Side-By-Side

Ok, so I'm avoiding homework right noww (it's summer people it's what I do). But I'm sitting here watching ABC which is currently airing IndyCar and they are doing something that I have never seen before but is an extremely cool idea. ESPN (on ABC) is running something they call side-by-side, which is basically the event on the left side of the screen and the commercials on the right. It means that while you can't hear the race you can still be watching it. What an idea for live events! Let's think ahead to what this could be used for. No more weird breaks during football, hockey, basketball, NASCAR, F-1, IndyCar or any other live event that it is hard to break from. I think it is a very cool idea. It means the commercials still run and they are heard but you can still watch the live event. Maybe ESPN has been doing this for a while, I don't get cable so I don't know. They are also only able to put it on during the network breaks, when they show local spots they can't do side-by-side but locals only occur once or twice an hour. I'm also thinking that this could come in very handy during the Olympics. How about side by side double events? So, NBC doesn't want to carry all the Olympic events well this is a way they can. They can run their normal programming on the right window and carry the Olympics live on the right side, or the other way around. There are some very cool implications in my opinion. What do you think? Comment, email, you know how!

TSN's New Deal

Yeah, I know I promised news from the NW, but I've been a little tied up reading books and taking care of errands I have put off for a semester, sorry. Today, I have something else to complain about. For over 30 years the NFL's Monday Night Football was on ABC in the United States and a variety of networks in Canada, most recently Global. These networks are all "terrestrial" broadcasts, meaning they are not cable based. That is until this year. This year MNF moved to ESPN in the United States and TSN in Canada. These are, as many know, cable offerings only. That's right you can't see MNF unless you go to a bar or have cable or satelite with a sports package. I think it's dumb, especially considering the popularity of the sport in the United States. Now today, TSN/RDS (the french TSN) announce that they will be carrying the exclusive contract for the CFL (Canadian Football League), including the Grey Cup (the Championship game) and all playoffs. This is also a switch from terrestrial broadcast. For as long as I can remember CBC has carried the CFL. It now looks as though you will not be able to watch the Grey Cup unless you have cable. Stupid idea! It may be good for the network but it is bad for the regular viewing public. There are lots of people who will miss out because the terrestrial networks are no longer able to carry games. I think that makes for a very bad choice overall. It has the potential to push those fans who have been watching on terrestrial TV to buy cable/satellite, something they may or may not be able to afford. I know I'm talking about worst case scenario's but it's just frustrating. If this had happened while I was living in Canada and didn't have satellite I would be very upset about it. Terrestrial television has been carrying football for decades why should we change it now just because a part of the population wants to watch every single game. That's all I have please feel free to post comments below or shoot me an email but hitting the link on the right. Thanks. Sorry, here is the link

Ahhh...Christmas Break

It is really nice to not have class for the next few weeks. I really, really, like the days off. Of course, I wish I didn't have to do anything at all over the break but, that is not possible. I have a radio station to set up, financial data to enter at home, a dog to bath, Christmas at three houses in two cities to go to. I have to plan a wedding. Hmmm...Did I fail to mention that on my blog...everyone on myspace.com knew about it, I guess I forgot to mention it here. That's really all I have for tonight. Tune in tomorrow for an article on the Pacific Northwest of the United States and how it has finally gotten some attention, unfortunately it is for some very tragic reasons.

Funny Wii Story

Ok, so Nintendo is handing out new wrist straps for it Wii Remote's. Every once in a while I see a really funny article about cool stuff. The Edmonton Sun's Steve Tilley wrote an extremely funny piece on the Wii Remote, right here. Enjoy!

Mommeeeeeee....It's OVER!!!!!!

