Finally Episode 8 is up wherein Stephen and I discuss “Aliens in the Attic”, “G-Force”, and chat about random stuff.
Wherein Stephen and I discuss random media related news in a very lacklustre manner, we try out my new game “Underated/Overated”, and talk about my face!
Wherein Stephen and I accidentally make fun of chinese people, talk about media (as usual), and tout the exciting surprise guest.
Wherein Stephen and I discuss way too much “The Wire”, the Natal coming for XBOX 360 and play a new game I invented. Cows, Scandinavia, and British Columbia are also covered in depth. Don’t forget to join the fan group on Facebook or e-mail us at gordcast@gmail.com with any comments, concerns, recommendations, silly pictures and/or money.
The paradigm shift is here, and the cascade level event that will tip it over is about to arrive. As reported by PC World, ads for shows like The Simpsons and CSI are worth more on sites like Hulu.com and Tv.com than they are on television. While the viewership online is less, the model is definitely intriguing (as are these latest figures).
For example, users on Hulu.com are choosing to watch a specific program. This puts all the demographic research ad companies do to much better usage than the shotgun approach of regular television, hoping to catch your demo in the spray. Also, more people are watching a wider variety of shows, all paying advertising money.
How are Canadians faring compared to this veritable future alternative of television? We don’t have access to any of the sites like Hulu.com and Tv.com due to IP-geolocation (a process which can determine your country from your IP address) and we can’t even access network sites like ABC.com and CBS.com to view their full episodes online as they employe the same features. Canadian broadcasters want their chunk of the pie. Well, I say, get off your buts and build us a portal, negotiate a rate with your American counterparts and put something up there. If something isn’t developed soon, more and more people will learn how to download and watch shows via bittorrent websites and more tools will become available to automate this process. What does this mean for Canada’s sad broadcasting industry? A massive decline in revenue. Now is the time to innovate, look forward and stop thinking that TV as we know it will be around forever. That, or perish. I don’t have cable anymore, why would I?
Despite Google not making official announcements and continuing for months to keep its “Coming soon to iPhone” message on the official Latitude website, it seems that it is actually coming. Unfortunately, it looks like it is coming as an HTML 5 web based app that iPhone users will have to run in Safari.
Here are some of the main issues I have with this:
- Bandwidth: instead of just sending necessary updates back and forth, the entire user interface will be HTML and therefore sent across the waves
- Speed: Native applications tend to run better (most likely because they don’t have to support a browser and rendering engine as well as the app.
- It doesn’t seem to resolve the issue of iPhone’s choice to not allow third party apps to run in the background.
I wonder why they just don’t update the built in Google Maps application to be Latitude aware? If you have any ideas why they can’t / won’t do this, please let me know. I sure hope it isn’t an attempt to increase android phone market share.
I have always had an insatiable desire to learn things. Sometimes I am ploughing through new material and learning something new every day, and other times I get stagnant. I decided to make a list of the top 50 things I want to learn, but not edit the list. Write down the top fifty things that came to my head. This list may seem a bit lobsided and weird (Learn Berber v. Write proper cursive). Such is the nature of free-thought. I planto accomplish everything on this list by January 1, 2011. I will try to do most of the non-language, non-medecine stuff by January 1, 2010. I will update as necessary. The categories were written after the list to provide some form of grouping and are listed alphabetically by category.
Things Gord wants to learn:
Basic Skills
- Driving
- Flying
- Identify basic architectural elements
- Pick locks
Tie a Full Windsor
Games and Excercise
- Backgammon
- Bridge
- Kayaking
- Rock Climbing
- Tai Chi
- Yoga
Handicrafts
Cross-stitch- Identify fabric by touch
- Quilting
History
- Asian History
- African History
- Central American History
- European History
Middle Eastern History- North American History
- South American History
- Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
- Seven Wonders of the Modern World
Languages
- Improve Arabic
- Improve Farsi
- Improve Hebrew
- Improve Mandarin Chinese
- Improve Swedish
- Learn Afrikaans
- Learn Berber
- Learn Dutch
- Learn Hausa
- Learn Icelandic
- Learn Italian
- Learn Japanese
- Learn Norwegian
- Learn Swahili
Medecine
- Anatomy
- Endocrinology
- Hematology
- Immunology
- Physiology
- Microbiology
- Neurochemistry
- SJA Medical First Responder
Technology
- LDAP
- Windows Active Directory
Writing and Books
- Book Binding
- Pitt Shorthand
- Write proper cursive
Wherein we discuss the new Transformers movie, read the internet and make an economic plan for Canada. Guest-starring Angus Fletcher.
In case you believe that Iran conducted a fair democratic election June 12, 2009, you might want to follow these simple statistics:
In about 50 cities a certain number of people were eligible to vote. Let’s call this number E.
In those same cities a number of people voted. Let’s call this number V
What happens when V > E? ”That can’t happen,” you say. Well in 50 cities in Iran (and maybe as many as 170) it did. This is indicative, in my opinion of ballot stuffing, but could also be improper screening processes. Although, the latter is unlikely in a country with less than 12 million non-citizens and a clearcut eligible voting population of around 48 million. If only we could get our voter turnout out of the dumps and into the > 100% range.
Source: Fassihi, Farnaz. “Protests in Iran Diminish Amid Security Crackdown - WSJ.com.” Business News & Financial News. The Wall Street Journal - WSJ.com, 23 June 2009. Web. 23 June 2009. <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124566035538436595.html#mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular>.
Wherein I expand a Day in the Life of Gord, laugh with my buddy Steve about nerdery, discuss old German guys and display my utter lack of knowledge of Nobel Laureates.
