Unabashed

First off, it’s amazing how many different news reporting services have picked up this article from Reuters and printed it, verbatim, without offering any original thoughts on the subject at all. I’ll try to add a few of my own, because this article excited me with possibilities.

Basically, white space spectrum is simply unused channels in the same frequency range as television. Television, as most people know, is switching completely to digital next year, so there’ll be even more spectrum available once that’s done. The jist of the article is that the FCC is about to free up that white space for use, and this is where it gets interesting. The use for which they’re clearing it is rural broadband and wireless devices, which could pave the way for a whole new generation of mobile techy goodies for gadget junkies like me. By the end of ‘09, we could be seeing HD programming on mobile devices. And not just in urbanized areas.

VHF (Very High Frequency) spectrum has traditionally been used by broadcast television because of its range, which means if you can receive a television signal with an antenna at your home, you’ll probably be able to get broadband at your home once this new tech is implemented. Same antenna (because it’s the same frequency), but hooked up to your wireless router rather than your television. And, if we’re able to make use of this broadband broadcast with mobile handheld devices, you’ll be able to go hiking the Appalachian Trail and watch high definition weather reports on your phone, without having to rely on sat coverage.

Think of your local television station, transmitting around 5 Kw. The tower is probably in the arena of one thousand to two thousand feet tall, which means you might be able to pick up that signal a hundred miles away from the tower if you’re using an external, high-gain antenna (that’s an estimate, I’m not doing proper math here). I’m not even sure if they’re planning on broadcasting broadband in the same way, but that’s kind of what it sounds like the intent is, and that makes me very excited.

Mobile devices with only an internal antenna won’t be able to transmit anywhere near that far, but receiving is a different matter. Which means, of course, that you will be able to read your email while you’re in coverage, but you won’t be able to send email. Just like with a cell phone–a cell tower works in duplex fashion, it receives and transmits. Sometimes engineers have to turn the power down on a site which could be received from a lot farther away because the phones we’re all using now are only half a watt (.6w, actually). So if a cell tower is broadcasting, say, 120w, your half-watt phone might receive the signal twenty miles from the site (depending on terrain, tower height, and numerous other factors). Which means you’ll be able to receive a phone call, but the call will fail if you try to answer it, because your puny half-watt phone can’t transmit strong enough to get the signal back to the tower. So, the engineers cut the transmit power back to 25w, giving the site less coverage, making customers angry who really have no right to be, because they’re the ones who wanted the cute tiny little phone in the first place. But I digress…

In an application like this, there shouldn’t be any cutback in power for the sake of duplex functionality. Just ramp up the power and let me receive what I can. There will be times when I’ll want to transmit but won’t be able to, sure, but with the Internet receiving is the most important thing. With broadcast HD programming, it’s the only thing.

In other words, get ready, because the Internet is about to get a whole lot more crowded.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: broadband, broadcast, device, devices, mobile, remote, rural, spectrum, urban, vhf, white space, white spaces, wireless

In the wake of the catastrophic failure of the worst television show in history (Cavemen), I have a thought on the subject of turning commercials into series’. Namely, I think the NFL Network’s “Joe’s Diner” commercials would make a great sitcom. I love ‘em, I think they’re well written, well acted, well directed…just give me the pilot already and slap it into NBC’s Thursday night lineup, right between The Office and 30 Rock. Push Earl back to Wednesday night–it’s a sometime decent show, but not a Thursday nighter. Sorry, Earl.

written by Matt Mitchell

Every time I post something about the show No Reservations I get a deluge of comments and emails from vegetarians or animal-rights activists lambasting the show–and me–for insensitivity towards animals. Evidently in one commercial for the show there was a cow bleating, and people didn’t like that. Well, I didn’t see that commercial and I don’t know what episode that might have been from. It might have been in Chile, where there was a beef festival, which was approached with grim determination by Bourdain, who clearly did not enjoy, nor revel in, his visit. So here’s my problem: you haven’t seen the show, and you’re evaluating a man’s nature based on a 30 second commercial that some producer put together in a studio closet, and you’re even going so far as to condemn me because I happen to like the show. So, in response, I’ll give my defense, and then I’m going to get a little nasty.

The Defense

Okay, so he’s not a vegetarian apologist. Neither am I. And I don’t condone animal torture, either. For the record, I’ve seen no evidence of animal torture on the show no matter what some people might have seen in some commercial. The few instances where an animal was harvested for food on the show was documented with a somber atmosphere and the host normally gives a discourse about his unsettled feelings, going on to explain that they are documenting natural behaviors of a people from a different culture.

