Best Show Ever

Just finished the series finale of The Wire, and I will say it's the best TV drama I've seen. I can't even watch Law & Order anymore, and that's big for me. If you're going to give The Wire a try, please watch it from the beginning. Your reward will be an HBO series that ends even stronger than it starts. Finally.

Jimmy takes it up a notch

Challenge, hilarious:

Response, epic:

Housing Bubble Endgage

We saw this coming years ago. I don't post about it anymore now that it's common. I would like to post this 60 minutes video, however, which sums up what happened in typical high-production-values style.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

It's better than I thought it would be. I'm actually looking forward to the next episode...

Futurama is back!

Purchased and watched the first new Futurama since 2003, Bender's Big Score. It's the first of 4 DVD movies that will be shown as 16 episodes of the new season.

Fox cancelled Family Guy then brought it back a few years later due to strong DVD sales and rerun popularity. We've won the same battle with Futurama, but unlike the new Family Guy episodes, I think this new Futurama is as good as the best of originals. It has me excited about the series again. Also, it's among the best handling of time travel in sci-fi.

Promoting fair use of HD cable in Canada

I want my HD Tivo.

The US government mandates that providers there allow you to use any box (Tivo, a computer, etc) to view and record HD. Here you have to use the inferior, way overpriced hardware from your provider. No choice, no competition. For Shaw's HD PVR you have to pay $700 plus a monthly activation fee. Because of competition in the US they give that hardware away with your cable subscription.

See the Drop The Box website and the Facebook group for how you can help.

More on this issue here: A frank discussion on Cablecard in Canada:

Well imagine that someone from the cable company went to the store for you, said “I’ll take the cheapest one with the worst features” and then forced you to buy that (for a slight markup of course). Wouldn’t that make you mad?

My favorite Dawkins interview yet

The Hour, of course.

Part 1/2

Part 2/2

71 virgins and some Gatorade

Jon director Pierre Rehov who interviewed attempted suicide bombers for his documentary Suicide Killers. I like his Nazi comparison at the end.

Software Mistakes Can Kill

Lockheed's F-22 Raptor Gets Zapped by International Date Line. A software bug shuts down the electronics of a couple $125 mil jet fighters.

It reminds me of the initial encounters in the new Battlestar Galactica miniseries where our latest Viper VII fighters are disabled electronically by the Cylons. The pilots were helpless as the enemy missiles closed in. It was an emotional moment in sci-fi, in fact I'm getting a little misty-eyed as I type this...

Superbowl Commercials 2007

http://www.youtube.com/superbowl

Talking Heads Debate 2007 Home Prices

And I'm not referring the sensational California act that married punk and pop in an innovative way. Check out this Fox News clip (thanks Euro Pacific Capital):

Who seems more credible? the calm gentleman, or the two snickering lunatics who use loud in place of reason (a Fox News standard). If you follow this blog you know what side I'm on. In short, this record housing bubble needs more than the last few months to correct. As my countrymen put it, "You ain't seen nothin yet".

Green Server - Meh

Energy production is a fascination of mine, so I’m also interested in the other side of the equation, consumption. Or in this case, conservation. Efficiency in computing is becoming ever more important as companies like Google deal with the economics of powering (and cooling) thousands of computers. But what about the home or small office network?

I finally saw a repeat of episode 2 of Dragon’s Den I had missed, and one presentation was the Green Server by fellow Calgarian and computer nut, Jonathan Levine. It’s a small, low-power server and the idea is you let it do server things instead of your power-hungry PC. The theory is you save money on your power bill and there’s less strain on your PC. I think the theory is sound, modern PC has far more power than is required to sit and download a file overnight ¹. However, the dragons were right to turn the investment down. This company has no chance.

