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NerdTV Coming in September
Random BedHead Ed writes "After years of development, Robert X. Cringely's NerdTV is finally on its way, and will be released September 6th. The program will feature interviews with prominent nerds, such as Bill Joy and Macintosh programmer Andy Hertzfeld. But far from being a normal television show, it will be downloadable. As Cringely explained last week in his column, BitTorrent and the expansion of broadband made this the right time for such a move. The show will be available at pbs.org/nerdtv/, where there is currently an information page.
Larry Lessig points out that the show will be distributed under a Creative Commons license - the specific license is not specified, but Cringely and PBS say that noncommercial use and redistribution will be allowed."
How many Robert Cringley's are there who write tech columns and host PBS computer shows? Or does the man in question secretly want to be referred to as RXC?
Gee, that ought to make for compelling TV. Earth to Bob: it's now 2005.
This is way cool.
Really nice for us geographically challanged non-americans to get it without the usual half-a-year waiting period too.
Reminds me of the earlier internet. Thousands of sights on, aghast!, computer programming. Zero on fashion, or gardening.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
It's going to be awesome. Bob is always fun to watch and read. And he's pro splicing. So it's going to be okay to have some fun cutting up his interviews and doing interesting things to them.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
So between slashdot stories I can get my "hit" from TV?
Unless they have a mostly white back ground with a funky green menus and fonts. Otherwise I think I will stick with my Slashdot.
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
The Creative Commons license is often heralded among certain music circles, because it affords an artist the ability to remix and mash licensed songs as they see fit for non-commercial purposes. ..personally, I can't wait to make my own 'remixed' versions of Cringely's show for my own nefarious purposes.
--- What
I have to sit at work listening to my fellow programmers, now I can finally go home and listen to more programmers. Thank you PBS!
Just the fact that someone is giving their show away over the internet for free earns enough respect for me to actually give this a look. I haven't ever heard of the host, but if he's smart enough to know about Creative Commons liscenses he's better than 90% of the computer show people out there.
Software is like sex. It's better when it's free. -Linus Torvalds
Are they going to be licensing Naked News? If they are going to properly service Nerds the needs the right news service.
Maybe he wants to be called "Rixey."
I like the whole redistrubatable deely.. Maybe we could have an apt or portage repository.. Then one could daily do an apt-get install tvshow or emerge tvshow? Now that would be super Cow Powers!
When did it become ok to start calling people nerds ? Seriously, is it ok to call a hip-hop dance show "N*ggers that dance" ? Before you say "Well that's different because that's a racial epiteth then how about a home remodeling show "Fags have fun with your living room" ?
I mean, since nerd IS still a word that is used in a negative way it should not be bandied around like this. I don't care if you're not offended by it. Some people are.
And before you say "Well you are posting this on a site labled 'news for nerds'" I say yes, I know that Einsten. And it bothers me, but I think if anything. This is the place that a discussion like this needs to happen.
In an average living room there are 1,242 objects Vin Diesel could use to kill you, including the room itself.
Will it include commercials? If it does, and advertisers are still willing to pay even if the show is not being distrubuted via standard means (i.e. television), then we may be witnessing the beginning of a new era of advertising. Kind of like what Google did with Adwords.
...if Cringely will wear some of his fluorescent polo shirts?
It will gradually build its own cast of ecclectic personalities, building a loyal fanbase. Eventually it will reach a critical point at which it starts to slide more into the mainstream. This of course will be its doom as actual nerds are replaced by increasingly bland and mediocre television personalities. Then end will come when that scion of drek, G4, buys NerdTV out.
No, i'm not feeling hostile. Why do you ask?
If more programs start jumping on the p2p bandwagon, then it's going to start getting harder and harder to pass laws against it under the argument that it is only used for illegally trading files.
The success of this show may directly effect the future of p2p, and the internet as we know it; because if it does make it, others will likely follow suit.
Go ahead and call me unreliable; reliable is just a synonym for predictable.
It would be great if they used bittorrent to distribute the programming. The more valid legal reasons for bittorrent to exist the better.
Not so much licence, as they will aquire franchise rights - So ESR and Stallman will alternate nights, with Cowboy Neal the 'man on the street' interviewer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
....is doing at http://twit.tv
Sick of stupidity? http://www.patentlystupid.com
I can't wait to make my own 'remixed' versions of Cringely's show
... :-)
That would be truly hilarious. But if you want real fun with remixing, do it with the Bill Joy + Andy Hertzfeld content, since they are exact opposites, the first a born-again Luddite wanting to cease all technical progress (now that he's made his millions), and the second a pretty normal progressive techie.
