DSLReports has an entry up where they do the math on just how much you’re really paying for those cell phone text messages, now that T-Mobile has joined other providers in charging 20 cents per message.

According to the math done by others, those 140 byte messages being sent at 20 cents each add up to $1,310 per megabyte. Considering that the average $20 USB flash drive these days is measure in gigabytes, and the average broadband Internet connection is measured in megabits per second, it’s amazing how much we pay per text message.

As for the reference in the title, it comes from articles on the idea that for the price you pay for the average inkjet printer cartridge, a gallon of printer ink would cost you over $5000.

I admit it, I pretty much had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the brave new world of high definition television. I was happy with my 19″ SDTV, and frankly all the information the average consumer has to absorb to make even the most basic informed decisions was a little off-putting.

Last week, however, I decided to celebrate my birthday by upgrading to a larger television. After looking through my choices, I finally broke down and settled on one of the less expensive 32″ LCD HDTVs.

I like the television, while not as feature filled as others it does what it does well for the price. The problem is that this one purchase has placed me at the start of a chain of related purchases because of the upgraded technology.

HDTVs, for example, can actually make regular broadcast video look worse than SDTVs by their very nature of displaying a higher video definition. Any compression artifacts from digital broadcasts that are smoothed out due to the lower definition of an SDTV become crystal clear on the HDTV.

So that means I’m looking at an HD receiver to replace the regular one from DirecTV. Of course, it also means that I also need a HD DVR to record HD televion, such as the HD Tivo or DirecTV HD DVR. The former is still expensive, while the latter is on severe backorder.

And of course, now that I have an HDTV, any excuses not to get an XBox 360 due to not being able to see the performance difference on an SDTV have melted away.

When will the upgrades end?!

Driving around town I’ve seen a number of houses that have had their Christmas decorations for a few weeks already. Going to stores, you’ll see most of the Halloween decorations removed and replaced with Christmas products by October 20th.

It’s almost as if Thanksgiving doesn’t really exist anymore, other than as the day before Black Friday. No one decorates for it, stores tend to shift gears from Halloween to Christmas days before the former has ended and generally there seems to be a lot less interest in the holiday.

“Don’t pay any attention to the critics; don’t even ignore them.”

The Consumerist has a short little rant from one reader who complains that his local CompUSA refuses to price match online competitors.

According to Rick, the CompUSA has Linksys NSLU2 network storage drives for $100, whereas popular online-only retailer Newegg advertises the product at $83.99.

Most brick-and-mortar retail stores have price matching policies that only allow matching offers made for products advertised and available from other local retailers, which the writer of the Consumerist rant obviously doesn’t agree with. The article then goes on to state: “Brick and mortar’s will become ash and dust unless they step up and match or beat online undercutters.”

The only problem is that no one at the Consumerist bothered to check that realistically, the in-store deal is better if we’re talking about comparable service. Yes, the product is $84 at Newegg, but even with next-day shipping, the total comes to $102. So for a few dollars more in sales tax, Rick will be able to go home immediately with his product, rather than wait one (or more, as Newegg doesn’t always immediately ship your orders) day to get what he’s already looking at.
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PVRblog has an entry based on incoming reports about TiVo adding digital rights management (DRM) to upcoming updates for their popular video recorders.

TiVo has long been under pressure by content producers to allow restrictions to be made on the ability to record television shows, as they can cut into the new lucrative TV season DVD market as well as make viewers with various movie channels less likely to purchase movie DVDs.

However, as one of the viewers wrote in an email to PVRblog, “better treat your subscribers well, or you won’t have a business.” While the content producers can obviously bring a large amount of pressure on the company, their actual business comes from TiVo owners looking to make their television viewing easier through complete control of what and when they watch programs.

Games Revolution has an article up by Duke Ferris in regards to the recent up-surge in news items and proposed legislation to fight the so-called epidemic of youth violence in America being caused by violent video games.

The core point of the article, however, is: “There is no epidemic of youth violence in America.”

Despite the increasing number of hyped news articles and opinion pieces over the “worth” of video games that contain violence, the statistics coming in from the federal government is that violence, and crime in general, is down among young people. In fact, it’s at it’s lowest point in twenty years, as many independent studies have shown.

Something to keep in mind the next time you see a breathless television journalist keeping their ratings high by interviewing yet another politician who talks long and hard about how they’re going to “protect the children” with proposed laws that never make it out of congressional sub-committees, all while the hard decisions are conveniently never made.