New homeowner selling house because he can't get Comcast Internet

One unluckyman who bought a house that can't get wired Internet service is reportedly selling the home just months after moving in.

Seth, a software engineer who works at home, bought a house in Kitsap County, Washington, after being told by multiple Comcast employees that he could buy the Internet service he needs to do his job, according to a detailed Consumerist articleyesterday. Seth also wrote a lengthy account on his blogtitled, "Its Comcastic, or: I Accidentally Bought a House Without Cable." (The man's last name was not given.)

"Before we even made an offer [on the house], I placed two separate phone calls; one to Comcast Business, and one to Xfinity," Seth wrote. "Both sales agents told me that service was available at the address. The Comcast Business agent even told me that a previous resident had already had service. So I believed them."

That turned outto be untrue. After multiple visits from Comcast technicians, he says the company told him extending its network to his house would cost $60,000, of which he would have to pay an unspecified amount. But then Comcast allegedly pulled the offer.

"After about seven weeks of pointless install appointments, deleted orders, dead ends, and vague sky-high estimates, Comcast told him that it had decided to simply not do the extension," according to the Consumerist story. "The company wouldnt even listen to Seths offers to pay for a good chunk of the cost."

We contacted Comcast to get more details last night but haven't heard back.

After getting nowhere with Comcast, Seth tried getting DSL Internet from CenturyLink, which told himit could provide service of up to 10Mbps.

"After that very first Comcast tech told Seth there was no cable infrastructure to his house, he contacted CenturyLink. The company promised to get him hooked up right away," Consumerist wrote. "But then the next day he got a call informing him that his area was in 'Permanent Exhaust' and that CenturyLink wouldnt be adding new customers. Of course, that didnt stop CenturyLink from billing Seth more than $100 for service he never received and will never be able to receive. Seth then had to convince someone with CenturyLinks billing department to zero out the account that should have never been opened."

Besides Comcast and CenturyLink, theKitsap Public Utility District operates a gigabit fiber network that passes near Seth's house, Consumerist wrote. "So why cant he just get his service from the county?Because Washington is one of the half-dozen states that forbids municipal broadband providers from selling service directly to consumers," the article said.

Nationwide, about 20 states impose limits on municipal broadband in order to protect private Internet providers from competition. The Federal Communications Commission voted to preempt such lawsin Tennessee and North Carolina after receiving petitions from municipal providers in those states but is facing a lawsuit over the decision.

Consumerist reporter Chris Morran contacted both Comcast and CenturyLink but was unable to get a satisfactory answer about Seth's case, he wrote.

"Even though Comcast was given weeks to research and comment on Seths story, the company has yet to provide Consumerist with a statement or explanation of how it could not only fail to keep an accurate accounting of serviceable addresses, but why it continued to send tech after tech to do installs that couldnt be done," Morran's article states.

CenturyLink provided Consumerist a short statement: "We researched the issue and found that there was an error in our system, which we are updating.

"That was two days ago, and yet as of right now the CenturyLink website still says Seths address can get broadband service," Morran wrote.

To get his work done, Seth wrote that he is using a Verizon Wireless mobile hotspot that is "frightfully expensive and has a 30GB per month cap...When I want to download a big file, like an OS update or a VM image for work, I go to the local Starbucks. Their Wi-Fi is great."

Seth could get satellite service, but his work requires a VPN connection, which would be unreliable with satellite's high latency.

While Comcast, the country's biggest cable company, tells the federal government it faces so much competitionthat it should be allowed to merge with the second biggest cable operator, agovernment database designed to tell consumers what options they have for Internet service is offering inaccurate information.

The National Broadband Maplets you enter any address in the US to find out what Internet accessoptions are available. The database shows 10 options at Seth's house, including mobile and satellite, but they're all eitherinadequate for home Internet service or unavailable. One of the 10 options is that fiber network that residents cannot use.

"Im devastated. This means we have to sell the house," Seth wrote. "The house that I bought in December, and have lived in for only two months."

Source: http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/03/new-homeowner-selling-house-because-he-cant-get-comcast-internet/

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Movie Reviews: While We're Young Might Be Baumbach's Best Yet, Get Hard Is ...

A24Noah Baumbach's While We're Young might have been a simple takedown of the millennial generation, those feckless hipsters with their empty values and sense of boundless entitlement. You know: "These d**n kids today."

