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Porn as a Driver of Technology

internet_forBy: Billy BeerSlugger

I don’t think it’s any secret that SEX SELLS! You already know this but do you have any inkling of how it has shaped the media you use to watch non-x rated movies or how the online Porn community pioneered e-commerce as well as helped the advancement of the internet in terms of broadening networks and to a certain extent internet speed increases.

Starting with the VHS vs. Betamax format wars which were similar to the Bluray vs. HD DVD format wars, it was eventually the porn makers who chose VHS that turned the tide and made it the dominant format. So in that respect Porn had a huge impact on how you watched movies in the 80’s through the late 90’s and even into the early 2000’s.  If you think about it, Porn on VHS was completely revolutionary. No longer did people have to go to a movie theater and spank off with a bunch of strangers (yes this happened and still happens).  People could buy a VCR and X-Rated video’s of their choice and now spank off the pornographic material in privacy of their own home. No wonder the public chose VHS as their preferred video media and made it the standard, there’s a lot of Porn watchers out there.

Further, we’ll focus on the Internet, the next evolutionary step in expediting porn to it’s inexhaustible customer base.  In the early 90’s, when AOL and Compuserve were gaining subscribers by the hundreds of thousands, it wasn’t the thirst for knowledge that was fueling the hype.  All at once, images that were once confined to the pages of Playboy and Penthouse were being shared freely over the internet. You didn’t need leave your house to grab naked pictures of Pam Anderson.

While still pictures pale in comparison to full motion video, I believe this was a major factor in why the Porn industry once again helped drive technology, in this case the internet to it’s current standards and availability. Streaming Porn videos and porn videos downloadable on the internet paved the way for sites like Youtube. The increased bandwidth consumption as more and more people used the internet as a Spank Bank caused Internet Service Providers to expand availability and data speed at an extremely rapid rate. Thus again, Porn helped shape the way we use technology.

With porn sites having to charge their customer base, Porn was pretty much the first adopters of online payments. Things like Ebay and Paypal may not have taken off without Porn companies ability to show that the internet could be a marketplace. Maybe the Internet without Porn doesn’t give us Youtube, Myspace or Facebook for another 10 years or so.  Maybe we would still be using phone lines to dial into the internet to check out news stories and check email. Who knows. All I know is that love it or hate it, Pornography has and will continue to be (to a certain extent) a driving factor on how we view media.

In this article I’m not saying the Porn industry fuels technology, what I’m saying is that most media technology has to be adopted by the Porn Community before it will be adopted by the general public. With Avatar kind of Pioneering 3-D movie making, can you see the first 3-D porno coming out within the next year? If it makes your masturbation experience that much more enjoyable can you see 3-D TV format being adopted at an incredible rate by TV networks  broadcasting in 3-D HD? Then the general public will clamor for 3-D HT TV’s.  May take some time for that to happen but how else do you see TV evolving?

Next time you’re spanking it to Internet Porn think how far we’ve come from coming from Jerking Off in shady movie theaters and how far technology has advanced because of it.

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The O’Brien / Leno Sillyness

letob
Leno never grew a beard during the Strike.

By: Billy Beerslugger

I know this story is a little old but given I took the entire BeerSlugger.com team to Costa Rica for the month of January and we couldn’t get a decent wi-fi signal, this is as good a time as any to weigh in on the subject.

Firstly, I can’t stand Jay Leno, never could, never will. Maybe he’s it’s his writers fault for the crappy, predictable jokes he comes out with nightly. Maybe he’s just too corporate, maybe he’s on the West Coast and I’m on the East Coast, it really doesn’t matter. I have always been a Letterman guy myself and even though he can be annoying at times, the things he can pull off on his show, the comedic risks he takes with asinine skits and recurring preposterousnous more than make up for it.

But I didn’t write this article to tell you about how much I like Letterman, though the Conan /Jay situation did get Dave badmouthing Leno, a subject taboo until recently on the Late Night.  Anyway, Conan is going to be OK, in fact I think he’s going to be more than OK, he gets to do what Letterman did and go to another network and have pretty much full control over HIS product, succeed or fail it really will be on Conan to make it work and I believe he will.

