VrooooooooooomWHIIIRRRRRRRRRR-Whirrrrrr-Whirrrrr-Vrooooooooooom-WHIIIRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR... AD NAUSEUM!
Seriously! Seriously maintenance and grounds crew. Perhaps we can look at the academic calendar before we send out our small army of lawn mowers and begin hacking and gauging at the native ground-level plant life on campus.
There I was, giving the most difficult test I give every year, the final exam for Introduction to Algorithms. Let me give you a frame of reference here. I warrant that Introduction to Algorithms is easily in the top five most difficult classes on campus.
What it's main competitor for the title, Organic Chemistry, has over Algorithms is mainly that a lot more people take Organic Chemistry and therefore, a lot more people complain about it, loudly. Additionally, Organic Chemistry and other such courses have an experimental laboratory component that gets a lot of press. I know a lot of people fail those sorts of natural science classes; and in many ways its unfortunate that students that take Algorithms don't tend to take those courses as well. So, we don't have anyone who can argue from experience which class is hardest.
I will say this, up until this semester, I've taught the class (let's see... quick calculation) maybe eight(?) times over five years with class sizes between 5 and 15 and no one had ever made an A in the course (I expect several people to make an A this semester, and I am most pleased with how hard those individuals have worked). The fail/drop rate for this class MUST be approaching fifty percent over that same time. I'm not happy, about that track record, necessarily, but I'm very proud of the standard of academic rigor that the class has set and maintains.
So, the final exam in that class (this semester) was worth 35% of the grade. Imagine a room of stressed students, working into their second hour of the two and a half hour test, with their grade in the class and future in the major hanging in the balance; hair is tousled, faces are strained in concentration, no one is making a peep; and then descend upon us the hideous sounds of a weed-eater wielding assailant. He's right outside the window working his way back and forth, back and forth, back and forth and he WILL NOT go away.
Now, I swear that my exams are interrupted far more often than you would expect from random chance by people with an immediate need to make grass shorter and to do it in the loudest way possible. I get aggravated every time it happens. But for pete's sake, this isn't a random happen-stance, this has been scheduled for months, this is exam week! People are probably taking and hopefully studying for, you guessed it, EXAMS. These things are kind of important!
I tried to give the hapless assailant this morning a chance to be quick about his work. No such luck. After about ten minutes I walked outside and yelled, as to be heard, "HAY HAY HAY!" and gave the universal cut it out sign. When he looked up he gave me a look like a deer in headlights. I had to wait for him to take out his earplugs (EARPLUGS people, IT's EXAM WEEK!).
"Is there somewhere else you can go to cut grass for about thirty minutes. I'm giving an exam in that class right there!" and I pointed at the window over his shoulder. "Sure", he said.
When I got back inside, one of the students said, "He's got to go change his pants now." Perhaps I was not as successful at covering my annoyance as I'd hoped. Oh well.
The remainder of the exam was finished in relative peace, with only the sound of distant grass cutting penetrating the walls.
--------------
Before the exam this morning, I made a curious observation concerning the choice of clothing being worn to exams on the first day of exam week. There seem to be two schools of thought, especially amongst the female students. I haven't noticed the same trend amongst the male students, but I only saw MY male students this morning, and the geeks taking Algorithms are not representative of the common population.
Nevertheless, amongst the female students, one school of thought seems to be to dress down. Students who belong to this group are wearing flip-flops, sweat pants and t-shirts and commonly have their hair in a ponytail, or otherwise flying freely. The other group, is the polar opposite instinct. Four inch heels or expensive and trendy cowgirl boots, skirts or dresses, a nice blouse, and hair styled to a degree that indicates the morning hours were spent with one's nose in the mirror rather than in a book.
Note that the distinction is so sharp that I casually noticed it. If it weren't such a sharp distinction, with seemingly no middle ground, I wouldn't have noticed at all.
I wonder if there's a correlation between these two schools of thought and the success rate on the final. I have no way of knowing, but it's just a curious observation, as I said.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Day 26: Across the Pond
The British confound me, in many ways. It seems we are not only a people separated by a common language, but also separated by a common culture.
