The foibles of copyright

I was looking at my site logs just now and spotted that someone searching for the Larry and Gary show from the old Thursday Night Thunder shows on ESPN, which led them to this post where I discussed jumping from video to video on YouTube. I even linked to the videos there.

Now, some 6 months on, there are no videos to watch. With the exception of one, they've all been taken down (some specifically reasoned as this and others under the banner of a Terms of Use violation) due to a copyright claim. I totally understand that some clips (i.e. ones of current tv shows or of movies) might not belong on YouTube, but some of the things that have been taken down recently are just pushing the boundaries of logic.

In the case of one of the videos, are you seriously going to see ESPN Classic showing a World Series game in full, with original advertising and news inserts? No, so why can't people be able to see what news delivery was like in the early 80s? For that matter, you never see full NFL games rebroadcast.

Generally, when games are rebroadcast, it's usually compiled of NFL Films footage (which is filmed using proper film cameras, instead of TV cameras), narrated by, according to their site, one of four narrators - Harry Kalas, Jim Birdsall, Earl Mann or Jeff Kaye; generally, they will mix in the audio of the radio broadcast for certain important plays. By all means, the NFL Films product is generally superior, thus making the original TV broadcast that much less relevant.

I could go off on a tangent here about how to properly watch a sporting event, but I'll let it go for another day :)

My main point about this is that I don't see where it hurts a company to have their old identity out there for people to see. In fact, some of the coolest videos (or maybe it's just because I'm a dork) are the ones from old TV. If you take a look at my favorites there, you'll see it's generally a mishmash of randomness, but a lot of it is from older recordings (though some are remasters such as the World Of Sport adroll).

My point is that by having videos on Youtube, you'll get people who might not have seen something to see it. The Cricket World Cup is an example of someone not getting that point - though the uploading went on relentless even after the ICC decided to jump on those who are sharing the game with the world.

Oh, and one last thing - try searching for Benny Hinn. If you find a video that works, I'd be interested.

And I'll throw one more last thing, this video from my favorites ;)

I'm still here!

Sorry I haven't posted in a month, I've been busy with some side projects. I just wanted to say hi to the person in the UK (or China) who's been viewing this site. If you've got something to say, feel free to say it. Nobody is stopping you. :)

American Arrogance?

I am well aware of the fact that many of my countrymen act quite arrogantly when they are overseas (you know, the "I'm from America, give me what I want damnit!" types). However, there is some arrogance that can be seen, especially when you have a chance to discuss something that isn't in the mainstream here.

This particular example focuses on the sudden death of the coach of the Pakistani cricket team, Bob Woolmer. At first, it was suspected by his family that he probably passed away due to a heart attack from stress, but it would seem that the autopsy that was performed in Kingston, Jamaica (which is only 581 miles/935 km from Miami) has proven inconclusive.

This has now sparked rumors of how he died - from suicide to even one report that claims he might have been murdered. I have to be honest in saying that when I had first heard of his death, my first thought was that I really hoped it would be of natural causes as if it wasn't that, it would certainly bring cricket to the attention of the US media, and for all the wrong reasons. After the autopsy, it now has. Aside from this, the only time cricket is mentioned on ESPN's site is in a link to cricinfo in the "More Sports" section of the toolbar.

Apparently something ESPN have started to do is allow people to make comments on stories. And here is where my discussion about our perceived ignorance comes to light. Right now there are three comments, which are as follows -

- C_lopez_13 (3/21/2007 at 9:30 AM): Not an important story in the US, never seen a cricket game in my life

A fair point, it is not an important story here, if it wasn't for the fact that it's the coach of a major world side dieing the day after his side was defeated by one of the lower-order sides (more commonly known as the minnows), Ireland.

The next comment is this -

- k.9stl (3/21/2007 at 9:38 AM): This is why we need to protect our borders!!!!!!!

What exactly are we protecting ourselves from here? Pakistani cricketers? Is that some new kind of terrorist that nobody, not even themselves, know about? I think they'll be glad to know that it's highly unlikely that any of the participants will be visiting our airports for transiting while on their way back home.

And the last comment -

- ammille2 (3/21/2007 at 9:51 AM) Any reaction to this story? I hear crickets....

The natural bad pun that one would expect ;)

Hmm...

Well, the bloody monitor finally arrived about half an hour ago. And it is the 20" model. I am not certain if I should tell LG about the mistake (though they did say that if there was no 19" models by last Wednesday, they would sort something out).

