Ditching cable (part 4)

Cable is gone. I still have some work to do with my antenna signal and WiFi, but cable is gone. Internet service cost a little more than I realized because there is a discounted rate if you have cable TV. So, the updated costs are:

$58 - Internet
$15 - Phone
$9 - Netflix

Total = $82 + some taxes. I'll follow up with how much money I spent to get to this point, but I am at a savings of $70 per month. I'm now inspired to tackle other recurring expenses. I'm thinking that insurance (house, car, life) is probably the next thing to look at.

Ditching cable (part 3)

Well, I'm having some struggles. First of all, I went to a Terk HDTVa indoor antenna because the other, cheaper ones (passive from Philips and amplified from RCA) just weren't cutting it. I can't seem to find a good position to get all of the "over the air" channels. I really don't want to put one outside. That opens up a whole host of things that I don't want to do - aesthetics and wiring issues. I'll play with this a little more and report back. Ultimately, I get most channels, but can't get my PBS and NBC stations without compromising the rest of the channels. These both provide 3 stations that are all watched in our house.

The other, larger problem is that I'm using WiFi to stream content from PlayOn for Netflix, Hulu, and other sources. I get very frequent pauses in playback to the point where I consider it unwatchable. I'm pretty sure that the problem is with WiFi because I have some movies ripped to ISO on a NAS box that have a similar problem. I'm going to investigate ways that I can optimize my WiFi capabilities. I'm also looking into dropping Ethernet into my living room and basement.

The Windows Media Center I have upstairs is hard-wired. Its streaming is perfect. I still have antenna issues with over-the-air TV, but I haven't put the Terk antenna on it yet.

I really want this to work, but don't know how much leash I'll have with the family. For the moment, I'm not even worrying about the basement TV (which is the best one of them all). Also, I'm not sure what I'll do with the TVs behind the bar (and their wall mounts) down there.

Ditching cable update

Well, I'm cranking along. I actually called to cancel cable yesterday. I missed some fine print on the bundle I was looking to go do (Internet + Phone) even after I looked for the fine print. I am not eligible for that bundle, so the unbundled price was not as attractive.

Existing pricing:
$130 for TV/Internet/phone
$15 for HD-DVR
$5 for cable modem rental
($150 total + tax)

The unbundled pricing:
$43 for Internet
$40 for phone
$5 for cable modem rental
$9 for Netflix (part of the cable replacement)
($97 total + tax)

Not to be deterred, I told them I would look to cancel all of my Comcast services if need be. They offered me $20/month for 6 months off of my current pricing. Whoop-dee-doo!

I found a cheap, but well reviewed, VoIP provider Phone Power. I signed up for their month-to-month plan for $20. If I'm satisfied, I will go to their $15 plan or even one of their "prepaid for a year" deals.

Comcast Internet is good. I'll keep it, but I already have my own Linksys cable modem. I had to rent one because of the phone service. Without their service, I can drop their cable modem.

New pricing:
$43 for Internet
$15 for phone ($20 initially)
$9 for Netflix
($67 total + tax)

I purchased a 32" LCD with a digital tuner to replace my downstairs 23" CRT. That was a bit of a splurge at $350, but a decent price. I also got one digital converter box for my 51" basement TV and two antennas for these two TVs. My DVR will be solely on the upstairs 32" TV running from Windows Media Center. There may be a way to stream that to my other media players, but I haven't investigated that yet.

To run Netflix and Hulu (via PlayOn), I am going to bring my original Xbox with XBMC up from the basement to go onto the new LCD. Its wireless is a bit shaky from there, so I'm hoping that moving it closer to the access point upstairs will make it better. It's possible that the Xbox doesn't have enough processing power. I'm hoping that's not the case. My backup is getting a Roku box (or two).

The Wii will move downstairs to the basement as the source for PlayOn. Allegedly, a Netflix CD will become available for the Wii which should make that interface better. PlayOn will be used for Hulu and other things at that point.

More to come...

Ditching cable...

... I think ...

Every month, I look at the cable bill and think I don't need it. A friend posted this link on his Facebook page and I checked it out.

CancelCable.com

He is a single guy that, presumably, only has one television. He has no children.

