Media

The problem with crowd-sourcing

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I just read the linked article about the worst movie on IMDb (as of May 1st). The movie is called Gunday (here’s the IMDb link). As the story goes, Gunday’s low rating is the result of a marketing misstep and not a true indicator of it’s aesthetic or enjoyability…

For your consideration: a smorgasbord of tech-related podcasts

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Joe Caiati shares his list of favorite tech podcasts. I am always looking for new podcasts to add to the rotation. I now have a few new ones I’m going to explore. Thanks, Joe.

Got your own favorites? Please do weigh in on the comments.

Watch an entire Baltimore street collapse at once

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[VIDEO] Heavy rains triggered the collapse of a retaining wall on one side of a railroad track. The road has partially collapsed when this video (in the original post) was shot. The guy who shot the video? His Jeep was one of the cars that got swallowed up.

The action happens about a minute into the video, and it happens fast. It does get a bit loud, so you might want to turn your volume down if you are at work.

Flying through a fireworks display with a drone

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[VIDEO] Most perspectives of a fireworks show are 2D. You are far away and the depth of field is relatively infinite. The video embedded in the original post adds a third dimension. You get the sense of the individual elements moving towards and past you. Pretty cool.

The illusion of life – Disney’s core animation principles

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[VIDEO]

From the video’s about page:

The 12 basic principles of animation were developed by the ‘old men’ of Walt Disney Studios, amongst them Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, during the 1930s. Of course they weren’t old men at the time, but young men who were at the forefront of exciting discoveries that were contributing to the development of a new art form. These principles came as a result of reflection about their practice and through Disney’s desire to use animation to express character and personality.

This movie is my personal take about those principles, applied to simple shapes. Like a cube. Check also the animated gif gallery here.

Astonishing. Watch the video in the original Loop post.

Boyhood

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[VIDEO] You know all those movies where someone takes a selfie in the same position once a year, then flows them together so you can watch someone grow up? Well the movie Boyhood takes this one amazing step further.

Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, School of Rock, A Scanner Darkly, to name a few) found the star, Ellar Coltrane, when he was 7 years old and visited him for a few days of shooting every year. The growing up that occurs in the movie is real. Unbelievable. Can’t wait to see it.

The trailer is embedded in the original post.

Inside HBO’s “Silicon Valley”

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I love this show. It’s satire, but underneath it all is well researched, sharp witted, down to the bones truth. And funny as hell, too.

Time’s 100 most influential people

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There’s much to consume here. At its core are 100 short biographies of influential people, all written by fascinating people. A bit of a clunky interface, and there’s much to discuss as far as the makeup of the list.

Amazon and HBO ink exclusive content deal for Amazon Instant Video

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This is a big deal for Amazon and a bit of bad news for Netflix.

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced a content licensing agreement with HBO, making Prime Instant Video the exclusive online-only subscription home for select HBO programming. The collection includes award-winning shows such as The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Wire, Big Love, Deadwood, Eastbound & Down, Family Tree, Enlightened, Treme, early seasons of Boardwalk Empire and True Blood, as well as mini-series like Band of Brothers, John Adams and more. Previous seasons of other HBO shows, such as Girls, The Newsroom and Veep will become available over the course of the multi-year agreement, approximately three years after airing on HBO. The first wave of content will arrive on Prime Instant Video May 21. This is the first time that HBO programming has been licensed to an online-only subscription streaming service. This programming will remain on all HBO platforms.

A smart move for Amazon and Fire TV.

Apple’s new “Powerful” ad

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[VIDEO] I love the construction of this video (embedded in the original post). Lots of little pieces, all tied together to support Gigantic, by The Pixies. So well done. Be sure to check out Apple’s Powerful iPhone 5s web page, which showcases some of the apps used in the video.

Yum.

Fat Men From Space

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Ever hear of Daniel Manus Pinkwater? If you have kids, or ever were one yourself, you owe it to yourself to check out Pinkwater’s books. Books like Lizard Music, The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death and, my favorite, Fat Men from Space.

The good news is, these books, long out of print, are now finally available as eBooks. Huzzah! Thank you for this wonderful news, BoingBoing.

Assaulted for wearing Google Glass, but not for privacy reasons

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Kyle Russell writes for Business Insider. He was wrapping up an assignment, covering a protest of a Google lawyer turned part-time landlord, when someone ran up to him and grabbed his Google Glass from his face.

The story is less about this assault and more about the impact well heeled startups are having on the local communities. As the money floods in, housing prices rise, taxes increase, and local residents are prices out of their homes. Anger and resentment brews. Can this be fixed? A thoughtful read.

The classic Kombi Volkswagen van is retired, makes final wish

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[VIDEO] The Kombi van was created in the 1940s and is an icon of the automotive industry. Called the “hippie van”, or the VW bus, the Kombi van has had a long colorful life. The last one rolled off the assembly line in Brasil at the end of last year.

The video embedded in the post is a love letter from Kombi to the world. Fantastic.

Microsoft to compete with Amazon and Netflix with their own original programming

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Bloomberg:

Microsoft Corp. is going Hollywood with a cast including comedians Sarah Silverman and Seth Green, aspiring World Cup players and eerily human robots.

All are involved in shows that Microsoft’s new Xbox television studio plans to roll out globally starting in June. Helmed by former CBS Corp. honcho Nancy Tellem, who Microsoft hired 19 months ago to build a TV powerhouse from the ground up, the studio now has six series lined up — including a science-fiction thriller called “Humans” about humanoid robot workers — and more than a dozen projects in development.

This is Microsoft’s not-so-Trojan horse into the living room, building dependence on the Xbox One for accessing web-based programming on your TV, competing with Apple TV, Fire TV, and Google’s evolving TV solution.

The guilt of the video-game millionaires

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From the New Yorker:

One night in March, 2013, Rami Ismail and his business partner Jan Willem released a game for mobile phones called Ridiculous Fishing. Ismail, who was twenty-four at the time and who lives in the Netherlands, woke the following morning to find that the game had made him tens of thousands of dollars overnight. His first reaction was not elation but guilt. His mother, who has a job in local government, had already left for work. “Ever since I was a kid I’ve watched my mom wake up at six in the morning, work all day, come home, make my brother and me dinner—maybe shout at me for too much ‘computering,’ ” he said. “My first thought that day was that while I was asleep I’d made more money than she had all year. And I’d done it with a mobile-phone game about shooting fish with a machine gun.”

Great read.

Not so great review of Amazon Fire TV

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I didn’t ask for games. I didn’t ask for photos. I asked for a streaming media solution that could do things right: Something easy to pick up, simple to use, and something that actually made the experience of playing and navigating through multimedia, dare I say it, fun.

Amazon promised all of the above with Fire TV, which the company unveiled Wednesday at an event in New York City. Unfortunately, the device doesn’t live up to its own hype. Perhaps Amazon’s homegrown solution was a bit premature and its ambitions too lofty, because while Fire TV can do almost everything, little of it is done right.

Ouch.

Last year, 71 million people watched other people play video games

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I remember the first time I saw the X Games on TV. Snowboarding? On TV? It just seemed odd. But now snowboarding has also become mainstream, a big draw in the Winter Olympics.

Turns out, this same thing is happening with video games. Though I shudder to think that video games will ever make its way into the Olympics, there is no doubt that watching other people play video games has gone mainstream.