:: The Ottermanempire.com ::

It would be nice if every crime, malady or take this story from what I consider the bottom tier of reporting  US Local reporting at the city level.This story is on a national feed based solely on the mechanism that allowed people to purchase the dog that went on a biting spree.

The real story is that had this been sold from a classified in the newspaper’s owned by the TV station it would have gone unheralded. Just  about everything you see reported against CL is from the people that didn’t just have their lunch stolen but turned up at the grocery store to find a black smoking hole.

CL has it’s faults but were they are indistinguishable from say the same advert on a supermarket notice board or, and I know this would be a rare one ,from a paid classified ad in a newspaper it shouldn’t be the headline of the story.

Today’s “O’Really moment”

Akamai Technologies is extending its content delivery network to the Apple iPhone as it introduces the Akamai HD Network, a system for streaming high-definition live and on-demand video to a variety of devices. Source.

It’s been said twice in the comments over at Mashable that HD streaming to a device that cannot render HD is a bit of a non starter. It’s not been said with a Douglas Adams line from Dr Who.   May as well get started then.

“The concept is simply staggering. Pointless, but staggering” 

Actually it’s not that staggering. While there’s a case for streaming HD it’s maybe better if the end device could actually  utilize it.The  iPhone’s can not and is  likely been mentioned just to fulfill the buzzworthy compliant criteria of the release.

The iPhone’s max output currently is 640 x480,the screen resolution of the device itself is  is 480 x 320.  HD is usually considered to be 720 or above but realistically anything under x2 ( 960) the resolution is really stretching the term and  even the mighty 3GS currently falls far short of either mark without an external screen and short of the mark with one.

Thankfully a better post than I can justify the time in writing,without need to claim lack-of-talent, appears over on the streaming media blog. with the main thrust of the argument coming from the Workflowed blog.

Akamai…..as long as it’s above 700 kbps and starts as an HD source, it can be considered HD. So the house of cards of the iPhone claims in the rollout of the Akamai HD Network rests on HD ‘quality’ that’s below that of today’s average standard-definition stream

And in my unrefined language.

 Just because you start out with a HD source doesn’t make that which you receive HD. If I were to hold my cell phone to the speaker for you to hear the song would you be happy with the term CD quality being used to describe it? If I have ATT iPhone it’s unlikely the call would last long enough to finish this experiment. That’s the second part. Even running at 640×480 with 2.5Mbps , back to those iPhone specs again, you are still not HD and are still exceeding what you could likely extract from ATT on your iPhone. 

In short Penn and Teller don’t need to do a show about this claim because it’s prima fascia  Bullshit!

Want HD Video on the iPhone? Akamai Is Making it Possible

It’s amazing that the genius of Pixar’s use of technology can by waylaid by such a dogmatic adherence to treating their customers as pirates via by way of Disney’s distribution .I’m referring to the digital copies,that we pay extra for, not  coming with the requisite codes to enable us to use them. From what I’ve read online we have to prov that we bought the disk,mess around with the mail , yes the real mail with stamps and white van, and wait for them to decide if we’re believable or not before graciously allowing us to use that which we paid for.

We’ve bought every Pixar movie on release date, seen every movie on release date and have spent an embarrassing amount of money on Cars , and other movie, memorabilia for our son. This  bullshit has sufficiently damaged my view of things Disney to the point that Kennedy Space Center rather than Disneyworld is looking like the preferred destination for our son’s 4th birthday.

Irony?  They think we’re thieves yet we paid for an item that’s not present and in a sane world circumstances wouldn’t the company responsible for the error apologize for the oversight rather than make the public jump through a pile of hoops?  

Amazon.com: Customer Discussions: Wall-e missing digital copy code!!!

Then                                             and                         now

TV  itself may need to spend some time on the island.

Be seeing you .

