2013-03-18
post/45690760933
“A view of Command Post at Headquarters, Strategic Air Command, Offutt Air Force Base, Omaha, Nebraska where television facilities send up-to-the minute information to help Commands.” Circa February 1961
Nice polar map.
2013-02-12
post/42895531144
igowen: “How Netflix is turning viewers into puppets, an overly alarmist title (and conclusion) for an otherwise interesting article.”
He’s right, it is overly alarmist. One of the interesting things about the Netflix House of Cards from my point of view (ie someone who saw the originals back in the ’90s on BBC) is that it’s actually that rare beast: a decent US remake of a British show.
It could just be that that’s because the US is slightly less terrifyingly bad at translating material now, but the failure of Life On Mars just a few years ago suggests that’s not universally the case. I suspect it’s actually got a lot to do with the approach Netflix are taking to drama: pick good people, take their hands off, and let them get it made. If those good people are picked partly due to “viewers who liked x also liked y and z so remake x with y and z”, then at least it means that there may be some actual connection.
(As an aside, I wonder if Spacey’s work with the Old Vic in London meant that he perhaps took more from the original (assuming he watched it) than most other American actors would?)
2012-05-01
post/22160935904
Hulu, which attracted 31 million unique users in March under a free-for-all model, is taking its first steps to change to a model where viewers will have to prove they are a pay-TV customer to watch their favorite shows, sources tell The Post.
In fact, the move by Hulu toward the new model — called authentication because viewers would have to log in with their cable or satellite TV account number — was behind the move last week by Providence Equity Partners to cash out of Hulu after five years, these sources said.
And it’s not just Hulu making it tougher for cable-cutters to stream shows and other content. Fox, owned by News Corp., which also owns The Post, is expected to begin talks soon with Comcast on a TV Everywhere deal that will require authentication. Plus, Philadelphia-based Comcast is expected to switch to an authentication model for this summer’s Olympic Games.
”2012-04-28
post/21952379026
EIA Linearity Chart, 1961. An explanation from the no-frills technical links page:
In the 1970s, if your color cameras had registration problems, the ball chart would show them to you. You see, the cameras had separate tubes for red, green and blue (RGB). After the RGB signals go through the NTSC encoder, and sync is added, it is then called composite video. If you point your Norelco PC-70 at this chart and the black circles have rainbows around the edges, you need to twist some knobs to get the red, green and blue pictures to coincide.
2012-02-24
post/18213390859
More from Ptak Science Books: Fantastic Cover Art: a Picture of the Future of Television:
This image is that of the television antenna of station WNBT and for many years it sat on top of the Empire State Building. WNBT was the flagship station of NBC, which was owned by RCA (Radio Corporation of America, 1919-1986) which (according to its name) was really the first national broadcasting radio network in the United States, and which (as experimental station W2XBS) became the first to broadcast a television picture (of a papier mache Felix the Cat) in 1928. This fantastic cover art for a 1947 promotional for the company pictured the famous antenna, the great visual of the company’s external hardware, right there on top of the world’s tallest building.
2012-01-24
post/16419615205
2011-07-18
post/7769547615
Nick Spencer, in the commentary track of “Morning Glories” #1 - Comic Book Resources (via timoni). This seems as good a quote as any to hang the following from.
Battlestar Galactica, while good, evidently didn’t have a plan (which is hilariously obvious if you watch the spin-off movie of the same name, which tries to retcon a narrative on top of the twists and turns of the first couple of series). Buffy, perhaps the first mainstream show to attempt long story arcs, only really did them on the scale of a single season.
However, way back in ‘93, Babylon 5 started what turned out to be a five year arc, and managed to carry it off despite both cast changes and uncertainty over its fifth season. The series may have a lot of flaws (the writer, JMS, has a nasty habit of portentous writing and the effects have dated somewhat badly) but I think it’s missing out on some of the credit it deserves for actually having a plot that was thought out at the beginning, rather than coming together as the series careered onwards.
(via timoni)
2011-06-22
post/6772525446
2011-06-13
post/6498415800
(via joshuanguyen)