I've just finished watching an episode of the BBC Channel 1 series, "Sherlock". It's a modernised take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous character. I have not been enthralled by a show, nor found it as immediately captivating as this in a long time. In a word, it was delicious. I'm envious of the class of television that the people who natively get BBC programming are able to watch. Me? I've got to wait months or years until maybe someone with half a brain at PBS buys the rights and shows them under the Masterpiece Theatre banner.
I left the show I just watched longing for more. They've got me. They have entertained me and stimulated my intellect, I've bought in to their world and I want to visit it again and again... and I'm willing to pay for it. I will gladly pay to watch excellence, in general. But, when I go to Wikipedia to look up more about the show, I find that it has been treated with the casual disdain (to my eye) that every wonderful show in Brittain is treated.
I find that their are inexplicably only 2 seasons (series, as they call them across the pond), and there are only three one and a half hour episodes each. The first three originally aired back in 2010. My first thought was that it wasn't very popular locally, wasn't a commercial success, if you will. But then again, when I look at the numbers approximately nine million viewers watched each of the three episodes (only 62 million people live in the United Kingdom, to give some perspective). Maybe not a raging success, but less popular shows stay on the air in the States all the time. And if it was a failure, then how do you account for the second season, first airing in 2012 (incidentally, the episode I watched was the first of the second season entitled "A Scandal in Belgravia").
The second season garnered even more viewership; approximately 10 million viewers for the first run of each of the episodes. And then? Nothing (so far). How can you turn your back on a money-maker, on a success, on a provably good show with a growing viewership. Even if your coming back to it, how can you not "make hay while the sun shines" as my Grandfather used to say.
"No, that's just enough of that. NEXT!" It's such a British attitude; the self-assurance that there's nothing special about success, that whatever comes next might not be immediately as good, but something just as good, if not better is on the way. It's just so British. You know, if an American show like Jericho, or Dollhouse, or anything else with a small but loyal viewership gets cancelled, there's an immediate uproar. That's just so American, I guess.
Anyway, if someone has the six episodes of this wonderful show they can let me borrow, then let me know.
SIX episodes! You barely need a single DVD! It's so foreign to me (literally), I've got around eighty episodes in four season of Battlestar Galactica across a dozen or so CDs on my shelf, and I could have used more! But, then again, it's clear to me who has the best stuff on their TVs in general. So... there ya' go.
I've just finished watching an episode of the BBC Channel 1 series, "Sherlock". It's a modernised take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous character. I have not been enthralled by a show, nor found it as immediately captivating as this in a long time. In a word, it was delicious. I'm envious of the class of television that the people who natively get BBC programming are able to watch. Me? I've got to wait months or years until maybe someone with half a brain at PBS buys the rights and shows them under the Masterpiece Theatre banner.
I left the show I just watched longing for more. They've got me. They have entertained me and stimulated my intellect, I've bought in to their world and I want to visit it again and again... and I'm willing to pay for it. I will gladly pay to watch excellence, in general. But, when I go to Wikipedia to look up more about the show, I find that it has been treated with the casual disdain (to my eye) that every wonderful show in Brittain is treated.
I find that their are inexplicably only 2 seasons (series, as they call them across the pond), and there are only three one and a half hour episodes each. The first three originally aired back in 2010. My first thought was that it wasn't very popular locally, wasn't a commercial success, if you will. But then again, when I look at the numbers approximately nine million viewers watched each of the three episodes (only 62 million people live in the United Kingdom, to give some perspective). Maybe not a raging success, but less popular shows stay on the air in the States all the time. And if it was a failure, then how do you account for the second season, first airing in 2012 (incidentally, the episode I watched was the first of the second season entitled "A Scandal in Belgravia").
The second season garnered even more viewership; approximately 10 million viewers for the first run of each of the episodes. And then? Nothing (so far). How can you turn your back on a money-maker, on a success, on a provably good show with a growing viewership. Even if your coming back to it, how can you not "make hay while the sun shines" as my Grandfather used to say.
