Good For Coach Calhoun

I saw that the Governor of Conn. claimed that Coach Calhoun was an "embarrassment" for the way he answered a question about his salary. I say the Governor ought to have kept her mouth shut. Clearly Calhoun did not appreciate being questioned about his salary. It was clear from when the question was started; "Not a dime back."

Sometimes reporters ask some assinine questions and sometimes they try to act like they are owed an explanation for anything that pops into their heads. This particular disease is in evidence with Senator Burris, where certain news organizations have, in my opinion, willfully distorted his testimony in order to push a particular agenda.

In Calhoun's case it was that he is the highest state employee at $1.6 million/year. The reporter was attempting to make the point that with the state in a budget crunch (which is most of the time), there may be something amiss for the Coach to be making so much. Calhoun clearly didn't feel so and made the excellent point that the team he coaches brings in $12 million a year. He gave a nice hint to this issue when he said "what was the take?" meaning how much money did the game they just played bring in to the University of Connecticut. See unlike the Wall Street people. He does his job and brings a direct monetary benefit to the state. In light of that the question was rude and I'm glad Calhoun put the reporter in his place.

Also as Calhoun pointed out, the press meeting was about the game, not Calhoun's salary. As he pointed out the reporter would have been free to see Calhoun after the report or at any other time since Calhoun can be found on campus for his position on his salary rather than try to call him out.

Well So Much for That

http://lifehacker.com/5157615/how-to-reinstall-a-working-hulu-in-boxee

No Content Found

Tonight, when I was set to sit down and watch my queued up episodes of Burn Notice and Damages, I flicked on Hulu from my Apple TV running Boxee and saw "No Content Found." Yes Hulu had officially offed Boxee.

reading the posts on the Boxee blog and Hulu's blog it is pretty clear that this cruel interruption to my New Year's resolution was the work of some old white males in expensive suits in mid-town Manhattan who like their ancestors of yore believe that what's yours is there's to profit off of. Presumably it is the "content owners" who have determined that somehow viewing Hulu flash video anywhere except through one of the following:

Safari
Firefox
Internet Explorer

is somehow a breech of some contract. We'll get to that in a minute. You'll note that I didn't say computer, rather I said browser because clearly since a user can connect their computing device (laptop, tower, tablet) to any external video monitor the device is capable of connecting to, the TV is not the PRIMARY issue. Well maybe it is. But trust me, the old white men in mid-town Manhattan, most of whom probably have the internet knowledge equal of John McCain, have been told that the internet can only be seen on a web browser on a computer and of course computers can't be connected to a TV. I mean after all WHO is still using WebTV? SO while the white men in mid-town Manhattan may be clueless, I believe that the real culprit lies elsewhere: The Cable companies.

See I'm old enough to remember life before cable. A time when Cable was for HBO and Showtime and little else. I saw how Cable went from something extra for the TV to something necessary for TV. Most of the compelling TV has moved to cable. OTA (over the air) broadcast is basically, medical shows, CSI shows and "unscripted" reality shows. That's it really. Well if you don't include the weekend sports. So OTA is really only useful for local news casts. And since 9-11, reception of traditional air broadcasts have sucked by me. So most people pay at least $12 for basic cable (AKA clear OTA programming). Now all those other stations, TBS, SPIKE, etc. are revenue streams for the likes of Time Warner, Cablevision, etc. as well as the "content providers." Cable companies and their local subsidiaries also have a monopoly on break in advertising. They sell advertising on various channels to local businesses. This is a brisk business that has branched out into movie theatres as well. Hulu breaks this business model completely since a great deal of people who use Boxee have cut the cable/satelite and use Boxee as their content viewer of choice. So the really big losers here: Cable companies. Not only are they losing customers who no longer pay the 70+ bucks/month for "premium content." They also lose the advertising bucks because they can't claim to reach x-amount of people per station.

The "content providers" still make money because all Hulu programming has advertising so they can still make a profit and that profit would increase as more people moved from Cable to Boxee.

Now if you don't want to believe me about the cable angle, then take a look at the Boxee blog where they discuss the cable company execs that came to "visit" Boxee at CES. If you think those execs left the Boxee booth saying: Yo, good shit they have there. I suggest laying off the herb. I will lay out cold cash that these execs were on the cell phones with lawyers and "content execs" as soon as they left the Boxee booth. I surmise the conversations went something like: WTF!!! WTF!!!These people are putting your shit on OUR TV's!!!! We have CONTRACTS!!! WTF!!!!(Think Christian Bale interrupted during a Terminator shoot). I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't some threat to not broadcast any "content provider" who continued to allow Boxee access to their content. Think not? How many times have you seen the scrolling threat to cut off some set of channels or another over some dispute with the tag: please call such and such company....?

Yes folks, my thinking is that the "content providers" were more than happy to get Boxee users streaming Hulu content to their shiny flat panel TV's. I believe that the cable companies saw the end to their business. Of course had they NOT decided to stick the public for way overpriced "content delivery." They wouldn't have had this problem, but anyone who did the math I did, realized that streaming video over their internet connection which is a must have today, along with a AppleTV costs less per year even in the first year, than a cable subscription.

Of course this also means that Apple stands to lose "big." I believe that Apple TV sales went up because of Boxee. Not iTunes, not movies available from iTunes, but Boxee. iTunes and Apple TV are not the most economical choice. You can get DVD's from Red Box at Shop and Stop for a buck vs 3.99 for the cheapest rental from iTunes. I'm not paying a buck a show from iTunes. Biggest rip-off ever. Seriously. One buck every time I choose to watch a show? I have to find storage for it and if I lose it or whatever I have to pay again? No thanks. Which brings me to my conclusion.

