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It is a fact that autocomplete in a search box is a wonderful tool to find the answer to life's most difficult questions. That is why autocompleteme.com is one of the best sites ever created.

I stumbled across this video of the Muppets performing Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. It's genius.

Alright, that was sarcasm, because I'm not sure a live action/CG version of The Smurfs is really called for. Though, maybe if they make it "darker" and more "gritty" then... no, nevermind, it really doesn't need to happen.

Yes? No?! Maybe?!?

As Dollhouse winds down, talk of Joss Whedon's next project seems to be settling on series of motion-comic webisodes based on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 series of comics. I have been following this comic series, though delayed as I insist on reading the collections in graphic novel form, and I really do enjoy the series. I usually finish a book in two or three days and I am always left wanting more. While some of the stories don't have the impact I'd like, the overarching arch is fairly classic Buffy-verse material that successfully captures the characters we've grown to love and hate from the TV series.

The real question, though, is whether I'd even be interested in seeing this comic series turned into a series of webisodes. I think that gets a big "Eh." I'd watch it, of course, probably even eagerly, but I'm not convinced I really need this series. The comics are quite satisfying and I'm not sure a web series would bring anything new that would make it superior to the comics.

Of course, we have no idea what will happen with this project or whether it's even real. I think for now I'll just forget all about this and be happily surprised if it ever does end up being "broadcast" on the web.

Unfortunately, physicists are saying that man-made micro black holes are not likely to eat the Earth. Back to the drawing board, I guess...

It looks like Fox is pulling the plug on Joss Whedon's Dollhouse and I can't say this is a surprise to anyone. They should be filling out the rest of the 13 episode season (schedule in the io9 article), which should hopefully give Joss a chance to wrap things up in some semblance of an ending. Yay.

Why am I not excited or sad? Because The Sarah Conner Chronicles really was the better show and we all could tell that Dollhouse wasn't going to make it. Just seems like a bit of a waste.

Just not by team Left 4 Dead. I don't actually know what place we came in, but it wasn't in the top three and wasn't in the last three or four. Regardless, it was lots of fun, even if I personally contributed no value whatsoever, it was still a great ride.

Heading out to participate in the Undead Invasion and, hopefully, save the world. More likely, we'll be eaten by zombies. Wish us luck!

Mostly to those I haven't talked with recently, I started a new job today. Most should know that I hadn't been happy in my previous job for at least the last year and possibly longer, so this had obviously been building for a long a time. Finally, I just decided it was time take action in favor of my own happiness and bring about some change. So here I am, a month later, starting out at a new company. Learning new names (sort of) and new procedures. Learning that pretty much all offices are way too cold (because two makes a trend), and confirming that it's always difficult for a group to decide where to go for lunch.

I was pointed toward an article that explains Comcast's interest in buying a majority stake in video streaming site Hulu and probably changing that over to a pay-for service. Because Comcast and the other cable providers and broadcast networks seem to be clueless, I'll do them a solid and clue them in on how television programming is going to work in the future.

The key point to always remember is that information and media is always free. Not because the world is full of cheapskates or because those young punks just want to buck the system, but because humans transfer information freely between each other. Constantly. Every instance of communication between people is a transfer of information and that can never be universally controlled without leakage. Other forms of media, be they written, recorded audio, recorded video, or live streams, whatever it is, exists in a world only a hairs-breadth from our native forms of communication. The dividing line between them is the medium in which they reside. In the ancient days this media was on bulky cartridges, cassettes, or reels of tape or film that required expensive equipment to view or record and wasn't generally available to the average consumer. As technology matures, access to these media forms naturally grows more and more accessible to just about everyone with access to electricity. And even those without hard line access to electricity can pop out a small solar cell array to recharge their iPod or laptop. Media is everywhere and anyone can access it.

I am not advocating world-wide piracy here, I am simply explaining the world we live in. A world in which, the moment a television program is broadcast over the air or transmitted by cable to a residence, someone is on the other end recording it. Once that program is recorded it can and will be encoded into some format that can be transmitted digitally to anywhere in the world. There is no protection possible that can prevent this. So the question is, Mr. Cable Company, do you bury your head in the sand and pretend none of this is real, or do you accept the world we now live in and get creative with your business plan?

Here's how the future of media distribution is going to go down: First, everything will be available on the Web. For free. The living room television will no longer care about over the air signals or digital cable or any of that nonsense. Instead, the TV will be a media portal to web sources. Users will subscribe to these sources (think something like Hulu, but set up for access in the living room similar to Windows Media Center or MythTV or Miro) to get show updates and reminders or set up personalized schedules and playlists. For most users these services will be free and ad-supported. Users will be able to sign up for paid subscriptions to view programs ad-free and get access to whatever interesting premium services the portals can come up with.

If you're thinking ahead, then you've probably realized this means the death of any other service that provides these videos. The broadcast networks will cease to broadcast in traditional terms. They will certainly continue to produce programming, which they will then sell to the portals. So in effect, the portals are the direct customers, the subscribers to the service. The networks are no longer making money on advertising, they make money instead on selling their program to services that then do the distribution for them.

This will also mean the death of traditional cable television. Cable providers will become simple broadband providers and by this time, broadband will be CHEAP and also regulated by governments the world over to guarantee minimum service quality following in the footsteps first laid down by countries like Finland. I expect the cable providers will either have large stakes in these media portals, or just own them outright. I can see it now, the "Comcast Network" is now just a site on the web where people go to get the content they used to access through their set-top boxes and DVRs.

The most significant benefits to the end user should be obvious. Generally free ad-supported access to any program in the world including live news feeds. Access through your television to your personal audio repository that exists out in the cloud somewhere. These would be tracks you have purchased through services like iTunes or Amazon music that get tagged for you to use and access anywhere, be it your TV, your phone, your portable audio device, whatever. They'll all be able to access your personal media stores. This also means asynchronous viewing of programs. No longer do you have to consider a broadcast schedule and be forced to watch at that time... Of course, many of us abandoned this long ago with the introduction of DVRs, but in the future you won't even have to worry about programming those things. You just subscribe to a program and it becomes available to you as soon as it gets posted. The only schedule you have to consider is the release schedule of each program you subscribe to. Of course, you still have to consider live feeds, but those probably run 24/7, think CNN, C-SPAN, BBC News, and so on.

Clearly this isn't all going to happen tomorrow, but I would say it would be a pretty safe bet to develop over the next 10 to 15 years. In the meantime, I have no doubt broadcast and cable networks are going to continue to try and charge everyone for oxygen ignoring the fact that we can pretty much get oxygen anywhere just by inhaling.

Update (2009-10-21): Just found an article about something called Keychest being developed by Disney: "The technology would allow consumers to pay a single price for permanent access to a movie or TV show across multiple digital platforms and devices—from the Web, to mobile gadgets like iPhones and cable services that allow on-demand viewing. It could also facilitate other services such as online movie subscriptions."