I am married and have children. I have six televisions in my house, although I only regularly use three of them for general viewing. Only one is HD - a 51" rear-projection, with no tuner at all, in the basement. The other two are a 32" CRT (upstairs playroom) and 23" CRT (downstairs living room). The 23" has a Wii with it. The 51" has an original Xbox with XBMC on it. None of them have a digital tuner.

I currently have Comcast cable. I have direct coax for each of the TVs, except for the 51". It has a Comcast HD DVR attached to it. Overall, I've been fine with Comcast's service and channel offerings. It's the price that I'm getting tired of. I looked at satellite and it's not much different.

So, why now? Well, Comcast is in the process of going all digital. I stuck with them all these years because I could hook a coax into any regular TV and get service - no box, no extra cost. This is about to end. Now, I have to either have a digital tuner or one of their converter boxes for each TV. They will give me two at no additional cost, but I have to pay more for my other TVs. I have zero TVs with a digital tuner. This is not the end of the world, but it's been enough of a push to get me off my butt to investigate the ideas in the above website.

I decided to experiment this past week with the 32". This is because a couple of months ago, I had fitted one of my PCs with a digital TV card (Hauppauge HVR-1250 - $50) and a video card with an S-Video out (NVidia GeForce 9400 GT - $50). Using Vista Media Center, I was watching digital cable, including HD, on my TV as a second monitor. There were a lot of logistical problems though with video, remote, mouse, and sound. It worked ok if nobody was on the computer, but it got ugly when they were.

Having this hardware already gave me the perfect opportunity to sample what the website suggests, which is to use digital over-the-air and a Roku box. I simulated the Roku box with Media Center. I decided that the PC needed to be dedicated to avoid my initial problems. I had a third PC downstairs that I wasn't really using. It was a "throw-away" from my mom when she bought a new one. I brought it upstairs and moved the video and TV card into it. It only had Windows XP on it however. All of the new, cool Windows Media Center stuff seemed to be focused on the Windows 7 Media Center. I have a friend at work that was able to hook me up with Windows 7, so I installed it.

I bought a digital antenna ($20 at Wal-Mart) and attached it to the digital tuner. I signed up for a trial Netflix membership. Since Hulu is another biggee, I added it though a software called PlayOn. PlayOn allows streaming of Hulu and Netflix (among others) to various devices. There is a WMC add-on called PlayIt for PlayOn. It also allows my Wii and XMBC on XBox to play Hulu and Netflix on the other TVs.

I've been in test mode for the last day. I'm cautiously optimistic. The Wii's graphics are a little weak and I haven't tested XBMC yet. On WMC though, it's fantastic.

So far, the overall negatives are:

- Can't just sit and channel surf. You can with the locals, but that's pretty limited.
- It's not as simple as sitting and turning on the remote.
- I'm not using a uniform interface. That means it's different for each TV.
- I haven't solved the "most watched" cable channels: ESPN, Disney, and Nickolodeon.
- Tolerance for TV being down if the Internet is down will be interesting.

... more to come!

End of an Era?

I talk with a co-worker about trends sometimes. It's one of the things that he lives his life by. I see them, but usually go into denial about them if they're negative or difficult to correct. It's not flat-out denial. It's more of an optimism that I'll figure out how to work my way around the apparent long-term problem when I get there.

Looking at the current economic and political situation, I stand before you as a pessimist. The prosperity of the last several decades is a house of cards held up by quick, easy credit and a populous willing to use it.

In 2007, this started to fall apart under the weight of all of the cards, the Bush Administration tried desperately to keep the credit markets flowing through government intervention. The Obama Administration has continued this, even to a greater extent.

The house of cards is teetering and is precariously holding up under this strain.

Looking forward, however, the trends are all looking bad from my chair. National debt is skyrocketing and looks to get worse with the government plans for health care. Social Security and Medicare are in major trouble. People's savings and retirements are not going to be enough. The financial industry appears to have learned nothing and is back to its old ways, now armed with the knowledge that they're "too big to fail".

Sounds bad, right? Maybe.

The obnoxious spending/bailout efforts of government may be successful in keeping the house from falling. The debt incurred, dampened by inflation over time, may not cause the implosion that appears to be on the horizon. Government may be able to tackle the problems in healthcare and properly police private industry.