As for Bourdain’s defense (not that he needs one), here is an excerpt from an interview with Dave Weich:

Dave: Okay, about the lurid material…I promised our staff that I’d show you an email we received on Monday.

Bourdain: [He begins to read the printed copy] Mmmm… I read the review of his book, A Cook’s Tour, and was sickened and disgusted…vile…distasteful…most of all inhumane…Just reading the review made me sick….This is extreme animal cruelty…sadistic, inhumane…take care to keep a close eye on your beloved cat…

Oh, the poor ducks!

Dave: Do you get a lot of that?

Bourdain: A fair amount. Depending on what time of day you confront me with this question, I’m either accepting of it or not.

I’m not Ted Nugent. My house is run, essentially, by an adopted, fully clawed cat with a mean nature. I would never hunt. I would never wear fur. I would never go to a bullfight. I’m not really a meat and potatoes guy. But the world is a big place, and this sort of nonsense smacks of elitism, contempt, and fear and those are all things I struggle against.

To travel the world sneering at other cultures for whom a chicken is the difference between life and death…or for instance the pig slaughter in Portugal: however horrifying it was to me and it was horrifying this is a center of social and cultural life for a community dating back six hundred years. If some Birkenstock-wearing knucklehead driving around in a SUV and wearing sneakers someone was sold into slavery to make is sniffling about the poor animals, that person is clearly never going to experience the world. They can live in their plastic bubble and reinforce their deeply held, and I’m sure earnest beliefs, but they’re missing the full length and breadth of the human condition.

I don’t like to see animals in pain. That was very uncomfortable to me. I don’t like factory farming. I’m not an advocate for the meat industry. But having traveled all over the world, the most heartbreaking moments for me were in poor cultures where people had nothing. To kill a chicken or a turkey and spend nine hours cooking, working so hard to be good hosts and show me a slice of their culture…I like them a hell of a lot more than this person.

Dave: The pig slaughter, I thought, was one of the best-written passages in the book. It completely transcends food writing; it’s literature about a culture. You describe your horror while the Portuguese women and children stand watching as if what’s going on were the most normal thing in the world. Which to some extent, in their lives, it is.

Bourdain: Listen, I deserved to be horrified. I was culpable in that animal’s death; it was fattened for me. But I am culpable in an animal’s death every time I pick up the phone. For twenty-eight years I’ve been picking up the phone and ordering meat, and like most of us I had absolutely no connection to where food comes from. In the last year, I’ve seen where food comes from, and it is not always pretty.

Understand, when you eat meat, that something did die. You have an obligation to value it not just the sirloin but also all those wonderful tough little bits.

The Nasty Bit

If you don’t want to watch the show, fine; I personally have no illusions about where my veal cutlet comes from, or how my steak was harvested, and I’m not going to apologize for being a carnivorous animal myself. Based on the responses I’ve seen to my posts about the show, I’m leaning toward agreeing with Bourdain’s assessment of vegan culture based on this quote from his book, Kitchen Confidential:

Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans, are a persistent irritant to any chef worth a damn. To me, life without veal stock, pork fat, sausage, organ meat, demi-glace, or even stinky cheese is a life not worth living. Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit, and an affront to all I stand for, the pure enjoyment of food. The body, these waterheads imagine, is a temple that should not be polluted by animal protein. It’s healthier, they insist, though every vegetarian waiter I’ve worked with is brought down by any rumor of a cold. Oh, I’ll accommodate them, I’ll rummage around for something to feed them, for a “vegetarian plate”, if called on to do so. Fourteen dollars for a few slices of grilled eggplant and zucchini suits my food cost fine.

The simple fact is that yes, there have been times on the show where an animal was harvested. Yes, they killed the animal, and then they ate it. They did not torture it. The business was grim and then it was done and what it meant was a family got to eat for a week. They got to survive. For you who sit in your air conditioned pimp pad and order Meat Lovers from Pizza Hut and scour the internet for a cause, for something to add spice to your dull, boring life, you would do well to remember that there are still people in the world who have to labor to live, who don’t have it so easy, who raise their food with care and patience because they’ll starve to death if they don’t.

