My brother Mica has released a trailer for a documentary he is making about his eleven months of travel in southeast Asia:
It looks like it will be a lively and entertaining film.
Category: Films and movies
Whether big-studio or independent, celluloid or digital, anything about movies
Civilian unmanned aerial vehicles
For about US$2,000, you can get a pretty ridiculous camera-equipped UAV, which can be controlled by radio at a range of up to 15km. People fly them using live video streaming to goggles.
One group of people using these drones has made some impressive videos of places like New York City and the Matterhorn. Their work is pretty audacious, both in terms of how they flirt with the destruction of their drones by flying close to obstacles and because of how they flirt with trouble with the authorities by flying low in major urban centres.
These drones may have been part of the inspiration for the drone-related plot points in William Gibson’s latest novel, Zero History.
Related:
Cherri Foytlin: Lessons From the Gulf Coast
Tar Sands Action: Come Join Us!
iTunes has lost its mind
Not only is Apple’s iTunes application constantly crashing, stealing focus, or crashing my entire computer – it just erased all my podcasts and iTunes U files for no clear reason. This is especially maddening for someone who is careful to catalog their media well.
Given that I was about to go on a long bus journey, this is unbelievably annoying. All of a sudden, university courses I was in the middle of listening to are just gone. Podcast collections that I had assembled with some care are deleted. All my audiobooks have vanished as though they never were. Much of the content I had in there cannot simply be re-downloaded.
It is all extremely frustrating.
Mica’s ‘Western Australia’ video
Until recently, my brother Mica was living and working in Australia. Now he is traveling in Asia and blogging.
Science and dance
Interesting post and column:
The Gonzo Scientist on “Why Do Scientists Dance?”
See also: Protein synthesis: an epic on the cellular level (1971)
Big cast, long takes
My friend Amy directed me to a video that may be of interest to fellow UBC alumni: UBC LipDub.
Google Video going offline
Did you ever save anything on Google Video?
If so, you might want to back it up. Google video is going offline in tomorrow (29 April 2011).
Oh, the agony of link rot!
Shaving methods
I have previously mentioned Put This On as an interesting fashion-themed blog. It seems worth pointing out that their fourth video ‘Grooming‘ is full of what I consider bad advice.
They suggest that the proper way to shave is to use shaving soap, a badger hair brush, and an old-fashioned razor. This is dangerous, takes forever, and involves terrorizing badgers.
You are much better off getting some shaving oil (like the kind sold by King of Shaves) and a modern razor like the Mach3. Shaving oil doesn’t hide your skin, so you are less likely to cut yourself, and a couple of drops per day is all that is required. It is quick, cheap, safe, and vegan-friendly.