In 2008, when my parents sold the house I grew up in and started cruising the world in an RV, they gave me their flatscreen television for safe keeping. The expectation was that they’d do the On The Road thing for a couple of years and then take it back when they settled down. They’re still doing it, and the TV is now hilariously out of date. And a couple of weeks ago, the antenna connection stopped working, meaning it was time to upgrade.

The main requirements were: about 40 inches, wide viewing angle, at least 3 HDMI inputs, and never ever ever a Samsung. I was hoping I could also purchase it from a local brick-and-mortar store (instead of online) for an insignificant premium. We don’t need a 4k screen (at that size, and with our couch 11ft away from the screen, it wasn’t necessary. I spent lots of time reading Wirecutter, Rtings, and 4k.com.

The Wirecutter recommended TV (Vizio M43-C1) was very very close to what I needed, but it didn’t have a great viewing angle. I ended up deciding on a 43-inch Sony X830C. Great viewing angle and plenty of HDMI. Rtings felt the contrast wasn’t great and the surface was too reflective, but 4k.com didn’t really agree and general picture quality wasn’t super high on our list – I was sure it would be better than our old free screen.

Anyhow, it’s on the wall now. Six inches larger than the old screen, but covers up less wall. Definitely good. More detailed thoughts coming after I get more time to watch it.

UPDATE: After using the TV for the past two months, I’m definitely a fan. The reflectivity is not a problem, and the colors and viewing angle are excellent. We almost never use our Roku box anymore, which isn’t its fault, it’s just that our TV does everything we used it for. Android TV is pretty good, I think our TV has only crash-rebooted a couple of times (which is a weird concept). The UI could be a bit faster, but whatever. It’s nice having the Guide be accurate even though we only use an antenna (however our old TV used to get its guide had stopped working years ago). The biggest complaint I have is that the remote is sort of a disaster.

For the past two years, I’ve subscribed to MLB.TV. It allowed me to stream baseball games to my computer and my TV, and was a way better value proposition than getting the expensive cable package that would have provided me with NESN (the Red Sox’s local network). But I will not be subscribing for the 2013 season. It’s not because I’m no longer a Red Sox fan. It’s not because I’m not interested in watching their games. It’s because I’m sick of jumping through hoops to avoid their stupid blackout restrictions. If I was a Phillies fan, I could watch all of their games (except when they were playing the Red Sox). If I was a Red Sox fan from California, I’d be fine, too (unless the Sox were visiting the Giants or some such).

But because I live in the Red Sox’s “home television territory”, I’m unable to watch any of their games, both at home and away, without resorting to using proxies. Paying nearly a hundred dollars a year for the right to not get to watch any of the games I care about is very stupid. These are based on ancient cable contracts, I’m certain, but MLB has the upper hand in these negotiations. Are the networks really going to say “nevermind, we won’t show your games” if MLB insists on allowing paying customers to watch even local games online?

Until Major League Baseball joins us in the 21st century with their blackout restrictions, I’m not going to be paying for MLB.TV anymore. I’ll just have to enjoy the game at a bar, where Major League Baseball will get none of my dollars.

It’s been several years since microATX motherboards became commonplace, kicking the Home Theater PC movement into high gear. While researching hardware to build a new desktop computer, I ran into an interesting question: Can it be an HTPC? The “HT” part of the quotient would require it to be able to connect to my television, which is currently in a different room than my desktop, and I want to be able to still sit down at the computer. I don’t want heavy VGA running from the machine down the hallway. So it seems like I’ve only got a couple of options:

1. Run cables down the hallway, and hope M doesn't notice. (Good luck).
2. Wireless video. Half junk, half expensive vapor.
3. A thin client like a Sun Ray on my desktop.
4. Give up and pick either a new desktop, or an HTPC.

Right now, option 3 sounds the most promising. There are a handful of people who have talked about hooking high-end thin clients up to their TV to act as a home theater interface, but I’ve found no discussion of doing it the other way, as far as I can tell. I’ll be investigating this deeper over the next few weeks. But experimentation might be too expensive; I might just end up going for option 4.

How would you design a database of the names of Starfleet employees? At the very least, you’d have to handle standard European Human-style names (given name, family name); Bajoran-style names (family name, given name); and Klingon-style names (given name, son/daughter-of father’s name. And you’d probably need to have House name in there, too). I’m certain there are others that I’m leaving out and that we’re unaware of. How would you do this?

Corollary: How would you alphabetize a list of Starfleet employees names? Would Ro Laren come before or after Jean-Luc Picard?

Long-time Law and Order star, Jerry Orbach, has died from prostate cancer at 69. I love that show, and the character was just so dang witty and sarcastic. He’ll be missed.

/me pours a beer on the curb

Another thing that might be happening on November 16: Ken Jennings' Jeopardy loss. The rumor is that he lost on day 75, and unless they show another week of special episodes or something, that’ll be when it’s aired. I’ll have to tear myself away from Half-Life 2 for a half an hour, I guess.

Jeopardy is showing new episodes again, and Ken Jennings has won show number 39 in a row. My favorite among some KenJen statistics: The last time that Final Jeopardy was mathematically necessary (i.e. the last time Ken did not have more than double the score of the next-best contestant) was June 29.

Update, 09-08: Huge KenJen spoiler.

Alton Brown’s sorta-blog, updated every couple weeks or so. See his March 5 post in particular.

Although it’s not quite what I had in mind, Nomad will find these TV RSS feeds awfully close.

Watching Season 3 of our Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Ghetto Box Set, I came across the episode Family Business. It’s not an extremely notable episode (besides the old-Ferrengi-lady nudity), but it sticks out prominently in my mind (and not because of the nudity). It’s the first time we meet freighter captain Kasidy Yates. I had known that Penny Johnson was in the series eventually, and I was dreading it. I could never trust Sherry Palmer. Never! The episode was over before I realized how great of an actress she really is. I didn’t doubt her sincerity and utter likeableness in DS9 for a moment. It totally blew me away.