New Year's Eve 2009-2010 will bring us a Blue Moon {the second Full Moon in a month}....something that only happens once every 2.7 years.....hence the phrase, "Once in a blue moon..."
Posted via email from cabezas
She's Back!! :)
Here's the new track, "Soldier Of Love":
http://www.soulculture.co.uk/featuredbanner/sade-soldier-of-love-listen-here/
{ Courtesy of YK2Daily & Soulculture.co.uk }
Posted via web from cabezas
Tim Burton's artwork/illustrations exhibit opens tomorrow, November 22, at MoMA.
Here is the Preview Spot:
Mari Smith does a great job of explaining the recent changes to viewing feeds on Facebook. With the new changes, Facebook becomes a much more potent real time search engine. This clearly shows some of the changes implemented after Facebook's purchase of Friendfeed will have an obvious influence on Facebook in the near future.
Also See Lori Gama's explanation on her blog at:
http://lorigama.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/facebook-how-to-control-who-shows-up-in-your-live-feed/
Wow. As William Gibson has famously noted, "The future is already here-it is just unevenly distributed."
Thanks to information compiled by Brian Solis
( http://www.briansolis.com/2009/10/revealing-the-people-defining-social-networks/ )
and visualized by http://informationisbeautiful.net, we can see that women are more active on most social media sites, with very few exceptions.
I guess the next study needs to be, What are women discussing, creating, viewing and sharing on these sites? I think the results may be much more unconventional than ever before, as today's women have become more educated and are more active (in terms of community, religion, art, sport and business) than ever seen in recorded history.
....Sorely missed, but never forgotten......
Taken from Mediapost.com:
" At a time when the whole world feels like it's falling apart, who better to talk to than someone who suggested that might be the case?
Science fiction has long shaped the reality of modern media, but well before writers like William Gibson conceived the concept of cyberspace in his novel Neuromancer, or Neal Stephenson envisioned online virtual worlds and massive multiplayer games, there was author Philip K. Dick. Back in the '50s and '60s, when sci-fi was still relegated to pulp magazines, Dick was pushing our collective envelope on what constitutes reality, and how the rapid, unchecked acceleration of electronic media was both altering it, and in the process, altering who we are as human beings. In the decades that followed, Dick's works have been adapted by Hollywood (Blade Runner, Minority Report, Total Recall, etc.) and adopted by the media marketplace in ways that might well have horrified Dick had he lived to see them. Here, in a posthumous interview borrowing heavily from some of Dick's own writings, Media has conducted a bit of a mash-up - a DOA Q&A, if you will - to better understand what was going on in the mind of one of our most influential media futurists.
**When you were writing science fiction stories and novels back in the '50s and '60s, did you have any idea how prophetic they would prove to be half a century later? And specifically, how your visions would help shape the reality of media today?
Philip K. Dick: Science fiction writers, I am sorry to say, really do not know anything. We can't talk about science, because our knowledge of it is limited and unofficial, and usually our fiction is dreadful. A few years ago, no college or university would ever have considered inviting one of us to speak. Then, suddenly, the academic world noticed us, we were invited to give speeches and appear on panels - and immediately we made idiots of ourselves. The problem is simply this: What does a science fiction writer know about? On what topic is he an authority?
I can't claim to be an authority on anything, but I can honestly say that certain matters absolutely fascinate me, and that I write about them all the time. The two basic topics which fascinate me are "What is reality?" and "What constitutes the authentic human being?" I consider them important topics. What are we? What is it which surrounds us, that we call the not-me, or the empirical or phenomenal world?
**Well, given the fact that we are interviewing you posthumously from the future, we'd have to concur with the importance of the reality question. But tell us, how can media shape our sense of what is real, and who we are as people?
Dick: I once wrote a story about a man who was injured and taken to a hospital. When they began surgery on him, they discovered that he was an android, not a human, but that he did not know it. They had to break the news to him. Almost at once, Mr. Garson Poole discovered that his reality consisted of punched tape passing from reel to reel in his chest. Fascinated, he began to fill in some of the punched holes and add new ones. Immediately, his world changed. A flock of ducks flew through the room when he punched one new hole in the tape. Finally he cut the tape entirely, whereupon the world disappeared. However, it also disappeared for the other characters in the story ... which makes no sense, if you think about it. Unless the other characters were figments of his punched-tape fantasy. Which I guess is what they were.
