Digital Dreams of Jeanie

So I've been watching the television industry's response since ABC's announcement in April. So far, Fox and CBS have both followed suit with announcements of their own plans to offer some of their shows online. I haven't specifically seen an announcement from NBC, though I'm sure it's coming if I didn't already miss it. What's interesting to me is that thus far, ABC has been the only broadcast network to follow through with actual content. Alias, Lost, and several other mainstay ABC programs are available via their website. Each show contains three commercial breaks, which last approximately 45 seconds each including the next segment's load time, at least on my cable connection. Kudos to ABC for a job well done, my only real complaint is that it would be nice to have a full screen option, maybe with a transparent sponsor overlay like they do with the ABC network identifier/logo.

In other news, a well (vc) funded startup is trying to build a national wireless network that will offer free service at 384/128 and commercial service at even higher speeds. They are aiming for 95% coverage of the continental United States. Choke on that Verizon, Sprint, Crapulair et al. When are the media companies really going to understand that current filesharing trends (or "piracy" as they like to call it) are not about defrauding and undercutting them but instead a huge red flag that their CUSTOMERS want their content on their timeframe on their choice of platform, not BigMedia's (BM?) timeframe and DRM'd to fuck platform of choice? I cringe at saying ABC gets it, not just because I don't want to jinx it, but also because I'm not 100% convinced they do, but they are sure a hell of a lot closer than any other BMs out there at this point in time.

Final thought: $100 laptop. Why aren't more companies supporting this? I mean seriously, while the HP, Dell and Cisco types have a financial motivation not to support low cost affordable computers globally (think no more $1800 laptops sold isn't a motivation?), how about the Yahoo, Google, Ebay, and other content players? Google should be buying these things by the truckload, setting their browser home page to Google.com, installing a Linux version of Google desktop and laughing their asses off all the way to the bank. I just don't get the "realities" of business sometimes, since said "realities" seem to have little reflection of real Reality(tm). Regardless, (iregardless isn't a word as pointed out about 10 times in the lackluster stoner buddy movie we watched recently Puff, Puff, Pass. I give it 2.5/5 stars for some occasional good humor, despite the really cheeseball plot/writing for most of the movie) the $100 laptop project is a great humanitarian project and I encourage everyone to support it. There's talk of having the laptops be sold commercially to individuals for $300, basically giving you a low cost system and providing two more laptops for those less able to provide it for themselves.

I'm done for today, lates.

-Z

Wow, ABC catches up to ME!

Almost three years ago, I lamented the huge disconnect between the cable and television networks and their audiences. I made the point that the reason that filesharing applications were so widely adopted was due to the one simple factor that none of the people in the TV/Movie business seemed to be able to understand, convenience. I suggested that the future of TV would be to air made-for-TV content over the Internet, commercials and all, and further that this model would quickly overtake the number of viewers using a standard TV setup (broadcast, cable, satellite, etc.) Well, three years later, our friends over at ABC may have finally listened. They have announced a plan to make much of their premium content online for free the day after broadcast. This will be the complete version of the previous days broadcast showing, including commercials. The real remaining question is whether there are enough interested parties remaining after the growth of Tivo and DVR's to make this model still viable.

-Z

Flashpoint Hope

How does one define hope? Fundamentally, human beings have a need of purpose. Hope is the check drawn against the future. The belief that someday, somewhere things will get better. It's really no wonder then that in our modern society that so many people are unable to see hope.

Dead end jobs, dead end relationships, dead end lives forming an unpassable barrier to beneficial change. Governments losing sight of the ideals of their very founding to control and persuade their populaces that they know best and should be part of every aspect of every individual's lives, locking them into a culture of enforced need and collectivism, while monopolizing or defeating any technology or system that threatens to erode this control. Protecting by invading all facets of the individual. The average citizen comes under surveillance over 100 times a day and while great pains have been taken to publicize the controls of medical data via the HIPPA act, no regulations currently oversee the flow of information such as surveillance videos.

Paranoia is the new norm and distrust of government and its entities is at an all time high, for good reason. Stories continue to surface of government misuse of newfound law enforcement powers against private citizens. National governments have become often tools to big business, enforcing the rule of the wealthy and monolithic corporations into the foreseeable future.

The idea of hope is one difficult to find in most modern environments even for the optimistic. Many of the younger adult crowd have become increasingly jaded to the possiblity that there is even a potential solution to their plight.

Automagic Asshattery

I'm a big fan of automated attendants. What a great technology, I can call into a company and transfer to the department or person I would like to talk to, without a myriad of questions from a curious or screening secretary. Well, in theory.

