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

By /
Watching TV in the 1950's whilst striving for a healthy home amongst obnoxious energiesI 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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Be kind

Popular articles

Make Your Public Event Calendar Usable To All

Image
If you run a sports club, this post is for you. If you are on a community committee, this post is also for you If you host events, this is for you. If you put on shows, this is for you. In fact, if you do anything that has a date/time component that you'd like to share with people, this is for you . Yep, probably for all of us. Sharing calendars can be both: an effective way of letting everyone know a complete and utter technical pain in the bottomly region If you've posted up an events page onto your website you know how difficult it is to keep up to date, how the readers have to keep coming back to get the latest changes and don't even think about integrating with somebody else's "events page". Ok, so we all know the problem. What's the solution? iCalendar (normally shortened to iCal) ... yep, it's a geek word that you will come to know and love just as much as RSS. In fact, think of it as RSS for calendars. But that's enough geekery, if you want

The Difference Between One Million And One Billion

Image
It's feels like a billion is just a bit bigger than a million. Obviously it's bigger but it fits on the same scale as a million, surely. It doesn't. A billion is so so so much bigger than a million. I've trawled the internet finding graphics and videos that show the VAST difference between one million and one billion. Oh, and just to finish with a different misconception about space starting with the classic opening line from the great Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy : “Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.”

Reflections In Blue

Image
Of course "Reflections In Blue" Is a jazz album. Art Blakey and his Messengers Would love you to hear it. Coooool.

[Updated] Pubs of 2024 Monmouth

Image
"Back in the day", yada yada yada, yes we all know there were more pubs than people, there was a pub every two houses, the largest number of pubs per square mile than anywhere in the known universe, there was a pub named after each and every one of us, and yet, YET we only ever went to same one every time. Monmouth has changed, it now only has 10 pubs.  "Ten! Ten? It used to be ten pubs just in the top of town. There were ten pubs I'd walk past to get to my local." Yes, yes ... times change, we now have 10 pubs in Monmouth . Oh, and the Mayhill but that seems to be more a ghost pub, it can be seen but only in the dark and no-one will believe if you say you went in. Monmouth, a town in Wales (YES, it is in Wales ), a town that has a population of around 10,317 (as at 2021). A town who's 1980's population was, well, I don't know, despite a century of censuses being taken, it's impossible to find (1991: 8,206 | 2001: 8,877 | 2011: 10,508 | 2021: 1

NO! The Greatest Story: Space Worm

Image
[Update: Poppy Hillstead was removed from the line-up in 2020 and all of series 1 - 3, in which she was a part, has been deleted. I would suggest not bothering with Gossipmongers anymore as this incident left a very bad taste in my mouth. And of course there is no longer anything to embed around the Space Worm, sorry folks] The GOSSIPMONGERS podcast has David Earl, Joe Wilkinson, Poppy Hillstead sharing gossip and rumours which are mostly hilarious, often scatalogical, and sometimes the greatest stories you've ever heard. The 2019 supreme champion is the TRUE Space Worm , listen up (starts at 37:35) and prepare to snort LOL Subscribe to GOSSIPMONGERS