The Real News - The Age of Personal Irresponsibility

Fraud Factories: Rep. Alan Grayson Explains the Foreclosure Fraud Crisis

This is really out of control. The common man is expected to follow every rule to the letter while the bankers and political elites can do anything they want.

Duck and Cover?

Apparently when Fox News requests an interview and you refuse you are a coward who is afraid of tough questions. . but when MSNBC requests an interview they are completely "unacceptable" and it is perfectly fine to avoid their tough questions because. . . I don't know they are meanies or something:

The New Apple TV: Fascinating and Frustrating

I just finished watching the big Apple announcement today where along with new iOS and iPods, we got a good look at the new Apple TV. There are several things that I like very much:

I really like the new size and the new price. I also like that they have opened it all up to streaming rentals rather than downloads and they included Netflix in their lineup of movies available. This is very big of Apple considering Netflix is technically a competitor. It is also a smart move that the are moving over to the iOS architecture with very little storage rather than being, basically, a scaled down mac with the finder locked out. They are also providing the ability to stream media directly from your mac and other Apple mobile devices so there is no need to store it on Apple TV.

Now for the places that I think it fails:

1) WTF Steve you could have added 90% of this to the existing unit a year ago and given us a decent damn update for our money! Now your early adopters are supposed to throw away their $300 purchases and spend another $100 bucks just to get the new functionality? Bummer.

2) WHERE IS SAFARI???!!! Apple's claim that the number one feature people were clamoring for is full HD is misleading. Their claim that people "don't want a computer" plugged into their TV" is also misleading. I have been testing lots of these set top boxes and following the Apple TV audience in particular. People want two parts of their computer on the TV screen: Their media files AND an internet browser to access the whole universe of other internet media. It was in such high demand that people HACKED Apple TV to get it. Why are they denying this and still choking out the internet access we have had on computers for 10 years now?

I'm beginning to suspect that content licensing is completely out of control in the entertainment industry and there is a media frenzy leveraging hardware manufacturers to lock out our access to internet media the second we start using our HD TV as a computer monitor. All this hoopla about studying their audience and 3 years after I bought Apple TV I still need to plug my laptop into my entertainment center if I want to watch a movie or listen to my local radio station through an internet browser? I don't buy it. Either Steve Jobs is deaf, Apple is playing market games of their own, or they are being leveraged by content providers. There is a disturbing trend among some content licensors to keep the internet off the TV set because TV sets are for cable boxes and broadcasting rights while watching the internet through a TV set is only internet rights.

I'm glad that they are finally back to work on this device and I do really like the direction they are taking it. I just feel frustrated that my original investment in this idea has now become obsolete and it is being replaced with a device that makes basic changes I was still waiting for. In this and this area alone, the new Apple TV is a disappointment to me, the early adopter who spent $300 on the "old" Apple TV which never got a major update after I bought it.

Any Cobb Dogs Ben Quayle

I am SOOOO sick and tired of Ben Quayle's commercials in AZ. He was running them in heavy rotation and he sounds like a complete douche. How do you judge a President against history before their term is even halfway over? What a moron.

So why not help promote this:

The Real News - Chinese Workers May Challenge Global Capitalism

Goldman Sachs Charged with Fraud

Wow what a shock. The masters of the universe thought they were more powerful than the universe.

Wintersleep - Danse Macabre

I just love the way this video was put together. It looks like a very cleverly done low budget project. The special effects and the clever directing make up for the cheezy costumes and the "shot on video" look. The music is a little intense. . but so is the video:

It's amazing how it works.

Isn't it amazing how broadcasters on the right can say all these crazy attention getting things on their "entertainment" and "opinion" shows and then you take a poll of Republicans and they seem to believe it's the way things are in reality. . .

. . such a freaky unpredictable coincidence. . .

Media Matters For America has been focusing their energy on crashing the right wing media for a long time now. They don't just tell us about things. . though. . they are very good at collecting and presenting the evidence. They also provide their sources when they debunk things.

A Christan Nation?

Crag Jensen lays out the argument that everyone forgets when they are caught up in their religious rhetoric about politics.

The Most Disturbing Part Of The Toyota Recall

That would probably be this 911 call I just heard about:



You can read about it HERE and HERE

There are also other incidents

Stop Telling Me To Go See Avatar!!!

I'm a stubborn bastard. I will deprive myself of the fantastic experience everyone says Avatar is because I think it is the only power I have to tell the man who created it that being a jerk still means accountability to some people.

I will not forgive him for being a jerk to people just because he has a special talent that will entertain me. I'm like that with most artists. They way they conduct themselves personally is more important to me than their talent. I wish more people also felt that way. Talent is a gift and a privilege provided to people by forces outside their own making. Celebrity is a gift and a privilege given to people by OTHER PEOPLE. When jerks run around like their talent and celebrity is self made and it gives them special powers over others, they are taking a gift from the universe and using it to pollute the universe where it counts most. Who gives a shit if you just grossed a billion dollars again. It's not hard to find people who worked for you who witnessed you tearing into someone and it's not hard to find you dissing the people who support you like you are a little mini king and we must humble ourselves before you. Fuck you James Cameron!

It's no wonder so many people hate Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general. We hear and see every day how they exploit every human weakness for attention getting profit. We see example after example of how the people who entertain us can end up being the worst kinds of humans. . . yet all is forgiven because we laugh and cry and say "WOW!"

