Streaming the Inauguration In a School? 201
Anonymous Teacher writes "I work in a small school in Washington and we are trying to prepare a way to watch the inauguration in 20 classrooms over a 1.5 T1. As our bandwidth severely limits the ability to individually stream to these rooms, is there an alternative to presenting it to the students? Are there any sites that offer a downloadable copy of the video quickly after the event that can be hosted locally or is reconfiguring the computers to use a proxy server the best solution?"
Projector (Score:4, Insightful)
Mod parent up (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Not really, plenty of churches display to chuch size crowds, where are similar to school sized crowds (500-5000.) I live in a non-rich zone/district and the local elementary/mid/high all have this capability.
And a ginormous screen isn't as imparitive to the experience as making sure they can hear well.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Buy everything needed then request some bailout money.
Prayer? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
television (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:television (Score:5, Insightful)
CSPAN?
Re: (Score:2)
CPAN has feeds in Windows Media and Real. Dunno how this maps to anything or how you can suck down either feed and "rebroadcast it" over your network. My guess is both Microsoft and Real have some gadget that would support this.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I meant (to the troll parent) that, if s/he really hates the networks that much, and wants the raw feed, that s/he could just watch CSPAN.
The original poster could capture CSPAN on a PC and share it among all the classroom, completely bypassing their inbound network pipe.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
C-SPAN has feeds in Windows Media and Real. Dunno how this maps to anything or how you can suck down either feed and "rebroadcast it" over your network. My guess is both Microsoft and Real have some gadget that would support this
VLC will also live convert a stream and multi- , uni- or broadcast it. A T1 connection should be fine for one stream, assuming that you have the local bandwidth. I actually set this up at a previous job. We had some DirectTV feeds going into a computer with a couple of video capture cards, and then re-transmitted it over the company LAN.
Interestingly enough, I am also helping with getting a school set up to watch the inauguration. Our solution, have all the students go into the auditorium, and display t
Re: (Score:2)
You could do it trivially with a command like
vlc http://path-to/stream [path-to] --sout '#std{access=http,mux=asf,dst=:8000}'
Depending, of course, what format the input is in, you may need to change the muxer (not everything will sit in an ASF container. If your clients are also VLC, I'd use mux=ts for anything that's MPEG.)
This is obviously a trivial-as-shit implementation, but it doesn't require multicast. If you wanted to do multicast RTP, you could do that with #sout{access=rtp,dst=239.255.0.1,mux=ts}, for instan
yes, yes they are (Score:2)
No other programming language has that kind of streaming video coverage. LOL.
Re:television (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree, in theory.
But in practice, your argument just doesn't stand up.
First: TV is best. It's a broadcast medium, made to transmit a single moving image to thousands (or, in this case, millions) of recipients. It does this job very well. If you want to avoid outlandish commentary and commercialization, obvious channel choices are either C-Span or PBS (in order of preference).
Second: There isn't enough bandwidth in a T1 to send 20 video streams of any rational (for 2008) quality. Multicast IP would solve this problem, of course, but the M-Bone is all but dead. (Wikipedia those terms yourself if you don't understand.)
Third: Why do you assume that the coverage on a television channel like C-Span is worse than the coverage which might be available online? No matter what the medium, someone has to produce the feed, and in doing so, they'll almost certainly be adding commentary of some sort.
Fourth: Internet video for the sake of internet video. Who gives a shit? I know it's 2009, and we're supposed to be in Teh Future and stuff, but for fuck's sake: If, in 2009, this were a solved problem, the question would never have been raised. Think about it.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
If you like, I can direct you to schools that can help with your lack of tech knowledge and other schools (or books) to help with your lack of manners.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I find the manner in which you attack the person instead of the idea to be very telling. It is a very moronic and nonsensical behavioral pattern, like using brass knuckles to finish off a chess match.
Unfortunately, I don't know of any schools (aside from church, or perhaps prison) which can rectify such basic and imbecilic logical fallacies as these.
I don't have any particular advice for you on this matter. These are just my observations.
But I digress. VLC might be part of the answer, but Google brought
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Of course you'll need to make sure you've got a license to present the broadcast! Oh and if you choose to use a PC relaying a broadcast (from the internet or from a TV signal) then you'll need to purchase "secondary transmission" rights ...
