Archive for the 'TV' Category
WNBC doesn’t get technology
So WNBC ran a story tonight about domain name squatters, which was basically a story complaining about how all the “good” domain names have been taken. It’s really not news in my eyes, since it’s a practice that (as the story itself said) has its roots in the cyberbubble of the 90′s. But I guess since more people are getting Internet savvy(?) it’s becoming more obvious to more people, and thus is now considered “newsworthy”.
The problem is they simply misrepresented things. In talking about domain name squatters, they said that the largest owner of domain names is Go Daddy, the domain name registrar. Registrars don’t own the domains they register, they simply handle the registration process on behalf of people who would like to purchase domains. The domain is owned by the person who buys it through the registrar. However, the story made it seem as if Go Daddy itself was a domain name squatter, and the quote they used from Go Daddy didn’t help clarify things:
We consider domain names the real estate of the 21st century.
Makes sense if you understand that Go Daddy is trying to convince you to buy your own domain name, but if you’re already under the impression that Go Daddy owns 30 million domains of its own and is just trying to auction them off to the highest bidder, it sure won’t dissuade you of that opinion either.
Their website doesn’t really make things any clearer. They offer a link to Go Daddy’s complete email in response to their questions (which, again, doesn’t necessarily clear anything up if you’re already misinformed) and a link that simply reads Who Owns The Most Domain Names? (Again, this is a list of registrars, and nothing about the page they linked to implies otherwise.)
Then again, the page in question also currently links to file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/501452663/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/OLK1639/product_detail.htm, so, uh, you’ll excuse me for not taking them too seriously.
The Merits of Nothingness
Being off from school and all (and refusing to go back until I absolutely have to) has afforded me the much needed opportunity to do nothing productive, all in the comfort of my own seclusion. I decided to ask for DVDs of TV shows this year as gifts, perhaps in spite of the fact that I don’t usually ever get to watching DVDs of anything. (I don’t really need them as room adornments, either.) But the past couple days I sort of forced myself to watch the first season (plus a couple episodes) of The Office, along with the commentaries and such (I played the new Mario game for a little while too, which I guess was kind of fun). It was a nice change of pace, and well worth it—at least until I have to get some actual work done. But I think I can still put that off for a little while.
Happy New Year, folks.
Ode to Spring Break
I realized awhile back that long blog posts are never a proper way to get readers back. Nor is it the way to get readers at all. None of them will ever read a word of a particularly long post (even if they might, somehow, bring themselves to comment on it), and having spent a great deal of energy and thought into a single monstrosity, experience suggests that it becomes difficult to continue that momentum for future use.
Oh well.
So spring break, I suppose, has been as interesting–if not as productive–as any other break this year. Incidentally, my brother’s birthday is tomorrow, and it came as quite the shock the last day of school before break that my brother is apparently more social than I. My brother, apparently, not only has friends who celebrate his birthday, but he has friends who get him things–including (much to my amusement, if not bemusement) members of the opposite gender who bake cookies.
Needless to say, this forced me to take a closer look at my own standing socially. If my brother, purportedly even more awkward than I, was making such headways mere months into his freshman year, where did that place me, less than three months removed from high school graduation, and five months from college matriculation? If nothing else, it placed me, certainly, in quite the quandary.
Spring break, if nothing else, provides an opportunity for contemplation. Certainly the desire to procrastinate finds no enemy, despite the piles of calculus or Spanish work awaiting me even as I type this. I’ve found it generally difficult to accomplish things of tangible value, even with a to-do list staring me in the face. Thus contemplation is all that remains to be accomplished, aside from some idling in the name of “rest and relaxation”.
Certainly contemplation is easy to come across. Having a decent amount of free time to watch television, for example, I haven’t been able to help but shake the notion that game shows would, almost invariably, be better if contestants would simply hurry the hell up more often.
It’s really a pretty simple idea, actually. As any number of teachers will remind one during a test, you either know something, or you don’t. Watching a 40-something year old mother struggle on a second grade math problem (thank you Fox) hardly challenges the typical viewer’s nerves quite the same way Jack Bauer getting shot does, provided you don’t notice the bulletproof vest he’s wearing. (24′s recent failings can be the subject of another post, more likely to come on a Monday night when it can be as terse as possible.) Certainly the audience is most interested in seeing the contestant win the grand prize–whatever that may be–and any impediment to this is merely a waste of the viewer’s time. So let those who can proceed quickly, and those who can’t step aside promptly. Relatedly: why would Fox run a promo for their show by advertising the fact that they went through three contestants in one hour? Doesn’t that suggest that there are three stupid contestants, none with any ability to reach the end of the game? I digress, but I urge the further consideration of my point.