**So are you saying that how and what we experience through media is as real as what we experience in the "real" world?
Dick: It was always my hope, in writing novels and stories which asked the question "What is reality?" to someday get an answer. One day, a girl college student in Canada asked me to define reality for her, for a paper she was writing for her philosophy class. She wanted a one-sentence answer. I thought about it and finally said, "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." That's all I could come up with. That was back in 1972. Since then I haven't been able to define reality any more lucidly.
But the problem is a real one, not a mere intellectual game. Today we live in a society in which spurious realities are manufactured by the media, by governments, by big corporations, by religious groups, political groups - and the electronic hardware exists by which to deliver these pseudo-worlds right into the heads of the reader, the viewer, the listener.
**So, what's wrong with that?
Dick: Sometimes when I watch my 11-year-old daughter watch TV, I wonder what she is being taught. The problem of miscuing; consider that. A TV program produced for adults is viewed by a small child. Half of what is said and done in the TV drama is probably misunderstood by the child. Maybe it's all misunderstood. And the thing is, just how authentic is the information anyhow, even if the child correctly understood it? What is the relationship between the average TV situation comedy and reality? What about the cop shows? Cars are continually swerving out of control, crashing, and catching fire. The police are always good and they always win. Do not ignore that point: The police always win. What a lesson that is. You should not fight authority, and even if you do, you will lose. The message here is: Be passive. And: Cooperate.
**But is that a problem with media, or is it a problem with the way governments and organizations use media?
Dick: I ask in my writing, "What is real?" because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudo-realities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind.
The bombardment of pseudo-realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly - spurious humans, as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides. My two topics are really one topic; they unite at this point. Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans.
**Isn't that a little hypocritical of you? As a science fiction writer, you've created more than your fair share of fake realities, many of which have helped shape our current reality - virtual worlds like Second Life, video games, and online role-playing. Aren't you just as culpable?
Dick: The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words. George Orwell made this clear in his novel 1984. But another way to control the minds of people is to control their perceptions. If you can get them to see the world as you do, they will think as you do. Comprehension follows perception. How do you get them to see the reality you see? After all, it is only one reality out of many. Images are a basic constituent: pictures.
This is why the power of TV to influence young minds is so staggeringly vast. Words and pictures are synchronized. The possibility of total control of the viewer exists, especially the young viewer. TV-viewing is a kind of sleep-learning. An EGG of a person watching TV shows that after about half an hour, the brain decides that nothing is happening, and it goes into a hypnoidal twilight state, emitting alpha waves. This is because there is such little eye motion. In addition, much of the information is graphic and therefore passes into the right hemisphere of the brain, rather than being processed by the left, where the conscious personality is located.
Recent experiments indicate that much of what we see on the TV screen is received on a subliminal basis. We only imagine that we consciously see what is there. The bulk of the messages elude our attention; literally, after a few hours of TV watching, we do not know what we have seen. Our memories are spurious, like our memories of dreams; the blanks are filled in retrospectively. And falsified. We have participated unknowingly in the creation of a spurious reality, and then we have obligingly fed it to ourselves. We have colluded in our own doom.
And I say this - as a professional fiction writer - the producers, scriptwriters, and directors who create these video/audio worlds do not know how much of their content is true. In other words, they are victims of their own product, along with us.
Speaking for myself, I do not know how much of my writing is true, or which parts, if any, are true. This is a potentially lethal situation. We have fiction mimicking truth, and truth mimicking fiction. We have a dangerous overlap; a dangerous blur. And in all probability it is not deliberate. In fact, that is part of the problem. You cannot legislate an author into correctly labeling his product, like a can of pudding whose ingredients are listed on the label ... You cannot compel him to declare what part is true and what isn't if he himself does not know.
**Thank you, that was really interesting. Really.
Editor's Note: This Q&A is extrapolated from Philip K. Dick's 1978 essay, "How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later." "
I miss Freddy. As long as Dokken doesn't do the soundtrack, this should be great. :O)
A great TED Talks video documenting how random of acts of kindness are molding our online experience, whether we realize it or not.
Courtesy of BusinessInsider.com:
" Asked what they would do if their favorite news site suddenly began charging, 74% of respondents said they would "find another free site," according to a Harris Interactive study commissioned by PaidContent UK. Only 5% said they'd pay to continue reading.
We wonder if studies like this will put any kind of damper on Rupert Murdoch's plans to charge for access to much more of News Corp's online news and entertainment content -- from celebrity pics to the Wall Street Journal. "
Courtesy of cnbc.com:
" The falling US dollar is expected to get even weaker, moving to the center of a carry trade and encouraging global investors to borrow more dollars to fund higher-yielding currencies and assets. Is this necessarily a bad thing and does this mean the dollar will become the new yen? Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, shared his thoughts.
