How I learned to stop worrying and love Hulu..........and Netflix

Two Months ago I canceled cable. Why is probably obvious, the cost and the fact that although having over 100 channels there was still nothing to watch (ever).

However, today that does not mean the end of televison viewing. There are several internet options available.

One of the best options is Hulu.com. Hulu is a free internet site which allows to you watch network television shows. Right now Hulu has shows from NBC, ABC, FOX, FX & A&E as well as many classic television shows.

Typically Hulu will post new episodes of shows from these networks a couple of days after they air and keeping them accessible for about three weeks with about five available at any one time.

The drawback to this system is commercials. Yes commercials at the typical break. Typically one 30 to 60 second spot per break, compare this the numerous commercial filling the breaktime on aired television is about ten minutes.

Most recently Hulu has also provided a desktop program allowing access to the site through a software interface rather than a browser. This program is also available for Linux as well as Windows and Mac.

Other services is subscriptions which will send you emails when new episodes of your favorite shows are posted.

Oh did I mention its free ? (maybe I did).

My second best online televison option is Netflix "Watch Me Now"

The Watch Me Now feature is available to anyone who has a Netflix account. Netflix is a great rental site for Dvds.....but they also have available the Watch Me Now feature which alows you to watch alot of content through a web browser. There are many movies and televisions shows available. The accessibility of this system is easy to use and navigate. One down side is the cost, you have to have at least a basic subscription at $9.99, another is that it cannot be used on a Linux computer Windows & Mac only.

A third system is CBS online, although they have many episodes available the site is horrible to navigate through....

In addition is Crackle.com which is an online site which allows to access a very limited number of movies through your browser.

With all of these options available it makes getting rid of Cable really easy.

For The Love of Japanese Films

In 1954 two films were released in Japan that would have everlasting effects on the cinema, world wide and American pop culture. Although coming from the same shore each film's director had drastically different styles and careers but they both shared a lifetime friendship.

4 Reasons Why Grass-Fed Beef Is Better

4 Reasons Why Grass-Fed Beef Is Better: "The benefits of grass fed beef are numerous, when compared to conventional beef cattle raising.

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Night Gallery

The Night Gallery was a television series which aired on NBC between 71-73. This was a anthology series by Twilight Zone Creator Rod Serling. It was a kinda mixed bag, but had many fine episodes. One of the best was an episode directed by a young Steven Spielberg.

This series is available to watch on Hulu, but unfortunately the Pilot is not online, but the show is fun and you should give it a try.

REC vs Quarantine

Last year,the movie Quarantine was released in theaters. This was another in the recent trend of documentary style fiction movies (i.e. Cloverfield). However this was also a remake of the Spanish language film REC.

A comparison of these films demonstrates very interesting observations about remakes of foreign films into English.

First off its obvious that something in the original films sparked an interest in making an English language version. However it amazes me that they are never truly simple remakes and that there are always changes to the films sometimes just esthetics's but many times it is changes in plot lines as well.

Both films are about a two person television crew following firefighters on call for the evening. Both versions are about that call leading to an apartment building which a woman is acting strangely, resulting in some type of infection spreading through the tenants, making them crazed killers.

However the approaches to these films are very different. REC is more brightly, starkly light throughout, and the camera work appears of less quality leading to the belief that this is a real life event. The scenes in Quarantine are much more darkly lite and the picture quality is sharper and clearer. Therefore it is only the camera movements that evenly slightly leads you to believe this is real life.

Also the major plot point of the infection is handled very differently in both films. In REC there is never any clear cause or identification of the virus throughout the entire film. I think this leads to a more suspenseful film. There is also one scene which one victim which was obviously dead suddenly disappears, making this more of a Zombie film.

In Quarantine the virus is identified by the resident Vet as some kind of Super Rabis, I found this to be very silly plot device, and unnecessary.

Also is was odd there was much more swearing in Quarantine than in REC, as though the writers of this version thought it helped in character development for some reason.

As you can read, I feel that REC is the much superior film, and that Quarantine is a poor substitute for an English language version. Its a shame that there are so many people adverse to subtitled films, because there are so many great ones out there. Especially for horror films this seem to be the only outlet for anything of any quality.

Using Linux.........A Year Later!

A little over a year ago, I had decided that I needed a new computer, and that I was going to build it (with lots of help from friends). At this same time I made the gigantic decision to change my operating system also. At this time I had chosen Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon.

I had made this decision based on my utter hatred for all things Microsoft and my frustration with the high cost of software overall. Ubuntu is a Linux distribution and the operation system is open source (meaning free). I had been assured by other people that at this point this particular operating system was pretty user friendly. And by user friendly I mean, someone who knows a bit about computers and has lots of patients to learn.

Well I built this computer, and had problems from the start. First of all the Raid card which was installed to allow for additional hard drives would not be recognize by the system. The dual monitor system which I really enjoyed on my Windows system would not work! And the TV card would not operate and I could never get the network printer up and running either. However, I still wanted this system, and I felt I could learn to live with the inconveniences over time. I kept the system and used it as my daily operating system. It was not easy, I soon missed many of the “Windows” application that I had used over the course of many years and it seemed many of the neat software applications and web applications were made for Windows only. Also there was my complete lack of knowledge of the system which meant many mistakes over and over and over.

It always seemed to me that everything that seemed so easy to do on Windows was much more difficult on Ubuntu (Linux). I could not run my work programs either which meant not working at home and staying late at the office many nights.

It also seemed that my lack of knowledge always lead me to crashing the system or completely messing it up and then I had to reinstall the whole thing. And reinstall and reinstall......... I became and expert at installing the operating system.

….But slowly I began to learn. Actually finding the answers to my questions and problems was really easy, a quick Google search and typically there it was. Of course it meant learning to input these answers into the Terminal (direct command input in text format), which I am really still learning. I began to understand that the Terminal was actually easier than the graphical environment for doing many things and pretty powerful (this had lead me to reinstall my system many times).

I also began to learn about the software repository, a way to easily access hundreds of free programs to do almost any task you can think of. Also I had to learn to install software using the source code and debian files. A little difficult at first but then the answers are always out there (more readily than answers to Windows problems).

I started to like the system very much, and when the next release 8.04 came out I gave it a try and was disappointed. I found that it was a little more difficult to configure and there was a couple of problems that I could not fix..... and the dual monitor and the raid card still did not work......so I went back to 7.10 and was pretty happy with it, much happier than with Windows. I occasionally had problems which would required a reinstall, however the benefits outweighed this inconvenience.

Now the very latest release 8.10 Intrepid Ibex had been made available, so I gave it a whirl...........and right from boot up, the Raid was working and the Dual monitor system, and the network printer practically configured itself, it also saw the network and many of the other little bugs had been worked out. And since using I started using the system I have also learned how to remotely access my work computer so that I can work at home. This latest version seems to be very user friendly, almost to the point of recommending it to people who have some computer knowledge but not a whole lot.

I guess the point of this post is that I have switched from Windows to Linux and I am happy with the change. So it might be time for you to try the switch and get that Windows monkey off your back. I did and am glad of it.