Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog

I listen to a LOT of podcasts and a few of them have been just adamant about people going to see this webisode performance created by Joss Whedon. Now I'm normally not one to tell people to just go watch things online, but damn! This this is really good. I watched it at Hulu.com and it was my first time going there. The best thing I thought about the whole experience, besides the video was the ability to "turn down lights", which basically darkens the whole screen and makes it a much better viewing experience.

It's a bit much to describe it, so I think you should really just go to Hulu and watch all three acts. I liked doing it that way instead of as one episode, it made it better in my opinion, although that meant 3 ads to sit through instead of 1.

So here's the link to ACT I of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog, at Hulu.com

Selectable Output Control

Now, the stuff I read over at BoingBoing alternately makes me cringe and weep at various times. They actually do a pretty good job at putting issues out in front of the readers and pointing you to other sites to get the full info. Today the idea is to send you to Public Knowledge to show you a simple explanation of what the MPAA has asked the FCC for. It's a thing called "Selectable Output Control". What it is for is to restrict your ability to watch VOD (Video on Demand) movies in the way you want to. What I mean by that is, you pay for a VOD and they want you to watch it on that TV and not placeshift it to a more convienent method of viewing. To do this they want to be able to turn off the outputs of your entertainment (ie cable box, DVR) system.

I have strong opinions about the MPAA and RIAA organizations themselves and also the apparent limitless power they seem to wield in Congress. I don't believe anything they ask for should be given to them and I certainly don't believe that they should have the right to tell me where and how I can watch a movie I've paid for. If you don't think this would apply to you since you might not placeshift movies for viewing (Slingbox, Ipod, handheld media device etc) then think about this idea. In order to protect the advertising dollars, how quickly do you think TV stations will pick up on this idea and try to get their own dispensation from the FCC to do it to certain highly rated TV shows or other programming?

The more power you give to someone the more they try to take. The money flowing into Congress from Hollywood and the **AA groups is unreal. Watch how hard certain Senators and Representatives push for these more restrictive laws and understand that your freedom to do things will ultimately begin to erode much faster as time goes on.

Take a stand now. Contact the FCC, your Congress Critters and your friends and inform them about how you feel about this idea. Start watching how much money goes into campaigns and from where.

Check out the explanation of SOC at Public Knowledge and even print it out if you want to give to people you know.

New Monitor

Not the best time for this to happen, but the monitor I've had since 1997 has finally given up the ghost and decided to fry itself. Tammy turned it on to a crackle and awful electronic burning smell last night and immediately unplugged it. It got hauled off this morning. I ended up at OfficeMax since staples didn't have their advertised item in stock. OfficeMax did.

I am now the proud, yet poorer owner of an HP w1907 widescreen LCD monitor. Its going to take some getting used to. We both feel it is very bright and still not sure which resolution we'll keep it at. They recommend 1440x900 at 60Hz, which is where it is right now. I'm getting used to the wider screen real estate but it is going to take some time. The cool thing is I can recycle my audio speakers and give them to my dad for his pc since this thing has integrated speakers in the monitor. I'm using the DVI connector instead of the VGA one and I guess sometime I'll have to hook the VGA cable up to have ready for my tech support stuff for other folk's pcs. That will be cool since I could just switch inputs between cpus.

So, 211 bucks into a new monitor. I guess 11 years is good enough for the old one. I can only pray that this one will last half that long with the shoddy manufacturing I've seen in all electronics in the last few years.

Busy, busy, busy

Trying to study for the ET test again, so not much going to be going on. It's less than 2 weeks away and I'm really intense on the studying. Sorry for the lack of updates.