting, rather than dividing America.

Update: Link to full text and video of the speech is at: http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/samgrahamfelsen/gGBbKG.

2008 03 18 snolan Personal
Politics Comments (0) Permalink

1381: The Peel Affinity

Oops – forgot to post about the point of the whole weekend shindig at our house, it was the publishing party for 1381: The Peel Affinity, An English Knight’s Household in the Fourteenth Century (please order directly from the publisher through that link). I am of course already familiar with the material, but seeing it in final form is splendid and I am reading it cover to cover for fun now. The pictures came out better than I’d hoped, hurrah!

Shumacher Publishing and Amazon have it at the same price ($49.95), but you’ll get it faster direct through Shumacher (who should be accepting paypal and credit cards soon).

2008 03 17 snolan History
Personal Comments (0) Permalink

Silk Road Afghan Cuisine

Bob and Liz took us to Silk Road Afghan Cuisine for dinner tonight, and it was excellent. Finally a place that fills the culinary gap left open when Bamyan in Herndon closed. Very good sit-down restaurant with a variety of excellent dishes. Highly recommended, it is located at Lansdowne Town Center, near Virginia route 7 and Belmont Ridge.

2008 03 16 snolan Local Comments (2) Permalink

Ah Spring!

Spring is finally upon us. Sutragirl had to play frogger on the way home last night (the frogs cross Mountain Road in a nightly ritual all through Spring and early Summer). This morning the birds are singing and the flowers are coming up:

http://gallery.mac.com/scottdavidnolan#100064&bgcolor=black&view=grid

2008 03 15 snolan Personal Comments (1) Permalink