Tuesday, October 14, 2008
3 Cheers For Cablevision - Kung Fu, Wi-Fi, and Usenet
There's a number of things to complain about Cablevision, a local (?) provider of cable, broadband internet, and phone service; High prices, loud ass commercials which make it unsafe to leave the TV running in the background while doing other stuff, high prices, occasional issues trying to access my bill online, the DVR which every now and then forgets to record The Daily Show on Mondays. My brother lived in a building in which many people were using Cablevision for internet, and that severely slowed down his online access, forcing him to switch to Verizon (not a problem in my building).
They do get some stuff right, which should be noted.
Kung Fu HD - which I keep mentioning around here. Cablevision sees their competition coming from satellite and now from phone companies. Many of their HD channels were added with them in mind. Kung Fu HD is a far better channel than I used to fantasize about. Hi-Def, a decent selection of movies (including a lot of Samurai flicks and some vaguely related genres), a whole load of Shaw bros. films, no commercial interuptions (as of this writing) and best of all, no episodes of Kung Fu, the slo mo western series starring David Carradine. I assumed any 24 hour Kung Fu channel wouldn't be able to avoid that shitty ass show. I'm glad to be wrong (as of this writing), but I would've put up with it for the good of the cause. Not all the movies are good (Bruce Li), and they play about 3 films play per day, to be repeated throughout. That's fine. I only have so much time to watch and so much space on my DVR.
Note - Kung Fu HD is long gone. Bastards!
Free Wi-Fi - Long Island was supposed to build an island wide free wi-fi network. I don't know what the status of that project is, but in the meantime, Cablevision has stepped up and waived the $30 (I think that's what it was) monthy fee it used to charge it's customers to log in when outside. Hotspot access is still somewhat spotty, but continues to grow. It's even available in my neighborhood (though not when I'm inside). I have limited use for this currently since my PSP has barely enough internal memory to go online before I get a "not enough memory" error message. Sony won't allow the PSP to use the memory stick for such purposes. Newer versions of the PSP has more internal memory, but I don't know how well they fare online. In any case, this is pretty cool. I have audio issues with my current PSP and instead of upgrading to a newer model, as I was considering, I may get some other gadget altogether...
Usenet Access - Andrew Cuomo, son of one of New York State's favorite Governers, recently convinced a number of internet providers to drop usenet service so he could pretend he was doing something about child pornography. Any action taken that does not end up with child molesters/pornographers in jail is actually no action taken against child pornography. It's just a pretence that will be repeated during Cuomo's inevitable run for the Governorship or some other high office in the near future. Not getting my vote, Andy.
Cablevision has so far continued to provide usenet access, to my surprise. While many usenet users responded to this news, noting that their ISP had sucky usenet service (and their preference to commercial usenet providers), I feel that Cablevision's usenet service is actually pretty good. Not as good as commercial usenet servers (which are unaffected by Cuomo's pretentions), but I happen to think that approximately 90 days retention (based on a couple of recent downloads) is more than adequate. Of course, it may be that they've outsourced usenet access, and are continuing service until a contract runs out, like at the end of the year or something. Until then, I can continue my own illegal activities of downloading movies, television shows, and music. Yay.
All three of these things add value to Cablevision's service, and would make me reluctant to go to the competition. I might be inviting a fare hile by admitting that in public, though.
They do get some stuff right, which should be noted.
Kung Fu HD - which I keep mentioning around here. Cablevision sees their competition coming from satellite and now from phone companies. Many of their HD channels were added with them in mind. Kung Fu HD is a far better channel than I used to fantasize about. Hi-Def, a decent selection of movies (including a lot of Samurai flicks and some vaguely related genres), a whole load of Shaw bros. films, no commercial interuptions (as of this writing) and best of all, no episodes of Kung Fu, the slo mo western series starring David Carradine. I assumed any 24 hour Kung Fu channel wouldn't be able to avoid that shitty ass show. I'm glad to be wrong (as of this writing), but I would've put up with it for the good of the cause. Not all the movies are good (Bruce Li), and they play about 3 films play per day, to be repeated throughout. That's fine. I only have so much time to watch and so much space on my DVR.
Note - Kung Fu HD is long gone. Bastards!
Free Wi-Fi - Long Island was supposed to build an island wide free wi-fi network. I don't know what the status of that project is, but in the meantime, Cablevision has stepped up and waived the $30 (I think that's what it was) monthy fee it used to charge it's customers to log in when outside. Hotspot access is still somewhat spotty, but continues to grow. It's even available in my neighborhood (though not when I'm inside). I have limited use for this currently since my PSP has barely enough internal memory to go online before I get a "not enough memory" error message. Sony won't allow the PSP to use the memory stick for such purposes. Newer versions of the PSP has more internal memory, but I don't know how well they fare online. In any case, this is pretty cool. I have audio issues with my current PSP and instead of upgrading to a newer model, as I was considering, I may get some other gadget altogether...
Usenet Access - Andrew Cuomo, son of one of New York State's favorite Governers, recently convinced a number of internet providers to drop usenet service so he could pretend he was doing something about child pornography. Any action taken that does not end up with child molesters/pornographers in jail is actually no action taken against child pornography. It's just a pretence that will be repeated during Cuomo's inevitable run for the Governorship or some other high office in the near future. Not getting my vote, Andy.
Cablevision has so far continued to provide usenet access, to my surprise. While many usenet users responded to this news, noting that their ISP had sucky usenet service (and their preference to commercial usenet providers), I feel that Cablevision's usenet service is actually pretty good. Not as good as commercial usenet servers (which are unaffected by Cuomo's pretentions), but I happen to think that approximately 90 days retention (based on a couple of recent downloads) is more than adequate. Of course, it may be that they've outsourced usenet access, and are continuing service until a contract runs out, like at the end of the year or something. Until then, I can continue my own illegal activities of downloading movies, television shows, and music. Yay.
All three of these things add value to Cablevision's service, and would make me reluctant to go to the competition. I might be inviting a fare hile by admitting that in public, though.
Labels: Awesome, good deal, HDTV, kung fu, Long Island, movies, technology
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
