-or-
How Hulu Will Suck As Bad As Cable
Right now Hulu shows video programs for free with a few obvious and well placed commercials. This is a wonderful change from the television and cable TV wasteland which consists of 25% to 33% commercials.
People ask me all the time why I refuse to get cable television in my house. The answer is simple: If you are paying to watch commercials then you are a sucker.
Sure the Cable company is just a distribution medium and the content providers put the commercials in upstream. That's all fine and good for the media giant's shareholders but my family has found that it's easier, more convenient, less annoying, and most importantly far cheaper than a Cable Television subscription to buy the DVD's sans commercials.
There have been some noises made by the media dinosaurs who have acquired Hulu that Hulu will go to a commercial free subscription based model. That's fine and good, but you and I both know that it won't be long until they start sliding commercials into the paid services just like with cable television. First it will be a trailer, then it will be the constant interruptions that make Cable programming so content free and worthless today.
So I guess when that happens I will refuse to pay for a Hulu subscription too. Sure it isn't HD quality but if I want to be entertained by people acting idiotic there's always YouTube.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
W W W Dot...
Every morning after I've visited all my favorite blogs and web comics I type those four characters into my browser's navigation bar and stop at a loss.
I lightly tap the keys and think to myself: "What else is out there?" "What was it I wanted to look up?" "Is it worth finding out?" "What would it cost?" I feel like there's some sort of adventure just waiting for me – a sexy roller coaster of a ride culminating in a discovery that will change the world for the better and put my name in the history books.
The reality is that I wasted the years of my prime fighting insanity. Now that I'm approaching middle age most of my remaining life has been assigned to the obligations I've undertaken. I have no fifth character to type. Just roles to play and lines to say to keep the audience happy.
I don't know if I'm happy or unhappy with things as they are. For me, survival isn't enough of a reason to participate in society. Society doesn't have any reason to see that I live. If I did not have my obligations I'd probably be dead.
I lightly tap the keys and think to myself: "What else is out there?" "What was it I wanted to look up?" "Is it worth finding out?" "What would it cost?" I feel like there's some sort of adventure just waiting for me – a sexy roller coaster of a ride culminating in a discovery that will change the world for the better and put my name in the history books.
The reality is that I wasted the years of my prime fighting insanity. Now that I'm approaching middle age most of my remaining life has been assigned to the obligations I've undertaken. I have no fifth character to type. Just roles to play and lines to say to keep the audience happy.
I don't know if I'm happy or unhappy with things as they are. For me, survival isn't enough of a reason to participate in society. Society doesn't have any reason to see that I live. If I did not have my obligations I'd probably be dead.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
On Raising And Being Raised
As I was shooing my daughter away from the open refrigerator door I got to thinking about how my mother would punish me for doing the same. Part of my punishment was a lecture about how I would get trapped and suffocate to death in the refrigerator. She would fill my small head with horrible visions of me trapped and suffocating to death in a refrigerator while no one would be able to hear my weakening cries through the insulated walls.
This wasn't an isolated incident. Whether it was fire, electricity, walking outside without shoes because I had "asthma" (which coincidentally disappeared when she stopped chain smoking in the house), strangers or eating bay leaves her response to all these things was a sharp, irrational, overwhelming fear. My mother's paranoia when triggered by my behavior manifested itself as angry, spiteful and completely age inappropriate corrections.
In my pre-teens my mother was diagnosed with a mental illness. While this makes my mother's behavior understandable to me in retrospect I can't help but feel a grim sort of determination to ensure my daughter learns about her world without the same debilitating paranoid fear driving her every action that has governed most of my life.
This wasn't an isolated incident. Whether it was fire, electricity, walking outside without shoes because I had "asthma" (which coincidentally disappeared when she stopped chain smoking in the house), strangers or eating bay leaves her response to all these things was a sharp, irrational, overwhelming fear. My mother's paranoia when triggered by my behavior manifested itself as angry, spiteful and completely age inappropriate corrections.
In my pre-teens my mother was diagnosed with a mental illness. While this makes my mother's behavior understandable to me in retrospect I can't help but feel a grim sort of determination to ensure my daughter learns about her world without the same debilitating paranoid fear driving her every action that has governed most of my life.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Sometimes I'm Still Suprised
All these years kicking around the internet and occasionally I'm still suprised by the results of my Google search terms.
Just now I was searching using the terms "bib" "overalls" and "children." In the first five results I got gay men's fetish groups dealing with men in coveralls and other work wear (all explicitly forbid children which is why the term "children" matched.)
I don't have a problem with that sort of stuff but I can say it was the last thing on my mind as I pursued patterns to make some outside play-wear for my daughter.
Just now I was searching using the terms "bib" "overalls" and "children." In the first five results I got gay men's fetish groups dealing with men in coveralls and other work wear (all explicitly forbid children which is why the term "children" matched.)