I have been  pretty good  in my  reduction of TV over the past two years but then again I always was more in love with the radio. That’s were I first came across David Lawrence, whom I’ve previously said some very nice things about. There’s no need to change that here. What  I am happy about is that  I get to be some kinda human,  how so?   Well there’s always these nagging doubts that schadenfreude was  an inescapable part of my make up since I really do find other people’s  misfortune, specially when it’s   heading towards  Greek tragedy , amusing.   If there’s a church bus and cliff involved  I’m set for the day,  the driver swerved to avoid a tortilla   with the Image of Mary and you may have to medicate me down:)  So it’s  gratifying to see that  three people that I know well enough to have  lunch with, occasionally see working ,are doing so well for themselves based on 

 working  at what they love, yeah that  old cliché:) . More important though I think about the only sane  advice that I regularly hear within new media  is nicely laid out here.  The source ,  someone else I admire,  seems to have the same qualities  which kinda hit me between the  “what the hell am I doing and when will I wake up” eyes:)   Anyway  writing more won’t help,  just  watch. 

From Tim Street

One of the original cast  for Now never funny, er Never not funny ( buy  season 1 disk it’s really good  )started a podcast sixteen episodes back.   I forgot to mention it to people.    If you don’t like casual vulgarity , talk of violence towards those that deserve it .

If things like

“I’d stick my dick in a fence just to get it away from Lucy “ 

re Lucille Ball   in  a made  up piece re “the joker”" Cesare Romero  trying to hit on Desi.  His mind doesn’t just wander, it books cruises and  circumnavigates the Earth. 

The show iss deeper than this of course but  I’m  trying to make the point that  if you believe that truth can only  be found in civil company with no naughty words then  please avoid this and go back to your Marmaduke comic collection

Mike Schmidt Comedy – Podcast

I can see a JoCo song  / mashup for this little guy.   But I digress.

It’s really going to be the future soon.  Wall-E  is one future but let’s me just say that  I have nothing to add to the   97% rating that he’s enjoying over there on Rotten Tomatoes.

Why this movie works for me.

Wall-E has more character than the prior Pixar incarnations because you come to him pure, he doesn’t need to fit into car shape, rat shape, fish shape or any of the pre existing personalities from the toy box. 700 years of exposure to our ephemera and the worst that happen to him is show tunes. ( maybe the right wing folks had a point;) )   Wall-e  being seen as  antithetic  to the humans that made him is a point made in many  reviews  has been annoying me.

I  have to be simplistic here and claim that the  US division of thought  falls into right /left wing ideologies ( basically the same fundamental idiocy that reaches divergent conclusions on how it’s best to steal from others for their own benefit, a setup you may  know  better as democracy.) 

This movie has been seen as  a massively pro environment/ anti capitalist movie  by both ends of the moebius strip  so I find myself on familiar ground  in the contrarian position that both sides are wrong.

So in my usual  Socratic ( that means avoiding having to actually solve shit;) )  manner  I have some questions and observations about both side.

1) How is this movie anti capitalist?  The  monopoly position is not practically achievable in capitalism without the intervention of the state and BnL didn’t get that way without help.

2)  How is Wall-e not a reflection on those that created him, how can we be the bad guys in this piece?   Humans  made it to  space,  they made a fricking society that looks pretty close to socialism ( cradle to grave all needs met)  and it pretty much looked like what the  left has wanted to sell us for decades.  They also tried to solve the problem. 

3) The bit I really don’t like.   Farming. We get to the stars  I  and the idea that  we circumvent millennia of improvements to go back to  nature. As if to think that  farming is a default human condition.

I was brought up on a farm have a non romantic view of animals(  unlike the Welsh) and have managed to escape the daily need to hunt food, shelter and the myriad other niceties of living pre dentistry , pre anesthesia  and pre Tetris.  The environment, would it help to call it location? in Wall-e is a background and necessary for his existence, character development.  Basically the framework isn’t built to hang your ideas of the world on and  both sides do this movie a disservice by trying.

To end on a rant.

People that find this liberal really need to get a dictionary and perspective. The root of conservative means what again? It’s more than a greeny trope and can just as easily be seen as an indictment on a socialized system that keeps people stupid , fat and reliant on the state ( corp) from cradle to grave. Seriously politics are what’s stopping most of you from enjoying one of the more touching love stories/ characters in the last few years.

Why bother saving our place on this planet if this is the kind of thought that we’re preserving?

Ah yes I remember this game, Mikrogen’s “everyone’s a wally” but not everyone this weekend was a Wall*e as Wanted took down some serious money too.

