Breaking The Law - Scott Moschella documents how he breaks DMCA and copyright law

Detailed in this, his own, blog post Scott Moshella flouts the DMCA and copyright law by documenting how he got free music from the Apple Music store by gaming (if you can call it that) Pepsi's music giveaway promotion. He then continues to document how he then took the music file from iTunes and using JHymm stripped it of the Apple DRM encryption and posted it illegally on his website daring both the RIAA and Apple to sue him.

Pretty nuts eh?

But the chances of him getting sue are slim to none. I don't want to spoil the ending, but I guess I will anyway. Here's the catch. The song he downloaded from the Apple Music store was SILENCE. That's right the 99 cent track contained nothing but silence.

Say what you will, but if nothing else this is completely entertaining and downright hilarious.

In fact I wanted to get in on the act by inducing further copyright infringement so I've posted a link for you below. Join us in this very clever and witty act of civil disobedience

Break the law, listen to silence: 02 (Silence).m4a
(1.1mb audio/mp4 Object)

Read about it here: Scott Moschella's Plastic Bugs - Blog Archive - Breaking The Law

Keep TV Free - a historic TV advertisement

Right on, I love historic clips... oh the design, the illustration, the orwellian concepts, but especially when they are so right on topic. This is hysterical, though I must admit that perhaps it's because I'm a such a big democratized / decentralized media geek. Anyway, it is my pleasure to bring you "Keep TV Free" a commercial from 1967.

Watch it: keep-tv-free.mov
(3.6mb video/quicktime Object)

Reblogged from: Stay Free! Daily: Keep TV Free?

Gee, who would have thought that some of the same suits who are now trying to dictate what you can watch and record on television once urged Americans to "Keep TV Free"? Well, here's a PSA from the late 1960s Hollywood that does just that.

In 1967, when one of the first pay TV services was preparing to launch in California, Hollywood and the networks helped defeat the service because they didn't want the competition. Theater owners organized a KEEP TV FREE campaign, with PSAs like this one running in movie houses before feature films.

Though this particular campaign was limited to California, the advertising industry and television networks have long argued a similar case. When Vance Packard, Ralph Nader, Peggy Charren, and other critics attacked advertising in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1980s (respectively), defenders of industry often cited a common refrain: "advertising provides free news and entertainment."

In other words, the major networks (in conjunction with the ad industry) have promoted the idea that television is free for decades. Now that viewers have taken their word for it by recording and sharing TV shows freely, the industry has only itself to blame.

Via Free As In...TV?: Corante > Copyfight >

Audioblog.com lets bloggers include sound, video files

An article on Eric Rice's Audioblog.com which is perhaps the best damn, or at least the easiest to use, audio blogging and video blogging service around. Only $4.95 a month too.

You might think I'm just pimping this service at this point, and you'd be right. It appeals to me because of it's excellent attention to usability. You can not only audioblog through a web browser interface anywhere there's a computer and a internet connection, but you can also call in and audio blog over the phone.

Not only does Eric pay attention to ease of creation, but he also pays a tremendous amount of attention to the end user experience using Flash, the most widely distributed multimedia technology to play back both audio and video in the browser interface. There is tremendous attention to detail in these playback interfaces including full controls and an playback indicator to show you how far through playback you are. The overall experience is top notch ignoring needless frivolities of interfaces like Real Player and Windows Media Player.

These playback widgets really rival Apple's renowned QT playback interface with the exception of a pre-cache indicator to let you know how much of the video/audio has been downloaded. As I said the they lack of ability to skip around using the scrubbing bar, fast forward, and rewind, but I find these little items aren't much missed given that most audio/video bloggers use short quick segments to express themselves.

Also, let's not forget the preferred method of the AV experience which is to simply subscribe to an RSS syndication feed with an aggregator like ANT or iPodder which allows you to take that audio with you on your mp3 player, or watch all a vloggers videos in a seamless stream.

Full Article: Yahoo! News - Audioblog.com lets bloggers include sound, video files

Alternate Source: MercuryNews.com | 02/09/2005 | Audioblog.com lets bloggers include sound, video files

Via: Peter Van Dijck's Guide to Ease

Jef Raskin dies at 61

Note: I originally had posted the NYTimes article here, but upon clicking realized that they hijacked the url to request signup and login. In honor of Jef Raskin's memory I will not promote a service that would demonstrate such ignorance to the very things Jef stood for. This is a perfect example why NYTimes hot-link policies are despicable. I'm, very offended by this, particularly today, and may just well start boycotting NYTimes from my blog in the future as they apparently have decided to get more aggressive about being inexcusably rude.

BBC unveils plans for internet delivered TV programing

I'm a little slow on the uptake on this one, but it's via wikinews on the 4th of February.

The BBC today unveiled it's plans for a new iMP player with which people in the UK will be able to download any BBC tv or radio programme for a week after it has been broadcast in the UK. These downloads will have a limited life, becoming inactive a week after the show has been shown live in the UK. The BBC are justifying their proposed decision to restrict the use of the new player to those using a UK Internet service provider on the basis that it is only UK citizens who pay the television licence.