RELATED ARTICLES MORE ARTICLES BYKurt Loder

But the movie is more complex than that. It focuses on Josh and Cornelia, two married New Yorkers who are surprised to find themselves in their mid-forties with the big dreams of their youth unfulfilled. Josh (Ben Stiller) is a documentary filmmaker. His first film, now obscure, was well-received, but he's spent the last 10 years grubbing for grant money to finish a followup. Cornelia (Naomi Watts), the daughter of an esteemed documentarian, Leslie Breitbart (Charles Grodin), once worked as a producer for her dad but now mainly provides loving support for her husband. She and Josh are childless, and they're okay with that; but their friends, all fellow 40-somethings, are awash in babies. Life is dull, dull, dull.

Then, while teaching a dinky continuing-education course in filmmaking, Josh is approached by another couple, Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried). These two are in their mid-twenties, and they're full of fun and spontaneity. Their funky loft in Bushwick (where else?) is packed with retro-hip accoutrements: an old electric typewriter, a collection of VHS tapes, a wall full of vinyl records. Jamie seems to idolize Joshhe has actually seen his first film (he sought it out on eBay), and he wants to learn at the feet of this older director. Josh, starved for approval and admiration, falls right into the younger couple's vibrant lifestyle, bringing Cornelia along with him. Soon Darby is taking Cornelia to hip-hop dance classes, and Jamie is encouraging Josh to buy a stingy-brim fedora. Life is exciting again.

While we're sneering at Jamie and Darby's nitwit trendiness, the movie grows darker. Jamie isn't quite what he seems to behe represents something new in the world, or at least the world as Josh has always known it. Josh is ponderously committed to "truth" and "objectivity" and the art of film. (He says things like "I'm trying to solve the problem that Eisenstein never solved.") But for Jamie, these concepts are quaint leftovers from an earlier, now-irrelevant era: truth is whatever you say it is, and objectivity is a lie.

In another sort of movie, we might expect Josh's traditional values to prevail in the end. But it's not that simple. With youthful vigor, Jamie is quickly assembling a film of his owna film that Josh sees as a corruption of the documentary form. But everyone likes it, even Josh's revered father-in-law. And when Leslie finally sits through Josh's filmall six and a half hours of ithe pronounces the long-gestating project to be "seven hours too long." Josh is hurt and astonished. He determines to expose Jamie as the immoral careerist he actually isa mission in which, again surprisingly, he both succeeds and fails.

This may be Baumbach's best movie. The script he has written has both depth of character and a vivid cultural specificity. And the lead actors do some of their best work. Stiller, who also played it straight in the director's 2010 Greenberg, once again mutes his penchant for compressed comical rage to portray a man whose most dearly held beliefs are being shredded before his eyes. And Watts is both moving and very funny (especially when trying to get down with the hip-hop kids) as a woman disoriented by her own mid-life confusion. Driver deploys his familiar hipster charisma to complex effect, and Seyfried is a minor revelation as a younger woman who's ambiguously uncommitted to much of anything at all.

Baumbach, now 40-something himself, presents these characters as flawed but still worthy in their own ways. He doesn't cut them any breaks, but he doesn't judge them too harshly either. The story concludes with a sigh of bittersweet generosity, which is also not what might normally be expected. It's very grown-up.

Warner BrosGet Hard

Let's see. The story is a blast of scattershot raunch? The star bares his pasty b**t? Is it a Will Ferrell movie?

Yes it is. Get Hard uses its simpleton storylinewhich could fit snugly on a pair of Post-it notesas an armature on which to hang a series of raucous skits, few of them surprising but some of them very funny, in a scattershot way. Possibly in an effort to expand his audience in an "urban" direction, Ferrell has brought on Kevin Hart to costara wise decision. Hart's quick-witted comic presence is a welcome complement to Ferrell's familiar big-baby act. Still, this is a textbook example of a movie you're likely to forget before you make your way out of the theatre.

Ferrell is a stock trader named James, a rich idiot engaged to his boss' hot-but-conniving daughter (Alison Brie). James is baffled when he's unjustly arrested for fraud and embezzlementhe's innocent. But a judge decides to make an example of him and sentences him to 10 years in prison. And not some cushy Club Fed lockup, eitherJames will be going to San Quentin. Terrified by the prospect of a decade of jailhouse rape, James starts looking around for someone to coach him in ways to survive on the inside. He settles on Darnell (Hart), the owner of a car-wash service who's in need of a large cash infusion to build a better life for his wife and daughter. James has cash to infuse, and he figures Darnell is the right guy for his purposes because Darnell is black, and therefore must have spent time in prison himself. Ha ha.

