In 4 years, the Back to the Future movie will be as old to us as 1955 was to us when Back to the Future came out.
- @joedrew

And to top it off:

The Wonder Years aired 88-93, was set 68-73. A modern Wonder Years would be set in 1991.
- @joedrew

I’d personally love to see a modern Wonder Years set in 1991. Queen’s These Are the Days of Our Lives would be the most appropriate intro given the year, but I’d prefer Milli Vanilli or MC Hammer. I’d also nominate Gilbert Gottfried for the narration. Steve Martin if Gilbert turns it down. The Gulf War and Somalia Conflict would obviously replace Vietnam. I see this being very workable.

Diagonal width and depth of a TV

People are obsessed with getting the biggest TV, measured by diagonal width and the thinnest TV that they can afford. Of course anyone who knows even a bit about TV’s knows that you can actually an optimal TV size based on the viewing distance in your setup. THX standards are that the back row of seats have a viewing angle of 26-36 degrees. My understanding is that movie theaters standardize on 30 degrees. If your TV is too large for the distance between the screen and the viewer, your angle will be in excess of 36 degrees. That’s a bad thing.

Screen depth is nothing more than a novelty in most cases. Even the larger TV’s on sale today will mount easily and are no more than a few inches at worst (mostly plasma’s). Your paying a lot of money for something you can only see if you stand at the right angle, normally with your face pressed against a wall.

MHz (now GHz) clock speed of a computers processor

This is one of my favorite myths. Apple was right, clock speed really isn’t a good indicator of computer performance. This was true 10 years ago, and it’s even more true today. Most of the time a computer slows down because of memory limitations. When a computer runs low on RAM it uses the slower hard drive (swap). At this point the memory and the disk I/O are the bottleneck, not the CPU. Almost nobody knows what their disk I/O is. Few know how much RAM their computer has or what they really need (hint: today you want 2 GB per physical core).

Bus speed? Number of cores? HyperThreading enabled? 64-bit (makes more of a difference on Mac than Windows since most still run 32 bit)? Turbo Boost?

I’ll take a slower Intel i7 over an Intel Core 2 in most cases. Especially true on a laptop where the integrated graphics will mean better battery life.

In most cases Microsoft’s Windows Experience Index, part of the Windows System Assessment Tool in Vista and Windows 7 is a better benchmark for performance than CPU clock speed.

MP (Mega Pixels) camera resolution

This is another pervasive myth. The higher the MP rating on a camera, the better the camera. It’s largely false. The greater the MP, the larger the file size. It also means you’ll need more memory cards or higher capacity ones to take the same number of pictures. In most cases you’ll end up reducing the picture anyway since no printers out there is printing 12 MP of data onto a 3×5″ piece of paper. Your monitor doesn’t support that resolution either.

The biggest factor in camera photo quality is the lenses. Most consumer grade cameras, especially on the cheaper side use terrible plastic lenses, or low-grade glass at best. Optical grade glass and lenses are expensive. Plastic is cheap.

Most cameras do OK in well-lit situations, they suffer in low light situations. A larger sensor will often (but not always) do better in these cases (large sensors can matter in many ways). A cheap LED used for flash can also be problematic when its color is really off, this is common on cell phones and cheap point & shoot cameras.

The last reason your photos likely don’t look good is because most cameras automatically write JPEG files to your memory card. That’s really nice and convenient, but remember JPEG is a lossy format. Data is lost just between the sensor and your memory card. RAW however uses more space on your memory card but ensures that the whole photo is saved. Then you can save as JPEG on your computer and choose how much data you want to sacrifice for a smaller file size. TIFF can do fine as well. Many people (and almost all professionals) fire up Photoshop or another photo editor and do some basic corrections to get the photo how they want it. Just a few tweaks by someone with a good eye and it can make a bad photo look very good.

Getting a high MP camera just means you’ll be spending more on memory cards, it doesn’t mean you’ll take better pictures.

24kt Cabling

Would you want anything less than the highest quality gold connecting your consumer grade electronics? Of course not. 24kt all the way!

Truth is, if you have consumer grade gear, you’ll likely get no benefit from these insanely expensive cables, than from the cheap stuff on MonoPrice.com or Amazon’s house brand with no mention of what purity the gold plating is. Your equipment isn’t that sensitive if you bought it during a 4th of July sale at a national chain and got a coupon for 50% off 1 DVD with your purchase.

The reason gold is used for the connector is that gold has good conductivity but doesn’t corrode. Silver is actually best but tarnishes which could impede your connection. In most cases aluminum, steel, or copper will do just fine and never corrode on you.

