Tag Archives: television

Ant Physics, Lots of Television Show Stuff, Godzilla, and an Awesome Optical Illusion

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This entry is part 25 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Over the next week or so, there’s going to be a lot of news on TV shows that get canceled, renewed, and picked up from the list of potentials.

That always breeds a lot of laments and cheers from people… and more than a few quirked eyebrows in some cases.

It also breeds some great discussions about why we like what we like and why shows we don’t like get renewed. That’s what happened a lot today. I won’t rehash it (and if I were going to, I’d probably do it on my ToobTalk.com site… which has gathered quite a bit of dust).

There’s also a lot of highly charged political stuff on the horizon… net neutrality being the big one that concerns me. So, keep an eye out for that, too.

Crawfish Boil, Taste the World, Star Wars Day, Church and State, and a whole lot of other stuff

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This entry is part 21 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

This past weekend was a busy one. Some friends of mine had their second annual crawfish boil. A day full of more food than you can sensibly eat. (Not that that stopped any of us from trying.) Also the requisite and assured good company of good friends. Really can’t beat that.

Followed that up on Sunday with another food-oriented event, the fourth annual Taste the World in Fenton Village, one of the projects I’ve been helping out with for the last few years. It’s a fantastic community event that, four years in, really seems to be coming into its own. This year the weather cooperated pretty well (could’ve done with a little less wind… but that was far better than the rain drenching everyone at the end of the day last year) and we had a little extra boost from Yelp! along with all the normal local support.

Sunday was also May the 4th… Star Wars Day! Not that I did anything special for it, since I was out all day with Taste the World, but it did lead to some very entertaining online things to come home to.

All in all, pretty solid weekend… and one that I could really use another weekend to recover from.

History Most Don’t Know, Instances of Future History in the Making, Talented Kids, and other Interesting News

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This entry is part 20 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

Today’s been another mixed-bag, newsfeed-wise. There’s a lot going on in the world right now and it seems most people don’t even come close to grasping just how much things will change, depending on which way some of it goes.

The big one, of course, is the ongoing Net Neutrality fight. But that’s running parallel to the continued fallout from all the revelations about how the NSA (and other agencies) have been spying on pretty much all of us. Both of those current events have some of the biggest players in the information game at one another’s throats. In the first case, it’s the content providers against the infrastructure owners. The the second, it’s companies like Google against the U.S. government.

Both of these fights are going to get a lot more messy before they get better. There are indications that there’s some heavy corporate influence shifting the sands of the Net Neutrality battle in ways that I (and many others) think will be very bad for the public in general. In the domestic surveillance case, a number of companies are trying desperately to regain the trust of their users (and their foreign business partners) by pushing back against gag orders and, apparently, gearing up for a drawn out fight with intelligence agencies and law enforcement.

There’s more than a little overlap in the “good guys” and the “bad guys” in these two arenas. I find myself rooting both for and against some companies (like Verizon, who stands a lot to gain if there’s no mandate for Net Neutrality, but is also in a position to fight against the government overstepping it’s bounds in the surveillance arena). It’s… problematic, to say the least.

All I know for sure is that the world has been changing really quickly over the past 30 years or so. For decades, we’ve been in a period of transition where out reach has extended beyond our grasp. Waters have been further muddied and vision blurred by high emotions and secret dealings. Even now I doubt we have anything near the full picture of everything going on in these two major battles.

This could go on for years. But I worry that the bulk of the public is either ignorant of the importance of these fights or already growing bored with the legal wranglings and semi-obscure technical specifications. Without the support of an knowledgeable public, the big players are free to do whatever they want, regardless of whether it’s good or bad for the rest of us.

Can’t say I care much for that.

But I don’t have any good solutions, either.

Cancellations, Supreme Court Gaffe, Interesting Food, Net Neutrality, and Rain

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This entry is part 18 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

So, Fox has apparently neglected to renew one of my favorite shows from the past season, the scifi cop show Almost Human. As I’ve said a lot in comments today, I think that’s a horrible idea on their part.

The show had a lot of potential–a rich world that they were just beginning to explore, characters that worked really well together (played by actors who worked really well together), interesting plots, and plenty of room for expansion, spin-offs, and other things that would quickly grow an already steady fan base.

But, network economics being what they are, the show has been dropped in favor of new shows on the schedule that tie into existing franchises (like DC’s Batman) and other things that are expected to be trending next fall. Sadly, I don’t hold out a lot of hope that the new shows are going to be as good as Almost Human was… and I really doubt they’ll be as good as it was well on its way to being.

Guess only time will tell… but I promise you, I’ll be super annoyed if all the new shows get cancelled quickly and/or otherwise don’t make it into a second season.

More Than a Little Art, A Call to Action for Net Neutrality, Some New Entertainment, and Awesome Science

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This entry is part 17 of 100 in the series Today's Tidbits

I often say that I’m not a music person–mainly because I’m not… at least not like a lot of other people I know how eat, breath, sleep, and generally live music. I enjoy music, but I don’t particularly seek it out or obsess over it.

What I do like, though, is a solid performance. Of anything. Regardless of whether I like the song or not, if the performer gives it their all and really puts themselves out there… well, the audience gets something special. Whether that “something” is what the performer intended is another story altogether (see: William Hung or, for that matter, Ed Wood when it comes to film making). In the feed today, right near the end, were three impressive musical bits. Two of them involved real singing, the third was pure performance (lip synching). All of them have impact and meaning beyond just the words or humor.

I dig that.

Same is true of anything where someone is putting themselves out there. It’s most obvious in performing or visual arts, but it’s also true of writing–both fiction and non-fiction. There’s another story in the feed that illustrates how you can’t just shut down people’s love for a story they relate to… and, more importantly, how absolutely backward the attempt to do so can go.

And wish science… well, science is an adventure all its own. You want risks and rewards, science has those in spades. Pursuing a line of questioning that no one else has–maybe that no one else even thinks has any value–that’s a committed act of will equal to anything else out there. Actually succeeding and seeing what you thought could be done become reality? Elation better than anything else.

I envy that kind of drive. I really can’t find it in myself. This is a problem. I’m working on it. Until I succeed, I just take solace and inspiration in those who do have it.