Movie Draft Update, True Detective (207), Rick & Morty (202), The Shield (610)
01:51 – Movie Draft Update
05:07 – Feedback
12:13 – Rick & Morty (202)
17:09 – True Detective (207)
27:00 – The Shield (610)
DTNS 2551 – Twitter’s Tentacles Everywhere
Charlotte Henry, Patrick Beja and Tom Merritt discuss the Xbox announcements and Twitter’s news tab. Should Twitter be curating? Plus We chose to go to the moon, not because it was easy, but because we got reimbursed.
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Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here or giving 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
Cordkillers 82 – S-M-R-T SMART!
HBO gets smart about Game of Thrones, Comcast com-blocks Sling TV, and why the Xbox won’t be your cable box.
CordKillers: Ep. 82 – S-M-R-T SMART!
Recorded: August 3, 2015
Guest: Iyaz Akhtar
Intro Video
Primary Target
- HBO is selling ‘Game of Thrones’ S5 downloads earlier than usual
-Season 5 of GoT available for download before DVD/Blu-ray, August 31 (preorder AMZN, Vudu, Itunes, Google Play for $39)
– Includes extras
– Discs don’t come until March 15
– Been on sale in Australia since it finished airing
- HBO says ‘Game of Thrones’ will be at least EIGHT seasons
– HBO programming president Michael Lombardo told Television Critics Association “Seven-seasons-and-out has never been the [internal] conversation. The question is: How much beyond seven are we going to do? Obviously we’re shooting six now, hopefully discussing seven. They [Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss are] feel like there’s two more years after six. I would always love for them to change their minds, but that’s what we’re looking at right now.”
Signal Intelligence
- Comcast’s NBC refuses to air commercials for Sling TV
– Sling bought ads on all major network sin 8 cities.
– Comcast-owned NBC affiliates rejected the ads (including in New York and LA)
– Sling CEO Roger Lynch wrote: “Comcast has a demonstrated history of shutting down ideas it doesn’t like or understand, predictably to its benefit and at the expense of consumers.”
– POTENTIAL POINTS
– Is seeing ads for Sling really a consumer benefit?
– Should Comcast be required to run the ads? Would it be different if it was DirecTV?
– What’s the real reason? Don’t forget Comcast licenses some of its networks to Sling TV
Gear Up
- Xbox chief doesn’t see ‘as much value’ in TV cable box features
– Phil Spencer speaking with the Verge about Xbox
-“We’ve been thinking a lot about over-the-top and over-the-air conent and the aggregation of all your content in this un-bundled world”
– On cable box: “I’m not sure we have as much value to add there…”
– “I think there are natural features that you could see where an Xbox could do a good job helping, especially in a world where you have video sources from all over the place.”
– “We see what people do on the box and we know making advances in the entertainment space is important. You’ll hear more from us soon actually about that.”
– Microsoft has a Gamescom announcement at 10 AM Eastern Tuesday.
Front Lines
- CBS will live stream every national Super Bowl ad next year for the first time
– CBS will live stream every national Super Bowl commercial online at the same time as on air. Sponsors will pay an estimated to $4.7 million for a 30-second spot. - HBO Now Is Coming to Verizon Wireless and Its 100 Million Customers
– Verizon will sell HBO Now to its wireless customers. And HBO Content will come to Verizon’s forthcoming video service, although not the whole HBO Now service. - AT&T Introduces Its First Wireless Phone and TV Combo Plans
– AT&T has introduced its first bundle since purchasing DirecTV. Starting August 10 you can get HD on up to 4 TVs, unlimited talk and text on four smartphones and 10 GB of shared data for $200 a month. That’s a discount of about $50 a month. - Dropbox Arrives On Roku With An App For Viewing Your Personal Photos And Movies
– Roku has built a Dropbox app using the Dropbox API that will let youview photos and videos stored in dropbox folders. Although it appears to limit playback to 14-15 minutes. - Comcast’s X1 box automatically records extra-long events
– Comcast is testing a feature of its X1 DVR that would automatically extend a recording in half hour increments if a live broadcast runs long. Another test feature would skip to the highlights of recorded games. - How ‘Homeland’ Complicates Showtime’s Transition to Streaming
– Thanks to Doug on Twitter for tipping us off to this story. 20th Century Fox recently sent a letter questioning whether Showtime was within its rights to make available “Homeland,” a series produced by Fox 21 Television Studios, on the streaming service. About 20% of Showtime’s content comes from external studios
Under Surveillance
- Difficult People with Billy Eichner and Julie Klausner an original for Hulu premieres August 5.
