As many of you know, my primary hobby is Model Railroading. While my professional life revolves around technology, my first love has been the trains. There are some changes occurring in model railroading that are quite shocking to the technological unaware.
What most of you don't know is that Model Railroading is quite a large industry. Some say that there are millions of people around the world that 'play with trains' at least once a year. Personally, I don't subscribe to that number as I suspect that the number mentioned includes all of those that pull out a train set to go around the Christmas tree and I don't consider that a person involved in the hobby.
Regardless, there are several magazines dedicated to the hobby. The mainstays are Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman. Both of these have been around for at least 75 years. There are also several 'hard core' model railroad magazines such as Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette, Mainline Modeler. Then there are the magazines that are trying to vie for the general public but aren't quite hard core. These include Model Railroading and Railroad Model Journal. Lastly there are numerous magazines dedicated to a specific scale such as Sn3 or to a specific railroad such as the Southern Pacific.
The problem is that both Mainline Modeler and Model Railroading have closed there doors in the last couple of months. I don't quite have the details on Model Railroading but I can tell you that Mainline Modeler has been on the shelves since January 1980. I own every issue.
I suspect that the real issue is that these magazines could not afford the drop in readership like the other magazines. I suspect that the Internet is severely cutting into their sales. Why would I purchase a magazine when I can get more information on a specific prototype on the web? I also have access to many modelers web sites where I can see their layouts and there is a surprising amount to modeling tips on the Internet.
BTW, if you have read this far and so not know what REAL model railroading is like go here and check things out. Specifically, check out the Craftsman Corner Forum.
Is there a solution to this problem? Is it even a problem? I'm sure it feels like a problem to those personally involved. I think it is just the evolution of the industry.
Kalmbach, the largest producer of these magazines, has started to produce a lot of 'special issue' magazines and annual magazines. I think this is their answer. By producing a magazine of higher value, I suspect that they feel more people will be inclined to purchase it.
As sad as it is to see these guys go, I think that we will be seeing more magazines fall in the future.
The real tragedy is the fact that when these magazines go, it becomes harder to attract the first time model railroaders. When you are first starting out, these magazines were the perfect vehicle to finding out just how exciting this hobby can be. It is so much more than running the train around the Christmas tree or even setting up some track on the living room floor.
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My mother-in-law is spending a couple of weeks with us. I happen to be lucky in the fact that I like my mother-in-law and we get along just fine. She is the definition of old school. She grew up outside of the US and moved here when she was in her late twenties. She is in her sixties now.
She does not have, nor has ever had, cable television. I bought her a CD player and later a DVD player. She has only recently started to use an answering machine. She gets all of her news from the local newscasts on her television. She likes a few shows on TV but does not get to watch them very often because she might be busy when they are on. She gets sucked into the teasers during commercials.
I tried to explain to her that she should quit trusting the media. Whether the station has the same political slant as her is irrelevant. There are numerous instances where the media is just plain wrong.
The fact that we run our lives differently really came into focus when our waffle iron started to flake out on us. It just so happened that my wife had a catalog on the coffee table that had cooking supplies in it. I started to peruse the waffle irons and then when out to the catalogs website.
After determining which one I wanted, I went out to Amazon and checked out the reviews on the particular waffle iron I liked. It just so happened that the one I liked had a major cleaning issue and it was a flaw in the design. Something that could not be fixed. I then began to read what other reviewers had recommended and found that there were waffle irons that I had not considered.
(I'm back... I was showing her some techniques in Zuma!)
Once I figured out which waffle iron to get, I then went to another web site to determine which store had the product at the cheapest price and had it in stock. I went to that web site, ordered the waffle iron, selected 2nd day air, and paid for it.
I turned to her on the couch and told her we would have a new waffle iron day after tomorrow. She was amazed. She didn't even know that I was looking into it. In fact, my wife and I were still discussing the waffle iron. I think the whole transaction took 15 minutes.