“I don’t know when [the dollar] is going to strengthen,” Schiff told CNBC. “The dollar isn’t the new yen, it’s unfortunately the new peso.”
Schiff said the yen carry trade is over and the new Japanese government is even talking about the benefits of a stronger yen for the domestic economy.
“The yen has gone a lot higher but the dollar is going to go a lot lower, which makes it ideal,” said Schiff. “Not only can you borrow dollars for very cheap and earn to carry by investing in higher yielding assets, but the dollar is going to fall sharply. So anyone who puts on the carry trade is going to make a ton of money.”
Schiff said the Federal Reserve will soon run into the dilemma of either having to supply the carry traders with an endless amount of cheap dollars or put a halt to the carry trade and aggressively raise interest rates, which will “bring on a much more severe recession than anything we’ve experienced so far.”
Meanwhile, Schiff said he owns the Australian and Canadian dollars as well as the Japanese yen.
“I own a lot of Japanese yen—I think it’s breaking out and the chart looks fantastic,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be looking at any pullbacks from these currencies. There’s a much better chance that the dollar drops through a trap door…I’ve been shorting the dollar for years. I do it because I own foreign currencies, precious metals, and foreign stocks.” "
From Fastcompany.com / Gizmodo.com
" Check out the video of Courier in action--Gizmodo's apparently obtained the information from directly within Microsoft's secret development team. (The video file shown last night was titled "projectwood" but don't be fooled into thinking that's a Microsoft code name.) It's a dual 7-inch screen unit with Wi-fi, GPS and camera built-in.
It's amazing, isn't it? The kind of amazingly futuristic UI that we've seen a thousand times in sci-fi movies, infused with Surface-like powers, promising a crossover between a Star Trek digital pad, and The HitchHiker's Guide to The Galaxy as depicted in the movie, and the voice of that spooky lady in the Palm Pre ads. It's also, according to Gizmodo, absolutely real, in development and currently at a "late prototype" stage. You will, allegedly, be able to buy this thing soon. "
From Mediapost.com:
" A report in the U.K.'s Sunday Telegraph that Deutsche Telekom AG is considering buying Sprint Nextel sent the U.S. carrier's stock surging on Monday, up 11% this afternoon. Citing unnamed sources, the article said the company could make a bid for Sprint in the next few weeks.
The merger would give fourth-ranked carrier T-Mobile and third-largest Sprint a combined 78 million U.S. mobile customers and position the new entity as a more formidable competitor to Verizon Wireless and AT&T. At least one analyst welcomed the deal as beneficial to the entire wireless industry because it would mean less price competition.
"There's just too many cooks in the kitchen in the U.S. wireless market right now, and the logical route to consolidation is a combination of Sprint and T-Mobile," Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. told Bloomberg. "This is an industry that is calling out for consolidation."
But news of a possible T-Mobile-Sprint merger comes at a time when the government is looking broadly into competition in the wireless industry. The Federal Communications Commission last month began a formal inquiry into areas such as exclusive deals between handset makers and carriers, wireless billing practices and whether current conditions in the wireless market allow for new entrants.
The major carriers have opposed increased regulation in large part on the grounds that there's already robust competition in the wireless market, with consumers have a choice of four or five providers in a given market. But the merger of two of the four biggest U.S. carriers would undercut that argument, leaving only three national operators.
Given the heightened scrutiny the wireless industry is already under in Washington, it doesn't seem regulators or Congress would look favorably on such a deal that would further limit competition. So even if Wall Street is cheering the proposed match, don't expect the deal to get a warm welcome in the capital if it comes to that. "
AT&T, in partnership with Hulu.com, has launched its new video portal, http://entertainment.att.net/tv , with a broad range of free-access movie/tv show content, such as:
From Media Post.com:
" Is every Tuesday Fat Tuesday for marketers on Facebook? According to new data from social media services provider ViTrue, that's the day of the week when click-through rates are highest on content posted on the walls of brand pages on Facebook, at 9.89%.
More broadly, the click-through rate on wall posts on marketers' Facebook pages was highest from Monday through Wednesday, averaging 9.72% before dropping sharply to 4.39% on Thursday, and dropping further to 2.67% and 2.7% on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, the rate starts rebounding, at 7.63%.
