thinking about my pal simon today and memes and how nutty it can all get if we let it: = c
Category: anthropology
StoryCorps : Listening is an Act of Love
Some cultures rely heavily on their oral traditions. Native Alaskan cultures, for example, rely solely on the spoken word to pass stories and lessons down through the generations. They do this because they had no alphabets or formal methods to write them down until the immigration of white culture into Alaska. There are certainly pros…
Rules : Love and Hate
Taken from wikipedia’s definition of the game: The rules of tag are very flexible. Rules such as the following can be either decided upon before the game, or added as the game progresses to make play more fair. At the beginning of the game, one player is designated “it”. After “it” is chosen, the other…
Inside and Outside
During this process of shooting a documentary on the game of Tag, one idea has emerged again and again from both experts [such as anthropologists] and laymen alike. This is the idea of how we have a tendency to internalize experiences. This means that we tend to think about these experiences mostly in terms that…
tradition
traditions are sticky wickets. they always seem to have the best intentions, yet, too many bad ones lead to trouble and dissent in the ranks. well, potentially. except maybe here in the States. take, for instance, now. many folks have had it with politics and the decisions world leaders make. this is, itself, a tradition….
Tag : trailer
[thinfilms] is in post-production for a feature documentary about the game of Tag. a trailer for the film is now on youtube. if you’ve contributed to the film in any way, please know what it means to us – this is a labor of love that represents over 120 hours of footage featuring interviews with…
Humans are not evolved for security!
Human beings aren’t evolved for security in the modern world, and particularly the IT security world, according to security guru Bruce Schneier. He told delegates at the 2007 RSA Conference that there is a gap between the reality of security and the emotional feel of security due to the way our brains have evolved. This…
Good morning, assholes!
it’s funny… doesn’t matter who you are or where you live. people are generally moody. most every day i ride the bus downtown to work and everyday i see the exact same people. do they nod or give any indication that they recognize one another? how about when i smile or say “mornin’”? no. in…
Lordi, Lordi
Finland now holds the world record for the longest non-stop round of karaoke singing. The country already holds the record for the largest number of karaoke singers at any given time. The previous record was 145 hours, as held by China. However, in a karaoke bar in Kouvola, a small town on Finland’s southern coast,…
RoboCup 2007
RoboCup chose to use soccer as a central topic of research, aiming at innovations to be applied for socially significant problems and industries. The ultimate goal of the RoboCup project is by 2050, develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world champion team in soccer. In order for…
YouTube and You [sharing ad $$$]
YouTube will share ad revenue with 20-year-old Brandon Fletcher. Thus the stage is set for a flood of copycat bum-rushers who will no doubt lay siege to the YouTube/Googleplex armed with nothing but their media and their Gen-Y audacity. “The deal is basically sharing ad money,†Brandon says. “They place banners on my video pages…
CCTV and the PD in the UK
traffic wardens in Eccles, Manchester are being issued CCTV head sets and given the legal power to impose fines of up to £80 for littering and other anti social behavior. that will be interesting to *watch* = c
Happy Birthday Vids!!!
Even if you aren’t a *gamer* in the purist sense of the word, you have PLAYED a videogame and may even have a favorite over all others. Which is why you should head out to the arcade nearest you today and drop a few coins in and let go! Today, by all accounts, videogames turn…
Humanoids making progress
this is interesting to follow. have you seen the Asimo commercial? = c
The dilemma of copyright continues…
surely the battles of taste will never be won. there are some debates that have raged on and will continue to rage on until the end of time. among these : copyright here’s yet another interesting take on it. of course, it doesn’t really clear anything up but these are all just exercises not facts….
Alas, a threat to Google? Nah…
The evolutionary path of the computer is curiously cyclical. In the 1970s, companies relied upon mainframes, with multiple users sharing a single central computer through “terminals.†But by the early 80s, the ascendancy of the personal computer had pushed this setup to obscurity, essentially re-orienting the relationship to keep most of a computer’s processing and…
we Like Sheep
Scientists have created the world’s first human-sheep chimera – which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs. The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells – and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer. Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the…
Surveillance
I created the short below as part of a multimedia installation for a gallery at my office. It is a brief meditation on public video surveillance using footage i took from out of my office window in downtown Minneapolis. The audio i mixed from various podcasts available on the Web.
How to interview the whole world
The Washington Post is trying a novel idea to increase circulation: interviewing all of us so we can “get to know each other better” Duh – if we all feel included, then, we’ll buy more subscriptions, right? Time will tell… Meanwhile, an interesting idea from other perspectives. Not to mention, the site is well done,…
VisuWords
remember the brain? the technology has evolved into many cool applications, not the least of which is VisuWords. check it out! = c