In the US 17USC111 (a)(5) appears to give a publicly funded school a pass on this. But it does say under ibid (a)(2) that you must comply with 17USC110 (2) which at (2)(D)(ii)(I)(aa) [!] requires that any digital copy is deleted before the end of the classroom session. Oh
Re: (Score:2)
Uhm. So what, precisely, is your point?
Either it is legal, or it isn't legal.
First you say it's legal, with a few restrictions. And then, you say I (me??) need a lawyer.
I'd write you off as just another troll, but trolls aren't don't generally present such well-researched facts. So what, exactly, are you trolling for?
Re: (Score:2)
IANAL, it was not intended to be a troll but a slightly ascerbic observation on the state of copyright. The variables are too great for me to guess whether the proposals are infringing behaviour. My suspicion is that if the signals can be received over the air (or by satellite, cable) from the providers agents (eg local cable company) that setting up a secondary transmission (eg buffering an internet feed and relaying on the school network) will be a copyright infringement and hence be tortuous malfeasance.
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, the bit about needing a lawyer .. just because something appears to be legal doesn't mean you can't be sued for doing it. I can't really see a TV station suing schools for showing the inaugaration but strange things happen.
The UK Police (http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/14487.cfm, amongst others, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/edinburgh_and_east/7029892.stm [bbc.co.uk]) got in trouble for listening to commercial free-to-air radio at work without a license.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
And before that it was radio, before that it press, and before that it was in person. The simple fact is that time changes. I am 49 and would love to have kids see this from the net, rather than the TV.
And every step in that progression you mentioned was an improvement in quality. So you'd rather have kids watch an historic event in grainy, choppy, crappy video where they can barely watch what's going on, rather than in beautiful HDTV where they can see everything? Just so they don't have to see professio
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Radio was an improvement over not witnessing it at all.
Remember, kid: The United States hasn't always had a thorough network of interstate highways and a monsoon of motor vehicles with which to utilize them. If a Californian wanted to see an inauguration in the early 1800s, it'd have taken months, and few would have had the wherewithal to do so. Instead, they just read about it in the left-coast newspapers, once the news eventually showed up over there.
Radio is definitely a step forward, in comparison.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop ruining my happy place with facts.
Thanks!
-mgt
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why not watch one with say 5 minutes of the stations commentary and have a recording of another station and watch same on that. Then you could compare the stations, discuss what was and wasn't shown and highlight how much power the media have to influence us. That would be a lesson and a half.
No, I don't really think this would work in high school.
Re: (Score:2)
It can work very well.
HD projection. 1080p 60 fps.
Multilingual captions. Signing. Second channel audio. Your choice of perhaps a dozen feeds tailored for specific audiences.
Most schools I suspect began planning for the Inaugural no later than the day after the election.
VLC? (Score:5, Informative)
Get it to recieve one copy of the stream, and then repeat it over the local network (assuming your local network has the bandwidth).
Re: (Score:2)
http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-howto/en/streaming-howto-en.html [videolan.org]
Broadcast/multicast? (Score:3, Informative)
You shouldn't even need more bandwidth, if your local network is configured properly.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ummm... TV...
Dag Nabbit Back in my day classrooms had TV that you can pick up via Radio waves. Near every classroom had a TV, a huge 20" TV. I remember watching the first shuttle launch after the challenger exploded. The results of the first O.J. Simpson trial. Also other big current events that has happened during school hours. For the classes that didn't have a TV we just merged 2 classes together. I can't believe that civilization has fallen so far that this simple concept is no longer possible. And
Re: (Score:2)
Starting at about 10:00AM, every class I was in had either the TV or the radio on, and we did no real work that day. Except band, of course.
VLC - VideoLAN Client (Score:4, Informative)
VLC might be an option.
VLC can play back from a file that another process is writing to. So if you can figure out how to write the incoming video stream to a network filesystem, each classroom could use VLC to playback that file and you would only have to worry about a delay buffer of a minute or two to ensure smooth playback.
While I have not tried it myself, VLC is also capable of rebroadcasting video. So if you can view the live stream directly with VLC, you can probably get that copy of VLC to multiplex it out to other VLC clients on other machines.
