Cyrus Farivar

For years, we’ve pirated our shows via BitTorrent, and for a while I had hard drives full of a year’s worth of “The Daily Show” stored away — then she convinced me that I really didn’t need to keep them. But lately, we’ve been getting our nightly dose (albeit a day behind) of Stewart and Colbert, legally, for free, and (although Comedy Central doesn’t know it) without ads.

In recent months, Viacom has put “The Daily Show” and “Colbert” full-length episodes — forget that short clip nonsense — on big media video sites like Hulu and Fancast. Normally, there are three 30-second ads before the episode starts, and then at the normal ad breaks, one-third and two-thirds of the way through. However, we watch the episodes ad-free using a simple Firefox extension, Adblock Plus, which strips them out (and blocks a whole host of other online ads for me, too).

So why did we switch from being pirates (yarr!) to watching on the straight and narrow? Convenience.

It’s much easier to simply go to TheDailyShow.com or Hulu and click play than to deal with BitTorrent trackers and wait 30 minutes for a download on my home DSL connection. The quality is comparable, and given that we’re watching it on a laptop screen, I don’t care whether Jon Stewart is in surround sound or HD. It’s a nightly 22-minute splash of humor that we watch before bed, not an hours-long epic that requires seven channels of audio.

Sure, we could go the iTunes route, but at $2 an episode (or $10 for a monthly pass), plus the same for “Colbert” (each produces 160 episodes per year), we’d be looking at $200 a year just for those shows. Our Netflix subscription costs about the same, and we have access to way more stuff.

What, you didn’t think that we’d become the hard-nosed, copyright-hating, fight-the-man, steal-everything-online punk kids because we got our higher education at the high-bandwidth-go-go-Napster universities of the early 21st century, did you? Nah, we just got smarter about it. First, you can’t get “The Daily Show” on Netflix, and second, it’s, erm, daily. (More or less.) Longer stuff is for Netflix (or bingeing on TV series), and shorter stuff that comes on more often is for the Internet. (Downloading movies or TV seasons takes way too long via BitTorrent.) But if I can get my favorite shows and a back catalog of movies in an environment like Hulu, maybe we can ditch our Netflix subscription.

Anyway, I and most of my 20-something friends who don’t have cable (or in more extreme cases like our own, a TV) tend to watch our favorite shows via a combination of passing around pirated downloads, legal online freebies and Netflix. When one gets easier and more convenient — like Hulu, for instance — we tend to migrate to where the low-hanging videos are.

But we’re not the only ones. Stodgy old media like the Chicago Tribune and the Christian Science Monitor are digging Hulu, too.

But even that can be frustrating. A friend of mine and his wife recently started watching “The Riches” on Hulu and didn’t mind the ads. But once they finished the first season, the second season was nowhere to be found on Hulu. (It is, however, available on iTunes.) A quick search on Hulu reveals that some shows (“The Office”) only have random entire episodes available (Season 4, Episodes 3 through 6), while others only have preview clips (“The Shield”) and no entire episodes. As he put it: “I’m stoked for it to become actually awesome rather than just potentially.” (I’ve got an e-mail into Hulu to find out when that might happen.)

Until Hulu gets its act together, my guess is that he’ll be back on BitTorrent in no time.

But there were also a few troubling episodes on the technological front, with text messages and e-mails being used as a way to perpetuate false information.

Wired reported late last night that voters in Florida and New Mexico received a fake text message from 505-507-6041 that says things like: “Due to long lines if you are voting for Barack Obama you can vote tomorrow,” or “Due to the long lines today, all Obama voters are asked to vote on Wednesday.”

The AP adds that there have been reports of similar “robo-calls” and fake texts in Missouri and that the Missouri secretary of state and U.S. Attorney’s Office have been notified. I’m glad that this wasn’t widespread enough to have made a difference, but it’s still a troubling development.

But that’s not all. Thousands of students at George Mason University received an e-mail spoofed to look like it was from Provost Peter N. Stearns saying that “election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.” Apparently the FBI is on the case.

