Speaking of Hackers

I may not like the stigma but suppose it’s time to admit to myself that, yeah, I’ve been a hacker for as long as I can remember.

Oh, honey!

Since becoming a grown-up, there are many things about childhood I remember fondly. One thing I was happy to forget about forever was allergies.

More Gratitude for Postman and McLuhan

Neil Postman (March 8, 1931 – October 5, 2003) was an American author, media theorist and cultural critic, who was associated with NYU for forty years. He wrote countless articles, papers and seventeen books. Though my personal favorite is Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Neil is best known for his 1985 book about television, Amusing…

Changing without changing

Many of us make great sacrifice to avoid it. Laws are written and put into place to stymy it. Large, expensive buildings are built to protect against it. Minds are made up against it and reject ideas that even hint at it. Blockades of all sorts are built against potential outcomes that may lead to…

All in the telling

The latest technologies, including cloud, social, anything mobile, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have and will continue to transform business, especially the customer experience, which still revolves around the story. Storytelling is still the centerpiece. Nothing new there. Storytelling has been the centerpiece since before anyone could even write….

Telling stories

We can’t throw a rock across the Web without hitting one of the many articles, posts, books, podcasts or interviews focused on the use of storytelling in business. Arguably kicking the magic out of the hat, most of them address the way stories are used in marketing goods and services (yawn). We need to think…

DevOps is TeamOps

No doubt, there are a bazillion new buzzwords every year in technology. I’ve not personally been as excited about one in a long time, though, as I am about DevOps, a long overdue blending and alliance between developers and cloud/network engineers/systems administrators, a multi-disciplinary community movement dedicated to the practice of designing, building, evolving and…

Honey, it really works, honey.

Since becoming a grown-up, there are many things about childhood I remember fondly but one of them I was happy to forget about forever and wasn’t anticipating having to deal with again: allergies. For my entire adult life I was allergy-free living in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. . In Chicago, I have tried over-the-counter…

Dropped is in

This 10-minute short film is made up of clips found on YouTube by Chris Beckman, who collected clips of people dropping their video cameras and edited them together into this artful masterpiece:

Flight

Since forever, I’ve been hooked on flight. In planes big or small, balloons, anything that flies, goes fast and is otherwise in direct opposition to the side of me that believes strongly in being safe by observing best practices at all times. I once lived in Juneau, Alaska and used to watch paragliders from my…

Not the Dentist!

From a selection of 29 individual storyboards, we drew two scenes randomly and made a short screenplay from them. Then, using resources immediately available to us, we made this short film in one day on location @ Tinkering School in Montara, California:

Tinkering School: Day 8

Go cart design, assembly and testing by the inimitable Team Tinker with snippets of boat model design and other moments of singular, whimsical tinkering mastery. Thanks to Moby for his song, Porcelain.

Down to the River

As I mentioned earlier, last weekend I went down to the river with a bunch of gear to help Dan Huiting shoot a music video featuring Charlie Parr for City of Music and the video is premiering this coming Monday on the site. See more stills from the shoot and read the article in City…

Charlie Parr

I had the distinct pleasure of spending this morning down by the Mississippi River with Charlie Parr, shooting a video for City of Music with Dan Huiting, Chris Cloud, Dave Hannigan and the rest of the MPLS.tv crew. He’s such a good spirit and talented musician. Amidst such a perfect backdrop for his sound, the…

Elite Gymnastics @ the Medusa

thinfilms is teaming up with MPLS.tv to shoot Elite Gymnastics while they perform at the Medusa tonight. Elite Gymnastics is James Brooks and Josh Clancy. The duo have been receiving quite a bit of national attention for their brand of chillwave tunage. From the New York Post to Pitchfork, these two are getting positive reviews….

10 Second Film Festival: Sticks

A pal was kind enough to capture some of the reaction to ‘Sticks‘ at the Soap Factory’s 10 Second Film Festival on July 4th, 2010 in downtown Minneapolis, including the award for Best Documentary and praise it received from the local celebrity judges and HUGE crowd. Thanks to the Soap Factory and MPLS.tv! touch here…

Life is but a Taco…

MPLS.tv created the credits for the Soap Factory‘s 10 Second Film Festival and did it so well this opening credit won the award in the ARTHOUSE category, and features the Mayor of Minneapolis, Chris Cloud:

‘sticks’ at the 10 Second Film Festival

The crowd and judges went cuckoo for “sticks” at the Soap Factory’s 10 Second Film Festival last night – the announcer and the crowd of thousands continued to chant “sticks” long after it screened, especially after I neglected to claim the win (until later) because I couldn’t hear anything! Gee whiz, what can a fella…