I can’t say if the people behind HelpNathanBuyFirefly.com took him dead serious or not, but the fact remains that his comment set wheels turning in the minds of many fans. Fox is not making new content. No other production company is licensing the property. But if an interested company could get hold of those rights, a company that cared less about profit than about making themselves and other fans happy…

Yes, several involved parties said it was a bad idea, but why exactly? I grant that there’s a trust gap when giving money to strangers, but there are methods of closing that gap. Help Nathan Buy Firefly’s plan involved Kickstarter, a service by which people pledge money, but don’t send it until what they were promised can be delivered. It’s been pointed out that the rights to Firefly are not for sale. But if an organization walked in with the right bid, would Fox really say no? Those involved in Firefly publicly made it clear they have no involvement in the HNBF project, but if a fan-owned production company was able to get to a place where they could offer jobs, who would turn down the chance to come back?

Ultimately, there is one person who must be involved to get other people on board: Joss Whedon himself. I don’t blame the others for not wanting a part of a Whedonless Firefly. And while I can understand wanting to publicly distance himself from an untried, unaffiliated business venture, why wouldn’t he wait to see if it could get legs? I can’t speak to his motives on that. Hopefully the fact that the group got this far will give him something to consider in his own endeavors.

The ultimate injustice is how the news was handed down. There was no official statement from Joss Whedon. There was no official statement at all. A hundred thousand fans were told to kindly back off by Whedon’s sister-in-law in less than 140 characters. Thousands of dreams were crushed with one tweet. It hardly seems appropriate.

This is the part where some of the more die-hard Browncoats might quote from the episode “The Message.” I’m not that hardcore. But the message from the Whedonverse is clear: “you cannot do the impossible. You are not mighty.”

PBS, I know your structure sets you apart from the other public television services. You only have one channel per market, so you have to limit your range of programming. You get most of your money from donations, which both limits your production values and guides your target audience. You don’t have a centralized programming production entity, but rely on member stations to create content, turning the traditional concept of a “network-affiliate” relationship upside down.

PBS, I know you have your limitations, but they result in your programming being what I would call “WASPy,” if it weren’t for the fact that, being prejudiced to the political left by financial ties, there’s not so much of the protestant faith involved.  Still though, the stigma you have is that the portion of your programming that isn’t for children (only fourteen hours a day, mostly when everyone sleeps) is for snooty white intellectuals who like to talk stodgily about politics or classical music. The only kind of programming I can think of that isn’t locally produced that doesn’t have brows in the stratosphere is the woodworking shows carrying on the This Old House legacy.

I’m in my early twenties, and while I appreciate classical and jazz music, and history, many of the things you put on the air, and I’m glad that you give them a place, I feel a little left out. Although I enjoy these things occasionally and I’m glad they are given a forum, I feel like you’re not paying attention to me.

I look at other countries’ public television services, and I see legacies of great programming that does cater to me. Doctor Who, Monty Python, The Red Green Show, and many others. Programs that your stations often import to fill time. In fact, many a late night hour on my local member station is often filled with dry British sitcoms, and they designate Saturday prime time “the British Telly Club.”

Now, I may be a bit of an Anglophile myself, with my own biases, but the fact remains that you produce nothing for my demographic. It makes me a little jealous on your behalf. Why can’t PBS produce a high-quality sci-fi show that appeals to the twenty-to-forty demographic? Okay, sci-fi is pretty niche, and quality is limited by your donations and advertisers underwriters.

But couldn’t some of that money going into master-crafted children’s animation be put into winning back the lost generation? Couldn’t you put less of the time on your digital subchannels (which you are handling the best of all the networks) toward rerunning Great Performances all night and more into something that appeals to the people who are still awake at one am? Couldn’t you make an effort to reach out to make the people with the most discretionary spending throw some of it in your coffers?

If nothing else, you’d make it up on DVD sales.