And finally, while the outcome of the election was by a pretty overwhelming margin, there were still problems with electronic voting in numerous states, although not enough to have any sort of real impact.

Still,  we as a country really need to have a single standard for federal elections, get rid of these awful e-voting machines, and streamline this whole process so we don’t have to deal with this kind of crap anymore.

On a more personal and professional note, I share with you the news that this is my last post in Machinist, which is going on hiatus beginning tomorrow.

I thank all of you for reading and for your thoughtful and critical comments. If you’d like to follow me and/or any of my other work on public radio or elsewhere, you can do so on my blog: cyrusfarivar.com (where I’ll be announcing the result of our little trial voter-verified election), and/or you can email me at cfarivar [at] cfarivar [dot] org.

Cheers!

CNN will have 44 cameras and 20 computers in each remote location to capture 360-degree imaging data of the person being interviewed. Images are processed and projected by computers and cameras in New York. There’ll also be plasma TVs in Chicago and Phoenix that will let the people being interviewed see Blitzer and other CNN correspondents. Bohrman says the network can project two different views from each city so Blitzer can appear to be in the studio with two holograms.

Jessica Yellin was the first CNN reporter to be “beamed” to the New York newsroom, where Wolf Blitzer interviewed her — and she reported that there were only 35 cameras pointed at her, and that “talk to the cameras in New York.” Apparently representatives in the Obama campaign in Chicago and the McCain campaign in Phoenix will be interviewed as holograms later in the evening.

It’s still unclear who makes this hologram technology, nor how much it costs, nor how exactly it works — nor when I’m going to get it in my house. Man, and I was just getting used to Skype video chat. Still, scope out the video below.

This is without a doubt the best Obama song that I’ve seen so far. It’s got catchy lyrics — Viva Obama! — snappy outfits, a line about healthcare, and that female violin player? Muy caliente!

2) Extra Golden – Obama

This half Kenyan band (just like Obama!) rock out on this chillaxed benga track. Great guitar riffs.

3) Cocoa Tea – Barack Obama

Jamaican reggae star Coco Tea recorded this tune earlier this year, earning a small writeup in the Jamaica Observer at the time.

As he told the newspaper:

“If you notice, Obama is getting a lot of support from the young people, and when the younger generation begin to call for change, it usually comes, as they and the future, and Obama’s future is in their hands. Support for Obama is also coming from other quarters including the Kennedy family, as he is seen as the man with a plan, therefore I was guided by Jah on this one.”

How can you argue with Jah?

4) Docta Musica WashiWara – Barack Obama

This tune comes to us from Cameroon, and if you believe what the Docta says on his Web site: “The video has quickly becomed a big hit on Youtube.” Indeed.

5) crbballgal – BARACK THE VOTE!

How can I deny two fly girls, an ’80s-style synth, and rapping in front of a bathroom mirror? Well done, ladies.

6) Mighty Sparrow – Barack the Magnificent

Mighty Sparrow is the world’s leading calypso singer, hailing from the island of Grenada. Cop a read on the lyrics over here — I’m sure this is the first time that the phrase “Foreign Relations Committee” has worked its way into a calypso song.

7) Obama Song Spanish Reggaeton

I’m not sure who wrote this song, but nothing makes me want to sing “Si se puede!” louder than this reggaeton tune.

Bruce Springsteen – Working on a Dream

This song debuted just two days ago at a rally in Cleveland, so if you drop this joint at your fiesta, you’ll definitely be about 75 percent as cool as the Boss himself.

9) Barackapella – Yes We Can

Although college a capella may get mocked on Stuff White People Like, this cover of the famed will.i.am song is perfectly pulled off by Barackapella, a group from Lewis and Clark College in Oregon. (Also, don’t forget the parody, by john.he.is!)

10) Guru – Obama dance mix

I really, really hope that this is the first song that the Obamas dance to at the inagural ball. Or at least at the party in Chicago tonight.