I don't have a problem with that sort of stuff but I can say it was the last thing on my mind as I pursued patterns to make some outside play-wear for my daughter.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Big Government And The CPSC
When I used to think of the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) I generally thought of a government agency with a good charter - keeping manufacturers honest and providing common sense regulation and recall procedures over products which might be harmful to persons unaware.
However, over the last decade I've changed my thoughts considerably.
There's the CPSC instigating armed paramilitary raids of legitimate, legal, established business owners over the oxidizing chemicals they sell, even though they are in good standing with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) whose job is to keep track of these sorts of things:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/chemistry.html
Latest is the CPSC's interpretation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpsia.pdf
The CPSC leadership appears to be playing power games with congress over a new law intended to help keep children from getting lead poisoning. The fallout is the destruction of children's books which may or may not contain lead, creating distress to second-hand stores which sell used children's toys and putting small private toy making enterprises out of business.
The CPSC's game of chicken with congress is even preventing the sales of small motorcycles which are made of steel with trace amounts of lead in it:
http://www.startribune.com/local/39693797.html
This last inanity makes me particularly angry. When I was a boy I had a small Suzuki 50cc motorcycle which gave me hours of enjoyment. Not only did I learn how to ride I also learned how to work on small engines.
The CPSC's leadership claims that congress made the law too broad against CPSC's recommendations and thus must follow the law to the letter. The lawmakers responsible for the legislation say that the law gives the CPSC discretionary powers about how to go about enforcement - which seems to be the case. The CPSC even has the power to delegate enforcement to state agencies.
In my opinion the leadership and employees of the CPSC need to have their leashes shortened (instead of lengthened as this law has done) and a system of checks and balances must be put in place to hamstring their abuse of power. This is Big Government at its worst and is not good for Americans or the American way of life.
However, over the last decade I've changed my thoughts considerably.
There's the CPSC instigating armed paramilitary raids of legitimate, legal, established business owners over the oxidizing chemicals they sell, even though they are in good standing with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) whose job is to keep track of these sorts of things:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/chemistry.html
Latest is the CPSC's interpretation of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008:
http://www.cpsc.gov/cpsia.pdf
The CPSC leadership appears to be playing power games with congress over a new law intended to help keep children from getting lead poisoning. The fallout is the destruction of children's books which may or may not contain lead, creating distress to second-hand stores which sell used children's toys and putting small private toy making enterprises out of business.
The CPSC's game of chicken with congress is even preventing the sales of small motorcycles which are made of steel with trace amounts of lead in it:
http://www.startribune.com/local/39693797.html
This last inanity makes me particularly angry. When I was a boy I had a small Suzuki 50cc motorcycle which gave me hours of enjoyment. Not only did I learn how to ride I also learned how to work on small engines.
The CPSC's leadership claims that congress made the law too broad against CPSC's recommendations and thus must follow the law to the letter. The lawmakers responsible for the legislation say that the law gives the CPSC discretionary powers about how to go about enforcement - which seems to be the case. The CPSC even has the power to delegate enforcement to state agencies.
In my opinion the leadership and employees of the CPSC need to have their leashes shortened (instead of lengthened as this law has done) and a system of checks and balances must be put in place to hamstring their abuse of power. This is Big Government at its worst and is not good for Americans or the American way of life.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Stupid Shit Heard On NPR
An NPR news burp broadcast some guy comparing Obama's presidency to the election of Nelson Mandela.
Seriously?
America has race issues, no doubt, but to compare them to apartheid South Africa is over the top, down the hill and out to pasture.
- Obama rose through the political ranks the same way as a white guy would - by being a career politician. Obama was not imprisoned for trying to free blacks oppressed by white controlled apartheid government and is not a figure of human struggle for freedom.
- Obama was duly and constitutionally elected like the dumbass before him. Obama is not the first president of a newly democratic country.
- Obama is a man who decided to take a big job - trying to soften the landing of America's fall from being a world superpower. This is very admirable, but not comparable to leading a nation to unity and healing gaping moral wounds caused by imperial colonialism.
I didn't catch the name of the guy in the seconds long NPR sound bite but I do have this to say to him: Fuck. You.
Seriously?
America has race issues, no doubt, but to compare them to apartheid South Africa is over the top, down the hill and out to pasture.
- Obama rose through the political ranks the same way as a white guy would - by being a career politician. Obama was not imprisoned for trying to free blacks oppressed by white controlled apartheid government and is not a figure of human struggle for freedom.
- Obama was duly and constitutionally elected like the dumbass before him. Obama is not the first president of a newly democratic country.
- Obama is a man who decided to take a big job - trying to soften the landing of America's fall from being a world superpower. This is very admirable, but not comparable to leading a nation to unity and healing gaping moral wounds caused by imperial colonialism.
I didn't catch the name of the guy in the seconds long NPR sound bite but I do have this to say to him: Fuck. You.
