"Mrs. Peacock with the Lead Pipe in the Ballroom" Engadget Podcast 130

so many things in this podcast. nilay spent his weekend evaluating set-top devices that stream netflix. I kept wondering what the big deal is with set top boxes, and why people can't just be satisfied hooking up their laptops to their tvs. can't that work for everyone? I stopped wondering this on thursday morning, when I worked from home and decided to watch the last half of the last season of weeds, as I did some editing.

andy botwin is awesome. just sayin'.

we have a projector rather than a tv, so maybe that complicates things? I'm not sure, but I had to call my husband to ask him to explain the set-up. In order to view the computer screen on my wall, I didn't just need to know which setting to use on the remote. I had to know where to position two separate switches (I didn't bother to ask what they were doing). due to my lemon of an hp, I also had to fiddle with the screen settings until the sound came through our speakers. yes, I wrote that correctly - screen settings to adjust speaker output - that sums up the character of my crappy hp pavilion. so I get it, viewing online content on one's television should be as simple as popping a dvd into the computer. we do have a blu ray that streams from netflix, hulu+, and a few other sites, but even now, in 2011, the interfaces are not great. hulu+ didn't even work, so we ended up canceling the subscription that we purchased just for the sake of our new set top box. in 2009, josh predicts that content will be the make or break aspect that determines netflix's success.  it's 2011...I'm pretty sure the streaming content is still fairly dismal when it comes to movies. best part of the netflix segment? nilay reveals the fact that he uses top gun and jurassic park as sound benchmarks for judging audio delivery. he catches some heat, but not nearly enough. even still, transformers?

this podcast is dubbed the "angry rant" edition. I like a good angry rant as much as the next guy (especially when it's not directed at me), but what I find interesting about this episode are the absences of certain rants. it's like interesting negative space. for example, listen to paul's rant over the frame channel concept. sorry to those readers who encountered a broken audio file. I've fixed it! click to hear about 30seconds of paul miller ranting.



it's a gentle rage. also absent is the rant that should accompany the recounting of the frame channel rep that used paul's personal account information to contact him to suggest a meeting in his home town. talk about disgusting. josh used the phrase, "creep salad." that was funny.  paul and josh are both angry about best buy's selling practices, but paul lets josh rant for him. I'm guessing because he knows that josh does a much better rant. needless to say, paul needs to work on his rant skills.

josh does a pretty good job getting lathered up over the issue of obama's blackberry, the sectera edge.

sectera edge security description. via pcworld.

just kidding! of course, a blackberry and a sectera edge are two, separate products. how many times can josh use the word, conflate, in one verbal paragraph? the best part was when he said that cspan or cnn or some journalistic entity "conflated the blackberry out of the picture." he corrected himself immediately, but really, it was a cute ranty sentence. very heat of the moment.

tim cook goes on about how apple will go after anyone who rips off their intellectual property. it's like a rant-threat.