I’ll try not to go into detail about the mess but I won’t try and hate on Jay Leno too much either. I think it’s a case of NBC being very greedy, they signed Conan to take over the Tonight Show in 2005 when Conan could have gone on to another network for more money. However, it’s not Leno’s fault they threw a show at him and a bunch of money to go on right before Conan at 10pm.  It’s Leno’s fault for taking offer but you can’t fault NBC for trying to keep Leno from destroying Conan in the ratings (which he would have if  Leno went to Fox or wherever), in 2005 it’s a win-win.

Fast forward 2010, you have Conan faltering in the ratings, partly because or no substantial lead in audience due to Leno’s show tanking but also because it takes time to build an loyal audience like Leno and Letterman have done over the past couple decades.  So NBC now sees their worst nightmare come to fruition, the Leno or Conan debate again. Still, even after all of this Leno is going to crush Conan in the ratings if he goes to another Network so the easiest thing to do is try to force Conan to quit, which is what they did essentially trying to demote Conan back to Late Night.  Instead Conan did what I hoped he would do, force a paid exit and be allowed to reformulate his show in the near future.

So it kind of worked out for everyone even though it was pretty messy there for a couple weeks. Leno gets the Tonight Show back, Conan will get his “Letterman” opportunity and Letterman is #1 in Late Night.  What will be very interesting to watch is the Late Night talent assembled behind Letterman and Leno as they continue to get closer to retirement. Jimmay Fallon has shown the kind of innovation, risk taking and downright absurdity pioneered by Letterman and continued by CoCo. Not to mention Craig Ferguson is fucking hilarious. Crappy skits aside, when it came down to it, I’ll admit I chose Craig over Conan though partly because I’m loyal to Letterman and don’t like flipping channels that late.

Either way, Letterman and Leno can’t very well be rocking Late Night into their 70’s which puts Fallon and Ferguson in a very good position.  If I had my way, I’d like Conan to take over for Letterman sometime in the near future and I’m sure that’s been talked about by the CBS brass.  It would be fitting to see Letterman hand the job off to Conan, both men being weaseled out of the Tonight Show job by the same person. I think Letterman’s successor is already booked though. Ferguson and O’Brien went head-to-head in terms of ratings late in Conan’s tenure as Late Night host.

The good thing is it’s almost over. Wherever Conan lands will be the ultimate decider of what will happen for the next decade of Late Night television. Only time will tell but it should be pretty interesting and it already has been.


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NBComcast Sportsnet

comcast-nbcBy: Billy Beerslugger

With Comcast Corp’s recent acquisition of NBC are they in a real position to challenge ABC owned ESPN for dominance or at least a much larger share in the Sports Viewership?  Besides my stance against the Country’s largest Cable Provider now owning a network television station I am interested to see and rooting for Comcast to take on ESPN.

If you really think about it, Comcast Sportsnet is available widely all over the country. Areas of California including San Francisco and Oakland, Chicago, New England, New York, Oregon / Washington State area, Houston, Denver, Atlanta and parts of South Eastern US, Washington D.C. area and of course Philadelphia all have access to Comcast Sportsnet or their affiliates that deliver region specific sports news to them.

How much cooperation will there be between NBC and Comcast in terms of Sports coverage going forward or will they seemingly merge coverage just like ABC / ESPN did?  Could big Phillies Games soon be played by NBC 10 in Philadelphia and the pattern repeating in other parts of the country and their NBC affiliate? I guess only time will tell.

I am interested to see someone directly take on the ESPN machine though.  First order of business is to steal away the marketing team that does ESPN’s commercials which are usually absolutely hilarious.  If you can make me laugh I’ll stay on your channel longer.

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Success and Failure in Philadelphia Sports

It's a Love/Hate Thing Here.
It's a Love/Hate Thing Here.