The findings follow ViTrue's initial release last month of click-through data for brands' Facebook wall posts, which average 6.76% and stand in stark contrast to the anemic rates for display advertising generally on Facebook and other social networks. The company comes up with its estimate by assuming that about one-twelfth of the total Facebook audience is online at any given time, available to see a message.
The number of fans a brand has is also factored into the calculation, with the total number of clicks on a specific post divided by the number of fans who saw it, adjusted to reflect that not every fan is on Facebook all the time. So if a brand has 100 fans and a wall post gets five clicks, that's a 5% click-through rate. But if only 20% actually saw the post, it would be a 20% rate. It comes down to a mixture of math and educated guesswork.
The latest research goes a step further by suggesting that certain days of the week might be better for launching a promotion or other marketing effort on a Facebook brand page. "This highlights the importance for marketers of having a well thought-out communication strategy for updating their brand page and when to create wall posts to get the optimum response," said ViTrue CEO Reggie Bradford.
He surmises that response rates are generally higher early in the week when people are more active on Facebook fan pages, and drop off as users turn to other pursuits on the weekend. Rates start to ramp up again on Sunday as people begin planning the week ahead via Facebook.
"The point isn't to say only do wall posts on Tuesdays," said Bradford. "The point is that there are differences among days of the week and thinking has to happen behind the wall posts so you can maximize the impact."
Shiv Singh, vice president and global social media lead at Razorfish, agreed that the timing of new messages on Facebook pages is an important consideration for marketers. "So the question ViTrue is trying to answer is a very valuable one." But he added that interaction can vary among specific pages depending on a variety of factors including the type of content and audience demographics, making it hard to generalize about the timing of new posts.
He added that he'd have to dig deeper into ViTrue's research and methodology to gain more assurance of its validity.
In the coming months, ViTrue plans to refine its research further by releasing an analysis of click-throughs on wall posts by daypart. ViTrue's findings are derived from its Social Relationship Manager suite of planning and reporting tools, which it launched last month. The sample data is compiled from wall posts garnering nearly 200 million fan impressions from March through August 2009.
ViTrue does not disclose how many Facebook brand pages were included in the study, but says it encompasses several Fortune 500 brands across several categories.
"As tools and platforms become more sophisticated, we'll see more segmenting of messaging by daypart and all those other types of measurement," said Bradford. "
Great visualization and compelling analysis from Ji Lee, @ pleaseenjoy.com:
10 Levels of Intimacy in Communication
" The digital age has changed the ways in which we share our most important opinions and innermost secrets. We chose different communication platforms depending on the level of intimacy we feel towards the recipient of the message and the nature of the message itself. The combination of technology and weight of information has given us new rules for just how we communicate with each other. This chart also ponders the question: Do more options to communicate with each other connect us or alienate us more? "
Contemplating the Frank Zappa quote,
" Without Deviation From The Norm, Progress Is Not Possible. ",
reminded me of the classic song, "Vital Signs", written by Neil Peart, performed by RUSH from the 1981 album, "Moving Pictures".
"Vital Signs"
Unstable condition: A symptom of life
In mental, And environmental
Change
Atmospheric disturbance--The feverish flux
Of human interface And interchange
The impulse is pure--Sometimes our circuits get shorted,
By external interference
Signals get crossed--And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence
A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a mood lifter
Everybody need reverse polarity
Everybody's got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody's got to deviate
From the norm
An ounce of perception, A pound of obscure.
Process information at half speed.
Pause, rewind, replay, | Worn memory chip,
Random sample, hold the one you need.
Leave out the fiction--The fact is; This friction
Will only be worn by persistence
Leave out conditions--Courageous convictions
Will drag the dream into existence
A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a soft filter
Everybody need reverse polarity
Everybody's got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody's got to elevate
From the norm
Courtesy of Soundcloud.com. R.I.P. DJ AM.
From businessinsider.com's 'Chart of The Day':
" Watching Web video is popular and growing, but people still watch remarkably more video on their TVs than on their computers or cellphones, according to Nielsen.
And when looking at average time spent watching each, TV viewing actually grew more -- per hour, per person, per month -- over the last year than Web video. Last quarter, the average U.S. Web video viewer watched 3 hours, 11 minutes per month, up about 1 hour each, year-over-year. But the average U.S. TV viewer watched over 40X more video: 141 hours per month, up about 2 hours year-over-year.
