About the Blog
Let's all go get sushi or something . . .
Let's all go get sushi or something . . .
Archive
February 2008 (2)
January 2008 (4)
December 2007 (3)
November 2007 (1)
September 2007 (2)
August 2007 (2)
July 2007 (1)
June 2007 (1)
May 2007 (3)
April 2007 (4)
March 2007 (6)
February 2008 (2)
January 2008 (4)
December 2007 (3)
November 2007 (1)
September 2007 (2)
August 2007 (2)
July 2007 (1)
June 2007 (1)
May 2007 (3)
April 2007 (4)
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Tags
top five filesharing definitive critique wb civil war top ten michael bay superhero registration act bad movies vigilantes digital illegal copy downloading movies means and ends franchise comicbook movies starcraft digg lawsuits vigilantism united nations league of extraordinary gentlemen movie list comic book worst films posting jlu webcast world war hulk 2008 negativity guilty pleasures marvel comics review alan moore shra superman returns namecalling artist the last stand p2p buffy tv show series media 2007 hulk future watchmen comparisions un loeg copyright protection illustrator xmen 3 online shows top 5 intellectual property comic hulk war x3 copyright digital download recording industry worst movies web comic
top five filesharing definitive critique wb civil war top ten michael bay superhero registration act bad movies vigilantes digital illegal copy downloading movies means and ends franchise comicbook movies starcraft digg lawsuits vigilantism united nations league of extraordinary gentlemen movie list comic book worst films posting jlu webcast world war hulk 2008 negativity guilty pleasures marvel comics review alan moore shra superman returns namecalling artist the last stand p2p buffy tv show series media 2007 hulk future watchmen comparisions un loeg copyright protection illustrator xmen 3 online shows top 5 intellectual property comic hulk war x3 copyright digital download recording industry worst movies web comic
Merin's Blog
WB Takes a Step Online - Which is the Right Direction!
(Tue 04/29/2008 08:39am)
NYT's Article
okay, trying to get over the horrible color schemes and dayglo annoyances
ahem
Apparently the WB is making a comeback, with ad-supported free episodes of its best shows (Buffy, Gilmore Girls, etc) plus some other content it's partners have rights to (Friends.)
This is nothing but a good thing.
With more and more tv content available online, to be viewable whenever people want instead of being held to broadcast scheduling, we will start shows survive or fail based on the interest people have in watching them instead of competing tv scheduling and times available for people to watch shows.
I don't care about the ads so much. That's par for the course. I think they will soon learn that embedding ads in the shows themselves is not the best way to do things, but for now I'll suffer through.
First many shows put their recent episodes online (Lost, BSG, etc.) and we have options like XBOX Marketplace (I think it's like $2 an episode and I've caught missed How I Met Your Mother and Supernatural episodes this way) and now sites like Hulu and the new WB.com.
The more people who watch shows and purchase movies online, the bigger the push for the industry to force fiber optic cables to all residents and BOOM - much faster internet, and the digital revolution will have been won!
Matter o' time.
(Tue 04/29/2008 08:39am)
NYT's Article
okay, trying to get over the horrible color schemes and dayglo annoyances
ahem
Apparently the WB is making a comeback, with ad-supported free episodes of its best shows (Buffy, Gilmore Girls, etc) plus some other content it's partners have rights to (Friends.)
This is nothing but a good thing.
With more and more tv content available online, to be viewable whenever people want instead of being held to broadcast scheduling, we will start shows survive or fail based on the interest people have in watching them instead of competing tv scheduling and times available for people to watch shows.
I don't care about the ads so much. That's par for the course. I think they will soon learn that embedding ads in the shows themselves is not the best way to do things, but for now I'll suffer through.
First many shows put their recent episodes online (Lost, BSG, etc.) and we have options like XBOX Marketplace (I think it's like $2 an episode and I've caught missed How I Met Your Mother and Supernatural episodes this way) and now sites like Hulu and the new WB.com.
The more people who watch shows and purchase movies online, the bigger the push for the industry to force fiber optic cables to all residents and BOOM - much faster internet, and the digital revolution will have been won!
Matter o' time.
Eye Strain
(Fri 04/25/2008 08:30am)
Mania's tween-girl color scheme and layout hurt my eyes.
I'm not telling a site how to do its business...
but it has been a bit since the change and I find myself visiting less and less. And my eyes hurting as I try to read articles.
Maybe I'll get used to it.
I dunno.
(Fri 04/25/2008 08:30am)
Mania's tween-girl color scheme and layout hurt my eyes.
I'm not telling a site how to do its business...
but it has been a bit since the change and I find myself visiting less and less. And my eyes hurting as I try to read articles.
Maybe I'll get used to it.
I dunno.
