February 2007 - Posts
The online gotcha gang is circulating this report on the amount of energy consumed by the Gore compound in Tennessee. For what it's worth, Gore does have a response, the short version of which is that after employing a number of energy saving tactics (what would the energy draw be without those?) he buys carbon offsets to make up the rest. ...Plus... Lots more green links, Joan Jett made me the man I am today, and ordering off the menu.
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Did you see that Hearst is looking to launch a "reader"? The biggest idea in the press release is the idea of downloading the whole newspaper. It's like a podcast, but text, so you can read it when you're not connected to the internet. Instead of "synch up." ...Plus... That car blows, the beatbox movement, and eat your heart out Baskin Robbins
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I'm not trying to make too big a deal of caring about celebrity dysfunction, I'm just saying that if we have to hear about it incessantly, surely we can learn something or get a little insight beyond what could be read on the wall of a bathroom stall. Plus... Phi Sigma Jedi, pee pee doo doo, and mixing media.
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Music I rocked out to this morning... Goo Goo Dolls with Elmo, new Nine Inch Nails and the soundtrack of a guy painting on his own belly. Plus... Getting worked up about the future of the nation, solar saves, and teaching yourself the Web.
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While it's true that Grey's Anatomy is pretty formulaic so we shouldn't expect any surprises, let's not forget that Desperate Housewives has a dead character who still features relatively prominently and Six Feet Under routinely featured dead characters as regular participants in the show. All I'm saying is that dead isn't necessarily dead on contemporary TV and therefore it's not entirely beyond the range of possibility that a character on a popular exhaustively formulaic show could be killed - because a character can be killed without being killed off. ...Plus... Play that funky flute, you can't handle the wifi and a hat trick
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Here are the corresponding "heavy" links to go with yeserday's light links. You'll see why they took me a little extra time to digest. Subjects include wisdom vs. intelligence, the future of the Web (Web 3.0), and scrutinizing the case against Iran.
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Hey Will,
Don't know if you've seen this yet... it still seems to be a Research Triangle thing. A UNC student decided to break up with the girlfriend who recently cheated on him by getting a Facebook group together and inviting hundreds of people to witness it. He got a girl acapella group to sing to her...then dropped the bomb on her. Kind of interesting how the Times person of the year comes out in "support" of one of theirs who was wronged. Don't know if it's real or some illegal social experiment but you can check out the links below.
Links:
Thanks,
Dave
Will replies: No Dave, thank you! That's good stuff. For folks who can't get the Facebook pages to load, you need a login, which is free and not too hard to run through quickly. Once you're there the biggest attraction is the message boards where people are supporting one side or other and debating whether the whole thing is real.
There are a million cameras on the scene and it's clear that the student TV got a closer view than the YouTube video so I guess we'll have to wait for more to come out. I'll add on here if as I find more (already our video producer Kevin has dug up a couple more).
UPDATE: Of the alternatives I see, the link Dave gave us is the best. This one is closer but the sound is worse. You can see the girlfriend squirm more and how directly the main singer is projecting at her.
The others are from different perspectives and the outskirts of the scene. This clip of the pre-show crowd gives a good idea of the scope of the event.
The real appeal of these other videos would probably be to someone interested in citizen journalism. Between these different versions and the photos in the Facebook pages, it's a pretty good model of the casual media capability of typical college students.
Obviously I did more reading than posting yesterday and my day today will be interrupted by a trip to the dentist, so here are some of the lighter links in my notes and I'll try for an entry later today with some denser subject matter.
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I waited all morning (and into the afternoon) for the fine folks at Crooks and Liars to share the Stephen Colbert clip from last night in which he tears into Australian Prime Minister John Howard (after first tipping his hat in agreement) for criticizing Barak Obama. It's a brilliant illustration of some of the sentiment I saw expressed in the blogosphere yesterday. Like Joe Gandelman, I felt myself give a mental Scalia Sicilian salute to Howard when I read the story.
I had similar feelings watching this video of some British guys who decide to taunt people in Alabama and end up nearly killed (sadly confirming some of the gross stereotypes they set out to mock). ... PLUS... Boring candidate blogs, candy hearts, and did you clear that book's cache?