Meanwhile, watching mobile TV is still a niche activity: Just 15 million Americans did it in Q2, according to Nielsen. That's just about 6% of the U.S. mobile market. And time spent watching declined about 20 minutes per viewer, per month. "
From ESPNMediaZone.com:
" ESPN’s 30th Anniversary is on the horizon, and who better to talk about ESPN overall – past, present and future – than some of our own ESPN veterans?
Longtime SportsCenter anchor Bob Ley joined fellow veteran anchor Chris Berman, and long-time employee Chuck Pagano, (Executive VP, Technology) via virtual reality for a groundbreaking demonstration in this morning’s session at the ESPN Media Workshop. It was the first time a display of this new technology has been seen by the public, as the debut is slated for next spring.
The demonstration vividly illustrates just how far ESPN has come in the past 30 years, from a small cable network working out of a remote production truck to a now well-known Worldwide Leader in Sports entertainment. You can’t help but wonder just how far ESPN will go in the next 30 years.
Back in 1979, technology was limited, and cable television itself was a relatively new thing. It was nearly all experimental at the time, and it was being figured out as ESPN came onto the scene.
“No one knew what cable TV was, how it happened, or why it happened, but it did.” — Chris Berman
Berman and Ley cited two pivotal moments when they felt confident in ESPN’s ability to live in the cable television arena with longevity.
Ley recalls Johnny Carson mentioning ESPN’s coverage of Australian Rules Football in a monologue on his show in 1981. To Ley, it was huge. It clearly meant that people were watching to see what we had to offer, and they liked it.
Berman felt that when ESPN began covering the NFL Draft in 1987, it was a sign that we were here to stay.
And stay we did. Throughout the 1980s ESPN continued to grow along with the cable industry, and with sporting events from Australian Rules Football – which Berman characterizes as “organized mayhem” – to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, ESPN is now a staple in sports fans’ lives.
However, times are changing, as are viewers’ expectations for what they will see. As ESPN looks ahead at what the next 30 years might hold, technology remains key.
“The Business will be changing. Things like higher quality and bigger displays at home for viewing, social interactivity and 3D television will change our viewing habits. New technology puts you in the game, and we want to be the leaders there. Whatever the consumer wants, we’re here to give it to them.” - Chuck Pagano
Virtual reality is just the tip of the iceberg, and ESPN believes the sky is the limit. While good journalism is important and a basic component of what ESPN does, all journalism needs to have an entertainment portion to get people to tune in and stay there. With the 2010 World Cup in the works, ESPN wants to bring remote production to a whole new level. Technology such as virtual reality, HD and 3D are seen as tools to help not only entice viewers with a better quality viewing experience, but to enhance the stories being told.
It’s this type of thinking outside the box and looking toward the future that has contributed to ESPN’s growth through the past 30 years. It will continue to shape how we grow long into our future, as we expand domestically and globally.
While ESPN has grown so tremendously since its inception in 1979, the feeling within the company, from new employees to long-time veterans such as Berman, Ley and Pagano, is a healthy, realistic view of ESPN’s role in the cable and sports industries.
“We’re learning as we go still, and we don’t know all the answers … but we’re looking to find them. We aim to stay ahead of things, be honest with the fans and tell them what they want to know. It’s the best we can do.” – Chris Berman "
Courtesy of Gizmodo.com:
" This is one of the first photos of an actual gScreen's dual 15.4-inch screen Spacebook—two full screens (not just an extra 10-inch one like Lenovo's W700. Really. There were renders before, but here are the photos.
The Alaska based company, started by Gordon Stewart (yep, that is where the G in gScreen comes from), is aiming its dual screen laptops at professional designers, filmmakers, photographers and really anyone who can't live without a dual screen for everyday productivity. They have also been in talks with the military. The chassis (which we expect is at least 12 pounds) is built around the 15.4 inch screen (though the first units that come to market will have 16-inch or 17-inch screens) and its twin, identically sized screen slides out from behind the first using a uniquely designed sliding mechanism. "
Courtesy of Thrillist.com:
" Man has long combined sports to ratchet up the excitement: swimmers brought a volleyball into the pool and gave the world water polo, while hippies brought a Frisbee onto the golf course and gave the world yet another reason to hit them with clubs. Combining sports to clothe you, the Adidas Garnett x Chelsea TS Commander LT.
