Archive for the ‘television’ Category
Just Finished Watching: Tripping The Rift #series
A good friend of mine told me about Tripping the Rift
Tripping the Rift is an adult cartoon, with a story line similar to Firefly. A band of space privateer/smugglers who constantly get into trouble with the leaders of the “good” Confederation and “evil” Dark Clown Empire. Chode – a horny purple alien – causes most of the trouble, which ends up being resolved by him and his misfit crew: teenage lizard, sex android, gay robot, and an ugly cow/hippocentaur. Nothing is sacred, which makes it all the funnier.
It is fun light viewing, and definitely not suitable for children. It probably won’t make you smarter.
Image source: title screenshot
Waiting for China Syndrome… #risk
I am a little twisted, which you probably already know, when a catastrophe occurs I can’t help looking at the news footage, waiting for it to get better and secretly expecting it to spiral out of control. Perhaps it’s the televisation of disasters and catastrophes which has triggered this, or my attune sense of risk.
I remember watching the footage of the invasion of Iraq with Bernard Shaw in a hotel in the center, fascinated by the bombs and explosions coming from the sky, and the tracer fire coming from the ground. Secretly expecting that the hotel that they were broadcasting from would get hit. The same with 9/11 expecting that the situation would get worse just before the Twin Towers collapsed. The market catastrophes in 2000 and 2007.
The light at the end of the tunnel is an oncoming train.
—Wall Street proverb
The recent earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan causing the nuclear power plant to explode. In my head I just expected it to get worse, China Syndrome worse. I’m certainly not against nuclear power, as my party affiliations might suggest, I believe that the risk can be handled. I just don’t believe that people can handle the risk and accept the incidental risk that can’t be contained. And there is a certain amount of risk acceptance having the mission critical, single point of failure generators of a nuclear power plant run on diesel rather than using the power generated by the plant.
If we examine the Sony PSN hack and clearly see that risk avoidance protocols that PCI-DSS has in place were plainly ignored. The game companies – Nintendo and Sega – that followed who saw the hat-trick failure of Sony and ignored the warnings.
Image source: Svadilfari
Locard’s MacGuffin Theory #television
TV is great, and I watch lots of it while playing on the computer, whether that’s researching a blog or real work. I love the workings of the mind and the workings of science. Which is why I like CSI, Bones and Numb3rs. The latter one annoys me often by using Mathmatics as the Deus Ex Machina, not that the former two are any better with their liberal use of the MacGuffin. CSI and Bones have the advantage of “Locard’s Exchange Principle” to produce the MacGuffin.
“Wherever he steps, whatever he touches, whatever he leaves, even unconsciously, will serve as a silent witness against him. Not only his fingerprints or his footprints, but his hair, the fibers from his clothes, the glass he breaks, the tool mark he leaves, the paint he scratches, the blood or semen he deposits or collects. All of these and more, bear mute witness against him. This is evidence that does not forget. It is not confused by the excitement of the moment. It is not absent because human witnesses are. It is factual evidence. Physical evidence cannot be wrong, it cannot perjure itself, it cannot be wholly absent. Only human failure to find it, study and understand it, can diminish its value.” – Professor Edmond Locard*
Alfred Hitchcock gave the example of a MacGuffin thus:
“It might be a Scottish name, taken from a story about two men in a train. One man says, ‘What’s that package up there in the baggage rack?’ And the other answers, ‘Oh that’s a McGuffin.’ The first one asks ‘What’s a McGuffin?’ ‘Well’ the other man says, ‘It’s an apparatus for trapping lions in the Scottish Highlands.’ The first man says, ‘But there are no lions in the Scottish Highlands,’ and the other one answers ‘Well, then that’s no McGuffin!’ So you see, a McGuffin is nothing at all.“
Originally posted here.
technorati tags: television, tv, locard, csi, bones, numbers, linguistics, macguffin, theory, wikipedia
Birthday Greetings
There are a number of greetings for this year, Mattel’s Barbie turns 50 this year. You’d never guess to look at her.
DC Comics is turning 75, and Batman is 70 which makes him a year younger than Superman. Don’t ask me how old Albert, he must be pushing up the daisies by now.
Marvel also turns 70, it founded as Timely Publications in 1939. Their first hero was Human Torch.
Sesame Street turns middle aged at 40.
technorati tags: marvel, comics, dc, mattel, barbie, birthday, sesame, street
IBC Awards
VideoLAN as a broadcast system #media
I just finished writing an initial Statement of Work for a video uplink so the company I’ll be doing the work for will be able to include their LA office in the festivities organized by the Amsterdam office
Currently the thinking was using either a pure VideoLAN or a Dreambox for the broadcast – the Dreambox used VideoLAN to broadcast – and a simple VLC client with a beamer and speakers on the otherside.
Read the rest of this entry »
YouTube, what’s the use?
I have had enough of the location restriction. What’s honestly the use of restricting me from watching something on YouTube? I can subscribe to a channel which then disallows me from watching the movie. It makes it even more interesting when I can get all the BBC channels from the cable or digital television here in the Netherlands, yet can’t watch the repeats on BBC’s or YouTube’s websites.
I’m against piracy, seriously against it, so I try to get things legally. I don’t download music or films, even though it’s perfectly legal in the country I live in. I watch all the stupid adverts on MSNBC’s news items, even though I figured out years ago how to skip them.
This is why I like Google Video, though I still fear Googlezon.
Who else thinks it irony that Google owns Youtube?
Technorati Tags: piracy , youtube , bbc , msnbc , cbs , news , television , googlezon
IBC Invitation Code
If you haven’t yet gotten your invitation code for the IBC, I still have an invite you can use. I prefer not to post it online, so please reply to this entry.
technorati tags: ibc, film, television, tv, conference
Whedon’s Television Labratory #television
I was browsing over IMDB and saw that Joss Whedon is busy filming another TV series, “Doll House”, which will star Eliza Dushku. You would remember Eliza from her series Tru Calling and in her roll as Faith Lehane – Faith is so hot! – in Whedon’s earlier series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
Amy Acker, who we’ve seen in Alias, but know better as Winifred ‘Fred’ Burkle in Angel will also have a roll, as well as Tahmoh Penikett (Battlestar Galactica) and Harry J. Lennix (24), we should see performances from Raphael Sbarge, Clayton Rohner and Maury Sterling.
The plot is much the same as we expect from Whedon, crime and love stories in futuristic packaging. Although I have yet to see an episode the plot descriptions I’ve read feel like Dark Angel meets Tru Calling.
If it’s Whedon, it’s something to look forward to.
technorati tags: joss, whedon, television, tv, dushku, elizadushku, acker, amyacker
Word of Mouth is Funny #buzz
It looks like HBO has been using Word of Mouth Marketing to create buzz for it’s new Vampire show True Blood. It’s funny how I heard of the movie Twilight which won’t be out until December almost 2 months ago.
True Blood won’t be airing until the 7th of September.
General Musing 