“13 channels of **** on the TV to choose from…”

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This is an article I started in the Fall of 2011, but forgot to finish and post.  Oops.. 

Lately it seems like there’s less and less good content to be had on cable. I’m sure most will agree with that sentiment, especially towards the end of the month. (ie: when the bill comes) This isn’t a rant against cable specifically. The same could be said of Satellite as well. Heck, even the selection on Netflix leaves something to be desired. It’s not a lack of creativity as I see it, but a management issue. Sure, we’re in a major recession and some of this is fallout from the economic realities of the day. I get that, but it’s not that simple. This summer was amazing in terms of movies. There was so much good content. So where are the good TV shows?  If you’re into comedy, there’s certainly no shortage of that, but what about the rest?

Star Trek:  Enterprise, Stargate Universe and AMC’s intelligence drama Rubicon are 3 of my favorites that were cancelled in recent seasons.  Of those, Rubicon is the most difficult to explain.  This was perhaps the most original new suspense thriller in some time.  The fact that it was so well written and acted also makes one wonder why it was left on the cutting room floor.  Unfortunately ratings are king and if the show doesn’t produce them in the number required by the network to justify the cost, the show is simply not going to make it.

Why are good TV shows cut?  I believe that many of these shows are the victims of poor management.  All too often, the people in charge of scheduling these shows don’t properly research the optimal viewing times for the show’s target audience.  Other times a previously unknown star outshines their show.  In either case programming managers need to be able to react quickly to put the show into a better performing timeslot.

In the case of Star Trek and Stargate, their most recent iterations were so different from what most fans had come to expect that many of them didn’t like the new versions.  That’s acceptable and if a large enough number of the potential viewers don’t want it, there’s not a lot you can do.

So what can we do to improve the situation?  The internet is one of the best things to happen to TV in a long time.  Many shows are now available essentially a la-carte.  Devices like Apple TV, Roku and even newer digital TVs make watching online content a breeze.  If you only watch a few shows, it’s probably more cost effective to just pay for a broadband connection and watch just the shows you want.  This is the way I intend to go as I just don’t see the value in a traditional cable plan any more.

TenFourFox taps disused resources of your aging PowerPC

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Many of us geeks, especially those of us in the IT world replace our hardware almost as often as fashionistas change wardrobes. For some reason, I have a thing for old hardware. While I certainly don’t use it on a daily basis, I have a hard time parting with my favorite gear. I see it as something akin to automotive enthusiasts that like to keep that prized vintage car in their garage. They won’t drive it to work every day, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love taking it for a spin on the weekends.

I have a similar relationship with some of my favorite machines. I still use a 15″ PowerBook G4 at home on a fairly regular basis. (in fact I’m typing this post on it right now) At it’s heart is a 1.67Ghz PowerPC G4 processor. (the last model and fastest PPC Apple ever delivered in a laptop) By today’s standards, this single-core machine barely stays ahead of most netbooks. It’s battery is dead, and it gets fairly hot when you push it, but I find it to be perfectly adequate for most things.

Apple’s support of the PPC architecture ended 2 OS revisions ago (Leopard or 10.5) and even the Mozilla foundation dropped support from their Firefox browser after the 3.6.x series. (and even that will stop receiving updates soon…) Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised to find a project known as TenFourFox not only recompiling the latest Firefox from source, but actually making PPC specific improvements as well! TenFourFox is basically Firefox, but separately optimized for PowerPC G3, two flavors of G4 and the G5 CPU. That would be enough in itself, but the developers didn’t stop there. They’ve swapped out the old just-in-time JavaScript compiler with their recently completed nanojit for PPC which beats even Apple’s native Safari browser. (which until recently was the only browser with anything close to decent performance) This is all possible because there are still people in the Open Source community interested in this platform who know how to leverage resources like AltiVec. Kudos to the TenFourFox team for keeping this aging platform relevant!

Don’t take your health for granted

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As I sit here resting my back from this week’s physical therapy routine, enjoying a cold beer and my Anjunabeats playlist, I’m keenly aware of the state I was in two weeks ago. It was a Saturday like most others. I was hooking the bike trailer to my 21-speed hybrid road bike in preparation to take my daughter on an afternoon ride through our favorite bike trail. My back had been a little sore the past few days, (probably due to overloading my messenger bag) but I hadn’t really given it a second thought. It never occurred to me that what I felt might be an early indicator of a serious injury.

As I was finishing adding air to my tires, my daughter tripped on the driveway and skinned her knee. (she’s only 4 and doesn’t always understand why we tell her not to run…) I dropped what I was doing, scooped her up and took her into the house to get fixed up. I stopped in the kitchen, I think instinctively because I felt something, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I picked her back up and as I made the first few steps up the stairs to the bathroom I felt a sudden stabbing pain in my back and was unable to carry her any further. Thankfully my wife was there to take over because I was almost completely incapacitated.

Every step, every movement of my body those first couple of days were met with intense pain. It never occurred to me that something so simple could bring someone my age, quite literally to his knees. I felt like an 80-year-old, not someone in their mid 30’s.

The fault is entirely mine. While I’ve been telling myself that my 15 minute walks to and from work are good exercise, I haven’t been making much effort to stay in shape. Sure I do the occasional bike ride or walks around the neighborhood and I play Wii Fit plus, (sometimes) but nothing regular. Once my physical therapist clears me for more strenuous activities, that is going to change. I’m not going to let this happen again.