The new Series 3 HD Tivos are out. This is now better than the Tivo/DirecTV combos, even the HD one. And with DirecTV trying to move away from Tivo, it is time to move. Unfortunately the fake cable company here at the current apartment is really just a redistibution of Dish Network, so it doesn’t support Cable Card and this won’t work with it. Not to mention until the house finishes selling there still isn’t money for such things. But after next time we move maybe… not sure it ranks with all the other things to spend money on though. It may still wait awhile. I’m thinking a 3rd SD DirecTivo might happen first. So that each of us can have our own. I want to hook mine up to a Slingbox (with no TV) so I can just watch on my computer. The Mac client is due out in public beta within a month or so. Or perhaps a StreetPilot 2820. I am really feeling the lack of one. When I came to Seattle I left mine in Florida because it had a big yellow spot in the middle, plus I didn’t know where all the stuff was I needed to load Seattle maps. Now it is in a box in storage somewhere even if I knew where the other stuff was. And it had that big yellow spot that made it difficult to use. and the new one is sweet. Or a computer for Amy. Or new cars. Or many other things.

Oh well. For now, all such things still wait.

I’ve been meaning to mention this for a long time, but I generally would always think of it once I was in bed for the night, not at the computer, so I never did. But today having fallen asleep really early, then woken up in the middle of the night, I figured I’d give it a shot.

People who read my blog know that I’ve been without a television since around the end of February. I’ve got tons of TVs in Florida and it just didn’t seem to be worth it to get a new one here, or to double up paying for cable or whatnot. Slingbox was considered, but there were a few obstacles, so it never happened.

In any case, thanks to the internet I’ve yet to miss a TV show I really wanted to watch. And more and more of it is actually available legally as television producers and distributers finally start to “get it”. They still don’t get it completely, cause they often offer lower quality versions with less flexibility than you can get by “other means” but the moves are in the right direction.

But that only gets the fix for “show” type content. It is great for watching Doctor Who, CSI, Lost… whatever. But there is a niche that doesn’t cover, which is the more timely stuff. For instance, I tried using the same methods as with the other things for something like The Daily Show. Very possible. It is all there. But I don’t do it. Why? Cause for that kind of thing I want the convienience of being able to do it directly by subscribing to a podcast in iTunes.

(I know, there are RSS/Torrent combinations that can do this, but they still have more friction.)

I’ve subscribed to about a dozen such shows that I listen to or watch regularly. For the stuff that is timely and are available this way, I’d never consider using “other means”. Just like when iTunes opened for music. Before then, I downloaded lots of music through “other means”. From the day iTunes Music Store opened, I can’t say I’ve downloaded one single thing through other means… unless it wasn’t available at iTunes. Right now TV on iTunes is lower quality than I’ll pay for… I watch on my monitor, not on an iPod… but they are now offering “subscriptions” to shows… still a little pricy, but getting there. Once they straighten the kinks on that, increase the quality, etc… I’ll be all over that. (And maybe once I buy a video iPod. :-)

Um, I’ve got distracted from what I originally wanted to talk about though. There are about 12 audio podcasts I now listen to regularly, and two video podcasts I watch regularly. A couple interesting things with that. First of all, while there are a couple “indy” ones, like TWiT and RocketBoom… most of what I listen to is actually from more “traditional media” type sources. Almost every night I watch the ABC News World News Now video podcast. I listen to stuff from NPR and the BBC almost every night. Each weekend I listen to NBC’s Meet the Press and ABC’s This Week. Could I watch all these things independantly by going to the various websites? Yup. But I never would.

I listen to some BBC stuff directly from their website, but it pisses me off every time. I want to access that stuff as a podcast. (At least the non-live stuff… live stuff is a different beast.)

The other thing that has suprised me is Front Row on the Mac. I thought I would NEVER use this thing, but I use it ALL THE TIME. Now, when I’m awake and sitting at the computer working, I’ll just fire up iTunes or whatnot, but in the evening, when I’m tired of sitting at the computer, and I want to lie down and put something on to fall asleep to, out comes the remote control and Front Row. I love that thing. Never really use it for music, but I use it to pick which podcasts I am going to listen to and such when I’m NOT actually using the computer for something else. Never thought I’d touch the thing. Now I use it most evenings.