Ok, so my title for this one isn't that great, my compliments to Just for Laughs for the line. I'm referring to the NHL Playoffs. Yes, they have still been going on, at least up until last night (that is Monday night, I realize I'm writing this Tuesday morning). Wow, what a playoffs. Let's recap. The Stanley Cup final was played between the number 8 seed from the West and the number 2 seed from the East. The number 8 seed took the number 2 seed to seven games only to finally be defeated in the final game 3-1. The number 8 seed from the West was the Edmonton Oilers. Their story began even before the playoffs began.
The Oilers did not realize they were going to be in the playoffs until the second last game of the season. They then drew the 8th spot in the West, and thereby drew the Detroit Red Wings to play in the first round. Edmonton shocked the hockey world by defeating the Red Wings in 6 games. With the Red Wings gone, Edmonton's second round opponent was the San Jose Sharks. Edmonton again shocked the hockey world, after losing the first two games they won four straight to defeat the Sharks in six games. The third round and the Western Conference final saw the Oilers against yet another California team. The Anaheim Mighty Ducks (soon to just be Ducks) became Edmonton's third victim falling to the Oilers in 5 games (oddly, the only game they won was in Edmonton, where they out of desperation defeated Edmonton 6-3). While all of this was going on in the West the East was being far more normal. See, the West had the 8th seed defeating everyone in their path to win the Conference final.
In the East things were a bit more normal. In the first round, while things looked scary for the top four seeds they all came out on top in their respective games. Carolina lost their first two games to the Montreal Canadians then won the next four in a row to take the series. Carolina (the number two seed in the East) then faced the New Jersey Devils. The Devils managed one win in their series loss to the Hurricanes. The biggest surprise in the East was the fact that the Eastern Conference final did not come down to the top two seeds. Instead Carolina met the Buffalo Sabres in the conference final (the Ottawa Senators were the number 1 seed). The Sabres made the Hurricanes work for their win, taking the series seven games before being defeated in the 7th games 4-2.
Now we look back to Edmonton. Problem number 1, remember that they defeated the Ducks in 5 games, that turned out to be a bit of a problem being that Buffalo and Caroline went 7 games. The Oilers had 11 days off between series, which had been a problem with several other teams in the playoffs (including the Sharks). The Hurricanes and Oilers met in game one in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Canes took game one, and game two (game two was a bit of a blowout 5-0 the final score), sweeping the Oilers in the first two games. The Oilers stormed back in Game three winning it at home. Game four went to the Hurricanes. With the series now 3-1, Edmonton had their work cut out for them. Game Five was back in Raleigh. Edmonton pulled out a win. Game Six, again back home the Oilers slaughtered the 'Canes 4-0. Game seven moved back to NC. The 'Canes struck first making it 1-0 in the first period. They struck again in the second taking the score to 2-0. Edmonton just couldn't make the puck get past Hurricanes goalie Cam Ward. It would be a few minutes into the third before a puck would go into the net for Edmonton. With 90 seconds left in the game Edmonton pulled their goalie and Carolina managed to get an empty net goal to seal their victory and win the first Stanley cup in franchise history. Incidentally, speaking of goaltenders, the Oilers took this series to seven games with their backup goalie. Dwayne Rolison was injured in game two of the Finals. Jussi Markennan, stepped up and kept the Oilers alive. At the other end 22 year-old Rookie goaltender Cam Ward (a Canadian from Sherwood Park, Alberta, a suburb of Edmonton) shone as the star of the series and came away with the Con Smythe Trophy. My hats off to the Carolina Hurricanes, what a series. My congratulations to their coaches and team. Hats off to my Edmonton Oilers, who came oh so close to becoming the first team since 1942 to win a series after being down 3-1 and the first time any 8th seed had come from the bottom to the top. Some interesting stats about each team. On the Hurricanes there are 12 Canadians (several of which are from Alberta), 10 Americans and 7 from various other nations (based on place of birth). The Oilers have 20 Canadians, 5 Americans, 7 from others. It should be noted that these stats do not reflect where players live now. Many of the Americans on the Hurricanes may live in Canada (I don't know for sure). I know the Canadians on the Hurricanes all are headed back to Canada for the off-season. I think I've rambled on long enough at this point. I'm a little upset the Oilers couldn't pull it off in the end but WOW what a run. Maybe they'll be able to do something next year but they need to make sure that they re-sign all their free agents. Feel free to post comments or hit up the tagboard. Goodnight everyone

My Best Segments

My best segments blog post: Suburban Pioneers represents one of the nation's eclectic lifestyles, a mix of young singles, recently divorced and single parents who have moved into older, inner-ring suburbs. They live in aging homes and garden-style apartment buildings, where the jobs are blue-collar and the money is tight. But what unites these residents-a diverse mix of whites, Hispanics and African-Americans-is a working-class sensibility and an appreciation for their off-the-beaten-track neighborhoods.
This is only one of five categories in my neighborhood. A couple of them were way off the mark but this one has a bit of on and off. My area of this neighborhood is a little different than the majority of the of the rest of the zip code. Because of the diversity of the zip code I can see this as apply but it really doesn't apply directly to my street.
As an FYI to my normal blog readers this is the last post for my class and I will return to posting more "normal" things in the near future. Thank you for your patience.

The Digital Divide

Jan van Dijk in his book "The Deepening Divide" discusses his thoughts on the digital divide. In his first two chapters he spends a lot fo time discussing the premise of this argument but his third chapter gets down to business and discusses why there might be a percieved digital divide and how motivational access plays a part in that. Van Dijk thinks that there is a reason that some people are not online and it has nothing to do with access to a computer or the internet. He also notes that of those people who don't have access to the net, they know people who are online and can help them out. Motivated access is only one part of the Van Dijk theory on the digital divide.

