114 starred items including 'Documentaries on Google Video' + your 6 step guide to getting tv online

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I have 114 starred items in my Google Reader.
I use the star to remind me of tip-top articles that I simply MUST blog about.
I have 114 starred items ... best get blogging then!

And so, let's make it 113 starred items by linking you to BoingBoing: Documentaries on Google Video
Here's a link to the free documentaries on Google Video -- all 3,713 of them, including a 1978 BBC documentary of a road trip with Hunter S. Thompson and Ralph Steadman called Fear and Loathing in Gonzovision and a 40-minute documentary about Richard Feynman called The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.

These days, there are fewer reasons than ever to turn on the television. Link | RSS feed

The reason this is starred is not just that there are a few online videos out there you might like to see. No, it's because there is the world of online 'tv' out there that, once you discover it, will have you questioning the crap you are fed each night by mainstream TV be it terrestrial or satellite/cable (I'm looking at you TVNZ, TV3 and Sky).

Whenever I show someone "normal"* a short video from YouTube, as I did today with Jack & Meg's page, the most common question (in fact I can now guarantee it'll come) is:
Oh, so it's not just people's uploaded silly stuff then?

To be fair that's normally closely followed by, "Is this stuff legally available?" ... which it probably isn't despite Google/YouTube's recent announcements. However there is too much legally available 'tv' to worry about the illegal stuff AND, this is the future guys. I predict that within 10 years we won't know what a separate entity called 'TV' is as it'll come down the digital pipe alongside your messages, your chats with ya family and music.

Here's your 6 step plan to get yourself prepared for online tv:
  1. Get broadband [in NZ]
    There can be no broadband tv, "bbtv", without it
  2. Setup home WiFi (here's how 1, 2, and 3)
  3. Get/set-up a laptop connected to the WiFi and to your TV (how?)
  4. Prove it's out there
    Get along to Google Video, YouTube and Yahoo! Video and start searching for your favourite TV programs from the past. These off the top of my head:
  5. Sign up to free online 'tv' providers
    Joost is the one making the noise but there's others, check out Babelgum and Veoh
  6. Tell me when you last watched 'tv'
Kiwi's: if you think you're gonna miss out on the topical stuff then try this out:
* normal - not submersed in being online and quite frankly really only uses email at work because they have to - they have a life off-line ... for now.

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