Also the following is an excerpt from the full anouncement from the BBC.

iMP is a broadband service the BBC are developing that allows you to use the internet to download and watch programmes from BBC TV and Radio.

Users can also set iMP to download programmes that they'll miss, which are coming up over the next seven days.

It's not available yet but soon holidays, family get-togethers and other distractions getting in between you and your favourite TV and radio programmes could be a thing of the past!

iMP features

iMP is pretty similar to the bbc.co.uk RadioPlayer which allows you to listen to any BBC radio programme from the last seven days.
The Office on iMP

The main difference with iMP is that you'll be able to access TV programmes as well.

I can't figure out for sure wether they're using digitally rights encoded files (DRM), they may just be locking the files to their server by using a streaming system like Real Player or Win Player so the files can never fully leave the server without some sort of hack. Why this is important is because it's from out of these experiments that the future of broadcast television will come. Which is to say when the major players stop using only cable, satelite and the airwaves and start using the internet as a means to reach out to new customers. This future may look nothing like the BBC's trials, but the success of these early trials all important. I hope to hear more on this in the future.

Gopher Broke - an academy award nominated animated short by Blur Studios

Thanks to an anonymous visitor I got a tip as to where the great animated short Rockfish, which I previously posted about was from. Quite a timely tip in fact, because I discovered Blur, the motion graphics studio that made it, is up for an Acadmey award for another short this year called Gopher Broke. They don't have the whole thing online, but they have a nice little trailer. Enjoy.

GOPHER BROKE
Jeff Fowler and Tim Miller
A Blur Studio Production

Watch it: gopher_broke_tease_480.mov
(5.3mb video/quicktime Object)

There's also a nice high-res version of the entire Rockfish animated short if you'd like to watch it. Warning it's big. 58.6mb big.
rockfish_480.mov (58.6mb video/quicktime Object)

Both videos are from the following site as well as two other shorts.

More: Blur Shorts

These guys are great animators and if you get a chance you should check out there animation and motion graphics reels on their main site. I'd be blogging them too, but I don't want to induce a bandwidth hernia.

Main Site: :: Blur Studio ::

Redux: Numanuma maiyahi madness

Speaking of idea viruses, (I prefer to call them media viruses) the Numanuma maiyahi madness is still going on, and still picking up steam after more than a month of topping the webpop charts. Yeah, well there are no webpop charts, but you'll just have to trust me. Everyone and their mothers have now danced to this little ditty. Yet somehow I laugh hysterically in a shrill girly voice with my hands waving frantically in the air every time I see a new version. Scary, isn't it.

Watch it: b7943cb9167d711c7728df1db2cd5ecb.wmv
(4.4mb Windows Media)

I feel no need to talk further about this. Visit my previous post for information on how this cultural fallout happened.

mmeiser blog: Numanuma maiyahi madness.

All I can say is when our past media mavens talked about cultural imperialism, they never though it would lead to this. I think we might have to start calling it cultural terrorism. Somebody set us up the bomb already.

The revolution will be satirized - an iPod parody of the Apple 1984 superbowl ad

Ok, This is not new, it looks like it was made sometime in late 2004, but this is great timing with Apple's announcement of new iPods an overall price drop this week. You will enjoy it. That is not a question.

This is an absolutely beautifully done parody by the NY comedy group The Royal We of Apple's original 1984 superbowl commercial, which was directed by Ridley Scott. I have not yet had a chance to transcribe it or find a transcription, but lets just say out with the old tyrant and in with the new. It's quite hilarious. Enjoy.

Watch it: royal_we_1984.mov
(8.9mb video/quicktime Object)

Via: Seth's Blog: Some people like being underdogs

BTW, the video opears to be originally posted by Seth Godin the writer of many fine works on media and culture including Ideavirus. Also of not is The Royal We slogan at the end, "The revolution will be satirized." There is some complex and rightous culture hacking theory at work here. Just something to think about.

Also via: 1984 iPods - The Unofficial Apple Weblog - apple.weblogsinc.com

What in the hell is wrong with flickr!

Update: Strike this post I found it. Flickr moved the different sizes link to the extreme bottom right. Odd place, but it works. I'm such a geek. I think I over-reacted just a little. Well, there's a first time for everything. Flickr Rocks! :)

While I like the new flickr logo I can suddenly no longer access my own newly uploaded photos with a direct url unless I blog them through flickr.

I want to know what's going on but there is no information on their homepage or otherwise. It's obvious they just revamped their services, but they appear to have cut back on at least one core service that I'm really really fond of. I was planning on upgrading my photo account I was experimenting with to the pro account when they come out of beta, but I definitely will not if this is how they're going to play. I am not fond of services who pretend to be free and then hold you randsom, and that is exactly what Flickr appears to be doing. I hope this is just a small oversite or bug because I won't stand for it. No matter how good their services are I will not for an instant trade the freedom of my own work for it.

Jason Kottke quits his job to blog fulltime - tracking the Kottke meme

Wow, This is getting some good press. Jason Kottke announce Tuesday he was doing kottke.org as a full-time job. That's a huge leap for anyone, but Jason's going NO ADS / donations only! That's absurdly idealistic. I hope he succeeds. At least he has been blogging for about seven years so I think he knows what he's doing.

