NSFNet was a PBS for the Internet.
The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”
151–160 of 303 posts
Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
The pbs apps are made by OPB (Oregon public broadcasting) they’ve been a big partner of pbs for a long time. The apps are really good and they try to keep relevant content and popular shows on the apps.
I work at PBS on one of the teams building these apps, and this has not been the case since I joined. PBS apps are maintained in house out of our Arlington headquarters, with most team members working fully remote during covid, but I fully appreciate you calling our apps good!
My youngest loves the games! I kinda like them too ...
Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. The unsolved problem is the demand side, people making better consumption choices. Legislation can't fix this, since the government doesn't have a unified view of what "good" content is, and is heavily interested in promoting various striped of partisan propaganda. Mr Rogers got broad bipartisan support. Today he's considered "left wing".
>> Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. With good curation, sharing, and sleuthing -- I find the educational content on YouTube to surpass anything+everything even at undergrad college (minus social and minus interactive language classes.) I also used YouTube extensively to supplement grad school course materials, with great success. I realize not everyone learns this way, but many do, and it is fr…
> With good curation, sharing, and sleuthing -- I find
And it's biased because of the "I find". Everyone filters information even subconsciously.
Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”
#154If you look at the history of the Public Broadcasting Act [1] that established the CPB and eventually PBS, it seems clear that it was passed in response to poorly-funded educational programming not being able to compete with high-budget commercial network TV. Its authors wanted to make it easier for smaller, non-commercial entities to produce and distribute high-quality educational content. In that regard, the Intern…
Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. The unsolved problem is the demand side, people making better consumption choices. Legislation can't fix this, since the government doesn't have a unified view of what "good" content is, and is heavily interested in promoting various striped of partisan propaganda. Mr Rogers got broad bipartisan support. Today he's considered "left wing".
> Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem.
Not really. Nova, for example, has gone downhill quite a bit in the last few years, in that the content has been dumbed down more and more. It tends to candy-coat things and the host will say things along the lines of "golly gee whilikers!" It's a step above Sesame Street, but not by much.
There are some exceptions. The one about the evolution of language was pretty good, although the information content was thin gruel. It's like butter that's been spread way too thin.
Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”
#155If you look at the history of the Public Broadcasting Act [1] that established the CPB and eventually PBS, it seems clear that it was passed in response to poorly-funded educational programming not being able to compete with high-budget commercial network TV. Its authors wanted to make it easier for smaller, non-commercial entities to produce and distribute high-quality educational content. In that regard, the Intern…
Are we in the age of Reductio ad Misinformationum?
Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't allow unrestricted access to the internet for my kids and they aren't allowed screens in any room except where others may see them and their screens all the time. Yes, it is friction and not perfection. The internet is a Victorian-era cesspool with raw sewage and dysentery everywhere. They'll have to learn how to not contract cholera as they grow up, but I also don't let them play with firearms or dabble with…
The Internet is like a free cafeteria (yay!) where the heroin is right next to the broccoli, but also heavily advertised and dressed up. Coercing people into making good choices in a non-starter. We need a huge broad based social effort to educate each other on how to be safe. The government can't be trusted to do it for us. We can't just say "coerce the bad guys into submission", because the bad guys will do the sam…
I feel very lucky to have grown up with unrestricted access to the internet in the 90s-2000s. It was still broccoli and heroin, but neither seemed to be able to advertise over the other, and there was limited supplies of both.
Kind of forced me to try every plate.
Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
The pbs apps are made by OPB (Oregon public broadcasting) they’ve been a big partner of pbs for a long time. The apps are really good and they try to keep relevant content and popular shows on the apps.
I work at PBS on one of the teams building these apps, and this has not been the case since I joined. PBS apps are maintained in house out of our Arlington headquarters, with most team members working fully remote during covid, but I fully appreciate you calling our apps good!
I’m sorry for my mistake. I live in Oregon and I was led to believe that OPB was developing the Kids apps since they reached out to me about 2ish years ago for working on the games.
Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's debatable. As much as journalism has been democratized it's also nose-dived in quality. And I don't mean the MSM. The overwhelming majority of "citizen journalists" are producing very low quality or even downright detrimental work. At the same time, a lot of professional journalism has sacrificed quality for revenue. Public media like PBS and NPR affiliates are intended to promote professional journali…
> without the corruption of a profit motive That's a fantasy. The people who provide the money always call the tune, even if it's the government, even if it's donations. A more effective system is one that does not attempt to deny human nature, but takes advantage of it.
The fact that they're beholden to different stakeholders is precisely why it's important to have robust publicly funded journalism and/or donor funded journalism in addition to traditional for-profit advertiser funded journalism.
Just as traditional news outlets are reluctant to upset their advertisers. Donor-funded local newspapers are hesitant to upset big local donors. The BBC is awesome at covering non-clickbaity stories that would never get the time of day from a profit-oriented news outlet, but has always gone easy on whoever is currently in power in the U.K.
At the end of the day, quality investigative journalism costs money, that money has to come from somewhere, and it's best if that money comes from many places rather than one. Allocating more money toward publicly funded and donor-funded news in the U.S. would help to counter to the monstrous infotainment media empires that advertisers have built.
Also, have you read or listened to public news recently? It feels like reading a textbook or eating raw vegetables: refreshingly dull. We need more of it.
Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. The unsolved problem is the demand side, people making better consumption choices. Legislation can't fix this, since the government doesn't have a unified view of what "good" content is, and is heavily interested in promoting various striped of partisan propaganda. Mr Rogers got broad bipartisan support. Today he's considered "left wing".
> Supply of PBS quality content is a solved problem. Not really. Nova, for example, has gone downhill quite a bit in the last few years, in that the content has been dumbed down more and more. It tends to candy-coat things and the host will say things along the lines of "golly gee whilikers!" It's a step above Sesame Street, but not by much. There are some exceptions. The one about the evolution of language was prett…
I'll expand on that a bit. Candy coating acting and like a six year old is not the way to make science accessible. Richard Feynman did it right. He never talked down to his audience, yet was able to make advanced concepts easily understandable. Watch any of his videos giving a lecture.
Re: The Push for a “PBS for the Internet”
#160If you look at the history of the Public Broadcasting Act [1] that established the CPB and eventually PBS, it seems clear that it was passed in response to poorly-funded educational programming not being able to compete with high-budget commercial network TV. Its authors wanted to make it easier for smaller, non-commercial entities to produce and distribute high-quality educational content. In that regard, the Intern…
One solution is to offer free WiFi / fiber in communities with a default PBS-like content gateway.