Quicksilverscreen

Livving in the uk as i do and without a tv due to the need for a tv license which is hardly worth it given the quality of much of the moder programing i have found myself vewing the website quicksilverscreen.com which has experienced much legal turmoil over the last few months havening to move to non us servers and eventually be given away after fox first issued ceases and desist orders then prevented it being auctioned. While it is true that the linked files were most deffiantly ilegal and that the links themselves were a Grey area, the fact remains that alot of people are willing to put up with the inconvinence of dead links slow buffering and dropouts in videos.

This one would assume has nothing to do with wanting to steal content as it is only watched, nither is it in my opinion to avoid advertising as this can easily be done with regular television through a dvr, or even vhs or simply just leaving the room to make a cup of tea. The reason why people watch these programs online is simple they want the content at a time to suit them and even at a place to suit them. I could for instance get my laptop sit in the park in range of the university conection and watch the latest episode of what ever im watching with realitive ease insted of tuneing in at the specific time i am told to watch by the broadcaster.

I have no interest in taking money from the broadcaster or company in question, I am quite happy to watch adds before and durring the program to no excessive levels as on tv if and if i wanted the content on a permanent basis i would buy the dvd. Why then are media company's sticking to brodcast and forcing on demand content to be through illegal up loading. These companys have more than enough resorces to provide content through the internet either add supported or subscription but these sytems are not provided or are done very poorly. For example comedy central's motherload is a very clunky interface that i can only get worrking with IE and the shows provided are devided in to small chunks that buffer slowly and idividualy. The interface could by made into a much similar mor basic approach with easy. Clips of shows ,such as the daily show, could be linked togeather and accessible as a single show (the clips can be kept im sure it dosent take a lot to have them play smothly after one another with adds interspersed) and the whole thing could buffer as one you can leave a tab open in firefox for 20 mins to get a buffer with little problem but waiting a minute wathing 2 then waiting another for the next one is ver inconvenient. Also alot of the vidieo services ofered by company's on the web are only avlible in the US (which im not) if they no wher i am surly they can get advertising for that region surly some third party in the relevant country would be able to provide advertising that could be put into web video feeds. Basicaly the US media Needs to get the act togeather and relise that an ad basied busines model can waork on any distribution platform, the same goes for all other media companies , except the bbc who need to start makeing better programs so some one pays a licence fee, because if wee all wathc tv through the internet thers no tv licence and they are in big trouble

Left in the could at sheffield univercity

Ok heer's the deal this blog is basically my pointless attempt to bring atention to stuff that annoyes or inconvineces my in my daily life, this is usually Microsoft or big media but today its the accommodation department at Sheffield's university and their penny pinching form the maintanance budget. Heres my problem i'm at uni i'm in halls and for that last to two days there has been no heating! it freezing here as the heating isn't working and its not the first or last time its happened. Basically the university knows the boiler isn't working but are not fixing it was only a few weeks ago wee got the radiators bled and enjoyed heat for a while. now it would seem its shut down completely as even the pipe feeding the radiator is cold to the touch. Its all because the uni are to cheep to fix the boiler properly as the halls i'm in are soon to be got rid of, but surely they have some obligation to keep comfortable temperatures i shouldn't have to be putting on warm socks and coats indoors really. Bassicly its a disgrace and i really hope its resolved before jan cos its hardly like i can light a nice fire in here.

Ok alttle disjointed as i pasted half in from my other blog but you get the idea im paying good money for acomodation and they are failing to provide basics like heating. If anyone reads this please leave a comement as to if you think its right for a large istitution to have such a blatent disrgard for the comfor of its students.