He's off to a great start and has already been mentioned in Wired and Red Hering. That's big press, and were's still within about 72 hours of his announcement. He may be the single most powerful blogger in the blogosphere next to the Daily Kos and Instapundit. (On further checking he ranks 29 out of all blogs.)

Here's a rundown of articles on the timeline, including Jason's own posts. Follow along, it's good stuff.

Tuesday, Feb. 22nd 9:04 am Doing kottke.org as a full-time job (kottke.org)

Tuesday, Feb. 22nd ???, Red Herring is the first of the mainstream press to gets the scoop: RED HERRING | $2.50 for your thoughts - Jason Kottke quits his day job to become a full-time blogger. Will you pay him for that?

Weds, Feb 23rd 2:00 am Wired News: Quit Your Job to Blog, Blog, Blog

Weds, Feb. 23rd 10:49 am Day two of kottke.org full-time (kottke.org)

Thrs, Feb. 24th 5:02 pm, This one's only a gossip column as it turns out. Slate: Psychiatric Ward? By Bidisha Banerjee

As of right now 2am EST, he's already been mentioned in a total of 10 articles listed on google news: Google Search: "jason kottke"

It's hard to tell how many mentions Kottke has in the blogosphere. Technorati appears to not give a total. Bloglines notes 105 references to his original article at this time.

NYTimes - Bloggers Add Moving Images to Their Musings

I think this is the NYTimes first article on video blogging. Super Sweet.

Mostly it's a very technical overview mentioning tools, services, and what not. ANT gets a mention. I've noticed my own video feed subsriptions for this blog have jumped from about 80 or 90 to 124 in the last 48 hours. Pretty cool.

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > Basics: Bloggers Add Moving Images to Their Musings

Daily Show on the Jeff Gannon and Eason Jordan media fallout

Well, this is from almost a week ago, but I didn't have time to track it down online sooner. If you haven't seen it, you are in for a treat, if you have it's not hard to skip to the next post.

Last week the Daily Show hit a homerun, mocking all sides in the blogger vs. traditional media debate and calling it like it is. It's "hysterically accurate".

Nothing hit it home for me more than Steven Colbert's mocking of reporters who attacked bloggers for lack of credibility and accuesed them of being a lynch mob... "They have no credibility, all they have is facts." Colbet stated.

In fact some bloggers do have tremendous credibility, not me, but some do. I'm just a spineless hack hiding behind a blog. It's not like I put my name on this blog. Ok, I do, but fine, who needs credibility when you have facts. Facts I tell you.

Bloggers didn't really stand up on the highly visible primetime news and say, "Fire Eason Jordan", no that was mainstream political pundants with their credibility and credentials. But bloggers aren't innocent in this head rolling. They sat there and spun there tremendous facts all over the place. Facts like lies, except that they were facts. Facts which spread like a virus or a plague. We cannot have that, dirty slanderous facts everywhere... bloggers must be held to some standard of accountability.

Watch it: ds021605bloggersx.mov
(9.7mb video/quicktime Object)

And if that isn't enough check out the Moment of Zen: ds021605zen.mov (436k video/quicktime Object)

Via: onegoodmove: Bloggers And The Media Thanks onegoodmove!

The Somerville Gates - gates everywhere

A little light humor, my friend Devon just sent this to me. I can't decide wether I like the The Media Gates or The Feeding Gates the best. Then there's The Poopatorium Gates too.

"Often Hargo's 'The Somerville Gates' has been compared with Christo's 'The Gates', Central Park, New York City. These comparisons have been unfair; sometimes the media has exaggerated -- even lied -- about the similarities. Differences abound, and some of the most overlooked are listed below. "

Link: About The Somerville Gates

Worst TV Clips of the Week

This has to be the oddest use of fairuse I've seen. I guess I don't see a better way to do discuss graphic content without putting it online for all to see, but the Parents Television Council is redistributing clips of the most graphic content on TV each week. Sort of ironic isn't it?

Here's one to watch. Surprisingly, it's one of the tamest. it's from the January 14th episode of Boston Legal. I love that show, but maybe they have a point. :)

BostonLegal11405.wmv (550K)

Link: Worst TV Clips of the Week

Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity

This is not a video, and it's not a piece of audio, but I'm podcasting it anyway because this is an experimental blog and this PDF is an exemplary example of open media which should be exemplified. If it breaks anyones ANT or other podcasting app, I apologize. The problem is podcast apps are not there yet, not that I'm doing something wrong. One day perhaps they'll put PDF's in digital document libarary app, and images in a slideshow viewer just like they put mp3's in iTunes. Until then, I guess I'm going to on occassion screw up peoples podcasting apps.

So, here's "Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity". Available for free of course. It must have just come out. I haven't even read it yet, but I will. Perhaps after we all "steal" it we'll go and buy copies and the writer will actually make money. Imagine that? A writer who encourages sharing. Profit withoutout draconian DRM. Crazy.

For those of you who don't know Kembrew first drew attention for trademarking "freedom of expression" and suing the pants of the first major corportation that came along and dared use it. Thank you Kembrew McLeod for putting your money where your mouth is.

