Michael Heister

Raconteur

Dan Harmon goes bye bye from Community

These two new guys could swipe the shrink-down machine Jerry Bixby came up with in the mid-1960s, get themselves injected into Dan Harmon’s bloodstream by Daryl Hannah with an eyepatch, navigate their way into his brain, stand up to Gene Hackman who wants to nuke the cerebral cortex, plant a three-way brain suckalyzer, put the other two in their own brains, and totally channel Harmon’s every relevant thought into the pages of Community’s season 4 scripts, and the Harmonversejunkies would still question it.

We just have to face the cold reality. It ain’t Dan’s show no mo’, and these new guys are going to want to put their stamp on it, in the name of improving the ratings I’ll guess. But will it cross their minds to do anything remotely as cool as parodying a Ken Burns documentary?

some thoughts on iBooks

Apple just updated their End User License Agreement for iBooks. Apple clarified that they're not claiming sole distribution rights for content formatted with their software, just content that goes out in the iBooks format.

Some observations:

Apple's already working with the major K-12 textbook publishers. Putting together a textbook and getting it past the bozos that run some of the state school boards is a byzantine process rife with politics. That's the major barrier-to-entry for the K-12 market.

Second, Android lovers are free to write a conversion tool to port iBooks files to Rancid Cookie Dough, or Stung by Cheap Tech, or whatever they're calling their OS now. Apple's made it clear they're not claiming the content, just the content that's being put out into the world in its proprietary format.

Third, the 30% Apple takes from sales is not just for the use of the software, but Apple's distribution ecosystem. They've built and refined iTunes for years now. They're offering not just a way for users to pay for content, but for them to find the content in a fairly well-organized system. The user interface matters.

Fourth, under the new EULA, nobody's stopping anyone from formatting their content with iBooks, posting it free on their website and adding a donate button. Which is just how some college profs may post supplemental materials for their courses. Also don't be surprised to see profs and others use this avenue to, essentially, crowd-source their editing process. It's cheaper than hiring an assistant, and it's a lot more eyeballs involved in the editing process than a couple of interns.

Fifth, speaking of crowdsourcing, also expect innovative early-adopters in the education field to put their classes to work, essentially writing their own textbooks. The magic word here for teachers who have a mind to so guid their students is FREE. There are, thankfully, some teachers who like to guide their students to get really hands-on with their learning, and iBooks looks to be a fantastic tool for them. It clearly leaves PowerPoint in the dust. This may be where some of the most interesting content gets generated/aggregated.

Sixth, I buried the lead.

One more item for Edward Murray's Occupy Wall Street list

I'd like to add one more item to this list.

6. Call for a constitutional amendment to eliminate corporate personhood and the concept that money is speech.

It took a deeply twisted and tortured interpretation of the 14th Amendment to anoint corporations as legal persons. And corporations have been throwing around Samolians by the tankerload in DC ever since. Worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott. There is a sick symmetry to this, though. The Court ruled Dred Scott, a slave, was not a person, and later ruled a piece of paper IS a person.

It took three amendments - and a freaking Civil War - to reverse that, one of which is the rather dubious basis for corporate personhood. So it's going to take a fourth one to fix this.

What to do? Write your city councilpersons, your mayor, your state legislators, your congressmen and senators, and your governor. A constitutional amendment has to be approved by 3/4 of the states, and it certainly helps to have congress rubber-stamp it and send it to them, so this is an all-hands-on-board operation.

Then why mayors and city councilfolk? To build momentum. To show that this is an idea whose time has come. Los Angeles is the first large city to do this. They say all politics is local. Turn the pressure on your local politicos and have them help push it up the line.