Here is a wonderful verse written by Clifford Monks of Fair Oaks, California, inspired by Rudolf Steiner and his book The Philosophy of Freedom. More of Clifford’s verses can be found at The Philosophy of Freedom Study Course web site

The Author

Straight he went to Eden’s door
And he was welcomed in,
A mighty yet humble traveller
Now defeating the wages of sin.

And past the old tree now withering
To the Tree of Life he went,
And gladly the branches bearing its fruit
Down to the traveller bent.

He plucked the fruit, and angel voices
Sang the hymn of creation’s story
And the traveler who was, on the Tree of Man
Purest fruit of its own flowering glory,

Who ate now the fruit, then bearing the core

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In case you haven’t seen the recent news, Netflix has moved beyond shipping little red envelopes of DVDs. They are now slowly rolling out a Video-on-Demand (VOD) solution. If you have a Netflix account but don’t yet have the option, try this clever trick to get it working. Here is my experience to date.

The service is a snap to setup on your computer. If you have a broadband connection, Windows, and IE you simply follow the instructions on the screen and everything downloads just fine. In a few minutes - and on the first try - I was able to get “Jackass” running on 3 different computers in my house. On future business trips where I can find a broadband connection, this service is a no-brainer.

Seeking a bigger challenge, I wanted to see how easy it was to get Netflix running on my 32″ CRT HD TV. My expectations were low: I expected a lot of frustration with limited payoff. Actually it was lower than that. I didn’t really expect to get it running at all before giving up. Needless to say I was pleasantly surprised.

I didn’t buy any new parts or components and used the following:

• Dell laptop (~3 years old),
• 80211g wireless network,
• Broadband cable connection through Comcast,
• An old S-video cable,
• My linksys wireless game adapter (just to boost the signal - my laptop and wireless router are 3 floors apart).
• A pair of old battery-powered external speakers.

After making sure my broadband connection was up, I connected my laptop to the TV via the S-video cable. I also connected the laptop to the external speakers. After flipping through the selection, my wife and I picked Sherrybaby and sat down to watch the flick.

The picture was as good as DVD quality - really. I don’t think I would have believed it myself, but it was amazing. The sound was ok - I didn’t bother to try and hook it up to my stereo system, but this would have improved it greatly. Since this is a relatively easy problem to solve, it doesn’t concern me much.

The only problem was a slight line that scrolled through the picture from bottom to top, an error from the refresh rate I assume. Certainly nothing worse than the quality I get from cable.

The experience was good enough that I’m motivated to finally create a media PC. I don’t relish the thought of dragging my laptop to the TV each time I want to watch a movie, even if the setup was a snap.

Was there a downside? Well, yes, actually. A big one. The selection is currently horrible. I know all VOD offerings have suffered from this problem because studios are still unwilling to release a lot of titles to this channel.

Netflix is definitely on to something, and it is a matter of time before the word-of-mouth starts spreading and entrepreneurs begin selling devices to overcome the hardware challenges. For the service to truly take off it needs an appliance as simple as a DVD.

Given the cost of Netflix, I can’t wait to ultimately dump Comcast and begin watching the movies I want to see, when I want to see them. I suspect it will take several years for Netflix to get the license rights, but the service will be compelling when they get a larger selection.

Comcast should be really, really scared.