From the Author:2022/Happy New Year, folks!

From Constant Noble

Originally published on: 2022-01-08, 10:52
Updated: 2022-08-08, 18:07
Shortcut: FTA:20220108

You might as well pretend.

Testing, testing... Does this tool work, too?

Yep, it does. That's because I'm typing this first post of the year on JustNotepad.com, found by Googling "online notepad"—and only because I don't want the textbox cache on the Miraheze side of things to suddenly disappear before I hit "Preview" for that first pass. (We'll see how their "Temporary Link" feature fares, as well.) New Year, new helping hand.

And now, on with our first two stories (respectively suggested by Friday night's front page of r/movies, and a Deadline GNews card):

Thanks to Poitier's death, I managed to induct the entry and Baham for "Bahama(s)" into the Tovasala Dictionary as a tribute while this post was in preparation.
  • Over in the Magic Kingdom: Three for three as Disney/Pixar's Turning Red moves straight to Disney+ on its original theatrical date, March 11. (A small shame, since its full preview kicked off our 2022 marathon's "Coming Soon" sizzler—or, the package that came right after ABBA's "Happy New Year" and the 1990s United Artists policy trailer with Chevy Chase on January 1.) After what befell Soul and Luca earlier on, and after WDAS' experiments with Raya[1] and Encanto last year, all signs were pointing to a big-screen return for the house that Lasseter built.[2]

Now, as for leg #2 of this marathon, our choices next time around (in playing order):

...which I'll get to this Saturday or Sunday at best. (Wanted to continue on January 2, but round after round of wiki maintenance stepped in to intervene. That, and a cold that brought me down from Wednesday to Friday—still COVID-free, thank goodness—and a slew of old-school Pokémon the younger sister and her kids tided me over with [via Amazon Prime] this past week—i.e., what comes after the first 52-episode sampler that has graced the Netflix USA catalogue for years. You'd think they'd have the guts to keep the second half of the Indigo League up...)

Over in Rogatia:

  • As mentioned last time, A24 and WildBrain have begun to downplay their YouTube presence. Not only them—the rest of the Bulwark's media industry has also begun to follow suit, heading for greener pastures. This December 2020 report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)—and the removal of the dislike tally—are the very reasons why.
  • On a related note: Non-Rogatian works from 1981 entered their public domain on January 1. (In 2019, Rogatia adopted a compromise whereby foreign material, and local works based on/featuring such, are subject to 40 years of copyright protection—no excuses, extensions, or going back—in response to Article 13's passage in Europe. Works of native [Rogatian] origin or basis are no longer protected, and are now either open-source or automatically public-domain. There's a reason leaving the Berne Convention is in their sights post-pandemic...)

You may have noticed that most of the works discussed here are almost a century old. That is because 95 years is the length of copyright for many works; it is far too long. The most compelling arguments for copyright are about marshaling sufficient compensation to incentivize creators to work. And any work that still earns attention 95 years after publication has surely been lucrative enough that the author is compensated sufficiently. Or put another way, I doubt there were many artists or writers from 1926 who chose not to produce their best work because it might not receive royalties in 2022.

Extremely long-dated copyrights only matter to the wildly successful⁠—and if you are expecting to be wildly successful, you are likely to produce your work anyway. The additional years of copyright are what economists would call “inframarginal;” they don’t affect your decision because they don’t bring you close to the tipping point where you’d change your mind.

Given the costs of copyright⁠—that fewer people enjoy the work, that legal wrangling eats up resources, and that we’d often prefer to allocate rewards in society towards more current innovations⁠—it makes little sense to jealously guard intellectual property for as long as we do.