"No, that's just enough of that. NEXT!" It's such a British attitude; the self-assurance that there's nothing special about success, that whatever comes next might not be immediately as good, but something just as good, if not better is on the way. It's just so British. You know, if an American show like Jericho, or Dollhouse, or anything else with a small but loyal viewership gets cancelled, there's an immediate uproar. That's just so American, I guess.
Anyway, if someone has the six episodes of this wonderful show they can let me borrow, then let me know.
SIX episodes! You barely need a single DVD! It's so foreign to me (literally), I've got around eighty episodes in four season of Battlestar Galactica across a dozen or so CDs on my shelf, and I could have used more! But, then again, it's clear to me who has the best stuff on their TVs in general. So... there ya' go.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Day 25: If There Ain't No Honky Tonks in Heaven...
... I'm Stayin' Here. Not really, I haven't attached a rider to the deal concerning my eternal reward... nor could I. However, that's a song lyric from the catchy closing diddy by a band called "J.P. Harris and the Tough Choices", who just finished opening for "Whiskey Gentry" (they're setting up on stage now).
It rained a good portion of the day today (it poured the rain, as they say around here) while Tabitha and I were cleaning up in the new house, Oliver played around at our feet, we slapped a few test strips of paint on the wall, and generally tried to wrap our brains around what we've gotten ourselves in to. Luckily the weather has cleared up of late. J.P. Harris, when he was on stage, claimed to have "honky tonked" the weather away, so maybe that's a thing!?
One of the great things about the culture around here is the connection to deeply rooted music; going all the way back to the original Carter family recordings made just down the road in Bristol, VA back in 1927. These bands are both here in connection with the Bristol Rhythm and Roots organization which is really good at bringing great up and coming bands to the region and getting their names out (thanks Dave Stallard, our local organizer). I highly recommend you check out both of these bands and Bristol Rhythm and Roots.
Whiskey Gentry is on now, and any band that features a fiddle immediately has my ear... gotta go!
Friday, May 4, 2012
Day 24: Sign Here, Here, and Here and Date Here
So. Tired. We made it though, we are home owners.
This was an eye-opening experience; not bad, mind you, but eye-opening into how careful everyone who has money is not to lose it to anyone who has less, even if it could conceivably have been said to have been their fault (buyer's title insurance, anyone?). What's more, even if they're not covering their assets in every conceivable way, passing the buck to the customer at every turn, there figuring out some way to nickle-and-dime you to death. Ten dollars for a cashier's check from Bank of America ("here's the money you lent us, that'll be ten dollars to get it back"), ten dollars to transfer city water service, a few hundred dollars here or there charged for "record's keeping" by the city and county and state and federal government and wash boy and governor's illegitimate son and, and, and.
The cost of doing business, I guess.
Regardless, I'm overall very happy. Things went very smoothly today at the closing and I couldn't ask for a better partner than Tabitha. Not only is she absolutely beautiful, but she's smart as a whip and stays on top of things. Most importantly, she calms me down when I need it.
I tried to keep count of how many times we signed our names, but I honestly lost count. I estimate it was around twenty to twenty-five times. That doesn't sound like a lot, and in fact, I hear a lot of people have had it worse, but it feels like a lot of trouble while your doing it and the REAL time consumer is having to go over all the paperwork before you sign each one. All in all it took around an hour and a half to finish.
Admittedly, we could have moved along faster, but the lawyer we used here in town is quite a jovial fellow and knows many of the people we know both from church and from the college. (It's a small town.) Also, he's a Tennessee grad and so we talked about that universal topic; SEC football. We made him take a check with The University of Alabama emblazoned on it (it's the only kind we have, but that didn't lesson our glee).
After we finished Tabitha and I went to get Oliver, and we spent the evening at our friends Wendy and John Mark's house where they were hosting our annual department pock-luck to mark the end of the semester. (Wendy is our administrative assistant and John Mark, her husband, is a professor in the English Department). A great time was had by all. Our entire department is very friendly and collegial. Each of us has children whose ages range from a little less than two to eight or nine. They all played with each other wonderfully and I think wore each other out, (a wonderful trick we parents play on kids of this age). We played several rounds of corn hole (bean bag toss, to some) and had great food and conversation. It was a quite relaxing and refreshing time.