Yes, it would be difficult to argue that contemplation cannot be had during a break. And when it comes to social contemplation, it’s difficult to ignore the attempts at quantifying the social experience that have been heralded in by the proverbial Web 2.0. Indeed, as others have discussed previously, this quantifying defies all ambiguity in the name of open dissemination and comparison, betraying perhaps the unquantifiable–stated more eloquently, perhaps, as unintellectual “feelings”–that propel this experience. As Facebook informs me that I have a scant number of friends in comparison to much of the rest of my “network” (and my personal belief that I probably have about twice as many as I should) and periodically offers a glimpse into the lives of the social elite via my “news feed,” it seems but to confirm my instinctual belief: I’m behind.
What Facebook fails to offer, however, are solutions. How does one take hold of his last months of high school for the best? If an event like senior prom is to be regarded as one of the most memorable events of one’s life, surely there must be more than one’s internal willpower and social prowess–things that I, apparently, have been lacking going on eighteen years–to guide him forward? How is it that there could be such a disparity between intellectual stature and social maneuvering ability?
Perhaps the intellectualness of it all is part of the problem. As I sit here writing this, I can’t help but notice the swath of Firefox tabs, each open to something undoubtedly important that I’m trying to master–how to write UIs for Java programs, looking at the most recent Drupal modules, figuring out how to optimize Google Calendar, some new program that will convert these DVDs to DV video for me, and probably any number of things in addition to that. Maybe it’s my intellect that persuades me to attempt to address all of these things, always caught instead in the infinite loop of contemplation–hindered from action by thought–instead of properly accomplishing that with which the dumb dolt sitting next to me finds no issue.
A quick check of the calendar reveals three days remaining in my spring break (barring an unexpected snowstorm–given the weather recently, stranger things have happened) and about 76 days until graduation. I guess I should try to figure this out by then.
I think some introspection is good every now and then.
In case you like me
I’d kind of like this.
And for those of you who don’t believe in the concept of asking for gifts, I’m not actually anticipating that anyone likes me, nor do I think that anyone would heed my requests, because this has what experience has taught me to believe. So I think the element of surprise will remain untarnished, regardless of how much hate I have sustained.
Speaking of which, my awesome conducting job in concert band apparently led at least one person to call me an asshole. (For what, pointing out that no one slowed down at a ritard?) It’s good to know my first impressions haven’t lost any of their charm.
MSN Remote Record: for when you didn’t really care, anyway
Awhile ago I downloaded MSN Remote Record, a little utility that essentially promises you the ability to set up recordings on a Media Center PC via the Internet, even when you don’t have direct access to the computer (hence, “Remote Record”). Seems straightforward. I guess.
When I first installed it–or, tried to, anyway–I had some issues getting through the whole process. You need to authenticate yourself with your Passport/Live ID (whatever you want to call it) so that the system can contact your PC, but it seemed I was having issues completing the online setup: I would finish it, but my system would tell me I still had to complete setup, and the web setup was more than happy to forget about the first time it told me I was done.
Eventually, however, the rouge setup plan conceded defeat, and the Remote Record service finally decided it would try to work for me. The only real recurring issue was that, at times, I would start my computer and receive a message bubble (those bubbles need to die, by the way) that the service had stopped, and to click the bubble to restart the service. A bit puzzling, but okay.
Then a few days ago I notice not only is the service stopped, but I’m getting messages that my version is out of date, and I should upgrade. In case I didn’t get it the first time, I get one of those bubble that demands you click them to visit the site, and at least one dialog box that essentially says the same thing. I download the installer, but then forget about it.
Then comes today, and when I start my computer I’m reminded again that I need to download the update. Of course, in truth I just haven’t run the installer yet, but I notice the service still refuses to run. All the same, I’m bombarded with demands to update, and even trying to restart the service via the bubble (as it says should be done) fails. The only result is a reminder (or two) that I’m old school and need to get with the times, or else.
Hmm. Now, what exactly would happen if I were away from home, didn’t know Remote Record had suddenly refused to work, and had no capacity to perform Microsoft’s required update (which probably also installed any necessary security updates that I’ve yet to retrieve)? Would any shows I desperately needed to record (not that there’s much in today’s society) be lost forever? Best I can tell, they would. What use is a “life saving” service like this if it’s prone to suddenly quit on you, and when there’s nothing you can do to fix it?
There has been one instance of remote recording that I have been involved in, and it was fairly successful. Once, away from home, it was decided that no one in the family recorded a certain show that would be airing that night (don’t ask what it was, because honestly I don’t remember). Remote Record didn’t offer me the ability to delete a show I no longer needed stored, but another program did: Orb. It came with my router, and from what little I’ve actually used it (Cablevision has this thing against using their precious cable for anything that might be remotely considered a server, i.e. anything that needs any sort of upload capability, i.e. any game ever created, VOIP that isn’t Optimum Voice, and streaming media) it seems to be more fully featured than Remote Record.
Oh, and it won’t stop working at Microsoft’s say-so. So I guess next time I need to record something from afar, I’ll probably be using Orb to do it.
(Side note: in searching for a link to something WGA-related, I came across this message on Microsoft’s site:
This page requires Macromedia Flash Player 5 or greater to be viewed properly.
Click the button below to upgrade flash to the most current version.
Shame, I only have Adobe Flash Player 9.)
