http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/why-new-hard-disks-might-not-be-much-fun-for-xp-users.ars4096 Byte Sectors soon… Time to break yet more software that made assumptions that certain variables weren’t going to change. :)I find the discussion of EFI instead of bios to be interesting. I wonder what it would take to convert existing boards to use that instead of bios? Would they be able to get most systems using EFI?

I’ve been using Last.fm for a long time. One problem just keeps cropping up with it, along with others. Bands with the same name are irrevocably lumped together never to be separated out.Last time it was Goner, where a one-track-band made a single track and posted it up to last.fm, and managed to take over the entry for a band which had 3 whole albums out. This time I ran into the fact that there are two bands named Pollyanna.

Here’s a note to anyone who owns a PS3 or PSP.If you haven’t played it already, go buy Grandia from the PSN store. It’s a bit dated, but it still rates as one of the best games released for the PS1. $10 is a steal compared to what I paid for it on Ebay. The battle system is really what makes it good. It’s not a time-sensitive battle system, but it is time dependent.

Another month, another small stack of things finished. Books:5. Cross the Stars. David Drake dips into the Hammers slammers universe to try and mimic the Odyssey. *shrug* It was annoying at points, had a decent enough ending though.6. Neptune Crossing. First book from Jeffrey Carver that I’ve read. I’ll have to read more. Was interesting. A guy who formerly interfaced with computers to pilot shuttles is crippled by incompetent doctors and loses his link, and thus he frequently drops into a state of disconnection from the world… encountering an alien who wants to ride around in his head.

http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=918I love it when someone will peel back the layers of what’s going on and tell you something in depth like this. This alone is enough to make me start following his blog. I’ve been thinking of getting a Chumby unit for quite awhile, and this helps a bit as well knowing how much research they’re putting into these things.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/142270/dells_displayport_folly.htmlI ran into this article when searching for more information on DisplayPort.Needless to say, I disagree with him. HDMI is not a technology for computers to use, it’s made for HDTVs, and because of such it has limitations when used on computers and computer monitors. One such that many monitors have is that even if the monitor is 1920x1200, it will max out at 1920x1080 on HDMI and can only attain its full resolution with DVI.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/02/04/panasonic-cops-to-rising-black-levels-in-its-plasma-hdtvs-but-q/A feature that made the black level brighter over time on plasma TVs was miscoded and does it faster than it is supposed to, causing black level problems with older plasma TVs.Now the question is, is it really necessary for them to do this, or is this a planned obsolescence feature to make new TVs appear more attractive when they come out?

Short one this month, didn’t get much done.Books:1. Doc Sidhe. Basic premise, what if all those old irish and other folk tales had some basis in reality, in an alternate world with limited capability of travel back and forth? Drop one or two humans into the fairy world, and watch League of Extraordinary Gentlemen-esque hijinks ensue. I admit, I randomly picked this one for the first book of the year because it was the shortest one in my stack…2.

I sure was younger and stupider back when I was a college student. Because of this, I collected a nice cautionary tale for anyone going to college now. Collegeinvest was the company that did my student loans way back when, towards the end of the time I had their loan, they switched to using an external processing company, Nelnet, to handle their billing. My interest rate was 5% but I had a 1% reduction for paying on time every month.

I went back into the market for a new TV card recently. My trusty old WinTV Theater from Hauppauge was nowhere to be found, and I was tired of my huge old clunky 720p 27 inch TV. Reading the reviews though makes me realize how much confusion there is about what kind of TV cards exist, and what their purpose is.1. Old style SD Analog framebuffer card. This is what I want.