A series of TUBES!

Drawing inspiration from Alaska Senator Ted “the internet is a series of TUBES” Stevens’ recent indictment on various corruption charges, I thought I’d check his official government page http://stevens.senate.gov/public/  and see if he has a video message for his constituents. 

Below is part of his rambling speech in the Senate on net neutrality 

While he had only a written statement regarding his legal troubles, he did, to my suprise, actually have a Real video clip as a welcome message.  However, perhaps in a testament to Flash’s prevalence, the laptop I’m currently using didn’t have real installed and I was too lazy to install it so I guess I’ll never hear Ted’s words of wisdom through those series of tubes. 

Onto the Windows Media Player front, I wandered over to NBC’s Olympic page.  They wanted my zip code and cable company  “By selecting your cable or satellite provider, you are confirming that you are a paid subscriber of the above service.”  So if I don’t subscribe to a cable company does that mean I can’t access the videos?  Hmmm….I’m not sure if excluding non TV watchers is the best approach to bridging the computer/tv world and getting people to download silverlight and other MS products.  Again I suspect some legal fine print with the cable companies, and I suppose it’d be simple enough to just commit 9th degree fraud and pick any cable company but I can’t remember ever encountering this issue before. 

Moving on, I’m checking out the player before downloading Silverlight.  A link for the only event the site asserts is streaming live, the womens podium training channel, shows me an ad in the 4 section player, but then shows me nothing and check out the online guide for the next live event.  I’m very disappointed…I’ve always wanted to watch live podium training, but now I can’t :(   I do like the layout of the player and it’s mixture of minimal text and various video options.  Attempting another video (I’ve yet to see any content) I get the official “we’re having technical difficulties” logo graphic/pleasant female voice.  Perhaps it’s a clever strategy to make your previous software so incompatible with new offerings that the user must acquire your latest gadgett…I think I’ve heard of this before.  Alright MS, ya got me, I’ll download Silverlight.  Oh but I have to restart to complete the install of course…That’s the last straw, I’m done.