Title Insurance and Homebuilders - An Unholy Alliance?

A little off topic for this site, I realize. Do you know what reinsurance is? I didn’t. Now I do.
I bought a house last year, and thought I understood all the numbers, and line items, and papers involved in the closing. For the most part I had it right, it’s what happened to my money after I left. It appears the builder of my home was "in bed" with the title company. It should have been obvious, after all the "design center" and title company shared a building, it was all too easy.
Take a look at the atricle referenced above. Believe it or not, I got my part of the $24 million First American Title is voluntarily returning to customers in some states. It’s obviously a move to side step litigation.
Well I learned something.

Godwins Law states:

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

The link below is to the Wikipedia entry.  It reads a bit like an essay on Bistromathics.

Godwin’s Law

I’ve posted about WiMax before, and how the bandwidth that is being set aside for this technology is the same bandwidth the entertainment industry uses. While I’m not happy about the possibility of losing space for wireless mics and other devices we need to have, Intel has announced that it will start to build WiMax hardware. The tricky part is the licencing of the bandwidth from the FCC to operate the equipment.The telcos are upset because they stand to lose a lot of money, unless they get in the game.
Below is a link to I, Cringley’s column on PBS where he talks about this situation. It is an interesting read, but the thought of WiMax everywhere makes me wince for the future of wireless as we know it.

What if Wal-Mart got in the WiMax Business?

This is kind of an old article from Mix Magazine, but I thought I’d mention it again. I guess I started thinking about this radio after a conversation I had regarding radio receivers and overloading, or de-sensing.  There is so much RF energy flying around these days, that cheap receivers are becoming less effective.  I guess this is monumentally important when it comes to wireless microphone receivers.

Tivoli Audio Model One

Kill Your Radio

I tell my step-son that he has to turn his homework in on time, beacuse thats what is expected in real life. I guess I’m wrong. In 1998 congress decided it needed to be better informed about this thing called the internet, and commissioned a study. 7 years later, the 283 page report has a firm grasp of the obvious. Although not wrong, it’s hardly ground breaking, or contains any speculative insight. At the bargain price of only $1million, which actually is cheap for the federal government, I guess you get what you pay for. CNN.com - Internet study finished — after 7 years.
( UPDATE: 5/30/2005 CNN no longer has the story posted.  So heres a new link to the law that comissioned the report, H.R.3332 and here’s another link to the final report made by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) entitled Signposts in Cyberspace)

According to Mix Magazine, XTA has the new DP428 to add to their line of digital audio processors. I have always been a fan of XTA’s work, and I think this is a great step in the right direction for them.

the DP428 offers 4×8 matrix capability, 48dB crossover slopes and a host of EQ solutions. There are four inputs, each offering gain control, a 28-band graphic EQ, eight filters and a delay.

UPDATE: (March 29th, 2005 8:47pm - XTA’s DPA428’s web site is up and running) XTA is also announcing the ‘Walkabout’ kit. They might as well put their brand name on technology that many have been using for years. The kit contains a NetGear WG511T PCMCIA card, for use in a laptop computer, and a TCP/IP to RS-232 bridge manufactured by Wiser. XTA states:

We have found that the Netgear WG511T wi-fi card provides greatly extended range and improved stability, over and above any WLAN systems built into laptops or tablet PCs (such as those featuring ‘Centrino’ processors).

XTA has also gone through the trouble of re-writing the firmware for the DP226, DP224 and SiDD to enable set-up of the ‘Walkbout’ from the respective units. With the continuing push for integration in control protocols in audio, perhaps the next generation of products will have the TCP/IP interface built-in, rather than having to rely on external equipment and manufacturers for this sort of functionality.

XTA DP428 Audio Management System, Walkabout Kit

For more information about purchasing XTA products in the US contact Group One Ltd.

I love it!! This is classic. Some clever programmers built an application that emulates iTMS client, but conveniently forgets to add the DRM to any files purchased through the service. Sounds great to me. iTMS gets their money and the consumer gets the music without the hassle of DRM.

As you can imagine Apple was not pleased, and promptly released a required upgrade to iTMS, (Well, required if you want to actually purchase music.) that presumably plugs the hole in the transaction scheme that allows the rogue client to operate. That was yesterday. (2005/3/21)

This is today, and the ‘clever folks’ have already worked around Apples fix

DRM-free iTunes: wash, rinse, repeat?

OK, so I’m a geek, and burn a lot of CD’s for various reasons. I have seen many discussions on the Theatre-Sound mailing list about which is the best brand, or manufacturer, or dye color to use. I like this article because aparently there are folks out there who geek out to this aspect of computing specifically. I need to check out Club CD Freaks, and CDRLabs.com the next time I plan on buying a spindle of new CDR’s.
In my experience, I have always had reasonably good luck burning CD’s that work by burning the important ones at a lower rate. It takes a little longer, but when it comes to burning an audio CD that needs to be a good burn, it’s worth the wait.

Wired News: Blank Discs Not Created Equal

I got mine in the mail yesterday. It takes a little bit of time to get it set up initially, but, WOW! I have my home theatre set up, and it’s never been easier to control it. If I want to watch TV, I press the “Watch TV” button, if I want to watch a DVD, I press the “Watch DVD” button, and the whole system configures itself. Now, when I watch TV, I usually watch it through my ReplayTV, and want to use the speakers in the TV for the sound. When I watch a DVD, I want to use the stereo and all of my speakers for the sound. That means I used to have to use a different remote to control the volume depending on weather I was watching TV or a DVD. No longer, It was easy to have the Logitech Harmony 688 set up to control the whole system just the way I want to control it. When I switch activities, the functionality of the remote changes to accomodate that activity.

I can’t believe how easy it is to use. I have had other “Universal” remote controls, but this one is smarter than the others. Deffnitely the coolest thing I have purchased in a long while.

Check it out here:
Logitech Harmony 688

Did anyone else see the Oscars this year?
Check out this link to Randy Thom’s acceptance speech for Sound Editing for his work on ‘The Incredibles’.

Perhaps someone from the Tony’s heard this…

Thanks Randy for saying it loud and clear.

Academy Awards - Sound Editing Acceptance Speech