Why I love the Internet

Work's been crazy busy lately, so tonight I'm just now catching up on a lot of the Internet time-wasting I'd normally have done on my lunch break. As luck would have it I ran across two separate posts, back to back, that both had me saying out loud, "OMG I love the Internet so much."

First, Baseball Prospectus' Ben Lindbergh analyzes a two-minute scene from the pilot of the TV show "Elementary" that featured a Mets-Reds game. It turns out that the game in question doesn't exist, and what ended up in the episode was spliced together from different games (against different teams) that took place over a year apart. And the reason for this is that the pilot's writers and producers wanted it that way. They wrote a scene where Sherlock gets to be all mentalist about some upcoming baseball plays, and then the MLB's game tape keepers provided clips that fit their scene's needs, and voila. Lindbergh's piece is amazing not just because it provides a glimpse of the legwork that goes into a mere snippet of a TV show, but because he actually tracked down the real-life games that showed up onscreen. It's kind of nuts, but I love it.

Speaking of the sausage-making of film, someone is really, really tired of hearing conspiracy theories about the 1969 moon landing. If you weren't a communication major in college and therefore never had to take a History of Broadcasting quiz, I apologize for all the techno-speak - but it's important, especially since this video-maker's entire point is that conspiracy theorists have poor understanding of the things that actually go into lighting, shooting, editing and completing an in-focus, dust-free film clip.

Prior to the 1990s, both of these people would be the guy at the dinner party that's either incredibly, painfully boring or super-interesting, depending on your perspective. But now they get to share their hunches and pet peeves with those of us who are just as nerdy about the same things. Yes, the Internet amplifies some really awful things like anonymous commenters who can't spell... But at times it's pretty awesome.