Someone in the area is selling an entire Rabbinic library. I’m sure there’s a lot there I would be interested in (I was just thinking to myself last week that I should get a hard copy of the Shulkhan Arukh and/or the Mishnah Berurah, of which I seem to have 1 random volume), the problem is I can’t justify spending $1000 on a collection of books sight unseen. (I mean seriously, how do we know that it’s not nothing but books on the Zohar from a Chabad library, or English story books, or something else crappy?) However, I might be willing to spend $250 for a quarter of a rabbinic library if 3 other people wanted to split this. Perhaps also a local synagogue might be interested in it.

hate dubya

Originally uploaded by bachrach44

I should mention that this person also had the largest Nationals logo I’ve ever seen painted on each side of his car. Suffice it to say I don’t think this is a person who hides his opinions.

We’ve completed almost a full decade of the new millennium, so why does it feel like I’m still living a late 20th century existence? Here are a few inventions I would like to (realistically) see in the next year. All of them could be done with existing technology relatively simply. If you decide to make one of these and make a million dollars, all I ask for is a brief mention when you write your memoirs.

• More and more people are listening to music on their phones. How about a cell phone app that allows us to subscribe to podcasts on our phones? It seems so blatantly obvious I couldn’t believe that it didn’t already exist. (Hey mac zealots – does this exist for the iPhone? If not it seems like an obvious istore app.)
• I spend way too much time in grocery store check out lines. Embed each product with an RFID chip (you know, instead of a bar code). When I get to the checkout, I push my cart through an RFID transponder, similar to the EZ-Pass system employed on many highways. I swipe my credit card and walk out to my car. The initial hardware investment could be more than offset in the long term by the savings from not having to employ check out clerks and baggers.
• People like to be constantly connected with their cell phones, PDAs, blackberrys, etc. These are all fine devices except for one time – when you’re driving a car. Many states have already made using a cell phone while driving a misdemeanor or fineable offense, and more are likely to do so. What people do in their cars though is usually listen to the radio. Radios meanwhile, are going through a very quiet revolution. HD radio is better than traditional radio in every conceivable way, and prices are falling, but there is no killer app yet which has pushed people to convert. The killer app is actually HD Radio tagging which allows for individual identification of a specific receiver. All you really need to do is assign a serial number to an HD radio, sort of like a MAC address on an ethernet network, and then have a service (which people would have to pay for I suppose), where the broadcasters will simply broadcast out data on secondary channels. From here you can do pretty much anything you want. First up: a text to speech program which will read you your email in the car.
• More public domain work, especially that of a historic nature, being made freely available on the internet. There seemed to be a huge for for this a few years ago but it seems to have stalled, and I can’t figure out why.
• Flying cars and colonies on mars. Seriously people, we’re like, 9 years late for this already.

I usually hate calling tech support, and having them solve my problem in less time than it takes me to describe it, because then I feel stupid for even calling in with such a trivial problem. However, I think I hate it even more when I call tech support, talk on the phone for 6 hours, get escalated to tier 3, and still no one can figure out what my issue is, or has even seen anything quite like it before.

I am completely sold on Amazon video on demand. The truth is, for the last ten years or so the entertainment industry has been experimenting with different methods for content distribution, and I haven’t really liked any of them.

DVDs were nice, except they required you to get what was then an expensive television to really enjoy them. DVD zoning was insanely stupid though, and DVDs were generally overpriced.

Movielink (which is still around) was a good idea, (Pay a small fee to download a DRMed movie which would play for 1 day), but poorly executed. The selection sucked, there were few new releases, and worst of all, you had to install their stupid software, which meant that it wouldn’t work on non-Windows machines. The DRM also restricted the movie you downloaded to the computer you downloaded it on, so there was no moving it to another machine or watching on your television.

Netflix was also a good idea, just not for someone like me. I watch less than a movie a month, so paying a monthly fee is a waste of money.

Hulu is also good, and I don’t mind sitting through the commercial breaks, but their selection is limited. Some of what they have is great (where else can you still see the A-team?), but if I want new releases I’m out of luck. They also play movies in the browser

Back when I was on college (no money, lots of time), I simply pirated everything. Now that I’m an “adult” (by physical age of course, not the way I act), I have little time and more money, so I’m more than happy to pay for convenience and legality. Amazon VOD has done that. You can either buy or rent a movie through your amazon account. The rental fees are reasonable ($1-$4 usually), anbd the purchase prices are usually less than those of the corresponding DVD. There’s no software to download. I first discovered it when I was trying to get episodes from Battlestar Galactica season 4. Within about 30 seconds of stumbling on the website I was watching the episode – no software, no ads, no lengthy user agreements, no crap. They allow you to either download the video or stream it (your choice), and you can also download to your DVR or other medium if you would rather watch on your TV. The quality is “only” DVD quality (480p), but since I don’t have an HDTV (yet), it’s good enough. Media that you buy is stored in your video library which you can access any time, from any machine, and watch online. They also give you the first two minutes free as a teaser, and as the kicker, they have sporting events.