WTF Wednesday

So, as all two of our regular readers are sure to have noticed, despite my plans to have regular posts, I’ve been less than successful. I think this week, I’ll choose to blame it on my trip to visit my prospective graduate school, subsequent food poisoning (I’ve since thrown out all of the food I touched that day), and lack of personal organization. That being said, I’m going to ring out this WTF Wednesday with a local concern.

This probably doesn’t concern most of you (unless you’re in one of Time Warner’s wonderful test markets) yet. This summer, Time Warner cable, otherwise known of Roadrunner online service and probably other names I’m not familiar with, will be instituting in Rochester, NY, Greensboro, NC and Austin and San Antonio TX, monthly data caps. For those not in the know, monthly data caps essentially limit the total amount of information that you can bring down from the internet to your computer, not just downloading that latest Katie Perri song everyone seems to insist on playing, but also streaming youtube videos, radio, etc.

So far, they’re creating several tiers, combining both speed and total data cap restrictions, ranging from 768Kbps down and a 5GB data cap, to 15Mbps down and a 40GB data cap, the latter for ~55$/month. 40GB may seem a fair amount, but let’s take the example of streaming radio. If you listen to six hours of streaming radio a day, at 192kbps, that comes to a monthly average of approximately 16GB, or 40% of your total data usage on radio alone, N

ow, compare this to streaming video services such as those offered by hulu, comedy central or nbc. You could potentially tear through your allotted bandwidth in no time flat, especially with HD video. Services like skype, and addicted MMO players will also feel the pinch.

While this isn’t currently a big deal for the rest of their market share (not having expanded it beyond their initial test cities), if data caps become the standard for the industry (they’re already imposed by Comcast and Cox, though at much higher levels), I think that we’ll see the spread of online interactions and media being crippled by these limitations. Imagine if they’d decided seven years ago what “reasonable” bandwidth usage was.

Anyway

WTF Time Warner…WTF.

-M

Serious Nut: Spacebat Oddity

All glory be unto spacebat.

We shall remember you and keep you in our hearts….

-M

WTF Wednesdays: Klaus Nomi

Well, I’m absolutely diseased……Sitting at home, drinking tea and watching Ironman…could be worse. As such, I’ve decided that this week I’ll start what’ll be a weekly affair: WTF Wednesdays. Once a week, I’ll post something that has no logical response other than WTF.

Hailing from 1982, we have “Lightning Strikes”, as performed by Klaus Nomi…

wtf 80′s…wtf.

-M

EDIT: Okay, so apparently blog readers have outdone my first WTF…Directly snipped from the site stats, how in the name of god does this lead to this site, AND..wtf?

Dr. Manhattan’s Long Island

So, despite the fact that this movie was already reviewed on this site, I’m going to provide my take on it, as someone who has not, in fact, yet read Watchmen. That’s not just because I don’t have any really new material yet, but also because I’m into bestiality, necrophilia and sadism (read: Beating a dead horse).

I thought it was pretty good. It isn’t something I’d rank among the all-time top films in history, but it was worth seeing.

The acting of some of the cast (see: Malin Akerman playing Silk Spectre) drove me up the wall, and the portrayal of others (Owl Dude) really never made me care about them beyond being plot devices. I tolerated their existence by focusing entirely on the few characters I did find interesting, Rorshasch and Dr. Manhattan (I don’t include Ozymandius and the Comedian here because their screen time just wasn’t substantial enough to really hold my attention).

Jackie Haley’s portrayal of Rorshasch was really fantastic; he came across as a multi-layered personality with both a past and a future (at least until the end). I was fascinated by him for the entirety of the movie, and really feel like he carried the weight of being the focal point of the movie extremely well. Billy Crudup’s Dr. Manhattan, though being nearly entirely CG’d, I also appreciated, probably because of the great effect to which they used the subtlety of this facial expressions. He was also unarguably awesome (who wouldn’t want to be able to teleport to Mars?)

This, however, brings me to his penis.

Now, unfortunately, as near as I can tell, I was trapped in an audience with a bunch of pre-pubescent apes. As a result, every time it came on screen (which I mentally referred to as “Dr. Manhattan’s Long Island”) they felt the urge to laugh maniacally.

EVERY.

SINGLE.

TIME.

This of course was quadrupled in the scene with four blue penises at once; that was nearly too much for them to handle. While it was used to comic relief at least once, the audience I was stuck with seemed unable to discern the difference between it just being and it being funny.  That being said, its screen presence was impressive. Some of my friends have questioned  the need to give his penis as much screen time as it got. I debated the question a bit and came to this conclusion:

a) It was being faithful to the original source. If they’d covered up Dr. Manhattan to be P.C. it would be an unecessary step away from the feel of the original art.

and

b)It made sense. Maybe I’m an egomaniac, but, if I looked that good and was that awesome, even if I was blue….I don’t think I’d wear clothes either…

Would you?

-M

And so it begins

My first post in what I hope’ll be an extended collaboration-thingy….I plan to be contributing mostly my ramblings about technology, ways to simplify life with technology..ways to make life more complicated with technology…new technology…there’s a pattern here….

I’ll also probably diverge from this significantly from time to time to talk about scientific advances, literature, personal philosophy, and who knows, maybe even the news sometimes…

Anyway, as it is late for me, and my caffeinated beverage is beginning to wear off, I’m going to end here for now, but there’ll be more to come later.

Oh, and in keeping with the nutty (ha ha) theme here……..Almonds.

-M