The skits kick in. Darnell turns James's luxurious estate into a simulated prison. He tries to instruct James in how to make a "mad dog face" to scare away menacing cons. (James can only manage "sad-d*****g.") He attempts to teach James how to fight the sort of multiple assailants he might face behind bars, but this doesn't go well either. James does succeed in one area, thoughhe learns how to conceal a shiv in his nether regions.

A number of early reviewers of this movie have decried its "homophobic" approach to the subject of jailhouse rape. I think they should lighten upthis is a venerable comic area. There is a scene in which James attempts to perform f******o on a guy in a restroom stall that crawls right up to the cusp of the film's R rating. But then one of the most appealing characters in the picture is a flirtatious patron at a gay brunch spot. (He's played by Lyle R. Guidroz, an actor who has so far made a career of appearing uncredited in a number of movies. Guidroz has a sunny comic facility that deserves fuller recognition.)

The movie also makes room for rapper T.I. (Clifford Harris to his mom), a natural actor who owns every scene he's in. John Mayer puts in a nicely self-deprecating appearance, too, although it feels like a favor on somebody's part.

The script, by director Etan Cohen and Key & Peele veterans Jay Martel and Ian Roberts, gives Ferrell and Hart some crisp lines. ("When you were at Harvard, you ever get raped?" Darrell asks. James replies: "I think that was more of a Yale thing.") But most of the humor here is standard-issue "edgy." (Darrell teaches James how to pronounce "n****r," there's a fleeting reference to "Jew hair," and we see an occasional bare breast and flaccid p***s.)

There's always been an audience for this sort of retro-potty-mouth movie, and no doubt there still is. How large it is at this point remains to be seen.

RELATED ARTICLES MORE ARTICLES BYKurt Loder

Find this and hundreds of other interesting movies at the Reason Shop, powered by Amazon.

Source: http://reason.com/archives/2015/03/27/movie-reviews-while-were-young-might-be

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Olivia Munn and Aaron Rodgers gleefully celebrated Wisconsin's Sweet 16 win

Actress Olivia Munn and NFL MVP Aaron Rodgers were in the crowd in Los Angeles on Thursday night, rooting on the Wisconsin Badgers to the Elite Eight and, they hope, a second-straight berth in the Final Four.

It was a great game a classic weeknight Sweet 16 battle but once it became clear Wisconsin would prevail over North Carolina, Modgers, no, Munndgers, no, Oliviaaron, no, Aarlivia thats it, thats the celebrity couple nickname were cheering like they were lifelong Wisconsin fans who bleed red, white and some sort of cheese.

Rodgers has been a big Wisconsin basketball backer for years. He followed the team to the Final Four last year and recently joked that he wants a 1-on-1 game against Badgers star Sam Dekker. That sounds like a great idea for a guy playing on a $110 million contract, but I enjoy the desire and moxie nonetheless.

And, sorry Olivia and a mandate of American men, but Ms. Munn is only the second most interesting thing about that picture above. I love LOVE that the sports/Hollywood power couple is sitting directly next to ESPN golf analyst and Wisconsin super-fan, Madison native Andy North. I wonder if Andy ever whispers two U.S. Opens is better than one Super Bowl. I totally would.

Rodgers is a big Badgers fan due to his employment in the State and Munn is a big Badgers fan presumably because shes dating a guy employed in the state. But North is a true diehard and you always have to respect the diehard, except the fifth one A Good Day to Die Hard was just horrible.

Aaron Rodgers, March Madness, Olivia Munn, WAGs, Wisconsin basketball, NCAAB

Sports news worth sharing!

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Source: http://ftw.usatoday.com/2015/03/olivia-munn-aaron-rodgers-wisconsin-sweet-16

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Germanwings crash: Mother, daughter among 3 American victims

Story highlights

• Third American killed on Germanwings flight identified as Robert Calvo
• State Department says three Americans were on the plane
• Co-workers, friends in shock at deaths of mother and daughter from Virginia

Yvonne Selke and her daughter, Emily, were aboard Germanwings Flight 9525 that crashed Tuesday in the French Alps. They, along with the other 148 people on board that flight, are presumed dead.

"I just keep saying over and over, it's surreal. You always see these things on the news and you think it's horrible, but you never know anyone involved," said Haley Holmes, a close friend of Emily Selke's.