Interview with director on ,Daywatch, his prior movie {seesmic_video:{“url_thumbnail”:{“value”:”http://t.seesmic.com/thumbnail/YwsQw7epV7_th1.jpg”}”title”:{“value”:”Wanted “}”videoUri”:{“value”:”http://www.seesmic.com/video/LPxLZ2nr1k”}}}

There’s 182 thousand cheap people out there that need their head examined. Seemingly the point that most people miss here, and one which I will make sure you do not miss is this!    It’s not the state that makes you safe, in fact they abrogated that responsibility to the people that you want them to protect you from.   So we pay more money  to protect ourselves  to the people that say, nah we trust you . go on knock yourself, and your customers out.  Maybe without so much “regulation” there would be enough money to make cars that work  right the first time:)

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — General Motors said it will recall 181,516 Chevrolet HHR wagons Wednesday after finding that some of the vehicles don’t meet government standards for protecting occupants from head injury in a crash.

Chevy HHRs not equipped with optional roof rail-mounted airbags and sold between 2006 and 2008 failed GM’s side-impact tests, said GM. Roof rail-mounted airbags are designed to reduce the risk of head injury in the event of a side-impact collision.

GM to recall more 181,516 Chevy HHRs due to side-impact risk – Feb. 13, 2008

One of my more reckless discussions is that of questioning how effective DUI  and other drug laws are when enforced.  Is the cure worse than the disease?  While many of these questions are   not  designed to provoke or offend  ( I assure you the theological stuff is )  and   are  training wheels for my arguments which  usually I’m 90 percent sure I can justify  to myself.  I’m just trying to get to the other 9%. ( I have to leave 1% open  after all)

Statewide holiday task force reports 2,828 DUI arrests

“A total of 2,828 DUI arrests were made during a statewide holiday
drunken-driving task force …. 6 percent more than the 2,663 arrests
during a comparable period in 2006.”,”
In the latest effort, authorities stopped 36,901 drivers and issued
11,361 citations for traffic offenses other than driving under the
influence, Mulleneaux said.”

Here we go again. In Arizona about 7%  of those stopped are charged DUI  93%  are not.  Despite figures showing that  police looking for dui via traditional patrols is more effective than the roadblocks and assorted gimmicks it just doesn’t play as well to the cameras.   From Tennessee. Roving patrols took about 19 hours per drunk based on observed behavior.  Checkpoints based on the suspicion that you are driving a car on the road the checkpoint is on took 29 hours. 

Sadly roving patrols aren’t as photogenic as a checkpoint. They don’t tell the people that aren’t infringing just what they are doing about dui , but making them wait, stop and interact with the nice officer  certainly  gets that point across.

I am not saying these checkpoints are not stopping people from driving, study after study shows they have an effect … but  at the expense of more effective methods.  About 10%  of the people arrested for DUI are caught at checkpoints during the holiday crackdowns then why not stop the  PR crap and actually get down to the effective keeping of the peace?

This is not a local phenomena.  Check out the experiences in  Florida, Ohio and an aggregate of studies conducted.  Same message from state to state.It’s not about their effectiveness as primary enforcement it’s the appearance to be seen to act rather than acting effectively that’s annoying me.  While you shouldn’t be trading safety for security it would be nice at least if we were getting what we thought

So please don’t pretend you care about DUI yet insist we need to haul over anyone making a trip just to get 7% of those stopped. Oh and the 4th amendment you have to toss out too for your safety at the expense of the rest I’d rather keep. 7% arrested doesn’t equal convicted either. The real numbers could be a lot less

K? Thx Bai.

I really don’t get this level of mental illness being seen as normal. Let’s get this straight.  You have ever lasting life, you never die yet that’s not enough?  Jesus -, no really. The only thing funnier is the State that runs the lottery is investigating those preying on the less fortunate’s desperation.

Only the blessings didn’t come. Fleenor ended up borrowing money from friends and payday loan companies just to buy groceries. At first she believed the explanation given on television: Her faith wasn’t strong enough.

“I wanted to believe God wanted to do something great with me like he was doing with them,” she said. “I’m angry and bitter about it.

Believer bitter over ‘prosperity’ preachings – CNN.com

The Sweeney Todd aka flying squad   in the UK were an “elite”   police unit designed to address the most serious, at least serious to people that like money and property, crimes. It’s a fitting name given the corruption at the core of Sweeney Todd is the apparutus of crime and punishment.

