Josh Babetski : Quixotic Bravado

Recent links posted to Delicious:

• Blueprint: A CSS Framework | Spend your time innovating, not replicating Blueprint is a CSS framework, which aims to cut down on your development time. It gives you a solid foundation to build your project on top of, with an easy-to-use grid, sensible typography, useful plugins, and even a stylesheet for printing.
• Lifehacker - 30-Second DVR Tweak Speeds Up Commercial Skipping - TiVo 30-second commercial skipping a Comcast DVR:
  1) Press the "Cable" button at the top of the remote to put it into Cable Box control mode.
  2) Press and hold the "Setup" button until the "Cable" button blinks twice.
  3) Type in the code 994. The "Cable" button will blink twice.
  4) Press (do not hold) the "Setup" button.
  5) Type in the code 00173 (for 30 second Skip).
  6) Press whatever button you want to map the skip. (I use the fav button—next to mute.)
• Short URL Auto-Discovery ‎(wiki)‎
• Porting code to Python 3 with 2to3 - Dive into Python 3
• Capo Capo is a musician's best friend. It lets you slow down your favorite songs, so you can hear the notes and learn how they are played.

So while talking about the network rerun strategy, the topic also came up about shows who get the axe and the die hard fans who send food products to the network in an attempt to put them back on the air. I can see the argument from both sides: The fans have an emotional investment in the story and feel the networks are screwing them; The networks look at the ratings and want to maximize profit for the time slot.

As a side note, I find these campaigns to send rice, nuts, whatever a little misguided and annoying. If you have all that food laying around, send it to a food shelter. Help someone out how doesn’t even have a television. The only productive thing you’re doing by sending that stuff is aggravating the mail room staff at the network and giving an extra paragraph or blog post of material to the entertainment pundits about the show being canned. You can be vocal and effective without being at-this-point cliche and sending food. No network executive is going to be like “Oh my, look at all these jelly beans — 13 new episodes immediately!”

Since these shows will be canned anyway, I propose something else: The Closure Clause. I think the contract with the network and studio, producers, actors, whomever should state that in the event of a cancellation they will still be able to write and shoot an episode from scratch to bring closure to the story line for the fans. I listen to the Lost podcast and have heard their producers state a number of times that they have a fast-track plan if the show were ever to get canceled to tie up the loose ends of that universe.

With the power that fans now have via the Internet, networks will continue to have to pay more attention to the sense of entitlement that viewers feel they have toward a particular program. Being proactive will help with viewer relations and will make sure that the mail room staff is taking home less leftovers.

So the writer’s are on strike. This means that we have months of bad reality TV on tap. I know we’re all excited about that prospect!

I have a suggestion for the networks: Restart the Fall Season. I’m talking with a buddy yesterday about shows we watch. He’s very into Life, a new show on NBC. I’ve never watched it. Even with a dual-tuner DVR, I just don’t have time to watch a lot of tube. Anyway, my buddy explains the basic premise of the show; it sounds interesting. However, I’ve never been able to get into a show I’ve latched onto mid-run. So in addition to moving shows over from sister cable networks, they should re-run the reruns of other shows from the beginning so I can give them a try and watch them in order if I like them. Deal?