For most of January, the rumors about Apple’s tablet called it  the “iSlate.” It’s certainly a cooler, more dignified name than “iPad.” When over last weekend those rumors shifted to the correct name, my first thought was, “yeah, that’s what they’d call it.” At the same time, it represented a fundamental shift in my understanding of how Apple brands their products. iSlate is a “hip” name, while iPad is more “trendy.”

And while a million amateur and professional comedians knock it for sounding like a feminine hygiene product (a thought that never entered my mind), it has an effect that iSlate would not: people are talking about it by name. “iPad: just narrowly beat out TamPod.” “Geez, what a tacky name, iPad. I’m going to call it iTablet, because that sounds cooler.” “iPad? Sounds like you’re saying iPod with a Boston accent.”

I think also the Slate vs. Pad issue shows the underlying difference in paradigms between what was expected and what was offered. A Slate is written upon. A Pad is jotted. Slates are made of stone. Pads are quick and flimsy. Slates are dignified and expensive, Pads are gimmicky and cheap.

As someone who discovered Tablet computers in middle school (though I didn’t get to use one until college), I’ve been waiting for the industry to sit up and take notice of this underdog technology, but I also developed expectations of what a Tablet was.

The defining characteristic I picked up on was the stylus. You can write and draw on the screen. But that’s all I want to use the stylus for. I don’t even want it for word processing, because the human eye is far better at handwriting recognition than the technology will get before we move on from physical input.

Before the iPad, Tablet PCs were just the same old desktop archetype with stylus support thrown on top. Just as much as handwriting is intuitive for creating text and sketches, direct touch, with your fingers, is the feature nobody thought of that makes such forehead-slapping sense when Steve Jobs is waving around a 9-inch slab of metal on stage.

So I think in that sense, the iPad is a step in the right direction. But it’s too many steps in that direction. The operating system is oversimplified for the touch-input philosophy. The singletasking archetype was frustrating on the iPhone, and now Apple is asking consumers to accept it on what by rights should be a full-fledged computer.

As far as marketing, I also think Apple is getting it right, but more quietly. Anything with an Apple logo on it tends to be popular among students regardless, and iBooks is poised to do what the Kindle and Nook couldn’t: draw textbook publishers into the relatively inexpensive world of eBooks.

So Apple is bringing the Tablet to education. In my years drooling over Tablets, the most frustrating part of watching the concept flounder was that it looked like a tremendous tool for students, but was only being targeted at the business sector. Meanwhile, businessmen were happy with their Blackberrys and keeping the price of Tablets high. Students could use a Tablet to harness all the power of handwritten notes (the stylus argument again) and all the simplicity of an electronic filing system.

So here’s my final word on the iPad. Apple’s hardware is superb, but the software is just a warmed-over iPhone. I’m looking forward to seeing the industry follow Apple’s example, but I also don’t want the stylus to die. I can’t wait to see it fall into the hands of the same programmers that brought you Jailbroken iPhones. I wouldn’t Jailbreak my iTouch, but I would Jailbreak an iPad in a heartbeat.

Maybe then it would let me use Flash.

One thing I don’t like about it, though, is what happens on our TV when we watch pre-DTV content on a DTV station. It’s commendable that they pillarbox the 4:3 image so that you get this:

This keeps the original image, without squeezing or cropping. But our digital tuner letterboxes that image, so we get this:

That’s called Windowboxing, and I hate it with a passion. As I’m the only member of the family who cares, I set it to zoom and leave it zoomed, unless there’s a program I’m watching that takes full advantage of the wide frame. I wish I didn’t have to crop the extra, but switching zoom on and off is a tedious process that only I care about.

There is another alternative: that stations switch between 4:3 and 16:9 signals. I have seen 4:3 signals, but I don’t know the process the station needs to go through, and so I will not ask them to do it for every program format change.

I propose that stations instead put that extra space to good use, perhaps something like this:

This has the advantage of filling space and keeping the audience informed. Some difficulties would be to try to keep it from being too distracting, and burn-in from the weather map may still present some concern.

