Belts and Suspenders

Heinlein often wrote about "belt and suspenders" people, those that felt backup systems to be mandatory. If one fails, you always have the other, and, by implication, your ass is always covered. A few months ago, a friend and I reached disagreement over that philosophy, specifically on how much coverage one ass needed.

He briefly served as captain to a classic yacht (that shall remain nameless, even though it's a pretty cool boat). This is no mere pleasure boat. 90 feet long, wooden hull, built in 1929. A gorgeous boat, but, like anything old, updated with not enough attention to holistic detail.

When it was first built, I imagine it needed an engineer in the engine room at all times maneuvering was a requirement. Back before hydraulics, many boats were equipped with direct reversible engines. You want to move ahead? Start the engine. Reverse? Stop the engine, reverse the cams for the valves, and restart, in reverse. No disconnect between the engine and the prop shaft, and the entire process manually enabled from the engine room.

The new incarnation avoided the ugly buggaboo of the engine that wouldn't start in time (crashing into something, often at high speeds, was a common cause of marine mishaps, often due to an inability to restart in the proper direction). Much newer, smaller and more reliable engines had replaced the mammoth monsters of the past. A pneumatic shifter now directly engaged, reversed and -- importantly for this entry -- disengaged the transmission. The captain didn't have that panic in his gut, that creeping wonder if the engineer was in the head or asleep. He could simply reverse thrust, and hopefully the course of the vessel, himself, thanks to pressurized air.

After my buddy left the boat another captain got a chance to drive a tour. To save money, the owners didn't give the captain his regular deckhand/engineer.

Big mistake. ( Really big mistake. )

TiVo'd Off Update

Finally got through to the Rebate Center and resolved the Missing Documentation, and the check has cleared the bank. That is a relief, but has not diminished by dreams of a TiVo quality DVR unfettered by the restrictions imposed by programmers.

I got to thinking about cable-free DVRs, ones that would allow downloads from broadband to be viewed on a regular TV. I know that would never work in the courts, since only cable subscribers have legal access to the content, making anyone who posts such content for distribution a target for litigation and The Stripey Hole.

But what of content not encumbered by such restrictions?

There are almost enough broadband users to make internet-only programming feasible. Keep the commercials, just make them for internet-only companies. Viewing patterns could be tracked far more easily, given that one knows almost exactly how many viewers there are for each episode. One would probably have to charge a nominal subscription fee to start, just to raise enough capital, and that might provide the first bottleneck.

But imagine if the Daily Show could say "cocksucker" and get away without the bleeps. In fact, that may be where the first content appears, regular cable shows unedited, charging nominal fees for the change to hear Jon Stewart say Fucking Dick.

Combine the speed and upload economy of a Bit Torrent with the user viewability of DVR, and won't ever have to endure the anger at our Puritanical Thought Police every time someone has to digitally blur a flipped bird. I like it.