Re: (Score:2)
Thank you, that is exactly what I was looking for out of this article.
I am planning to do something similar, but for work.
Most of our building is RF shielded, and there are only two small breakrooms where TVs can get reception.
Our internet pipe is only 3mbit down, so multiple streams are out of the question.
I feel it would also be more productive for employees to watch it at their desk on media player from a link on our intranet site, than to gather everyone in two small break rooms. The normal conference
TV (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:TV (Score:4, Funny)
What is this "TV" you speak of?
And does it run Linux?
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe each classroom already has a computer or ten, but no TV. Why not deal with the Internet?
Re: (Score:2)
...Maybe they're in the middle of bum-fuck eastern Washington, far from Yakima, Tri-Cities, Wenatchee or Spokane? It looks flat on a map, but unless they're by Moses Lake, it's not really all that flat at all, so VHF TV signals aren't gonna work well at all.
Re: (Score:2)
So let me get this straight: they have some sort of reasonably fast internet connection out there in "bumfuck Washington", but they don't have cable TV, satellite TV, etc?
Re: (Score:2)
Not to be argumentative, but they have a T1 for crying out loud. If they are way out in the boondocks like is hypothesized, then they are paying a shitload of money, probably $1,000-1,500+ for the T1. What's $50 more a month for some basic satellite service? Really, there is no excuse for a SCHOOL to not have some sort of TV news access.
Is this why... (Score:5, Insightful)
...we don't get much bang for our education dollars? Something that is going to be broadcast on 97 different networks for free, and you need to go through who knows what effort to stream it? Do you have math classes at that school? Get some parents to volunteer to bring in a TV. If you want the kids to see it later, you don't think YouYube will be inundated with copies of it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Most schools have no reason for owning any sort of TV tuner in every classroom, and are located in steel-roofed buildings that do not get reception easily.
Last I checked also, projectors weren't terribly common in K-8 schools, and also don't include any sort of tuner.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously?
When I was at school in the UK we would regularly - though not frequently - use video as part of lessons. The BBC broadcast a whole host of TV shows designed to be shown in the classroom with accompanying teaching material.
Is this some peculiar European teaching strategy?
All our classrooms has access to a TV and an aerial socket on the wall. Th
Re: (Score:2)
This is something mainly specific to the BBC (I've also lived in the UK, though I never attended school there)
American educational TV does exist, though much of it is distributed via VHS, DVD, internet, or filmstrip. It's far more convenient to allow teachers to decide when and where they want to show the film.
Also, much of the US has pitiful broadcast reception. Whereas I could receive 20+ channels of crystal-clear digital broadcasts in my middle-of-nowhere village in Scotland, I can barely receive 1 or
Re: (Score:2)
American educational TV does exist, though much of it is distributed via VHS, DVD, internet, or filmstrip. It's far more convenient to allow teachers to decide when and where they want to show the film.
Also, much of the US has pitiful broadcast reception. Whereas I could receive 20+ channels of crystal-clear digital broadcasts in my middle-of-nowhere village in Scotland, I can barely receive 1 or 2 analogue networks from my house located barely an hour outside of New York City.
Most schools that I have been in have either cable tv or satellite. Especially with cable, signal strength is almost never an issue. A lot of educational programs are on cable, as part of the community access program.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Around 1992 when I was in school in Ohio, there was a big effort to put televisions in every classroom. Nothing terribly fancy; just wall-mounted 21" Zenith TVs with a factory modification so that they could be turned on centrally. Larger classrooms got more than one. There was a fairly elaborate head-end system with automated tape recorders which would record educational programs (apparently broadcast during middle-of-the-night off-peak hours for free). The regularly-scheduled use of this system was fo
Re:Is this why... (Score:4, Informative)
The fact that they're running off a single T1 would seem to imply that the "Washington" being referred to is Washington State, not D.C. (since the latter is unlikely to have anywhere in it that it's not far easier and more economical to go for DSL or another more modern solution, yet there are many such places in Washington State).
That being the case, some small schools, particularly in eastern parts of the state, may have difficulty getting any sort of television signal. Check out a map, we've got an awful lot of empty space up here.
Re: (Score:2)
I find it hard to believe that they have a T1 line - and no cable.