***

On a different subject, there is a way I believe DTV can improve a problem of broadcast TV. When a storm hits an area, it’s the station’s duty to give the affected regions the information they need to know, even if it means they preempt programming. However, while the area in danger is watching with rapt attention, a much larger part of that station’s served area is bored and annoyed that they are missing their shows.

I propose that in a weather emergency, broadcast stations either shunt their scheduled programming to subchannel 2, or run a ticker announcing the subchannel to watch their weather coverage on. They can even take a page from those emergency weather radios and make TVs and tuners with the capability to see a flag stating “region X needs to hear this,” and automatically tune accordingly (weather radios have a region code that activates the radio when an area is under alert).

Of course, in order for my proposal to work, cable and satellite companies would have to be required to carry at least two feeds of programming for every station, and it’s my current understanding that the FCC is more likely to take away subchanneling than adapt Must Carry to accommodate subchannels.

But that’s the future I want for broadcast. Before the Internet kills it, anyway.

Feel free to suggest movies you want reviewed! I’ll do my best with the resources I have.

Get your box of theater candy and get ready for the zeitgeist to hit the fan, Yesterday’s Movies will officially launch December 4 on a biweekly schedule.

My advice is to come to this movie having read the book, but with a fresh mindset. Presented with the book’s alternative, the film’s last act is weak in ways they had little excuse to allow, but it still works very well. If it were not for all the characters tossed in without explanation. Context is vital, right up until when Harry and Dumbledore return from their Horcrux quest.

In order to save time, they establish that Dumbledore can apparate within the castle. I’m okay with that. The fact that it’s because Dumbledore is awesome, and not just because he’s headmaster, is a nice touch. But then they apparate back into the Astronomy tower. Again, saving time, but I loved the way Dumbledore was too weak, and Harry had to do it. “Of course I’m safe, Harry. I am with you.” But, time constraints. Anyway.

The first major complaint I’ve heard about the ending is that Dumbledore doesn’t freeze Harry under the invisibility cloak. I agree. It’s better, it makes more sense for Harry to not intervene, and it’s a moving moment when the spell lifts and you know Dumbledore is dead (did I mention Spoiler Alert?) but it’s a compelling scene anyway. I appreciate it for what it is. Snape gesturing to Harry to stay quiet is a great moment. You get the idea he may be there to step in and save the day.

So after that famous, shocking three-word phrase (Snape Kills Dumbledore!), the Death Eater party just leaves. They were there to see Dumbledore get killed, and then they go. Makes sense, in its own way. All the damage on the way out is caused by Bellatrix, which is charmingly in character. Without the huge battle, it certainly is anticlimactic, but it has its own internal logic so I’m not disappointed by what it includes.

The final confrontation with the Half-Blood Prince. This is the one time I’m going to say it: this scene was bad. I am disappointed that the fight doesn’t last long enough for Snape to tell Harry “Keep your mouth closed and your eyes open.” This is his parting lesson for the Chosen One, and the line doesn’t get as much respect as it should. Harry quickly goes for Sectumsempra, and Snape calls him out on “using my own spells against me.” Now, that line alone is not enough to cement the connection between the owner of the Potions book and Snape, so he says “Yes. I’m the Half-Blood Prince.” It’s as if Steve Kloves smacked me in the face with a sign that says “Get it???” Apparently, American audiences are too stupid to understand something more subtle like “all my spells, all my potions, written in that book, and still you learned nothing.”

Disastrously, the movie does not have the funeral! While I would have dearly loved the cameos from all the characters in attendance, funerals slow down stories. With all the material to get in, sacrifices must be made. I know everyone wanted Harry to stand in front of the marble tomb and say pretty words like, “of all the souls I’ve met in my education, his was the most… magical,” and see Hagrid play Amazing Grace on bagpipes while Dumbledore is shot out of a cannon into the lake, but the movie’s already two and a half hours long. Besides, just because they don’t have a funeral doesn’t mean they don’t pay their respects. I’m a tough nut to crack, but when those gathered around the fallen sage followed McGonagal in raising their wands, I was profoundly moved, to the point of tears. And all of this is thirty seconds, maybe a minute. I hold this scene as a prime example of what is known as Adaptation Distillation.

