mariness

About that providing content, oh content providers...

Chuck really, officially ended last night, after several almost deaths. I had vague ideas of watching the final episode, but by the time it started, I hadn't written enough words for the day and the hordes of unfinished projects were yelling at me, which is not conducive to watching anything, so Microsoft Word came on and Chuck did not. No big deal, I thought. I could catch it online later – Hulu always had Chuck episodes up in a couple of days.

This morning my Twitter feed featured a couple of Chuck related thoughts, which reminded me of the episode, so I clicked on Hulu. Various clips, and links back to first season episodes on WB.com. No big deal. I popped over to NBC.com. No episodes. Then to Amazon, out of curiosity. Amazon.com has streaming episodes from the first four seasons available for $1.99 per episode (mildly ridiculous when the WB is streaming several of these from the first season for free now and presumably will be streaming more from later seasons later, but I guess if you really want something from the latter seasons or if you really hate commercials, hi Amazon). But not a single episode from the fifth season.

Ok, granted, Chuck was never a huge revenue maker for NBC – fans had to run to Subway for financial support for the show for a reason, and the endless "yes Chuck is ending no no it isn't" could not have been helpful. And I assume that NBC is hoping that Chuck fans, unable to find the final episode online, will be rushing to stores to buy the season 5 DVD set. But until that DVD set arrives, the only options fans have for that final episode are pirating or waiting. Meanwhile, NBC/Hulu/Amazon/iTunes are losing out on streaming revenue from either direct sales, Hulu subscriptions or online advertising.

(I am aware that the online advertising revenue stream is incredibly small – it has to be, otherwise more networks would be focusing on online episodes – but I keep thinking that it could easily be larger.)

On a related note, just a short time ago I was praising TNT for offering their shows for free online one week after initial airing. Yeah, that ended – now, to watch online, I have to enter information about my television provider. I don't have one. But even if I did, entering that info is yet another step.

I at least understand where TNT and HBO are coming from here – they depend on cable subscriptions and want me to get one, and if I watched more TV or wasn't on a budget, they'd even have a point. (I cracked the numbers though, and waiting/paying for both Leverage and Game of Thrones DVDs (even HBO's overpriced DVDs) is still cheaper than cable for me, so waiting it is.) But I'm mildly baffled by NBC. After all, Chuck is over; no one is going to be tuning into NBC to watch it anymore. Was this part of their agreement with the WB? Or are they expecting that keeping the series finale offline will help increase DVD sales?

It just seems odd that as the number of devices capable of watching streaming video increase, the number of legal outlets capable of showing streaming video seems to be decreasing. Perhaps it's just my perception.

Oh, and…unless I blog from the airports later (with my internet addiction, anything is possible) I am assuming that I'll be offline for awhile, largely since no one has informed me about the internet situation at home and given the reported chaos, I suspect that isn't the priority. On a related note, no Tor.com post this week – although I'll be back on schedule next week, assuming all goes reasonably well.

Simplifying 35 films into two short minutes:

35mm from Pascal Monaco on Vimeo.

I must admit, I haven't figured out all of them.

So as a few of you may have heard, the Republican Party made an admirable attempt to solicit the opinions of Normal Dudes Just Like You on their website, asking for thoughts on a number of topics.

They did not, it appears, reckon on the internet. Here are some responses from the site, copied over before they disappear:

On National Security:

We need to train an army of Ninja Cats. Cats are natural born hunters and predators, and it is known that they indeed have 9 lives, many more than the typical human life (being one). They are also excellent at hiding themselves and would be ideal for sneaking into countries and assassinating communist leaders to lessen the ever growing threat of communism, finding key terrorist leaders and shattering the global terrorist network. In fact they could be potentially useful in the current Korean crisis. Loyal to their trainers, the cats could rain destruction and fear throughout the world, and if ever captured would never tell who they are serving. Finally, after they have solved the worlds problems, they could serve as border patrol and show unflinching resolve at keeping illegals where the...

Enforce the grammatical rules of the English language. Setup an organization, the Grammar Enforcement Agency (GEA) to do this, and fund them well. Bad grammar is a threat to our national security, and is only succeeding in making us appear worthless and uneducated in the face of other English speaking nations.

We should put up a sonic fence around the US like on Lost. If it can keep out smoke monsters, it might work on Mexicans

I think all americans should bathe in Nuclear Waste. This has been shown to be an effective tactic in the past of transforming the human body into something more powerful and superhuman. With a nation of powerful mutants, not only would we prevent ourselves from being invaded, we would have a wildly powerful offense with millions able to fly, shoot lasers from their eyes and take bullets. Ninja Cats would still prove to be a problem.

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On job creation:

Americans need equal access to unicorns and rainbows to overcome barriers in the pursuit of sparkly happiness. Traditionally, unicorns have been too rare to truly impact the world and rainbows are too tied to occurrences in nature. Recent technological advances however make these limitations part of our dark past. The democratization of unicorns and rainbows is crucial for the US to be a major player as a world happiness leader in the future. Let the US be a shining light for the world, and let the shining light come from a the horn of a unicorn and sparkle in all colors of the rainbow.

On marine biology:

A "teacher" told my child in class that dolphins were mammals and not fish! And the same thing about whales! We need TRADITIONAL VALUES in all areas of education. If it swims in the water, it is a FISH. Period! End of Story.

And, the winner:

We need to ensure that the Republicans never give us up, let us down, run around or desert us.

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More at the site, but be warned: it's crashing under the delighted visits of people having fun with this.

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I think we've all learned a valuable lesson here. Although I must question the actual loyalty of the Ninja cats.