I've never pirated music or movies. I thought it was bad form when Star Wars Ep III made it out on DVD before it hit the big screen. I like for artists to get paid and for studios to make money off their investments. But this blatant money grab? Not having it. I'm still not going to pay for cable. I'm not going to incriminate myself here but needless to say there is a website that starts with a "P" and ends with a "Y.org" and the "Content providers" should be happy since people have to use a browser to use the site. lol.

Fake Holocaust Story

The author says today on GMA:

It was a lie. But it was true in my imagination so it was true.

???

Quantum of Stupid

I know that it's a game but seriously, if I shoot a guy in the head with a shotgun he ought to go down immediately. The suspension of disbelief is going a bit far when a character wearing a t-shirt can take a full clip to the torso and still run around like a track star.

Daring Fireball

Given Jon Gruber's numerous missives on Barry Bonds now confirmed steroid use, I'm waiting for him to post up on A-Rod. 36 hours and counting.

Free Phelps!

I don't do drugs. I don't do drugs of any kind. I don't do illegal substances. I don't do the legal ones either. The only reason I have any kind of drug would be because it was either prescribed, is an anti-inflamatory (I run) or anti-histamine.

I grew up in the "just say no" era. Where Nancy Reagan had her little news conferences and we were told to "just say no." Simple for me as I never said yes. I was convinced by people who I'm, sure had my best interest at heart that drug use was a one way street to unemployment, homelessness and all other manner of ill things. Indeed I was convinced that if one did drugs you just couldn't BE anything. Good reason to abstain.

Well somewhere between then and now an interesting thing happened. Public figures of all kinds started admitting to drug use. Weed in particular. Of course I had grown up with the images of Marion Barry of DC fame caught on tape getting high so such admissions were kind of unsettling to me. Eventually we got to the point where NY Mayor Bloomberg admitted to taking a toke and claimed to have enjoyed it. And this bloke got re-elected to office? Huh? So apparently then, one can inbibe and still be a decent human being, be responsible, run a billion dollar company and NYC. Wow.

Of course, the NYPD had made news stopping young black men on the street with no probable cause and either givng them summonses or outright arresting them for having small amounts of herb on their person. Hypocritical to say the least. It's not like people who drink alcohol are accosted while walking down the street. I mean drunk drivers kill people all the time and yet alcohol is freely available to anyone of legal age. Talk about double standards.

But it doesn't stop there. In Novemeber the US elected a president who admitted to not only taking a toke but of using the far more potent (and of no medical value) cocaine. Think about that for a minute. The commander in Chief is a known ex coke head, a former weed user and still has a cigarette habit. How are the people of the US and corporations, who undoubtedly gave millions in donations to the Obama camp, going to turn around and say that Phelps " is not consistent with the image of Kellogg,”

I suppose that since there aren't tapes of Obama or Bloomberg taking hits they can be passed on but it' OK to shit on Phelps because someone at a party decided it was a good idea to give a picture to a tabloid for some undisclosed sum (And they had better had made a profit since they have cost Phelps a nice coin).

To top things off "USA Swimming publicly reprimanded Phelps, temporarily withdrawing its financial support from him and barring him from competition for the months."

Why? Did his use of Sensimela give him an unfair advantage in the pool? No? Right. Oh perhaps there's some kind of "morality clause" in his contract (and I assume he has one). Oh it's for the kids! The poor kids who will soon enough learn that their government leaders have been taking hits and that the president of the US had a coke habit. When I was a kid I assumed that if you did such things you couldn't become mayor of a large city or president of the US. Now I'm grown and realize that such things not true. Same for the kids. Now is a nice time to have a conversation with the kids about that thing called privacy. How you ought not go selling pictures of your "friends" to newspapers and trashy websites. How some people choose to imbibe but in your house it is/ or is not allowed for whatever reasons.

Michael Phelps ought to have called out Bloomberg and the POTUS and discussed how weed use, like alcohol use is about moderation. Anyone can abuse either substance and make a wreck of themselves and their lives and unlike tobacco it won't send you to the hospital for treatment but rather you're likely to be sent home with the herb FOR treatment.

My message to Phelps: Grow a pair. Tell Kellogg to kiss your *ss and for future contracts make sure that the so called "morality clause" is stricken. Don't let these money grubbers who stand to make far more off you than they will pay you, dictate what you can and cannot do on your personal time cause they sure as hell won't let you dictate to them how to run their business.

Like That Creature in the Log

So I was thinking on the recent spate of trojans affecting Macs and it got me to thinking about what I said to a client of mine:

Using limewire is kind og like that scene in the Flash Gordon movie where Flash has to put his hand into a log where this apparently poisonous creature lives.

Sure a lot of people do it and don't get bitten but also be sure that a whole lotta people got bit

Barry "Junk" Bonds

In previous postings on the matter of Barry Bonds, I have defended the man based on one thing. His alleged clear tests for steroids. Regardless of what people said, my position was that if he hasn't tested positive then there's no case. It's kind of like a rape kit. You can call me a rapist all day, but if you can't put me at (or in) the scene, then it's a wrap.

Last night we find that Barry Bonds did in fact fail at least two steroid tests. Still though, Bonds made an ass of himself when he said he used some cream that he didn' know the contents of. I train to run, nothing goes on or in my body without me knowing what is in it. So it was pretty disingeneous to claim that he had no clue as to what he was putting on or in his body. He's a grown man. It's only kids who you get to tell "trust me it'll make you better" to.

Junk Bonds. And the Aaron's record ought to be re-instated.