rwmtest

Despite Bell Canada's desire for me to not watch Game of Thrones unless I was a cable subscriber or willing to infringe copyright , I completed watching the 2016 season this weekend via Google Play Video and TV. One part of the closing credits has always peaked my interest, and that was the fact that a few provinces and the Canadian Federal government provided assistance in the form of media funds and/or tax credits. A quick search returned a related article that discussed some of the basis for additional contributions this year:  Season premiere of ‘Game of Thrones’ was very Canadian . I expect some of the most active participants in the  Canadian Content in a Digital World Consultations  suggesting they represent the "artist" position will find this offensive as they appear to only want their sector (most often writers and actors) to receive subsidies.  They don't appear to see the value to Canada when our technical talent including visual effects crews contribute...

To say I am a fan of the Doctor Who universe would be an understatement. I've been watching since childhood.  In preparation of the 50th anniversary in November 2013 I did a re-watch of every episode since 1963.  I purchased the DVD of every story available in DVD format, listened to the soundtrack for those where video has been lost, and  in one case listened to the audio book of the novelization.  I have all the DVD's for spin-offs Torchwood and Sarah Jane Adventures, many CD's of audiobooks and soundtracks, and am a subscriber to many audio play series via Big Finish (Doctor Who main range pre-paid through to October 2019).  I even get a daily briefing from Doctor Who News sent to my email. I heard the rumors, read the announcements, watched the trailers and interviews, and was eagerly anticipating the launch of spin-off Class . While I would prefer to have watched Saturday when the first episodes were released, I've become familiar with having to wait unt...

I've been a happy Netflix customer since 2011, dropped cable TV in 2012 , and frequently purchase DVD's of movies or seasons of scripted TV programming. This year I've reviewed CraveTV ,   CTV GO and Showcase's website , and decided to subscribe to Shomi to do a review. As with other services offered by broadcaster or BDUs (cable companies) I didn't expect to be happy with Shomi. What I (and a growing percentage of the market) want is to be able to conveniently watch the shows I want, at a location I want, at a time of my choosing, on devices of my choosing, and at a reasonable price. What the broadcast industry wants to offer is programming of their choosing, at a time of their choosing, on devices of their choosing, and at the maximum price they believe the market will bear.  The digital transition for cable was several steps backward from analog where subscribers could choose their own brand of tuners to digital where the tuner brand is imposed.  They are not of...

There is media attention to PM Trudeau suggesting that we may not be getting rid of our antiquated First Past the Post just yet.  As a long-time electoral reformer I find this disappointing, but watching the debates I can understand where he is coming from. While there is general but not unanimous agreement that our current system is outdated, what we would change it to is quite contentious.  If you want to get broad or near unanimous support for a given change, that will never happen. Trudeau likely didn't realize how contentious this issue is.  He likely believed that he could introduce a small change, test the waters, and then expand from there as people have given the issue more thought.   The obvious contender for that is what Honourable Stéphane Dion had proposed years ago which is to keep everything else the same but switch from a ballot with a single "X" on it to a ranked ballot (Also known as Alternate Vote, or Instant Runoff). Unfortunately the folks who s...

I wish I had something relevant to contribute on the International Day of the Girl , but I don't.  The closest thing was that today was the first day I could watch the first episode of season 2 of Supergirl. There is a stretch of a link.  This show is full of powerful women that women and young girls can be inspired by, and I don't mean the alien from Krypton with the super powers that is the title character of the show. Other than a few cringe-worthy references it is well done and integrated into the story (the US president being a woman is great, the suggestion in season 1 that it might be Hillary not so much.  And I have a beef with the Margaret Atwood reference in S1E6. I know I'd have something to talk with her about ...). Supergirl's human adoptive sister and the other women at the D.E.O demonstrate the ways in which a woman can do these jobs as good as (and in some important ways better) than their male counterparts. Kara Danvers' (Supergirls alter ego) bo...

When I read the following tweets I became concerned that we might see a repeat with the current Canadian Content in a Digital World Consultations of what I saw in the 10+ years of copyright consultations and committee hearings ( C-60 , C-61 , C-32 )  that eventually lead to the passage of Bill C-11 . Lots of talk surrounding the importance of protecting #IntellectualProperty and #Copyright today! #digicancon https://t.co/mUoCZcXw1e — Canadian Heritage (@CdnHeritage) October 11, 2016 #Copyright + #IntellectualProperty has to be respected – We need to educate the importance of paying for content at a young age. #digicancon — Canadian Heritage (@CdnHeritage) October 11, 2016 This is similar to how ACRTA and the Writers Guild continuously and mistakenly suggest that a willingness on the part of audiences to pay is a primary or even important consideration when it comes to scenarios when people are not paying. Educating people, young or otherwise, about the importance of paying f...

One of the odd contributions to the #DigiCanCon discussion was from ACTRA (Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists).  A tweet of their press release was re-tweeted by the Writers Guild of Canada (screenwriters), which is how I noticed it. A reply to @mgeist : Canadians are more united than you think. https://t.co/Hlnlyfc0KA #DigiCanCon #cdntv #cdnfilm https://t.co/8xAwnjisF3 — ACTRA National (@ACTRAnat) September 15, 2016 In their press release ACTRA proves Michael Geist's point.  Michael Geist was writing about how audiences (potential fans) were concerned with discovery and access to content, while "stakeholders" were focused on money.  In their reply ACTRA not only ignores what audiences were saying, but falsely claims that we were also talking about money. I am a television fan.  I'm not just a television viewer, but a fan of the shows I like.  I don't watch sports or reality television, and focus on scripted programming.  I go to ...

In an earlier article discussing how Bell's CraveTV wasn't competative with Netflix , I suggested I would try to watch a few shows via the streaming sites offered by Canadian broadcasters. The shows I listed were: Flash season 3 premiere: Tuesday, October 4 at 8E on CTV Arrow season 5 premiere: Wednesday, October 5 at 8ET/PT on CTV Two Legends of Tomorrow season 2 premiere: Thursday, October 13 at 8E on CTV Two To this I was planning on adding a few more: Supergirl season 2 premier: October 10 at 8E/7P on Showcase. Once Upon A Time season 6 premier: Sunday September 26 on CTV Marvel's Agents of Shield season 4 premiere was on Tuesday, September 20 on CTV Episodes are only available for streaming on CTV GO (App and website) for less than a week.  I didn't have a chance to catch up on season 5 of Once Upon a Time, and the first episode of season 6 is already locked down to only be viewable to BDU (Broadcast Distribution Undertakings -- Cable, Satellite, Bell IPTV brande...

This week I attended ACCESS2016 .  While I will post my overall thoughts of the conference later (I'm really enjoying myself), I wanted to post about the question I came into the conference with. I posted part of the question in the forum for the Hackfest on Tuesday: Description says we can also "pick other people’s brains".  I'm a first timer at ACCESS.    We're not quite a library, but we need to do catalog, ILL and names authorities.  Catalogers currently use Inmagic DB/Text, and we want to move to something client-platform agnostic and FLOSS.  I'm wanting to avoid re-inventing the wheel, and don't want to just add that functionality to our existing platform (PERL Catalyst, MySQL/CouchDB/Solr, etc).  Would prefer to create modules for something that already exists to integrate with our TDR so that any work we do would be contributions to a public project rather than internal.   Ideas?  We tried Evergreen at one point, but the I in the ILL...