An apropos classic …
February 15, 2011
August 24, 2010
Tuesday video fun — Roger Federer’s ball control
Tennis ball control, that is.
Enjoy …
August 20, 2010
Friday video fun — “AT-AT DAY AFTERNOON”
I know this one has made the rounds for a while now, but it’s too cool to pass up forever. Plus I haven’t done a “video fun” post in a while.
(Hat tip for pushing me to posting: Michael Brower)
July 12, 2010
YouTube supports 4K resolution video
Via KurzweilAI.net — to put that resolution in perspective, it doubles IMAX’s resolution.
Source: CNET News/Web Crawler — July 9, 2010
YouTube has announced that its player now supports 4k, a standard resolution for films that measures 4096×3072 pixels (requiring special equipment to view).
As YouTube Engineer Ramesh Sarukkai explained in the announcement on YouTube’s official blog, “4K is nearly four times the size of 1080p,” and it dwarfs even Imax, which projects films in the slightly smaller 2k format, with its 2048?1080-pixel resolution.
July 4, 2010
Happy Fourth of July!
Celebrating the independence of the United States of America.
Enjoy …
June 14, 2010
YouTube as fine art
From the link:
When YouTube began, it was likened by some as a scattered web version of a funniest home videos television show.
But in a sign the art world is taking YouTube and amateur video seriously, the prestigious Guggenheim museums and YouTube launched a competition on Monday to search for the most creative online videos and expand on ideas of what video can be.
The project, called “YouTube Play. A Biennial of Creative Video”, will showcase 20 videos selected from the web community to be presented at the Guggenheim in New York on October 21 and simultaneously projected at museum centers in Berlin, Bilbao, and Venice.
“Creative online video is one of the most compelling and innovative opportunities for personal expression today,” said Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation director Richard Armstrong. “‘YouTube Play’ demonstrates this is within the reach of anyone who uses a computer and has access to the Internet.”
June 11, 2010
Friday video fun — graphene into fullerene
This time it’s fun with science watching graphene turn into buckyballs.
PhysOrg has an article covering this video with additional images.
From the link:
Peering through a transmission electron microscope (TEM), researchers from Germany, Spain, and the UK have observed graphene sheets transforming into spherical fullerenes, better known as buckyballs, for the first time. The experiment could shed light on the process of how fullerenes are formed, which has so far remained mysterious on the atomic scale.
“This is the first time that anyone has directly observed the mechanism of fullerene formation,” Andrei Khlobystov of the University of Nottingham toldPhysOrg.com. “Shortly after the discovery of fullerene (exactly 25 years ago), the ‘top down’ mechanism of fullerene assembly was proposed. However, it was soon rejected in favor of a multitude of different ‘bottom up’ mechanisms, mainly because people could not understand how a flake of graphene could form a fullerene and because they did not have means to observe the fullerene formation in situ.”
June 2, 2010
Wednesday video — just amazing
This clip is titled, “World’s Luckiest Bike Rider !!!” I have to say, I agree. Talk about being at both the wrong, and the exactly right, place simultaneously.
(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)
May 28, 2010
SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project at Rapid 2010
Here’s SculptCAD founder and president, Nancy Hairston, describing the project and the artwork at last week’s Rapid 2010 expo:
And here’s images of the artists’ work at the show’s gallery.
May 19, 2010
OK Go and Earl Greyhound
Caught OK Go and Earl Greyhound last night at the Granada Theater in Dallas (sorry, but I completely missed the opening third act) and the show was great. OK Go had some recent issues with their previous label — EMI — and the current state of the recording industry, and are (at least for) now one of those DIY bands out there working without major label support and have formed their own label, Paracadute Recordings. And, at least for now the move has done nothing to lower the quality, bells or whistles of the tour. Bells — literally. They performed one song solely on handbells. Made generous use of a confetti cannon as well, plus played a great set.
Here’s a video shot at the show:
The very pleasant surprise from the show was discovering Earl Greyhound, a three-piece that puts the “power” in power trio. Imagine combining psychedelic/acid rock a la Pink Floyd before Syd Barrett was institutionalized and grunge reminiscent of Soundgarden. Great stage presence and impressively heavy.
Here’s a video for Earl Greyhound’s “S.O.S.”:
Be sure to check these guys out.