In many cases those generic cables are made in the same factories as the brand name ones. They just don’t carry the branding and marketing hype.

Make your internet faster with 802.11n

802.11n is up to 300Mbps! Your old 802.11g is only 54Mbps. ‘n’ comes after ‘g’ so it’s better! You’ve seen that before. Just remember this: Most consumers even in good areas have connections that burst at up to maybe 20Mbps. Unless you have some serious broadband you won’t see any benefit speed wise. 802.11n does have better signal strength thanks to MIMO, assuming you hardware supports it, and you actually need it. Most devices that support both 2.4GHz and 5GHz aren’t dual band. Instead they are selecting one or another which doesn’t help as much as a true dual band access point. Most people won’t see anything other than placebo effect at best. They may have faster CPU’s but generally speaking they shouldn’t consume much CPU anyway. My 802.11g averages around 1-2% with a fair number of firewall rules.

5Ghz can benefit some folks, as can faster local network access if you move lots of data within your network. For most people however the benefits just aren’t there today despite what the numbers will make you think. It’s a Ferrari in a traffic jam at best.

Linen thread count

Linen lately is all about the thread count. The higher the thread count, the better quality and strength. Largely this is actually true, at least when taken at face value. Of course there’s diminishing return somewhere around the 300 mark. Truth is that many actually lie about their thread count. Shocking right?

Conclusion

People buy things and make insane purchases simply based on a number which they presume is all-encompassing and correlates with quality. In practice however, this is often not the case.

If you ever find yourself fixated on a number when shopping for something, stop and wonder if you’re falling for this trap. Marketers use this very effectively. Just a little digging about what the number really represents will generally show you that the number is a marketing decoy.

I can also say that I remember him before he was actually famous.

Seinfeld

I’m borderline obsessed with Seinfeld, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Seinfeld starring Jerry Seinfeld aired on NBC from 1989 – 1998. Needless to say this is one of the first I found. Seinfeld’s actual apartment exterior is in LA, not New York. Notably if you pan around a little bit you’ll see palm trees you’d never find in New York. It’s actually somewhat bizarre:

Monks Cafe is also real, though in real life it’s Tom’s Restaurant. Google has it a little washed out, but you can tell what it is:

The famous “Soup Nazi” is no longer there, but there’s now a chain of stores operating around. This is the famous location in New York where it all started:

Roseanne

Rosanne ran on ABC from 1988 to 1997 featuring Roseanne Connor played by Rosanne Barr living in fictional blue-collar Lanford, Illinois. The real house is in Evansville, Indiana. It still looks almost identical:

Family Matters

Family Matters aired ABC from 1989 – 1997 as part of TGIF and CBS for 1997 – 1998. The famous Winslow house is actually located in Chicago. I’m not sure if the building to the left was there when the show aired. I don’t recall it being there:

Perfect Strangers

Perfect Strangers aired on ABC 1986-1993 mostly during TGIF. Here’s Larry & Balki’s apartment exterior from Perfect Strangers (TV) from the 2nd season until they moved into the house:

Here’s the Chicago Chronicle where they worked. I’m pretty sure these are the doors used for the revolving door bit at the end of the intro:

Brady Bunch

The Brady Bunch aired from 1969 – 1974 on ABC. Here’s the famous Brady Bunch house. Despite the changes the owners have made to deter tourists from gawking and even crossing onto the property, it’s obviously the Brady house (more about the history of the house can be found here):

Full House

Full House aired from 1987 – 1995 on ABC mainly during TGIF. The Tanners lived on 1882 Girard Street in San Francisco, CA. Many mistakenly think that the tanner residence is depicted in the intro, when in fact that’s actually them having a picnic in the park across from the famous Painted Ladies.

The actual house used is another San Francisco house:

Friends

Friends aired on NBC from 1994 – 2004 featuring a group of friends who somehow managed to afford a rather large apartment in NYC despite struggling financially:

Malcolm in the Middle

Malcom in the Middle aired on Fox from 2000 – 2006. Interestingly the house looks much nicer in real life than it did on the show:

Happy Days

Happy Days was an iconic show that aired from 1974 – 1984. The house is a little obscured by trees, but still recognizable. I can hear the The Fonz’s motorcycle from here:

All in the Family

All in the Family ran on CBS from 1971 – 1979 then was continued as Archie Bunker’s Place from 1979 – 1983. Here’s the house from the original All in the Family:

The Jeffersons

The Jeffersons was a spin-off of All In The Family that aired on CBS from 1975 – 1985. Here’s their Upper East Side apartment:

