The Insomniac Coder

I like to keep a TV running to give me background noise while I work. Daytime TV like talk shows and arbitration shows are better because they have very loose formats. Documentaries don't work very well, if anything turns remotely interesting I would start paying attention to it instead of work. WWII documentaries about the Nazi are usually good for this, especially if the narrator has a droning voice. Thanks to this I have sort of developed a taste for judge shows. I think I like most of them, maybe because when you have a job that demands such a high attention to detail, and with such horrible stress, that watching complete strangers get yelled at for doing stupid things becomes sort of medicinal. Every now and then some idiot goes on print or TV to complain about these judges giving a bad example about how the judicial system works, but they are missing the point: this is all about entertainment. Here's my current "honor roll": Judge Judy Sheindlin: the ...

Image via Wikipedia Amazon Prime Streaming Will Disrupt Netflix, Here's How | The Business Of Online Video It's been an interesting week for video streaming . Amazon is allowing us Prime members to watch about 5000 of their streaming titles for free, Hulu made a deal with the Criterion Collection (at least for the Hulu plus members), and Netflix made a $200 million content deal with CBS . I had a chance to test the free Amazon streaming and it was no different than Netflix, and the only difference (in principle) from Hulu was not having to watch the fucking ads (even if I pay for Hulu plus). I also cashed-in a rental credit with Amazon and watched Exorcist: Director's Cut offline. This was pretty cool except that the DRM license is tied to whatever monitor was active when you asked for the purchase ( at least that is how Amazon explained my customer support inquiry  I have verified this behavior, whatever monitor is active when you start the movie will set the DRM and ...