August 2005 - Posts
BBC News is reporting that BBC TV is making plans to broadcast up to seven days of schedule on the Internet. The BBC's plan is to release a program called MyBBCPlayer that will enable consumers to view legally downloaded television shows. I'm wagering this is all just vaporware for the time being, since the BBC director simply stated that “he hoped the service would launch next year,” but it's still a cool and interesting move.
The Internet already serves as an excellent means for distributing text and audio-based media, but most ventures into using the Net to distribute video have not reached the tipping point. I think that this fact is due primarily to three causes:
- Lack of high-speed Internet connectivity. While many people have high-speed connections to the Net at work, many fewer have high-speed connections at home, where they're more apt to be interested in receiving video content. This reason, though, holds less sway as time goes on and home-use broadband numbers continue to grow.
- Static from the producers/distributors of video content - many television / movie distributors are worried about allowing their content to be distributed online. They (wrongly) fear that if there aren't impenetrable DRM techniques, that their business will flounder as pirates mercilessly swap video content online.
- Lack of an affordable, chic, easy-to-use video device - even if someone downloads, say, a 30 minute television program onto their computer, chances are that's not where they want to watch it. Rather, they want to sit on their couch, or maybe watch it while on the bus or when driving somewhere (hopefully as a passenger!). Music downloading services like iTunes really caught on once there was a means to easily transfer the music from the computer to a personal MP3 player and there were sufficient players in the environment. There are a number of handheld video players (such as Creative's Zen Portable Media Player), but I still think that the only way video content distributed via the Internet is really going to catch on is when there's a very easy way to dump the content from your computer onto your television.
I hope that the BBC gets rolling on this and has it available sooner than later, and hopefully they'll not restrict access only to Brits. Earlier, when BBC Radio allowed folks to download the complete set of Beethoven symphonies, they did not attempt to restrict access based on geography, so hopefully that mentality will carry foward with BBC TV.
Stumbled across this letter to Dear Abby:
DEAR ABBY: My mom and dad are divorced. Mom has a new boyfriend and my dad has a girlfriend. When I'm with my dad and his girlfriend is over, I feel left out because he doesn't pay as much attention to me as he used to. The sad thing is, when I'm with my mom I feel the same way.
Do you think it would be fair if one day out of the week my mom would take me somewhere for, like, an hour, and THEN my mom and I do something with her boyfriend? The same goes for my dad, too. -- LOST IN THE SHUFFLE
Kind of makes you retch knowing that there are parents who are this selfish as to put their own wants and desires so far ahead of their childrens'. Kind of makes you sad to belong to the human race. This is why I'm all for scientists working to find a way to insert some device into newborns to make them sterile until said device is removed later in life. And that device could only be removed after, say, age 25 and after the person has gone through some sort of parenting class and psychological evaluation.
Meh.
In my last blog entry I talked about how I was interested in seeing March of the Penguins, this summer's suprise hit movie about the 70+ mile trek the emporer penguin makes several times each year during the mating and child rearing times. I ended up seeing the movie, and heartily recommend you see it if you haven't yet.
Morgan Freeman narrates the tale, and does, as usual, a great job. The movie doesn't bother making any political or ecological statements - there's no chastising of global warming or man's effect on the penguins. No, the movie focuses solely on the story of these penguins. And, boy, are those little guys cute, waddling around in sub-zero weather.
On an aside, there's an entertaining article on The Onion titled What Has Our Society Come to when March of the Penguins Is The Blockbuster Hit of the Summer?, written by Michael Bay, directory of The Island. High commedy:
It used to be that a summer blockbuster had to have brutal violence, sexy women, breathtaking action sequences, adrenaline-pumping high-speed chases—at a bare minimum, some explosions. But sitting through that penguin movie, I couldn't believe my eyes. ... What kind of a world do we live in when a futuristic techno-thriller starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson as escaped clones on levitating jet bikes doesn't outgross the shit out of a glorified Discovery Channel rerun? ... I'm busy in pre-production planning my next big spectacle (which no one will see because they'll be off watching a 10-hour documentary on park squirrels, no doubt). But if you are in the San Diego area, do me this favor: Go to Sea World, walk into the emperor-penguin exhibit, and punch one those fuckers right in the face. Tell 'em Michael Bay sent ya.
From my friend Bill Graziano's blog, I learned of this awesome Robert Ebert review of Duece Bigalow 2: European Gigalo. Ebert's initial zero star rating for this movie sets the tone for this review, which culminates in Ebert calling out star Rob Schneider who insulted a film critic who wasn't looking forward to Rob's sequel. Ebert sets this entire scene up quite well:
According to a story by Larry Carroll of MTV News, Rob Schneider took offense when Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times listed this year's Best Picture Nominees and wrote that they were "ignored, unloved and turned down flat by most of the same studios that ... bankroll hundreds of sequels, including a follow-up to 'Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo,' a film that was sadly overlooked at Oscar time because apparently nobody had the foresight to invent a category for Best Running Penis Joke Delivered by a Third-Rate Comic."