"I think what people need to know about them, and what people should know about them, is that they were two -- not two Americans on a plane, not a mother and daughter on a plane -- but Yvonne and Emily -- two amazing, loving people who left behind friends and family who love and miss them a lot," Holmes told CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360."

Emily Selke had belonged to Gamma Sigma Sigma's Zeta chapter at Drexel University. She was a membership vice president while at the sorority and "an integral part of our growing chapter," according to the chapter's Facebook page.

"She embodied the spirit of Gamma Sigma Sigma," the sorority said. "As a person and friend, Emily always put others before herself and cared deeply for all those in her life. Emily will be greatly missed by her fellow sisters of Zeta."

A music industry major, Emily Selke graduated with honors from the Philadelphia university, according to the school. She then went on to work around Washington for Carr Workplaces, a company that offers office space, meeting rooms and virtual offices, company spokesman Robert Beach said.

"We cherished Emily's work ethic, enthusiasm, humor and overall presence," said Beach, calling her "dedicated, helpful and always willing to go the extra mile."

"Her genuine, bright smile and quick wit will be missed," he added.

Yvonne Selke worked for Booz Allen Hamilton. Betty Thompson, an executive vice president with that consulting firm, described Yvonne as "a wonderful co-worker and a dedicated employee" in a statement to The Washington Post.

Holmes said Yvonne Selke was "a lovely spirit to be around," fiercely loyal to the people she loved.

"Our entire family is deeply saddened by the losses of Yvonne and Emily Selke. Two wonderful, caring, amazing people who meant so much to so many. At this difficult time we respectfully ask for privacy and your prayers," the Selke family said in a statement.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Wednesday that three Americans were on the plane.

The third American was Robert Calvo, according to Desigual, the clothing company for which he worked for in Spain.

Students, singers among the victims

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/25/us/germanwings-crash-american-victims/

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New homeowner selling house because he can't get Comcast Internet

One unluckyman who bought a house that can't get wired Internet service is reportedly selling the home just months after moving in.

Seth, a software engineer who works at home, bought a house in Kitsap County, Washington state after being told by multiple Comcast employees that he could buy the Internet service he needs to do his job, according to a detailed Consumerist articleyesterday. Seth also wrote a lengthy account on his blogtitled, "Its Comcastic, or: I Accidentally Bought a House Without Cable." (The man's last name was not given.)

"Before we even made an offer [on the house], I placed two separate phone calls; one to Comcast Business, and one to Xfinity," Seth wrote. "Both sales agents told me that service was available at the address. The Comcast Business agent even told me that a previous resident had already had service. So I believed them."

That turned outto be untrue. After multiple visits from Comcast technicians, he says the company told him extending its network to his house would cost $60,000, of which he would have to pay an unspecified amount. But then Comcast allegedly pulled the offer.

"After about seven weeks of pointless install appointments, deleted orders, dead ends, and vague sky-high estimates, Comcast told him that it had decided to simply not do the extension," according to the Consumerist story. "The company wouldnt even listen to Seths offers to pay for a good chunk of the cost."

We contacted Comcast to get more details last night but haven't heard back.

After getting nowhere with Comcast, Seth tried getting DSL Internet from CenturyLink, which told himit could provide service of up to 10Mbps.

"After that very first Comcast tech told Seth there was no cable infrastructure to his house, he contacted CenturyLink. The company promised to get him hooked up right away," Consumerist wrote. "But then the next day he got a call informing him that his area was in 'Permanent Exhaust' and that CenturyLink wouldnt be adding new customers. Of course, that didnt stop CenturyLink from billing Seth more than $100 for service he never received and will never be able to receive. Seth then had to convince someone with CenturyLinks billing department to zero out the account that should have never been opened."

Besides Comcast and CenturyLink, theKitsap Public Utility District operates a gigabit fiber network that passes near Seth's house, Consumerist wrote. "So why cant he just get his service from the county?Because Washington is one of the half-dozen states that forbids municipal broadband providers from selling service directly to consumers," the article said.

Nationwide, about 20 states impose limits on municipal broadband in order to protect private Internet providers from competition. The Federal Communications Commission voted to preempt such lawsin Tennessee and North Carolina after receiving petitions from municipal providers in those states, but is facing a lawsuit over the decision.

Consumerist reporter Chris Morran contacted both Comcast and CenturyLink but was unable to get a satisfactory answer about Seth's case, he wrote.

