Still alive

To all my loyal readers, I'm still here. Had some vacation and other items that pulled me away, but I shall return soon!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I just popped a Mint

Image
A Linux Mint, that is! Ordinarily, I would have a "non-geek disclaimer" for a post like this, but this time, I invite my non-geek readers (if I actually have any) to read on. My premise is simple. Choice is a good thing. For the consumer, and for the economy as a whole. So why do 90% of all computers run Windows? Is that choice? Not really. And I'm not a Microsoft-hater. Seriously, I'm not. Bill Gates, in my opinion, is a genius and an innovator. But, his company took some wrong turns with their company values. In any case, 20 years of an operating system monopoly has given us Windows Vista as the high water-mark of Microsoft software development. Here's what the editor of PC Magazine (a noted Windows fanatic) recently said about Vista : "I could go on and on about the lack of drivers, the bizarre wake-up rituals, the strange and nonreproducible system quirks, and more. But I won't bore you with the details. The upshot is that even after nine ...
Read more

Hulu fails to satisfy, but like most things, its hackable

Image
I remember the early days of Hulu when all it had was the Daily Show, Family Guy, and a bunch of anime.  I was an early cheerleader and vocal supporter because the promise of on-demand streaming TV anywhere  was and is so important to the cord-cutting movement.  Hulu has come a long way since then. It's library is huge, it now boasts some impressive movie titles, and it's now possible to subscribe and watch media on your TV, tablet or phone.  And this is ultimately what is so frustrating about Hulu.  Despite all that the streaming service has achieved, it fails to deliver consistently on its promises. So what do I mean by all this?  Let's say you want to watch an episode of The Outer Limits (90's version).  Hulu has every single episode ready to stream.  In fact, they are the ONLY ones with the streaming rights to this series.  You can't even *buy* an unedited DVD for anything past Season 1. Usenet and bittorrent also come up empty. ...
Read more

2017 Guide to Cord-Cutting - Episode 1: The "Free" content

As a TV cord-cutter, I have gone mostly legit.  One of my G+ buddies Keith Wilson , posted an article recently showing the drastic reduction in bittorrent traffic over the course of a decade.  His question was, what happened to all the pirates???  I have never believed that content piracy was about a lifestyle or philosophy.  It's always been about ease of content acquisition.  The classic example is pre-2000 Napster vs post-2010 Spotify.  At it's peak, OG Napster was king of the pirate apps and there were virtually no legal alternatives.  Today, pirating albums is trivially easy, but the vast majority of music consumers buy from iTunes or stream from Spotify.  Why?  Because the legal options are abundant and pervasive.  Spotify works on my phone, car, home and work with zero friction and benefits like social sharing features, playlists and such. It's taken a while, but TV has reached a similar nexus.  Barely five years ago, cord-c...
Read more