Written by My friends over at Current TV are pulling off a cool little stunt this week.
If you are in New York — read more about it at NewAssignment.Net.
Posts in category Film
Calling All New York Video CJ’s
Traveling the World on Hope and Web 2.0
I’m happy to say that I spent the day working with my friend Noel Hidalgo. Also known as No Neck Noel.
This is cause for celebration because the last time I saw Noel he was leaving the country on a seven month tour of the world to visit the seven continents, sail the seven seas, see the seven wonders of the sea and….. well, you get it.
His project “The Luck of Seven” has brought him back to San Francisco, where I now live.
Noel hasn’t just been trancing about. He’s been doing interviews. I found this interview with Dries Buytaert to be fantastic. Noel put it up on his site as I was at the height of my research for my masters thesis on Drupal.
Noel has a 112 day beard going on. Which, if you know me, you know I am a fan of beards.
Noel was also critical in my thinking of CopyCamp.org — which is in the second stage of of the Knight News Challenge. So it’s good timing to have him come and look over my proposal.
From SF Noel will go up to Vancouver, back down to LA and over to Ohio. If you can lend him a hand in any way — I’m sure this traveling vagabond of open source wonders would gladly appreciate it.
Noel Hidalgo: You have achieved the status of “Homie and Scholar”
Transformers: Cliche Racial Alert
Yesterday I saw Transformers. It was a fantastic movie. It had a sense of humor — and there were a few
moments where I laughed out loud.
It had great action and it made me feel like I was eight-years-old again. Optimus Prime’s dialog was pretty cheesy, but in my mind it was just staying true to the cartoon. So despite what I’m going to write below, I give the movie a thumbs-up. (Also see the image at the end of this post — how cool is that!)
It wasn’t until after the movie got out that I realized Transformers fell victim to a totally unnecessary movie stereotype.
As the movie progresses we are introduced to Optimus Prime and his crew of autobots. There is Bumble Bee, the lovable character who was closest with the kids (staying true to the cartoon) and three others — including a medic and a weapon specialists. The third and final autobot was named “Jazz.”
The first time you see Jazz he is doing what can only be called break-dancing. As Optimus introduces his autobot colleagues they each get a line or two. The autobots learned English through the Internet — and I’m not sure what sites Jazz was crawling on — because he spoke slang. I can’t remember exactly what he said — but it was probably something like “Yo, how’s it hanging in the hood.”
It was unmistakable — Jazz is the token black Transformer.
(Warning: small plot spoiler)
Once Megatron is awakened the autobots meet him in battle. The last 20 minutes of the movie are fantastic. Chases, explosions, etc etc.
At one point Jazz is forced to engage Megatron all alone. He is killed.
That’s right, the only autobot to die is Jazz, the black autobot. Cliche — yes.
Prometeus: He Found Fire, We Found Information Exchange
This video reminds me of Epic 2014
Both touch on an issue that I come back to again and again. They each say it in their own way — not specifically, but they graze it.
Life is about the exchange of information. What we are witnessing now is the rapid evolution in that exchange.
This video calls it "knowledge flow" — "experience is the new reality."
Well, experience has always been reality. But in this sci-fi quickie, experience, the most intimate forms of information, has become subject to exchange.
In my humble opinion, I’m still a bigger fan of Epic 2014. First for it’s originality, but second for its focus on the more practical — the real consequences for the traditional media makers (the gatekeepers of information exchange) once that gate has broken and the flow of information has become uncontrollable.
Animutation
Now anyone can make fun of their favorite politician/pop star — see picture to right.
In magazines: Time Out NY has a great article entitled "New Dork City." — sadly I knew about or have attended almost all of the featured cultures/clubs/activities.
In other news:
The
title pretty much says it all: hackers have demonstrated that they can
clone the information on RFID tags used in passports. This challenges
the security of International Civil Aviation Organization-mandated.
In Personal News: Had a good job interview today. Hope I get it. Moving sucks.
Also, looking into MITs Knight Science Journalism Fellowship and daydreaming. Not anywhere close to worthy yet…..yet.
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