The strong optimist in me can't seem to look at this situation with optimism though. All of these governmental efforts just seem to be postponing what appears to be the inevitable. This economic house must fall because it is a false one. It will fall. It must fall. The key is how to minimize the damage.

The current trend toward more government - more programs, more control, etc. The majority of the people seem to welcome it. I'm not sure why - paranoia? ignorance?

President Obama does not seem to get the way a capitalist economy works. The success of this country isn't built with government. It isn't built with the common man. It's built by the wealthy - the business owners and the investors. Without these people, there are no jobs, no taxes for government wield, and no prosperity. Yes, there are abuses of power. Yes, the wealthy often seem to be wealthy to excess. Those are "cons" opposite the long list of "pros" in capitalism. Capitalism isn't perfection, but it's the best system we have.

We need to let our capitalist system work. It's the only way. Sure there needs to be checks and balances against the corporate world and I guess I'm OK with government playing a leading role. In the words of Ronald Reagan, "Trust, but verify."

Ramble, ramble, ramble...

This blog post is all over the place, but there's a reason. America, its government, and its economy is a mess. It's failing and the people trying to fix it are just making it worse. The solution to many of these problems is less government and more capitalism, not the opposite trend of more government and less capitalism.

The BCS system

I love college football. I went to school at LSU and have been a fanatic since I was a student. We get the "appropriate respect" when it comes to the rankings and the BCS, so this is not a selfish rant.

What really irks me is that a majority of FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision - formerly know as I-A) has NO shot at playing for the national championship. It's a farce. It's a power/money thing perpetuated by the schools/conferences in power.

Do I think that Boise State could hang in the SEC? I doubt it. My problem is that the answer to this question shouldn't be subjective. If there's a playoff and Boise State gets trounced in the first round, so be it. They'd get their shot.

As far as 2009, putting Boise State and TCU in the Fiesta Bowl is a complete and utter rigging of the system. These "David" teams are 3-1 in BCS bowls against the BCS "Goliath" teams since they were at least allowed to make a BCS bowl. Nobody wants to play them because it's a losing proposition. If you barely beat them or lose, it's an embarrassment. If you trounce them, it's a complete bore of a game against a team that shouldn't even be there.

So, these two potentially great teams are relegated to showing off their stuff to each other, proving nothing. Yes, they get to eat some pie at the big boy table and that's not insignificant. However, it's an insult to these programs and it's cowardly of the power brokers.

Big-time college football simply needs a real champion via a playoff system ... and soon.

Health Care

So, are you for letting people die when they could be saved? Do you want people to get cancer and not get any treatment?

Ah, the sensationalist questions that force you into socialized medicine...

We don't have a care problem in the United States. We have an affordability problem. Why do we have this problem? It's complex, but the simple answer is that market forces are not in play. Why is it that every product becomes better and cheaper over time except healthcare? Well ... care has gotten better, but it certainly hasn't gotten cheaper.

The problem is that what we have now is not a free market in any way. The consumer generally has no idea what things actually cost, so they don't use their dollars to choose. If a doctor visit costs somebody $200 out of pocket, I guarantee they would shop around a little. This competition would drive prices down and create markets for cheaper clinics to provide basic services at very little cost. If a prescription cost someone $500 out of pocket, the same thing applies. Pretty soon, routine visits and prescriptions would cost the same (or less) than current copays.

The current problem is really on those that don't have insurance. Because of the behavior of the majority that have insurance, the retail cost of all of these things is hundreds or thousands of dollars. If you don't have insurance, you just can't afford to pay for these things and you go without. This is where our heart strings get tugged on and we're led down the path of socialized medicine.

Solution? Get rid of insurance for day-to-day healthcare. Create a free market for treatments of colds, viruses, broken bones, and all other routine items. Insurance should focus on the catastrophic: cancer, failed organs, major diseases, etc.

If you want to talk to me about government programs for catastrophic insurance, then I'd be willing to listen. Otherwise, the government has no place in this market, other than maybe blowing up the current one to allow a real market.

