April 2009
48 posts
B-Roll [April 26-30, 2009]
Wikipedia does a content deal with France Telecom’s Orange: the two will share ad revenue on co-branded Wikipedia content on Orange mobile phones. A bunch of vintage computer equipment (scanners, hard drives, etc.) play “Bohemian Rhapsody” through blips and whirrs. Naturally, that source code is available. Nielsen Online estimates that 60% of Twitter users quit after a month (as...
Mud Rooms, Red Letters, and Real Priorities →
By Merlin Mann. Making something a BIG RED TOP TOP BIG HIGHEST #1 PRIORITY changes nothing but text styling. If it were really important, it’d already be done. Period. […] First, ask yourself why any “high priority” item has remained unresolved in your life for more than 60 seconds. Why isn’t it done completely? Have you ever “re-assigned” “priority” to some task? Really? Because that...
WatchMasitéladi - Amadou et Mariam [Director’s Cut]
Something about the brushstroke detail in the closeups of the stick figure appeals to me.
B-Roll [April 22-24, 2009]
Bluetooth 3.0 + HS specs get released - and it’s fast. Expect wireless streaming from your camcorder direct to your HDTV in the near future. Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson leave Myspace - presumably under less-than-desirable circumstances. T-Mobile sells one million G1 handsets in the United States. The insidious monstrosity known as Adobe Media Player is now dead - and they’re...
What Would A Community Organizer Do?
... →
Great post by Ta-Nehisi Coates on the Obama administration’s “looking forward” philosophy. You should really read the whole thing, but if you can’t, here’s an excerpt where he quotes Adam Serwer:
Cohen’s argument simply reflects the consensus among certain journalistic and political elites that the powerful simply shouldn’t be held accountable when they...
David Zaslav at NAB
Via NewTeeVee:
Discovery CEO and President David Zaslav said today that he didn’t see an economic model for free web distribution of long-form content. He said he’d only distribute episodes online if circumstances forced him to, and so far the numbers aren’t significant enough. ‘If people start watching content on mobile phones and on the web in droves, we will have to go there or we will...
B-Roll [April 20, 2009]
The NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) show is finally here. This is where the crazy video tech news gets released. Example: Panasonic is developing a 1080p dual-lens video camera for live 3-D video capture. Adobe introduces a version of Flash for televisions at NAB. Slashdot speculates that with inevitable Hulu and YouTube streaming to your television, this announcement could be a good...
WatchEverytime - Oi Va Voi
Every third frame of the footage was printed, shredded and shot three times blended with adjacent frames by different stripes configuration.
Verdict for The Pirate Bay trial: guilty. →
All four defendants are sentenced to 1 year in prison and damages totalling $3.62 million USD. They’re planning to appeal, the site will remain up regardless of what happens to its founders, and the ruling could set a precedent for similar lawsuits against everyone from ISPs to Google for assisting the availability of copyrighted content.
I guess I’m not sure exactly what this...
B-Roll [April 13-17, 2009]
Google Updater (that app which runs in the background and updates your Google software) is now open-source. Mt. Holyoke College debuts 3-day Orientation For Whites - mostly devoted to discussions about race. As expected, YouTube makes some subtle design changes to showcase premium content. Sadly, Matthew Perry will NOT be portraying “Thomas Hobbes” in the LOST Season 5 finale. :-( so...
“That’s our first touch product, and you know nobody gets it perfect out...”
– Mike Lazaridis, stating the obvious during an interview about the Blackberry Storm. What makes this quote outstanding is that he’s the CEO of Research in Motion.
Palin's New Disaster →
In March, Palin nominated Wayne Anthony Ross for attorney general. A colorful far-right lawyer, he was once considered a shoo-in for confirmation. However, his nomination was thrown into grave peril when his opponents presented evidence that he called homosexuals “degenerates,” leveled invective against an African-American student offended by a statue of a Klansman, vowed to undermine the...
“I wrapped a movie called ‘Zombieland,’ in which I was constantly...”
