Peter Beinart on The Colbert Report

The Crisis of Zionism

I found Peter Beinart's appearance on The Colbert Report to promote his new book quite compelling. His views on the state of Israel are pretty standard liberal views but I like the way he frames them. Instead of getting overly emotional or flirting with anti-semitism, seems to have struck a middle ground where he looks at the consequences that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have for Israel's own democracy. Israel rightfully prides itself as America's closest ally and as the only democracy in the middle east but decades of occupation of Palestinian/Arab lands has created a dissonance in which parts of the country are "freer" than others which cannot last.

I think I may have to actually read this book. TV shouldn't come with home work....

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Peter Beinart
www.colbertnation.com
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The Good Guys—A Pleasant Summer Surprise

"I've got enough to worry about! I've got strip clubs. I've got champagne rooms and free buffets and an economy where clients are cutting back and they're sleeping with their wives again. Their wives!"

The ring leader from the latest episode of The Good Guys.

The Good Guys isn't the best show ever but it is a fun diversion at a time when network television is clogged with reruns, reality shows, and unwatchable garbage shows. An enjoyable mix of low-brow humor and 70s style buddy cop action, The Good Guys is as flat out fun.

The main appeal of the show is its villains which exude quirky desperation rather than the usual vaguely bland menace we've come to expect from more serious shows. With procedural cop shows, the bad guys tend to melt into the background in order help the show milk the mystery and keep the audience guessing until the very end. The Good Guys reverts to a much older formula where the identity of the bad guys is almost never in doubt. As a result, the show is free to imbue its villains with a quirky sensibility which makes them as enjoyable as the cops who chase them. This makes for a fun alternative for the grim, forensic porn which so many procedural cop shows seem to aspire to today.

Jedi Dog

It's probably a bit late to be jumping on the Animals With Lightsabers bandwagon but this video is too cool.

Felicia Day Wants You to Date Her Avatar

I only seem to be posting pictures and viral videos these days. I suppose I should feel embarrassed for not posting more original content....But not this time...

Google Addresses Privacy Concerns

I feel better already...

Google Opt Out Feature Lets Users Protect Privacy By Moving To Remote Village

Reporter Groped by Senator...Kind of Likes it

This I came across this video on Daily Kos. Weird, wild stuff.

Applications Give Android An Edge Over webOS For Now

While I love my new Palm Pre there is a huge elephant in the room—actually two elephants, the iPhone and Android. Both of these platforms have large (freakin' huge in the case of the iPhone) catalogs of third-party applications and Android has one which really stands out for me—Google Maps. Google Maps is pretty ubiquitous on mobile phones these days with even cheap dumb phones having a version available to them. But versions vary from phone to phone and the one on the Palm Pre is lovely and easy to use. But on an Android phone like my T-Mobile G1, Google Maps is really special with desktop-like features like Street View integrated into the interface (I think that the iPhone version of Google Maps also has this feature). The Pre's version of Google Maps is comparatively simpler with a sleeker interface but no street view. And in the meantime, Google has just updated the Android version of Google Maps with new features. Every version of Google Maps has driving directions but the new Android version adds public transportation and walking directions—a feature which I love on the desktop. And Google has released it through the Android Market so there is no need to wait months on end for an over the air update as was the case with the Cupcake update.

Google Maps almost makes me want to choose my G1 over the Pre all by itself. Almost. At the end of the day the Pre is still faster than the G1 by a quit a bit and its GPS feels more accurate if for no other reason than because it can get an accurate fix more quickly.

Still, if it were available on faster hardware it would be hard to recommend Palm's webOS over Google's Android at this point. Now that Documents to Go has arrived on Android, editing documents—a traditional strength of Palm devices—is poised to become a strength of Android. A version of Documents to Go for the Palm Pre has been promised but has not arrived yet.

