Two Minute Guide to High Definition Television

HD TV Sets
TV resolution is measured in the number of lines of dots that go down the screen. Old "regular" TVs have 480 lines of dots going down the screen. High Definition TVs have more - either 720 lines, or 1080 lines. Both are called "HD", so you need to look at the TV's specifications to see just how high the definition is. The more lines, the crisper the image. 1080 is best, but costs most.

There are two types of HD TV: Plasma and LCD. Plasma screens use a separate, tiny, light for every dot on the screen. Plasmas looks very lifelike but are more expensive and are hard to make in screens smaller than 42".

LCDs use a tiny colored shutter for each dot, placed in front of a few large backlights. LCDs are similar to computer monitors, with a bluish tint to their picture from the backlight. LCDs have poorer color contrast than plasmas, which means that dark colors, such as strands of dark-colored hair, are harder to differentiate. To lessen this problem, LCDs dim the backlights on areas of the screen with darker colors, and raise the backlight brightness on areas with bright colors, but this introduces halos around bright objects on dark backgrounds.

HD Video Signals
Cable, satellite, and DVD players provide many different kinds of video signals. Vertical resolution can be either 480, 720, or 1080 lines. The old "standard definition" signal you get from broadcast TV and cable has 480 lines from top to bottom. HD broadcast and cable channels give you either 720 or 1080 lines of vertical resolution - again, both are called HD so you have to do a bit or research to figure out just how good the signal is. HD video coming from a DVD player always has a full 1080 lines of vertical resolution.

With HD cable or satellite TV, some channels are broadcast with 720 lines of resolution, and some are broadcast in what is called "1080i". The i stands for interlaced, and it means that each frame of video contains only odd or even lines going down the screen. In other words, each video frame contains only half the image. Cable TV companies do this because they don't have enough bandwidth to transmit a full 1080 lines of signal, so they either send 720 or they send 1080i, which is basically 1080 but with a 50% slower refresh rate. 1080i works out to be better for images that don't move much, whereas images that do, like sports for example, look better on 720.

To distinguish between 1080 and 1080i, 1080 is always called 1080p. The p stands for progressive, and basically just means you're getting all the lines you'd expect.

HD DVD Players
To play a high definition DVD, you'll need to buy a "Blu-Ray" DVD player. They currently sell for around $300. These players can play regular DVDs as well, but their startup time can be as long as a minute and Sony's top model cannot play audio CDs, so you may not want to let your old equipment go just yet.

Video gamers sometimes prefer to buy a Sony Playstation which, apart from its 1080p gaming capabilities, can also play Blu-ray DVDs. The Playstation has a short 10-second startup time when inserting a Blu-Ray DVD.

HD DVD players play discs recorded in a format called Blu-Ray, which was invented by Sony. There used to be two types of high definition DVD: Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. HD-DVD was created by Toshiba, and was not compatible with Blu-Ray. Both formats offered the same excellent 1080 resolution picture quality. At the start of this year it became clear that Blu-Ray was winning in the marketplace, and Toshiba stopped HD-DVD production. Anyone owning an HD-DVD player will now need to buy a Blu-Ray player, as new movies will only be released in the Blu-Ray format. Because "HD-DVD" can refer both to the type of device as well as to the name of Toshiba's specific format, the terminology can be confusing.

HD Cables
The cables that connect HD components to each other are called HDMI cables. They carry both audio and video in one cable so you'll have less cables to worry about. Top quality HDMI cables are sold on Amazon.com for under $10 a cable. However, they are typically sold for $50 at high street stores, so be careful as there's no need to pay that much. Digital signals (like HDMI cables) include error correction and are not susceptible to interference in the same way as analog signals (like speaker wire). A $5 cable from Amazon can be better made than many $49 high street cables.

Suggestions
The best HD TVs are 1080p plasmas. They currently cost about $1500. However, if you're not going to be buying a high definition DVD player (currently about $300) or Playstation, then you'll not be receiving a 1080p signal, so buying a cheaper 720 TV will not make much difference. Also on the smaller (!) 42" plasmas, it's hard to tell the difference between 720 and 1080 lines of resolution.

Panasonic makes the best plasmas. Pioneer's plasmas are also good. Sony makes good LCDs in their XBR series, and many other companies make good LCDs too. I tested these TVs at a local store and even the best Sony XBR LCD TV did not have a picture as good as the cheaper Panasonic 1080p plasma. In addition, LCD TVs look worse than regular old cathode ray TVs when watching non-HD ("standard definition") TV.

So my recommendation is to get a Panasonic Plasma TV. However, LCDs are usually cheaper than plasma screens, and different people will have different opinions about picture quality and on whether one TV's picture looks better than another.

Saving money

Credit cards can give you 1.5% back in cash on everything. Citibank’s 1% Rewards card is good plus they can give you one-use-only virtual credit card numbers anytime for dodgy internet purchases. Fidelity's card is 1.5% at the moment. Neither card has annual fees.

For car insurance, if you buy 11 or 12 monthly public transport passes each year you can send them in for a rebate. Photocopying pages from your car's manual showing it has a security alarm will lower rates by 20% on that part of the policy. Unless you get into accidents a lot, having a high deductible is usually worth it too.

