I don’t know when this happened, but the SlingBox has a Mac player. I got tired of checking back for it, but there it is. Anyone using it care to comment on quality or performance? Will I hate it on a G4 Mac?

Take a look at this response to the Mallaby editorial in the Washington Post. The editorial is about the importance of trust and how CEOs and our political leaders have eroded it. I think the general point of the editorial is fine, and it’s worth reading.

Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings takes a look at one part of the editorial that is troublesome. In the editorial he commits the one journalistic sin that drives me insane. He forms this false balance by implying that both Democrats and Republicans have been more negative than usual in their ads. The idea is absurd, and Hilzoy lays out why. Go read it.

If you’re reading via BlogLines or another RSS aggregator, you may have noticed a bug where old posts would appear as new whenever a new post was created. This was pointed out to me today and has been fixed. The problem was in the flash video embed plugin I’m using. It generates a random id for the swf and the div the swf is written into which caused the HTML to look different to BlogLines, so it marked posts as new. I’ve switched to using a deterministic id so this should be resolved.

Update: well, it will look broken for this post because all the ids changed again. Hopefully, the next new post will work as expected.

So, I’ve got a couple of Lieberman predictions that I’d like to set down in print so that if I’m right, I can point out that I wasn’t just pulling a Lieberman and feeling which way the wind is blowing.

First, I think Ned Lamont will pull out a surprising, but very narrow victory on November 7th. I base this on two things. First, my drive to work goes through a very, very Republican section of Bristol. I’ve NEVER in 3 years of working there seen a Democratic candidate on a lawn sign. There are now 2 Ned Lamont lawn signs in Bristol on my way to ESPN which is shocking to me.

Second, every single person I’ve talked to, including some 2004 Bush voters are annoyed by Joe Lieberman. They’re voting for Lamont and that can’t hurt. So, even though Lamont is down 12% in the last ARG poll, I still think there’s a decent chance that this will turn around.

Based on the poll, it’s obviously a long shot. So, let’s say that Lieberman wins, which brings me to the next prediction. If Lieberman wins, he will caucus with whatever party holds the majority in the Senate. If the Republicans hold a majority, he will caucus with them. If the Democrats win a majority, he will caucus with them. I also believe that if the final tally sits at 50-49 Democrats, he will caucus with the Republicans (thus tossing the Senate to the Republicans).

I again realize how wacky this is based on the conventional wisdom, but my suspicion is that he will caucus with whoever gives him the best shot at taking a committee chair. We’ll get some speech about how he’s bringing the parties together. On top of that, I’m guessing Joe’s new donors will want something back for their troubles and cash, and giving the Senate back to Republicans would sure make a nice present.

So, there it is. I really believe that he’s going to flip, and that the only way he’ll caucus with the Dems is if they have the majority without him. Seven seats are tossups according to Cook, so there’s a chance that they can do it without Lieberman.

FatMixx, The Connecticutian, and Sirens & Lights have all been upgraded to the latest WordPress and Spam Karma. Hopefully, you won’t notice anything. Holler if you notice anything odd.

If anyone hasn’t noticed, I’m a fan of the new Galactica series on Scifi. I love the ability to download the episodes from iTunes. As I said once before, this may be the new method of distribution for lesser known programs that won’t make it to DVD.

That being said, between seasons, The Scifi Channel had a series of “Webisodes;” ten 3-4 minute web only episodes which explained some of the goings on which occurred between the season two finale and the season three premiere. In addition to fleshing out the story, the webisodes gave fans a bit to chew on in the interim and helped build hype for the premiere.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Between Star Wars: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, The Cartoon Network had a series of short cartoons about the Clone Wars.

It seems that Galactica’s webisodes have created a civil war of its own. It seems that NBC/Universal declared the webisodes “promotional” and thus the writers were not eligible for residuals or credit. Needless to say, the writers were not too thrilled with that. A battle broke out and it seems that, at least marginally, NBC/Universal won. Of course, after the first 10, no new webisodes were made.

Needless to say, these are the obstacles that are going to be faced as the internet starts taking over more of our entertainment content delivery. Parallel content seems like a natural extension to me but I can see why it might be considered “promotional,” even if the work going into the content is the same as for the actual show. It is likely non-revenue generating and may not be economically viable if subjected to the standard practices of the Writer’s Guild. Then again, why not get the same pay for the same work. I suspect that this is going to become a huge fight. And, as usual, we, the consumers, are the ones who are going to lose, as there will be less content available.

If there’s one thing about YouTube I like, it’s finding out that there are some seriously bored and talented people out there. Watch this, you won’t be disappointed.

How long do you think that took to make?

Found via Matthew Yglesias by way of Ezra Klein.

Update: More videos from this user after the jump. Click the title to see some more videos by this guy.
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I’m obviously keeping an eye on blogosphere comments about MyESPN (thanks, Technorati!), and Rubel’s comments are among the most interesting so far.

My only comment is that our plan is to keep evolving this product and feedback like this makes us think. Also, sometimes you have to build a simpler product so you can stop, see your mistakes, and fix them. Release early, release often, as they say.