I’ll get to the killer flaw, but it’s worth mentioning that it never came up during what I saw of the show. To be fair, Jonathan may have discussed it with the dragons and we missed it, as the show is heavily edited for entertainment. To viewers like me it appeared the pitch failed because of Jonathon’s truly lousy performance as presenter. I wouldn’t be surprised if that actually was the cause since he does an equally poor job with online posting ² and the company has an awful website. Not visually awful, it’s actually almost pretty. The problem is it reads like spam email or late night shopping channel presentation. Save “HUNDREDS of $$$ per year”, “radically improves the integrity of the user's data”, immune to malware, and other claims, and even a rant about Windows cloud what little objective facts and information there are. Jonathan, every technology company has the problem of trying to sell too many features at once. If you think it’s hard with investors wait until you get to the public.

But those are not insurmountable problems. I’m sure professional marketing is high on their list of things they need funding for. There’s even a good reason in a post by Jonathan as to why he ending up presenting to the dragons instead of someone more “suit”. And while there are plenty of nuggets of investment wisdom, Dragon’s Den is first and foremost entertainment. O’leary will insult you just for fun as often as he will for an, umm… business reason.

No, the main reason why they have no chance is this product already exists. There are dozens of network attached storage devices out there from experienced, reputable companies. These companies already have cheap manufacturing in Asia, and they already have sales channels, and advertisements, and reviews on CNET, and a history of providing support, and stock on the NASDAQ, and the next version already at the lab, and so on. And these products have one advantage beyond price and specs that leaps out at me, in most cases the device is also a router or media adapter. Those are additional jobs that are required 24/7, but the green machine doesn’t do. They are also print servers, firewalls, and, like the Green Server, backup devices ³.

Still, I wish them luck as I’m always hoping to see more high tech development here. At the very least I can sympathize with the state of VC in Calgary for anything not oil. One last problem is how the hell they came up with a $3,125,000 valuation for a company only at the prototype stage and no proprietary hardware. I doubt it happened in this case, but a lot of Dragon's Den presenters seem like they think how much money they want, how much company they want to keep, and don't do the math.

1. The theory is sound by I’m still skeptical of the numbers. I’d like to know where you get your numbers regarding the number of computers in homes and average power supply wattage. I know a lot of people who have one laptop that hibernates overnight.
2. Like this joke (I hope it’s a joke) Jonathon posted to the CBC website :

   Finally, I'd like to speak to that "mad scientist" business. I hate it. You'd better get over what I look like, because anyone who compares me to those undisciplined cranks is gonna get invited out to the woods behind my house for a little re-education.

3. I know the Green Server website mentions off-site backup, but that doesn’t mean anything without details or reputation. What size data? Where is it located? How do I know it’s safe? I would say those questions all need to be answered, but it’s moot. The fact is there are many off-site backup solutions out there, including at least one I know (x) that’s free. And that one is automated backup which is far superior to drag-and drop backup.

Dragon's at the water cooler

The most popular show at our office right now has got to be CBC's Dragon's Den. People pitch their business ideas to a panel of potential investors. By far most ideas rightly fail to get funding and usually O'Leary has something mean to add. Both good things, entertainment-wise.

Battlestar Galactica

Several months ago I stopped going to the theater in anticipation of our home system and never having to go to a theater again. Even before that, I had stopped trying to watch most shows on TV. I prefer to wait and watch them at my schedule on DVD, plus the quality is better and there are no commercials. Like movies, those shows have been on hold while I wait for the new system...

Well now that it's done I've been playing catch-up. One of the first is the new Battlestar Galactica, and wow, it's really good. And then there's 24 season 3 on, Sopranos season 5 on, Oz season 6...

Driver's Seat doesn't know the difference between a Honda and a Toyota

Canadian Automotive TV Show "Driver's Seat" shows a Toyota Yaris instead of the Honda Fit they are reviewing. Things start out OK, but watch when they switch to the exterior action shots.

Video here

So what view should I take? That an overworked, under-appreciated editor mixed up two red Japanese hatchbacks? Or that a show that claims to be the "Gold Standard in Canadian Automotive TV Journalism" showed the wrong car.

Maybe it was even on purpose, like "Oh no the camera man lost the Fit tape... I know, let's edit in the Yaris footage - no one will notice". Well they didn't count on a sharp-eyed car enthusiast with a TiVo and too much time on his hands.