Head below the fold to see OK Go playing “What to do” on handbells. (more…)
May 4, 2010
Tuesday video fun — Craig Ferguson, “There’s a monster coming”
I happened to catch this when it aired on April 5 and immediately DVRed it for posterity. This is one late-night clip everyone should see at least once.
April 28, 2010
Wednesday video fun — er, just wow
This might possibly be the most dangerous thing you’ll see a human being do that doesn’t involve any explosive devices.
Just wow.
(Hat tip: Deadspin)
April 24, 2010
April 17, 2010
Saturday video fun — Radiskull & Devil Doll
I can’t remember when this Joe Sparks creation was a big thing on the web, but I do know it was an entire epoch or two back from the net of today. I can also tell how far back it was by the state of my Radiskull and Devil Doll, “Now it’s time to kick it,” t-shirt.
Here’s episode one, “I am the Radiskull”
April 6, 2010
Tuesday video fun — forbidden film
Here’s a little context:
Neatorama explains:
In the 1920s and 1930s, censorship of movies was often governed by local boards, and achieved by snipping the scenes from the film reels. It won’t surprise anyone that those clipped film segments were sometimes saved. Here a number of them have been assembled into a montage, which was submitted to the 2007 72 Hour Film Festival in Frederick, Maryland.
What I find most interesting about this montage is — as in any censorship — how much what was deemed too racy for the general public reveals about the censor making those decisions.
(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)
April 3, 2010
March 6, 2010
Saturday video fun — 1969 IHOP ad
Yep, I’m doubling down on the strange and unusual today. This gem from the mind of late-60s admen looks like the result of a little too much microdot with a splash of funny mushrooms thrown in for good measure. It’s weird, and it’s trippy, but does it really make you want to head down to the International House of Pancakes?
(Hat tip: boing boing)
Saturday video fun — “Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой”
Apparently the title translates to, “I am very glad, in fact I, at last, I come back home.” This thing is really making the rounds and seems to have become the new RickRoll. Over 1.2 million views as of this posting.
It’s weird and looks to be Soviet, and here’s the video … make of it what you will.
March 3, 2010
Wednesday video fun — amazing chalk art
Here’s the title from the YouTube page, “Jamin’s Crazy Chalk Drawing #2 – Where The Wild Things Are.”
And here’s the video …
(Hat tip: wakooz)
February 13, 2010
Saturday video fun — Mr. Show’s “The Joke”
Yes, it’s the hated milk machine from the first season of Mr. Show with Bob and David
January 25, 2010
China doesn’t restrict internet freedom?
Could have fooled its citizens, and companies forced to comply with government censorship demands to operate in the nation, I guess.
This is a hole Chinese officials might as well stop digging.
From the link:
China on Friday slammed remarks made by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promoting Internet freedom worldwide, saying her words harmed U.S.-China relations.
China resolutely opposes Clinton’s remarks and it is not true that the country restricts online freedom, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu said in a statement on the ministry’s Web site.
Clinton’s speech and China’s response both come after Google (GOOG) last week said it planned to reverse its long-standing position in China by ending censorship of its Chinese search engine. Google cited increasingly tough censorship and recent cyberattacks on the Gmail accounts of human rights activists for its decision, which it said might force it to close its offices in China altogether.
China blocks Web sites including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and has long forced domestic Internet companies to censor their own services. Blog providers, for instance, are expected to delete user posts that include pornographic content or talk of sensitive political issues.
January 22, 2010
Friday video — lessons on Brown’s victory from Cato
Here’s a quick (a little over three minutes) recap on what Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts means in terms of the current political climate.
From the inbox, an introduction for the clip:
Our video team just produced a short video about the Brown campaign that discusses the real meaning of Tuesday’s election. Cato scholars John Samples and David Boaz contend that Tuesday’s election sent a message to Democrats that they have clearly overreached, but Republicans need to be careful and realize that they’re still not very popular either.
YouTube enters video rental business
Looks like the focus is small and independent filmmakers who need more than ad-supported revenue. With all the competition between console games, video-on-demand services, web-based content and the rest of the video watching/music listening/game playing/et.al. options out there, the lines between types of media and delivery systems are becoming blurrier and blurrier every day.
This YouTube effort could be quite the boon for independent filmmakers. Since it’s supposedly going into effect today sometime, it is also quite bereft of important details. Little things like cost and, more importantly, how the service is going to work.
