* I\u2019ve been searching for TVs. Here\u2019s the thing: TV makers are no longer making high-end 1080p sets, they\u2019re only making 4K sets at the high end. And yet right now, there\u2019s no 4K programming other than certain Netflix or Amazon outlets; everything has to up-convert. Lower-end 4K sets don\u2019t up-convert well, so buying a (comparatively) inexpensive 4K set means getting shitty video for the next 3 years while buying the best-available 1080p set means five years instead of ten for viable lifespan. \u00a0The practical upshot of all this is: I should have bought a new TV as soon as the cousins took theirs with them, but instead I now need to wait at least a year, possibly more. We are in the sour spot of the U-curve.<\/p>\n
* In the course of all this searching around, I went by Fry\u2019s, and it\u2019s staggering how different it is since I was first exposed to Fry\u2019s 13 years ago. Time was, it was jam-packed with shelves higher than your head stacked with all manner of things that aren\u2019t there any more. No PDAs. Precious few books. \u00a0Not a lot in the way of Mac accessories. \u00a0And no shelves higher than your chest, and very<\/em> wide and expansive aisles. The Amazon bomb has gone off, and it shows in Silicon Valley retail.<\/p>\n * I put the work AT&T SIM in the Moto X with Lollipop yesterday and tried to use it normally, turning it on around 10. By bedtime, it had only bled down to 50% with normal use. \u00a0Now, the big caveat was that I was in no way using it for mail or audio like usual, but neither was I plugging it in at every opportunity. I actually turned on location and used it to navigate once, I was fairly constantly looking at Instagram or RSS or Wikipedia, and it seems to have done OK. \u00a0Maybe it\u2019s settled in; the time to test will be tomorrow or maybe over the weekend of the 4th. But the Moto X, even now, is the insurance against a sudden change of circumstance, and could certainly be my everyday phone until something better comes down the pike if such were necessary.<\/p>\n * Nerf needs to deliver the Rivals series soon. A 70mph Nerf ball is the last argument of technicians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" * I\u2019ve been searching for TVs. Here\u2019s the thing: TV makers are no longer making high-end 1080p sets, they\u2019re only making 4K sets at the high end. And yet right now, there\u2019s no 4K programming other than certain Netflix or Amazon outlets; everything has to up-convert. Lower-end 4K sets don\u2019t up-convert well, so buying a … <\/p>\n