Celebrating his love of Chelsea soccer, basketball, and anything else he can get super intense about, KG’s teamed up with CFC, Adidas, and that-sneaker-spot-with-the-fake-drink-machine-door to release a new limited edition commemorative collab pack combining two of The Big Ticket's utmost passions, leaving one when he'll finally incorporate chasing Jose Calderon around the back court. Shoewise, the hi-top Commander rocks a split suede upper in iconic Chelsea royal blue/white w/ three fat stripes and yellow accents, a herringbone outsole, shock-absorbing midsole laser-etched with a soccer ball pattern, and the team’s traditional lion crest embossed on the tongue, which feels totally different than just using Altoids. In addition to the kicks, the pack also's got an official replica royal blue CFC jersey w/ Samsung logo across the front and KG’s name/number “5” on the back, and a traditional blue/yellow team scarf with the Chelsea crest on one side and scripted “Bodega” on the other...."
In Yuken Teruya's 'Notice - Forest' series, paper bags are used to create pieces of art, not only using the paper bag as the work of art, but also as the display. In his words:
" I cut out one side of disposable paper bags. Then I assemble a tree from the cut-out-part, stand each tree in the same bag that it came from. When you see it under the natural light, the delicate tree shows inside a paper bag, shows us the strength and the proof of existence of living tree. "
Nothing earth-shattering here, but it is always interesting to see what a mainstream media site lists as '50 Best'. Interesting ommissions: Twine, Plaxo, Netvibes, LinkedIn, Scribd, Slideshare, Posterous, FourSquare and Friendfeed....
Here is the list:
{For the full-detailed list, simply click on ' time.com ' link under photo.}
Flickr
California Coastline
Delicious
Metafilter
popurls
Twitter
Skype
Boing Boing
Academic Earth
OpenTable
Google
YouTube
Wolfram|Alpha
Hulu
Vimeo
Fora TV
Craiglook
Shop Goodwill
Amazon
Kayak
Netflix
Etsy
Property Shark
Redfin
Wikipedia
Internet Archive
Kiva
ConsumerSearch
Metacritic
Pollster
Facebook
Pandora and Last.fm
Musicovery
Spotify
Supercook
Yelp
Visuwords
CouchSurfing
NameVoyager
Mint
TripIt
Aardvark
drop.io
Issuu
Photosynth
OMGPOP
WorldWideTelescope
Fonolo
Get High Now
Know Your Meme
This video is amazing. Enjoy. :O)
" Please click play. Then click full screen. Big headphones are recommended, as well. “Anything You Synthesize” comes with a heavyweight cerebral punch, but it’s delivered a on silken aural ether. The American Dollar, a Queens, NY duo, construct experimental ambient sonic explorations with a healthy rock influence. This video, created by the Onesize design studio, turns a cinematic song into an enveloping sensory experience. "
From the DailyMail.co.uk:
" This breathtaking picture captures the seconds before a daring surfer is engulfed by a monster wave.
The spectacular shot was taken by surfer-turned-photographer Clark Little, who captured the incredible scene on Ke Iki beach, in Hawaii.
The massive shorebreak was more than 10ft tall but luckily the surfer survived unscathed.
Such shorebreaks, caused when a wave hits the shallow water at the sand, are powerful enough to drag down unsuspecting surfers and have been known to cause neck and back injuries as it breaks.
But Mr Little, from Oahu, Hawaii, is not afraid to jump into the water to capture the incredible power of the ocean on camera.
The 40-year-old, who has been a photographer for just two years, leans on his 35 years' surfing experience to knows when to be in the right place at the right time.
His efforts can involve actually getting into the waves themselves, which can be up to 5ft high.
Mr Little uses a Nikon camera, which is protected with a waterproof housing and takes pictures at nine frames per second.
While taking the pictures seems fraught with danger, the father-of-two says that he knows the ocean and his limits.
He said: 'I just use my surfing experience and go in the waves.
'I love the feeling of getting into the waves, I am addicted to shooting the shorebreaks but you need to know your limits and the ocean.' "
Another great article from Wired.com....
" When we showed you the design study for the Urban Mole subterranean delivery system, we had no idea how much time and effort people have spent figuring out how to deliver small parcels through underground tubes.
In the days after we wrote about the Urban Mole last week, our inbox filled with emails from people saying, essentially, “Hey! You oughtta check out my idea…” Of the proposals, the Cargo Tunnel really caught our attention. The guys behind it — a former Intel employee and a UC-Berkeley professor among them — say they’ve developed a miniature tunnel boring machine (TBM) that can create the network of necessary tunnels without disrupting life above ground. "
Great article in New York magazine about the current plight of Williamsburg. Those of us who remember Williamsburg from years back and see how it has transformed are amazed. A sad story.