Read it: mcleod-freedomofexpression3.pdf

In 1998, university professor and professional prankster Kembrew McLeod trademarked the phrase "freedom of expression" as a joke, an amusing if dark way to comment on how intellectual property law is increasingly being used to fence off the culture and restrict the way we're allowed to express ideas. But what's happened in recent years to intellectual property law is no joke and has had repercussions on our culture and our everyday lives. The trend toward privatization of everything?melodies, genes, public space, English language?means an inevitable clash of economic values against the value of free speech, creativity, and shared resources. In Freedom of Expression®, Kembrew McLeod covers topics as diverse as hip-hop music and digital sampling, the patenting of seeds and human genes, folk and blues music, visual collage art, electronic voting, the Internet, and computer software. In doing so, he connects this rapidly accelerating push to pin down everything as a piece of private property to its effects on music, art, and science.

More info: Kembrew.com

Dept of Ed vs. Buster the Bunny - censorship and a issues at PBS

So much interesting stuff going on. Ryanne who works for PBS affiliate WGBH Boston New York (inexcuseable typo!) just put together this excellent footage exploring the issues of censorship and discrimination by the Department of Education against the kids show Postcards from Buster regarding an episode where Buster, a cartoon bunny, happens to visit a family with lesbian parents. You won't see coverage like this on your evening news.

Watch it: dept.of.ed.vs.buster.mov
(video/quicktime Object)

From: Ryanne's Video Blog

How a bout a little compare and contrast. For a different point of view check out the following clip from Media Matters which includes MSNBC and Fox pundits "discussing" the issue. I love it when people set the facts a side and tell Americans how they should think. You go O'Reilly. (note: last sentence = sarcasm)

Watch it: sc-oreillly-200502170007.mov
(video/quicktime Object)

From: O'Reilly compared lesbian parents on PBS' Buste ... [Media Matters for America]

My opinion. Buster is always welcome on the web. The sooner web based distribution mechanisms take over as the dominate medium the the sooner we can stop debating over who's view gets to dominate the looking glass. This winner take all mentality must die. If you want to be a bigot that's your right, but it shouldn't get in the way of everyone else. Broadcast TV as a medium lacks the capacity to represent the true diversity of those it represents. Meanwhile the capacity of the internet has no limit. It is directly proportional to the number of people participating. You choose what YOU want to watch not what others can watch or produce. I can't wait until the day when a TV show like buster is held directly accountable only by those who watch it and any betrayal in trust will be determined in a drop in viewer-ship, not in some loud mouth ass who has seized the microphone.

This is different footage than I usually show here. It's not all fun and lighthearted. Be sire to let me know what you think.

A short video interview with Milton Glaser

This amazing short video interview of designer Milton Glaser was shot by Hillman Curtis for Adobe. It appears that it has just hit the web very recently. What a find.

Watch it: 0120_adobe_Large.mov
(37.8 mb video/quicktime Object)

By: Hillman Curtis
Title: Designer Series feature : Milton Glaser
Description: A documentary on the designer Milton Glaser
Client: Adobe Systems, Inc.

There's absolutely no other information on it online, but then again, I guess there doesn't need to be.

Via: The Last Minute Blog: Milton Glaser

Also via: Video interview with Milton Glaser (kottke.org)

In Chicago this weekend

Spur of the moment thing. I will be in Chicago this coming weekend on Friday and Saturday. I'll be meeting up with some friends for a very casual and informal gathering in the Loop (on Wabash and Adams) Friday after work hours and then likely be heading up to Wicker Park for some late night happenings. Email me at interact@mmeiser.com if you're in Chicago and want to meet up.

Matter - a short film by Erik Nelson of Bottom Union

Screw it. I thought I could wait until tomorrow to blog this, but the more I watch it the more the lyrics and the visuals haunt me. I must share it with you now. I pre-apologize to those in the vlogging community who have seen it, it is those visitors outside the vlogging community to which I wish to introduce Erik Nelson and his wonderful video blogging work.

Watch it: MatterCircle.mov (video/quicktime Object)

This is not the first time I've blogged about Erik Nelson's work, nor is he the first video blogger I've featured, I may well start doing a regular weekly feature introducing one new video blogger if there's interest. God knows there's more than enough talented video bloggers and they are crazy prolific both in their creativity and the prodigous amount of work they produce. It's unbelieveable that video-casting via ANT didn't exist untill four or five weeks ago. It's been such an exciting time I've lost track of time.

From: Bottom Union: Matter

MSBC Coverage of CNN's Eason Jordan incident

MSNBC calls for the firing of Eason Jordon. I just thought it was relevent today.

joe.mov (3.9mb video/quicktime Object)

Note, this comes from the video blog Jackson's Junction which contains at least a half dozen clips of coverage of this event. I like it's premise. We provide the video, you decide.

Cultural Zen - the Hello Kitty Crop circle

That's cultural zen.

Viceland - Viceland Exclusive: Surface to Air's Hello Kitty Crop circle

Sanrio commissioned Surface to Air (New York) to make an artwork celebrating Hello Kitty?s 30th birthday for an exhibition at the Mori Museum in Tokyo.