Of course, I'm thinking that they should just let the error be, send them the 19-incher back and say c'est la vie and move on. Though I am having an additional problem, one which has been festering ever since I took the old monitor off the desk: it is damn near impossible to take the little stand piece (it's the piece between the monitor and the small round base) apart from the monitor. Even after putting the new one together, I had a hard time taking that one off. My conundrum is this - should I:

a) Slice a hole in the original box, then put the screen into the box, making sure to tape up the styrofoam packaging and putting it into a larger box
b) not use the old box when reshipping the package, and just put the styrofoam into a new box
c) try in a vain last ditch effort to take the piece off so that I can use the original box

If you're curious, the instructions are at the right. It says to twist the little piece to the right, then pull hard. I can say that no amount of pulling seems to fix the problem. Maybe I should just get going with the knife now onto the box :)

Oh, by the way, one of the nice features of the 20 inch model is that it has 400 extra horizontal pixels and 26 extra vertical pixels, unlike the 19" which was only 120 extra horizontal, and 124 less vertical.

Ah yes, and before I actually publish this for real, I should mention that I am my own receptionist, as per the DHL tracking information. And they still spelt my name wrong.

The saga is almost over!

Apparently DHL does know where I live because they've finally managed to find a truck to deliveer the new monitor out to here (though I shouldn't get too excited as it just says that it's with the "delivery courier"). This is after taking 49½ hours to get the thing allll the way from South Bend to Milwaukee (a distance of about 186 miles (or 300km), for a net speed of 3.83... miles per hour, 6.06... km/h). Maybe I should revise my estimation of DHL's equipment to having lawn mowers, but I think those would even be faster ;)

So, anyway hopefully my shipment will finally get here!

Oh, I should add that the estimated delivery date is still set for the 16th of March... maybe that'll change when they actually deliver it? I doubt it :)

200 Miles

Well, it's now been two weeks since my LCD died on me. Last week, I was wondering where it had gotten to, and it turns out that LG didn't have any monitors in stock down in Alabama (which is where they're based apparently). Robert, the cool fella who I spoke with last week in their Customer Service said that it would arrive here no later than 5 PM Thursday. You can guess where this goes. Yep. 5 PM and no delivery trucks arriving.

So I call them this morning, and I am told that it's been shipped and should be here today. They even gave me a tracking number, which Google didn't recognise. As it turns out (and she told me) it is a DHL tracking number.

I go to the DHL website and find out that the package had been shipped 2nd day; today was supposed to be the second day and it was supposed to be delivered to here by 5 PM. Well, it's now 9:00 and no sign of it on my doorstep. In fact, according to the tracking, it was at South Bend Indiana (200 miles from here via the roads) at 6:44 EDT. That was 9 hours after it was spotted in Ohio, some 36 hours after it was shipped out from Alabama. Hopefully with any luck, it'll actually show up here sometime tomorrow.

And, if you think I'm the only one that this has happened to, I'm not alone. Check out these posts -

DHL: Disasterously Haphazard Liars? (Chris Pirillo)

and

The Myth of DHL Customer Service - this person has been waiting since October to receive their shipment of laptop computers in Bolivia from here in the States

Lost in transit?

So, I've been waiting to receive a couple of things - one real (and very useful, not to mention having some tangible value) and the other a more-or-less throwaway item.

The real item, being the replacement widescreen display from LG, is somewhere between wherever it is they ship these things from (at the rate they specified 2-5 days, I'd have guessed California, but I wonder if it isn't Malaysia which is where the things are manufactured). As it is, I don't even know which delivery service is sending the item, so I figure that if it doesn't show up tomorrow, another call to their support department shall be in order.

The "throwaway" item is the "CrazyTalk avatar" for skype. I don't know what's taking them so long, but y'know, I did win it in their promotion, so it'd be friendly if I could redeem it. ;)

Let's see Fox or ESPN do this...

Granted that this is from 1991, but it's something that isn't done enough (or if they do it, like ESPN have for the last couple of weeks in their Busch coverage, they hardly ever use the option and then overhype it). What would happen if you put a live microphone with a driver and let him have discussions with your commentary crew live on air.