Amen to that!
  • As far as social is concerned: Back in early 2019, a Rogatian firm named Troadal—the "Trouvaille Anti-Defamation League"—was planning to fill in the gap the likes of Google+, Tumblr, and Flickr (among others; now you can add YouTube here) left behind. All was looking up for the April 2020 launch of their platform—and then COVID-19 happened. The developers and beta userbase quickly drifted away afterward, and their homepage only carried a static "Coming Soon" notice.
That is, until last month, when Troadal decided to shift gears by becoming—wait for it—an official, free-for-all, no-holds-barred, fair-use-respecting streaming-and-download video and music platform, launching March 15 with Clash of the Tigers (that Daniel/Shimajiro crossover) as a Day One attraction. Which has put the kibosh on WildBrain's own Jaroo plans, as well as Sony's attempt to bring the VRV brand over to the Caribbean (as a company-exclusive platform à la D+). However, Disney+ itself is here to stay—because in Rogatia, nothing sells quite like nostalgia.
Despite a confirmed worldwide launch, the lineup will unsurprisingly vary by territory thanks to the usual distribution deals and content issues. Thankfully, music rights shouldn't be a concern here; did we mention they're DRM-free (as the rest of their competition well should've by now)?
  • Speaking of music rights: Rogatia has all of one bona fide record company left—the local division of BMG Rights Management, which handles each and every release from the major labels abroad. (Formerly the local division of eOne Music, until Lionsgate took over eOne Rogatia's assets in late 2016, rebranded it as Starz early the following year, and sold the music division not long after.) Rogatia also had locally based Alconia for decades, but they ditched physical distribution in 2010 to become an open-source outlet not unlike Jamendo. (The difference between those two? Alconia lets you search by license, a convenient feature the other inexplicably did away with during a 2015 site redesign. Early users of that service, me included, still wonder why.)
    • On a related note, all of one radio station remains in the Shires: ZHXN-FM, 98.7 Trouvaille. Once a government-owned full-service outlet, now reduced to a mere audio feed of parent company Axios' television newscasts (on ATSC 3.1). Everyone else turned to webstreams or podcasting; the listeners moved on to Deezer, Apple Music, Spotify, and what this contributor calls "caching"—saving downloads of YouTubed music to one's local storage.
      • In late June 2019, the general-entertainment format that once graced channel 3 (ZHCP) traded places with the news station on channel 27 (ZHCN), well after an Article 13-induced simulcast stunt. By November 2020, Aquarius Media (formerly Rogatia Media Partners) sold the news channel to Axios, and the remainder of what used to be their HCP network to national cable operator Stride. In anticipation of their new owners, ZHCN replaced a one-hour timeshift feed of the main HCP channel on 21.1 and quietly adopted the new callsign of ZHSR en route to its January 2021 rebrand as Stride, "The Caribbean Channel". Aquarius left broadcasting to focus on health consultancy in the wake of COVID-19.
Late last September, Stride's slogan lived up to its name as 21.1 switched over to regionally sourced offerings in the vein of cable-only competitor CaribVision, with only a few contractually bound imported straddlers (Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Shimajiro, Sailor Moon, Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch) still running. As a result, the general-entertainment schedule replaced the secondary programming on 22.1, ZHST/Astride. (Which was no big loss, as the SpongeBob and Disney Channel sitcom reruns they aired by the truckload were begging to be taken off the air at any rate—thanks to Prime and D+ now respectively carrying them.)
Sister outlets ZHSV (Strive; 23.1) and ZHSJ (Stridejr.; 24.1) are not long for the airwaves, what with Pluto TV simulcasting both on its February 1 launch. After September 1, all bets are off terrestrial-wise. (Ditto for the local feed of ZHJP 29.1/Shogun, devoted to "all things Japan" [and not just animé]; the station will remain on cable elsewhere in the region.)
  • As for COVID-19 developments: Still three cases (all already recovered), 66.2% of adults vaccinated (as this goes to press), and Omicron has recently caused the Bulwark's skeleton government to reconsider the return of civilian aircraft for now. (When they do open up for tourism again, expect only four flights a week; all passengers must have proof of vaccination.)

A brief intermission, as I check on whether this writeup gets retained if I leave the JN home pane (but not without a copy to clipboard).

...It worked! Now let's move on...

