[VIDEO] Baseball fan? Last night, something very rare happened. Two teams in the same neck of the woods, the Washington Nationals and the Baltimore Orioles, clinched their respective divisions on the very same night. Huge parties, much fun for the fans.
To honor this achievement, I present Bryan Cranston’s magnificent one-man Broadway show, his homage to post-season baseball.
[VIDEO] Last week, Tim Cook did a two hour interview with Charlie Rose. The editors split the interview into two halves, running part one last Friday evening (here’s a link, if you missed it). Part two is embedded below. Fantastic interview. I found it riveting.
[VIDEO] A few days ago, fresh from the iPhone 6, Apple Watch, Apple Pay launch, Tim Cook appeared on The Charlie Rose Show. The show edited and released the first half of that interview Friday night. The complete video is embedded below, courtesy of Hulu.
I love Charlie Rose’s interview technique. He’s laid back, draws his subjects in, let’s them unburden themselves. He has a collection of issues he wants to explore, but does so so softly, you might not realize he’s even steering.
There’s a lot to enjoy here. Charlie gets hands on with the new iPhones and a look at the Apple Watch on Tim’s wrist. Interestingly, Tim wore his watch, but controlled it himself, saying “I may have some things on here that you shouldn’t see just yet.”
Charlie talks IBM partnership, Beats acquisition, product design philosophy and a lot more.
Tim talks about Steve Jobs with great reverence. He tells the story of Steve telling him he was going to be Apple’s new CEO, getting the sense that Steve was not going to bounce back.
Thoughtful interview, well worth watching.
[VIDEO] Watch these city workers hand lettering some signage on the street. So perfect. Mesmerizing.
[VIDEO] These new ads are unfocused and mean-spirited. I’m struggling to make sense of them. Where’s the clever?
[VIDEO] > Microsoft may be understandably peeved about this after committing to spend $400 million on an exclusive advertising and equipment deal with the NFL, but then the networks that cover the games aren’t under the league’s control. Educating their commentators may be as important to Microsoft as enlightening the rest of the world to the Surface’s advantages.
I disagree. These announcers are well educated. Watch the video below. They know an iPad-like device when they see one.
[VIDEO] I love the premise behind this commercial. I wish I could do that.
[VIDEO] Phil McNamara captures the eruption of Mount Tavurvur volcano from a boat off Papua New Guinea (eastern edge of New Britain island). When you see the explosion, keep your eyes on the clouds surrounding the island, then count the beats until the boom hits. Fantastic video.
[VIDEO] The FLIR ONE personal thermal imager is an infrared camera that snaps on to the back of your iPhone 5, allowing you to shoot infrared videos and stills. I’ve played with one and they are fun, easy to use and work well.
The down side of the FLIR ONE is that it can be used to pick up pin codes and other lock combinations by tracking the heat signature left by your fingers. The video embedded below shows how this is done and how to prevent it. Worth a watch.
[VIDEO] The Washington Post ran this video showing a series of seven iPhone shooting tricks. Some of them were just OK, but I found a few of them to be brilliant.
Did you know you can use your headphone switch to take a picture? Combine that one with a water glass and you have a clever, albeit slightly risky way to take some underwater shots. I wonder if you could achieve the same thing with a very tall baggie.
[VIDEO] This past Friday, SpaceX launched an unmanned, reusable Falcon 9R rocket (the successor to the Grasshopper) in McGregor, Texas. The rocket self-destructed shortly into its ascent. See the original Loop post for video.
[VIDEO] I’ve long been a fan of Alfred Hitchcock. Rear Window, North by Northwest, The 39 Steps, all great films, in my opinion. One of my favorite elements of Hitchcock’s filming was his Easter egg gift to his fans. He appeared in some form or another in every one of his movies. Usually, he was an extra in a scene with no lines. Sometimes, he was simply in a picture hanging on a wall.
Here’s a multipage article laying out all of those cameos. But there’s no substitute for seeing this for yourself. Watch the video below for a nice sampling. No, these are not all of them and yes, there are some typos, but I loved the effort. Gosh, Psycho, Strangers on a Train, The Man Who Knew Too Much. So many more.
Some great selfies, some more dangerous than others, but thrilling nonetheless.
Maybe it’s because I just came across the 10,000th social media selfie I’ve seen this month that’s making me snap. It was another of those inane pics taken in the safe confines of a bar that looks like every other, so I burned the morning looking for more dangerously-shot selfies. In particular the famous ones I’d seen those Russian maniacs shooting high up in the Dubai sky.
[VIDEO] Ad Week:
The spot, created by TBWA\Media Arts Lab and directed by Lance Acord of Park Pictures, shows a teen at Christmas who seems anti-socially glued to his iPhone, though it turns out it’s for heartwarming reasons. It beat out four other nominees for the prize. Two of them were Super Bowl ads by Anomaly for Budweiser—”Hero’s Welcome” and “Puppy Love.” The other two were BBDO’s “Childlike Imagination” for GE and Wieden + Kennedy’s “Possibilities” for Nike.