I could definately see a day when all my TV shows are automatically downloaded and watched like this. Then it becomes very much like a Tivo, but getting rid of the middleman of the cable or satellite company… or eventually even the networks and such. And also eliminating the bottleneck of worring about conflicts and such. You just download the things you want anytime after they are made available. What time it is released becomes the start of when you can download it, not the only time you can record it.

Ah, good times. :-)

For those who have not been following:

31 May 2006:

Swedish Authorities Sink Pirate Bay (PDF)
Motion Picture Association of America Press Release

Swedish authorities announced today that they have shut down “The Pirate Bay” – one of the world’s largest and most well known facilitators of online piracy. With more than one million registered users, “The Pirate Bay” touts itself as the “World’s Largest BitTorrent Tracker” facilitating and enabling illegal swapping of millions of illegal copyrighted movies, music, software, and games. The operators of The Pirate Bay have publicly ridiculed copyright holders and taunted law enforcement for years claiming immunity to copyright laws. Since filing a criminal complaint in Sweden in November 2004, the film industry has worked vigorously with Swedish and U.S. government officials in Sweden to shut this illegal site down. Over fifty Swedish law enforcement officials executed search warrants and raids at ten different locations which resulted in three arrests and the preclusion of millions of users trading up to two million illegal files simultaneously.

The Pirate Bay boarded, may be sent to Davy Jone’s locker
(Eric Bangeman, ArsTechnica)

Through all the lawsuits, takedowns, and criminal charges, The Pirate Bay has continued to operate openly and with utter disregard for the MPAA, RIAA, and any other copyright holder. In fact, the site owners have maintained a “Legal” page where they post cease-and-desist letters along with mocking responses.

All along, The Pirate Bay has maintained that its operations are perfectly legal under Swedish law (an argument familiar to Allofmp3.com users). This insistence continued in the wake of a new law passed by the Swedish Parliament in July 2005 that strengthened the country’s copyright enforcement law. As The Pirate Bay only hosts trackers and not the copyrighted material itself, it claims that it has every right to operate in Sweden.

1 Jun 2006:

Aftermath of The Pirate Raids
(Thomas, Slyck)

During the raid, each and every server that was hosted by PRQ was seized, despite the proper labeling of each domain. Not only did the Swedish National Police succeed in removing ThePirateBay.org, but every other domain hosted by PRQ. The seizure of these domains, which total between 200 and 300, affected a wide range of websites. While some were smaller, personal websites, many were business oriented websites that depend on advertising for the owner’s personal livelihood. Either way, virtually all servers confiscated had absolutely nothing to do with piracy, ThePirateBay.org, or the online copyright wars.

“Corruption Goes All the Way to the Top”, Says Pirate Bay Chief
(Wiredfire)

It is now being reported that the Swedish Department of Justice received what amounts to orders from the U.S. Administration, who had in turn received “requests” from the MPAA, to shut down Pirate Bay. Orders went straight top to bottom, from the Swedish minister of Justice, this is even worse than I had possibly imagined. We have a situation where not foreign corporate interests, but foreign governments, pressured by their corporate interests, manage to get young people arrested for something that is not breaking Swedish law.

When asked for his reaction to these reports, Falkvinge said “this is even worse than I had possibly imagined. We have a situation where not foreign corporate interests, but foreign governments, pressured by their corporate interests, manage to get young people arrested for something that is not breaking Swedish law”.

He went on to say “And being a nuisance to the media industry is not illegal. It was a scandal of the worst sort to have Swedish Police Force used for these purposes. It’s not what they should be doing”. We asked him to amplify, to which he responded “ X causing Y to lose money doesn’t automatically make X a criminal, in Sweden. You have to actually break a law. A few people arrested for file sharing is just some youngsters getting caught for a prank. The US Administration forcing the Swedish Police to raid somebody against the law, though, that gets people up in arms”.