Farewell Bluths

The funniest shows on TV right now, in order:

1. Arrested development
2. Family Guy
3. The Office

And I didn't like any of them at the start. With Arrested it was because of the advertisements. I thought it was going to be "here's a rich family that loses their money and has a hard time with day to day problems we take for granted". Maybe I wasn't the only one who got that wrong impression from the horrible job Fox did marketing and supporting this show, because tonight is probably the last episode ever.

Arrested Development Cancelled

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Family guy postpones season premier

No! Post Katrina: 'Family Guy' Bumped, 'Invasion' Stays Put

Apprentice 4 candidates

The Donald is promising we'll have better contestants this year. I hope so, last year's were all immature idiots. There wasn't a single one worth cheering for. And yes, I am aware this show is more a "game" than "reality", but I like it anyway. Besides, I may need something to watch in between Family Guy and Arrested Development episodes.

James Doohan 1920 - 2005

The Canadian who played Scotty died today. Because of this I checked out his bio and learned he was a WWII Veteran with the Royal Canadian Artillery, was in the D-Day landing, and was shot 6 times.
Also:

He was given an honorary Degree in Engineering by the Milwaukee School of Engineering where apparently half of the students polled said they were inspired to study engineering by his role in "Star Trek" (1966)

A quite popular phrase to describe the feeling of wanting to be out of a bad situation is "Beam me up, Scotty." This phrase, by the way, was never actually said on the show.

Open source OS/2

Wouldn't that be cool? No? Well it would at least be mildly interesting: OS2 World.Com Petition. I signed that petition just now whilst still in pain from twisting my ankle coming down East Mt. Rundle yesterday. At least it is was another amazing Family Guy last night. One of the best ever I think.

Family guy is back!

And it's still good. That look Stewie gave Brian after he said "upside down face". Forget robot related sports, THIS makes me happy to be alive.

Homer vs. Burns

There's something strangely entertaining about watching voice actors of famous characters doing their thing. Conan, former Simpsons writer, interviews the voice of homer et. al. and the voice of burns et al. Add Hank Azaria and between those 3 actors (Gods among men) you've got most of Springfield.

Amazing race started out OK, but...

The final episode of Taxi Lottery, I mean Amazing Race was on last night. Seriously, once again we saw how winning or losing came down to a taxi driver knowing where something is or not. In other words, dumb luck. Same with that second last roadblock, try these hundred or so locks until you find the one your key fits. Those sort of tests of luck were the worst part, but it was also lame to see so many points where everyone gets delayed to a set time. Good work getting in the lead, but it doesn't mean anything now.

And I really wanted to like this show. The result was a let down too since that horrible human being Kendra won. She's the one who questioned in disgust why people in poverty "keep breeding".

Keller vs. Stabler

I can't be the only one who would like to see the ultimate brawl between intense Law & Order detective Elliot Stabler and OZ's perverted killer Chris Keller. I only say this because they're both played by Christopher Meloni, possibly my favorite dramatic TV actor.

American TV gets a tiny bit better

From Ars Technica:

In the middle of October, Jon Stewart took his usual complaints about partisan hackery to his appearance on CNN's Crossfire (transcript here | streaming video here). From the beginning of the discussion, Stewart took aim at Crossfire and other media shows, saying (at first with a smile) that they "hurt America" by making politicians' lives easier by failing to "hold their feet to the fire." The gist of Stewart's complaint was that shows that were purportedly "hard" and "cutting" were really only theatrical performances of talking points and sensationalism.

Well CNN's new President agrees and has canceled Crossfire. Even better, he actually specifically cited Jon's comments.

Homer uses tabbed browsing

From redemption in a blog

I just watched the latest episode of The Simpsons and guess what? Homer uses a web browser with tabbed browsing!

Click to zoom Tabbed browsing is just one great feature that the excellent Internet browser Firefox has, and IE doesn't. You should try it.

The easily offended

Lone Activist Group Submits 99.8% of FCC Complaints Complaints about TV in the US are up: 350 in 2001 14,000 in 2002 240,000 in 2003 So it turns out 99.8% are from the "Parents Television Council". No doubt people who only have sex with the lights out. So to say.