- Netflix is bringing BoJack Horseman back for a third season
– Netflix is bringing BoJack Horseman back for a third season in 2016. We also got premiere dates for the fourth season of the former A&E murder drama Longmire (September 10th) and the new Aziz Ansari show Master of None (November 6th). - First Sky-HBO co-production ‘The Young Pope’ signs Diane Keaton to star with Jude Law
– Sky, Canal+ and HBO will co-produce “The Young Pope” a series with Diane Keaton and Jude Law. It’s about a fictional American Pope and an American Nun in Vatican City - New HomestarRunner is here! About the death of flash!
- The Man in the High Castle will be released November 20
- “Transparent” season two will debut on Amazon December 4.
- Brian: Winnebego Man, True Detective, Rick and Morty
- Tom: The Shield (610), True Detective (207), Rick and Morty (202)
- Iyaz: Ballers
- Bryce: Betas
Dispatches from the Fronts
Hey Tom and Brian,
I was just having a quick look on eBay to see if anyone was selling an Amazon Fire Stick for cheap, but found a load of sellers listing a modified Fire Stick loaded with Kodi and plugins like iVue that enable people to stream premium channels for free. They’re selling them at around £25 profit.. some have sold over 500 units (a tidy £12,500 profit!).
Isn’t this illegal – i.e. selling it like that, not using it when you’ve bought one?
I’m all for killing the cord, and don’t mind if people want to side load this stuff themselves, but blatantly selling them like this for that price & in such quantities feels wrong to me.
What do you guys think?
–Matt
Hey crew I just setup my Xbox One to do remote play from outside my home network using https://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/3a1rwv/instructions_for_streaming_xbox_one_from_anywhere/
This got me to thinking this just made Xbox one a great sling box replacement if you run your TV through Xbox one like you Tom. Only thing a bit annoying is having an Xbox controller around to navigate the Xbox one interface remotely.
– Jack
Hello Tom and Brian
I just wanted to add my two cents into the discussion you had about JT question -“Is there room for the movie collector in the cordcutting world?”
Not all movies are available digitally yet
Two, Not all services have a full catalog.
Three, access to quality. Not everything is available in true HD (Stefano from Italy wrote in with the same concern about image abnd audio quality)
Four, there is a sense of control. The sense that you have easy access to your media when the internet is down or that pay streaming service that may or may not be there for the next 5 to 10 years. The sense of security that you don’t have your credit card number on services that got hacked.
– David form Riverside, CA
Hey guys, I love the show. I just want to let you know about a really good documentary that I found on Netflix called “Lost Soul: the Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau”. The documentary explores how the director had been fired and replaced in the middle of production, the script was rewritten on the set and it’s two leads didn’t get along with each other. Did you know that Brando didn’t even bother reading the script at all? His lines were fed to him through an earpiece. Val Kilmer didn’t get along with anybody on the set. There were even long periods where the extras and staff were coked up and having sex with each other because there was nothing else to do, seeing as how both leads refused to leave their trailers.
I was gobsmacked when I watched this, thinking that these were all professional people being well paid to make a movie, where the two lead actors and the director apparently didn’t give a damn.
Best regards,
– Isaac in Madison
I did it I cut the cord with Dish Network, they at first offered me $30 off a month, then in a last ditch my current services (which are pretty low) for $33 a month for a year. But I could not be swayed I think Cable and Sat are aging technologies, I use Hulu and Netflix and Plex for everything else and am perfectly happy. Thanks guys for keeping up the good work
– Dave
Links
patreon.com/cordkillers
2015 Winter Movie Draft
DTNS 2550 – Not So Sunny in Philadelphia
Veronica Belmont and Tom Merritt talk about whether social networks have devalued links and are ruining the Web.
Using a Screen Reader? Click here for YouTube video.
Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.
Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!
FSL Tonight All-Star Week
Did the West get too Footloose with the rules? Akbar says his team was lead into a devious deliberately dishonest position that lead his squad to ruin.
WEEKLY TECH VIEWS BLOG – 3
WEEKLY TECH VIEWS BLOG – “Real tech stories. Really shaky analysis.”
For the week of July 27 – July 31, 2015
The nation’s focus may have been on Nerdtacular 2015 this week, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of tech news. Let’s butcher some.
Windows 10 was released on Wednesday. In other news, Winfan4ever’s Ebay store still has plenty of “Life is fine with Windows 9″ t-shirts and mouse pads available.
Google Translate can now translate 27 languages. Their goal is to have the next update, a video camera filter, available in time for the first Republican primary debate so we’ll know what the hell Donald Trump is talking about.