But then, there has been an effort to run fiber to all the school districts in Washington. Here on the Peninsula they are running fiber to individual schools as part of a county wide fiber optic backbone.
If you really want to stream... (Score:2)
Grab a Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro, and slap Linux on a laptop. Plug in, tune in a station with Kaffeine, and note it down. Then get VLC configured to multicast that channel to the classrooms.
No need to kill the T1, when you can get digital TV of it for free.
The only other way is to have VLC multicast a smaller stream that won't choke the T1.
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, although I wonder about licensing rights? Can they do this legally? Assuming they can, there are many sorts of variants of this theme. Is this why you can't just use televisions, or are you hoping to make use of large-scale projectors that won't accept a TV input? Why weren't you in an auditorium again? Well, okay, lets assume you do this with technology... grab a cable feed and stream it on your LAN, it won't touch your T1. The only reason you would need to touch the T1 is if you don't have
Re: (Score:2)
He did say he was from a small school district in eastern Washington, which is largely rural (except perhaps Wenatchee, Ellensburg, Yakima, Spokane, Richland, Kennewick and Pasco). If it was a school in any one of those towns, chances are they've got the free cable TV feed and can probably set up TVs in some/most of the classrooms.
Will they show all the pomp and circumstance, or just Pres. Obama's speech and swearing-in?
Indoctrination? Yeah, whatever.
Real has some nice streaming tools (Score:2)
As title says, Real has a nice streaming server called Real Helix and a producer (tool that creates the stream and sends it to the server for other people to view from server) called Real Producer.
There is a free version for both Real Server and Real Producer Basic.
Here's the page:
http://www.realnetworks.com/products/free_trial.html [realnetworks.com].
I believe you're not allowed to use the software commercially. As you use it for school and for noncommercial purposes you should be fine.
It may also be worth to send an email t
Re: (Score:2)
Also, don't forget VLC [videolan.org]! It can capture, encode, stream, and play all in one package (and do so on virtually every platform under the sun).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I personally find VLC to be quite buggy on Windows. In fact, if I test now to create a stream and send it to a broadcast server, I'll either have no sound or VLC would crash with runtime errors after a few minutes.
Especially about 2 years ago when I last did broadcasts with Real Producer, everything was a breeze, I don't think VLC even had streaming features then..
I've successfully used Real Producer then with great success and also in more recent times using Adobe Live Media Encoder coupled with Ustream.tv
What's wrong with television? (Score:2)
Or the PA system? Do you really need to see a speach? Sure, everyone wants to be watching when another president gets shot, but the chances of that are slim.
Perhaps you could capture an AVI or MOV file from the live broadcast, burn or copy it to a bunch of cd's or memory sticks and deliver it to classes.
Yes, I'm suggesting a sneakernet.
Here's an idea (Score:2, Funny)
Bring back the MBONE (Score:2)
Chucking... (Score:5, Insightful)
This old fogy is getting a good laugh at the thread. Some (very few) have already touched on it, but what the hell is wrong with watching TV on a TV? Borrow someone's huge-ass plasma and set it up in a large classroom. You don't even need cable or satellite as the broadcast networks will be covering the inauguration stem-to-stern in beautiful 1080i HD.
But no, the parent is hellbound to do this via computer. (And most of the responses seem to be troubleshooting and spitballing the idea.) Why? Because it's "cool" or the latest thing? Because he has some anti-TV bias? Or because he's so caught up in that "it's newer, so it must be better" mentality and literally did not even think of good old broadcast TV?
Sometimes the best and most appropriate technology is the good ol' tried and true. There are many applications in life where previously existing and "old fashioned" solutions are good enough. (And much simpler.) Often it's also cheaper, and it's almost always a hell of a lot less convoluted and headache-inducing.
Alas, so many are caught up in this "newer must be better" mentality. And the companies who develop and more importantly sell the stuff feed the frenzy by insuring that there's always something new out there to shell out the big bucks for. Today's new, neat-o technological breakthrough will be "obsolete" next year (hell, maybe next month) and of course you are encouraged to upgrade or replace what you already have that still works perfectly well for the newest, biggest, fastest, sharpest, shiniest, coolest thing. Feel free. I sit here with my old computer, relatively tiny picture-tube TVs, $29 radio and CD player, books and printed newspapers, and enjoy the hell out of all of them with no diminishment of my quality of life because all of these things are "old-fashioned." And I laugh.
