yelvington.com

Mindy McAdams relates how she watched the Democratic convention: On old-media television (noncommercial PBS), but with a laptop open and Twhirl (a Twitter client) running. My experience was slightly different: I watched almost all the convention online, with a window open to MSNBC's video stream.For reasons I don't understand (but do appreciate), MSNBC streamed the entire convention without commentary, without talking heads, without interruption. There was only one commercial -- a video preroll. I use TwitterFox (a Firefox extension) to follow Twitter, so I knew what was happening through following @nprpolitics. No talking heads required.I had to restart my MSNBC connection several times, but overall, video quality was pretty good. I briefly looked at a couple of other streams, but was driven away by various irritations including low quality (AP), demands for software I didn't have (DNC, C-Span) or blathering opinionated hosts (CNN).Apparently a lot of us are fed up with the theatrical performance of the cable TV news hosts. @xarker (Dan Conover) reported he was" tempted to watch something other than CSPAN. But it's like watching squabbling parents drive into an oncoming train."