DTV delay? Why?

I just do not get this. The Senate passed a bill today that would delay the switch to digital TV broadcasts that was going to take effect in February. The new date would be June 12. I'm just not sure I understand the rationale. The coupon program (for purchasing digital converters) is out of money, and with Congress squabbling over the stimulus package, I don't imagine they're going to throw more money at it.

There have been ads and info bars crawling across the bottom of the country's analog screens for months now. Anyone that hasn't already done something about it, isn't going to. Well... at least not until they lose their TV signal and end up missing 'The Wheel'.

It's almost a foregone conclusion that the delay will happen. It's not like I'm personally affected by it, I just find it irritating that we are delaying technological progress because some people didn't pay attention to the media blitz. All the extra spectrum was to be freed up was already auctioned off. Due to a stipulation by Google, some of it is to be kept at least partially open to any device. This is cool, this is important. What say that, if nothing else, we let this go through in June? We'll never get everyone to get up to speed until they have no other choice.

Seth Lind- please stop messing up the tags on the "This American Life" podcast.

"Production help from Seth Lind." or "Our production manager today was Seth Lind"

This is what Ira Glass says after each episode of This American Life. As I've said before, I'm a huge dork and I listen to a lot of public radio, especially This American Life. I always make it a point to miss the actual broadcast on the weekend so I can download the podcast, and listen to it at work. Sometimes I don't get around to it right away and I may have several episodes waiting on the player.

Here's the thing though, mp3 players rely on tags to organize files. There's a fair amount of inconsistency in the tags for This American Life. Who do I blame? Seth Lind. I don't know that it's his fault, but his fingerprints are all over it... by which I mean sometimes he tags himself as the artist. Well, actually he sets the 'Artist' field to 'Seth Lind2'. I assume 'Seth Lind1' is the being he was cloned from. Sometimes he gets closer the the mark with 'Chicago Public Radio' or 'This American Life' listed as the artist. The title may or may not have the episode number in it.

I always have to go through and change the tags so they'll be easily found in my mp3 player. Maybe Mr. Lind will be vain enough to Google himself, and he'll run across this. It'd be nice. So, Seth (can I call you Seth?) can you please just decide on a tagging scheme and stick to it? Thanks.

This is in reference to the files downloaded from the website, not itunes. Stop emailing me.

What if I don't WANT to "live in the cloud"?

I've been hearing this a lot lately. The future of computer use is "in the cloud". This, of course, refers to cloud computing. The idea is that you won't store your files and applications on your physical PC. Instead, all you stuff will be on some server somewhere, and you'll be able to access it from anywhere. Presumably, this would include redundant backups to prevent the loss of data. We're already seeing the beginning of this with the all the Google tools and explosion of online storage solutions. It sounds like a good deal, right? Not for me.

While I'm in constant fear of losing my data, I just don't want to trust my ability to use a computer to the availability of an internet connection. Just think about it. No internet connection, no files or applications. I think I've been soured on the idea by Comcast. I've spent more time troubleshooting my internet connection than I would have ever thought possible. If it's too cold, the internet goes down. If it's been too long since I had my crappy used modem replaced, it breaks. If some tech has nothing better to do, he "accidentally" damages the local node.

When my connection goes down, I have other options. I can play a game (unless it's steam based), do some photoshopping, or watch a video of some sort on my PC. It just feels too constraining to have everything online. I know that seems counterintuitive, but it's not. The whole cloud computing thing seems too much like shared computing from way back in the day (the day that I never experienced, but I've heard stories).

The general idea seems sound, but I like having a physical computer with my files on it. Backing up to the cloud is perfectly fine, and I already do some of that. But have you seen the crappy upload speeds everyone is getting? I'm damn lucky that when my connection actually works I get about 2Mbit/s up. Even then it takes way too long to get any substantial amount of date uploaded anywhere. ISPs are already complaining about not having enough bandwidth, where is all this capacity going to come from?

I'll be perfectly happy to go along with cloud computing after I have 1Gbit fiber to my door and a constant WiMAX connection to the implanted computer in my central nervous system. I imagine this will be some time after the technological singularity. So just as soon as super-intelligent computers solve all the world's problems and/or kill us all, I'll be happy to entrust all my data to the cloud.

Are they serious?

I don't understand PETA. I mean, I just don't get the things they do. If you're trying to affect real societal change, you can't keep doing bat-shit insane things. I already discussed their recent request that Ben & Jerry's use human milk in their ice cream, but this is possibly weirder. PETA seems to be seriously trying to call fish "sea kittens". I thought this was just some weird publicity thing for kids. The website for this campaign seems to be geared towards kids. But their more serious site "Fishing Hurts" calls them sea kittens too.

I just can't help but be confused about PETA's priorities here. I just don't understand the comparison of fish with domesticated animals. Humans domesticated some animals as pets, and that gives us the responsibility to protect (i.e. not eat) them. They'd like to point to vague studies that say something about fish having complex something-or-other. But complex compared to what? Snails? How far down the food chain would PETA like to go?

There is an entire sub-group of vegetarians that eat fish. They are prevalent enough that the term "pescatarian" was added to the dictionary. I'm sure these people would consider themselves animal rights supporters, and they have no problem eating fish. A rational person does not consider fish to be on equal footing with dogs or cats.

Would PETA like Inuit people that rely on fish to stop eating them? Will they be airlifting tofu in as a replacement? These sort of over the top antics are only going to assure that people with a more moderate view on eating animals will be driven away. If PETA wants anyone to listen, they have to stop acting like nuts.

Just let BitTorrent save the day.

It seems like BitTorrent has a bad image. Mainstream business don't seem to even consider it as a useful tool. But they should... seriously.

I'm a giant dork, and as such, I like public radio. I always listen to This American Life in podcast form. As of late Ira Glass has been making a little speech as the beginning of the show reminding everyone that Chicago Public Radio spends $150,000 each year on just the bandwidth for the podcast, and could we maybe kick in a couple bucks? I give money to public radio, but most people don't. I can see how this would be distressing in these rough economic times.

Here's the deal though... why not just release the show on BitTorrent instead of direct downloads? Maybe they can still offer the DDL on the website, but ask people to use the torrent as it helps save money. This seems like a perfectly reasonable delivery model.

Microsoft can take a lesson here as well. Just yesterday they underestimated the popularity of the public beta of Windows 7. They had to take it down for the better part of a day while they dealt with "very heavy traffic". So a few new servers later all is well. But at what cost? If they had instead posted a .torrent file and set up a tracker, everything would have been fine. The beta was, of course, available on torrents without Microsoft's consent (if you knew where to look). But why couldn't Microsoft just provide people with a legitimate .torrent file that everyone knew was the real deal?

Norm Coleman's journey towards acceptance.

As many of you know, Minnesota has the only still unresolved Senate race in the country. It's beginning to look like the state will certify Al Franken the winner. However, Coleman can still challenge that in court. It's been a long few months for Norm. In some ways it seems like he's going through the grieving process. In fact, he seems to be going through the 5 stages of grief. Loosing a Senate seat can be traumatic, here's how Norm has dealt with it. This is satirical and a gross over-simplification... duh.

Claims victory:

Counting every vote is wrong?:

Lost ballots:

Norm begins to lose hope, withdraws challenges:

"Virtually certain" that the result is heading for a court challenge:

Umm... as a disclaimer, Norm Coleman has not killed any hookers that I'm aware of.

So Norm has accepted that he may not win the election by the traditionally accepted method of "getting the most votes". He might have accepted the outcome of the recount, but will he have to grieve all over again in the court battle? Maybe... so it goes.