Being an OSX user, I've felt massive amounts of unlove from TiVo, in terms of the TiVoDesktop, TiVoToGo, etc. But now, man, the guys behind tivodecode have come to my rescue. While playing with it, I also discovered that the TiVo actually produces a nice XML feed, and mine at least attempts to serve up some RSS (but it ultimately fails).

tivodecode spews out MPEG-2, which QuickTime can't handle natively. You can spend $19.99 at the Apple Store to get the MPEG codec pack, or use DarwinPorts to install MPlayer, which handles MPEG-2 just fine. For free.

Bless all those opensouce geeks out there in the world. Bless each and every one of you.

Milton Friedman died at the age of 95 yesterday. Milton was a proponent of controlling the economy by working with the supply-side of the equation. You have Milton to thank for your 2.185% mortgage. Ultimately, Milton promoted a clear and free market across the board, with less government regulation and interaction.

He played a role in the abolition of the draft and supported the decriminalization of drugs and prostitution.

Go hug an economist today.

Thanks to my buddy Ben Walding, I'm now unofficially participating in the month of Movember, apparently to help raise awareness of men's health issues.

Of course, I cheated by simply trimming down an existing beard, instead of growing a mo' from scratch. I passed through an awkward Fu Manchu stage before arriving at the French-inspired 'stache.

Here in Asheville, our local public radio tends to play a nice mix of bluegrass, jam bands and local music, along with nice syndicated shows such as The World and The World Cafe (yes, not every public radio station is required to air All Things Considered). This week, though, they have started their seemingly bi-monthly fund-raising effort. This apparently entails putting 2 folks on the air just talking about the wonderful tote bag or coffee mug you can receive if only you'd donate some dollars.

I normally prefer listening to this station, but this week, when they are trying to convince me that my enjoyment of the radio and a tote bag is worth $85, they have actually reduced its worth to -$10. They should be paying me to listen to their fund-raising tripe. Yes, the station is valuable to me, but in trying to convince me of its value, they manage to destroy it all. Instead of actually making me remember that I should support them and trade $85 for a tote bag, they have sent me searching for alternatives on the AM dial.

There has got to be a better way for public media to raise the funds they need than to completely make themselves worthless during the fund drive. I listen to the radio in the car, normally while I'm driving. That is not exactly the best time to pick up the phone and make that pledge! On the other hand, I do use their website on a regular basis to browse the playlists. I do that while not driving. In fact, that'd be an excellent time to try to sell me an overpriced tote bag to fund their activities. Of course, their website makes virtually no mention of the fact a fund-drive is underway.

Yes, these obnoxious funding efforts to convince you of the value of their content (while completely screwing up the content) is simply the way it's always been done. It's time to find a new way. Listening to volunteer DJs umm and ahh their way through 15 minutes of describing all they great uninterrupted music and programs they have is just painful. Considering that Asheville is small, and it takes a maximum of 10 minutes to drive anywhere, 15 minutes of repetive rambling about the music I won't get to hear before darting into the store isn't serving their goal very well at all.

Perhaps use the internets better, and go after your listeners while they're on your website. Annoying your customers is not necessarily the best way to make them part with their money. Even if you throw in a tote bag.

Wow.

I'm finally home after a trip to San Francisco to meet my co-workers. It truly was surreal, in that I've been working for The Job for about a year, and had never met a co-worker, aside from Pete. When I joined, the team was 3 other people, and we were all in different states. New York. North Carolina. Michigan, California.

Now we are 18.

This is the first funded startup I've been a part of, and it's been fun to watch the growth of a company. I think we've assembled an excellent team of talented individuals. It certainly is a rather eclectic group (no, the children are not employees).

It is somewhat strange being the odd-man-out, clear across the country. This trip through, to finally meet everyone, helped solidify the realness of it all. When everyone is in different states, you've got a hip distributed team. When there's just one guy in the hills near the moonshine shack, he's just a remote worker . Ultimately, I wouldn't trade my grits and banjos for the world, and am grateful that an organization such as Radar is jiggy enough to keep a hillbilly round. But while proximity doesn't matter to Subversion or Jabber, we are all humans, and faces do matter.

I'd like to travel out there more often, and I aim to finally locate and hook up the iSight.

The point to this post? Technology allows you to never actually meet humans, but I wouldn't recommend it.

Don't forget, kids, that Talk Like a Pirate Day is coming up. Mark your calendarrrr, September the 19th. Yes, pirates are getting old. The meme is passing. Come on, Disney is working on their third freaking pirate movie already, so we know pirates are jumping the shark.

Some may claim that Chuck Norris is the next pirate-alike meme. I, for one, do not accept this conjecture. Chuck is merely a waypoint on the route to ninjas.