So to the fans who complain, I say again: yes, overall the book was better. It has license to be, because its only length limitation is how many pages readers want to lift. The film as a whole is a remarkable achievement in condensing an expansive story in an expansive world. I absolutely have my complaints, but they are drowned out in my mind by the overwhelming praise I have for this film.

I wasn’t raised to blindly follow the trend, and my father especially taught me to put more thought into my computing choices. I’m not anti-Mac or pro-PC. I believe in the right tool for the right job. What I am is anti-parrot. And this article parrots a lot of common arguments. It even starts off with one that gets me ranting.

Macs don’t need antivirus software – Yes. Keep believing that. Hackers love to hear Macheads use this argument to grow the Apple market share. The reason you don’t get viruses isn’t because you’re immune, it’s because you’re not common enough to bother with. But that’s no longer true. The more Macs in use, the more efficient a Mac-targeted attack can be. Linux has a stronger argument here, because there are so many different kinds of it out there. But if one gains a large enough market share, like Ubuntu is positioned to do, even Linux users will have to worry.

Macs can run Windows if they have to. PCs can’t legally run Mac OS. – Let’s examine the second half of that: the only way you can get Mac OS on a third-party machine (read: cheaper) is to illegally copy a heavy patch. Not that I like Mac OS, but I should have the option of walking into a store and picking up Snow Leopard for my compatible HP. I automatically distrust a system where software is locked into a specific company’s hardware.

While we’re on the subject, let’s examine a line from that argument: If you buy a Mac and end up disliking the Mac Os, no problemo. No problem at all. You just dropped a thousand dollar premium on a machine that’s doing what any bargain Dell could do.

Macs cost you less money to upgrade – the logic on this seems sound. I think the reason why used Macs sell so well is a mix of popularity, the userbase being accustomed to a higher price, and Apple’s exclusive control of the state of Mac art.

Most decent software is available for Mac. Most crap is only for PC. – Just because few think to write for Mac doesn’t mean it’s a good filter. Also:

If you ever had a chance to see what the average guy’s PC looks like, you might have seen tons of useless search bars, widgets, useless crap applications wich fall into the spyware category. This is because most PC users go “Duh, can I run it? Then Im’a install it!” right? Classy.

Macs read Microsoft Office documents – True. But can a Mac user help me out here? Do you need to install MS Office or OpenOffice to do this, or can it read them out of the box?

Press T while booting to use the computer as an external firewire hard drive – this is an awesome feature. Does it only work with Firewire? Oh, wait. there’s also this: And if a PC will ever be able to do so, it won’t be YOUR PC. And this doesn’t apply to Macs because…?

Your Mac is a media center right out of the box! Just buy a $20 remote… - Guess what! Certain PCs are media centers right out of the box! Provided you have factory-installed TV out. If you don’t, no worries. You can install one aftermarket. I know, I know. “Aftermarket” is a strange term for Mac users, because your Apple Approved hardware is not user servicable, or customizable at all, outside of some cosmetics.

The Mac OS requires no hassling activation procedures – This is a side effect of it being nearly impractical and undesirable to pirate the software. If you could pick up an installation disc, it would have activation hoops to jump through. No excuse for factory preloaded Windows, though.

Few dumb questions – Those dumb questions are setup preferences. While you should have the option of letting the experts think for you on them, I prefer going through the fiddly bits. You may have guessed by now I like to be in control.

Simple cloner app – Okay, it’s a simple backup system. It’s also third-party. Why isn’t there something that simple for Windows? Maybe it’s because nobody tried yet?

Bonus: Macs “Just Work” – … except when they don’t. Which happens more often than people care to mention.  And then they don’t give you any information to help you fix it. Just force quit and restart. If it’s a kernel problem, reboot. Pray it doesn’t persist. The “Macs are wonderful” crowd needs to take the advice given in this article: “our beloved machines are not perfect.” Windows users are at peace with this fact. How many Mac users will admit to their problems?

