Archive for the ‘movies’ Category:

Downloading Movies, TV shows

November 29th, 2007

I haven’t had cable or satellite since 2003 – over 4 years. Just a DVD player and computer connected to my TV. And i think its great – easier and better suited to my lifestyle. Everybody knows how to rent a DVD from the local video store or get’em in the mail from Netflix, so today i’m just gonna discuss watching from your computer (I connect my macbook pro to my HDTV and watch it on that).

So what to watch? Well, some people really like Tivo to get shows – it saves stuff for you as it comes on TV, makes it easy to skip passed commercials, etc. I prefer to download an entire season of a TV show at once, like LOST, Heroes Season 1, or my favorite, The Wire. But sometimes you need more recent shows, like The Colbert Report.  You can also get classic movies like caddyshack or browse the latest comedies or latest action movies.

Note – the system is not perfect – if something is not popular, its hard to download. Thats why i always tell people to sort the results by number of seeders (people sharing), and only download ones that are easy to get (like 10 seeders minimum, 50+ seeders is best).

On the techie side, you’re just downloading a small torrent file from the links above, which just tells your torrent client where to get the rest of the data. Kinda like google search results tells your browser (firefox) where to get the thing you’re looking for. Once you have the torrent file, you wait anywhere from a day (new movies are popular) to over a week (Heroes season 1 is 4 GB) while your torrent client does all the downloading. What torrent client should you get? I like Azureus for Windows and Transmission for Mac OS X.

Mininova is the most popular site to get torrent files, but there are other torrent sites.

Disclaimer: Don’t download any movies you don’t already own – thats illegal.

Good Night, and Good Luck

January 15th, 2006

“We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we dig deep in our history and doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were for the moment unpopular. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of the Republic to abdicate his responsibility.”

Edward R. Murrow, from the March 9, 1954, ‘See It Now’ television broadcast on Senator Joe McCarthy.

I just finished watching George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck movie on Murrow and McCarthy. We’ve all heard about McCarthy, but this movie highlights one of america’s best journalist standing up to the fear and helping bring an end to McCarthyism. The reason i write this blog is probably the same reason that Clooney made this movie now – fear of communism is not unlike the fear of terrorism we see today. But also, i will take it further – where are the true leaders today? Why don’t the journalists ask the hard questions, report with accuracy and truth? I’m not saying they all suck, but few are good and fewer are great. Is it because the machine is so finely tuned that more money can be made without real journalists? without hard truth? without a hero? Yes, i think Edward R Murrow was a hero.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – George Santayana, 1905