Looking for Illustrators / Artists
(Wed 04/09/2008 05:33pm)
Illustrator Wanted!
I am a wanna-be writer. By that I mean I write stuff, lots of stuff, but have yet to actively seek publication and, since I've not sold a piece nor really had my products read by many, I hedge on calling myself “a writer.” Largely, I guess, because I don't really feel like one yet.
That aside – I seek the aid of illustrators. I have ideas, scripts even, that I would like to see put forth in sequential art. Comic book format, or web comic format, or both. Largely non super-hero stuff, but I do love the guys in tights and am not adverse to the genre.
I have samples of my writing style available – prose and script - and can share the sort of things I'd like to co-produce with serious, interested inquiries. I am also very willing to co-create, both with ideas I already have and on new projects dreamed up by my artists.
If you are interested in partnership, please contact me. I'd like to see your work and if we agree we are a good match, I'd love to work with you!
I do have several models for distribution and promotions in mind, all I need is a dedicated and hard-working artist (or several.)
Please contact me at merin@charter.net if you have any interest.
(Wed 04/09/2008 05:33pm)
Illustrator Wanted!
I am a wanna-be writer. By that I mean I write stuff, lots of stuff, but have yet to actively seek publication and, since I've not sold a piece nor really had my products read by many, I hedge on calling myself “a writer.” Largely, I guess, because I don't really feel like one yet.
That aside – I seek the aid of illustrators. I have ideas, scripts even, that I would like to see put forth in sequential art. Comic book format, or web comic format, or both. Largely non super-hero stuff, but I do love the guys in tights and am not adverse to the genre.
I have samples of my writing style available – prose and script - and can share the sort of things I'd like to co-produce with serious, interested inquiries. I am also very willing to co-create, both with ideas I already have and on new projects dreamed up by my artists.
If you are interested in partnership, please contact me. I'd like to see your work and if we agree we are a good match, I'd love to work with you!
I do have several models for distribution and promotions in mind, all I need is a dedicated and hard-working artist (or several.)
Please contact me at merin@charter.net if you have any interest.
Buffy Issue 11 Review - Webcast
(Fri 03/28/2008 04:56pm)
Here's a link to me reading my review.
Just practicing for further webcasting.
(Fri 03/28/2008 04:56pm)
Here's a link to me reading my review.
Just practicing for further webcasting.
Forget Physical Media - The Future is DIGITAL
(Wed 02/27/2008 08:02am)
I often find myself and others trying in vain to get people in various forums and debates to understand that things such as HD DVD vs. Blu Ray, rental stores and advertising on television are all going the way of the eight track and sky writing and taking your stereo in to be fixed at local electronics shop -
- this things won't completely disappear, but they will be such a small part of the reality we live in day to day that they are not worth worrying about.
The online revolution is happening, despite about half the country not realizing it. See, most of us are too happy that DVD box sets of television series are finally being released quickly and often that we don't understand that this is too late. The people who've been using torrents and previous file-sharing programs know what the near future will be, however. Just like the geeks who used their dial-up modems to connect to BBS's back in the day and chat with people, send messages, and download files knew that much of the "matrix" of Neuromancer was only a decade or two down the road.
Check out this story - http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-music27feb27,1,5116325.story?track=rss&ctrack=2&cset=true
- about how young people just don't buy CDs anymore. Now, to be complete honest here, I'm late on the downloading music / iPod scene - I still don't have an mp3 player (I just, a little over a year ago, got a CD walkman that can play mp3 discs!) - I wanted an portable digital music player well before iPods were released, just have never bought one (eyed the Zune warily, but no, no purchases) - but the issue, my point, is that the change is finally happening despite all the foot-dragging of the entertainment industry.
Terrabye hard drives are about $250 at Best Buy. A TB is 1024 gigabytes, you know, what a Blu Ray disc holds 50 of. Blu Ray movies are, what, at least $25 on average? Let's say $20. To have the same storage of a TB HD, you'd need over 20 Blu Ray discs for the cheap price of over $400.
Yes, those discs have movie content. Yes, the HD is empty. But I think my price point comparision is still valid.
Moving beyond the hard drive, there are flash drives out there, those tiny pack of gum sized digital storage devices, that can hold a lot of information as well. You can get an 8 GB one (about a DVD of data) for like $35. About a year ago that was the cost of a 1 GB. See the trend?
Western Digital has out these portable HD's, about the size of an iPod or cellhone (not a slim phone or a nano, no, but like a wallet or checkbook,) called Passports. These babies are a bit on the expensive side right now, $200 for about 300 GB or so (working from memory here, too lazy to google search), but the device has just hit the market - wait for competition and saturation and the prices, and storage capacity, will grow.