Now, turn down that music and get off my lawn, you whippersnappers...
CNN, VLC (Score:3, Informative)
Watch it on CNN.
Or, download it and UDP stream to your.sub.net.255.
Don't you have channel one? (Score:3, Interesting)
I graduated HS in 96 from Arkansas. That was 93-96 in HS and 90-93 in junior high. We had what was called "channel one" almost daily from junior high to the end of HS. What the heck was channel one? About a 5-10 min news program aimed at kids and broadcast to schools through out the nation. They had about a 5 minute local segment where the local school could insert their daily news program if they wanted from the A/V kids if they wanted. I had the impression at the time that it was paid for by a grant or bond or something. Now if we had that in Arkansas back then, I'd assume that every one else had similar educational tools growing up.
If there was any content that the school wanted piped to every one, they'd make sure to tell the teachers and then they'd run it though the tv. They could centrally turn on the tvs play it and then turn them off. (It took effort of a teacher manually turning the things off if they wanted to do something during that period of time.)
I'd really be surprised that in 2008 that there are schools without those sorts of resources. Oh on commentary, what the heck do you think we did for the next 5 minutes after channel one was over? It was discuss/debate what ever the heck was running and wait for the teacher to quieten the room down. We learned more from each other and discussing than from the teacher at that point. The teachers generally thought that it was cutting into their class time and didn't want to waste any time discussing most of the content anyway. It was wait for lunch if you wanted to talk about it. Like we'd have really cared to bring it up by then any way. ;)
Re: (Score:2)
The deal with Channel One is basically:
1. The company that produced the program placed TV monitors in every schoolroom and a satellite dish to the school district.
2. The school district agreed to require every student to watch the program and its ads. No exceptions, no teacher discretion. Students must watch, or they lose the free TVs.
In some districts, parents objected to the second half of this deal. Often, strongly enough that the districts were forced to throw out (or replace) all of the monitors.
Like I
Obama (Score:2)
Just do the same thing the school did when they showed Bush's inauguration to all the students.
Oh...
Odd (Score:4, Funny)
I'd imagine they are Windows based. (Score:2)
Here is how I'd do it:
1) Buy a USB capture card [hauppauge.com] that has known drivers for whatever windows server version is in use
2) Assume Windows Media Services can use this capture card and stream it to windows clients on your network.
3) ???
4) ???
My other thought would be to use like MythTV and then use it's streaming stuff. I'm pretty sure they have a web based client.
This is actually a pretty tricky question to be honest. Especially considering you have less than a week to set it up and test it!
Personally, I doubt
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Dude, the Internet is just the wrong medium for this. The Internet excels at "store and forward" content, on-demand content, interactive content. TV is best used for live broadcasts. Period. Full stop. End of conversation. If either your politics or your tin-foil hat prevent you from watching it on MSNBC or Fox, watch the C-SPAN feed.
Forget the With the net, the teacher can have kids look up information quickly crap. The teachers should just let the kids watch the friggin' inauguration and not be dis
That won't work (Score:2)
Maybe. Just Maybe (Score:3)
Because it is a historic moment in our time. That might be, oh, a *small* part of it, you think?
Back when I was in high school, they stopped classes to show the OJ verdict live on every TV in the school. I'd say in terms of importance, this is a bit more important and historic.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I pity you if this is a legitimate question and not a troll.
I'm sorry to hear that.
Re: (Score:2)
It does if he's the FIRST one. He'll be the only first one. Just like it'll be a big day when the first woman is elected president (sorry, Hillary supporters, it won't/shouldn't be her, but if it's a choice between Sarah Palin and Hillary...well...lesser of two evils prevails... At least Hillary was clever enough to hide most of her blind ambition behind Bill's).
The first Apollo landing was big news. The 7th one wasn't.
Re: (Score:2)
On the question of why disrupt the school to show an inauguration, I ask. . . Why not? Particularly the inauguration of a *new* president. The 2005 inauguration of Bush was no big deal simply because he was only continuing his Presidency. But, I would say the 2001 inauguration would have been a big enough deal to stop school and show the kids, because Bush was being *newly* installed as President.
