Online TV

Days in my life tend to have themes. Today's theme seems to be online television. I started the day by finally watching the English version of Al-Jazeera. Contrary to my expectations it wasn't free to watch the broadband version, but you can catch the 56K version for free. The streaming is fast, and the quality isn't bad. My only gripe with the 56K is the side bar the producers have inserted and the fact that it stops every 15-minutes. The SideBar is the biggest gripe as it makes it impossible to be running the 56K version in the background while you're working.

As for the news content itself, very impressive. Flashy graphics et al. Funnily enough, the station reminds me more of FOXNews than BBC(and that's not because of bias!). Mainly because it's more entertaining than conventional news stations, though that could be just the novelty value talking. I am still struggling to see any bias in coverage, the closest instance was one report where a reporter placed stress on the words US-led (in the context of the Iraqi invasion) 15 times in one report, but other than that the reporting was pretty neutral I thought.

One problem is that after a while it does seem to a little bit like Middle East overload. One can only handle so many shots and reports from sand-laden locations be they as different Gaza, Iraq, and Syria! But I guess Middle East overload is kind of the point of Al-Jazeera.

Anywhere here's a sampling of some of the TV URLs I've come across today:

Al-Jazeera Television
Enough said already!

Shit TV
Literally

UbuWeb: archives of out-of-print/rare/groundbreaking cinema
Not theoretically television, but I think if you played all these movies back-to-back on one channel for a day you'd suffer from brain overload.

Not exactly comprehensive but then again I said today was my online television-themed day, I never said anything about dedicating my life to it!

Wattup in the World - 24th November

Wonder where one gets a Public Speaking Permit from?
In Singapore, there is good reason to fear public speaking.

A legal question you've always wanted an answer to
"Is beastiality still illegal if the beast is dead?"... Oh the valuable precedents America is providing to the rest of the common law world!

Hardly Sarkozy is it?
French political darling Nicholas Sarkozy's book has been a bestseller for weeks in France. Gordon Brown's one seems destined for something slightly less grand.

Wattup in the World - 23rd November

Brazil leads the way
Just for today, I'll eat my words regarding Catholic intolerance.

This can only be good
France's Far Right finds it hard to get their candidate on the ballot.

An English opinion on Ms. Royal's rise
Something like the equivalent of 'Ms. Royal can go F*** herself if she thinks she'll change anything!'. Ahhh the English and their irrational fear of France...

The cold war is back
Russian espionage undergoes something of a renaissance with sushi poisonings and "blacklists". They're even spying on Canada!

Things not to carry while you're flying
$80,000 in cash, data about US nuclear power plants, suitcase bomb instructions, a commemorative edition of a newspaper dated September 11, 2002, and a hand-written threatening note.

Un-Islamic ringtones
Funnily enough, it's Koranic ringtones that are being labelled Un-Islamic (wonder if Britney Spears would be an acceptable alternative??) .

South Asian parents: deadlier than genital herpes
Non-judgmental BBC blog post on a whole heap of South Asian attitudes towards sex in the UK. Particularly amusing (in a dark, only-I-would-find-this-amusing kind of way) was the story of an asian girl who didn't want to risk getting caught in possession of contraceptives by her parents, so she just had unsafe sex instead. Now..she has genital herpes. In retrospect the tradeoff probably wasn't really worth it was it??

And a links that are all the better for not having detailed captions:

Couldn't have said it better myself

Not so wild and 'yahoo'-ish anymore

A Wii bit more successful

On its first day of launch Nintendo's Wii console has sold out. Amazing. Not only because the console has one of the worst names in the history of videogaming, but also because Nintendo provided far more Wiis than PS3s at launch date (some are speculating almost three times as many!).

It's early days yet, and the hype surrounding the thing was bound to ensure a sellout on the first day. And, this is North America we're talking about, the place is like a second home to Nintendo. The big question for me will be if the Wii can finally end what seems like decades worth of Sony domination down-under.

There is of course one surefire way for Nintendo to steal SONY's marketshare in NZ (and maybe even Australia and the UK too). Create a Rugby simulator. After all, there is nothing NZers like more than prancing around the living room doing fake rugby passes.

And movie moron of the year goes to..

New Line Studios!:

Jackson dumped from new Rings films

21 November 2006
Kiwi director Peter Jackson says he has been dumped from two Lord of the Rings movies - The Hobbit and another Rings prequel - by movie studio New Line.

I'll accept, for the moment, that studios are under threat from evil orcs such as China's-lassez-faire-approach-to-copyright and 13 year old males with broadband, but do they really have to shoot themselves in the foot as well?

Okay, it's a cheap shot..

But it's funny nonetheless!



Courtesy of the normally crap People's Cube.

Wattup in the World - 21st November

50 Most Influential People in New Zealand
Reads more like a randomized list of famous New Zealanders rather than an actual indication of power.

Speaker-by-Speaker Coverage of anti-waterfront stadium protest
Uniting left-wingers, right-wingers, communists, capitalists, greenies, fascists, industrialists, authors, constitutional lawyers, and govt. paid architects, against it! Is there anything Helen Clark cannot do?

Some people just take their 'V for Vendetta' way too seriously
Sometimes you've just gotta look in the mirror & say 'am I likely to be mocked on YouTube for doing this?'...

Milton Friedman at his best
Although I'm not a big fan of the 'Magical Market' approach to everything (e.g. Abracadabra, the market shall solve!). I am a fan of debate, and Friedman was apparently unbeatable at this. I had never heard him speak, except on the excellent 'The Corporation'. However, listening to him speak I can definitely see that he was more than just another Market Magician.

Cost of people going to the office
Why you should save the country some money & just not go :)

BBC does a programme on a day in the life of a Moderate Muslim:
Programme successfully proves that Muslims can be just as boring as us.

Bush invited to New Zealand
Apparently we have lots in common with him. Not only has the Prime Minister had a brain bypass in relation to this proposition but it seems the blogosphere has too with Idiot/Savant asking: Will US bodyguards be permitted to carry firearms? Well, if you're that concerned about trained professionals protecting assassination targets with firearms, maybe you should look a little closer to home first... Personally, I'd rather focus on the fact that there is no logical reason for Bush to come here.

And links that need no caption:

Why we are on the wrong side in Tonga

Singapore gets that sinking feeling