I call RandomV company today to speak with tech support, and my call is answered by auto attendant #1 (female voice, we'll call it Susan). Susan says I can press 2 for sales, 5 for finance, or 7 for technical support. I hit the 7 key, hear a moment of silence, followed by a single ring, AA2, Janet (who has a much deeper robotic voice but still female), answers the phone. Janet kindly informs me that I can press 2 for sales, 5 for finance, or 7 for technical support. Eager now, knowing I must be closing in on the prize, I mash the 7 key like it's going out of style.

After a short pause, the line begins to ring. Anxiously awaiting the completion of my call, I wonder how many rings before I get to talk to my technician. Perhaps I'll be put into a queue to wait, but maybe I'll get lucky and just get right in, now that I've found the super secret back door. 5 rings, 6 rings, 7 ri.. Wait! Could it be, someone has answered! AA3, or Rick as I like to call him (not that gender refernce is particularly useful when referring to automated systems)comes on the line, and begins repeating the company mantra/prayer press 2 for sales, 5 for finance, or 7 for technical support. Quickly losing faith now, I pound that damn 7 key with everything I've got, hoping beyond hope to make it somewhere in the vicinty of the support phones.

With no delay I hear 2 short rings, and someone comes on the line. Could this be it? Have I finally proven myself worthy to be admitted into the hallowed virtual halls of V-Support? The excitement at the possibility of finally accomplishing my goal nearly overwhelms me, but I manage to retain enough lucidity to hear AA4, James, begin to speak. "Please enter the number of the individual you are calling, or press 0/stay on the line for an operator" Sudden silence on the line as James' message winds to a close. I sit, stunned, unable to comprehend the black magic technology that has allowed me to transfer myself to the Saturn office of V (who knew they had outsourced their tech support off planet?) Steeling myself for a new life experience, obtaining tech support from a Saturnian (I hope they speak english/human better than some of the Indian support folks I've worked with, no offense guys I know your trying) I hit the 0 with enough force to start an atomic chain reaction, had my desk been made of plutonium.

"We're sorry, our system operator is busy, please leave a message at the beep or try your call again later."

So what's the moral of this story? While automated systems can save a tremendous amount of time and money, they don't necessarily mean a company allows access to their technical support.

Z

New Breed

Golden Age



Remember when choosing a new ISP was all about who could provide the cheapest and fastest connection? Even a small town could usually field 15-20 different ISPs with different value added services and additional offerings. Because of the relatively slow connections in those times, we often experienced the web much more as a sea of text information than the multimedia rich experience we find ourselves with today, yet information was available equal to all. I mean, we all knew that no ISP would dare interfere with our right to all the content and services the Internet had to offer us and why would they want to?



Isn't it a sad statement of the times we live in that it is becoming quite common for alleged "Internet Service Providers" to block/modify/remove/replace content for their own nefarious purposes without even so much as a by your leave or even a simple statement of intent? These content providers, for that is what they really are the moment they decided to dictate which traffic I can send and receive through my connection. And yet, where is the outrage, where the frustration from the outraged users, decrying the behind the scenes big brother acts of their providers?



America and others continue to allow their service providers greater and greater leeway in the name of "security" and "property rights". Make no mistake, I believe in the benefits of security, at a host, network, state, national and global level. As someone involved in IT security, I am in complete agreement that any entity, organization or individual should be allowed to protect their OWN systems from threats. The problem begins when said organization/individual takes it upon themselves to protect others without their knowledge. To me this is completely analagous to the idea of someone writing a self propogating Love Letter style trojan that is intended to crack vulnerable systems and then fix the vulnerability, before moving on to infect yet further hosts. Inevitably, the benefits of this action would be overwhelmed by the negative impact on hosts/networks around the world, especially once someone else takes that benevelant software and modifies it so that instead of fixing the vulnerability, it creates/modifies/destroys other components of the system.



Let me put it to you all in a different manner. How would you feel if your phone service provider decided that to protect you from scam artists and criminals, it would block any instance of the words "buy, sell, land, stock" from any phone conversation running on your line, without any prior notification to you? Or to take it one step further, what if the provider privately and without any customer notifications decided that since a great many phone scams originate from the 818 (one of the larger Southern California area codes), they will no longer allow any calls to or from that area code? Oh, your parents live in So. Cal? Unfortunate, but we're looking after your best interests, whether you like it or not.



I challenge everyone to think about the real world implications of these issues. Freedoms form the underpinnings of any society, and just like the supports of the Golden Gate bridge, removing a freedom makes our society that much weaker. Who knows which one will be the final blow that causes the bridge to collapse? I hope and pray that our children don't look back on this time as the Good Old Days when we still enjoyed some amount of personal freedom, and every day I fear that this is exactly the path on which we are headed.



Z