While wasting time on the internet, I ran into a thread on a message board asking people what the number one song was when they were born. You can find out what it was here.

Looking over the list of number 1s is pretty interesting if not just to get a sense of the times through their choice in music. But what really struck me was that starting in 1992, the actual number of different number 1s per year completely dropped off and has more or less stayed lower since. I wonder what the exact correlation to 1992 is, but overall I think it says a lot about the effects of media consolidation. Less choice equals less number ones.

And the answer: In 1992, the FCC passed duopoly rules allowing ownership of more than one FM radio station in a single market.

By Gary at 04:25 PM in Music | Comments (0)  

In my quest for streamlined home entertainment, I must now pimp the MX-500 universal remote control. You certainly don't need to have your own home built DVR to get benefit out of this sucker (only downfall, its a bit big). The split between a programmable LCD with real buttons is how it should be done. Plus, you can program buttons to do multiple remote commands for different devices ... long story short, I can now press one button, it turns on my stereo and sets it to receive audio from my television and then turns on my TV. Bottom line, this is now my only remote control on the coffee table and it works well.

Buy this thing. It costs around $100.

By Gary at 06:11 PM in Sci/Tech | Comments (0)  

I was griping before about my problems getting MythTV set up as as my homebrew DVR, but one by one I've cleared out my bugs and got it working. The real key to everything was finding the ivtv X driver. Once installed, things have been smooth sailing.

Right now I'm torrenting down media from the internet, transfering two phish shows from my old machine (lol, a PowerEdge server) while I watch TV and blog. I've gone fair use blue in the face.

By Gary at 05:48 PM in Sci/Tech | Comments (0)