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If you had MSNBC on TV at all today you saw the video of the guy falling out of the sky when his parachute wouldn't open and then his back-up parachute wouldn't open. The full footage from both the falling man and a guy following behind him (with functioning parachute) is on this UK newspaper site. It's waaay better to see the original footage. It's uncut and only has the original sound. It's flash video with no counter and it feels a little long, maybe ten minutes, but if the TV version appealed to you, the original is much better.
ADDING: For some reason it doesn't work in Firefox even though it's only Flash video. Also, by the way, the guy lived.
A proudly eclectic mix of interesting links from readers. The headline refers to the possibility that high achieving members of social sites could be the celebrities or media figures of the future. Plus, will future generations need to add a fifth "base" to the traditional metaphor for sexual accomplishment to accommodate Web cam antics?
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Without question the most popular toy online since my last post is Yahoo! Pipes. Now that I've spent the morning playing with it I think I at least understand what it does even if I don't quite have a handle on all of the features.
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When I'm wrong, holy moly I am wrooo-ong with two syllables. Let the record show that I said, "I can't see anyone really caring that much about the personal foibles of a candidate's Web master." Oh? How about readers of the New York Times and the Washington Post and ... Catholics? ... PLUS... Psychblogging, everything with a face, sex in space and more.
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I don't know if you got around to reading yesterday's Commuter Click but it's pretty good. The best quote comes from Clay Shirky: "Pidgin is what gets spoken when people patch things together from different languages, so it serves well enough to communicate. But Creole is what the children speak, the children of pidgin speakers. They impose rules and structure, which makes the Creole language completely coherent and expressive, on par with any language. What we are witnessing is the Creolization of media." ... PLUS... Lessons on getting robbed, the definition of rape, and how many corporate jets are really out there?
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Last night Jon Stewart made fun of some of the easy pun headlines that are being used on the angry astronaut in diapers story. The ones I've seen so far are:
Astro-nut
Lust in space - The NY Post also uses Space Case, Spaced Invader, and Robochick
The wrong stuff
Hussy from Houston - this isn't a pun, but it's such bold namecalling it really stood out
Other than the one used on this entry the only other good one I've come up with is "I ain't got time to pee" but I don't know how many people know that quote from Jesse Ventura. I've been working on the diaper angle because it feels like most of the others have been looking for space puns. Anyway, let me know in comments or mail if you've seen any good ones or can think of good ones you haven't seen. Last night a colleague expressed surprise that there are no Star Trek references out there. Would "To boldly go" work? Actually, "Star Wars" might not be a bad one for a description of the love triangle.
UPDATE: Tsk! I can't believe I missed the obvious "Houston, we have a problem."
- How about "Atmos-fear"
- Love and Rockets -This may be my new favorite. Does anyone remember this band?
-No-nap nappy - I think that's a Britishism, but it's making me crazy that the word nappy and not sleeping are so closely associated but I can't find a way to put them together. Maybe Unhappy nappy?
-Assault and pepper - pepper spray reference
-Lucy in the sky with diapers - Actually, her name is Lisa but changing too many words might lose the pun.
-E-mail submission from David: Huggies gone bad - I hadn't considered diaper name brand puns, though I did ponder using "depends" in a double meaning but came up with nothing good. (Love you can depend on? nah.)
-Satellite diss
-Diaper rash judgment
-E-mail from Gian: Astronaut a Lunatic? Depends. - Lunatic is a good one. I completely missed that.
P.S. I do not mean to make light of what is clearly a grave situation for those involved. No disrespect intended.
This entry begins with a few links that point to the possibility that citizens of the Web are suffering from social network overload. PLUS... Does size matter? And how much is free?
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That leaked cockpit video of the British troops hit by friendly (U.S.) fire appears to be an exclusive of the British newspaper The Sun. You can find the video embedded in the page here. It's really fascinating and in spite of the tragic outcome, somewhat reassuring about how often the pilots double check their target. There's not much to see on the video itself, just subtitles to read. The total length is 15 minutes. Note, once they realize their mistake there is some cursing. Sorry I can't give you time stamps, the video is pretty restricted. I add a YouTube or Google Video link when I see one with better navigation control.
ADDING: "Fascinating" is probably not the best description of the video, though it is that. Really, it's terribly, horribly tragic. The headline we're using on our cover right now referring to "We're in jail, dude" makes it sound like the pilots are cavalier about it. In fact, you can tell right away that they're really horrified. One pilot is crying. By the time you get to the end it's less fascinating than just plain sad.