"Even though Comcast was given weeks to research and comment on Seths story, the company has yet to provide Consumerist with a statement or explanation of how it could not only fail to keep an accurate accounting of serviceable addresses, but why it continued to send tech after tech to do installs that couldnt be done," Morran's article states.

CenturyLink provided Consumerist a short statement: "We researched the issue and found that there was an error in our system, which we are updating.

"That was two days ago, and yet as of right now the CenturyLink website still says Seths address can get broadband service," Morran wrote.

To get his work done, Seth wrote that he is using a Verizon Wireless mobile hotspot that is "frightfully expensive and has a 30GB per month cap...When I want to download a big file, like an OS update or a VM image for work, I go to the local Starbucks. Their Wi-Fi is great."

Seth could get satellite service but his work requires a VPN connection, which would be unreliable with satellite's high latency.

While Comcast, the country's biggest cable company, tells the federal government it faces so much competitionthat it should be allowed to merge with the second biggest cable operator, agovernment database designed to tell consumers what options they have for Internet service is offering inaccurate information.

The National Broadband Maplets you enter any address in the US to find out what Internet accessoptions are available. The database shows 10 options at Seth's house, including mobile and satellite, but they're all eitherinadequate for home Internet service or unavailable. One of the 10 options is that fiber network that residents cannot use.

"Im devastated. This means we have to sell the house," Seth wrote. "The house that I bought in December, and have lived in for only two months."

Source: http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/03/new-homeowner-selling-house-because-he-cant-get-comcast-internet/

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Cambodian PM: Michelle Obama's visit to promote education was US 'just ...

Hours after the Army charged him with desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl released a two-page statement through his attorney that gives his account of what happened during the five years he was held captive by the Taliban.

Bergdahl said that for the first three months, he was "chained to a bed spread-eagle and blindfolded," and because he spent so much time unable to move, his muscles atrophied. After a year, he was placed in a cage with his feet chained every night. He developed acute pain, he said, which turned into a "freezing numbness that continues to the present, as both feet have neuropathy." He was always isolated, sometimes in total darkness and other times in constant light.

He said he tried to escape at least 12 times, and once was able to hide for nine days. Because he had no food and only drank "putrid" water, his body gave up and he was caught by a large Taliban search party, who went on to beat him and "tried to rip my beard and hair out." His captors played mind games, he stated, telling him one day he would be executed, and the next day he would be going home. For the entire time he was held captive, Bergdahl wrote, he had "absolutely no understanding of anything that was happening behind the door I was held behind."

Source: http://theweek.com/speedreads/546444/cambodian-pm-michelle-obamas-visit-promote-education-just-playing-around

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Ad-Rock Thinks Iggy Azalea Is Awful, But Kanye West's Totally Alright

By Marissa G. Muller

Like everyone else, Ad-Rock has an opinion on Iggy Azalea. But unlike everyone else, the Beastie Boys member is actually in a prime position to address the controversial Australian rapper considering his group faced similar accusations of cultural appropriation when they were active.

When asked his thoughts on Azalea, ina new interview with The Daily Beast, Ad-Rock didnt hold back.

We wore fin Puma suits and do-rags, so of course we did! he said, referring to the similar criticism that the group came under. She sounds like Da Brat. I cant say too much because Ive heard literally one song of hers, and its not for me. I was gonna say its awful, and it is awful. But what do I know? Its sold like 20 billion records, so people like it. I dont care, more than anything.

Related: Beastie Boys Win Sampling Lawsuit Over Pauls Boutique

Harsh, but Ad-Rock was much more empathetic when it came to talking about the Blurred Lines verdict, which ordered Robin Thicke and Pharrell to pay the Gaye estate $7.4 million for plagiarism.

[The jury] werent allowed to hear the song in the case but they saw the charts for it, and if youre basing a legal case on drum patterns and bass notes, its a billion songs! he said. Its a simple 4/4 drum pattern that every rap, rock, everything, uses.

Certainly, he has authority to speak there; the Beastie Boys just won a lawsuit over sampling they did inPauls Boutiquethough sampling is, of course, in a different vein from what was alleged (stealing from the source material) in Blurred Lines.

Oh, and hes not so sure about the state of rap as a whole, but he does like Kanye West.

I haveno ideaabout the state of rap, he said. I dont pay attention. I just listen to old music that I have. Once a year, Ill go do a digging search on things, and then listen to that for the next year or two. I like Kanye West he makes good music.

You can read the rest of his interview here.

Source: http://radio.com/2015/03/25/ad-rock-interview-iggy-azalea-kanye-west/

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