Out of the terrible tale of Sweeney Todd comes a question that  seemed to  I’m assumming you know the basics of the story , and did so prior to the recent movie, but there’s quite a few versions of the tale that predates the musical and movie.   Todd in this incarnation is set up and sent to Australia  by the corrupt judge and the local enforcers for the crime of marrying a woman that the judge has the hots for.  This is the part I have to stress the seriousness of.

Having just read a book about the  British system of transportation to Australia , the Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes, you need to appreciate that this wasn’t just a  playful gambit by the judge in a game of romantic one upsmanship. If Barker( Todd prior to name change) was to survive at all it would be after a journey that the majority did not survive on the earliest boats, to be  worked to death , flogged,  fed rotten food when there was any.      To then have Pirelli  threaten to unmask him to those people was a  very real and present threat to his life and livliehood which he dealt with by what most in the audience, judging by their laughter at the mititagion of this act as being  akin to ” he was blackmailing me”, ” Oh well, then that’s different”

At this point I think there’s a strong case for his actions that I would defend in polite company.   Then , then there’s the rest of story. This is very much  in the style of Chris Rock’s OJ riff.  “i’m not saying he should have killed her but.. I understand”

I’m coming around to the idea that it’s not the police, the judges or even the politicians to blame but those that support them.  I’m taking Sam Harris’s  theory that the religious mild are the largest danger to our evolution being that the give a framework for the truly commited to operate in.  It’s the same with the state.  There’s no way clowns like the Judge could get away with this if the population didn’t want it to occur. We have our own clowns here in Arizona  but the population just like to think that something’s being done.    So when Todd gets all pie eyed at revenge on a world that he see as sanctioning the horrors that befell him  how much truth is there in that?  Like I said  I’m not saying he should have done it but I understand.

The Question is

“Things I need to avoid a heart attack”

 Wot  ish  ashprin ye gaping  eejit 

“ye fell on yer arsh Trebek.”

Alex Trebek has heart attack – CNN.com

Written in less time than it took  Marillion’s  Grendel to play.. about 17 minutes.

Two movies with heavy CGI that I’ve been “forced” to watch at the behest of ,what’s occasionally referred to as my better half  contained Lara Crotch, I mean Angelina Jolie and both left me annoyed.  I could have watched  “no country for old men” but no ,  3d or not 3d that was the offer.  Wrong Joel E (than)  sadly. Apart from that monstrous pun  let’s ready to diss this Dane.

Grendel… supper’s ready. *

Technically I liked it, best dragon yet,  though there’s a tendency towards too many “oo loook pointy” moments.Drawing attention to the 3D detracts from the movie,if you have to remind me it’s in 3d then somethings gone wrong in the story department. Oh and if we’re really going to innovate  drop the suspense shots that telegraph what’s going to happen. geez, just add a fucking double take for the character’s as Grendel bursts into Heorot.

In short the first half can be summed up as Happpy, drinky ,maudlin , screamy , Shouty, schemy, lusty, sleepy , fighty,  repeat.  Intersperse with a rapper’s vocab on how cool you are,  and that you are indeed Beowulf.  Usual look into man’s failings, who is  really a monster are present , but it’s like watching a video game cut scene that you’d be  pressing triangle furiously on to skip the dialog and get to the kick ass dragon ending.

Keeping on the  theme  Beauty and the beast here’s a couple of reviews that  may help.

From the  Flick Filosopher

:: rogerebert.com :: Reviews (xhtml)

*I had four cars named Grendel. My road home was along country lanes and the numbers of rabbits mowed down by my earth rim walker ( mostly accidentally )  led to the name.

I’ve read enough blogs to know that my posts are  ill formed, scatter brained and  on the whole successful. My only criteria for success is  did it amuse me at that time. So it’s with great glee that I point to a “perfessional” pundit making a case that the Skipper of the container ship that hit the Bay Bridge could  drive through.  So 10% is too low,  mm how about 25%?  you know to bring it in line for the 200 million adults, about 1/2 of which voted and then  half of those voted for the  current President.

Commentary: A few states shouldn’t decide presidency – CNN.com

Americans want fairness, and there is nothing fair about less than 10 percent of the states in America choosing the next president for the rest of us.