The result would probably rival Monty Python
It really will be interesting now that this has been on Slashdot to see how many seeders there will be after the show goes up...
Get ready to max out your 6 mbit lines!
Could a cable company broadcast it in an available channel slot? Perhaps throw it in the mix of its community programming?
Any one have some answers on that?
Usually, I despise watching Television. But this would be something worth watching/downloading.
/.TV! But, then again, there is not enough time to show all the comments.)
And another reason to get a new handheld video player!
(I think there should be
Does this mean I can I recompile it? Do I get the source? What if it shows up in SCO code?
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
I want my...
I want my...
I want my Nerd TV.
Technoli
now we get NerdTV. (You know you need the 'bleeding edge' and early adopters before you get to the generally accessible fun stuff, but since they're not time-locked, it doesn't matter when you 'discover' a series.)
Wait until producers realize that they can use broadband and a content aggregator or Google to skip the entire 'kowtow and then bend-over facing the other way' process that they go through with the current lot of content disseminators.
No more canceled shows until there's no audience for them, not the current trade-off of "we can squeeze more profits with pushing ads on schlock than we can with your high concept stuff, so piss off."
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
"Beginning Sept. 6, PBS will make available - exclusively over the Internet - broadcast television's first entirely downloadable series"
So it won't actually be airing on PBS, just on the internet?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
"We're pleased to be offering this new video-download news format free to Slashdot customers." said CmdrTaco, who would not indicate whether he was hard or soft-shell, "It is another example of how Slashdot is on the fringe of digital news."
When asked why viewers should get their video news from Slashdot rather than going straight to PBS and downloading the whole news program, CmdrTaco replied "Well, we know our Slashdot readers are busy. Some of them can only check the site 10-12 times a day, and as everyone knows they don't have time to read the articles. So what we've done is cut out everything but 10 seconds of the interview, the best inflammatory bits we can find, and then added an audio-only cynical or sarcastic comment at the end, with an occasional 'Linux is getting better every day' comment for good measure. We tried video footage using a web cam for the comment, but it was, well, kinda creepy."
CmdrTaco also said Slashdot is working on another new feature called Slashdot ReMix, where existing news items are posted by different Slashdot editor and given a slightly different spin, to see how different angles of the story are received. Perceptive Slashdotters, he noted, have noticed this system in beta testing over the past few years, with more heavy testing in the last 1-2 years. He believes the system is now nearing perfection.
For some reason I don't think that there will be any kittens sacrificed because of this program.
--
There used to be a whole cable TV channel devoted to nerds called Tech TV. (The name, but not the shows or people was sold in 2004.)
Cringely noted, "With more than half of American homes with Internet access now using broadband"
So when will website designers start to realize that half of us aren't able to get broadband?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Excellent! Now the nattering naybobs of negativism here at work, who currently have conniptions whenever I try to use something from TV in the classroom, can't complain. Well, they can still complain, I just won't have to comply.
As a sysadmin supporting programmers, I totally agree! I do actually enjoy hanging out and working with programmers. Now I can hear about even more!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
How about offering other PBS shows for download. My mom TiVo's "America's Test Kitchen" every weekend, and I enjoy watching MotorWeek. It would be nice to just download them, burn to a CD, etc.
I'm sorry, I tried to like him, but Cringely is a hack. He makes wild ass guesses and long winded posts about things like getting Wifi from a neighbor and why are we suposed to care again? /. posts links to his garbage at least weekly, if /. is getting cash from these posts to Cringely, I think they should tell us.
Remeber Cringely famously posted in 1998 that the iMac launch was going to fail.
"For one thing, it is very doubtful that there will be enough of the machines to go around. Apple's expectation, I have read over and over, is to sell 400,000 of the machines right away. I hope they do. They plan to have at least the first 30,000 of these machines in stores by next Friday. That, I doubt. As of last week, only about 5,000 iMacs had been produced. And a random sampling showed an out-of-box failure rate of 11 percent, which is vastly above Apple and the industry's average. These are just teething problems, sure, but they are problems nonetheless. You'll see stories about them."