The Cosby Show

The Cosby Show aired on NBC from 1984 – 1992 starring Bill Cosby. The actual house is in lower Manhattan. Cosby is said to have insisted that the show be taped in New York and was taped at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens:

Who’s the Boss

Who’s the Boss ran on ABC from 1984 to 1992. It actually debuted on the same day as The Cosby Show. I even managed to get the house at about the same angle you’d remember it in the intro:

Cheers

Cheers ran on NBC from 1982 – 1993. The Bull & Finch Pub became famous because of the show:

The Wonder Years

The Wonder Years aired from 1988 – 1993 on ABC. There’s no street view available yet, but the house is visible on Google Maps:

Married With Children

Married with children aired on Fox from 1987 – 1992 featuring Ed O’Neil as shoe salesman Al Bundy. My research strongly suggests the house with the black roof on the right is the house:

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air aired on NBC from 1990 – 1996 starring Will Smith. No street view for this one either but you can make out the house from the satellite view pretty well:

The Love Boat

The Love Boat aired on ABC from 1977 – 1986. The ship mostly used was the Pacific Princess, now MS Pacific. And yes, she’s still afloat:

Leave it to Beaver

Leave it to Beaver aired on CBS then ABC from 1957 – 1963. Leave it to Beaver is actually an interesting story. The Pine Street house is on the Universal set and still exists.

For the Leave it to Beaver movie, they built another Pine Street house. This and the Munster house are now part of Wisteria Lane on ABC’s Desperate Housewives. In fact several of those houses were in movies or TV shows.

Growing Pains

Growing Pains aired on ABC from 1985 – 1992. The house shown in the Growing Pains opening credits is actually on the WB backlot from what I understand, and was re purposed for Gilmore Girls.

The Partridge Family, Dennis The Menace, Bewitched, Friends Fountain

The Warner Brothers Ranch has a bunch of pretty cool homes and artifacts including the Friends Fountain. You can see them from overhead. Mouse over to see what’s what.

Ghostbusters

This is a movie not a sitcom, but I’m still listing it because it’s awesome. The Ghostbusters firehouse:

This blog post took way longer to compile than I even thought it would. Hope you enjoyed it.

I couldn’t resist the awkward screen grab.

I knew it would be all over the web a matter of minutes after it aired. If he survives a round or two it will be due to fans not the judges. I think that will be more interesting than the actual dancing. Judges didn’t seem to impressed but regardless he says it was the “most incredible fun thing” he’s ever done. He’s got spirit. You can’t deny that.

He apparently hurt his leg today but still plans to dance. I wonder if this will help or hurt him.

While I’m on the topic I just noticed a few minutes ago San Jose Mercury News mentioned my last post.

[Via Engadget]

I’ve been reading Fark.com for several years now. Seeing that it was featured on Jeopardy (again) is extremely amusing. VentureBeat even managed to get a quote on it from Drew.

February 17, 2009 (125 days from this post) full-power analog TV will be no more. If your still enjoying OTA analog signals, see the above video for how to get a digital TV converter. I found the video pretty amusing.

For most people who use cable or satellite nothing is involved. For those who still use OTA TV, they may need a converter if their TV can’t handle it. For broadcasters it does however have some complexities.

Southpark last week featured an internet outage as a plot. Pretty clever though I was disappointed to not see 1 reference to the series of tubes. I’m not sure if the reference to Linksys (Cisco) being responsible for the Internet being down was a complement or an insult. Though those Linksys boxes are infamous with just dying like that until you power cycle. Any other brand seems to have figured out how to not have that issue. Linux firmware on a Linksys also seems to remedy it. References to “Independence Day” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” were clever.

You can watch it online by clicking on the screen grab.

The FAMILY GUY tribute special celebrates the side-splitting irreverent humor of this fan-favorite animated series by taking a look back at some of the funniest moments, satirical spoofs and music numbers of the past 100 episodes.

Emphasis Mine

You see the Kool-Aid Man breaking down the wall in the courtroom, then slowly backing out realizing the situation. Then, when the 100th episode (Stewie Kills Lois) actually airs, sure enough, this is in there.

I guess this was an obscure joke making fun of special episodes, since the entire thing was somewhat of a spoof considering the interviews with panel participants. Very funny.

I don’t think this was a glitch since Fox put out the press release nearly a month ago (October 8 ) mentioning the order of those episodes. So the order was planned. I think they would have had more than enough time to edit had that not originally been slated to be episode #100.

Anyway, the special was OK, but I’ve never been a fan of those recap, best of, funniest moments, or anniversary episodes on any show. Stewie Kills Lois of course is looking to become a classic (damn cliff hangers).

A 21 click salute in his honor will be performed by overweight TV viewers everywhere.