I saw Serenity last night. What a great movie. I won't say more, for those of you who haven't yet seen it, other than to say, Go fucking see the movie!
Great quote from the Serenity Official Visual Companion, out of a couple paragraphs from Nathan Fillion:

I remember when Joss called me, back when he'd just written the movie. He said, "I'm done, I'm done, I finished." I said, "Read me the first line and the last line." He goes, "Okay, the first line is, 'Earth-That-Was.' And the last line is, 'Wow, sure was weird the way Mal died in the first act.'"

They're generally pretty silly, and often presume something about the test-taker (religious beliefs chief among them). Nevertheless, when the alternative is studying Fundamentals of Applied Electromagnetics, they can be a welcome diversion. Here are the results from one I just took (link to the test below results):

I wrote before about the problems with my new Sony TV. The same problems persist, but what started off as a very pleasant experience with Sony support has grown into a frustrating fight against a corporate behemoth.
The TV arrived on August 30, 2005. It broke on Monday, Sep 5. Crutchfield was now out of stock on the TV, so rather than have them replace it, I decided to arrange for repair from Sony. Tuesday the 6^th an Elite Electronics tech came out, tinkered a bit, and decided I needed a new part. Because parts are apparently scarce for the new TV, he arranged with Sony to have an exchange sent to me. He called and informed me of this on Wednesday or Thursday (the 8^th). I called Sony on Friday the 9^th to verify that he had, in fact, done this, and they seemed to show a record of it. The second-tier CSR to whom I was transferred told me I would receive a call within three days (I confirmed this with her several times) to arrange delivery of the new TV.
Well, today is that third day, and I had not received a call from Sony, so I called them. After again speaking with two tiers of support, the CSR told me that it would be two weeks from the 9^th before I could expect a call from the freight company to arrange local delivery. I tried to explain to the CSR that if they had been this informative on the very first call, I would simply have asked Crutchfield to take care of it. I only went with Sony because their various representatives implied it would be quicker. However, no expression of dissatisfaction was enough to get Sony to take any additional steps to help me out. The only good thing I can say about Sony is that they were initially very gracious on the phone (I mean you, Lola), and they were willing to send me an advance replacement (which, frankly, so is Crutchfield, and so should every company).
Checking today, Crutchfield has them in stock, and with a 10 minute phone call I was able to arrange to have a new TV shipped to me. Unfortunately , it will take seven to eight days, as before, but that's still quicker than Sony. I've already received email confirmation of my exchange from Crutchfield, with very nice wording, but a couple of key words gave me pause:

On behalf of everyone here at Crutchfield, please accept our apologies for the problem you had with your order. Even with the best intentions, sometimes things don't go as planned and we hope this shipment takes care of it.

As promised, we are preparing the shipment listed below. We'll contact you again when it has been accepted and processed.

The "accepted and processed" part has me waiting to cancel the exchange with Sony until I get ship confirmation from Crutchfield.
The only thing that would make my experience with Crutchfield better would be if they expedited the new TV to me, and if they arranged with Sony financing to re-time the 18 months of interest-free financing I used to buy it in the first place.

Undoubtedly the effects of hurricane Katrina will be felt for years to come, but here's one I didn't expect. I ordered a textbook for my EE 125 class from half.com, and have been wondering where it is (it should've been here by now). Well, today I got a refund notice. In particular, note the part in italics:

Dear --------,
 
We are writing to inform you that Half.com seller mowfoo has issued you a refund in the amount of $114.88.
 
To see more information about this transaction visit the Purchases page in the My Account section of Half.com. The funds should be credited to your credit card within the next two business days.
 
The seller has left the following note regarding this refund:
We have checked the status of the shipment, it seems that it has gone missing as we have lost tracking of the book after the damaging hurricane. The book had been idle in Jackson, MS for some time now. Since it has been quite a while, I do not expect you would want to wait for another replacement copy. Hereby I will refund you in full. Million apologies for any inconvenience arise.
 
This is a notice only, do not reply.
 
Thanks for shopping at Half.com,
The Half.com by eBay Customer Service Team

I'm very impressed that the seller was paying attention; I expected to wait until say, Tuesday, and then have to jump through a bunch of hoops to get my money refunded.

Well, I received my TV on August 30, 2005. I was using it without any problems until last night (Mon, Sep 5, 2005). A few days ago I subscribed to Comcast digital cable, including their HD PVR (a Motorola DCT6412 III). The PVR is no TiVo, that's for sure, and TiVo has announced an HD product with CableCARD support. But that's not the urgent matter.
My new TV has has failed! I was watching the PVR last night, on a standard definition channel (not that it matters). I paused, did stuff for about 20 minutes, then came back, only to find the image colors wrong. Basically, the brightest areas of the screen turn purple/pink! That is, whites turn pink, yellows turn red, etc. I've included some pics of the screen. The camera seems to wash out the pink a bit, but you should be able to see how it's not white. Furthermore, you should be able to see how darker colors appear relatively correct (although I suspect they're off from what they would be in a functioning model).
You can see from the pictures that it does not matter which input the TV is on (in all the photos, the signal is coming over the HDMI port); the Sony on-screen menus are affected, too. Also noteworthy: if I adjust the "Picture" setting, I can increase or decrease the number of affected pixels in any given frame. Thinking about things, it seems that the green color channel is shutting off for high green values. For example, yellow turns red. Yellow is red and green, so if it's turning red, it means that the green channel is being turned off. Similarly for white, which is red, green and blue together, if the green channel shuts off, you're left with red and blue, which gives magenta (or purple/pink). If the channel doesn't saturate, it doesn't seem to cause the LCD to turn off. I've seen greens in the images, so it partially works.

Click the images for the full-size version (very large)

I called Sony this morning. They were very kind, and in short order set up an appointment for a technician to come out, on Thursday morning. The lovely and competent CSR Lola recommended I call them (Elite Electronics of Alameda, CA) to confirm, and after some difficulty communicating the model number, they said they could be out today! So, I'm waiting for 6:30 pm to roll around, and hopefully they'll be able to repair it on the spot (although I doubt it).