As I type, I'm gearing up to return to Unspooled—as well as my fledgling artistic ambitions. (At least I set up its story page days ago—which is just as well for a start. See you at the Scratchpad this Monday afternoon.)

  • First things first: Another fan portrait of Sam, by "SomeoneCanRead" at r/ICanDrawThatFurry.[3] (Your handle ought to be "SomeoneCanDraw" instead!) Character pitches are ongoing in this and similar subs/threads—as long as the styles of whom I offer them to seem a good fit in my eyes and/or for the Dixwell gang.
  • By "SomeoneCanRead", 6/1/2022; CC0/Kopimi
  • I always wanted to do an art trade at some point during my G+ tenure—and now it seems I might get my chance soon with newcomer "Jae3ird" at r/furry. By month's end, maybe—but please keep in mind I am maintaining a wiki here.
  • The same conditions apply—in this case with a tentative timeframe between late February and April—if I forge ahead with the ''sibandizé'' of this feline-looking OC by one "CloudyNightSky". Again, my art skills are fledgling, and I am only at my best with a rotoscoped reference photo, so long as Commons has the right PD one.

Keep in mind that with these last two opportunities, whatever results on my side will fall under this site's content waivers (viz. CC0/Kopimi); for this and future trades, your half will also be released likewise (with your kind permission). Be it through SketchBookX or otherwise, I'll be posting step-by-step WIP frames—just so others coming across the little corner of Miraheze will learn from them. (The more I upload, the less hassle!)

Which can only mean one thing: I'm still yearning for a replacement laptop anyway. Commissions/donations, anyone? (This campaign, then the maps...)

And in our first "404 Files" this year, a number-list fragment (CC-BY-SA 4.0) found via Google cache for majaz.miraheze.org, chosen via the "Language and Linguistics" option of Special:RandomWiki. From the looks of things, what this project had in store seemed intriguing and fascinating all at once. Launched on March 14, 2021 (13:50:01 GMT) and shuttered on December 7 (12:14:29 GMT) per Special:DeletedWikis; bureaucrat, "Al-khataei".

Numbers ; 0: sifar; 1: eyk; 2: ikee ; 20: eykyan; 30: salasayan; 40: chaaryan ; hundred: miya; thousands: alf; millions: binalf ...

As we wind things down, time to introduce two newly-enabled extensions here—starting with the same "8111Fhamtaro" dispatch from last time (via TwitterTag):

Oh, and did I mention I now have a crush on Tamako-sensei?

And no, Answer Studio animators, that is not how animal characters should be wearing stethoscopes. And yes, fans, that's where you saw "Mimi-saburo" first! (Video may or may not be geoblocked in future.)

And yes, Virginia, that's EmbedVideo at work below.

Featuring two additional stories: "Would You Like a Donut?" and "My Robot Friend".

Well, face it: I write—and imagine—a bit too much sometimes.

And once again, your occasional reminder: No PageForms for those first several FTAs, my vaccination's coming up anytime soon, and lots more await on my so-called "Tasklist of Death".

As parting shots, our current host (fresh off the MW 1.37 transition last month) is upgrading its servers on January 14th. (No more "503 Backlog Fetch Errors" undermining our page previews, I hope!)

Until then, take care, stay connected, keep exploring, benparl, see you in the bestsellers, we'll meet you back home...and watch your tails.

Onward and upward...

Routhwick (talk)

(3482)

Characters and video (c) Benesse Corporation/Shimajiro; English version licensed by WildBrain.

Notes

  1. ↑ "But," to paraphrase the joke of a few Redditors upon its release, "where's the glow?"
  2. ↑ In light of his recent accusations, I am not condoning Lasseter's personal actions, but rather casting a light on the legacy he left behind.
  3. ↑ Surfaced in a July 2022 update after many months' delay.
No comments yet. To leave one, please select the "Discussion" tab and follow the general talk rules above the edit box.
Retrieved from "https://constantnoble.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=From_the_Author:2022/Happy_New_Year,_folks!&oldid=19341"