Music preferences

I am someone who came of age in the 1980's. The 1990's ushered in adulthood. So, what does this mean in terms of musical taste? Frankly, I do not look back with much fondness at 80's music. There is definitely stuff I love from the 80's, but in general the synthisizer heavy stuff just doesn't work for me anymore. U2, The Police, Billy Idol, The Go-Go's, R.E.M., Prince, Tom Petty, Springsteen, Van Halen ... these all roll off the tongue with some staying power. I know many of these got a start in the 70's, but I'm speaking of their 80's work in particular. If I'm in the right mood, I can handle a lot of other 80's stuff, but not like I used to.

I'm finding myself much more nostalgic toward the 90's. I listen to it more in the car, on my iPod, etc. than anything else. It seems like this is fresher music to me, even though it's a decade old at a minimum: Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alanis Morissette, Barenaked Ladies, Cranberries, Dave Matthews, Beck, Cracker, Cake, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Hootie, Jane's Addiction, Oasis, Smashing Pumpkins, Sublime, Sugar Ray, 311.

The 80's aren't even #2. I guess if I were to rank the past 50 years, it would be:

90's
60's
80's
Current
70's

These music periods actually break down to me as:

50's rock -> Beatles on Sullivan -> Disco -> Punk/New Wave -> Nirvana -> Hip Hop pop integration (late 90's) -> Current

Polarization - idiots and hatred

This country has become insanely polarized. I thought it was bad under Reagan/Bush I, took off under Clinton, and got even worse under Bush II. Now, it seems to be at an all-time high.

As a libertarian and generally agreeable kind of person, I've befriended people with just about every point of view. I've been exposed to the general philosophies of most sides. Some I understand a little more than others, but I believe I get the gist of most points of view.

Contrary to the rhetoric, nearly all people I've talked to (that are at least somewhat educated about the issues) are NOT idiots. They're not Nazis, anti-American, racists, homophobes, anti-capitalist, anti-liberty, crusaders, anti-God, etc., etc., etc. They simply may just have different opinions than you. Yes, most of these people have a limited knowledge of the issues they are spewing about (including myself). It's nearly impossible to be well-educated about all of the various issues, but most people have a reasonable amount of intelligence and common sense.

Where people tend to differ is:

1) Base assumptions
2) The people they associate with
3) The information they read, watch, and listen to

Base Assumptions

Believing that government is good/bad or a solution/problem makes a big difference. Government has grown massively over the last century. Viewing this as a good or bad thing has seemed to divide the country at a pace similar to the growth.

Peers

We all like being around people that are like us. It's natural. It can be anything from religion to politics to skin color. Homogeny creates a reinforcement of your own thoughts and ways. However, it can limit the thought process. It can create a mob mentality of "we're right" when discussing issues. How can anybody think differently? All of these people around me all agree, so therefore it is valid.

Information

Gathering information is how we reinforce what we think. We look it up, watch a documentary, read a book, watch the news. The only problem is that things like "the news" are not what they used to be. Most forms of information media are now entertainment masquerading as fact. What's even worse is that a lot of "news" now comes in the form of opinion-based TV shows, radio programs, and bloggers. Just like with our peers, we surround ourselves with information sources that are similar to our views.

Just remember that the media is too often trying to entertain, not educate, you. They're looking for market share. Even if the hosts are true to their beliefs, the people employing them are looking for market share and hiring people to entertain. What gets market share? It's things that are enticing to read/listen/watch.

Now people are getting their "facts" from sources that not only sensationalizes and reinforces singular tendencies, but then points to the other people and calls them all kinds of names. People start believing it because the person makes a lot of sense on other things.

Their peers do the same and this infomation is shared among the group. It is resetting some base assumptions and these are being passed to their children.

This is polarized America and it doesn't look like it will get better any time soon.

Medicare does not work - at least not like people think

As part of the current health care debate, one of the frequently used arguments is that Medicare works. People like their Medicare and they're getting treated. That sounds great, right?

Well, where does the money come from? Similar to Social Security, it comes mostly from the payroll taxes of those that are currently working. You won't pay the bulk of your Medicare plan. You've been paying for your parents' Medicare. Your children will pay your Medicare. The only problem is that if things continue, they won't be able to. Healthcare costs are rising too quickly and there won't be enough working people. Both Medicare and Social Security are simply Ponzi schemes. As long as there are enough working people to cover the required taxes, all is well (in terms of coverage and the balance sheet).

Money doesn't grow on trees. When the government provides a service, it isn't free. It's the trap of many social programs. Somebody else pays and you get the benefits.