The three members of Surface to Air who designed and oversaw the crop circle were myself, Rajan Mehta and Daniel Jackson. We made the piece on a farm just outside of Stonehenge (which is the ?unofficial home of crop circles' and just a spooky place in general) this past July. After over a month of planning, it took 16 hours of physical labor to make. We rented the land from the farmer for 2 months. It?s approximately half a football field by half a football field in size.

It could only be viewed from the air ? which was not a problem since every flight heading south from Heathrow went directly over it.

Our goal was to make something that would add to the mystique of Hello Kitty's origins, and at the same time work within the grandiosity of the Hello Kitty phenomenon (if you will). A crop circle ? being of similar disposition ? seemed to be a perfect fit.

Besides, we just thought it would be fucking ridiculous and they gave us the money to do it! They even ran tours from Japan for people to go see it.

GORDON HULL, SURFACE TO AIR

When bloggers get fired

This is a clip from ABC World News on the February 10th. In it Heather Armstrong of the blog dooce.com talks briefly about getting fired for blogging.

dooce_mpeg.mpg (2.9mb video/mpeg Object)

Here's the related article: ABC News: Blogging Can Get You in Trouble at Work

Related article regarding getting "dooced" (fired for blogging): MSNBC - When blogging gets risky

Other posts on this video: blogs on http://dmkjr.com/files/dooce_mpeg.mpg

The MPAA vs. An Army of Mice

I'm just on a roll today. I think somone has finally hit the nail upon the head. "Inappropriate conduct - Inexcusable business practices". We need a ranking system to identify corporations that are behaving inappropriately and with inexcusable business practices. I encourage everyone to put this graphic on their website and link it to whatever article or post to which they are referring. Today, I cite the MPAA with for their assine comments left on the Lokitorrent website after they took it down. Congratulations MPAA, here's your reward!


From: The MPAA vs. An Army of Mice

This website has been erected out of consumer outcry over the passing of sites that facilitate the free availability of perpetually copyrighted motion pictures. The unauthorized downloading of motion pictures denies thousands of dishonest, lazy executives of their crack smoking livelihood, and is the only way to bring an artistically bankrupt monopoly under control. Downloading movies without authorization violates laws distorted beyond their original intent, is not tangible theft, and is impossible to stop. You can't catch everyone. The only way to win is to stop waging war on your own customers and accept the fact that we are in control, not you. You brought this on yourselves.

Will Blogs Produce a Chilling Effect? - a follow up on the NY Time's "trophy hunters"

As if to punctuate my previous post on forgiveness, understanding and lessons learned the following article just crossed the news feeds. Odd, intro, very odd, but a great point.

TCS: Tech Central Station - Will Blogs Produce a Chilling Effect?

"Imagine that mind reading were suddenly imposed on humanity automatically transmitting all our thoughts to those around us. Involuntary telepathy would destroy countless marriages as wives learned of their husbands perverse fantasies. Bosses would fire millions after they found out what their employees really thought of them. Police would be inundated with reports of ordinary citizens contemplating hideous crimes. But eventually we would realize that all humans harbor evil thoughts and an equilibrium would emerge in which we forgave bad thoughts that didn't lead to terrible deeds.

People have more control over their spoken words than their unannounced thoughts, but occasionally most of us still say things we later regret. Recently, three powerful men have been damaged or brought down by their own utterances. Eason Jordan resigned his position as top news executive at CNN because he had allegedly said that the U.S. military was deliberately killing journalists in Iraq. Trent Lott had to give up his position as Senate Majority Leader because of his too-profuse praise of former segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond. And the not-yet former president of Harvard Larry Summers was forced to repent and apologize for suggesting that biological differences might explain the paucity of female science professors."

Thoughts: I see this everywhere. The internet is making things transparent and fully disclosed. So many great things come of this, but we need to be aware that our perspectives are radically shifting. Here we have much over valuation of words spoken by new and old media alike because we suddenly have a huge leap in disclosure of written and spoken words. Likewise, the MPAA is freaking out about any and all music being publicly shared online, suppressing it almost to the point where there is no such thing as fair use in the online public spectrum for their artists. I can't even reference a clip of a RIAA song on my blog for the purposes of discussion for fear of litigation or at the very least a cease and diciest from the RIAA.

The problem here is not that people are suddenly sharing music and that they've never done this in the past, the problem is that we can see everything that's being shared. We need to identify that this huge leap in transparency and disclosure has radically changed our perspectives in news, politic, and media, and we need to change our perspectives and reactions radically before we eat ourselves for lunch... and by ourselves I mean not just bloggers and citizens, but primarily mainstream press and news media. It is they who carry the biggest and sharpest swords.

Yet another case in point, Howard Dean's, "Yeeee Haaa! heard around the world." It ended a political campaign, was this due bloggers posting sound clips or videos around the web? I think NOT. These capabilities were not widely developed and useable at the time. That message went out loud and clear through mainstream press, not the blogosphere.

Which reminds me, there is a media term developed to describe characteristics of media, such as "cool media" and "hot media". I forgot who coined these terms, but it would be very interesting to see how blogging stacks up to traditional media in these terms. Perhaps these terms are not even relevant.