" A working-class neighborhood became a bohemian theme park, which in turn became a fantasyland for luxury-condo developers. Now, littered with half-built shells of a vanished boom, Williamsburg is looking like something else entirely: Miami. "
Nothing can get more viral than fútbol. In this great article on adage.com, Adidas uses a viral campaign created with Argentine soccer star Riquelme to create buzz for their their new line of shoes, all the while causing controversy as well.
Another great video from Ted.com by Elizabeth Gilbert on Genius / Creativity.
Just as great was the conversation that came up when my daughter Alana saw me watching this video.
Alana: Whatcha doin'?
Harold: Watching a video on 'Genius'-it means being smart.
Alana: You're not smart.
Harold: {LOL} I'm not? Ok, who is smart?
Alana: I'm smart 'cause I always tell Mamá to get the keys so we don't get stuck outside the house.
Harold: {LOL} Yup, you're smart! ;O)
Another great post by Dennis D. Jacobs in Examiner.com which reveals that Juan Valdez was born on Madison Avenue, not in Colombia:
" I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
Juan Valdez, the one Colombian most Americans can probably name, is not a native Colombian. "
Great article by Dennis D. Jacobs in the Examiner.com on the eclectic 'Andrés Carne de Res restaurant in Chia, Colombia (right outside of Bogotá....LOL, "...Applebee's on steroids..." LOL:
" Somewhere near the bottom of my deceptively potent Mandarino cocktail, I realized that the happiest place on Earth is not in Orlando, Florida, but Chia, Colombia.
More specifically, the happiest place on Earth, at least Friday night, was Andrés Carne de Res. This restaurant/bar/nightclub is a combination of Applebee’s on steroids and your favorite steakhouse on HGH and your favorite dance spot on a six-pack of Red Bull. Outside, there are Christmas lights strung through trees and Moulin Rouge-style windmills. Inside, the décor includes large dangling lighted hearts, butterflies, traffic signs, clocks, posters, video screens, festive party decorations, mannequins hanging from rafters, musical instruments, and… well, you get the idea. "
Taken from The Business Insider's Silicon Alley Insider:
" That 15-year-old Morgan Stanley intern who said "teenagers do not use Twitter" -- he has a point.
Just 16% of U.S. Twitter.com visitors in June were under age 25, versus 25% of the active U.S. Internet user base, according to Nielsen. That suggests Twitter "effectively under-indexes on the youth market by 36%," Nielsen analysts said. "
Great promotional video for Bob Garfield's long-awaited/long-abhorred (!) book on the state and future of media/entertainment.
The book can be purchased (and certain chapters can be downloaded for free) @
Great White Paper by Ogilvy and Acision on the future of mobile advertising.
In summary, the three main areas of transformation are:
" 1. Advertising agencies will transform from one which is industry-led to one where the individual is brought more into the communication process.
2. The consumers will evolve from those having advertisements pushed to them, to being able select what information is allowed to reach them.
3. Different types of mobile operator will be formed. Operators will no longer be the linking pin we know now who are able to provide all the infrastructure, services and want to control the end-user experience, competing with each other. There will be operators who decide to specialize purely in the infrastructure and will provide this capability to those who have decided to focus solely on the services. "
A great article in today's New York Times about El Cocuy National Park, Colombia. Simply click on the travel.nytimes.com link below the beautiful picture for the full article....
" ...Rising from the Plains of Arauca, near the Venezuelan border, El Cocuy National Park covers over 1,000 square miles of terrain and 15,000 vertical feet. Its stratified ecosystems shelter red-footed tortoises, pumas, howling monkeys, tapirs and, soaring above them all, condors. U’Wa Indian reservations make up half the park’s domain. Tourism is concentrated in the Sierra Nevada, covering just 2 percent of the park... "
{ Courtesy of Fastcompany.com }
" A European journalist at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) this morning asked filmmaker Tim Burton, "What was it like growing up in Burbank, California?"
"Have you ever seen Dante's 'Inferno?'" he shot back.
Actually, he said, the monotonous suburb was a boon to a kid with a fertile imagination: "It had no weather, no seasons, no culture. You had to make it up."
What he made up is an astonishing body of work: Edward Scissorhands, Beetljuice, Mars Attacks!, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sweeney Todd, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and, soon, the much anticipated Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
Burton fans, then, will be in their glory this fall when MOMA launches the first major retrospective of Burton’s work--more than 700 drawings, paintings, storyboards, puppets, costumes, and cinematic ephemera. Some 550 pieces are from his own private collection, and thus have never been seen before.