(You'll note that I didn't mention TNT - that's because they are going to do something like this for at least one race)

Anyway, back when they had the rights to broadcast these races, Network 7 in Australia would hook up a driver and let them be their (as ESPN put it now) "in-race reporter". In 1991, it wound up being the Neil Crompton/Brad Jones Telecom Mobilenet Holden. Here are a couple of clips ;) -

By the way, both drivers are involved in racing media - Cromley as the colour commentator for 7 (after a stint with ten) and Jones co-hosting a show with Crompton available on broadband from Bigpond.

I'm a winner!

Though I'm not exactly certain what I won...

I got an email from Skype saying that they have a "casino" promotion going on; I checked with the site and it is a legitimate promotion. The prizes that they offer aren't bad either -

"Minor" prizes, at least 3 on offer per day
- 6 months SkypeIn [10/day] (that's a direct-dial number that you can get anywhere in the US {this is only open to US residents} Retail value listed at $1.00 each, but the price that you'd pay is $25 or so based on €10×2 months)
- Skype Unlimited for a year [3/day] (i.e. free calling with I believe no connection charge to the US and Canada, $29.95)
- 5, 10, or 15 minutes of SkypeOut [1000 each/day] (call phones at a low per-minute charge with a 4¢ connection fee; retail values 10, 21 and 31 cents respectively)

"Major" prizes - 0-2 available per day
- Logitech QuickCam Chat, $29.99
- Logitech USB headset, $49.99
- SMC Phone (only 10 available, including one today), $159.99

And the, as I would term them, "useless" prizes, both available in a quantity of 1000 per day. This is the description from the official rules -
- A RingJacker Ringtone (30,000 available): ARV $1.50 US dollars ea.
- A CrazyTalk Avatar (30,000 available): ARV $1.50 US dollars ea.

So, I figured I'd take a punt. And I did win a prize. A CrazyTalk Avatar. According to the winning page, it is "A tool that makes animated avatars come to life on your Skype video chats".

Ah well, at least I won *something* ;)

Good news and bad news

Well, generally you do get both in a short amount of time. For this particular instance, the first spot of bad news appeared yesterday but the good news came up this afternoon.

Yesterday while I was in another part of my house, my monitor (LG L194WT, 19" widescreen) went off like it usually does after 10 minutes (it used to be that the monitor stayed on, but after getting the LCD screen, I became suddenly concerned about burn-in; actually it's more that there really is no reason to have the screen *always* on. When I came out to jiggle the mouse to bring the screen back to active, it didn't go back on right away. Instead, the power indicator flashed rapidly, but after about 30 seconds of being miffed at why it did this, the screen came back on and everything was going well.

That is, until this afternoon when, right in the middle of watching the season opener of the second season of the West Wing (now that I'm addicted to it too) - the screen suddenly went blank again, with the flashing power light. Ever the optimist, I figured that the problem would resolve itself again and I'd see the "f-engine" screen and the picture would come back. But it didn't. That's the major bad news; I now have a dead monitor sitting on the floor and getting ready to go back into its original packaging. Of course, I could wait for an identical package to come before packing this monitor away.

Yes, that is the good news. I wound up calling the toll-free number for LG customer service and gave them all the required information - serial number, my name, address etc and the description of the problem. After that, I was given two options -

1. Give a credit card number, have a package with an identical monitor arrive and send back the defective monitor; the card is not charged as the original is returned to the company. This would take two to five days to get a replacement and there are only two areas that could fail.

2. They send me a sticker, I put the monitor back into its original packaging, send it back and they send me a new monitor. This would take somewhere in the range of 10 days to complete, and involves three steps that could falter in this process.

So, I gave them my card number (I hardly use the thing anymore) and I should be expecting a new monitor in the next couple of days.

I have to say that LG's customer service is quite good (and unless they have **really** good accent training, based stateside still; unlike RealNetworks' support whose service center is definitely in India - "Jeremy"'s accent didn't cut it for me back in June). And the fact that the preferred method of dealing with problems like this is to swap the monitor is a great way to get people coming back to their products.

In the meantime, I put the monitor that I had been using for the better part of two years back onto the main desktop system, and I have to admit that it is hard to readjust to a CRT monitor after using an LCD. Not only does everything seem so small (consider that I am using a 17" CRT), it seems almost out of focus. I think I might just watch some of the stuff that I'd been meaning to on the TV since I do have the DVD player that can play files that I burn to disc ;)

Oh, can I just say that CRTs are evil again? Thanks :)