So, if you don’t like the show, fine. I can live with that. But I’m through approving comments from people who live in this delusional little princess-strewn world and think that the indiginous people who still live in it should buy their meat pre-processed from the super Wal-Mart. In the world of blog commenting, consider my disapproval of your comment a formal slap to the jaws.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Anthony, Bourdain, carnivore, carnivorous, meat, no reservations, vegan, vegetarian

I really liked the show Northern Exposure, particularly the Chris in the Morning radio bits. One of the primary reasons for this, of course, is because the show had really, really excellent writers, who were philosophers at heart. Wikipedia instructs us:

Northern Exposure’s flavor came from a combination of various influences. The show’s creators, Joshua Brand and John Falsey, were members of the Esalen Institute in California where an eclectically “spiritual” worldview was presented, best exemplified in the writings of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and American anthropologist/mythologist Joseph Campbell (whose works are frequently referenced in the series). There are also fantasy elements inherited from the works of Carlos Castaneda and the magical realism novels and stories of Latin American author Gabriel Garc’a M’rquez. Both creators were also conversant with classical Russian Literature. This characteristic is evident in the satirical elements from the show that are hallmarks of the Russian literary grotesque style of such authors as Gogol and Dostoevsky.

I won’t lie; I don’t know who half of those people are, but it still sounds cool, especially when you consider those are the influences on a (purely fiction) low-power AM morning radio program.

Now I’m also a Sirius radio subscriber, although I’m kind of wishing for better content there. Sure, I like a lot of the music channels, but I don’t listen to Howard Stern and I really don’t like the quality of today’s morning radio in general. I wonder that nobody emulates what the NEx writers did with the KBHR skits. It seems like a no-brainer to me, of course I can certainly understand that there aren’t many philosophers out there waiting in the wing to work on a morning radio program. I’m caught up in a morning radio funk, I guess. All the local channels are filled with guffawing idiots, Sirius is strictly music unless you like Stern or political talk (I don’t), and that leaves sports radio, which is fine sometimes but gets old after awhile (especially during the off season). I won’t go on about what a great idea it would be for Sirius to emulate Chris in the Morning radio show on Cicely, Alaska’s KBHR from the television program Northern Exposure… :-)

Maybe a podcast? I would love to find a quality podcast, but so far I’ve had zero luck with podcasting. Well, maybe not zero, because I do like Escape Pod. But that’s the only one so far. If anyone knows of any good podcasts or radio shows I might pick up on the internet, I’m listening.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Alaska, Chris, Cicely, Escape Pod, Exposure, KBHR, morning, NEx, Northern, Podcast, Radio, show

Disclaimer, added 1-28-08: If you saw a commercial that led you to believe this show is about “animal torture” and are resolutely refusing to watch it based on that single commercial, please note: You are wrong, quite possibly delusional, and missing out on a good show. Thanx. :-)

I admit it: I like to watch No Reservations, the Travel Channel show hosted by bejeweled Anthony Bourdain. It’s one of the few shows on television that I can sit through nowadays. I’m no chef, but I do like to eat, and I like to visit exotic locations vicariously through another, and Tony hits a lot of the spots I’d like to visit myself, along with drinking massive amounts of alcohol in virtually every variety. The show is edgy, and it’s not entirely uncommon to see dinner before it’s dead, and sometimes even while it’s being killed (no, I don’t get any kind of thrill at seeing animals killed, but I’m a realist, and I know that steak I ate last night had to come from somewhere, and there’s a very decent possibility that the methods used to kill animals in this show are equally if not more humane than those used to kill the cow who begat my steak). His commentary is entertaining, usually laced with funny witticisms, and the locations are always exotic and culturally significant. I’m fairly impressed by the website they’ve put together for him, along with a wiki, which I haven’t delved into very much but seems a near stroke of genius.

Little did I know when I started watching this show that Bourdain writes fiction; in the show’s intro he says he’s a writer, but since he’s a chef I assumed he was a cookbook writer. Of course he is a cookbook writer, but come to find out he also writes crime novels and murder-mysteries. I haven’t read any yet, but I will…

Best moments of the show:

• Bacon Doughnut (!) at Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, Oregon. Can I haz one, pleaze? And a tee shirt, too? Thanx.
• Shrimp-n-grits in Charleston, South Carolina. I’ve never had it, but I will.
• The palpitating cobra heart in Saigon. Yes: he ate the still-beating heart of a king cobra.
• The beach cookouts in Key West and Australia.
• The sensational private sushi sitting in Osaka, which according to interview transcripts, cost about $200.
• The ostrich egg in Africa. Some Bushmen cooked up the egg in dirt. Bourdain noted that it was “gritty.”
• The pig anus, also in Africa, noted by Bourdain as being his all-time low. (This from a man who said he would not eat monkey brains or rat.)
• South America, when he dosed himself with ayahuasca.
• And, of course, when he tried riding a 4-wheeler up a sand dune in Australia and it rolled on him.