– Woody Harrelson [CNN via Videogum]
B-Roll [April 10, 2009]
BBC is distributing one of its new shows under a Creative Commons license on BitTorrent and have, in hilarious scene-release fashion, bundled in an NFO file complete with an ASCII rendering of the BBC logo. What if Criterion released video games? I guess it’s a Photoshop contest. Personally, I have a soft spot for the Lode Runner cover. [via bg5000] Current TV cancels its $100 million IPO,...
Post #1000
After 629 days, 14 followers, a handful of likes and reblogs, and an abundance of personal tumult, here it is. Thanks for reading.
I do put some effort into these posts, so if you like what you read here, I’d appreciate it if you told your friends about the site.
An opportunity for constructive criticism: Do you have any editorial suggestions for me? Should I cut back on the dry tech...
“I have very belatedly become aware of a critique of my various comments and...”
– Rob Walker
B-Roll [April 8-9, 2009]
Bumptop (a novel user interface inspired by a physical desktop) has been floating around as a cool demo video for a couple of years, but now you can download it for your Windows PC. P2Pblog points to an interesting analysis of how the used CD market could be a huge factor in declining sales of new music. “Ford will hand over promotion duties for its newest car to 100 twenty-somethings who...
“As amazingly revolutionary and beneficial as your new idea may be, you can’t...”
– Steven Frank of Panic just posted an interesting take on the state of computing and HCI, and ideas of where to go from here.
Changyou IPO proves to be a success →
The shares, which went public last week on the NASDAQ as CYOU, immediately jumped to $22 before settling in at $20 by the end of the day—a 25% gain. While many IPOs tend to take a breather after a strong first day, the shares have continued strong, closing yesterday at $23.84.
Changyou runs a few MMOGs in China and makes money selling in-game advertising and virtual goods. This IPO is just...
B-Roll [April 6-7, 2009]
OpenMoko Freerunner, the open-source cellphone, has been cancelled and 50% of the company’s staff has been laid off (although the company has other phones in the pipeline). Oh well. The Barbarian Group dissects their Subservient Chicken campaign for Burger King on its fifth anniversary. [via fimoculous] A department of the Chinese government imposes content guidelines for Internet...
“From our perspective, we look at this pretty thoroughly and there is always a...”
– Eric Schmidt, Google CEO, speaking at the Newspaper Association of America conference only days after the AP hilariously launched a campaign to “protect” its content from aggregators like Google News
WatchFrom The Hoop
Gotta love Supinfocom. [Previously: Gary, Yankee Gal.]
B-Roll [April 2-3, 2009]
Pilot Season (an amazing TV show from the defunct cable network Trio, with Sarah Silverman, H. Jon Benjamin and David Cross) is going to be re-released as a web series on MyDamnChannel! Awesome news. To promote organ donation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation “helped develop” a script for the TV show “ER” featuring Noah Wyle getting a kidney transplant. Who wants a...
“On the federal level, Kundra has already proposed a new site, Data.gov, that...”
– Interview with VIvek Kundra, federal CIO
Bar Harbor + I Don't Know How This Ended Up Being...
(We move to the side in order to let a biker on the sidewalk pass by.)
Josh: I love this town.
Sinda: Couldn't he have just, um, biked on the road?
Josh: But isn't that what love is, in a sense? Stepping aside for a moment to help others live their dreams?
“Today, there is a very drastic reduction in internet traffic. But experience...”
– Christian Engstrom, vice-chairman of the Swedish Pirate Party, on the drop in filesharing traffic the day after a law was passed requiring service providers to divulge IP addresses of P2P uploaders.
“You love once and then maybe not again. Not on a day like this. The rain, the...”
– Daniel Handler [Adverbs]
B-Roll [March 28-April 1, 2009]
Disney’s negotiating with YouTube to offer ABC shows (shutting out Hulu). YouTube has wider reach, but Hulu comes with an equity stake for Disney. [UPDATE: Looks like they might be making deals with both companies - offering short-form content on YouTube and full episodes on Hulu.] In other YouTube news, the site is planning a redesign that aims to highlight premium content and increase...