Happy Valentine's Day - Ze Frank style

Film and video aficionado gone web-pop culture icon Ze Frank has posted a Valentines day video. In case you don't know who Ze is he's become quite the icon in the last couple years for his humorous little clips on everything from dating to dancing. Relationships seem to be his specialty. It all started a year or two ago with a dancing clip he did to promote an ad agency party. Since then his site has continued to grow in popularity getting press from all over the world from YM magazine to Forbes. But enough of the backgroud, let's enjoy the clip.

Watch it: vday.mov (4mb Quicktime)

Via ze's blog

Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters

I normally don't post serious news on my main blog, but this is pretty important and I just got the scoop. So, being a "salivating moron" I thought I'd make a go of it.

Tomorrow there will be an uproar in the blogosphere about this article that just came out in the New York Times about two hours ago.

The New York Times > Technology > Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters

In essence the NY Times hits the blogosphere head on. The question it essentially asks is,
Is the blogosphere citizen journalism, or is it a high tech lynch mob? For the precise details read on.

"Steve Lovelady, a former editor at The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Wall Street Journal and now managing editor of CJR Daily, the Web site of The Columbia Journalism Review, has been among the most outspoken.

'The salivating morons who make up the lynch mob prevail,' he lamented online after Mr. Jordan's resignation. He said that Mr. Jordan cared deeply about the reporters he had sent into battle and was 'haunted by the fact that not all of them came back.'"

That's right, I'm searching for an alternative context, but Steve Lovelady would appear to be directly referring to bloggers as "salivating morons" who make up a "lynch mob". That's pretty clear.

Steve Lovelady's quote is then immediately followed by.

Some on line were simply trying to make sense of what happened. "Have we entered an era where our lives can be destroyed by a pack of wolves hacking at their keyboards with no oversight, no editors, and no accountability?" asked a blogger named Mark Coffey, 36, who says he works as an analyst in Austin, Tex. "Or does it mean that we've entered a brave new world where the MSM has become irrelevant," he asked, using blogger shorthand for mainstream media.

There is also an excellent quote by Jeff Jarvis of the Buzz Machine. Once again I'm including some of the NY Times article to illustrate how they frame it.

Mr. Jarvis said bloggers should keep their real target in mind. "I wish our goal were not taking off heads but digging up truth," he cautioned.

My thoughts: Wow, First a NY Times photographer, then Trent Lott, then Dan Rather, and now this. This is by no means every incident either. The list of incidents that have massed attention in the blogosphere and ended in firings or resignations in real world media and politics is long and getting longer everyday. There is no doubting the power of blogging, but blogging is not rolling these heads itself. Blogging is merely letting the murmur of voices in the back room be heard. In all of these cases blogs were not judge and jury. In each one of these cases blogs merely pointed out very specific facts. We see this again and again. Racism as clear as day, obvious photo manipulation, and obviously fake documents. Verified every one. This is looking dangerously like a trickle that could turn into a raging torrent.

What I'm saying is blogging may have been the start of this chain of events, but it cannot and will not be made a scapegoat. Those who committed the acts have hung themselves, and those in the press who point fingers should just as soon look in the mirror. What we need here is understanding, and forgiveness. These are lessons for all us to learn from. I cannot say so for all of these people, but I do have respect for Dan Rather. He has learned a lesson for us all and we'd be wise to learn from his mistake as he has and allow him to go on with this knowledge as we press on ourselves.

Secondly, Blogging is by no means a "pack of wolves", a "lynch mob" or a bunch of "salivating morons". What is factual and what you can reliably quote and I will stand behind for my part is; only fools or those with loose tongues would throw out such rampant generalizations.

Blogging if you haven't noticed by now is a MEDIUM, a medium as plainly as newspapers are a medium, or TV news, or radio. It is not a genre or a fad or a pack of anything. Mediums are controlled by and represent no one group, especially in the case of the blogosphere. Bloggers are as diverse and varied as the day is long. They vary from hard hitting political wordsmiths to teenage cat bloggers. They vary from elite executive millionaires to people living below the poverty line.

You can no more generalize and label bloggers then you could put these labels on more traditional mediums such as the tv and radio. In fact given the diversity of blogging and bloggers these labels are especially ridiculous, for newspapers, TV, and radio by comparison have a much, much narrower representation. So, whomever you are, before you attack the blogosphere and before you label it remember this:

The blogosphere IS the people, and it is more representative of the people every day.

I leave you with this piece of zen from the finger pointing New York Times. NY Times - December 12, 2002 - Fire Trent Lott.

Of course the New York Times has placed this whole article behind their great wall requesting payment, so you might try another source. On Lisa Rein's Radar: NY Times Says: Fire Trent Lott

(Via: Broadcasting Intelligence: Defining the Blogosphere, "Bloggers as News Media Trophy Hunters")

Related materials:

South Dakota Politics: February 7, 2005 - February 13, 2005

PRESTOPUNDIT: YOU JUST KNOW that some on the left will soon be saying that Eason Jordan

Captain's Quarters

Captain's Quarters

Technorati: Technorati Tracking on the NYtimes article

Late at Night - a great breakdancing music video

This has been around for a while but recently it resurfaced. It's a superbly shot tech music video, guaranteed to freak you out with it's freaky moves, freaky cinematography, and great cityscapes.