From the transcript of an online interview (2006):

Washington, D.C.: I still get nightmares from that beating cobra heart that you swallowed in Saigon. Do you throw it up in this Sunday’s outtakes show?

Anthony Bourdain: No. Actually eating the cobra heart was a lot like eating a very small, very angry and rather athletic oyster. The fermented shark in Iceland was much, much more difficult.

And, finally, one last quote:

Anthony Bourdain: I would rather have sex with a crackhead clown an ebola-infected spider monkey than eat Spam on a regular basis. Does Spam qualify as food or bulding material?

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Anthony, bacon doughnut, Bourdain, cobra heart, doughnut, no reservations, voodoo

Billy Squier was once considered a guitar god. The Stroke, My Kind of Lover, and Lonely is the Night were just a few of the awesome songs he blessed us with. And then came the album called “Signs of Life” which I bought the day of its release. And I loved it. But then, as many other fans did in 1984, I saw the video to Rock Me Tonite and, while I still love the song, the man distanced himself from me. Little did I know that Billy himself would later credit that video for destroying his career, as he’d inadvertently alienated 90% of his audience (Take note, Dixie Chicks, if you alienate your core following you’re committing professional suicide).

And now I present the video you have all been dying to see: Billy Squier’s Rock Me Tonite, also known as Why is Billy Squier Dressed Like Olivia Newton-John in the “Physical” Video.

A couple of observations:
1. There’s no way he’s gay, as gay as that dancing is, because any gay man would never dance that poorly. So, he’s obviously straight.
2. It was the 80’s. We were experimenting with hair and color … and … gender roles.
3. For a moment it’s almost like Bruce Dickinson was directing, advising Billy to “Really explore the apartment space this time; Has anybody seen that damn cowbell? Cause what we really need here is more cowbell.”
4. Finally; I can’t imagine his publicist had much more of a career after this debacle.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: Bad Videos, Billy Squier, Blue Oyster Cult, Bruce Dickinson, Cowbell, More Cowbell, Olivia Newton John, Rock Me Tonight, Saturday Night Live, Video

FIFA: David Beckam his done. Send him out to pasture. Now that the U.S.A. is out, GO Great Brittain, or England, or United Kingdom or whatever they call themselves. I find myself a fan of Wayne Rooney. Nasty little mutant of a man. I’m ready to see what he will do in the next round, now that he’s returned from injury. It’s possible we could see Germany vs England in the final. If that happens the Hooligans will be out in force… see picture at right.

TV: I just saw a commercial for “So You Think You Can Dance” in which the show was introduced as a “smash hit.” I honestly have never even heard of the show. What kind of numbers does it take to have a “smash hit” nowadays? Or is that something that is unregulated and networks can say just to see if they can drive their numbers up? This brought to you by the Utterly Invincible Greatest Blog on Teh Internets: Unabashed.

Baseball notes: As a sports fan, I hate Pat Burrell of the Phillies. I cannot explain it; it is inexplicable but absolute. I don’t hate the Phillies, just Pat. I have always hated him. Last year was the only year he ever really did anything, but I even hated him for his mediocrity. It’s nothing personal, I’m sure he’s a really great guy, I just hate him. So it was with particular relish that I just saw him strike out on three straight pitches of 96, 97, and 96 mph with the bases loaded and two out in the ninth inning. Also: He’s hitting .056 with RISP on the year. Additionally: Barry Bonds is hitting .242 with 10 HR this year. He is currently 9th on the All-Star ballot for outfielders. Pathetic. Welcome to the post-juice portion of BB’s career. I hope he and Pat Burrell get into a slap fight the next time the Giants and Phillies play. Also: I hate Scott Rolen, too.

I do like some players: Jim Thome is one of my favorites. I also like Todd Helton. I wish the Braves would unload some of their current slackers (i.e.: Marcus Giles and Adam LaRoche) and pull in either one of these guys. I’m sick of watching Marcus Giles, who recently was full of energy and looked like someone who was really happy to be playing, trot down the first base line when he doesn’t drive the ball to the outfield. It makes me want to see him get into a slap fight with Pat Burrell.

written by Matt Mitchell \\ tags: barry bonds, baseball, football, hooligans, pat burrell, soccer