March 11, 2007 Last week I went to the doctor and discovered that one of the reasons I have been feeling so poorly over the last few months is because of an ongoing strep infection. The doctor prescribed antibiotics, but the next few days grew a lot worse before I started to feel better. High fevers, chills, sweats, exhaustion, aches, and stiffness pretty much left me unable to do anything but sleep and lay in bed for days. Fortunately, I had a TV and a remote control... or so I thought.

I would love to say that I found something worth watching on any one of the several dozen cable channels. That was far from the case, and instead what I experienced was days of homogenized and indiscriminate programming with little recognizable organization. Most of the channels no longer provide genre-specific content, but instead use a shotgun approach get as many viewers as possible.

Does anyone remember when Discovery and The Learning Channel (TLC) offered science, technology, and educational content? These days they only offer a few hours of that programming during prime evening hours and on weekends, but during the daytime hours you are up the creek.

Comcast's G4 network used to be about video games. In 2004, Comcast bought TechTV and merged it with their smaller G4 network to create G4techTV. This was an attempt to bring in more viewers and increase revenue by combining the technology networks. Since then, almost all of the technology programming has been replaced with syndicated shows like Cops, Cheaters, and more — leaving only a few hours of technology related content on each day. Apparently when Comcast merged TechTV with G4, it was under some master plan to destroy them both and create a Spike network clone.

If the missing content was available elsewhere on television, I wouldn't care so much. Unfortunately, it's just gone. There is no possibility for me to sit down in front of the television and passively watch a day's worth of informative content on a specific topic of my choice.

I could spend hours searching and downloading from the web to get similar video content, but if I wanted to engage in an interactive task such as using the web I wouldn't be watching TV. There is still a strong need for dedicated programming as passive content, and I wish the cable networks would go back to providing something worth watching.

I suppose I should just be happy the antibiotics are doing their job, and that I'm feeling better. I wish there was some kind of antibiotic we could give to the television networks that would make them better, too.

For the tech geeks out there:

• AOTS: Game Break
• Channel 4's thisisaknife
• Cranky Geeks H.264 Video
• Daily Feed Video Podcast
• DL.TV H.264 Video
• MacBreak HD(Video)

For those who appreciate classic animation:

• Classic Animation Video Podcast
• Vintage ToonCast

For new music lovers, KCRW's Morning Become Eclectic Video offers live studio performances.

Science geeks will appreciate these:

• National Geographic Video Shorts
• NASAcast Video
• NOVA Vodcast | PBS

There are many more Podcasts available, but after sorting through things I was greatly disappointed by the lack of production quality and superficial nature with most of the offerings. What is listed is informative, higher quality, and what I will be watching in the future.

For the older tech geeks and those interested in computer history, I would recommend something not available on iTunes. The Computer Chronicles was a weekly show that ran from 1981-2002 with a lot of interesting coverage of the computer and tech industries. The shows are free downloads from the Internet Archive, and well worth watching. The Internet Archive also offers thousands of other videos, including most of the classic cartoons included in the Classic Animation Video Podcast and the Vintage Tooncast.