The commercial took three days to shoot and was filmed in a historic house located on the edge of the River Valley in snowy Edmonton. Beautifully done.
[VIDEO] You’ve no doubt seen time lapse videos, where the action in a video is speeded up by trimming a video to show only one frame in ten, say. Time lapse videos are jumpy.
Microsoft’s research labs have introduced a new form of time lapse video, called Hyperlapse. Words don’t do it justice.
[VIDEO] Iain Anderson had his daughter recite the famous All the world’s a stage monologue from Shakespeare’s As You Like It, one line at a time.
This is fascinating to watch, certainly, but it also raises an interesting point. I found the meaning in this monologue much clearer, much easier to digest, because it was broken up into fragments, each of which was filmed as an individual scene. There’s a lesson there for teachers, I think. Regardless, enjoy.
Apple has added two new verses to its “Your Verse” ad campaign. The first one takes you on the road with Chinese musicians Yaoband. The second new “Your Verse” ad follows Jason Hall as he rallies thousand of his fellow Detroit bicyclists to inspire his city. Click through for the videos and links.
If you’ve never listened to WTF with Marc Maron, this interview with Robin Williams is an excellent place to start.
[VIDEO] Vimeo:
When Adobe Illustrator first shipped in 1987, it was the first software application for a young company that had, until then, focused solely on Adobe PostScript. The new product not only altered Adobe’s course, it changed drawing and graphic design forever.
Watch the Illustrator story unfold, from its beginning as Adobe’s first software product, to its role in the digital publishing revolution, to becoming an essential tool for designers worldwide. Interviews include cofounder John Warnock, his wife Marva, artists and designers Ron Chan, Bert Monroy, Dylan Roscover and Jessica Hische.
It is hard to truly appreciate the impact Adobe had on the world of computing. In the video embedded below, you’ll meet John Warnock, the co-founder of Adobe, and watch as the invention and evolution of PostScript and Adobe Illustrator unfolds.
Absolutely brilliant.
[VIDEO] Dreams is the latest ad in the “You’re more powerful than you think” series. The song in the ad is When I Grow Up by Jennifer O’Connor.
As is now the norm, all the apps featured in the ad are highlighted on Apple’s web site.
The movie Boyhood was filmed using the same cast over 12 years, so you literally see the protagonist growing up before your eyes. A great concept, said to be a great movie, can’t wait to see it.
In a scene celebrating Mason Jr.’s 15th birthday, he receives a mix CD from his father, Mason Sr., played by Ethan Hawke. Called The Black Album, it’s a compilation of the best of John, Paul, George, and Ringo’s solo work, post-Beatles.
The CD comes with a set of liner notes in the form of a letter, cribbed from liner notes Ethan Hawke originally wrote for his daughter. Great concept, great letter, especially if you are a Beatles fan.
[VIDEO] Noisey:
Marcus Haney has never paid to go to a festival. He makes replica wristbands, sneaks past security guards, and walks with confidence. Sure – he gets chucked out. But often he ends up on the main-stage, hangs out with bands, and captures unique views with his camera.
Marcus Haney is following his passion in a way that few people do. He’s got that rare inner voice, that bright burning vision, that guides him.
Follow the headline link to read the interview. Watch an early, leaked trailer for his documentary, a work in progress, below.
[VIDEO] I’m an engineer at heart. I love creative solutions to problems, even if they turn out not to be practical. I’ll leave it to the vinyl experts to decide if this process works better than a commercial record cleaner, but I give this video an A+ for clever.
Lots of great content to dig through, all free until the paywall is put in place in the fall.
[VIDEO] There’s some good stuff in this video. The biggest surprise was the two finger tap in a paragraph of text. Worth the price of admission right there. Nice job, Joshua.
[VIDEO] At first blush, American Ninja Warrior might seem like just another silly bit of reality TV. But try to imagine doing what the contestants on this show do. As you watch the video below, ignore the hype and just focus on each individual task that Kacy Catanzaro takes on. Inspirational. Bravo, Kacy.
Warren Buffet and Paul McCartney were sitting on a park bench in Omaha. This kid sees them and takes a selfie that has since gone viral. Pretty cool.
[VIDEO] This is short, but very cool. Footage is from an Ohio race, July 4th, 2014. Be sure to watch out for the part immediately after the crash when the red car driver calmly readjusts their side view mirror and drives on. Brilliant!
Here’s a lesson in how easy it is to fool people, in just how much people want to believe in conspiracies.
[VIDEO] Ingress was created by a startup within Google called Niantic Labs. From the Wikipedia page:
The gameplay consists of establishing “portals” at places of public art, landmarks, cenotaphs, etc., and linking them to create virtual triangular fields over geographic areas. Progress in the game is measured by the number of Mind Units, i.e. people, nominally controlled by each faction (as illustrated on the Intel Map).
Here’s a link to the iOS version of the game. It’s free. Note that you’ll need to login with a gmail or other Google account.
Note also that you’ll need to share your location with the game and that your location will be shared with other players. There is a bit of risk there, both in privacy and in sharing your actual location with people you don’t know. This is the one aspect of the game I find worrisome.
The trailer is embedded below.