An interesting interview that explores the assumptions we make about the technology around us and the unintended consequences those assumptions have:
I admit it: I’m an 80’s music geek. I hate to sound like those annoying old farts I grew up hearing who always said “Music was way better 20 years ago..”, but honestly, I do think music was better 20 years ago. The most innovative bands I hear today are bands that would have easily fit into the alternative rock scene in the 80’s. You have to admit that there’s a much bigger gap between The Rolling Stones and The Clash than there is between Joy Division and Interpol. What new has happened in the past 20 years?
All this is provided as background for the amazing archive I ran across the other day: the Kino Digital Video Portal. Most of these are Boston bands or bands that played Boston in the late 80s, and there are some incredible videos here. My faves:
Human Sexual Response – “Land of the Glass Pinecones”
The Specials: Too Much Too Young
Cool thing is, I saw all these bands perform these songs at one point or another in Boston. I actually got to see the Thrills perform “Hey” at the Rat, which just shows you how freaking old I am.
I recently came across mention of this book. Sounds pretty interesting, if more than a little creepy. Apparently, not only are the Blackwater mercenaries used by the military in Iraq, but they were also used by the Government in New Orleans after Katrina to “maintain order”, although oddly they only tasked with protecting the rich parts of town, while the rest of the city descended into nightmare.
Maybe I’ve just read too many dystopias about exactly this kind of thing happening, but I have to ask: WTF? A bigger question is why this isn’t all over the news media. Fox I can understand, but why aren’t the rest of the networks or papers covering this? Are they afraid that Blackwater will be sent to “maintain order” at the corporate headquarters, or do they just think this isn’t a story worth telling?
Seriously, this is a creepshow.
About two months ago, I bought a television. The last television I owned I bought about 15 years ago, a cheapo 14″ with tinny speakers. Honestly, TV sucked so bad at the time that I never watched it. Recently, though, I decided I wanted a large screen for my Mac Mini, to surf the web, play DVDs and iTunes, display pictures, and generally get into all that digital media goodness that’s available to us today. Everything works quite well – the display is indecently good given how much I paid for it (an open-box post-holiday 42″ plasma with QAM, ATSC, PIP and dual HDMI in for under $850). The Wii looks amazing, and the NetFlix DVDs look wonderful. Everything works great….until I actually try to connect my cable.
Cable itself works fine. I have digital Comcast in Boston, and we can certainly watch whatever we would normally watch. Problem is, this TV really shows how bad the picture quality is. Comcast offers HD programming, but my existing box won’t receive it, and Comcast wants a monthly fee for an HD-capable box, which I feel religiously opposed to paying.
No problem, my TV has a QAM tuner (QAM, for those of you who don’t know, is a federally-mandated transmission of unencrypted free HD content by all cable companies). Of course, Comcast has figured out a hack here – the cable only carries QAM upstream of the cable box. Connect anything downstream of the cable box and QAM is gone. So I’m in a situation where I apparently have to choose between QAM and regular cable. I could connect my cable box via one of the other inputs (it’s currently on the RF coax) which I suppose I’ll have to do, even though it means adding another significant mess of wire to my current setup. Since we’re moving in less than a month, no point in going through the trouble yet – I’ll just deal with it once I move. Quite annoying though – makes you wonder how much these media companies actually want you to consume their product, given all the hassles they put in your way.
Next Episode: EyeTV Hell, wherein we discover the horrible limitations of an “Integrated Device”
So it’s been quite a while since I’ve posted, a full year. A lot of things have happened in that year. New job (at Sage Systems), new house, and a few other things which I’ll save for later. I finally got the isLog up and running again and am pretty happy about that. I have a bunch of things I’ve been wanting to write about lately, so it seemed appropriate. And hopefully I’ll find a decent gallery tool that plays nicely with Wordpress and iPhoto and put up some pictures soon.
Not sure if anyone even reads this blog anymore but that’s ok too – my main audience is myself and my kids when they grow up. A little window into what Dad used to be like.