I can, however, report that summer is rightly upon us because I've been bitten by quite a few mosquitoes. The ones that are out now are big and fat and slow and I managed to kill a few... but the war continues.
So, next is the long process of moving. I think Tabitha and I have done well for ourselves by giving ourselves nearly a two full month overlap between now and when we have to be absolutely out of our current place. I'm not convinced it won't take that long!
Oh well. Excelsior!
This was an eye-opening experience; not bad, mind you, but eye-opening into how careful everyone who has money is not to lose it to anyone who has less, even if it could conceivably have been said to have been their fault (buyer's title insurance, anyone?). What's more, even if they're not covering their assets in every conceivable way, passing the buck to the customer at every turn, there figuring out some way to nickle-and-dime you to death. Ten dollars for a cashier's check from Bank of America ("here's the money you lent us, that'll be ten dollars to get it back"), ten dollars to transfer city water service, a few hundred dollars here or there charged for "record's keeping" by the city and county and state and federal government and wash boy and governor's illegitimate son and, and, and.
The cost of doing business, I guess.
Regardless, I'm overall very happy. Things went very smoothly today at the closing and I couldn't ask for a better partner than Tabitha. Not only is she absolutely beautiful, but she's smart as a whip and stays on top of things. Most importantly, she calms me down when I need it.
I tried to keep count of how many times we signed our names, but I honestly lost count. I estimate it was around twenty to twenty-five times. That doesn't sound like a lot, and in fact, I hear a lot of people have had it worse, but it feels like a lot of trouble while your doing it and the REAL time consumer is having to go over all the paperwork before you sign each one. All in all it took around an hour and a half to finish.
Admittedly, we could have moved along faster, but the lawyer we used here in town is quite a jovial fellow and knows many of the people we know both from church and from the college. (It's a small town.) Also, he's a Tennessee grad and so we talked about that universal topic; SEC football. We made him take a check with The University of Alabama emblazoned on it (it's the only kind we have, but that didn't lesson our glee).
After we finished Tabitha and I went to get Oliver, and we spent the evening at our friends Wendy and John Mark's house where they were hosting our annual department pock-luck to mark the end of the semester. (Wendy is our administrative assistant and John Mark, her husband, is a professor in the English Department). A great time was had by all. Our entire department is very friendly and collegial. Each of us has children whose ages range from a little less than two to eight or nine. They all played with each other wonderfully and I think wore each other out, (a wonderful trick we parents play on kids of this age). We played several rounds of corn hole (bean bag toss, to some) and had great food and conversation. It was a quite relaxing and refreshing time.
I can, however, report that summer is rightly upon us because I've been bitten by quite a few mosquitoes. The ones that are out now are big and fat and slow and I managed to kill a few... but the war continues.
So, next is the long process of moving. I think Tabitha and I have done well for ourselves by giving ourselves nearly a two full month overlap between now and when we have to be absolutely out of our current place. I'm not convinced it won't take that long!
Oh well. Excelsior!
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Day 23: The Part That's Awesome!
This is the latest I've yet waited to start a blog post for the thirty-day challenge. I wrote yesterday's blog at a little after 12 in the morning, so since it's now a little after 10 at night the next day, I'm really stretching this whole "one a day" rule to the limit. This is indicative of one thing and one thing only, WOW I'm busy!
When I started this blog challenge 23 days ago I was bemoaning my restlessness. I was wanting something good to happen. I was seeking change. Well baby, I'm about to get all the change I can handle; it's already started. Pretty soon you're sure to hear me complaining about having too much change; I'll be longing for a time when things were quieter and more settled. But, men are all bundles of contradiction (full disclosure, I think I stole that line from Stephen Fry).
Most pressingly, it's looking more and more like making a home purchase is going to happen. All the last minute minutiae has been taken care of (I think; it seems the people who are in charge of this whole proceeding keep discovering things we really super bad need right now, and it seems all these things are the kind of thing that we could have easily handled WAY BACK before it was the last freakin' minute!) in anticipation of closing on our new home tomorrow.