I’m actually frightened by seeing those two things connected in some meaningful way. Bush fanatics, however, apparently are not.

Before I say anything else, watch this:

So, what did you think of the ad?

Well, NBC has refused to air it because it deals with “public controversy.” Weinstein plans to take legal action, though I’m not sure how or on what grounds. We’ll have to see if that ends up materializing.

We ended up in a rather long and heated discussion at work about the controversy that prompted the movie. You might remember in 2003, lead singer Natalie Maines said to a crowd in London, “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas.” The overreaction from holier-than-thou country music fans was swift and harsh.

Cumulus Broadcasting pulled their music across the network, and Clear Channel stations organized protests where people were encouraged to stomp on, burn, or destroy Dixie Chicks CDs and memorabilia. It was pretty ugly stuff.

It was this participation by the larger media companies that prompted our discussion. Specifically, we debated whether anyone should be upset by the actions taken by NBC or by the radio stations in 2003. After all, the radio stations and these networks are simply making profit decisions. If the decision isn’t the one that will make them the most money (or it angers customers directly), the market will let the stations and networks know by taking their money elsewhere.

Second, is there anything wrong with the radio stations simply doing whatever they think makes the most business sense for them? If they want to avoid upsetting the administration because it makes business easier, then so be it. They have that right, as they have the right to do what they want with their own stations.

Those that know me will know that while I appreciate the sentiment in those thoughts, I couldn’t disagree more. The idea that markets are self-correcting is fine, but markets often don’t consider externalities until the cost of dealing with them is acute. To look back at 2002 and 2003, market-driven media brought us the poor journalism surrounding the lead up to the Iraq War. Very little media sought to anger or alienate a President riding a big popularity surge. It is also cheaper to simply report what the government says rather than doing actual investigation.

Beyond that, however, people can and should make moral judgments about why these companies chose to pull the music or reject the ad for the movie. This is not to say that laws should be created to compel these networks to air songs or commercials they don’t want to. Instead, the public has a right and obligation to inform the company of their displeasure and to either convince the network to make the “better” decision or to help change circumstances so that the “better” decision is the natural choice for the networks.

For example, in the case of this commercial, if NBC was standing up for some principle or for a real business case where their customers (advertisers) would really take their money elsewhere, that would be unfortunate but morally neutral in my opinion. Companies try to make money and listening to the people that give them money is a natural thing. It’s a mantra of business, after all.

On the other hand, there are situations like this:

The studio provided media outlets copies of “clearance” reports from NBC’s standards and practices department bearing handwritten notations stating the ads were deemed unacceptable because “they are disparaging of President Bush.“

To me, that represents a different choice, not one born of business or customer needs, but by fear of retribution or by political considerations outside of this particular transaction. In either case, that is a failure of a free press and NBC should be criticized for this. I’m sure that the market might end up costing NBC something, but the reality is that the market will reward the Dixie Chicks and NBC will see no lasting impact. They will sell their inventory to someone else, and they’ll hardly look back at this.

The background upon which this entire story is unfolding also has to play a part in our judgment of what NBC is doing. There have been numerous examples of our media protecting the administration and Republicans. The bias is undeniable and is unprecedented in our modern history. Imagine if President Clinton were protected and coddled by the media as much as President Bush?

That alone isn’t reason to criticize NBC, but it is reason to be concerned that more is going on here than a simple business decision. It would be great to see some actual reporting on this. Unfortunately, if there is something that the media is bad at, it’s self-examination. Without critical journalism, we’re relegated to having public outrage drive the day. In fact, without concerned citizens asking the next level of questions, where would we be?

Glenn Greenwald has more on the issue, including other pointers on Bush administration voodoo over the media.

Click through if you want to see the full trailer.
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Once again, smart people are screwing up audience measurement methods and are complaining that panel-based or survey-based numbers must be wrong because they don’t match their HitBox/SiteMeter/Whatever cookie/javascript based traffic tools. This is just silly. While the panel-based and survey-based reports aren’t perfect, either, their methodology is actually pretty sound. What’s worse, when you think about the numbers, they actually make sense even aside from the math. Fred Wilson points out most of the problems, so read that.

I’ve written about this before, so let me just summarize the two salient points here.

First, automated measurement tools, whether they be fancy, expensive, high end products like HitBox or free/trendy ones like SiteMeter, Google Analytics, or whatever will always, always, always overcount your total visitors. Always. These services can only really track browsers, not actual humans. I browse certain sites from at least 3 computers. Many people will surf from at least 2 (home, office).

Second, real humans are different from visits. Always remember, when you’re looking at your web site statistics, this is the rule of thumb: hits > page views > visits > actual visitors .

The third, tangential point is that Arrington is super silly when he claims that Comscore numbers are “flaky.” Those numbers form the basis of ad rates. If those numbers were truly flaky, which I read to mean wildly inconsistent, no one would use them for advertising rates. Literally billions of dollars are exchanged on the basis of Comscore and Nielsen numbers. Let’s not get carried away with our own self-importance, shall we? In this case, it’s unlikely he knows more than the entire market.

If you haven’t seen this, the winner of the Chicago Marathon slipped at the finish line. ouch.

(via Deadspin)