In summary, I want to say that I don’t hate Macs. I just hate using the Mac OS. I use it a lot these days. I spend a lot of time on a college campus, and the tools my classes want me to use are on Mac. (Final Cut Pro: Mac only) It’s not a horrible system to work in, the learning curve is just steeper than it should be. I accept that the windows are managed differently, but shortcuts could be more standardized. And why in the world does Apple think one-button mice are so great? I know, you can swap it for another, but really, Apple? Two is the recognized standard. I like five, but I was never one for blind conformity. And so I don’t buy into Apple’s culture of uniform rebellion. Do you?

Jump down to the large words if you don’t care about my own story, and just want to know what I mean by my incendiary title.

The first time I heard about it was actually way back in 2005 or 2006. Probably around the time Serenity came out on DVD.  We’d been watching some movie more on topic in my U.S. History class, which had a daily break for lunch. Coming back from lunch, the teacher was delayed for whatever reason. A friend of mine dropped Serenity in the DVD player, and almost got it started before the teacher returned.

I have no idea if he expected to succeed in his apparent intent. All I knew at the time was that it was a dark-looking film that looked like something I wouldn’t like, but I asked him later what it was. I got nothing from him other than, “It’s the movie of Firefly.” “What’s Firefly?” “It’s a really good show.” That was all I pursued. For all I was concerned, Serenity was a dark horror movie about humans fighting a giant burning insect. (Yes, I know what fireflies are… burning Mothra had come up within the last few weeks. You fill in facts where you don’t get any, you know?

Two years later, I was in college, had a laptop, and was spending much more time on the internet. Three things happened in quick succession. I’d been reading Starslip Crisis (now Starslip) and getting involved in the Halfpixel Forums (now defunct). On those forums, someone linked to TVTropes.org, which not only succeeded in sucking up all my free time forever, but also is liberally sprinkled with Firefly references. Between that and Save Hiatus (now unfortunately, on its second hiatus) — which is a story about fans dealing with the cancellation of a thinly veiled Firefly stand-in, and was also linked on the Halfpixel board — I got the story of how Firefly was a brilliant show that got the shaft. But the question remained, would I be interested?

We have to go backward a bit. Last summer, Starslip Crisis participated in a promotion with the Star Pirates online game. (Linked on the side, also linked here for convenience.) Starslip fans formed a pretty close group in that game, spawning an IRC channel and an even closer group of people who just hang out there and shoot the breeze. As I was learning about Firefly and becoming more and more and more convinced I should see what all the fuss was about, I got encouragement from some of those core members (Among them KingMengi, who blogs here) to do so. Hulu and Netflix later, I was interested in going deeper. While I have not yet read the comics (except the one published online), I have also seen Done The Impossible, a documentary about what the fans accomplished, and the community they forged.

tl;dr

Firefly is a show that I can say with 95% accuracy will endear you immediately. If you’re interested, you can see all the full episodes on Hulu. It’s a short series, it won’t take too long. I recommend watching “Serenity” and “The Train Job,” the first two episodes, then deciding where you want to go from there. If you’re hooked, carry on. If unsure, proceed to “Our Mrs. Reynolds,” or “Shindig.” If at any time you feel like quitting, see “Jaynestown” immediately.

Now, here is the part where I get to explaining my title. The fans often take the nickname, “Browncoats,” after the army the captain fought in during the backstory war. These fans have a close, but open community of dear friends who are very welcoming to newcomers. They also have a tendency to worship the creator Joss Whedon as a god (only half-jokingly. They definitely venerate the man.)

But moreover, while I am a fan, I am NOT a Browncoat. The Browncoats formed one of the closest fandoms ever, very quickly. They were connected enough to create efforts to save the show while it aired, even though it only aired over the course of about two months. They fought hard with Fox to rescue the show. They did everything in their power to “convert” as many people to the fandom as possible. Their strong efforts to get the word out helped Whedon convince Universal to pick up the film rights and make a movie. The name Browncoat is indicative of the parallel they draw between the hopeless fight between the Independence and the Alliance and the hopeless fight between the fandom and big, bad Fox.

