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.

Books:#28: Baen’s Universe 2-5: The SciFi portion of this one was the best Baen’s Universe I’ve ever read.. I may update this in the comments, no time right now.#29: Baen’s Universe 2-6: This one was a bit Ho-Hum compared to 2-5.Games:#5: Disgaea 2: About 35 hours and also a lot of fun. I wouldn’t have beaten it so fast without the DLC.#6: Fallout 3 & DLC: 136 Hours total. X_x Lots of fun, lots of bugs.

Books:#26: Course of Empire. Take Eric Flint’s political intrigue and KD Wentworth’s fuzzy aliens with interesting cultures, and you have a fun little alien invasion tale. It’s very long, but worth it.#27: Baen’s Universe 2-4: Laws of Survival was interesting. Aliens come to earth to collect dogs because they think they’re intelligent, but finds that none of them behave as they do in the TV shows. Misfits is a Liaden story of a weather specialist.

I just finished The Course of Empire, which means I’m totally out of Baen E-books now. I stopped buying them because I had a huge backlog of secondaries that came with sets that I wanted. Now I need to go find some more to toss on my phone. I’m thinking I should pick up the Storm from the Shadows book from David Weber, plus some of the early Liaden books. The first 8 chapters of the Agent of Change book seemed pretty good.

Books:#23: Baen’s universe 2-3. I’ll just hit the ones I enjoyed here. “A better sense of direction” is interesting, I wonder how possible it is. About a kid growing up in space seeing the universe differently from the adults. “From the badlands” is a trigun-esque tale of humans surviving on a remote colony after aliens pound civilization to the ground. “Necromancer in Love” is an interesting thing about someone trying to bring one they love back to life, and different means to which it could be done… “Countdown to Armageddon” is a story of someone trying to take nuclear weaponry back to the past to allow the muslims to overrun the christians in that time period.

Emusic has been dropping their service down for awhile. Initially they were a subscription service where for about $15 per month, you could download an unlimited number of songs, and you could use them as long as your subscription was valid. It was a great setup for the customers and for the artists. It helped unknown artists find an audience, and helped customers find indie bands that they didn’t know about.