2 Jun 2006:

YARR! Swedish police site broadsided after Pirate Bay raid
(Eric Bangeman, ArsTechnica)

It looks like the raid on The Pirate Bay and confiscation of its servers upset somebody. That’s one conclusion to be drawn from the sudden unavailability of the web site of Sweden’s national police. Beginning last night, the the site came under a widespread and intense denial of service attack, according to National Police Administration Director Lars Lindahl.

…

The Pirate Bay maintains that the raid was a violation of Swedish law and that the site will be back up “soon,” operating from another country this time. In the meantime, Piratpariet and the Pirate Bureau are organizing “Pirate Demonstration Saturday,” a protest in Stockholm beginning at 3pm local time.

Swedish crackdown on Net piracy sparks row
(Reuters on ZDNet)

Swedish public television said Thursday that an official in the Justice Ministry had put pressure on the police and prosecutor’s office to act against the Web site on a request from the U.S. government and the U.S. movie industry for action.

Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom rejected the report.

“I have not had contact at all with the U.S. government as regards this question, and I have not had any meetings or discussed this matter,” he told Swedish radio.

He said he had never given instructions to the police or the state prosecutor in individual cases.

But two parliamentarians reported Bodstrom to a special house committee which probes government actions.

3 Jun 2006:

Movie piracy site reopens
(AFP on DNAIndia)

The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s most popular websites for the illegal downloading of movies through filesharing, reopened on Saturday, three days after Swedish authorities shut the site down.

“We just got the servers up and running. They’re not totally stable yet but we expect the site to be working as normal within an hour,” one of those behind the site, Fredrik Neij, told AFP.

…

Neij, who insisted Saturday that his actions were not illegal, said the reopened site was using servers in The Netherlands. The Pirate Bay provides instructions on how to share music and film files using links offered on the site, which attracts 1.5 million users throughout the world everyday, 29 percent of them in Sweden, Neij said.

The Scandinavian country last year passed a law banning the sharing of copyrighted material on the Internet without payment of royalties, in a bid to crack down on free downloading of music, films and computer games.

So… the site is back up again at the moment. With their logo changed so the Pirate Ship is opening fire on the Hollywood sign. And the browser title bar reading “The Police Bay”. It isn’t all that stable at the moment though and is up and down quite a bit. And not fully functional. And this may not last long anyway. It is important to point out that they have NOT been vindicated in Sweden or anything. They just set up shop elsewhere. And one of the reasons they were able to last so long in Sweden is because of the particular ways the laws were set up there. That most likely will not be the case elsewhere, although they may gain some time.

Of course, if they actually win in court in Sweden, it will be a whole different ball game.

We shall see.

And of course, whenever one goes down, more pop up. It isn’t like this kind of thing stops anyone.

A few final thoughts…

Where is the American version of Piratpartiet (The Pirate Party)??? A one issue party to be sure, but I happen to completely agree with them on that one issue. I’d most likely vote for them unless they turned out to have views on non-IP issues that I strongly disagreed with.

And finally, a nice quote from Thomas Jefferson:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

I loved the idea of this as a teen repellant, it was just nicely clever, but I love this idea even more. It is just such an appropriate counter reaction…

Pupils perform ‘alarming’ feat

A high-pitched alarm which cannot be heard by adults has been hijacked by schoolchildren to create ringtones so they can get away with using phones in class.

Techno-savvy pupils have adapted the Mosquito alarm, used to drive teenage gangs away from shopping centres.

The alarm, which has been praised by police, is highly effective because its ultra-high sound can be heard only by youths but not by most people over 20.

Schoolchildren have recorded the sound, which they named Teen Buzz, and spread it from phone to phone via text messages and Bluetooth technology.

Now they can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on.

(via Digg)

Apple introduced the iBook replacement called the MacBook yesterday. Along side the Intel chip and the new option to get it in black for $150 more, Apple made a little change to the finish of the screens. They now have a glossy finish instead of a matte one like previous Mac laptops. John Siracusa examines this choice in detail in the article below.

And we all shine on
(John Siracusa, Ars Technica)

Glossy displays have effectively taken over the entire laptop market. Why are they so popular? Here are three possible reasons.

1. They are better than matte-finish displays.
2. They are cheaper than matte-finish displays.
3. People are idiots.

Guess which one John thinks it is?