Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Net neutrality (and getting shit for free PART II)



So my last post inspired some peeps to comment and remind me that some music - GOOD music - shouldn't be downloaded for free. The argument being: Truly good music is so hard to find that we need to respect and support artists who are bringing the real. I see that point and agree...to some extent. I mean, I'll continue to swap music with friends and I will probably keep scouring the net for good free new music indexes to swipe in one large download. But....I'll keep this post to just getting TV shows for free if that keeps my reputation as a non-jackass secure.
In any case, my morals have been considered questionable by quite a few (thousand?) people before. Ain't no thang. (I was also a total klepto while in my teens and early twenties, but we all know that adolescence comes packed with delinquent behavior, right?!)

No? Hmmm....well, I'll save that for another posting. I used to be obsessed with risk-taking behavior in teenage girls. But I digress....

Anyway, if you ARE interested in downloading from BitTorrent or Btjunkie here are a few tips for mac users. You need to be able to connect to the bittorrent network, so you'll need an app like Transmission. You can get it here.

Then you can check out the options for what you feel like watching. I just downloaded some of 30 Rock, for instance. As an aside, I also highly recommend Dexter and, of course, The Wire. Make your choice, and download to your desktop or downloads folder or whatevs, but remember to trash your old icons and folders because they'll take up a lot of space. The torrents can come in any kind of package. Mine came as a rar file, which was odd. So I had to get unrar to decompress those files. You may have to take similar steps, but for the most part they will be avi files. You'll also need the open-source codecs to watch the viddys with. This is easy, you can get them all by downloading Perian. And that's it really. At that point, you should have everything you need to start watching for free. I don't even have a TV anymore. I just watch everything on my computer.

Which brings me to the video I posted (above). You may be wondering why the hell I uploaded a net neutrality viddy to a post about getting shit for free. Well, the answer is: We may NOT be getting shit for free in the future if we don't keep our eyes and ears open to guard against "Internet Bundles". No, this doesn't exist yet. But I can see it in my minds eye. A two-fer package including all of Google's and Yahoo's networks for only $25/month.

You're probably pretty well informed about maintaining the internet as an open platform already; Obama spoke about his stance on this topic right here at Mountain View. Check out that video here. But if you haven't done due diligence yet in getting up to speed on this issue check out Savetheinternet.com or another site dedicated to net neutrality news and updates.

In the meantime, I'll keep using my right to my own site online. Right here, right now.

4 comments:

jc said...

I just had to comment on this post that if you watch the video and are interested in WHY that woman with the large breasteses (her name is Tania, btw:) opens up the clip even though she actually has nothing to say about the issue of net neturality itself, than I offer you this thought:
First of all, I SCOURED the internet to find one video from these iPower people that DIDN'T feature Tania's lovely boobs. I mean, I wanted the topic to be serious. Then I found their channel on YouTube (http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=t89WwcsOj9U) and realized that THESE PEOPLE HAVE FIGURED OUT THE FORMULA. Large tits = viral video. Hilarious. England creaks me up.

Lawsno said...

FYI to find torrents I find the site www.mininova.org useful.

As far as the ethics of digital piracy goes--

Download whatever you want. To me the ideal setup would be for us to have free unlimited access to all media, and pay for what we LIKE/enjoy/want to support.

I disagree with the current laws regarding digital media, and so I choose not to obey them. The laws as they stand empower media empires to steal from artists. This is the example they are setting. In fact, theft is a common method of success in our society, as long as one can justify it and avoid being persicuted.

Unknown said...

Lawsno: Wow, good point about theft being the standard in our current society.

Come on, nobody (geek demographics: mostly male, [post-]adolescent) would sit through a couple geek-chic Dutch hackers talk blandly about important technical stuff without having that key image of Tania to savor.

Unknown said...

And it's pretty timely for me about Net Neutrality: I just got a new Comcast Cable installation. I walk out of the room for a few minutes, and when I check my laptop later, there's a mounted image entitled "Comcast Installation Wizard". WTF? Luckily OS X is a fairly secure BSD-flavor, so I'd have to type my password for some of the rootkit-style crapola. Some research about the "Broadjump Client Foundation" turned up this euphemistic little piece of PR:

...Instead of simply offering a "fat pipe," service providers are now capable of profitably delivering the specific goods and services their subscribers most want and need."

"[It] builds a database of subscriber demographics and buying behaviors to help evolve and refine marketing efforts..."

Builds a database of subscriber demographics? Sign me up! Please sell my browsing habits to DHS while you're at it!

I'll decide what I "most want and need", thank you very much. Fuckheads.