The funny thing is that I don't feel that I am using the Internet as efficiently as I could be.
I purchased one of these as soon as they came out. I have seen two movies so far, Good Fellas & Mission Impossible III, and I have to say that I am only slightly excited about it. I am no where near as 'jazzed' about the product as most others appear to be.
A quick description of the environment. I have a 55" rear projection HDTV. I use it solely as a monitor connected to a A/V receiver that pumps out 170 watts to a 5.1 set of speakers. My two front speakers have 1000 watt amps dedicated to the bass and I also have a 2500 watt 15" sub-woofer in the room. I have cable from satellite and have had an HD DVR for over a year. I watch WAY TOO MUCH HD content every week. In fact I watch more than 90% of my TV in HD.
I also have an XBox 360 that plays all games in HD. In fact I played some of the original XBox games in 720p.
I play both SACD and DVD Audio disks through my receiver.
Bottom Line: I have become quite experienced in the HD experience.
What I see in the HD-DVD is a new and improved menu system. This is a welcome change. In fact the ability to place a disk in the tray and have the movie start without user intervention is almost worth the price of admission. The video is definitely better but it is not an order of magnitude better. When you get close to the screen the image is clear as day but who sits right in front of the monitor?
What annoys me is the audio. As you can see above, I am no stranger to 5.1 or even THX sound. What I experienced with the HD-DVDs is a much quieter sound. There may be better separation between speakers but the general audio is at least 6 to 9 decibels lower. (Remember, 3dbs equals double the wattage...)
Now I suppose it is possible that there will need to be some tweaking on my home theater setup, but it seems to be fine running digital audio today.
I think my vote is that it is a good thing, but not a great thing. I will reserve final judgment until I have messed around with various settings to verify that the components are set up optimally.
Stay tuned...
I am really enjoying writing these blog entries on a laptop running Ubuntu. It makes me rethink the way I accomplish tasks. For example, when I used Windows, I would look for an application that I could use to add entries to my blog. With Ubuntu, my first thought was if I could perform the same actions from within the browser. As far as I am concerned, the less applications that I have to run the better I will be.
This is where Performancing comes in. I found an add-on that works for all flavors of Firefox. The version I am using happens to be the latest, version 1.3.5. At this point I am only using the basics.
It seems to have a nice editor, I can easily assign categories and adding links and images are only a click away. Once I remembered my blog username and password, I was able to easily establish a publishing connection so that posted my latest entry is only a single click away. I would have to say that I have no complaints with this software at this point.
Fourth and about an inch. The ball was within 10 yards of the goal line. The score of the game is 14 - 13 and the San Francisco 49ers are ahead. Their primary running back has ran for over 100 yards. The offensive line is moving the defense almost at will. There is only enough time for the St. Louis Rams to have one more possession.
The coach decides to kick a field goal?
There is conservative and then there is conservative. What possible message is the coach sending to his team? The 49ers had won the previous three games and were starting to feel as if they could make the playoffs.
I'm sure we will hear the reasoning tomorrow but I feel that the reality is that Coach Nolan was not confident that his team could make it. I suspect that even if they did not make it, they had the Rams pinned deep enough that the 49ers could have stopped them from going the length of the field.
Let's hope that Coach Nolan does make this type of mistake again...
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True story...
My primary laptop was starting to run a little slow so I thought that rather reinstall a new copy of the WinXP again, I would just go out and buy a new hard drive and replace the old one in the machine.
While scrounging around for some software disks, I came across an old laptop. I decided that I was going to load Ubuntu on the old laptop and dedicate this old laptop to a new location on my night stand next to my bed. I also decided that this machine would be used for my blog entries.
This meant that I would not need to copy over the old blog software from my backups and/or reinstall a new editor on my primary laptop.
Well, as luck would have it, life got in the way and it ended taking a couple of months before I could to the point of reconnecting to the blog. Obviously, I have now done that.
For anyone who has wondered if I am still adding to the blog, the answer is a resounding YES!
More to come....
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