Here's what I know about what's going to happen tomorrow, I'm going to sign my name... A LOT! Heeding the warnings of many a person I'm already limbering up that signing hand. My plan is to carbo-load and drink lots of water. Then I'm going to set a competitive but not insane pace so I can save a burst of energy for the key moment as we approach the finish line. The other dozen or so (it seems) people who are going to be in the room with me will be absolutely amazed (seriously, how big IS this table in the lawyer's office?). I'm also planning on wearing those five-fingered shoes that everyone's always talking about and that I keep seeing the all-to-cool looking students wearing around. I hear they give you a more "natural" feel (like, you feel every shard of glass in the road, I guess).
(As an aside, add the Beats by Dre headphones, the "ironic" child's cartoon character backpack, the $200 blindingly colored Rayban sunglasses and the MacBook Pro and you'll have the very picture of your average college student with too much "free" credit and too little sense. You show me one of these and in ten years I'll show you a debt slave; and boy you do not have to look very hard to find them).
Wait! Maybe all that is a plan recommended for people who are going to ACTUALLY run a marathon, not enter into a marathon signature writing session. Crap. Well, I'm sure most of it applies.
Then, THEN, oh then comes the issue of actually PACKING and MOVING. Oh, the devil is truly in the details here. You thought finding and buying a house was hard. What is THIS... why do we have THIS... WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THIS! It's enough "change" to choke on. It's already begun. It's clear... we have too much stuff, and all of it we didn't know we needed until we saw it for the first time IN YEARS. Now, we can't get rid of THAT, it's so ... USEFUL... theoretically. Again, crap.
But, the saving grace is this. Next week is exams. Summer is getting ready to start. I love exams, people think I would hate them, loathe them even. People are surprised that I love them as much as I do. Granted, many of my colleagues in different fields do hate them (literature professors, history professors, psychology professors, etc.). These are people who teach in fields where they have to read (I'd imagine) loooong, and booooring, and repetitive and often mind-numbing papers such that it all begins to merge into one terrible paper across the many years of one's career. My hat is off to them; not me baby. I'm happy about exams, because my work is DONE. I've done my darndest to impart knowledge (droppin' knowledge bombs left and RIGHT) and I've corrected errors in homeworks numbering in the hundreds and graded many exams and I've lectured and explained until blue in the face all semester long and my work is DONE. The burden is entirely on the students now. Sure, I have to grade a bunch of answers, but what's great about math and science related fields is, either you get it, or you don't. No room for equivocation here, baby. Yes!
And the pending end of the semester, of course, means more change is coming.
Remember how before I made mention of the most awful part of being a professor. Well the best part is, having the freedom to decide what you're going to explore, and being able to take the time to do it. It's a great adventure, and I'm about to be on my way.
SPIRIT Lego Robotics camp curriculum - let's do it!
Preparing to teach Computer Architecture in the fall, a class I've never taught before - bang on!
Going over a book that tells you how to program robots that use the Kinect to see - oh yeah!
Learning about electronics from the ground up - I think so!
Working on creating a YouTube site about all things Computer Science - yep!
Preparing to teach an awesome Honors Course next year; bringing computers to smart kids from other disciplines - you know it!
Nobody tells me what I have to do, and when they do tell me I have to do something, they let ME figure out how to do it. It's scary, but I wouldn't have it ANY OTHER WAY!
When I started this blog challenge 23 days ago I was bemoaning my restlessness. I was wanting something good to happen. I was seeking change. Well baby, I'm about to get all the change I can handle; it's already started. Pretty soon you're sure to hear me complaining about having too much change; I'll be longing for a time when things were quieter and more settled. But, men are all bundles of contradiction (full disclosure, I think I stole that line from Stephen Fry).
Most pressingly, it's looking more and more like making a home purchase is going to happen. All the last minute minutiae has been taken care of (I think; it seems the people who are in charge of this whole proceeding keep discovering things we really super bad need right now, and it seems all these things are the kind of thing that we could have easily handled WAY BACK before it was the last freakin' minute!) in anticipation of closing on our new home tomorrow.