The installment of a new president happens at most every 4 years, sometimes after 8 years (as in this case). Is
I was in elementary school (Score:2)
And the janitor had to come into every classroom and fiddle with our antique black and white televisions to watch that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Just do what you did... (Score:5, Insightful)
First Black President, that's why this is important. I plan to watch it. This is how far we as a nation have come in the 60 years since the civil rights movement and the Jim Crow laws that held black people down for so long. More than just another president being inaugurated this is a statement that anyone can achieve anything they push for. Yes, I'm a flag waving optimist about this but having grown up in an inner city and having seen the devastation of being poor in America, It makes me hopeful that things can change for the better.
This is the kind of thing that can give an inner city kid a shred of hope that he can get out of the slums and into something better.
I'm starting to get all preachy now, but that's why this is something kids should watch.
Re: (Score:2)
I think this event is probably far more significant to people who actually saw the civil rights movement.
I think that to many of the younger kids out there, Obama will just be another guy being sworn into office. They don't notice anything odd or abnormal about a black guy being in power. That in itself might be significant.
I personally never understood the racial hubub of it all. I think first multi-racial is more significant than first black president anyway. I'm just glad that we will soon have a pre
Re: (Score:2)
Well, it's a boatload of firsts:
The list could go on and on.
But another huge thing is that this is the real awakening
Re: (Score:2)
Speaking as someone who is in a mixed-race marriage, I'm honestly not sure how to take your comment as anything other than expressing racial prejudice (or "race-power" or "racism" however else you want to express it).
Race is never supposed to be a factor in interviewing a job candidate, and comments like this only exacerbate the issue for the next generation, and teach them that race somehow matters.
For a thought experiment, take any NYT article that's ecstatic about this "historic" president and swap all
Re: (Score:2)
Uh, actually, people DID care, and they DID receive more than the usual media attention than is afforded the positions they took over (of course, Clarence Thomas' was slightly controversial as well. Just ask Anita Hill, and Condoleeza Rice's thunder was lessened by Madeleine Albright being the first woman in general to be Sec. of State)...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Being black helped Obama during the election, period.
This is exactly why this is such a huge deal and worth celebrating. One of these days we'll get over skin colors entirely, but until then, I'm quite happy with the American consciousness having become explicitly in favor of electing a black person.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
logic error (Score:2)
What you're saying is that you didn't vote for the candidate based on his qualifications or experience, but voted on him based on his skin color. That is racism, plain and simple, even if the result was a positive one in your eyes.
The truth is, Obama's experience growing up in America is affected by his skin color, is affected by the fact that he had parents very different in appearance (aside from the obvious male/female differences). You cannot judge his qualifications and experience without consider
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Mod Points (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Your racism is showing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Hi, I'm a good ole boy from Alabama and I get called a racist--that is, racist against anyone who isn't white--all the time on the interwebs. So allow me to weigh in with my racist opinion. I am glad Obama got elected. Back in the 60s, or even the 80s, a black president was an impossible dream. Now today it is reality. This is certainly proof of how far we have come as a nation. This is a shining example for the world to see, at a time when America's image is somewhat tarnished. I'm happy that black folks, especially the old timers who saw real racism in past decades, now have something like this to stand up and be proud of. I'm glad that we had a record turnout this election and large numbers of people becoming interested in politics. It's good for the country. The story of a poor black kid growing up to be the president of the United States is very inspiring. It IS a big deal.
Re: (Score:3)
Growing up with Clinton and the Bushs being elected, I never saw the kind of interest among young people that Obama garnered - at least not at my schools. I have a number of under-18 family members in high school who not only followed Obama's progress through the election season but have continued to read about and comment about his speeches and proposals after the election.
Perhaps you feel that t
That doesn't really solve their problem. . . (Score:2)
Because, it appears, that the problem is that they only have enough bandwidth two support one or two copies of the stream. If you have computers in 15 different classrooms, and the teachers load up hulu.com (or cnn.com, msnbc.com, cspan.org, whatever) and play the video, this will result in 15 different copies of the stream being separately downloaded.
What they need is some sort of multicast-like solution - something where the stream is being downloaded only once. Since the Internet hasn't really adopted mu