When is TV going to be easy?

Want to resurrect the television market? Make a set my houseguests can use. Give it an on-off switch and maybe a volume rocker. Then move everything else to a smartphone app. And make it cross-platform. I tell that app what I want to watch—with voice or text input or gestures—and it figures out if the show is on cable or Hulu or iTunes or Xbox or whatever, then delivers the video in the highest-quality version available, based on my subscriptions...

Wired: Why you shouldn't buy a TV this year. Again. 

Also see, No One Uses Smart TV Internet Because it Sucks

The Platinum Age of Television

“Oh, I don’t watch television.”
Remember when your pretentious friends used to say that?
You don’t hear it so much these days. That’s partially due to the accessibility of TV content on different platforms--you don’t literally have to watch TV now to watch a whole lot of TV. But, more to the point, anyone who would make such a proclamation now would sound like a fool because TV has become the seat of entertainment excellence. In fact, we’ve lived through a renaissance that saw the most groundbreaking dramas in the history of television rolling out one after another in the last 15 years or so.

How Television Got To Be So Damn Good

Gordion Knot of TV

TV is a Gordian Knot. Even from the standpoint of the consumer, the world is fragmented and confusing. We watch everywhere–on our phones, our tablets, our computers, or TV sets. We use a plethora of apps. Some of us are cutting the cord, deeming TV-over-the-Internet sufficient for our needs. Yet there is a constant hunger to simplify and to consolidate, to bring all the pieces of TV under one umbrella. One of my favorite lines I came across about the TV space lately was this: that fragmentation itself had become fragmented.

The problem is, what looks like Gordian Knot to the consumer looks like an even more confusing Gordian Knot to the folks in the business world trying to cut it. Nilay Patel over at the Verge has a very thoughtful look at how Apple or another tech giant could remake television.

MIT Tech Review

Moving toward a cable-less world

Link

No Reservations: Cooking Techniques

Just watched the "Techniques" episode from Bourdain's No Reservations. Some good tips and some old stuff. One of the best episodes.

Marketplace: a la Carte TV

With CES 2012 going on, the tech blogs are on fire and the future of TV seems to be one of the hottest topics. Here is a recent story from APM's Marketplace radio show that is right on topic. The Way We Watch TV:

"When consumers have choice, and distribution options open up, these huge fat industries with big profit margins start to collapse and new players tend to emerge." 

Cord-Cutters: more people are cutting

More support for my crusdade against subscription cable TV.

Video: Classic Jeopardy

Classic Jeopardy clips (via MentalFloss). I especially like Alex's "racist" moment.

Video: Sunday Gravy

Growing up I was taught the "right" way to make sauce/gravy/ragu but this is the first time I have ever seen it done the same way by anyone else. I'd say that the endorsement of a grandmother in Naples ends the argument. The video is the last 15 minutes of Bourdain's No Reservations: Naples episode (season 7).

Must see: An Idiot Abroad 2

Karl Pilkington is back! New season starts 21 Jan 2012.

Restaurant: To Hyang

To Hyang is a Korean restaurant featured on A. Bourdain's "The Layover: San Francisco." Looks good.