While there is still a lot of promise in webOS for third party applications, without an available Software Development Kit, it's hard for people to actually create them. Right now most webOS development is taking the form of trying to hack the operating system and applications. Worse, it seems that Palm isn't supporting these hackers for fear of offending Sprint. But without an official SDK underground hacking is the only game in town for developers who aren't traditional friends of Palm like MotionApps and Dataviz. The fact that to date there are only thirty applications in the Pre's App Catalog at a time when there are thousands of apps in the Android Market and tens of thousands of apps in the iPhone App Store, only serves to underline how far Palm has to go to catch up the big boys.

Despite some hiccups Palm has done very well in rolling out the Palm Pre and the new webOS which powers it. MotionApps Classic application goes a long way to helping plug the gaps in Palm's App Catalog but it's not enough. Palm needs to put out an offcial SDK now.

Tehran Live

Tehran Live is a photoblog which is pretty self explanatory. It has photos from Tehran. With the recent election and riots which have followed it has become a source of news. Definitely worth checking out for anyone who is interested in this story.

Also The UK Guardian has a live blog of the events surrounding the election.

Do You Sometimes Feel Small?

Bet you do now:

Bender's Back Baby!

Maybe there's something to this whole Twitter thing. Twitter is where I just learned that Comedy Central has just ordered 26 new episodes of Futurama to be aired sometimes in 2010. Awesome news; Futurama was my favorite show for years and it's exciting to know that it will be back.

Palm Pre Browser Races iPhone and G1

Slashdot's discussion of the Pre had a pretty interesting link. Precentral posted a video the Palm Pre's browser in action and side by side with the iPhone and T-Mobile G1's browsers.

Leo Loses It

Another thing I stumbled onto on Twitter.

I don't think I've ever seen Leo Laporte angry, especially on the air. Of course, I don't watch his shows live, I subscribe to his podcasts which can be edited for content and otherwise cleaned up. And wouldn't you know it, it's over the Palm Pre. This little phone is either going to take over the universe or destroy it. At this point, I'm not sure which outcome to root for.

The Palm Pre Start Up Video

Found on Twitter, a link to this story with the Palm Pre start up video.

I Guess They Weren't Kidding

Last night when I went to a Sprint store to ask about the Palm Pre, the sales person suggested that they might have some extra Pres because someone had driven through another store's window. I didn't think much of the comment at the time but today while checking Twitter, I saw that story repeated and sure enough it's true.

The Year the Media Died

I stumbled across this video on Geek.com. Excellently done and very insightful.

Too Empathetic?

Mmm...TV

Hulu has released a standalone application for viewing it shows. It gives a very nice viewing experience—nicer than the website which is pretty nice in its own right. Thanks to modern TVs which can easily be attached to computers I can definitely see myself vegging out on the couch to this application. Of course I already do that with Boxee, Windows Media Center, Youtube, and Hulu's own website but another way to waste time in front of the TV is always welcome.

Update: By now I've had a chance to install both the Mac and Windows version of the Hulu Desktop and I have to say that the Mac version is better. This is mostly because of the way it handles remote controls. Hulu Desktop's support for the Mac Mini's Apple Remote is fairly seamless and it works exactly the same way that it works in Apple's Front Row media player application. Its support for Windows Media Center remotes however is much more limited and the experience suffers as a result.

J.R. Ewing Meets William Adama

TV Squad has a great mash up Battlestar Galactica scenes with the theme from Dallas. It really works for me.

Hulu Ad Nauseum

Hulu is great for watching TV on your computer. And since newer TVs often have VGA ports, it's easier than ever to hook up your computer to your TV. All in all it's a pretty sweet experience. But sometimes the ads can get a bit annoying....

PBS Video Goes Into Overdrive

Boing Boing Gadgets reports that PBS is now streaming episodes of its shows online. Actually, PBS has had a strong web presence for years and has been posting its shows for years. But they were always clunky and weird with programs split into segments which required Quicktime or Windows Media to view and would often crash your browser. Those pages are still around and provide valuable supplemental information. But the new PBS Video page is much slicker and features good ol' flash video in a smooth interface which allows viewers to see the shows in much the same way that you would on TV. As a big fan of Nova and Frontline, I find this to be great news.