Schneider retaliated by attacking Goldstein in full-page ads in Daily Variety and the Hollywood Reporter. In an open letter to Goldstein, Schneider wrote: "Well, Mr. Goldstein, I decided to do some research to find out what awards you have won. I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind ... Maybe you didn't win a Pulitzer Prize because they haven't invented a category for Best Third-Rate, Unfunny Pompous Reporter Who's Never Been Acknowledged by His Peers."
Sounds like a pretty good smack down from Schneider to Goldstein. Problem is, Schneider didn't take much time checking the facts, as Goldstein has won a number of awards (although, as Ebert points out, not the Pulitzer). Ebert though, who has indeed won the Pulitzer, wraps up his review with the following:
Patrick Goldstein has not yet won a Pulitzer Prize. Therefore, Goldstein is not qualified to complain that Columbia financed "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo" while passing on the opportunity to participate in "Million Dollar Baby," "Ray," "The Aviator," "Sideways" and "Finding Neverland." As chance would have it, I have won the Pulitzer Prize, and so I am qualified. Speaking in my official capacity as a Pulitzer Prize winner, Mr. Schneider, your movie sucks.
Sweet. I've never seen a movie review from Ebert that ended with, “your movie sucks,” but this is perhaps a movie that deserved such a distinction.
Speaking of movies, there are two movies out that I'm itching to see:
The Murderball movie especially interests me because my dad was quite active in disabled sports. (He lost about half of his right leg in a motorcycle accident in his mid-20s, a handful of years before I entered the world.) Anyway, my dad participated in the disabled olympics (swimming) and other disabled sports - football, softball, etc. - but was most passionate about basketball, playing several years for the Chicago Wheelchair Bulls. I went to many wheelchair basketball games, practices, and tournaments growing up. I'm curious how similar Murderball is to my dad's previous sport (very dissimilar, I'm willing to bet).
As far as the penguin movie, that looked interesting seeing as I know virtually nothing about penguins, except that they waddle and live in the Antarctic. So it might be a chance to learn more about these cute, waddling birds that can't fly. And will likely be more entertaining than Wedding Crashers, which I saw a couple weeks ago. (The first 1/3 of the movie was pretty funny and fresh, but after that the movie got a bit too formulaic and boring, IMO.)
Some free music that I've really be enjoying as of late is the Evolution Control Committee's song Rocked By Rape (you can download it here). It's 4:30 minutes of clips from Dan Rather newscasts, overlaid on a remixed version of Back in Black by AC/DC. The clips are various sound bytes from Rather professing doom in the world, cuts like:
- Inflation
- Flaming debris
- Prison disastor
- Dangerous radiation
- Starving victims, how they die
- Police conspiracy
- Dying of a heart attack
- Dying of a Japanese nuclear bomb
- A mountain of cocaine, tons of cocaine
- Hooked on drugs
- Government shutdown
- Criminal
- Semi-automatic handgun
- Ethnic war
- Hungry, homeless, frustrated, terrorists
And so on. It's really put together well and makes for easy listening (IMO) because of Dan Rather's melodic voice. Also, the remix of the AC/DC song is done well and the beats of the remix and Dan's melodic voice match up well.
Nothing like coding to this song on auto-repeat. Well, this and Gunther's Ding Dong Song.
I wouldn't say that I'm anti-consumerism... let's just say my wife and I have very little impulse to buy “things.” Naturally, then, most of the things purchased are purchased only after I'm sure that I really need said item for whatever reason. Two such items that I can't say enough good things about are my headsets, which allow me to talk on the phone and computer hands free.
About a year ago I picked up a Logitech Stereo Headset at Fry's for like $35. It plugs right into my computer's soundcard and I use it to talk to friends, family, and clients using Skype. I have had spotty service with Skype at times when calling another person's phone, so oftentimes when talking with client's while “on the clock” I'll call them using a landline. Until recently, though, I didn't have a hands-free telephone headset, making my telephone consulting - which can, at times, be upwards of two hours - a pain, especially considering that much of the time I need to type things in the computer. Eep.
A few weeks back I picked up the $40 RadioShack brand hands-free headset for a standard telephone. This product has worked great and made any phone meetings far more enjoyable. I've even taken to using it when on the phone for personal calls. Why hold a phone to my ear when talking with friends or family? Just plug it into the cordless phone, stuff the cordless phone in my pocket, and I'm wandering around the house doing whatever while chatting away.
Two purchases whose only regret was that the purchase wasn't made sooner!
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