Here's what I know about what's going to happen tomorrow, I'm going to sign my name... A LOT! Heeding the warnings of many a person I'm already limbering up that signing hand. My plan is to carbo-load and drink lots of water. Then I'm going to set a competitive but not insane pace so I can save a burst of energy for the key moment as we approach the finish line. The other dozen or so (it seems) people who are going to be in the room with me will be absolutely amazed (seriously, how big IS this table in the lawyer's office?). I'm also planning on wearing those five-fingered shoes that everyone's always talking about and that I keep seeing the all-to-cool looking students wearing around. I hear they give you a more "natural" feel (like, you feel every shard of glass in the road, I guess).
(As an aside, add the Beats by Dre headphones, the "ironic" child's cartoon character backpack, the $200 blindingly colored Rayban sunglasses and the MacBook Pro and you'll have the very picture of your average college student with too much "free" credit and too little sense. You show me one of these and in ten years I'll show you a debt slave; and boy you do not have to look very hard to find them).
Wait! Maybe all that is a plan recommended for people who are going to ACTUALLY run a marathon, not enter into a marathon signature writing session. Crap. Well, I'm sure most of it applies.
Then, THEN, oh then comes the issue of actually PACKING and MOVING. Oh, the devil is truly in the details here. You thought finding and buying a house was hard. What is THIS... why do we have THIS... WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO WITH THIS! It's enough "change" to choke on. It's already begun. It's clear... we have too much stuff, and all of it we didn't know we needed until we saw it for the first time IN YEARS. Now, we can't get rid of THAT, it's so ... USEFUL... theoretically. Again, crap.
But, the saving grace is this. Next week is exams. Summer is getting ready to start. I love exams, people think I would hate them, loathe them even. People are surprised that I love them as much as I do. Granted, many of my colleagues in different fields do hate them (literature professors, history professors, psychology professors, etc.). These are people who teach in fields where they have to read (I'd imagine) loooong, and booooring, and repetitive and often mind-numbing papers such that it all begins to merge into one terrible paper across the many years of one's career. My hat is off to them; not me baby. I'm happy about exams, because my work is DONE. I've done my darndest to impart knowledge (droppin' knowledge bombs left and RIGHT) and I've corrected errors in homeworks numbering in the hundreds and graded many exams and I've lectured and explained until blue in the face all semester long and my work is DONE. The burden is entirely on the students now. Sure, I have to grade a bunch of answers, but what's great about math and science related fields is, either you get it, or you don't. No room for equivocation here, baby. Yes!
And the pending end of the semester, of course, means more change is coming.
Remember how before I made mention of the most awful part of being a professor. Well the best part is, having the freedom to decide what you're going to explore, and being able to take the time to do it. It's a great adventure, and I'm about to be on my way.
SPIRIT Lego Robotics camp curriculum - let's do it!
Preparing to teach Computer Architecture in the fall, a class I've never taught before - bang on!
Going over a book that tells you how to program robots that use the Kinect to see - oh yeah!
Learning about electronics from the ground up - I think so!
Working on creating a YouTube site about all things Computer Science - yep!
Preparing to teach an awesome Honors Course next year; bringing computers to smart kids from other disciplines - you know it!
Nobody tells me what I have to do, and when they do tell me I have to do something, they let ME figure out how to do it. It's scary, but I wouldn't have it ANY OTHER WAY!
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Day 22: We Control the Vertical, We Control the Horizontal
As I've mentioned in this blog before, my family is ready to cut the cable (coaxial, that is). We won't be renewing our cable TV subscription come next month after our move. My plan was (and I suppose for the time being, still is) to subscribe to Hulu Plus.
Hulu, for any who might not know, is a web video service that replays content from television. Hulu is nominally free and gives you access to television shows on many of the most popular networks within a day or two (sometimes longer) of their initial airing. Hulu Plus is an $8 a month premium service that gives you more access to shows (complete seasons, and the like) as well as some other perks. Basically, it's the best thing going for translating the "push" (get the content when and how the provider says you can) content of old-timey T.V. to "pull" (get the content when and on what device YOU choose), like EVERY SINGLE THING ELSE on the Internet.