Amazon is proposing a multi-tiered super highway in the sky for drones (Amazon–Making Your Jetson’s Dreams Come True!). It’s going to be novel and exciting the first time we point to the sky and say, “Look, a delivery drone!” and admire the technology that resulted in that lone electronic marvel silhouetted against the bright blue sky. Then, as they become more commonplace, we’ll barely notice them, like traffic on a nearby street. As prices fall and everyone can utilize them–thanks for ordering the raw opal/organic hemp koala brooch from our Etsy shop; our hand-crafted drone will have it to you this afternoon–“Sky Neutrality” debates over who gets the fastest lanes and most direct routes will ensue. Meanwhile, tanning salons abandon strip malls and move into luxury office buildings as the industry booms due to the lack of natural sunlight available through the drone-clogged atmosphere. On rare occasions, when drone traffic aligns just right, we’ll point to the sky and say, “Look, the sun!”
But I will get my 100-count box of sandwich bags a day quicker.
You can now mute Periscope broadcasters. “Finally! I can barely hear myself think with everybody Periscoping this, and Periscoping that,” said Meerkat.
The Apple Watch is going on sale at 100 Best Buy stores, to be expanded to 300 stores by the holidays. Critics question diluting the exclusivity factor, saying that being able to get one while grabbing printer ink and a ream of paper lessens the perceived value of the watch. But they also say that the weakest part of the strategy is Apple’s belief that 300 Best Buy stores will exist by the holidays.
Nintendo sold its 10 millionth Wii U last week. Elsewhere, as it’s bar code was scanned in a Des Moines area Wal-Mart, the 25 millionth PS4 to be sold said, “That’s cute.”
Emails were discovered indicating that the Motion Picture Association of America had devised a campaign to discredit Google, calling them an enabler of movie piracy. The campaign would allegedly include paying for false anti-Google research and a story on the Today Show. We’re not sure The MPAA had their heart in it though, as unconfirmed reports indicate the fake research was just a Silicon Valley script where the name Google was substituted for Hooli and the Today Show story was being assigned to Hoda and Kathie Lee. There was a brief scare that a Google exec woke up to find the head of an Oscar statue in her bed, but it turned out to only be one of her daughter’s stuffed Minions.
The Shield tablet was recalled due to the threat that the battery could overheat and be a fire hazard. “If nothing else, we dodged that bullet,” said the Amazon Fire Phone PR team.
In order to update customers’ vehicles and protect them from the exploit that allowed hackers to remotely control their car, Chrysler is mailing out 1.4 million USB drives. The company reportedly deemed it unnecessary to accept an offer from a former AOL marketing executive who promised to “have half a dozen of those suckers in every mailbox in America by lunchtime.
A recent survey states that 15% of U.S. adults don’t use the internet; and of these net-abstainers, 21% say the reason is that they are just not interested in doing so.
What?… I… that’s… you mean………
Okay, I think I’ve figured it out. There are three possible reasons for this response:
1) They misheard, and thought the question was “Do you use Tinder yet?” and answered “no” because a) they belong to a demographic that isn’t quite sure what an app is, let alone Tinder, or b) the fallout from the Ashley Madison adultery web site hack is hanging over their head and they’ll be damned if they are going to also admit to being familiar with Tinder.
2) They belong to a generation that grew up without the internet, “and I’m doing just fine, so why should I waste my time with it?”
And while there is no denying a certain correlation between wasted time and the internet, this demographic would likely have the same reaction if you substituted “internet” with computers, smart phones, cordless phones, fax machines, DVRs, VCRs, ATMs, microwaves, videogames, sushi, or Whole Foods.
3) They are genuinely part of the .000001% of the population that has no interest in porn or kittens.
That’s it. Thanks for joining me for Wordtacular 2015. Or Wordiocre 2015. We’ll leave that to the historians. Either way, words were used; thanks for reading them.
Mike Range
@MovieLeagueMike
Weekly Tech Views Blog by Mike Range is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
DTNS 2549 – from Nerdtacular 2015
Will Apple make a car?
Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here or giving 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
S&L Podcast – #224 – Scott Sigler Keeps Us Alive!
Scott Sigler’s Alive is out, and even though he didn’t mean it as Young Adult fiction it’s turned out that way. And even though he didn’t mean it to be Science Fiction, it’s turned out that way too! Find out why this all happened and why he’s happy with all of it.
DTNS 2548 – Nerdtacular Headlines
Tom Merritt, Justin Robert Young, Veronica Belmont and special guests cover the headlines live from Nerdtacular.
Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.
A special thanks to all our Patreon supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.
If you enjoy the show, please consider supporting the show here at the low, low cost of a nickel a day on Patreon. Thank you!
Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!
Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!
Thanks to our mods, Kylde, TomGehrke, sebgonz and scottierowland on the subreddit
All Star Game & Week 8 Lines
I’m coming to you all live from Smoke Monster III at the Snowbird Ski & Summer Resort. Smoke Monster has became one of the starting points of the FSL All Star Weekend Festivities. While we won’t hear teams announced until tomorrow, Shecky’s got some inside info and feels comfortable with the line he’s offering. Here’s your All Star Game and Week 8 Lines.
And As Always Bet Early and Bet Often