My point? Physical storage for movies / music / what-have-you exists for cheap that doesn't require inserting and storing a single disc per movie. And it's getting cheaper. FAR FASTER than we went from mp3 music to iTunes and 40 GB iPods.
The hold up is the speed of data transfer via the internet. We need those fiber optics cables lain that Vice President Al Gore was pushing for BEFORE he and President Clinton took office the first time. The telecommunications industry is the hold-up here. Government pressure / tax credits / grants would help with this (as a fast online network would be a boom to MANY industries and the government as a whole, if we could just get the concept past the "internet is a series of tubes" idiots in Congress.)
Of course, there is a chance I'm not looking far enough ahead. Businesses love subscription services, and don't want consumers to own permanent physical copies of anything . . . the near future could well hit faster than I'd assume where we forget storing copies of what we want to watch / listen to / read / play, and instead our portable devices and home entertainment systems are always connected a vast, super-fast wireless communications network where we can access the media on demand without any need for downloading anything. Who knows?
In the end, high-defintion DVD discs are just a blip that, historically, will probably not even attain the amount of reference that the DVD revolution will. Blu Ray is, most likely, the new eight track cassette.
Of course, I still think eight tracks are pretty damn cool. But I'd rather use my laptop for music, thanks.
(Wed 02/27/2008 08:02am)
I often find myself and others trying in vain to get people in various forums and debates to understand that things such as HD DVD vs. Blu Ray, rental stores and advertising on television are all going the way of the eight track and sky writing and taking your stereo in to be fixed at local electronics shop -
- this things won't completely disappear, but they will be such a small part of the reality we live in day to day that they are not worth worrying about.
The online revolution is happening, despite about half the country not realizing it. See, most of us are too happy that DVD box sets of television series are finally being released quickly and often that we don't understand that this is too late. The people who've been using torrents and previous file-sharing programs know what the near future will be, however. Just like the geeks who used their dial-up modems to connect to BBS's back in the day and chat with people, send messages, and download files knew that much of the "matrix" of Neuromancer was only a decade or two down the road.
Check out this story - http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-music27feb27,1,5116325.story?track=rss&ctrack=2&cset=true
- about how young people just don't buy CDs anymore. Now, to be complete honest here, I'm late on the downloading music / iPod scene - I still don't have an mp3 player (I just, a little over a year ago, got a CD walkman that can play mp3 discs!) - I wanted an portable digital music player well before iPods were released, just have never bought one (eyed the Zune warily, but no, no purchases) - but the issue, my point, is that the change is finally happening despite all the foot-dragging of the entertainment industry.
Terrabye hard drives are about $250 at Best Buy. A TB is 1024 gigabytes, you know, what a Blu Ray disc holds 50 of. Blu Ray movies are, what, at least $25 on average? Let's say $20. To have the same storage of a TB HD, you'd need over 20 Blu Ray discs for the cheap price of over $400.
Yes, those discs have movie content. Yes, the HD is empty. But I think my price point comparision is still valid.
Moving beyond the hard drive, there are flash drives out there, those tiny pack of gum sized digital storage devices, that can hold a lot of information as well. You can get an 8 GB one (about a DVD of data) for like $35. About a year ago that was the cost of a 1 GB. See the trend?
Western Digital has out these portable HD's, about the size of an iPod or cellhone (not a slim phone or a nano, no, but like a wallet or checkbook,) called Passports. These babies are a bit on the expensive side right now, $200 for about 300 GB or so (working from memory here, too lazy to google search), but the device has just hit the market - wait for competition and saturation and the prices, and storage capacity, will grow.
My point? Physical storage for movies / music / what-have-you exists for cheap that doesn't require inserting and storing a single disc per movie. And it's getting cheaper. FAR FASTER than we went from mp3 music to iTunes and 40 GB iPods.
The hold up is the speed of data transfer via the internet. We need those fiber optics cables lain that Vice President Al Gore was pushing for BEFORE he and President Clinton took office the first time. The telecommunications industry is the hold-up here. Government pressure / tax credits / grants would help with this (as a fast online network would be a boom to MANY industries and the government as a whole, if we could just get the concept past the "internet is a series of tubes" idiots in Congress.)
Of course, there is a chance I'm not looking far enough ahead. Businesses love subscription services, and don't want consumers to own permanent physical copies of anything . . . the near future could well hit faster than I'd assume where we forget storing copies of what we want to watch / listen to / read / play, and instead our portable devices and home entertainment systems are always connected a vast, super-fast wireless communications network where we can access the media on demand without any need for downloading anything. Who knows?
In the end, high-defintion DVD discs are just a blip that, historically, will probably not even attain the amount of reference that the DVD revolution will. Blu Ray is, most likely, the new eight track cassette.
Of course, I still think eight tracks are pretty damn cool. But I'd rather use my laptop for music, thanks.