It is they who have kept this little collection of thirteen episodes going. It is they who spurred the unprecedented development of a film being made by popular demand. It is they who built a fandom as devoted as the Trekkies but as mature as… well, one of those mature fandoms that you don’t hear about because they don’t make a splash.

Me? I’m just a fan of the show. The stand has been made. Serenity didn’t really do well enough to convince anybody to make sequels, and it’s been four years. At this point, not even Blu-Ray sales can probably summon another onscreen installment. From my perspective, the fight is over. I’ve shown up on the battlefield after the armistice, and all I can do is gape at the records of the battle. For the Browncoats, the war isn’t over. I wish I could have that faith.

I guess that means I’m a “flan,” the other name for Firefly fans. I’ve had Flan once, I wasn’t too impressed.

Me? I’m just a fan. A fan of the show, and a fan of the Browncoats who fought so hard for it.

I’m very sorry that the legions of the internet attacked this man, because I agree with the thesis of his original article on copyright, or at least I can sympathize. The creator of a work and their family should certainly profit from it. However, everything that followed sounds like a man grasping at straws where he expected a ladder to always be.

I particularly bristled at his response to mashups/remixes. Certainly a specific author has a right to refuse their work to be reused, but what about the other person’s right to create? With proper attribution, a reasonable amount of I.P. should be fine for sampling.

The real dilemma of the digital age is following the rules in an environment where the rules are easier circumvented than allowed for. This calls for two things: easier rules and a stronger honor system. Will we ever eliminate piracy? No, but we can engineer a society where it is looked down on. But in order to get there, we have to make it easier to cut the fat and get right to what we want to do. This means more education on licensing and intellectual rights, less fiddly locks that are easily bypassed by those with intent but exclude honest people.

Prices need to come down, and the distributors seem to be in the line of fire here. In a time when any independent band can get themselves hosting and release albums (or individual songs) for direct download, what is the role of the label? Permanent media are becoming obsolete, and if the consumer really does want a CD, they can bake their own in two minutes for under ten cents a disc.

Print is neither exempt nor doomed. Ebook readers are nowhere near ready to take the full load of reading. It’s impossible to say if printed books will ever die as a medium, but if they do, it won’t be in our time, perhaps not even in our children’s time. People want something to hold, something large enough to read at arm’s length.

However, still the traditional publisher model is on the way out. Mass runs of books have to stick to what is popular, but what if you could take the raw data and print a book whenever you wanted? You can. Kiosks are entering the market that can print and bind a complete book in a couple minutes. Compare to spending half an hour in a bookstore and leaving disappointed because they don’t have room on the shelves for it. Sorry, Pocket Books. Adapt or die.

We are going through a catastrophic shift in the Way Things Work, and moving through it much faster than any previous change. At least one industry is going to evolve into something unrecognizable. If publishers and record labels survive, they will only if they stop being sellers of items and start being information brokers.

Just like everyone else, I’m worried about this change. But while the Old Guard is worried about their way of life ending, I’m afraid of what it will become, particularly because it’s the Old Guard moderating that change right now. In the long run, perhaps the best outcome is for the existing companies to die, making room for younger companies that know what’s really going on.

But for myself, I hope that’s not the case. Because I’ll be graduating right into that mess. What the media need to do is wake up and realize that the world is different, and then adapt to that, instead of moaning about how things have changed.

Things have changed, and they’re not done changing yet. It remains to the corporations to change with them or die.

—-

A simple cough
Is nothing to sneeze at.
A sniffle becomes a flow
Becomes a stopper
Becomes an empty box of tissues.
A mild annoyance
Becomes an ache
Becomes ennui
Becomes a cave
Where every movement echoes.
An inconvenience
Becomes an illness
Becomes an inconvenience
Becomes a bad memory.
And soon is forgotten.