burnin' it up

feed me

Waaaaay back in 2004 when I started blogging, no one was really sure whether feeds would really work or not.

I personally didn't like them because it was almost impossible to generate any web traffic stats from them. And I'm a total stats nut.

For the majority of menga dot net's life, it's had a feed. But I purposely made it "excerpt only" to force people to come to the site if they wanted to read full articles.

Well, screw that.

I've just "converted" the feed over to FeedBurner. FB has stats. Not great stats, but good enough for me.

If you're already a subscriber to my feed, don't worry, I've programmed my site to automatically switch you over from the old feed because darn it, I'm just that nice of a guy, right? Right.

Never let it be said that knowing your way around an .htaccess file didn't have its perks. 🙂

...

from the road

The driver's side turn signal lamp went out on my truck today, so I ponied up and bought a new set.

Yes, set.

Some people are content to change one bulb at a time. I don't do that. If one side blows out, both get replaced.

...

february 2009 will be a sad month.. or will it?

In case you weren't aware, the Federal Communications Commission, a.k.a. the FCC, has decided that February 19 2009 will be the absolute last day for analog television broadcast transmissions. All television broadcasting will be digital from that day forward.

Don't worry, you'll still be able to get free tv over the antenna. But you'll have to buy a stupid converter box.

So the question is.. what happens when these freq's "go dark"?

The answer is that tech companies are hot hot hot on getting their hands on them to deploy wireless tech instead of video signals. Only the biggest corporations will get the best frequencies. This is because the freq's will be auctioned off, so only those with the deepest pockets will get the longest-range freq's.

That shouldn't surprise anyone.

I've been scoping 'round the 'net to see if this will impact AM and FM radio at all, and from what I gather, it won't.

To me this is easy to understand. I don't think there's any chance in the world someone in government would be fool enough to propose making all radio digital.

Can you imagine someone.. anyone trying to make a universal solution to convert ALL car stereo systems to receive digital signals?

I don't think you'd find anyone at a vintage car show with those on their cars.. or anyone else for that matter.

AM and FM, thankfully, will continue to be broadcast as is.. unless anyone knows any different(?)