Spirit of the game!!!

On the third day of the 2^nd test match of England vs. India series Ian Bell was run out for leaving his ground thinking it was tea before the ball was called dead. Ian Bell made what some may say a school boy mistake of leaving his ground and deserved to be given out. The English captain Andrew Strauss and coach Andy Flower requested Dhoni to reconsider the appeal. Indian team and Dhoni withdrew the appeal and Ian Bell was given a reprieve. Dhoni kept the "Spirit of the game" with this action, and has been praised by media and retired players. What he did is truly commendable.

Why is that India is always expected to keep the "Spirit of the game" and not others especially England. If this had happened with India at the receiving end would English team and Andrew Strauss withdrawn their appeal, I would bet that they would say that player committed a school boy mistake and deserves to be out. Let us consider the in 2008 New Zealand vs. England one day game Grant Elliot collided with Ryan Sidebottom mid-pitch and guess who removed the bails none other than Ian Bell, the fielder who threw the ball was Kevin Peitersen. Where was the "Spirit of the game" with the then English captain Paul Collingwood not withdrawing the appeal even when asked by the umpires.

Lets take the jelly bean incident in 2007 series between England and India. The English player were trying intimidate Zaheer Khan by placing jelly beans on the pitch. I am sure that was part of the "Spirit of the game". Why do we have to dig into the past, lets just stay in the same game but the previous day. The English team appealed for a caught behind agains VVS Laxman, which was not given out. English captain requested a review of the decision and Hot Spot technology failed to detect any edge and the third umpire didnt have any undisputable evidence to over turn the decision. Stuart Broad admitted that he "cheekily inspected" Laxman's bat for traces of vaseline, which some people claim obscures Hot Spot technology for fine nicks. Does what Stuart Broad did fall in the "Spirit of the game". Why are there two scales when it comes to the "Spirit of the game" — one for India and one for others, especially England.

Netflix alters pricing dramatically

Netflix announced a dramatic price hike in this latest press release. I am currently on Unlimited DVD 1 DVD out-at-a-time plan with Blu-ray option and unlimited streaming for which I pay $11.99 plus tax. The updated price for me to keep this plan would be $17.98 which is a good 50% hike. Basically I would be signing up for two plans in their new system, the unlimited streaming and unlimited DVD 1 DVD out-at-a-time each costing $7.99 each and an additional $2.00 for Blu-ray option. The idea of splitting into two plan is perfectly fine provided both offer a similar catalogue. Unfortunately this is not true, the streaming catalogue is not as diverse as the DVD catalogue.

I would be perfectly fine with the hike if Netflix offered some form of a lowered bundled deal. First, not all the content I would like to see is available for streaming. Second, I would rather see movies from a disc than using streaming because the streaming offers only 2.0 audio at the moment on my Oppo. I prefer watching TV shows as streaming rather then getting discs because I take forever to watch a season and dont want to be stuck with the option of not being able to watch a movie. It would be appropriate if Netflix charges a lower price for the bundle around $12.98 with an additional $2.00 for the Blu-ray option. I am sure that many of the long standing customers would be considering to jump ship with this hike. I am sure people would be more understanding if Netflix offered a lower bundled plan.

What is the driving factor behind this move. Netflix has a higher profit margin if people just stream the content as opposed renting them on discs. If they do not improve their online streaming catalogue they are going to alienate a lot of customers. If every one of the Netflix customer just boycott the online streaming option and take the option of just renting discs it surely will have a huge impact on Netflix. One could then add the streaming option back when they got their senses back. I am sure the folks up at RedBox and Hulu are extremely happy and would surely gain a lot of customers.

VLC app removed from App store

VLC media player is a widely used free and open source media player. In late October a port of the VLC media player for iOS devices was available in the App Store. There was a controversy with regards to the GPL (license used for a lot of code in VLC) and the App Store terms. One of the core contributor to the VLC project Rémi Denis-Courmont decided to write to Apple with regards to the GPL violation. It was predicted that Apple pull VLC from the App Store and as expected it happened on January 7^th. Obviously this has made many people upset.

As usual the Apple fan boys who still believe that Apple can do no wrong decided to give it a spin that Nokia is responsible for the removal through Rémi Denis-Courmont, who happens to be an employee of Nokia. All the Apple fan boys on the web decided to paint Rémi Denis-Courmont as the devil incarnate himself. Of course the fan boys will never force Apple to change its draconian terms but would rather spend their time polishing Steve Job's knob. With that said, I am happy to see that VLC app has been removed from the App Store, Apple fan boys do not deserve to use this awesome media player.