This page has occasional posts to various services and activities myself and others find for interesting uses of networks.
2019-05: Eurovision Song Contest
If you like pop music, then check out The Eurovision Song Contest. Never heard of it? Nearly no one in the United States has. But in Europe — and Australia — nearly everyone has. This song competition has been going non-stop for decades. Year 2019 is the 64th annual contest. The Swedish group Abba won the 19th contest in 1974. The two semi-finals and the grand finale are May 14, 16, and 18, 2019. Useful links:
Official Eurovision Website
Eurovision 2019 on Wikipedia
History of Eurovision
Eurovision on Wikipedia
Watching Eurovision is not easy in the United States. Only in recent years has it shown up on US TV — and then on Logo TV, an LGBT network, owned by Viacom, even though Eurovision is not an LGBT event. The coverage and commentary are annoying. As of September 29, 2019, unknown if Logo will be covering the 2019 event, which takes place in Israel. The link below is for 2018.
Eurovision 2018 on Logo TV
UPDATE 2019-05-02: According to a German blogger who follows Eurovision Logo TV will NOT be carrying Eurovision.
The best way — and probably only way in the US — to watch Eurovision is a live stream from Europe. This takes some network knowledge, mostly working with VPNs — Virtual Private Networks — to obtain what appears to be a local connection from within Europe. I have at least two different VPNs going (on separate computers with HDMI out to TV) and frequently have two ISPs available, using one as backup. These days the 1-gig fiber from CenturyLink is the primary and Comcast is for backup. Eurovision.tv has a link to the stream. An alternative is BBC TV.
2019-03: Rio Carnaval 2019 Live Stream
If you like parades, costumes, and BIG floats, this is well worth watching.
URL for the live stream for the parades in Rio in 2018:
Rio Samba Schools Carnaval 2018 Live Stream
Finding the live stream can be a chore. Search on Youtube first.
Here’s a page with a schedule for 2019:
https://www.riocarnaval.org/carnival-date/rio-carnival-2019.html
Info for 2018:
Rio 2018 Samba Schools Carnaval 2018 Parade Schedule
Info for 2019:
Rio 2019 Samba Schools Carnaval 2019 Parade Schedule
You need to look through all the groups, as different groups have different days. And yes, most of the parades begin at night and go into the early morning hours. It’s summer there!
Note that times are Rio times. Rio is six hours ahead of Seattle. Streaming has started 15-30 minutes after parade schedule. The final parade is March 9, 2019.