Josh Babetski : Quixotic Bravado

Recent links posted to Delicious:

• 10 Awesome Free Sans Serif Fonts | My Ink Blog
• Revisiting the Mac mini media center | Entertainment & HDTV | Macworld
• iCal Reply Checker | John Maisey iCal Reply Checker is an add-in to iCal for Mac OSX 10.4 and 10.5 that gives the user options for how replies to meeting invites are dealt with. It allows the user to not send replies, send replies on a case by case basis, send all replies or (as of version 1.2) opens the reply message in Mail for editing.
• Apple - Downloads - Email & Chat - YAI YAI (you are invited) is a plug-in for Apple Mail that translates and transfers Outlook, Google Calendar, Zimbra and Exchange clone meeting invitations to iCal. It corrects many incompatibilities between Microsoft Exchange style meeting invites and what iCal can understand.
• Inconsolata
• pubsubhubbub - Google Code A simple, open, web-hook-based pubsub (publish/subscribe) protocol. Includes an open source reference implementation that runs on Google App Engine.

Recent links posted to Delicious:

• Font Squirrel | Handpicked free fonts for graphic designers with commercial-use licenses.
• IE6 Update IE6 Update looks like IE’s Information Bar, but instead of offering your visitors an ActiveX plugin, it offers a browser update.
• Mini Display Port to HDMI Adapter | Mini Display Port to DVI / VGA Adapter Mini Display Port to HDMI Adapter
• Firediff - In Case of Stairs Firediff implements a change monitor that records all of the changes made by firebug and the application itself to CSS and the DOM. This
  provides insight into the functionality of the application as well as provide a record of the changes that were required to debug and tweak the page’s display.
• Plex Media Center for OS X Plex bridges the gap between your Mac and your home theater, doing so with a visually appealing user interface that provides instant access to your media. Plex can play a wide range of video, audio and photo formats as well as online streaming audio and video. The real power of Plex is found in its library features: Organize your media into versatile libraries, automatically retrieve metadata from the Internet, and display your libraries using one of the visually stunning skins.

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?