Sports with Bob McFlurry

What a bunch of crybabies Philadelphia sports fans are. Oh, the Eagles have never won a Super Bowl, the Flyers haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1975, the Sixers haven’t gotten it done since 1983 and minus the Phillies breaking a miraculous curse in 2008, their only World Series win was in 1980.  It’s like Philly fans are so masochistic that they love to be hurt, we actually brag about it.

Yes there was 25 years between Championships in Philadelphia but that didn’t mean there weren’t teams to root for.  Yes you can give me the whole, “Of the cities with the four major sports teams, Philadelphia ranks last in Championships” crap but it’s still a whole lot better than being in Cleveland or Kansas City. And of the teams with four major sports teams I think we’ve had it a lot better than Phoenix, Minneapolis and Washington D.C.

If you rank a season Quality by the team making it to either the Championship game or the Conference Finals then the landscape changes a bit.

We’ll start our time line in the year 1980:

1980:

76ers lost to the Lakers in the NBA Finals 4 games to 2.

Flyers lost to the Islanders in the Stanley Cup Finals 4 games to 2

Eagles lost the Raiders in the Super Bowl 27-10

Phillies Win the World Series over the Royals 4 game to 2

1982:

76ers lost the NBA Championship to the Lakers 4 games to 2

1983:

Phillies lost to the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series 4 games to 1

76ers Won the NBA Championship over the Lakers 4-0

1984:

Flyers lost to the Oilers 4-1 in the Stanley Cup Finals

1986:

Flyers lost to the Oilers 4-3 in the Stanley Cup Finals

1988:

Flyers lost to the Canadiens 4 games to 2 in the Wales Conference Finals

1993:

Phillies lost to the Blue Jays in the World Series 4-2

1994:

Flyers lost to the Devils in the Conference Finals

1996:

Flyers lost to the Red Wings 4-0 in the Stanley Cup Finals

2000:

Flyers lost to the Devils in Eastern Conference Finals 4-3

2001:

76ers lost to the Lakers 4 games to 1 in the NBA Finals

Eagles lost to the Rams in the NFC Championship game 29-24

2002:

Eagles lost to the Buccaneers in the NFC Championship 27-10

2003:

Eagles lost to the Buccaneers in the NFC Championship 27-10

2004:

Flyers lost to the Lightning in Eastern Conference Finals to 4-3

Eagles lose to the Patriots in the Super Bowl 24-21

2007:

Flyers lost to the Penguins in the Easter Conference Finals 4 games to 1

2008:

Eagles lost to the Cardinals in the NFC Championship Game 32-25

Phillies Win the World Series over Rays 4 games to 1

2009:

Phillies lost to the Yankees in the World Series 4 games to 2

Totals:

Eagles: 2 Super Bowl appearances and 6 Conference Championship appearances. 16 Playoff appearances.

Phillies: 2 World Series Championships, 5 World Series Appearances and 5 National League Championship appearances. 7 Playoff appearances total.

Flyers: 4 Stanley Cup Finals trips, 8 Conference Championship appearances. 22 Playoff appearances.

Sixers: 1 NBA Championship, 4 Finals appearances, 4 Eastern Conference Championships. 18 Playoff appearances.

You don’t have to label a season a success if the team doesn’t win their respective sports’ championship that year and to a certain degree I get that logic. However, there have been plenty of years either collectively or individually that professional Philadelphia sports franchises got your heart racing during playoff time. That you lived and died by that team, that you and the city pulled for them.

If you ask me the 2002 NFC Championship loss to Tampa Bay was one of the absolute worst feelings I’ve ever had in my life.  I swore off the Eagles and the next year my heart was in it again for another run. I guess my point here is that Philadelphia fans, for all their complaining and whining have it pretty good I think. Lito Sheppard was recently quoted to say that he thought Philly fans were “spoiled” by the decade of success the Eagles had and I’d have to agree with him. It’s not that easy to win a Championship in any sport even when you do have great players. I’ll settle for 3 Championships in 30 years and revel in the the enjoyment the next time one comes around.

Any playoff game is just another reason to get drunk and hang out with your friends so look on the bright side people, at least we’re not in Cleveland.