The show will include screenings of film snippets, some from Burton’s years as an amateur--like the weird (OK, a redundant word when discussing Burton’s work) Doctor of Doom, a spoof of old time horror movies, featuring Burton himself in a starring role.
The show opens November 22 and runs through April 26, 2010. The museum will also screen Burton’s entire cinematic oeuvre--14 feature films--during the course of the show. Additionally, MOMA will feature a series of films that inspired Burton, grouped under the title "The Lurid Beauty of Monsters." They include Frankenstien, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Pit and the Pendulum, and Nosferatu.
Burton seemed a little awe-struck to be the center of attention in such an arty august venue, particularly given his background. "I didn’t grow up in a museum culture," he said. "The Hollywood Wax Museum was my first exposure to a museum."
All the more surreal, then, was MOMA director Glenn Lowry’s introduction, in which he called Burton "among the foremost auteur voices of his time," and compared his body of work to Andy Warhol's.
I asked Burton: What would your mother make of such a comparison? "She’d say, 'Who was Warhol?'" "
....Just when you thought it was safe to go in the Ocean...unfortunately, all, or almost all are on the East Coast. :(
{ Click on BusinessInsider.com link under picture for full list. }
" Marketers that are frustrated with targeting specific age groups or demographics in Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn could glean insight from a recent study by Anderson Analytics.
The study suggests that Twitter has become more popular than LinkedIn, more than half of U.S. consumers who tap social networks belong to more than one, and that those who belong to a social net are four times more vocal about products and services than those who don't.
Anderson Analytics CEO Tom Anderson says the biggest surprise from the study reveals that Twitter has become more popular than LinkedIn among social network users in the United States.
Aside from posting tweets, Twitter users tend to blog frequently. In fact, more than 20% have their own blog, many of which trumpet social causes. These consumers make good evangelists for brands, he says.
Anderson's study aims to help marketers understand the type of people who frequent each social network. For example, it debunks the myth that Facebook attracts only kids. In fact, the Anderson study suggests that the ideal age group for Facebook spans from 15 to 34, but 44% of 35- to 44-year-olds and 30% of 45- to-54-year-olds say they have profiles, too.
And while more people are experimenting on social networks, only 10% of users report having ever created a duplicate or experimental profile. More than half of social network users have associated their profiles with a brand, company or product. While much has been written about negative nature of Web 2.0 and blog posts, social network users are more likely to say positive things about brands, companies or products.
The average user logs into a social network account about four times daily, five days a week, and spends about one hour per day on the network. About 31.8% are business users; followed by 26.3%, fun seekers; 21.8%, social media mavens; and 10.1%, leisure followers.
"Baby Boomers and the World War II generation are getting on Facebook, mostly prompted by their kids or younger relatives," Anderson says. "These folks tend to buy things online more often, as well."
About 90% of those surveyed from the WWII generation on a social network say they use Facebook; compared with 23% on MySpace; 17%, Twitter; and 4%, LinkedIn. Females comprise 63%, compared with 37% men.
The study suggests that advertisers looking to connect through social networks will likely find consumers ages 15 to 24 on MySpace, versus 18 to 34 on Facebook, 15 to 34 on Twitter, and 18 to 44 on LinkedIn, according to Anderson.
The Anderson Analytics study tracked U.S. user behavior for 11 months. In May, the firm surveyed 5,000 users, and then conducted a 15-minute survey of more than 1,000 users and 250 non-users, age 13 and older. Users were defined as signing on to a social network within the past 30 days. "
Great HD trailer from "Tron Legacy", due in theaters in 2010.
" SAN DIEGO — How do you top a movie that took a lesser character from the Marvel Comics universe and turned him into the most badass big-screen superhero to date? That’s the dilemma faced by Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau, whose 2008 movie turned Robert Downey Jr. into billionaire playboy Tony Stark, the man inside the Iron Man armor.
Favreau’s strategy: Bring in more top-shelf actors to play a handful of new characters, and bring kick-ass footage to show at Comic-Con International in an attempt to wow the world’s biggest fans for a second time. "
{ Appleinsider.com }
" Exclusive: After four years of meticulous developmental riddled with setbacks, Apple is now racing toward an early 2010 launch of a device that may see the electronics maker redefine the portable computing market for the second time in twice as many years. "
Great video interview with Jonathan Miller as he lays out the future for MySpace, courtesy of Foxbusiness.com
