Oh, the amusement

Linguistic advice

I need a word that means "a person's connectedness to the world around them, and ability to understand it on an emotional level, allowing them to make intuitive leaps about it."

Basically, I need a name for a stat denoting intelligence that's not pure logic.

Edit: EQ or Emotional Intelligence are too specific to dealing with people. I think that of the suggestions so far I like "insight" the best. Still open to any other suggestions people might have though.

Technology is too complex

If I were starting over from scratch with connectivity between the varius devices connected to my TV, I wouldn't be starting anywhere near here.

What we currently have is a mish-mash of devices connecting over a variety of connections, each of which is basically predicated on the idea that it connects directly to your TV. So the Wii has a component out that's designed to plug into a TV. The XBox has the same. The cable box has an HDMI connection does likewise. Switching between them is a right pain, because I have to route things through the amplifier in order to get surround sound _and_ I have to tell the TV which input to go to . Fortunately, I can use the amplifier to switch between different inputs. Except that the amplifier doesn't support HDMI, and if I switch between different input types then the outputs have to be of the same type, so I still have to change the input on the TV to go with it.

This is clearly insane.

The fact that there even _are_ 8 different cables that can connect a device to a TV is ridiculous (aerial, SCART, component, composite, S-Video, HDMI, DVI, VGA). Toss in that HDMI cables are notoriously difficult because each individual device decompresses the video and then transmits massive amounts of data, rather than letting the TV do the heavy lifting in one central place, for extra stupidity.

What I want is a bunch of devices plugged into my network. Each one says "I am here. I have some media to offer." The TV then scans the network and makes a list of devices that are offering media. I then choose one, from a simple drop-down interface. I then get a list of what that device has to offer (music, video, streams of various sorts). I then start, stop and otherwise control it all from that interface. The interface talks to the media device and then displays the video, plays the music, etc. If the quality of the media goes up then it can still be sent over the same method - I might just need to upgrade my network - no need to change to a whole new cable type. We have standards for video files - if you want to send one to the TV, it should use that to do so - transmitting 10GBits of pixels is just plain silly.

I'm delighted to discover that all of this exists - in theory - with UPNP-AV (Univeral Plug and Play - AudioVisual). There are TVs that do this. There are hard drives that work with it. The PS3 is certified - and I suspect the 360 is on its way. People are working towards the idea of interoperability. Somehow I've managed to not bump into any serious discussion of it anywhere up to now - but i'm wondering if any of my friends have been playing around with this stuff?

George Bush Makes Sense!

A recent speech about Palestine/Israel:

"It is vital that each side understands that satisfying the other's fundamental objectives is key to a successful agreement."

He said this would require:

* secure recognised and defensible borders for Israel
* a viable, contiguous, sovereign and independent Palestinian state

"Agreement must establish Palestine as a homeland for the Palestinian people just as Israel is a homeland for the Jewish people."

He issued a stern warning to both sides not to do anything which breaks promises they have already made, or which might make negotiations more difficult.

"On the Israeli side, that includes ending settlement expansion and removing unauthorised outposts.

"On the Palestinian side, that includes confronting terrorists and dismantling terrorist infrastructure,"

From here.
(cheers to laserboy for IMing me with that one)