Month: October 2007

Video cable for iPod Classic

My new iPod needed a special new cable to output video (par for Apple), so I ordered one. It arrived last night and I replaced the cable I was using in my car with the new cable.

So Prius + AV mod + iPod Classic + iPod AV cable = video on Prius.

Not that I will use it much (definitely not while driving) but still kinda cool.

The aspect ratio is funky on the Prius, it takes 4×3 video but shows it wider, since the screen isn’t 4×3. I suppose I could figure out what the aspect ratio is, and put video on my iPod that is appropriately squished, so when it get stretched on the Prius, it shows in the right aspect (though slightly cropped on top and bottom)…

(my aspect ratio math here)

The Price of Ignorance

I brought my car in for service today…

60,000 mile service is $420. Plus I get synthetic oil, which costs like $50 more.

They just called me, saying the drive belt needs replacing, for $120, and there’s oil in some intake someplace, which needs to be taken apart and cleaned, for $192.

So I’m looking at around $800, of essentially voluntary work (nothing was actually *broken*).

Sigh.

Guess that’s the price for not taking the time to understand the mechanisms myself, to be able to do my own maintenance or at least dispute excessive charges.

— update —

Yep, bill came to $800. Of which, $650 was listed as “labor”…

Maybe next time I’ll compare prices with the place just down the way from Staples…

Life in Rapture

My dream last night, in part, was this:

I am renting an apartment in Rapture, the undersea city in the game Bioshock.

It’s a pretty nice modern apartment, very clean and minimal (unlike the apartments in the game). Everything is going well, but then there is a power failure. I am watching TV at the time, and it is on a battery backup, so I don’t immediately notice. But then I look out the window, and the city is all dark.

There is rumbling and a crash, and the power comes back on. Everything seems ok, but I gradually notice sprays of water throughout the apartment. One wall cracks, and water then begins to gush in.

“That’s what I get,” I think to myself, “for getting an apartment at the bottom of the ocean.”

Then I woke up.

More PRS-505 Details

From Sony’s site:

What are some of the most important changes between the PRS-500 and the PRS505?

  1. The PRS-505 has a new screen that has a faster refresh than the PRS-500’s screen and is also a bit lighter. The new screen also supports 8 shades of gray vs. 4 on the PRS-500.
  2. The User interface is much improved with:
    • Page turn buttons moved the right side of the Reader
    • The Numerical numbers now match up against the screen so when menus are displayed the appropriate button is to the right of the entry.
    • The Menu key is now by itself and clearly marked
    • The Jog stick is gone replace with four way arrow buttons and a center enter button.
  3. Books have become easier to search as there are now tools that sort the books into alphabetical groupings for Titles or Authors.
  4. The PRS-500 had a single storage media slot that could handle both SD or Memory Sticks. These cards could support either 2GB (SD) or 4GB (MS) for a maximum external storage of up to 4GB. The PRS-505 has two slots in parallel that allow for SD and Memory Stick Duo cards. These cards can support up to 2GB (SD) and 8GB (Memory Stick Duo). Because there are two separate slots the total amount of external storage the PRS-505 can support is up to 10GB.
  5. The USB functionality is much improved
    • The PRS-505 supports the USB 2.0 standards which allow for faster transfer of data.
    • The PRS-505 can be charged when the battery is empty from the USB port of almost any PC even if there is no software loaded on it. The PRS-500 needed to be plugged into a PC running pre-installed software before it can charge and even then it could not charge if the internal Reader’s battery was dead.
  6. The Connect Reader software is being replaced with “eBook Library v 2.0” which does look and work much like the older software. The only noticeable difference is that with a PRS-505 the new software can use a new Auto-sync feature. Please note that the PRS-505 cannot work with the older Connect Reader software.

Sony Reader v2 is out

Sony announced an updated version of their eBook Reader (PRS-505)!

Differences from the old one (PRS-500):

  • 8-shade greyscale instead of 4
  • Improved page turn speed
  • Twice as much internal storage (now 128MB)
  • Memory is accessible directly as a mass storage device over USB
  • Improved button layout
  • Now comes in silver or dark blue instead of just dark blue
  • Improved screen contrast
  • Automatic Sync option
  • Lower price (now $300, was $350)

Will I get one? Well, you know me, so probably. I really like the v1 one, and better refresh speed, contrast, and more shades of greyscale would all be good features to have.