The American market for consumption of televised media is messed up for a
variety of public policy reasons. We currently have no cable service, we don't subscribe to Cox for cable services and we don't have a TV. However, we do watch about one show, or movie a week through either Netflix or iTunes.
One of the problems we have is finding something to watch. Both Netflix and iTunes have a new releases, but it is new releases to them, not new releases. Neither have an easy mechanism to sort movies but release date either. Netflix used to, but now doesn't and iTunes only has it under the categories.
We had heard good things about Game Of Thrones and decided to see if we could view it. The show was not on iTunes, or Netflix, but I found out it was on HBO Go. However, to sign up for HBO Go, I have to add it to my cable bill with Cox. I may be in the minority, but I think the cable video industry is a rip off and the worst of the American public policy monopolies.
I could not stream the Game Of Thrones video from HBO without first signing up for cable service. Ridiculous. I am sure there is some public policy reason why I can't. I am sure HBO would like to sell it to me directly - on iTunes I often pay a premium for a television show and have no issue paying for what I want to see.
It seems Netflix is also
splitting its services as a streaming company and a DVD delivery company. THe DVDs are hopelessly old fashioned - you have to sit through previews before you can watch the movie. How old is that. Streaming has one huge leg up, you watch the video immediately, can skip to where it starts and there are no adverts. All stuff I am happy to pay a premium for.
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
