Category: Culture & Entertainment

  • The Perils of the Edge of Change

    We’re on the edge of the largest disruption in Tv technology since color Tv became mainstream. In 2009 all analog television transmission will cease. Although the two terms tend to go hand-in-hand that doesn’t mean that all channels will become HD. There just isn’t the bandwidth for that in the cable pipes right now. But…

  • Crank That is the new Mashup Sensation

    This annoyingly catchy rap song with crazy dance moves (there’s even a video online by the rapper to show you how to do the dance) is being put into all kinds of mashups. For some reason, these all seem to involve kiddie movies and Tv shows. Anyway, this gave me a pretty good laugh for…

  • Is it really stealing?

    Publishers often refer to prohibited copying as “piracy.” In this way, they imply that illegal copying is ethically equivalent to attacking ships on the high seas, kidnapping and murdering the people on them. If you don’t believe that illegal copying is just like kidnapping and murder, you might prefer not to use the word “piracy”…

  • How Engineers think…

    another great one from xkcd: What did you think when you saw the first panel? I thought of Roadrunner cartoons RIGHT AWAY!

  • Frets on Fire Rocks!

    My brother introduced me to “Guitar Hero” over the summer. I couldn’t really get into it at the time. There were basically two reasons for this. First of all, I just wasn’t in the mood for that type of game on the day he brought it over. However, the concept stayed with me and whenever…

  • HEY RIAA, all you needed to do was offer DRM-free music!

    I’ve already spent around $11 on Amazon.com’s MP3 download store. Why? Because they are selling MP3s of my favorite artists without any digital restrictions management (DRM). This is what has been keeping both my wife and I away from iTunes. Oh yeah, and the songs are cheaper than iTunes! It appears that all of the…

  • If you liked 300….

    Then you may find the following a bit entertaining.

  • Flight of the Conchords

    I just discovered this show and it’s hilarious! It’s an HBO show about two Kiwis (guys from New Zealand) who are in a band and are trying to make it big in the US. If you like absurdist Tv shows like “Ally McBeal” or “Scrubs”, then you’ll love “Flight of the Conchords”. The band members…

  • Fair Use

    Stanford University, a leader in trying to get Congress and the public to understand the importance of the Public Domain have done what I’ve been dreaming of doing for a few months now. They decided to test the doctrine of Fair Use in copyrights by creating the following video. Any Disney fan should be sure…

  • Cavemen

    This show is not very good, at least not based on the pilot. I’ll be shocked if people get into the show. Basically, it looks like the creators said, “How can we make a Tv show about race relations and not make it about race?” “I know, let’s make the non-whites be cavemen.” It’s so…

  • Why the TV and Movie Companies have it so wrong

    Let’s pretend I’m Joe College-Grad Consumer and I’m trying to evaluate how I should obtain my video content. I’m interested in watching shows as they come out – not later when they’re on box sets. Let’s see, I could buy my content on iTunes, Amazon Unbox, or some other such service. If I buy my…

  • OK! Enough with using Halo to sell Mountain Dew

    I had a crazy sense of Deja Vu today as I first read this Penny Arcade Comic. Then I popped on over to Ctrl-Alt-Del and read this comic. It was pretty strange to see them both focusing on the exact same subject. However, I too am starting to get annoyed at the Halo 3 Mt…

  • Activision Follows up Guitar Hero Success with Sousaphone Hero!

    Sales have been low however. Read about it in this fine newspaper.

  • How I feel about Guitar Hero

    This Penny Arcade comic sums it up perfectly.

  • That was fast!

    Ars Technica is reporting that Netflix is promising that they will be working very hard to get Macintoshes supported. Looks like they read my letter and now they have my brother covered. Now they need to work on Linux support. And drop the DRM because I guess they ignored my paragraph on how it’s BS…