According to Save the Internet.com there is a much bigger problem. It is true that there are people who do not have access to the internet, but according to this site the bigger problem is that "big companies" are trying to take over the internet (and having some success). "Save the Internet" is, I believe, another way of looking at van Dijk's ideas. Van Dijk says that with there are users out there who try the internet but get frustrated and leave. Imagine if the Big 5 media companies decide to get rid of Net Neutrality (more info on net neutrality found at the Save the Internet website) and give a bigger pipe other compaines that pay for it. While it is a stretch I think that van Dijk might be a proponent of net neutrality and that the only way to narrow and shallow the digital divide is to keep everything as simple as possible (which it is already not but we can pretend).

While this is only my first look at van Dijk and his thoery and the Save the Internet website I can see some parallels between the two, a little more research should show how these two sites compare.

Gender Identity

This weeks reading deals with gender and identifying gender. This weeks author John Edward Campbell, a self proclaimed gay male, talks about gay males in IRC chat rooms (IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, which has decreased in popularity over the past few years, however, it does still exist the most commonly known program used for IRC is mIRC ). While it has decreased in popularity a /list command on one of the servers shows nearly 25000 chat rooms availible to join (although many of them only had one user). To be honest, I found some of what Campbell was talking about to be very confusing. I guess I didn't realize that there were people of a specific gender who had difficulty identifying themselves a specific way. Apparently I don't follow the news closely enough some days, way back on May 3rd the Boston Globe reported that the Vermont Senate had approved a bill that "would prohibit discrimination based on someone's gender identity or expression". The story can be found here and may also contain a reference to this author. I just don't see this as a problem worth government intervention. I found many of John's arguments to be very intersting but, I just don't get where he is going. I also see an inherient problem with IRC and how chats work in general.

Chats can be very ambigious. Typing something to someone can contain many different meanings, you have to really, truely know the person you are talking to, to be able to have a "real" conversation with a person. Let me use a personal example, my girlfriend and I met at my church, but she was only home for a short period of time before heading back up to school in Seattle. We decided to chat over AOL Instant Messanger. The first few times we talked it was rather difficult to determine mood and tone of comments but after we began to get to know each other personally the moods and tones began to show and come through clearly. I wonder if John was careful with this fact, he admits he only personally knows 2 of the subjects. I think he might want to look at this a little more closely. That's all I have for now. Thanks

Final Presentation Topic

Over the past several days I have been racking my brain trying to come up with a final presentation. While I'm, even at this point, still not sure what I want to report on I think I have an idea. I know that there have been several studies done on diversity in media. I will look specifically at the media of Television. Some of the questions I plan to answer are how often are minorities shown? What role do the minorities play? What is the comparisson between minorities displayed on TV and minorities in population? Should this, if found to be disproportionate, be changed to better match the population of the nation? I plan to keep it within the context of the United States and maybe a little of Canada. If I should be looking at this from another angle, I'm more than happy to add that in. As I said, I know studies exist that will back up this type of presentation. Thank you very much.

Cyber Types

This weeks reading is taken from Lisa Nakamura and her book Cybertypes, which is a word invented by this author. The problem with this weeks reading, however, is that there is very little on the topic in way of current events. Much of Chapter 3, which I must say I did enjoy immensly, talks about the cyberpunk era of time from the first generation in the mid 1980's to the second generation in the 1990's. The problem is there is just no news right now about race, ethnicity and identity on the internet. Of the few internet related stories I could find all were about programs or companies warring against each other. Yahoo Instant Messenger is spreading a worm attack around the web, something that is indiscriminant because it's a program. My Space is coming under competitive fire as AOL plans to release it's own version of the very same thing and a phisher was sentenced to 21 months in jail for attempting to dupe MSN customers. All of these stories have little or nothing to do with race or ethnicity.

There is however, one more story that I would like to look at called Web inventor says brainchild is ready for big leap. Tim Berners-Lee, the man who invented and gave away the World Wide Web says that it is poised to take off but he cautions users to be careful and fight internet crime. He also talks about premium content and the fact that the United States wants to charge money for faster connections. While he agrees in principle with the theory and the right of the country he says, "I tried then to make the Web technology, in turn, a universal, neutral platform." He thinks that all the internet is created equal and should be shared by all.

This is an interesting take on Nakamura, who does not address this data control much at all, she is more concerned with the human aspect instead of the technological aspect. This is likely a function of the books age and not intentional, but I thought it was a very interesting look at the internet through the eyes of it's creator.