by Christopher Paul on February 23, 2014 I’ll be honest in that I don’t know much about this but I’ve seen a few people talk about it over the past few days so I figured I’d link to this article to help clear some of it up.
Today’s news is very simple to understand. Netflix decided it made sense to pay Comcast for every port they use to connect to Comcast’s network, like many other content owners and network providers have done. This is how the Internet works, and it’s not about providing better access for one content owner over another, it simply comes down to Netflix making a business decision that it makes sense for them to deliver their content directly to Comcast, instead of through a third party. Tied into Netflix’s decision is the fact that Comcast guarantees a certain level of quality to Netflix, via their SLA, which could be much better than Netflix was getting from a transit provider. While I don’t know the price Comcast is charging Netflix, I can guarantee you it’s at the fair market price for transit in the market today and Comcast is not overcharging Netflix like some have implied. Many are quick to want to argue that Netflix should not have to pay Comcast anything, but they are missing the point that Netflix is already paying someone who connects with Comcast. It’s not a new cost to them.
If I’m interpreting this correctly, there is more than one lane into Comcast and Netflix just made sure they ha access to all three (instead of just two).
by Christopher Paul on February 23, 2014 Ever want to see snowflakes forming? Now you can!
via Colossal
by Christopher Paul on February 20, 2014 I just added this to my Readability queue. It’s a look into college fraternities. As you can imagine from the title, it doesn’t sound as if it’s going to be a positive spin on the institutions. I skimmed the first section and I’ll read the rest later tonight. Here’s a interesting glimpse of how it starts:
College fraternities—by which term of art I refer to the formerly all-white, now nominally integrated men’s “general” or “social” fraternities, and not the several other types of fraternities on American campuses (religious, ethnic, academic)—are as old, almost, as the republic. In a sense, they are older: they emanated in part from the Freemasons, of which George Washington himself was a member. When arguments are made in their favor, they are arguments in defense of a foundational experience for millions of American young men, and of a system that helped build American higher education as we know it. Fraternities also provide their members with matchless leadership training. While the system has produced its share of poets, aesthetes, and Henry James scholars, it is far more famous for its success in the powerhouse fraternity fields of business, law, and politics. An astonishing number of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, congressmen and male senators, and American presidents have belonged to fraternities. Many more thousands of American men count their fraternal experience—and the friendships made within it—as among the most valuable in their lives. The organizations raise millions of dollars for worthy causes, contribute millions of hours in community service, and seek to steer young men toward lives of service and honorable action. They also have a long, dark history of violence against their own members and visitors to their houses, which makes them in many respects at odds with the core mission of college itself.
When I went to college, I pledged a fraternity and it was not a good experience at all. I was attracted to the close friends the members had with one another but as I went through the process, I questioned whether it was real. Between the inflexible meetings, pledge rituals, mind-numbing memorization, group think, and virtually no free will on social obligations, I realized it wasn’t for me.
Although the experience was pretty awful, I learned a lot about myself and the type of person I am. I realized I beat to a different drum and it’s my independence and uniqueness that makes me special.
via Longreads
by Christopher Paul on February 19, 2014 Karen Melgar writes about students studying to be voiceover artists:
Voiceover is “purity of form,” says Harvey Kalmenson, who wears glasses and has a brown buzz cut. “You can be whatever you want to be in voiceover, because when you’re behind that microphone and you’re conveying what you think is the truth, people are hearing you, they’re not seeing you.”
The truth they speak of in these voiceover classes has to do with an inner you—knowing who you are and why you are presenting yourself to the world in this way. That is what is difficult and beautiful about voiceover, the Kalmensons believe, and it is the reason it takes so many years to perfect this type of acting.
And it is a form of acting. If you look at the IMDB profiles of the popular voiceover actors, you’ll see a long and varied list of performances they gave. And the talent they showcase by changing their voices seems harder to me than the more “traditional” acting because you have to summon the emotion without having to use a scene for inspiration.
by Christopher Paul on February 19, 2014 
On October 8, 1970, a plane crash landed on what is now called Pegasus Field in Antarctica. No one was hurt but the aircraft has stayed in the same place for over 40 years and is now almost covered in snow.
Messy Nessy has more pictures and a bit more of the story.