It's usually worth opening a Roth IRA. You only need to save up $500 to start, and can have one even if you have another retirement plan. Roths are like a little handout from the Government to us, to encourage saving. They allow you to save up to $4000 a year in a special retirement savings account that is taxed less than a normal one. You can withdraw your contributions at any time before retirement without penalty, and even withdraw some of the earnings on your money tax-free to pay for special things like a downpayment on a house.

When doing your taxes, if you've got a regular company job, TurboTax does a really good job for cheap. If you launch it from Fidelity.com's Tax Center you get a 25% discount on fees even if you're not a Fidelity customer. TurboTax can calculate the value of stuff you've given to goodwill using data from eBay, and deduct it as a charitable donation.

If you're planning on living somewhere for a few years it's usually worth buying a place. You'll get a quarter of your mortgage back at tax time, rents increase each year but mortgages stay the same, and you’ll make money as your condo gradually increases in value (about 4% a year). Mortgage interest rebates are another handout from the government to us, to encourage people to buy.

Don't buy new clothes unless they pass the "Am I going to wear this all the time?" test. (From "Stuff" by Paul Graham.)

The major long distance phone providers are quite expensive, there are cheaper companies like PowerNet Global who are just as good.

Video cocktails

These videos are great - Chris McMillian, bartender of the Ritz-Carlton in New Orleans, showing how to make his favorite drinks. In the video below he quotes 19th century prose as he prepares a Mint Julep. There are links to his other videos at the end.

Jack Rose

2oz Applejack, 1oz lime juice, and a few dashes of concentrated pomegranate syrup.

One of the bartenders at Cuchi Cuchi said they use pomegranate syrup from Mt Auburn St for their Jack Rose cocktails, which taste great, different from others... The syrup is harsh and molasses-y on its own but goes well with the drink.

Stopping Spam

Spam is currently 80% of all email sent over the internet. It's fairly inevitable that spammers will find out your email address, so the only help seems to be to have a spam filter.

I used to use Thunderbird, Mozilla's email program, as it had a built-in spam blocker. It caught 93% of the spam I received. In one week, out of the 482 messages I received, 27 were real, 424 were detected spam and 31 were undetected spam.

I switched to Gmail which catches almost all spam (over 99%) - I only get one or two spam emails a week now. It can include your other email accounts and can push email to an iPhone. Yahoo's pretty good too. Hotmail doesn't filter spam as well, nor can it push to an iPhone yet.

How do spammers get my email address?
One way is that spammers write programs to search web sites for email addresses. Some web sites display your email address under certain conditions, so spammers write programs to collect these addresses.

Spammers also receive lists of email addresses from employees of companies who own such lists. They may buy or even steal them.

Most played songs of last year

My top 5 most played songs of 2007 according to Windows Media Player:

1. Blue Heart - Peter Murphy
2. Dive - Propellerheads
3. Metro - I am the WTC
4. Unfinished Sympathy - Massive Attack
5. Marbleyezed - Soviet

If I could choose my top 5, they'd be:

1. Elevator Operator - Lolly Pop
2. Destroy Everything You Touch - Ladytron
3. Bright Young Things - Pet Shop Boys
4. Kiss Like In The Movies - Spray
5. Burma - Lostep

Sixteen Candles vs The Breakfast Club

Tivo gives Sixteen Candles 2 1/2 stars while The Breakfast Club gets 3. WTF.

Prevent students being left behind

At the high school I went to, each year’s students were split into 8 “sets” for Math. Set assignment was based on ability, with Set 1 being the class with the brightest kids, and Set 8 holding pupils for whom Math often wasn’t their thing. I was in Set 7.

I would probably have never have thought of this again if I hadn’t run across how some public high schools place children of all ability levels together in the same class. Segregating children into different classes based on their ability in a subject is considered bad.

I think the type of segregation I experienced is really helpful to, and preferred by, students. They'd never call it “segregation”, though. "Segregation" has a negative connotation whereas being taught at a customized pace is always welcomed.

My high school’s segregated math classes worked very well. I didn’t realize how sensible this was until I saw how it was done elsewhere. We were happy in class (as happy as can be expected), and everyone did well in exams. We never felt that we were poor students - we felt we were good, just not as good as others.

I think that my Math class’s success was partly because all pupils were engaged. There was no “child left behind” as they say. I doubt Math would have been as enjoyable if I’d always been one of the last to understand, and if the class was often waiting for me to catch up. Perhaps, if faced with this, I would have spaced out and indeed been left behind. In any case, I think learning with my equals made Math class more enjoyable as well as effective.

(I think the same's true for soccer - you prefer playing with people who are roughly your equals rather than on teams that have a great variety of skill levels. I’m pretty much in Set 7 in soccer too. Of course, it’s fun for a thirteen year old to play with drunk visiting foreign football supporters every once in a while, but for playing regularly you prefer your own kind.)

Overall, I think high school classes are more effective and enjoyable if students are learning with their equals. When modern high schools create classes that reflect society rather than student learning needs, they should be clear about why they do this. For such a choice to make sense, the reason they describe will need to outweigh the damage done to students by being “left behind” in class.

Trading Knowledge Center launched

For the last year and a half I've been working on the Trading Knowledge Center for Fidelity. It's a Flash video app that lets you do a text search into videos and fast-forwards your search result to just before the word is spoken. We launched our final version of it onto the site on Friday.

If you'd like to check it out, go to http://www.fidelity.com/tkc and click one of the links to bring it up in its popup window.