From the link:
Starting tomorrow, YouTube will offer video rentals, according to a post on the site’s official blog. The first available content will be five films from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance Film Festivals, and they will be online until January 31.
Also from the link:
Exact details of how the rentals will work aren’t yet available, but the company says they will post more tomorrow. It has said, however, that money will be collected through Google Checkout.
January 21, 2010
OK Go on today’s music industry
Short version: YouTube, change your tracking metrics so our label (EMI) will let our fans embed our videos again. Long version (after reading through the lines): the industry is completely broken, but we’re in too deep to walk away.
From the link:
We’ve been flooded with complaints recently because our YouTube videos can’t be embedded on websites, and in certain countries can’t be seen at all. And we want you to know: we hear you, and we’re sorry. We wish there was something we could do. Believe us, we want you to pass our videos around more than you do, but, crazy as it may seem, it’s now far harder for bands to make videos accessible online than it was four years ago.
See, here’s the deal. The recordings and the videos we make are owned by a record label, EMI. The label fronts the money for us to make recordings – for this album they paid for us to spend a few months with one of the world’s best producers in a converted barn in Amish country wringing our souls and playing tympani and twiddling knobs – and they put up most of the cash that it takes to distribute and promote our albums, including the costs of pressing CDs, advertising, and making videos. We make our videos ourselves, and we keep them dirt cheap, but still, it all adds up, and it adds up to a great deal more than we have in our bank account, which is why we have a record label in the first place.
(Hat tip: boing boing)
OK Go – This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.
December 29, 2009
Tuesday video — the brutality of Iran’s totalitarian state
No video fun here. This clip was posted at the Daily Dish and graphically illustrates the brutality and sheer immorality of the current Iranian leadership. The state is using law enforcement vehicles to savagely run over Iranian citizens rising against an increasingly totalitarian state.
December 25, 2009
December 21, 2009
Monday video fun — “Prisencolinensinainciusol”
From the Wikipedia page on the song:
“Prisencolinensinainciusol” is a song composed by Adriano Celentano, and performed by Celentano and Raffaella Carrà. It was first released as a single on November 3, 1972, later also on his album Nostalrock. The lyrics are pure gibberish, intended to sound like American English as heard by a non English-speaker. In an interview, Celentano explains that the song is about “incommunicability” because in modern times people are not able to communicate to each other anymore. He added the only word we need is “prisencolinensinainciusol” which is supposed to stand for “universal love.”
And now, the video:
November 28, 2009
Saturday video fun — techno chicken
If you’re hitting the clubs tonight you might want to pick a few moves from this funky chicken …
(Hat tip: the Daily Dish)
November 19, 2009
The Mighty Boosh
You can be forgiven if you’ve never heard of the Mighty Boosh and you’re not from the U.K. On this side of the pond you can find it on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim nightly block of cartoons, anime and other entertainment for a target a bit older than its usual audience.
The Boosh is a huge hit in England is is slowly catching on here in the U.S. It’s quirky, fun and very funny and is one of my favorite shows on television right now.
Here’s a sample (this clip is from the BBC so there is a short commercial):
And if you really want to get caught up fast, the Boosh just released the “special edition” DVD in the U.S. The set includes all three season and a lot of extra features. I got my hands on this last week and love it. I’d already seen all the episodes, but the extras — a short documentary, outtakes, deleted scenes, commentary, etc. — are worth the price of the set for Boosh fans and newcomers alike.
You can get the Boosh special edition at Amazon here The Mighty Boosh Special Edition DVD (Seasons 1-3)
November 13, 2009
YouTube goes full high-def
High-def as in a full HD 1080p resolution.
From the link:
At the NewTeeVee Live conference on Thursday, YouTube director of product management Hunter Walk announced that the video-streaming service is getting a new high-quality streaming option: full HD, or “1080p” resolution. The current “high-quality” option, when available on YouTube videos, is 720p, referring to the number of horizontal scan lines that make up the image.
Walk said the new resolution, as well as a new full-screen player, will roll out to all users within days.
YouTube co-founder Steve Chen announced high-quality YouTube viewing at NewTeeVee 2007. He also said, then, that YouTube stores all video it receives at the resolution it’s uploaded at. So when YouTube ads a resolution option, as it did then and is doing now, it simply needs to re-encode videos for the new player, not get new raw content.
David Kirkpatrick 