I may still see the movie some day and I'm sure it will still be cool and amazing blah blah blah. . . and it is pioneering 3D that I'm missing blah blah blah. The new 3D is a gimmick that the industry is pushing and it will be everywhere soon. I'm not that worried that I will miss amazing 3D. I choose see this particular movie on my own terms through the cheapest legal means possible because I want more out of my entertainment than to just say "WOW." I want entertainers to also say "thanks," and mean it, to EVERYONE who supports them, not just their actors, producers and spouses.

**NOTE:

The link I provide above is from TMZ which is about my least favorite media source ever and it has been correctly pointed out that this guy may have been deliberately trying to evoke a response. He also becomes an inconsistent jerk himself by the end of it all. This isn't about the guy with the camera though. When someone shows you who they are, regardless of why, you should believe them. BOTH men are showing us who they are. One doesn't cancel out the other.

If you watch the part of the video from earlier you will see that he was an asshole right from the moment he walked out the door:



It could still have been a setup but I don't care. As an industry insider I have heard far too many stories that tell me this is who he is. Even if it was a setup and the guy provoked him off camera before hand, it would take the smallest possible effort to bring this behavior out. Cameron is more than comfortable acting this way. In fact, he is positively relaxed and smug about it.

Digital Downloads Are A Scam

As far as I am concerned, digital movies, books and music, sold sold as downloads, in the current pricing structure are all a scam and we need to tell the industry to stop scamming us.

When I buy a DVD for $14.95 or a CD for $13.95 I am getting more than just the media. No, I don't mean the special features and the lyrics even though that is also true. What I am getting is a HARD COPY. A disc in a box that I can put on my shelf. When it sits on my shelf it is in a suit of armor. For all intents and purposes it will last forever as long as my house doesn't burn down. Pass a magnet too close to it? Who cares. Drop it while looking at the cover? No biggie. Once upon a time it was also legal to make a copy of this DVD or CD for my own purposes. This allowed me to have a "working copy" that could be worn out and my original which was nice and safe on the shelf. These things, to me, are a big part of what I feel like I am paying for when I buy media in a hard copy form.

When I buy a digitally downloaded movie for $14.95, on the other hand, I am getting only the movie and it must be stored on one of the most unstable and temporary places: the hard drive of a computer. According to the new law, I can't even make a backup of this file to a different place without the seller's permission. Assuming I can even get permission to make a hard copy, then I need to jump through the technical hoops they usually create. I need to pay for my own equipment to make it with, pay for the media I need to store it on and I also need to have the knowledge to do it. All of this just to get it where I would be already if I just buy the DVD. If I want anything but a flimsy temporary form for the download, it adds considerable time and cost on my part. Did I mention the quality also isn't the same? What's more, I could only buy the movie this way in the first place because I am paying for access to the internet. So here we have a vastly inferior product with a vastly more fragile and short life, access I need to pay for and/or a great deal of extra labor and expense on my part if I want it to last. . .being offered for virtually the same price (at best $1-$3 off which is the standard big store discount anyway) .

Now we are moving into digital books with the efforts of Amazon and now Apple. Publishers want to present me with a small fancy device with a technology life of about 2-4 years, a battery life of a day or so worth of use at best and the ability to loose my whole book collection at once without taking additional steps to make hard copies myself. They want me to believe that a file downloaded to this this widget is totally worth the same price as a real book that I would own for the rest of my life even if a truck drove over it. . even if I never owned a separate widget. . and even if I was without power for more than a few hours. .

. . and they don't want me to laugh at them.

What I resent even more about all this is that the ones really getting the convenience here are the distributors. DVD and CD distributors no longer need to pay for printing discs, printing covers and inserts, making special features or providing lyrics. Book distributors no longer need to worry about the expensive printing process. They no longer need to pay for large real world warehouses to store the media in, or trucks to move it across the country. The sellers don't need to pay for stores set up all over the region to allow people access to the material and employees to handle the storage cataloging and sales. Now they just put one copy on a server somewhere, duplicate it a zillion times through an automated sales process and zap it across the internet infrastructure that WE pay to have access to. This is a HUGE savings on the distributors end. We the customers suffer very tangible losses by accepting this new trade off, yet they expect us to accept that the very tangible savings should belong almost entirely to them.

If I am going to buy a movie, book, or CD I'll drive to the store because the price is virtually the same (sometimes vastly cheaper) and the hard copy gives me permanence. Apple helped "soft" music get cheaper and it was a wild success because it made a pretty good deal. By that standard, the studios and publishers look pretty greedy and when they start trying to leverage nearly the full hard copy price out of soft digital downloads of movies and books. What I loose is a little travel time. What I gain is a permanent copy without the need for a backup and, in the case of books, without the need for a separate device to access them with.

It's the same with rentals. If I have to pay $4.95 for a movie rental no matter where I get it, I will go to the rental store where there are 99 cent specials and HD movies cost the same as SD movies. There are people who I can talk to and get recommendations from while I am looking for the rental. If I don't feel like going to the store I will pay even less money and use Netflix. They are about the only digital distribution model that makes sense in today's market. They give unlimited access to thousands of on demand movies similar to the ones movie channels show just for being a member. They also offer tons of old TV shows and even some current ones in the same way. If I want the more current titles I can also order up the hard copies that are also part of my membership. I think even on my laziest day I can manage the trip to my mailbox for the DVD version.

It is wrong to download things illegally but I can't help but wonder if more people than me see this ridiculous digital download system we are expected to accept and feel like being activists against it. People sometimes act out on their resentment in inappropriate ways but that doesn't mean the people who act in appropriate ways shouldn't also feel resentment. DVD sales are going down industry wide. . but I doubt it's because everyone is rushing to download movies for the same price. There are a lot of other factors at play. Hollywood needs to rethink it's strategy here because it obviously learned nothing from the music industry.