Ninjas are the next pirates. Ninjas are where it's at. Ninjas are hip. In fact, December 3rd is the Day of the Ninja. I suggest wearing ninja garb all day, particularly if you're flying or conducting business at government buildings. Everyone will get a good laugh.

Just a helpful note if you have both TiVo and children: set a parental control code or your children will.

Tonight, the wife and I sat down to enjoy some wholesome television, including Moral Orel and Aqua Teen Hunger Force. We quickly learned that our child, currently fast asleep, had set a parental control code and limited us to TV-13 or somesuch. I was unable to guess what the boy might've used for a code, so I turned to the interwebs.

After some Googling around, I learn that the only solution is to call TiVo customer support.

First, you get dumped into an IVR system that attempts to have a conversation with you. Instead of the obnoxious "press 1 if you are having trouble with...", you simply must speak your troubles into the phone, and it'll route your call accordingly. In theory. Instead, you get to have a conversation with a rude, dim, and deaf IVR system.

I was taught, as a child, not to interrupt when someone else is speaking. But the IVR never stopped talking. It'd tell me to state my problem, and then just keep yammering away about other options I might have, or that I could try using tivo.com, or perhaps I would like to answer a survey. Being a parent, I'm aware that if someone is talking, they certainly are not listening.

The IVR had difficulting understanding the word "no" even. Just like a child.

Ultimately, after enough cursing, I got bumped to the queue to speak to a live human... if I wished to wait an estimated 15 minutes.

After 40 minutes, I do finally get to speak to a human. During the 40 minute wait, I was reminded a dozen times that I could use tivo.com to solve my problem. Of course, tivo.com is what ultimately told me I had to use the phone.

Once I had Dusty (a very helpful and friendly support person, I must admit) on the line, I gained some insight into the workings of the TiVo parental control system. He provided me with a 4-digit code that would work until 4pm tomorrow. This was without contacting my device or having it dial in for an update. It would seem that in addition to the user-set parental control code, there is a secondary code that can be derived from a combination of the device service number and the date.

Considering the annoyance of the faulty voice-recognition IVR and the long wait times, I fully expected TiVo to have to send me a piece of physical postal mail with the code printed on a piece of paper in 4-to-6 weeks. I was pleasantly surprised.

Of course, no matter how annoying or evil TiVo gets, I'll remain loyal. We tried the ReplayTV and returned it within a day. Anything through the cable provider is bound to be even worse, both in terms of technology and service.

Parker Brothers has decided to "get with the times" and get rid of Monopoly(tm) Money in favour of Monopoly(tm) debit cards. This seems like a horribly bad idea, along the lines of New Coke. I imagine in six months, after general outcry, Parker will return bearing Monopoly(tm) Classic(tm), with real Monopoly(tm) Money.

I find the entire premise of modernizing the game to be off the mark. Is the fact that kids these days don't understand cash really what has contributed to the decline of "game night" in American families? "If only this simple board-game had a battery-powered keypad..." my wife said to me just the other night, while playing a game of chess.

Honestly, we're talking about Monopoly(tm), the game who still has Rich Uncle Pennybags as its mascot. The kids these days don't understand a five dollar bill, but they're down with the top hat and handle-bar mustache of the rich, white, oppressive, capitalist male? Really? Maybe they should just put the mustache on top of his head, instead of the hat, and rename the game to Trump(tm).

I appreciate capitalism, and that Parker Brothers needs to make a dime (or have their account credited in some fashion), so they are attempting to adjust to the market. But man, you're screwing with a classic, something that needs no screwing with. If you want to capture a slice of the market, don't go zorking about changing things on something close to everyone's youth. Go invent a new game for the youth of today. Leave us with our Monopoly(tm), our 6-1/2oz Cokes in a glass bottles, and stop mucking things about.

Of course, we'll all learn in a few years that the whole event was just a sham while they changed the recipe for the dice, removing sugar and replacing it with high fructose corn syrup. It's just a part of the conspiracy.

I will be holding court at the Vinings Starbucks , in Atlanta, Saturday night, with my son. I'll probably be there around 8pm or so. Email me (bob@ this domain) if you need more information or anything.

I've recently started using iTunes on the G5 hooked to the speakers, instead of the iPod connected to them. Today I realized that I hadn't been listening to anything at all, because iTunes simply never made it to the front of my stack of windows. With the physical iPod situated in front of me, I'm more apt to pick something to listen to.

Digital isn't always better. Sometimes a big-ass knob on a distinct device is functionally better than a whizzy-bang brushed metal UI without a dedicated knob.

Yes, I know the iPod doesn't have a knob. It has an iKnob (aka, the clickwheel with the nipple in the middle). But it's knobesque nonetheless. And the screen is always visible. No repeated command-tab to find it. It's just right there. On the desk.