We didn't see stories about them because it was all bull.
Cool now if this catches on (and it will) we might be able to get some real Tech shows. I would love to see Laporte and the gang do a video podcast so I can try and erase the any thoughts of "attack of the show" out of my mind. Ewwwwww!!!!!!!!! Bad TV man.... Bad TV
It would seem to take their ability to use it as a derogatory term away if it's embraced, a badge of honor even.
Joe Shmoe sees us wearing it as a badge of honor, wouldn't see someone else calling us a nerd as an insult to us. Thus, it doesn't have the intended effect.
That's just my take on it.
Now I'm hungry for Tacos. Mmmm.. soft taco.
I'm a gay, black, geek - you insensitive clod!
They should add Leo Laporte to the line up. He was one of the few good things on TechTV.
I have no
Now, channles often have nothing to do with what they are named. MTV might as well be reality TV... 4 episodes of Real World followed by 4 episodes of Road Rules, followed by 8 episodes of Real World versus Road Rules. Ugh. Then, for the 200th time a repeat of "When the 80's ruled".
But here is what gets me pissed off. Did everyone hear MTV is now using the money we paid (through watching the advertising) to start a new tv network for gays and weirdo's.
Same thing with a Nerd network. Do we really need it? How about haveing The Learning Channel and Discovery channel having real science programming? Has either station ever played The Mechanical Universe? I know it is PBS programming, but they show it at 2am once a week on a friday. Or what about either of those two stations following NASA? Or having a weekly tech show. Instead, TLC is airing Trading Spaces, a show where two neighbors redecorate their houses, and then suprise each other (How do you like it, I knew you would love your living room painted lime green).
Names are meaningless today. Just like when government passes the Patriot Act. They just pick a popular name for marketing purposes, it really does not tell you much about what it is. They should have called it the Terrorism Prevention Act, it would come a little closer to the truth, or better yet Lets Take Away All Civil Liberties Act.
I don't need 100 channels. I need 10 good ones. Give me a true science and tech channel. Give me one true news station, and not an editorial station. I already have ESPN, they are pretty good with sports. I think you could combine FoodTV and Home and Garden to have one channel, on Living (Do we really need 6 episodes of $40 dollars a day, highly offensive to me, as I watch this woman suffer to feed herself on only $40 each day, while I live off $4 a day).
Toss in a movie station for a 5th station.
And while we are at it, some RULES for all TV stations to follow. #1, get rid of the laugh track. It is not funny when a character comes on stage. I don't need a pre-recorded laughing sound to know when to laugh or what is funny. Are people that stupid that most laugh because they hear laughing? Once you hear the laugh track, and you become aware of it, it will ruin all your shows. It will become very annoying.
Rule #2, No more advertising while a TV show is airing. I don't mean commercials. I mean the boxes that pop up and take 1/9th of the screen with an advertising for what is on TV next. Or what movie is playing this weekend. Or even the ones that identify what station you are watching. I know what station I am watching.
Rule #3, Don't cut off the end credits to a show. Some of us want to know who an actor on a show was. Some of us hate the screen splitting, with an advertising on the opposite side. Some of us want to take the last minute to enjoy what we just saw, as we watch the credits.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
With all the crap that is readily available on television, it is good to see a show that might actually have a chance at being decent. I'll watch the first couple installments and see how it goes. Good to see the use of the Creative Commons License as well as the online availability. Anyone who can get the network (even PBS) to agree to those two conditions has to have a good head on his shoulders.
NerdTV? Give me a break. Wasn't there someone around to help these socially challenged people to come up with a better name? Nerds just suck, geeks get things done.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I hate to get all "liberal" and whatnot, but does it have to be "NerdTV"? Personally, I got over the cuteness of terms "nerd" and "geek" about 5 years ago. Using "nerd" just undermines the whole thing IMO.
Nah, if you wanted real contrast, you would like up quotes from Bill Joy with quotes from Ray Kurtzweill, hero the the "transhumanist" movement which thinks we will all get to live to be 200 as cyborgs if we just take the modest step of cutting our own nards off... or something like that. I can only read so much of any transhuman web site before it starts to sound like ranting of the "Time Cube" variety.
How many nerds prefer watching TV to, say, a bloviating website full of typos and dup's? How many geeks?
--
make install -not war
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'd just be happy if I could get a copy of James Burke's Connections. Man, that was a good series.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You had my interest with this, really, you did.
