Four candidates for Swagger Oakland?

As if it really needed to be said but…

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!

Watch and enjoy.

1. Amazing disintegrating fonts.
2. It’s a a “horror documentary”.
3. Michael Ruppert – he’s like a film noir superhero journalist.
4. “It’s not that Bernie Madoff was a pyramid scheme, the whole economy is a pyramid scheme” [a great quote]

Enjoy!

Quite amazing the interaction the seal had with the cameraman.

Simply put, it adds a whole new level of depth and brilliance to the already amazing show.

20 hours ago, reddit commenter Lurking_Grue wrote:

I think I need to go watch Battlestar Galactica backwards.

1 hour later, reddit commenter Taciturn brilliantly responded:

WARNING: Spoilers lie ahead.

If you watch Battlestar Galactica backwards, it’s a story about a ship called “Galactica” coming out of retirement to lead humanity to a new home, where it is retired. The people have to abandon their home planet to spend some time farming mud on “New Caprica,” then they find a beautiful new place to live.

Roslin becomes president, then she’s a schoolteacher for a while, then she’s president again. She has cancer, it goes away, then comes back. Then she doesn’t have to worry about it anymore.

The president has an assistant who gets killed by a cylon-hater. She gets a new assistant who gets killed by a cylon-hater.

SURPRISE!, Tigh’s wife comes back! Then he kills her. Then SURPRISE!, she comes back!

Adama is very sad because the woman he loved died… but he falls in love again. Then he’s very sad, because the woman he loved died.
Baltar works on a farm, but then he becomes a famous scientist before working on a farm again.

Lee and Starbuck try to have an affair, but it’s really awkward, because Starbuck’s already in a serious relationship. She gets married. Then Starbuck and Lee try to have an affair, but it’s really awkward, because she’s already in a serious relationship.

In the first episode you’ll wonder when they’re going to explain ChipSix. In the last episode you’ll still be wondering that.

Also, if you watch the series forwards, the same stuff happens.

My jaw is on the floor and my mind is now properly blown.

The prominent line of the series, “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again” suddenly makes a ton of sense and really makes every step of the storyline fall into place and seem pre-ordained.

Well done reddit and well done Battlestar Galatica writers.

Artwork credit: Chris Bis | CC-NC-ND 2.0

You might not know it from reading this blog, but I’m very intrigued in the overlap of science and arts. While on the surface they seem to be completely unrelated, in practice logic and creativity tend to combine together in both areas. In my mind, Einstein’s theories are artistic just like Picasso’s paintings are scientific. Neither are about randomly creating something out of intuition, nor are they solely focused on following an algorithm to success.

It’s why I love web media. Designing and developing a web-site (or crafting copy, or implementing SEO, etc.) requires creativity and logic. Principles like the Golden Ratio and the Mandelbrot set show that it isn’t a coincidence, but that nature is a mix of art and science and that the two fields are a lot more related than they appear.

In this video, Music is Math, Glenn Marshall uses a processing program to automatically interpret notes from Boards of Canada song and translate them into animated visual effects that are gorgeous and flow with the song. It’s a perfect example of something that many people consider an art form, but is heavily reliant on math at its core. So, the question becomes, should we start viewing rock stars as math geeks and math geeks as rock stars?

Check it out:

Exos from Steve Scott on Vimeo.

Yes Mr. Dave Brown, Denver’s photographer extraordinaire, I’m still excited about being able to post full-size videos here!

Living on the Edge

As an internet TV evangelist and huge fan of Hulu I had to set Mr. Gilbert straight. Yes, as you’ve likely realized I own a 24″ SoYo widescreen monitor that I picked up for less than $300 at Office Max. Since scooping up this relatively decent monitor at bargain basement prices, I’ve tossed my television set and view 95% of my television via my computer. On my couch. With an Apple remote in hand (tied into Sofa Control) for maximum sloth effect.

According to Mr. Gilbert, I’m living on the edge of technology, blazing a path through the streaming TV frontier.

We live in that in-between moment when our TV screens and computer screens are still in separate locations – literally and psychologically. Maybe you, like me, have a tech-savvy friend who has already connected his HDTV to his laptop and streams TV shows from the couch; but most of us still have designated screens. That means the people who are watching TV online are doing so at their desks, or in “desk mode.”

Yes, it is immensely difficult to connect a laptop to an external monitor (HDTV included). Even more difficult, is googling for “hook up laptop to HDTV“. That simple search drained my technological prowess so much I may not be able to finish this post.

The Future is the Now

The crux of Gilbert’s article is that top quality shows deserve to be watched in our living rooms on traditional television sets. Let’s put aside that all of that is already possible via streaming video from the internet. He states that when we watch shows on our television sets we give more of our attention to the show, which the show’s creators deserve. Well, I actually devote more attention to a show when watching the online version.

Here’s why:

• Less commercials.

An obvious but when there’s less commercials the show gets more of my attention span.

• Laptop is devoted to video, can’t browse and watch.

Since my laptop is hooked up to my external monitor, I can’t have it sitting in my lap browsing the web while watching TV (though, there is the iPhone, but it interferes with my computer speakers so no deal).

• Can pause easily.

If the phone rings or I need to go use the bathroom or get the urge for a sandwich, I can easily pause my internet TV, take care of business and come back and hop right back in. Sure there’s DVR but with internet TV this capability is built-in.

• Can share easily.

If I’m watching a great show, I don’t need to call my buddies and tell them that they have got to watch this episode. Instead, I can finish watching and then send them a link afterwards.

• Recommendations.

I don’t waste my time looking for new shows online. Instead I let Hulu’s built in recommendation do the job for me. It’s not perfect but that’s where applications like Glue step in to give me personal recommendations based on my likes from people I share similar interests with (more to come on Glue soon, if you already have Glue my username is AdamP). Easily finding the next show to watch keeps me engaged instead of mindlessly flipping through channels.

When stuck watching traditional TV (mostly for sporting events), I find my mind drifts and wanders and I actually pay a lot less attention to whatever is on. I am relatively tech-savvy and skew pretty high on the geek radar amongst most of my friends, but honestly connecting your laptop to your TV is not that difficult.

The future is now. Internet TV will only continue to increase in viewership. There’s already a large number of baby boomers using Hulu. It’s only a matter of time before we’re all streaming video into our living rooms, iPhones and virtually anywhere via the internet. It’s already possible, today. It’s just a matter of doing a little bit of research and connecting a few wires and devices and you too can be on the bleeding edge of internet TV.

Do you pay more or less attention to shows when viewing them online? Have you hooked up your computer to an external monitor (computer or TV)? What’s your preferred way of viewing the boob tube?