There's a daily Super Bowl on the Internet in which media and marketers are always in competition for my attention. Super Bowl ads may be "about creating a short little movie that spreads," but the Super Bowl is no longer the sole domain for those short little spreading movies.... PLUS... Possibly the coolest photo ever, cars you can't have, Minesweeper in 38 seconds, and more.
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Suddenly I have an image of the blogosphere as a giant American Idol audition to which we tune in regularly to see some ridiculous, some middling and some excellent performances and watch the more popular performers rise to the top and become professionals.... Plus: Blowing up cars, digital girl watching, and what's in the bag?
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*There are now 6 updates to this entry.
The story, in case you missed it, is that some guys hung LED computer-game-looking cartoon figures around Boston as part of a TV show promotion. Being prone to jumping at shadows and not recognizing any pop culture or subculture more obscure than Ronald McDonald, authorities pushed the panic button, news services broke out the bright red freak-out banners and now everyone's grumpy about it.
The artist's actual site is Zebbler.com but it's pretty much nuked right now so we'll have to accept the YouTube version. One site that does work is GlitchCrew, mentioned at the start of the video. You'll recognize Zebbler at the bottom of the list of artists.
Of course no.
UPDATE: Best press conference ever.
ANOTHER UPDATE: Zebbler's MySpace page
The Interference Inc. site (crashed at the moment). Does this help or hurt them? Would you hire them for some guerilla marketing now? They certainly managed to generate publicity anyway.
The Graffiti Research Lab, though saluted at the end of the video, was not responsible for the stunt. (They are, however, responsible for this amazing project in Rotterdam.)
Via AdRants I clicked a Boston.com story pointing out that a generation gap is the real culprit:
"The episode exposed a wide generational gulf between government officials who reacted as if the ads might be bombs and 20-somethings raised on hip ads for Snapple, Apple, and Google who instantly recognized the images for what they were: a viral marketing campaign."
(There are some interesting links and comments in the AdRants forum.)
Not only is this about new marketing tricks that are familiar to a younger generation, but I think there's an argument to be made that there is a rising tide of new ideas about public space. I know I keep harping on this, but seriously, get used to it.
Speaking of gaps, Boing Boing covers some of the confusion about whether Make magazine had any involvement (they didn't). This week I've been chewing people's ears about the rising problem of sourcing on the Web. Who is the girl in the bride haircut video? Who is the guy crashing his car in the YouTube PWNED compilations? Granted, this is a little different, but there's definitely a new environment for journalists to deal with when it comes to tracing online tracks.
UPDATE 3: The t-shirts are here.
UPDATE 4: I was thinking about what my reaction would be if I'd seen one of these signs and it occurred to me that I'd probably have photoblogged it and sent it to the Streetsy photo pool. So I poked around to see if anyone had actually done so and let me just say there are some funny parodies out there. Anyway, I did find one in a search for "throwies," which you'll recall is what they call these LEDs stuck to magnets.
Speaking of finding stuff on Flickr, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that the reason for the mistaken association with Make magazine is that they featured photos from Flickr in the context of how to make "Aqua Teen Hunger Force LED art." Those photos came from someone who found one under a bridge in Boston two weeks ago and took it home.
UPDATE 5: Own your own today. Bidding is up to $425.00 as of now. How well do you think this thing will hold its value? Thanks for the tip Kate!
OK, ONE MORE AND THEN I'LL MOVE ON:
"...Stop using the word "hoax." There was no hoax. Hoax implies they were trying to make their signs look like bombs. They weren't. They made Lite-Brite signs of a cartoon character giving the finger."
Here's Boing Boing coverage making a similar point and somewhat embarrassingly including my cable colleagues.
Here's another one for the list: Don't say these guys shot themselves in the foot by giving an obnoxious press conference. How compliant they are with the press or sympathetic to the public has nothing to do with their court case. The judge isn't going to say, "Well, obviously you didn't intend to terrorize the city, but since you were rude to the media, I'm finding you guilty anyway."
The real question for Boston is how did other cities manage to handle these devices without shutting themselves down for hours?
A home made LED t-shirt
