Tag Archives: Streaming
Not easy to watch, but important
It might even be NSFW, but not for the reasons you think. I’m honestly not sure of a way to introduce this gently, so I’ll just tell you what it is.
Here at UCI, I receive via email a daily digest entitled “UCI in the NEWS.” Whenever a UCI member is cited in a news source, whether local, regional, national, scientific, or other, they are added to the digest and we can find out all the ways the expertise here is being shared with the world. Usually I skim through it, sometimes clicking the summary link to find out more information.
The one I received today had a a story titled “UC Irvine doctor is live-streaming his colonoscopy.” How could I not watch that? Maybe get a pizza for the experience. Unfortunately, it happened at 8am the same day I received the email, so it was all over.
But you’re in luck! The page on which it was done is still up, and you can still watch the video. and while I’ve had a somewhat snarky attitude towards it thus far in this post, as the page explains it was all done for a very good cause. It provides some statistics about colorectal cancer, the importance of early detection (it can be treated *if* it’s found early), and for people who will need to be having the procedure done on themselves or a loved one soon, it might give you an idea of what to expect. You probably don’t want to know this, but I’ve been through it myself, and as I approach 50 it’s something I will need to be more aware of. It’s not a very pleasant thing, but it is absolutely an important thing, perhaps even a life-saving thing.
I’ve embedded the video below, and it *is* educational and a novel use of livestreaming, but I also really encourage you to visit the page and read about the importance of the procedure. Hopefully it helps some people get more comfortable with what will be an inevitable medical procedure eventually.
Games are big money, just ask this guy
First it was the fact that the most successful popular entertainment releases of all time are games, with the Call of Duty franchise leading the charge, again and again and again. Then it was the growing popularity of what some refer to as eSports, or professional gaming, with a prize pool of $11 million and school-sponsored teams. More recently, it was the news that Marcus “Notch” Persson, the creator of Minecraft, sold his company Mojang to Microsoft for $2.5 billion, making him a billionaire overnight and allowing him to instantly buy the most expensive house in Beverly Hills. I’d have retired too!
All Simpsons episodes going online, with a catch
Love The Simpsons? Of course you do, everyone does. The greatest, longest-running, most award-winning, most culturally influential animated show in history has brought in fans for 25 years. While there have been ebbs and flows in the quality over that period of time, it can’t be denied that the show, like Krusty the Clown himself, has been nothing less than an industry unto itself.
Even so, the show has not embraced the digital age as much as one might expect. Yes, they’ve had albums and games and a virtual world and a really great attraction at Universal Studios and even that total piece of offensive crap Tapped Out, but as for the episodes themselves, they’ve been the AC/DC of television shows. It’s why I had to rip my own collection, that’s it in the screenshot below.
Using XBMC Media Manager
But all this is coming to a spectacular end. FXX has announced that they have acquired the rights to the entire catalog of Simpsons episodes as well as the movie, and will be making them all available online to stream and watch whenever you want on any device you want wherever you want. Not only that, you can search for episodes or characters and set up playlists, just like a music service. But there is an enromous catch:
In order to bask in the glory of The Simpsons, you have to be a subscriber to FXX, and that channel is only carried in about 25% of the country, and apparently bundled as part of a sports package since it was originally intended as a soccer channel. If you don’t have FXX in your lineup, then no Simpsons, or their massive 552-episode, movie-included marathon for you!
The Simpsons are not the first animated show to do this. At southparkstudios.com you used to be able to watch every episode of South Park (well, except for one) whenever you wished. The creators of the show, which started as an animated short on the Internet, were very smart to negotiate all online rights back when the Internet was a fledgling idea. The network gladly agreed, never thinking the Internet would become what it is, and as a result we all had full access to all episodes.
What used to be southparkstudios.com
But no more. Just this month, an agreement was signed that put all South Park episodes behind the Hulu paywall, and starting in September you’ll need a Hulu subscription to watch them. I’m no fan of Hulu, never have been, and I was disappointed to see this. I sense a lot of new torrenting will take place. Or a lot of new visitors to watchcartoononline.com.
So screw South Park! Watch The Simpsons instead, as well you should.