And I know what you're thinking; yes, it's completely legal. Hulu charges very little up front, but supplements the income with ads (a la Google, which charges nothing up front), and then it uses a (large) portion of that income to pay the content producers (big giants like Viacom, Time-Warner, Comcast, etc.). It's all up and up and above board. In fact, one of the reasons these large content providers might look positively on this method of content delivery is because it makes a serviceable and attractive alternative to illegal methods of distribution; mainly bit-torrent and the like.
There are two basic paths forward for old media (television, radio, movies, and music). Plan A: make your content as widely available as possible on many different devices, accessible whenever and wherever the consumer chooses and do so at a reasonable price (a proven method for reaching modern consumers with exponentially more options than people in say, THE FIFTIES), OR Plan B: fight endlessly to force consumers back into the box of the pre-digital revolution using a business model perfected in the FIFTIES which assumed that content delivery and content production of high quality material could only be handled by the very few wealthy corporations who have managed to buy out or otherwise eliminate any other competition (an patently false assumption). Unfortunately, the major content providers of old media have once again chosen Plan B. (When will they learn?)
An article in the New York Post yesterday announced that Hulu was taking the first steps to change the way they do business. If the plan goes through, only persons who can prove that they currently have a cable subscription will be allowed to purchase the premium subscription. That's right, Hulu is looking to transform itself into nothing more than a fancy, out-sourced, cloud-based DVR.
I've never been more sure that the writing is on the wall for television. Remember this in five years, there was another way forward and the content providers CHOSE suicide. This gambit is NOT going to force tech savvy people who've already left TV back and the television industry can't hope to stop (or buy out) the title wave of good (and getting better all the time) content produced strictly for the web. In short, the world doesn't play their game, anymore.
Speaking for myself, I've never wanted cable less. I won't be blackmailed, period; and all this is going to prove to me is how little it turns out I actually need television anyway.
Hulu, for any who might not know, is a web video service that replays content from television. Hulu is nominally free and gives you access to television shows on many of the most popular networks within a day or two (sometimes longer) of their initial airing. Hulu Plus is an $8 a month premium service that gives you more access to shows (complete seasons, and the like) as well as some other perks. Basically, it's the best thing going for translating the "push" (get the content when and how the provider says you can) content of old-timey T.V. to "pull" (get the content when and on what device YOU choose), like EVERY SINGLE THING ELSE on the Internet.
And I know what you're thinking; yes, it's completely legal. Hulu charges very little up front, but supplements the income with ads (a la Google, which charges nothing up front), and then it uses a (large) portion of that income to pay the content producers (big giants like Viacom, Time-Warner, Comcast, etc.). It's all up and up and above board. In fact, one of the reasons these large content providers might look positively on this method of content delivery is because it makes a serviceable and attractive alternative to illegal methods of distribution; mainly bit-torrent and the like.
There are two basic paths forward for old media (television, radio, movies, and music). Plan A: make your content as widely available as possible on many different devices, accessible whenever and wherever the consumer chooses and do so at a reasonable price (a proven method for reaching modern consumers with exponentially more options than people in say, THE FIFTIES), OR Plan B: fight endlessly to force consumers back into the box of the pre-digital revolution using a business model perfected in the FIFTIES which assumed that content delivery and content production of high quality material could only be handled by the very few wealthy corporations who have managed to buy out or otherwise eliminate any other competition (an patently false assumption). Unfortunately, the major content providers of old media have once again chosen Plan B. (When will they learn?)
An article in the New York Post yesterday announced that Hulu was taking the first steps to change the way they do business. If the plan goes through, only persons who can prove that they currently have a cable subscription will be allowed to purchase the premium subscription. That's right, Hulu is looking to transform itself into nothing more than a fancy, out-sourced, cloud-based DVR.
I've never been more sure that the writing is on the wall for television. Remember this in five years, there was another way forward and the content providers CHOSE suicide. This gambit is NOT going to force tech savvy people who've already left TV back and the television industry can't hope to stop (or buy out) the title wave of good (and getting better all the time) content produced strictly for the web. In short, the world doesn't play their game, anymore.