Then you said the word "Cringely".
Now I don't care about this anymore.
;shrug;
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I wish they would stop letting us know so many weeks in advance. I am so impatient!!! I wish we found on sept. 5th.
Dave
That process took my breath away.
:-)
Not the part where you actually explained it, rather, the part where I realized I understood everything you were speaking about. If you do too, then congrats. You're a nerd.
Always remember that for 95% of the population, your reply might as well have been in Alien pig latin. Yes. Computers are THAT foreign and scary to people.
One of four of the original primary software architects of Mac OS
Created the MagicCap OS (it had a really cool/funky GUI and AFAIK is sadly complete dead)
Founded Eazel in 1999, which gave us the Nautilus file manager for the GNOME.
'Nuff said.
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
I'm all for it if they can convince Wil to show up at least once.
Reminds me a lot of a local access show I used to watch called "High Tech Heroes".
http://www.webfoot.com/hobbies/hth.blurb.html
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
Google already knows the future of "television" is shared hosting (via bittorrents, etc) of user-submitted content, and I'm sure Robert Cringley knows this well too.
Nothing stopping these producers from advertising, and it might even be cheaper to maintain an online presence than to broadcast the show the regular way.
I'd like to candidly plug my own small contribution to internet video here:
BeGeistert 14 Interview with yellowTAB
user@host$ diff
I know a lot of nerds who won't ever be cuming. Not even in september
...remember when the news about a video game network came around?
Support Liberty, Support Ron Paul
...get Leo Laporte and Patrick Norton on board, and I'll watch it every night. Man, I miss the old Screensaver Show. Can hardly stand the replacement show, whatever they call it now on G4...
yes this show would come out on my birthday how cool?
Hertzfeld (and Woz, Raskin, and similar) are a lot more responsible for the amazing technical strides made by Apple than Jobs, who inexplicably seems to get the lion's share of the glory. Jobs is notable for (a) cheating his "friend" Woz out of their shared earnings on the first Apples, (b) always blowing his own horn as loudly as possible and appearing in as many magazines as possible, (c) being an incredible prick towards those who worked with him, (d) refusing to acknowledge the daughter he fathered out of wedlock. He is not a Nice Person.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Hope it features Eugene who is now a superhero amoung nerds in the UK. He never stops talking from engineering to caravan races!!!
Any peeps in the UK will know who I mean!
Personally, I hate the supersized "politically correct" phrases a lot more than short synonyms, which a few wackos find offensive just because they're short. If you're a nigger, a nerd or a fag, you'd better get used to being that.
"Nigger" and "African-American person" are synonyms. Neither one is more "offensive" or "politically incorrect" than the other. One's just shorter.
Check out http://www.legaltorrents.com/index.htm There is a program called Go Open.
Their claim to fame was that it is the worlds first ever TV Program dedicated to "All things Open Source."
It includes interviews with major open-source figures such as Richard Stallman, Lawrence Lessig, Jon 'maddog' Hall, and Bruce Perens, as well as case studies and discussions of Shuttleworth's Ubuntu Linux.
"If only smart people like your shit, it ain't that smart."
Blogdex [blogdex.net] does this for websites.
No, blogdex does that for blogs, which means you can pretty much ignore all of it.
U R Dumb. Go to blogdex, most of it is from news websites or other things. Some blogs are linked to but less than half.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
A few new shows they could try
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
I believe it was TLC; I had a stack of VHS tapes that a friend of a friend with cable had made.
Ah, you're right. It's available, though $150 is a mite steep. Amazon carries it used for around $100 per series. Gleep. VHS will run something around $70 each. Still gleep.
Ah, and I recall The Day the Universe Changed as well. Available for the low, low price of $750. Educational pricing is a racket.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I R Not dum. From the blogdex.com about page:
Blogdex is a research project of the MIT Media Laboratory tracking the diffusion of information through the weblog community.
Who R Dum now? And really, is typing the four extra charaters to magically transform your post into English that difficult?
U R Still Dumb. It tracks things that blogers link to. Last I checked blogs aren't restricted to only linking to other blogs?
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
U cud B trying 2 give the secret of life and U would still B a jackass for trying 2 abbreviate three letter words. kthxbye.
It's been a long time.
I'm off to score mad educational goodness from eMule...
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca