📺 Watched Broadchurch (2015) Season 2 Episodes 5-8

Watched Broadchurch (Season 2, episodes 5-8) from ITV/BBC America
Joe Miller's trial continues as Miller and Hardy try to close the Sandbrook case.
Things continue to amp up in a can’t-stop-watching-this fashion. I’d have continued on last night and finished it off, but it would have taken half the night and ruined my day, so I stopped after episode 4 and showed a bit of restraint.

Broadchurch

I will say that the unravelling of the Sandbrook case was a bit too quick and convenient for what could have played out through the episodes and an investigation. Instead we’ve seen small snippets of the past throughout the eight episodes before the murder plays out in about 10 minutes of recap at the end. I won’t say it wasn’t entertaining and very satisfying, just that it could have been done with less of a narrative “cheat.”

Otherwise, I’d say that Season 2 was even better than Season 1. Friends in the UK who’ve already seen Season 3 is well worth the wait–I’m just not sure that I can.

Now to spoof my IP address to see if I can get season 3 on ITV in Britain since I know it aired beginning at the end of February… If it follows prior release schedules, it may not be on BBC America until late 2017 and definitely wouldn’t be on Netflix until December this year, if we’re lucky.

I watched this on the 40″ Samsung in high def with Netflix routed through my Google Chromecast.

👓 Introducing Mavo: Create web apps entirely by writing HTML! | Lea Verou

Read Introducing Mavo: Create web apps entirely by writing HTML! by Lea Verou (lea.verou.me)
Today I finally released the project I’ve been working on for the last two years at MIT CSAIL: An HTML-based language for creating (many kinds of) web applications without programming or a server backend. It’s named Mavo after my late mother (Maria Verou), and is Open Source of course (yes, getting paid to work on open source is exactly as fun as it sounds).

👓 “MP3 is dead” missed the real, much better story | Marco.org

Read “MP3 is dead” missed the real, much better story by Marco Arment (marco.org)

If you read the news, you may think the MP3 file format was recently officially “killed” somehow, and any remaining MP3 holdouts should all move to AAC now. These are all simple rewrites of Fraunhofer IIS’ announcement that they’re terminating the MP3 patent-licensing program.

Very few people got it right. The others missed what happened last month:

If the longest-running patent mentioned in the aforementioned references is taken as a measure, then the MP3 technology became patent-free in the United States on 16 April 2017 when U.S. Patent 6,009,399, held by and administered by Technicolor, expired.

MP3 is no less alive now than it was last month or will be next year — the last known MP3 patents have simply expired.

👓 As ‘Missing Richard Simmons’ podcast wraps, its creator has a theory about what happened to the fitness guru | LA Times

Read As 'Missing Richard Simmons' podcast wraps, its creator has a theory about what happened to the fitness guru (latimes.com)
With the "Missing Richard Simmons" podcast coming to an end, his brother and longtime manager have stepped up to join the chorus of those saying the fitness guru, who hasn't been seen in public for three years, is fine, fine, fine.

👓 Is Richard Simmons missing? Or is he just dearly missed? | Washington Post

Read Is Richard Simmons missing? Or is he just dearly missed? by Dan Zak (Washington Post)

LOS ANGELES — Richard Simmons is gone.

His fitness studio in Beverly Hills is shuttered. On its stoop is a sun-bleached edition of the Beverly Hills Courier from January. Inside is the wreckage of a livelihood: piles of debris, tongues of pink insulation, a dusting of pulverized drywall on the ballet barres. In the middle of it all, a forlorn scale where his students measured pounds sacrificed to the oldies.

“I knew him very well, but I don’t know what happened to him,” says Germen Helleon, the proprietor of a hair salon next door, on Civic Center Drive.

📺 Watched Broadchurch (2015) Season 2 Episodes 1-4

Watched Broadchurch (Season 2, episodes 1-4) from ITV/BBC America
When Joe Miller pleads not guilty, the town of Broadchurch have to prepare for a full trial. Meanwhile, a woman called Claire, from the Sandbrook case, relies on Alec for protection. Creator: Chris Chibnall; Starring: David Tennant, Olivia Colman, Andrew Buchan
Holy crap! This managed to get even better than the first season! I say this because I had terrifically low expectations when I’d accidentally seen that the entire cast was coming back for the second and third seasons. I had wondered to myself how all these diverse players with only one or two mildly significant “leads” were going to manage to figure into a new storyline. Well they pulled it off in incredible style.

The cinematography and directing has gotten much more solid in the beginning of season 2. Subtle things like Miller rushing to get to court on time in combination with the music really helps to pull the viewer in while also mounting a significant amount of tension where one might not otherwise dramatically exist without it’s creation the way they’ve produced one of the opening scenes.

Broadchurch

I won’t go into much more detail for fear of ruining things for others, but kudos on the cast and crew for a heck of an opening half of season two. I have to say I’m a bit depressed that I still don’t known when season 3 will be available in the states. I may have to spoof my IP address to see if I can get it on ITV in Britain.

I watched this on the 40″ Samsung in high def with Netflix routed through my Google Chromecast.

👓 Help! My Best Friend Wants to Fake Her Entire Résumé to Get a Better Job. | Slate

Read Help! My Best Friend Wants to Fake Her Entire Résumé to Get a Better Job. (Slate Magazine)
My best friend works in a job that she is grossly overqualified for but that pays better than most entry-level positions in her field.

👓 Developers of the MP3 Have Officially Killed It | Gizmodo

Read Developers of the MP3 Have Officially Killed It (Gizmodo)
MP3, the digital audio coding format, changed the way we listen to music and drove the adoption of countless new devices over the last couple of decades. And now, it’s dead. The developer of the format announced this week that it has officially terminated its licensing program.
The reporter on this one failed massively!

The IP on the mp3 has expired and so the group that owned it isn’t charging for it anymore. Sure they’d like to have everyone think it’s dead and use more “modern” things like AAC, which they can still charge for! My guess is that you’ll actually see a resurgence in mp3 format now that it’s free.

Next they’ll be saying that RSS is dead…

👓 Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador | Washington Post

Read Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador (The Washington Post)
President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State. The information the president relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said. The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said Trump’s decision to do so endangers cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and the National Security Agency.
For someone who always insists he doesn’t want to tell the “bad guys” what he intends to do, this is just sounds painfully inept.