I'm not sure yet where it was shot or even who the artist is. If you find out, please do tell.

Well, you don't expect me to do all the work around here do ha? :)

latenite.mov (video/quicktime Object) (13.9)

Francois Truffaut - the film of tomorrow

"The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary. The young filmmakers will express themselves in the first person and will relate what has happened to them. It may be the story of their first love or their most recent; of their political awakening; the story of a trip, a sickness, their military service, their marriage, their last vacation...and it will be enjoyable because it will be true, and new...The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure. The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it, and the number of spectators will be proportional to the number of friends the director has. The film of tomorrow will be an act of love."

Francois Truffaut - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Courtesy of Erik Nelson at Erik Nelson >Bottom Union Films

Westless American - an award winning film short

I love this film.

WestlessAmericanShort.mov
(34.9mb Quicktime)

We rented a van and loaded it with four coolers...two for the film and the rest for beers and food...camera equipment (two 16mm cameras, tripod, two shoulder braces, 35mm camera....camping equipment (tents, sleeping bags, portable stoves, pots, pans)...and we headed to telluride first...canyonlands, hovenweep, valley of the gods, natural bridges, monument valley, page, south rim, north rim, cliffdwellers, zion, coral pink sand dunes, bryce, lake mead, vegas, death valley, devil's hole, yosemite, san ran risco, redwoods, up the oregon coast to Portland and back to Boulder....One month...7,000 miles on the rental van...about 89 bags of ice...12,000 feet of film...and only about four nights slept inside.

Awarded Best Experimental Film by Rural Route Film Festival.

More info: WESTLESS AMERICAN (the short) > Erik Nelson : Bottom Union Films

More Films by Eric Nelson: Erik Nelson : Bottom Union Films
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Mark Pesce on BitTorrent - a follow up on the MPAA's bittorrent offensive

This is weeks old. It was posted on December 21st, and it's been all over the web, but it's worth noting here. If you've read it before, think of this as emphasis. A little redundancy never hurt anyone.

From: Napsterization:

This is just a clip, but the whole thing is a fun read.

"Hey, Hollywood! Can you feel the future slipping through your fingers?
Do you understand how badly you've screwed up? You took a perfectly
serviceable situation - a nice, centralized system for the distribution of media, and, through your own greed and shortsightedness, are giving birth to a system of digital distribution that you'll never, ever be able to defeat. In your avarice and arrogance you ignored the obvious: you should have cut a deal with SuprNova.org. In partnership you could have found a way to manage the disruptive change that's already well underway. Instead, you have repeated the mistakes made by the recording industry, chapter and verse. And thus you have spelled your own doom.

It's said that the best sequels are just like the original, only bigger and louder. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for one hell of a crash. This baby is now fully out of control."

Gunther - a film short from some very witty people in Amsterdam

This video clip only known as Gunther was played at some point somewhere on MTV's "Shorts" program, was written in Amsterdam and produced by The Sweet Shop in New Zealand. It is short and it is indescribably hilarious. Enjoy.

Wach it: gunther1.mov
(8.1mb video/quicktime Object)

Thank you humor.nl (that's .nl as in Neatherlands I assume) for putting it online and thank you MTV for supporting a growing cottage industry of film makers that produces this crazy stuff.

Muppets Over Time - an amazing computer animated film short

Title: Over Time (Short)
Directed By: Oury Atlan, Thibaut Berland, Damien Ferrie
Music: Inconsolable by the Silberman Orchestra
Music: ' shien vi di l'vone', ' eli eli ' by Ornadel and the Starlight Symphony
Air Date: 2004
Time: 00:01:21.03

Watch it: muppetsovertime05.mov (6.1mb video/quicktime Object)

Muppets Over Time is a quirky little Quicktime movie that showcases the artistic talents of someone who obviously loves the Muppets and Kermit in particular. The movie is done in a very jocular black-and-white style and appears to be computer animated. It features wonderfully light-hearted orchestral music and crazy, Kermit-esque muppets en masse. Oh, and a balding, older gentlema who is potentially dead.

I absolutely adored it.

Joey Tomatoes, a site that showcases quirky and innovative ads, is the originator of the movie, if not the creator.

Via: Mostly Muppet Dot Com - Muppets Overtime

Rockfish - a sweet animated film short

A vert nicely done nine minute animated film short. Let me know if you like this stuff by leaving a comment. I need feedback. ;)

RockFish.mov
(9min / 20.2mb / Quicktime)

A miner in a distant galaxy goes fishing for the creatures that plague his planet. Shortlisted for an Oscar nom!

From: Midnight Classic: Rockfish ? iGuide ? Studio i638

I clearly don't have enough information on this one. If anyone has any more info I'd be very pleased if you could post it in my comments.

Update courtesy of an anonymous commenter: The video is from Blur Studios, more onformation here: Gopher Broke - an academy award nominated animated short by Blur Studios.

Raging Fred Remix - where the flinstones meet raging bull

No explanation needed.

