Shock of the Old

Ominous trends in legislation and the internet

File under: Dianne Feinstein, RIAA tuchuss-licker

A new bill co-sponsored by Feinstein, would require online broadcasters to use Real Media, or Windows Media streaming for music streams instead of streaming mp3s. KCRW and much of the streamcasts available on iTunes are in streaming mp3 format. This would require streamcasters to use one of the two worst, kludgiest, and most expensive streaming technologies ever invented over the elegant, simple, and open source. There is no good reason for this, except that this proposed legislation must have been bought and paid for by Microsoft and Real Networks.

File under: Open Internet, we hardly knew ye:

Under our noses, Telecoms have been lobbying intensely for an end to Network Neutrality: the "right" of telecoms to regulate and censor what kinds of content go over the pipes (those who pay, get the fastest and easiest access, of course. Sites belonging to competitors get bupkiss, naturally.) It's not necessarily political but economic speech that is at stake here . . . but I can't help but think that it's a short and slippery slope from one to the other. Hypothetically: say Walmart pays Verizon $hitload$ to block sites on Walmart's labor practices. As if Earthlink over SBC weren't slow enough! (I switched to them because my cable company bites it).

Rating the Celebrity Super-bodies

. . . Oh shit, that was the article I was shopping to US Weekly. . . Let me break the long silence with something equally vacuous - THE NBA PLAYOFFS (Western Conference).

The East promises to be at least as innaresting as the West, but really, what can stop the Pistons other than a freak Hummer/Escalade collision rollover on I 94 that takes out Rasheed, Chauncy, Tayshaun and Ben Wallace at once.  I doubt they travel together in the same vehicle anyway; too risky.

Who can stop the boring but surgically efficient Spurs? No one, I should think. Not even the better than last year Mavericks. Some Dallas wag (i.e. sports columnist) picked the Mavs to beat the Spurs in an expected round two match, but unaccountably, lose to the Suns in the Conference Finals (Here's a question for the search engines: how do you phrase a search query to find the regular season results for the Spurs vs. Mavs, quickly, so I do not have to scroll through 82 games results?)

We're already 1 game into these series, so predictions at this point aren't worth much. The are only 2 of these series that look to have the potential to be close, maybe for seven. ( I would have expected Mavs-Grizz to be scorching battle, but game one turned into a rout).
I gave up on watching Clips-Nugz game 1 because I had too much other shit to do and it wasn't even close, but the Nugz rallied.
So, look for Clips-Nugz to go 6, maybe 7, with Clips coming out on top.
Look for Mavs-Grizz to go 5, but the Grizz will make a final stand - there won't be any blowouts
As for the Suns-Lakers, the doubters about Phoenix's ability to win playoff games with no true  inside player is more than a meme, it's pretty much become a Presidential directive to call the Suns ripe for upset by the .500 one-man team from Los Angeles. The Suns have been playing some weak, poor shooting, disorganized ball over the last month or so, no doubt. But they still managed to salvage a 54 win season playing small, offense-oriented ball. Tim Thomas' addition for Kurt Thomas (stress fracture) is key to whatever success they had in the latter half of the season. Without him, they would have lost game 1 of this series for sure.

The Suns build up a lead in the first, more or less maintain in the second quarter, lose it in the third, and have to pull out the win with clutch play and shooting in the fourth (or not). That's been their modus for a while now.  Not a recipe for sustained playoff success. It all hinges on game 2. If the Suns lose one at home, it's not going to be good. If the Suns can win game 2 convincingly, this series is effectively over. If they lose it, LA has a good chance of gaining enough momentum to pull off the upset.