Speaking for myself, I've never wanted cable less. I won't be blackmailed, period; and all this is going to prove to me is how little it turns out I actually need television anyway.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Day 21: Nerd Alert
I just realised a ... troublesome fact. The current plan, which no longer has any known roadblocks preventing its completion, is to close on our first house, and to finally become actual adult-like home owners this Friday. This Friday is May 4th, as in, May the 4th be with us.
I imagine myself getting up that morning (my wife and I have both cleared our schedules for this momentous event; an undertaking fraught with pitfalls that might need last minute addressing (hopefully not! Universe, I'm watching you!)) and saying to Tabitha at the inception of our undertaking, "May the 4th be with us!", at which time Tabitha will give me her patented 'I can't believe I'm married to you and I have to spend the rest of my life with you you aren't funny don't even try please try to be normal so you don't embarrass the crap out of me or I will kill you with my MIND BEAMS' look.
I know it's coming. However, like Heisenberg's principle applied to blogging, we cannot observe or make a stated expectation of a thing without disturbing it's happening. All in all, it's probably for the best because Tabitha reads this blog and so she'll have more time to prepare a suitably dismissive yet loving response ahead of time.
So, that's not the problem. Our marriage is well-used to my geekiness shining through (that's a light I CANNOT hide under a bushel). The problem is, the lawyer, loan officer, real-estate agent, maybe the insurance agency guy, and who knows, maybe even the sellers (or anyone else in the room) might not be ready for my inability to stop referring ironically and with jest to the current date.
They might think me mad (and in fairness, maybe I am), and might not have bargained on selling a house to a lunatic or a geek. I shall have to endeavour to tone it down, at least until the papers are signed and notarized (are they going to be notarized; that's the thing I really don't like, we have only a vague understanding of what to expect. Oh well, like the Millennium Falcon into the asteroid field we go, hopefully we'll too escape any Space Slugs we might inadvertently fly into).
In other news, this band, is really good. I am a blue grass fiend. Is there a word for a person who is a blue grass lover/nerd? Let me check Google real quick... nope, Google doesn't know either, that's disappointing. Maybe I should coin a term right here and see if it sticks.... hmmm.... I got nothing. (Bluegrass-ophile?, nah!)
I imagine myself getting up that morning (my wife and I have both cleared our schedules for this momentous event; an undertaking fraught with pitfalls that might need last minute addressing (hopefully not! Universe, I'm watching you!)) and saying to Tabitha at the inception of our undertaking, "May the 4th be with us!", at which time Tabitha will give me her patented 'I can't believe I'm married to you and I have to spend the rest of my life with you you aren't funny don't even try please try to be normal so you don't embarrass the crap out of me or I will kill you with my MIND BEAMS' look.
I know it's coming. However, like Heisenberg's principle applied to blogging, we cannot observe or make a stated expectation of a thing without disturbing it's happening. All in all, it's probably for the best because Tabitha reads this blog and so she'll have more time to prepare a suitably dismissive yet loving response ahead of time.
So, that's not the problem. Our marriage is well-used to my geekiness shining through (that's a light I CANNOT hide under a bushel). The problem is, the lawyer, loan officer, real-estate agent, maybe the insurance agency guy, and who knows, maybe even the sellers (or anyone else in the room) might not be ready for my inability to stop referring ironically and with jest to the current date.
They might think me mad (and in fairness, maybe I am), and might not have bargained on selling a house to a lunatic or a geek. I shall have to endeavour to tone it down, at least until the papers are signed and notarized (are they going to be notarized; that's the thing I really don't like, we have only a vague understanding of what to expect. Oh well, like the Millennium Falcon into the asteroid field we go, hopefully we'll too escape any Space Slugs we might inadvertently fly into).
In other news, this band, is really good. I am a blue grass fiend. Is there a word for a person who is a blue grass lover/nerd? Let me check Google real quick... nope, Google doesn't know either, that's disappointing. Maybe I should coin a term right here and see if it sticks.... hmmm.... I got nothing. (Bluegrass-ophile?, nah!)
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