2663564_200.mov (video/quicktime Object)

Hacking Pepsi's super bowl ad

Ok, this is just funny, and likely just funny to me and my one regular subscriber. But, the folks over at rocketboom have had a little video editing fun with Pepsi's new Superbowl commercial, which is admitedly a little stupid. You probably won't catch this unless your a fan of rocketboom, and then it's hard to miss. Enjoy.

pepsi_itunes.mov
(6.4mb video/quicktime Object)

Via: Rocketboom

ColdCut, 'Music for 18 Musicians' - a different sort of music video

I sift through dozens of video feeds every day. Sometimes it can become a little tedious, but sometimes I stumble across an unexpected surprise which makes it all worthwhile. This is a promotional music video for the ColdCut track titled 'Music for 18 Musicians' but it's full of facinating and beautiful abstractions and whitespace both visually and audibly. It's six and a half minutes long, so I suggest downloading it, sitting back, putting your feet up and playing it full screen.

Watch it: reich-hollis.mov
(32mb / 6.5min / QuickTime)

From: SHIFT | 035 | JEREMY HOLLISTER

Jeremy Hollister is a visual effects artist living in NYC and working mainly for music videos and television commercials. He sent us a videotape.
It's a promotional video for the ColdCut track titled 'Music for 18 Musicians' on the Reich Remixed album, and the beautiful visual soundscape fascinates viewers' eyes. He has done a number of promos. We interviewed him about the broadcast design scene in the US etc.

[...]

"Architecture always fascinates me and I think that modernist buildings such as those by Saarinen and Niemeyer (even though he seemed to a have certain level of disregard for how some of the buildings would work in practical use) are beautiful studies of form and contrast in space. I thought that it would be interesting to explore these ideas of form and space through the live action using different architectural icons, vast spaces and minimal action from the model/actress to enhance this. We used the white fields of color to anchor the visual theme, restricting the palette to white and blue. The goal was to create an abstract visual soundscape of repeating key themes with slight changes, mirroring the tonal variations in Reich's compositions."

Via: bryanboyer.com: Steve Reich, Jeremy Hollister, Coldcut

Also Via: demandmedia || Music For 18 Musicians

Napoleon Dynamite

Planning on watching Napoleon Dynamite tonight. Heard so many great things about this movie. Mostly I was sold by the awesomely weird music video I'd Rather Dance With You by the Kings of Convenience.

Music Video: king001_http_300_300.mp4 (17.4mb)

Yeah, that's the sort of style I'm talking about.

Trailer: napoleon_dynamite-sref.mov (10.4mb Quicktime)

Alternate url for trailer: Apple - Trailers - Napoleon Dynamite

More information: IMDB - Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Bird houses in Turkey

Amazing article on the inclusion of birdhouses in Turkish architecture.

"One of the most beautiful examples of civilian architecture, bird houses are the centre of attraction on any building. Some have been added following construction, others built in at the start. We encounter them everywhere--on mosques, madrasas, libraries, houses, inns, baths, tombs, bridges, churches, synagogues, and even palaces, in short, in every place that has been touched by human hands.
[...]
Bird houses are a symbol of the value and importance Turks place on animals, especially birds. Several foundations were founded in the Ottoman period for the care and protection of animals. Some of these foundations specialized in feeding birds on cold winter days, caring for and treating sick storks, and providing food and water to animals in general.

Bird houses in Turkey

Via: Boing Boing: Turkey's lovely 15th century Ottoman birdhouses

Cherry 7-up, the early 90's and Matt LeBlanc - I love the early 90's

I posted this merely because it made me laugh, and laugh and laugh, which is really the best reason isn't it. I hope you enjoy this early 90's cherry 7-up advertisment with as much as I did. Do you remember when everything was cool in pink?

2663567_200.mov (1.2mb video/quicktime Object)

Myopic puppy blogging - an analysis - when bloggers have very public breakdowns

Hello, My name is Patches (or something) and my owner, Dunstan Orchard has gone mad.

Well I've found out who's to blame for all the videos crossing my video feeds of puppies. Apparently it all started on the 14th of January when the dog of prominent blogger and designer Dunstan Orchard of 1976design.com, Poppy, gave birth.

Perhaps his descent into myopic puppy video blogging also has something do do with his somewhat recent appointment to Apple, Inc., but it's clear that Dunstan's creativeity and judgment have suddenly broken down as he has slowly worked himself up from photoblogging about nothing but puppies to now videoblogging about nothing but puppies, actually posting multiple videos a day. I must ask myself how an otherwise bright and creative individual can lose all judgement in the face of such horrific events. It's quite disturbing.

• 26th - A short film of the puppies at 13-days old
  
  
• 26th - A short film of the puppies with their eyes open
  
  
• 25th - A short film of Squeak and Lotty
  
  
• 20th - A short film of the week-old puppies
  
  
• 19th - Lotty and Dotty
  
  
• 19th - Scrap lying on his back
  
  
• 18th - Scrap lying on his tummy
  
  
• 14th - Poppy has puppies

What if we all did nothing but post pictures of our pets. What then? I ask that people try to restrain themselves such activity and make a call for the creation of rules governing this type of activity within the blogosphere, especially within the videoblogging community. It's stuff like this that's going to set video blogging and blogging in general back years. How will we ever gain the respect of our traditional journalistic counterparts and establish our merit withing the artistic community. Get a hold of yourself people.

Poppy has puppies | Blog | 1976design.com